But soon enough he was his previous self, almost forgetting that he had been away. He went shopping to replenish the kitchen, attended to his mail, went swimming, and ran gently and slowly, as if finally his years had caught up with him. Having an aging body is like living in a big house. Something is always going wrong, and by the time it’s fixed, something else follows. Very old age is when the things that go wrong cause other things to go wrong, until, like sparks racing up a fuse, they finally reach a pack of dynamite.
Soon his nearly truncated teaching schedule would put him in a Cité de la Musique practice room alone for fifty minutes with élodi. After trying unsuccessfully not to think of her, he rehearsed what he might say. He would keep his distance, but convey – safely from behind the barrier of his experience and age – that the moment he first saw her he fell in love as strongly as at any time in his life. That when he shook her hand, formally, reining in his feelings, he hadn’t wanted to let go. That he could remember and re-create over and over in memory every second they were in contact. That he knew her virtues and her beauty and her ability to excite, but that he loved her, nonetheless, inexplicably, independently of splendor or sex, with neither knowing nor having to know why. And he would convey as well that the tremendous difference in age made it impossible, and nothing could follow or result. When he went through this little speech, intended to clear the air and yet a way for him to move close to her even if just for a moment, he couldn’t see beyond it. Because when he imagined the end of his declaration, he imagined that he did not move, and she did not move. He could never get to the point where they parted.
On Saturday he would have lunch with Fran?ois. Though the last thing he wanted was to confess to Fran?ois about élodi, he knew he would, and that Fran?ois would smile and say that it was right, that Jules had the obligation to live, that Jacqueline would want him to, and all the other predictable nostrums one might think France’s premier philosophe might surpass, except that, as common as they were, they were true. Jules couldn’t accept them even if they were, just as he couldn’t envision himself walking away from élodi, as demanded of him both by his ability to see the future and his deeply felt concern for élodi herself. Fran?ois was not the proper confessor – far too lenient. It would be like confessing to a heroin dealer that one had had too much to drink. On the other hand, a priest would be severe, inflexible, and inappropriate to say the least. The psychiatrist already knew too much about Jules, and he had to be paid. Fran?ois, therefore, while not the only confessor available and likely not satisfactory, would be the best.
That would be Saturday, an ordeal but also for Jules the pleasure of describing a beautiful young girl and his love for her. Confined to description, he was safe. And tonight, Friday, he would have Sabbath dinner with Cathérine, David, and Luc – another kind of love, and another kind of suffering.
WHEN HE WALKED from the RER to the little house with the terra-cotta roof so inappropriate to the North, the streets were cold and dark. The wind cut through his clothes, but still he hesitated before he went in, staring at the yellow light of the windows. Yellow was the old Jewish color: dim light from shtetl windows of parchment or imperfect glass, weakly shining in yellow; the color of chicken fat and chicken soup; the candle flame; the yellow Star of David. Yellow was the color of weakness, resignation, defeat, and feeling. It was also the color of gold and the sun.
Cathérine had been gone for more than two decades. When she was a baby the family had seemed to be as unbreakable as the nucleus of the atom. Jacqueline, Cathérine, et Jules. The ones he loved the most were always there, the ones for whom he would do his best and, if necessary, die. He knew at the time that it could not last, but was unable to imagine its end, perhaps because when it was over his purpose would have been served and nothing truly important would be left to him.
Their daughter was central to both of them. She was as nothing else had ever been or would be, just as Luc was now central to her after her own parents had, of necessity, receded. Her own identity and new life demanded it. But, secretly, they still had the same devotion and were ready to sacrifice themselves for her if required, on the instant and without the slightest hesitation. This she never knew and they never said, for not having been in the world long enough to have been taught, she thought such things entirely imaginary, at least in the France of this century, so safe, modern, and just.
Jules was suddenly startled when, from behind, in the dark, David put a hand on his shoulder. “You scared me,” he told his son-in-law.
“That’s impossible. I’m an accountant.”
“True.”
“What were you doing?”
“It’s not quite six.”
“So? In fact,” David said, after looking at his watch, “it’s six-fifteen.” His tone was affectionate, his unspoken language stating that whatever it was that Jules had done, it had something of the unpredictability of age.
“Anyway,” Jules said, “we missed sunset by a lot. Is that allowed?”
“No, but we need the money for Luc, the firm is secular, they’re laying people off, and I can’t risk my position. If necessary for Luc, we would light the candles at midnight or not at all. If God wouldn’t forgive me then He’d be wrong and I would tell Him so.”
“We never lit candles. But if we had, I would have to agree.”
ALMOST FORTY, CATHéRINE had no idea how her father valued her even for her imperfections, which had come mainly from him, which he could trace to the charm of her face when she was a baby, and which now and always would fill him with love. She didn’t know the terrors and humiliations he faced, nor should she have. It was not her role. She had to be distant now, as he had never had the chance to be distant with his parents – who were forever vulnerable, and who had to be cared for in perpetuity and protected in retrospect, if only in the imagination. And, whatever she did and however she acted, he had to do for her and for Luc whatever he could.
She had wanted to greet him with love, but when she saw that he held a wrapped present she said, angrily, “Not again. You’ll spoil him.”
Recovering from this dart, he looked at her as if to say, “So?” It meant, of course, that he recognized that Luc might die, something of which she was aware more than anyone, but to which she fiercely would not allow anyone, including her father, to allude even subtly.
“Shall I put it in the closet?” Jules asked.
She sighed. “No, put it by his bed so he sees it in the morning. You can give him a kiss, but don’t wake him. He had a bad day, lots of crying. The fever is back and he hardly ate. It’s okay to put it by the bed.”
Jules went into Luc’s room to leave the present. A dim light came from a night-table lamp in the shape of two sheep lying next to a tree, the crown of which formed a lampshade printed with glowing green leaves. When Jules saw how hard the child was breathing he had to fight back tears.
Faithful husband, good father, and flawless auditor, David pulled a yarmulke from a pocket and put it on. This was an excellent excuse to change the subject.
“You don’t wear that on the street?”
“No.”