‘The books you gave me. For the fifth time, I think. I haven’t washed the dress I wore on our evening together either. There’s still a hint of your aftershave on it, you know, and each sentence in the books tells me something new every time, and I put the dress under my cheek at night so I can smell you.’
Then she said nothing; nor did he, surprised by the happiness that suddenly came over him.
They listened wordlessly to each other, and he felt very close to Catherine, as though Paris were directly next to his ear. All he would have to do was open his eyes and he would be sitting by her green front door, listening for her breath.
‘Jean?’
‘Yes, Catherine.’
‘It’s getting better, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. It’s getting better.’
‘And yes, being lovesick is like being in mourning. Because you die, because your future dies and you with it … There is a hurting time. It lasts for so long.’
‘But it gets better. I know that now.’
Her silence felt good.
‘I can’t stop thinking that we didn’t kiss each other on the mouth,’ she whispered hastily.
Distraught, he said nothing.
‘Talk to you tomorrow,’ she said and hung up.
That must mean he could ring her again?
He sat there in the dark kitchen, a crooked smile on his lips.
39
By the end of August he saw that his body had become toned. He had to tighten his belt a couple of notches, and his shirt stretched tight over his biceps.
He studied himself in the mirror as he dressed and saw in the reflection a very different man from the one he had been in Paris. Tanned, fit, erect, his dark, silver-streaked hair longer and swept casually back. The pirate beard; the loosely buttoned, washed-out linen shirt. He was fifty.
Nearly fifty-one.
Jean stepped up to the mirror. There were more lines on his face from exposure to the sun; more laugh lines too. He guessed that some of the freckles weren’t freckles but age spots. But it didn’t matter – he was alive. That was all that counted.
The sun had turned his body a healthy, shimmering shade of brown, which made his green eyes all the more luminous. His boss MM thought he looked like a noble rogue with his three-day beard. Only his reading glasses detracted from this impression.
MM had taken him aside one Saturday evening. Business was quiet. A fresh wave of holiday home renters had just arrived, and they were dazzled by late summer’s sweet delights; they had other things on their mind than to visit a bookshop. They would come in a week or two to buy the obligatory postcards before they left for home.
‘How about you?’ MM asked. ‘What does your favourite book taste of? Which book is your salvation in this evil world?’ She said it with a chuckle: her girlfriends found the book epicure fascinating and wanted to know more.
He never had any trouble getting to sleep in Sanary. His favourite book would have to taste of new potatoes sprinkled with rosemary – his first meal with Catherine.
But which is my salvation? He almost burst out laughing when he realised the answer.
‘Books can do many things, but not everything. We have to live the important things, not read them. I have to … experience my book.’
MM gave him a broad, flashing smile.
‘It’s a shame that your heart is blind to women like me.’
‘And the others too, Madame.’
‘Yes, that’s some consolation,’ she said. ‘A small one.’
In the afternoons, when the heat rose to dangerous levels, Perdu would lie motionless on his bed in nothing but a pair of shorts, with wet towels on his forehead, chest and feet. The terrace door was open, and the curtains swayed listlessly in the breeze. He let the warm wind caress his body as he dozed.
It was good to be back in his body. To feel that his flesh was sensitive and alive again. Not numb, limp, unused – an adversary. Perdu had got used to thinking with his body, as though he could stroll around inside his soul and peer into every room.
Yes, the grief lived on in his chest. When it came, it constricted his lungs, cut off his breathing and the universe faded to a narrow sliver. But he wasn’t scared of it any more. When it came, he let it flow through him.
Fear occupied his throat too, but it took up less space if he breathed out slowly and calmly. With every breath he could make the fear smaller and crumple it up, and he imagined throwing it to Psst so that the cat could toy with the ball of anxiety and chase it out of the house.
Joy danced in his solar plexus, and he let it dance. He thought of Samy and Cuneo, and of Max’s hilarious letters, in which one name cropped up more and more frequently: Vic. The tractor girl. In his mind he saw Max running around the Luberon after a wine-red tractor, and he couldn’t help laughing.
Amazingly, love had settled on Jean’s tongue. It tasted of the hollow at the base of Catherine’s throat.
Jean had to smile. Here, in the light and warmth of the south, something else had returned. Vitality. Sensation. Desire.