Perdu nodded. ‘The trouble is that so many people, most of them women, think they have to have a perfect body to be loved. But all it has to do is be capable of loving – and being loved,’ he added.
‘Oh, Jean, please tell that to the world,’ laughed Samy and passed him the on-board microphone. ‘We are loved if we love, another truth we always seem to forget. Have you noticed that most people prefer to be loved, and will do anything it takes? Diet, rake in the money, wear scarlet underwear. If only they loved with the same energy; hallelujah, the world would be so wonderful and so free of tummy-tuck tights.’
Jean joined in with her laughter. He thought of Catherine. When they’d come together, they had both been too delicate and too vulnerable, and they had hankered more to be loved, rather than having the strength and the courage to love. Loving requires so much courage and so little expectation. Would he ever be able to love someone properly again?
Does Catherine even read my cards?
Samy was a good listener, taking everything in and playing it back to him. She told him that she used to be a teacher in Melchnau, in Switzerland; a sleep researcher in Zurich; and a technical draughtsperson for wind farms in the Atlantic. She had reared goats in the Vaucluse and made cheese.
And she had an innate flaw: she could not lie. She could say nothing or refuse to answer, but she was incapable of telling a deliberate lie.
‘Imagine what that’s like in today’s world,’ she said. ‘It got me into such trouble as a girl. Everyone thought I was a nasty little brat who revelled in being rude. The waiter in a posh restaurant asks, “Did you enjoy your meal?” and I reply, “No, not at all.” The mother of a classmate asks after a birthday party, “So, little Samy, did you have a good time?” and I honestly try to squeeze a yes out of myself, but all I can manage is, “No, it was horrid, and your breath stinks from all that red wine you drink!”’
Perdu chuckled. It’s amazing how close you are to your essential self as a kid, he thought, and how far from it you drift the more you strive to be loved.
‘I fell out of a tree when I was thirteen, and as I was being examined in one of those tubes, they spotted something: my brain has no lie-making machine. I can’t write fantastical parables – unless, of course, I were to bump into a unicorn sometime soon. I can only talk about things I’ve experienced firsthand. I’m the kind of person who’d have to get into the pan with the potatoes in order to give my opinion on chips.’
Just then Cuneo brought them some homemade lavender ice cream. It had a tangy yet floral flavour.
The woman with no aptitude for lying watched the Neapolitan walk away.
‘He’s short, fat and, objectively speaking, not the most obvious choice of pin-up boy. But he’s smart, strong and he can probably do whatever’s necessary for a life of love. I think he’s the most beautiful man I will ever kiss,’ said Samy. ‘It’s strange that magnificent, good-hearted people like him don’t receive more love. Do their looks disguise their character so well that nobody notices how open their soul, their being and their principles are to love and kindness?’
She took a long, languid breath. ‘Strangely, I was never loved either. I used to think it was because of the way I look. Then I thought to myself: why do I always end up in places where every man I meet already has a wife? The cheese producers in the Vaucluse … My word, what a bunch of old foxes! They see a woman as a tall two-legged goat that does the washing. You can consider yourself blessed if they even say hello.’
Samy licked her ice cream dreamily.
‘I think – and correct me if I’m getting too carried away with my ideas about the global sisterhood – that first there is the love in which we think with our knickers. I know all about that. It’s fun for about fifteen minutes. Second, there’s logical love, the type we create in our heads; I’ve experienced that too. You look for men who objectively suit your set-up or who won’t upset your life plans too much, but you don’t feel any magic. And third, there’s the love that comes from your chest or your solar plexus, or somewhere in between. That’s the type I want. It’s got to have the magic that sets my lifeblood alight, right down to the tiniest little globule. What do you think?’ She stuck out her tongue at him. It was purple from the ice cream.
Jean Perdu thought he now knew the question he needed to ask.
‘Samy?’ he asked.
‘What, Jeanno?’
She spoke differently, but that was always the case: the way an author wrote was the true sound of her heart and soul.
‘You wrote Southern Lights, didn’t you?’
33
It was surely no coincidence that the sun chose that very moment to break through between two banks of cloud and cast a ray into Samy’s eyes, like a finger pointing down from the heavens. It illuminated them – two blazing candles.
Samy’s face came alive.