Climates (27 page)

The red notebook reveals
a Philippe who was far more lucid and in control of himself than I recognized at the time. I think his intelligence was already freer, but in his secret depths there was still an enslaved Philippe. He seemed so unhappy that, more than once, I wondered whether I should go and see Solange and beg her to show him some consideration. But it felt such a ridiculous step to take that I did not dare to. Besides, I now loathed Solange. I felt that alone with her I would not be able to restrain myself. We carried on seeing her at the Thianges’, and then Philippe refused to go to Hélène’s Saturday salons (something he had never done).

“You go, so she sees we’re not angry with her. That wouldn’t be fair, Hélène’s kind. But I can’t do it anymore, I tell you. The older I get the more I despise the social scene … a corner by the fire, a book, you … that’s happiness for me now.”

I knew he meant it sincerely. I also knew that if, at that moment, he had met a pretty, frivolous young woman and she, by some invisible communication, had given him the signal he was waiting for, he would instantly and unwittingly have altered his philosophy and explained that, after a day’s work, what he really needed was to see new people and have some fun. Early in our marriage, I remember being saddened by the eternally impenetrable skulls of those we love, hiding their thoughts from us. Philippe had become transparent to me. Through a fine membrane pulsating with a network of delicate vessels, I could now make out his every thought, his every weakness, and I loved him better than ever. I remember one evening in his study looking at him for a long time without a word.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, smiling.

“I’m trying to see you as I would if I didn’t love you, and still to love you like that.”

“God, that’s complicated! And can you?”

“Love you like that? Yes, effortlessly.”

That evening he suggested we go to Gandumas earlier in the year than usual.

“There’s nothing to keep us in Paris. I can take care of my work just as well there. And the country air will be very good for Alain, and my mother won’t be so alone. I can see nothing but advantages to going.”

This trip was all I could have wished for. At Gandumas, Philippe would be entirely mine. My only fear was that he would be bored there, but in fact I noticed he immediately seemed more balanced. In Paris, even though he had lost Solange, he still had tenacious—but most likely unfounded—hopes. He still reacted instinctually when the telephone rang, a response I knew so well and of which he was not yet cured.

When we went out, because I was painfully aware of Philippe’s every quiver, I could tell he was afraid we might meet her at any moment, but he also longed for this. He knew he still cared for her terribly and that, if she wanted to, she would have
him back in a flash. He knew this, but he also knew that both his dignity and fears for his happiness demanded that he should not allow himself to be taken again. At Gandumas, in a setting that had never been associated with Solange, he gradually started to forget her. After a week, he already looked better; his cheeks were fuller, his eyes brighter, he was sleeping better.

The weather was magnificent. We went for long walks together. Philippe told me he now wanted to follow his father’s example and take an interest in smallholdings. We went to la Guichardie, les Bruyères, and Resonzac every day.

Philippe spent only the mornings at the factory; every afternoon he went out with me.

“Do you know what we ought to do?” he asked. “We should take a book and read to each other in the woods.”

There were lovely shady retreats around Gandumas. Sometimes it was a mossy bank beside a wide walkway where the branches met overhead, forming the side aisle of a soft green cathedral, sometimes a fallen tree trunk, sometimes on a bench put there years before by Grandfather Marcenat. He very much liked Balzac’s
Study of a Woman
and his
Secrets of the Princesse Cadignan
, and various novellas by Mérimée such as
The Double Misunderstanding
or
The Etruscan Vase
, as well as some Kipling stories and some of the poets.

Sometimes he would look up and ask, “I’m not boring you, am I?”

“What a thought! I’ve never been more perfectly happy!”

He would look at me for a moment and then carry on. When the reading was over, we discussed the characters and their personalities, and often ended up talking about real people. One day I was the one who brought along a small book and refused to show Philippe its title.

“What is this mysterious book?” he asked once we were sitting down.

“It’s something I took from your mother’s bookshelves, and it’s played a part in your life, Philippe; at least you once wrote that it did.”

“I know what it is, it’s my
Little Russian Soldiers
. Oh, I’m really pleased you found it, Isabelle. Let me see.”

He leafed through it and seemed slightly amused and slightly disappointed. “ ‘They proposed to elect a queen, a young schoolgirl we all knew very well:
Ania Sokoloff. She was a remarkably beautiful, slender, elegant, and able girl … Bowing our heads before the queen, we swore to obey the laws.’ ”

“Oh, but it’s charming, Philippe, and it’s so you … ‘Bowing our heads before the queen, we swore to obey the laws.’ It also has such a nice story: something the queen wants and the hero goes to great trouble to find … ‘ “My God, my God!” said the queen. “What trouble you’ve gone to! Thank you.” She was very pleased. Shaking my hand once more as I bid her adieu, she added, “If I am still your queen, I shall tell the general to reward you handsomely.” I bowed to her and withdrew, and I too was very happy …’ You’ve so completely stayed that little boy your whole life, Philippe … Only the queen has kept changing.”

Philippe, sitting beside a bush, plucked off small branches, snapped them in his fingers, and threw them into the grass.

“Yes,” he said, “the queen has kept changing. The truth is I’ve never met the queen … well, never exactly her, do you understand?”

“Who’s been the queen, Philippe?”

“Several women, my darling. Denise Aubry a bit … but a very imperfect queen. Did I tell you poor Denise Aubry died?”

“No, Philippe … She must have been very young … What did she die of?”

“I don’t know. My mother told me the other day. Hearing about it felt very strange, as if it was a trifling piece of news, the death of a woman who, for several years, was the center of the universe to me.”

“Who was the queen after Denise Aubry?”

“Odile.”

“And was she the closest to the queen of your dreams?” I asked.

“Yes, because she was so beautiful.”

“After Odile? … Hélène de Thianges for a while?”

“Perhaps for a while,” he said after a moment’s thought. Then he added, “But definitely you, Isabelle.”

“Me too, really? For a long time?”

“A very long time.”

“Then Solange,” I said.

“Well, yes, then Solange …”

“Is Solange still the queen, Philippe?”

“No,” he said quietly. “But in spite of everything, I don’t have unpleasant memories of Solange. There was something so alive, so strong about her. I felt younger with her; it was nice.”

“You should see her again, Philippe.”

“Yes, I’ll see her again when I’ve recovered more, but she won’t be the queen any longer; that’s over.”

“And what about now, Philippe, who’s the queen?”

He hesitated for a moment, then looked at me and said, “You are.”

“Me? But I was deposed long ago.”

“Yes, you may have been deposed because you were jealous and petty and unfair. But in the last three months you’ve been so brave, so straightforward, that I’ve given you your crown back. Anyway, you can’t imagine how much you’ve changed, Isabelle. You’re not the same woman anymore.”

“I know that, my darling,” I said. “Deep down, a woman in love never has a personality; she says she has one, she tries to make herself believe she has, but it’s not true. No, she tries to understand the woman that the man she loves wants to see in her and to become that woman … It’s very difficult with you, Philippe, because it’s not very clear what you want. You need faithfulness and tenderness, but you also need coquettishness and uncertainty. What’s a woman to do? I chose faithfulness, which was closest to my own character … But I
think you’re going to carry on needing someone else for a long time, someone who’s unreliable and elusive to you. The great victory I’ve won over myself is accepting this other woman, I even accept her with resignation, happily. The really important thing I’ve realized in the last year is that if we truly love we mustn’t attach too much importance to the things that the people we love do. We need them; they alone mean we can live in a particular ‘atmosphere’ (your friend Hélène calls it a ‘climate’ and that’s exactly right) that we can’t get by without. So long as we can keep them, hold on to them, good God, what does the rest matter? Life’s so short, so difficult … Philippe, do I have the strength to haggle with you over the few hours’ happiness these women might give you? No. I’ve come a long way, I’m no longer jealous, it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

Philippe lay down on the grass and put his head on my knees.

“I haven’t quite reached the same stage as you,” he said. “I think it could go on hurting me, hurting a lot. The fact that life’s short isn’t a consolation for me. It’s short, yes, but compared to what? For us, it’s everything … Even so, I feel I’m gradually
coming to a calmer period. Do you remember I used to talk about my life as a symphony that combined different themes: the theme of the Knight, the Cynic, and the Rival. I can still hear them all loud and clear. But I can also hear one isolated instrument in the orchestra. I don’t know what it is, but it keeps firmly yet gently repeating a quiet, soothing theme made up of just a few notes. It’s the theme of serenity; it’s rather like the theme for old age.”

“But you’re young, Philippe.”

“Oh, I know that! And that’s why it sounds so quiet. Later it will drown out the whole orchestra and I’ll miss the days when I heard all the others.”