She turned on her side, away from Jean.
‘Even my old self. The stupid little submissive Cathy. Who always sought to blame herself when her husband was so repellent or when her mother ignored her for days on end. I must have overlooked something … neglected something … I hadn’t been quiet enough, not happy enough. I hadn’t loved him and her enough, otherwise they wouldn’t be so …’
Catherine was crying.
At first she cried softly, but when he wrapped the duvet around her and held her body tightly in his arms, his hand softly cupping the back of her head, her sobs grew louder. Heartbreaking.
He felt how, in his arms, she strode through all the valleys that she had flown through thousands of times before in her dreams. Terror-stricken that she would fall, lose control or drown in pain – but that was what she was doing now.
She was falling. Worn out by cares, grief and humiliation, Catherine was hitting rock bottom.
‘I had no more friends. He said they only wanted to bathe in his glory. His. He couldn’t imagine that they might find me interesting. He said, “I need you,” although he didn’t need me at all. He didn’t even want me. He wanted to have art to himself. I gave up mine for his love, but that was too little for him. Was I supposed to die to prove to him that he was everything to me? And that he was more than I would ever be?’
And then, as a final thought, Catherine whispered hoarsely, ‘Twenty years, Jean. Twenty years without living … I spat on my own life and let others spit on it too.’
At some point she started breathing more peacefully. Then she fell asleep. Her body went limp in Perdu’s arms.
She too, eh. Twenty years. There are obviously several other ways to ruin your life.
Monsieur Perdu knew that it was his turn. Now he would have to hit rock bottom.
In the living room, on his old white-painted kitchen table, lay Manon’s letter. It was a sad consolation to hear that he hadn’t been the only one wasting time.
He wondered briefly what would have happened if Catherine had met him at twenty-one instead of Monsieur Le P.
He wondered for a long time whether he was ready for the letter.
Of course he wasn’t.
He broke the seal, sniffed the paper, drank it in. Closed his eyes and lowered his head for a moment.
Then Monsieur Perdu sat down on the bistro chair and began to read Manon’s twenty-one-year-old letter to him.
12
Bonnieux, 30 August, 1992
I’ve already written to you a thousand times, Jean, and every time I had to begin with one and the same word, because it is the truest of all: ‘Beloved’.
Beloved Jean, my so beloved, distant Jean.
I’ve done something very stupid. I didn’t tell you why I left you, and now I regret both things – having left you and not saying why.
Please read on, do not burn me. I didn’t leave you because I didn’t want to stay with you.
I wanted to – far more than what is now happening to me instead.
Jean, I’m dying. Very soon – at Christmas, they predict.
I really wished you would hate me when I left.
I can see you shaking your head, mon amour. But I wanted to do what love thought right, and doesn’t it say do what is good for the other person? I thought it would be good if you forgot me in your rage. If you don’t grieve, don’t worry; don’t know anything about my death. Cut, anger, over – and move on.
But I was wrong. It won’t work. I have to tell you what happened to me, to you, to us. It is both beautiful and terrible at the same time; it is too much for a short letter. We’ll talk it all over when you get here.
That, then, is my request to you, Jean: come to me.
I’m so scared of dying.
But that can wait until you get here.
I love you.
Manon
PS: If you do not want to come because your feelings aren’t strong enough, I’ll accept it. You owe me nothing, no compassion either.
PPS: The doctors won’t let me travel any more. Luc is expecting you.
Monsieur Perdu sat in the dark, feeling battered and bruised.
His whole chest contracted.
This can’t be happening.
Every time he blinked he saw himself, but as the man he had been twenty-one years earlier. How he had sat stiffly at this same table and refused to open the letter.
Impossible.
Surely she couldn’t have …?
She had betrayed him twice. She had left him. Then she had died. He had been so sure of that. He had built his entire life since on that assumption.
He felt like throwing up. Now he had to face up to the fact that it was he who had betrayed her. Manon had waited in vain for him to come to her while she …
No. Please, please – no.
He had messed everything up.
The letter, the PS – it must have seemed to her that his feelings weren’t strong enough. As if Jean Perdu had never loved Manon enough to fulfil this wild wish – her final, earnest, most ardent wish.