“I had the same. I felt the same about my father.”
“Not about your mother?”
“Well, I was two when she died. Sometimes I think I have a memory of her. But it’s blurred, and I’m not certain. I remember her sitting on the floor, doing something with her hands. I don’t know.”
“All my memories of my mother are of her lying pale in bed. She was happiest when she was ill, I’m sure of it. I used to visit her bedside when she had the flu, and so on. Isn’t that strange? And when she wasn’t ill she was a terror, a ghost, and those were the times I hated her. The house was in disarray, she used to whip up the … the servants, they were all over the place, my father … But illness—that was when she thrived. I mean it’s difficult now even to try to imagine these things. I don’t have anything to hold, it’s just little bits my father told me. And some things I remember. But even then, how can we know if it’s real or not, or if we made it up ourselves, as you say.”
“Will you explain it to me though,” said Midhat, shifting along so he could face her. “Because I still don’t understand exactly. Psychiatry is not until the third year.”
Jeannette chuckled, then sighed and looked serious. “They called it a nervous illness,” she said. “Which meant it was neurological, in the brain. Which part did you not understand?”
“The part about her being happiest when she was ill.”
“Ah, well—nor do I. It’s just that, as far as I can remember, her time was divided between being sick, physically, and healthy. Only when she was sick was I allowed to see her. Do you see? I mean, this woman stayed more or less the whole time in her bedroom. Then there was a certain period when Sylvain used to come, and she seemed to get better again. She wasn’t in bed. He was there for dinner quite often, Maman would be there, and he would bring me little gifts. I remember these glass grapes, like this, they were purple, and the stem was carved from wood. Anyway, Sylvain came for a few years. And then I don’t remember what happened exactly. But it was unexpected, certainly, her suicide. I was sixteen, I think I told you.”
“Yes. I am so sorry, Jeannette. Really. It is a tragedy.”
“Well. There was a time when I thought about it a lot, trying to work it out. Then I realised there wasn’t much point in becoming preoccupied with these things. I had this idea that when she was ill it was as though she was filling up a doorway with stones, so that she couldn’t leave the house, then spending days pulling out stone after stone, until she could see the street outside. But then the moment she would have been able to walk out freely, she would just pick up new stones. I do think … I think it’s true she distracted herself … I think being alive was hard for her. I don’t know, I don’t know anything, this is only from what my father told me, and some things Laurent was reading about a few years ago.”
“Laurent.”
“Yes.”
There was a pause. Midhat ventured, “I miss him.”
“So do I.” She sniffed. It may have been from her cold. “I had a letter from him last week.”
“Oh,” said Midhat, unable to restrain his surprise. “Is he well?”
“He is fine, he is well. He is coming back, in fact, soon. Would you like to see the letter?”
“If it’s private—”
“Not at all. I’m surprised he has time to write letters, to be honest. One moment, I will run up for it.”
He walked by the pond to wait. He was compelled by a sudden, powerful wish that Laurent should die. But even the salutary prospect of Laurent’s disappearance was swamped by the likelihood that Jeannette’s love for him would only swell with his heroic memory. The water in the pond had risen over the winter, and lines of reflected light wriggled on the inside of the wall. The lower part was covered in a greenish fur. He turned around and Jeannette was on the terrace again, holding an envelope. She came towards him.
“Take it.”
28 April 1915
Dear Jeannette,
I was sent to the Dardanelles in the end, not to Ypres. I’m working on the Pioche cruiser under a hero named Bastien who has already been offered five stripes. Most