34 THE AGE OF BOREDOM
34
T HE A GE OF B OREDOM
Viviani. It was the name of the square. It was the name of the home that occupied an entire three-story building stretching a whole block on the other side of the Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre church. Viviani was surely named after somebody. It had to be. Roger approached the blue plaque to look for a hint and read the sign out loud:
“‘Square René Viviani. 1863 to 1925. Prime Minister during the Third Republic.’ Don’t you see how important this dude was?”
“The people here know about the square because of the tree.” Barbara signaled at it with her chin. “It’s the oldest in Paris. Or that’s what they say.”
The black locust was still dusted with snow. At the foot of the trunk was a mountain of dirty snow, as if the brigade of good intentions had brought out the shovels. Or—Roger’s second hypothesis—as if the unskilled neighbors tried to make a snowman and it melted like an ice cream cone midlick.
“It’s easy for your grandmother to go to church since it’s so close by. And she’s got Notre-Dame so close by. She can choose. One day here and the next there.”
“Mamie Margaux at Mass?”
“What?”
“If it isn’t for a funeral, you’ll never see her near an altar. When she goes out, if the weather is nice, she prefers coming here, to the tree.”
“To pray.”
“To meditate. It’s not the same.”
“Not even a little? What’s the difference?”
Barbara improvised an answer. She said it the way such theories ought to be stated, confidently: “When you pray, you tense up, you concentrate with all your might to try to connect with someone who doesn’t have signal coverage, and you ask him for things he really can’t make good on. But when you meditate, you relax, you look inside, time stops, you open your mind.”
“And you end up asking God to help you. It’s the same thing.”
“Meditation is looking for the best solutions from within. Prayer is trying to find magical formulas from outside.”
“You say tomato, I say tomahto. It’s the same thing.”
“It’s not.” She pinched his butt. “Oh, my stubborn little guy.”
Already at the door, Roger rang the doorbell. “How do you think she’ll take the news about Jasper?”
“I don’t know,” Barbara huffed. It seemed like a mountainous task to have to tell her grandmother the news. “She’ll be sad to hear it. Of course. But sometimes, when you’ve lived through so much ... It seems like, by this age, they’ve learned how to compartmentalize all news, however hard it may be.”
The Viviani residence smelled like disinfectant from the outset. They disinfected, maybe excessively, to cover the stench from the rooms. The white spaces, clean as a whistle, gave off a certain air of hygiene, of serenity, of a comforting peace. Altogether, a first step toward heaven. The main hall was full of the residents’ family members. It was open season. After spending so many days without being able to visit, everyone had run to hug their grandpas and grandmas the morning the confinement ended. Some did it to calm their conscience, others to get a better sense of when they’d be able to call in their inheritance. With one glance, they could tell if their beloved family member would make it to 2009, or, as if it were a game, they could predict what month of the following year they foresaw ending their payments to Viviani. On the first of every month, the invoice came in, and it wasn’t a cheap residence.
Margaux hadn’t expected them so early. She welcomed them in while she poured the water left from breakfast onto the little plant by the window. Barbara had to wait to hug her.
“Oh, I’ve missed you so much, Mamie.” She covered her grandmother in kisses.
“Is everything okay at the apartment, girl?”
“Well, the ceiling held up under the snowfall of the century, so ... Speaking of home, I want to introduce you ...”
Roger, who had lingered discreetly by the door of the room, took a step forward. With his jacket, he covered the bandage he was wearing on his left arm.
“Good morning,” he said, extending his right hand.
“And this young man?”
“This is Roger. He’s been living in the apartment for some time. He’s renting the room.”
“Oh, I thought you had mentioned another name ... Roger? It wasn’t Roger.”
“What a memory you have, Mamie. Roger is Marcel’s brother, who—”
“That’s it. Marcel, I do know. Because I remember thinking he had the same name as that mime you really liked.”
“No, I’ve never liked Marcel Marceau. Mimes make me sad. Well, in either case, his brother took over the apartment, and his name is Roger Narbona.”
“It’s a pleasure,” said her grandmother.
“For me as well, ma’am. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“And I didn’t even know you existed—”
“Mamie, please,” Barbara interrupted.
“What? It’s true. Is it true or not, young man?”
“Of course, of course.”
Mamie Margaux, who didn’t want to embarrass her granddaughter, apologized. “Pay no mind to old ladies like me, boy. This place is full of people reaching the age of boredom.”
“Please, no need to be so formal with me.”
In no time, Roger had a mental portrait of Mamie Margaux. Her white hair was brushed back, and she had wrinkles on her forehead and a winter complexion with enough color to last all those days inside. Her teeth, which weren’t real, fit well in her smile. On top of it all, her eyes captivated him. The same sharp eyes as Barbara. Less lively, maybe. They were a tired green. She offered her hand, hooked from arthritis, firmly. Her fingers were bony, her nails manicured. Even at eighty-three years old, her body had not appeared to weaken. I hope my mother ages that well, thought Roger, who continued hiding the lesion on his arm.
Once all three were sitting, Barbara spoke. “Something happened, Mamie.”
“Oh no.” She put two fingers on her temple as if to say, “What are you going to tell me now?”
Barbara explained what had happened the night before.
They’d gone out onto the street when it still wasn’t allowed. Nothing big. Just a walk with Roger to stretch their legs after so many days of confinement. When they’d returned to the apartment building and climbed the stairs, Jasper’s dog was barking in a bad way. Hulshoff wasn’t a crazy dog or a barker, as Mamie Margaux knew well. That’s why it surprised them he was barking so persistently from the other side of the second-floor apartment door. Barbara had called his name to quiet him because it was already getting into the early hours of the next day, and the yapping wasn’t normal. But there’d been no way to calm him down. In fact, the animal only became more desperate. They decided to ring the doorbell in case Jasper needed anything and to ask if everything was okay. But he hadn’t responded. One ring, two, three ... Nothing. They guessed he was dreaming deeply. They called him. First on the landline, then on his cell phone, but still no one picked up. From then on, they were scared. Before calling the emergency line, they’d tried to break down the door, but there was no way. While they waited for the firemen, or the ambulance, or anyone who could help them, Roger went up to the fifth-floor apartment, opened the window to his room, and, leaning out onto the balcony, tried to tell if he could see anything through Jasper’s laundry room. Not a clue. Not one. But he did see another option. He realized that by placing his feet on the water pipes and holding on to the windows, he could climb down from the fifth floor to the fourth, from the fourth to the third, and, repeating the operation at the small risk of killing himself, he could slip through Jasper’s balcony. If Barbara had known that Roger was going to try to be a hero, she wouldn’t have let him. But he went for it without letting her know. One foot here, one hand there, his fingers grasping a ventilation window’s sill or an air-conditioning apparatus, then arriving at his target. With one last jump, he landed his two feet onto Jasper’s balcony. When he fell in the laundry room, he’d hit his arm hard against the washing machine. He felt it in his forearm immediately, but there was no time to waste. First, he had to win over Hulshoff with a little bit of petting so the dog would let him enter and realize he was an ally and not a robber. Next, he went to open the door from the inside. It was then that Barbara had found Jasper on the floor with a stream of blood flowing out of his nose. He was lying near the fireplace, the embers practically out. The Dutch man was pale, wearing a shirt and a sweater, but barefoot. She felt for his pulse and found he was still breathing. While they waited for the damn ambulance to arrive, they did everything they could to wake him. But Jasper wouldn’t stir. When the emergency responders arrived—a man-and-woman duo who must have been paramedics but who never identified themselves—they discovered the door open and went straight to work. They handled him quickly and professionally without asking questions. If there was nothing they could do to save him, maybe the paramedics wouldn’t have acted so urgently. Within five minutes, they had Jasper tied to the bed and, between the four of them, took him down the stairs as far as they could. “Elevator?” they’d asked. “In Montmartre?” Barbara had responded. The gurney went down the stairs of the two floors and out to the street. Jasper, luckily or tragically, didn’t notice a thing. Barbara climbed into the ambulance with him and held his hand, just in case. It was a stroke. A brain hemorrhage. No one knew how long he’d been on the floor while Hulshoff had been asking for help. Still, no doctor could tell if he’d make it. The preliminary tests at the hospital indicated the stroke had severely affected his brain. Would he be able to walk again? No one knew. Would he talk again? It was too early to say.
Margaux took a deep breath. “Oh lord.” It was all she said at first. After some time spent sitting motionless with a lost look, she added, “Poor Jasper.”
And that was it.
Barbara and Roger respected that spiritual retirement. She seemed absent, as if she’d learned to resign to suffering another blow in life. Things don’t hurt so much in old age. When someone goes through as much as she has, you ration your tears as if we have a finite amount, even though, at the end of the day, lives end, eyes dry up, and good night, the game ends. When someone goes through what she has, thought Barbara, there are no gods left to convince her of anything. Maybe that was why Mamie Margaux dismissed Our Father, the candles to the Highest, and the belief in the miracles of the Holy Spirit. She felt abandoned by Damien’s death and by édith’s accident. When life takes a daughter from you, there’s no God to speak with anymore.
“A good neighbor, Jasper is. A good friend.”
They let Mamie Margaux’s feelings flow at their own rhythm.
“He’s kept you company all these years.”
“I don’t like it.”
“What?” Barbara didn’t understand her grandmother’s sudden bitter tone.
“‘Company.’ The word. It implies ... compassion.”
“It doesn’t have to.”
“When someone comes to keep you company, it means you’re going downhill. And I was better off than him ... and now this is proof.”
Roger snorted with laughter. He liked Barbara’s grandmother’s unruly air. The need to speak the truth seemed like a spark, a sign of intelligence.
“We hope he makes it through, Mamie. The doctors say—”
“Barbara,” Mamie interrupted her. “Depending on things, maybe it’s better if—”
She closed her eyes. One of them knew Jasper’s outlook wasn’t very good. The other realized it and accepted it. They paid homage to him with a foggy silence, as if poor Jasper had already kicked the bucket.
To distract her grandmother, Barbara rolled up Roger’s sleeve to show his bandage.
“He hurt himself jumping from the patio. You could’ve killed yourself.”
Mamie became interested in Roger. “What’s wrong?”
“Not much. Just a wrist injury.”
“Is it broken?”
“I don’t think so.”
“If you ask for it, maybe they’ll do an X-ray for you here.”
“A photographer without hands. Just picture what could have happened.”
“Is that your line of work, boy?”
“More or less.”
“All day, he takes pictures, but no one looks at them.” Barbara poked fun at him. “That’s why he says, ‘More or less,’ I guess.”
Roger ignored Barbara and approached her grandmother.
“One day, I’d like to come talk with you. Not to keep you company, no, let’s make that clear. But to talk about photography.”
“Come when you want, honey. You’ll find me here.”
“You won’t run away, Mamie?”
Her grandmother didn’t hear the question. Since she’d learned the news about Jasper, one thing kept turning in her mind. And she didn’t know how to phrase it. Eventually, she let it go and went ahead, guns blazing. What the hell—at her age, she didn’t have to hide anything. She grabbed Barbara’s hand and placed it on her leg.
“I have to tell you. It’s about Jasper. Something no one knows. Only me and him.”
Barbara and Roger looked at each other. He shifted in his chair as if to leave.
“No, no need to leave.”
“I’d rather.” He stood up. “I’ll wait for you outside, Barb. I’ll go look at the tree.”
“What happened, Mamie? What’s the mystery all about?”
“It will come as a surprise to you, but see ... Jasper was writing a book. It wasn’t just any book. It was a book about my life. About the years of the war.”
“Oh man, Mamie. How beautiful.”
“He insisted on it. He likes to write, he’s good, and he convinced me to go on telling him about each chapter of the war. The entrance of the Germans into Paris, my parents, the city for a teenager like me, the music, the obsession with the oboe, the private lessons with Damien ... It was supposed to be a surprise. I spoke, and he gave it shape. When it was finished, I would have given it to you. I said to him, ‘This way, my granddaughter will have a record of me and can learn things she maybe never knew.’ And Jasper would joke around and say maybe even the press would publish it. What’s it called?”
“What?”
“The press where you work.”
“Giresse and Trésor.”
“That’s it. Sometimes, he’d say, ‘Maybe Giresse and what’s-it-called will want to publish it. I’m sure they release much worse historical books. And your life is true.’”
“As true as can be.”
“But now ... Poor Jasper and I were only halfway through.”
“Where does he keep all of it? On a computer?”
“No, no. I don’t think it’s on a computer. I don’t know if he had one. At first, I would go down one evening a week, we’d have tea at his house, and I’d explain an episode. The day I saw Peter and the Wolf , for example, and then he’d spend seven days writing a chapter. After, once I moved into the residence, he would be the one to come here. But the routine was the same. One week, we’d speak, and the next I’d read what he wrote by hand to see what I thought.”
“And?”
“It was like I was living it again. You should read it, Barbara, even if it isn’t finished.”
“I’d love to, of course, Mamie. That’s so exciting to hear. And you two were so hush-hush about it.”
“I’ve always thought secrets create addictions.”
Her grandmother looked out the window. Roger was touching the branches of the old black locust like he wanted to guess its age.
“Jasper was a little younger than me, but we shared the luck and tragedy of both being from a country Hitler had invaded and ... Nothing was new to him. I would say something, and he would understand all the feelings and the ambience right away.”
“We’re talking about him in the past. And he hasn’t died. It’s giving me goose bumps, look.”
“Poor Jasper. A brain hemorrhage ... It’s lucky this guy of yours was able to get into his apartment.”
“Roger.”
“So brave, he could have cracked his noggin.”
“You’re telling me. Jasper wrote—Jasper writes by hand, then?”
“By hand, by hand. He’s got really nice handwriting. You can read it all. He writes on these big pages. He stores them in a folder the color of goose shit. I’d call it that, and he’d laugh. Oh man ...”
Mamie Margaux had to stop a tear, a single tear, that slid down at the pace of a snail. She didn’t allow herself two tears. She’d ration the rest of her deposits. Barbara also didn’t want her grandmother to soften more than necessary.
“We’ve been left with Hulshoff for now. We brought him upstairs with us.”
“Good idea. Nicely done.”
“We couldn’t leave him by himself. And what you were talking about, the book ... Now, with Jasper, where were you at? At what moment in your life?”
“The last day?” She reminisced. “The last day ... The last evening he visited, we were supposed to talk about édith’s birth. About your mother when she was really little. Yes ... That’s why Jasper still hadn’t written it. This week, we agreed that, with all this snowfall, it was time to talk about Damien’s last winter.”
“And why don’t you tell me?”
“Your grandfather’s last winter?”
“You’ve never told me about that.” She wanted to get her grandmother going. “I have a right to know, I guess.”
“Tell your friend to come inside or he’ll freeze out there.” She watched Roger, who walked around the tree with his hands in his pockets. “He’s more than a friend, huh, girl?”
“Mamie, please.”
“I saw it on your face the moment you two entered.”
Barbara knew the verdict was coming.
“You know what? I like him.”