“No,” Duvalier lied, “just a stolen car.”
Knowing that Jules could not be possibly have stolen a car, and with his own interest and that of his new family in mind, Fran?ois told Duvalier who it was. But when he saw the stunned, pleasurable look on the faces of his guests, which, though they were professionals, they could not suppress, Fran?ois knew that he had betrayed Jules once again.
DETERMINED TO DIE within a week, Jules had already made a partial step into another world. Had he felt a need to describe this, which he did not, he might have said that it was like heading out to sea with only a glance at the land left behind. The rhythm of the waves was smooth and reassuring. He had no fear. The music he heard, rising from a lifetime, was seductive and comforting. He had discovered that to die with a purpose made death far less daunting than merely to die at its whim.
It was nine or ten – he was not sure – but it was dark as he sat on his terrace, near the row of pines, breathing steadily and calmed by their scent. He had said goodbye to Cathérine. He had embraced and kissed the baby, whose skin was flushed and salty. He loved Cathérine very much, but he didn’t give her the slightest reason to suspect that she would never see him, alive, again, except to say that he would be making arrangements that would help Luc. Cathérine’s expression was that of the child to whom the parent is once again the mystery that the adolescent imagines she has dispelled.
Lost in thought and remembrance, Jules didn’t notice that someone was knocking on the door. But because the gardener, who knew Fran?ois, had told him that Jules was in, Fran?ois persisted until Jules was roused. He walked slowly through the big living room to the hall, and opened the door with so little energy it suggested disdain.
Fran?ois thought Jules was looking past him. “Jules?” he said, as if it were not Jules.
“Fran?ois.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“That’s all right,” Jules said dispassionately.
“May I come in? I have something important to tell you.”
Jules turned and, without closing the door, led Fran?ois into the living room.
“Where’s the piano?” Fran?ois asked.
“I sold it. Shymanski is finally out. I have to leave by the first of September.”
“Where will you go?”
“I have the perfect place to go, really, the most perfect place.”
“I see. The house is nearly empty. Have you begun moving already?”
“I sold a lot of stuff.”
“The cello,” Fran?ois said, eyeing the cello. “You’ll carry it out yourself?”
“The cello will be the last thing to go, just before me, but, no, I’ve arranged for it to be sent.”
“Where?”
“The fourth arrondissement.”
“That could be expensive.”
“Yes. Remember the girl I told you about? She lives there.”
“Oh. You’re going to start a new life?” Fran?ois was surprised and curious, and was about to ask more questions when Jules, who had much the upper hand, cut him off.
“Fran?ois, why have you shown up, at night, without calling?” Jules never would have said that to him before.
“They told me not to, the police. They threatened me.”
Jules nodded.
“You know?”
“I think so.”
“You stole a car?!”
“No, I didn’t steal a car. Do you think I would steal a car?”
“Of course not. They must be crazy. They really threatened me, but I owe it to you. I hope they haven’t followed. I took an extremely roundabout route. I went all the way down to fucking Disneyland.”
“Did you have a good time?”
I didn’t go in. They couldn’t have followed me, I took so many turns.”
“Fran?ois, you’re a philosopher and an intellectual, so I suppose it might not have occurred to you that to see if you contacted me, apart from tapping your telephones they would just park outside my house and spare themselves a trip to Disneyland.”
“I didn’t think of that. I must be an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot, you’re a philosopher. You don’t fix enough faucets or do enough laundry. Those things teach you the kind of things you never learned. Why did you come?”
“They showed up at my apartment.”
“Arnaud and Duvalier?”
“You know them?”
“They came here as well. What did they want?”
“Last fall, in the rain, after we ate at Renée and you walked home, you dropped the check from your pocket. I paid for it only after a struggle, but you wouldn’t let go of the check.”
“I dropped it in the restaurant?”
“I don’t know where. The restaurant sent them to me. They wanted to know with whom I ate. They say you stole a car. I knew that was impossible, so I gave them your name. I didn’t think it could hurt. Are you sure you didn’t steal a car?”
“Maybe I stole a car while I was sleeping. Why would I steal a car? Fran?ois, I have a car. I’m a cellist. Cellists don’t steal cars.”
“I really didn’t think so, but I went out in the hall as they left and I heard them talking. They’re going to get a warrant, but the judge in the case is in Honfleur for August, so they’re driving up there tomorrow. The next day, they said, they’re going to arrest you. One of them thought they should bring other men, but the other told him you weren’t dangerous and they didn’t need to. What’s going on? What are you going to do?”
“’It’s of no account.”
“No account? They’re going to arrest you!”
“No, no one’s going to arrest me.”
“How do you figure that?”
“The past will arise and the pace will speed up. In the gross and scope of things, it’ll hardly be perceptible. I have eternity on either side, so how much can it matter?”
Fran?ois looked at Jules in complete perplexity, not because he didn’t understand what he called “the Bergson stuff,” but because Jules seemed as happy as if he had just been injected with morphine.
“I’ll look down upon Paris, the traffic on the streets and boulevards, the city breathing like something alive, and Arnaud and Duvalier will seem as small as grains of sand. Past and present will combine into one. I’ll see troop trains going to Verdun, Hitler on the empty Champsélysées, the Liberation, century upon century overlaid all at once.”
“Jules, are you all right?”
“Yes, and I can see. Music is the only thing powerful enough to push aside the curtain of time. When it does, everything becomes clear, perfect, reconciled, and just, even if only for the moments when we rise with it. Nineteen forty-four, Fran?ois. The world is still alive.”