P.P.S. No man can understand the feminine sensibility, contrary to what we try to make ourselves believe sometimes. Your Julian is wide of the mark. That’s fine. But his character on the whole is a true blessing. You know at any given moment where his mind is at, and he was always there when the floor gave way beneath your feet. And besides, what do we expect from men if not that endlessly verified certainty that they can never understand us?
from Anne-Lise to Maggy
RUE DES MORILLONS, JULY 11, 2016
You sly little fox!
I know the reason for your indecision, no thanks to you! What have you gotten yourself into? Can you explain to me what you are up to with Mr. Grant? And don’t tell me that I am responsible for this relationship, because I will deny it flat out! When I think of that modern, feminist discourse about your desire for isolation and solitary strolls far from men and the constraints they impose on women! Aren’t you ashamed?
You have to answer me as soon as possible to reveal what “that seductive man with the irresistible gaze” (those are your words!) is doing in Finistère. And don’t lie to me, for I will see that rascal soon enough and I’ll know how to make him talk. Will you at least tell me whether you left your hermitage for his gray eyes, for his delicious accent, or merely for his unbridled talent for adding lines to the ends of manuscripts found in the backs of attics?
Fine! I’ll stop my accusations here and I’ll wait for your version of the facts. But please, don’t be too naïve, and remember that we’re talking about a poker player whose principal strength is bluffing …
Despite everything I’ve just written you, I’m dying to meet this man who’s coaxed my best friend out of her years-long exile.
Talk to you very soon, and don’t be stingy with the details.
Your friend who’s thinking of you,
Lisou
P.S. Remember that the inability to understand women affects British men too!
from Maggy to Anne-Lise
POINTE DES RENARDS, JULY 13, 2016
Hi Lisou!
Have you eaten your warnings? You know they were useless. I simply agreed, just to be nice, to serve as a guide for William during the three days he spent here, as he did for me when you parachuted me into London!
And anyway, I like to walk along the coastal paths at the first light of day and it turns out my guest also enjoys watching nature wake. We talked a great deal and I told him all about your latest obsession. Excited about this adventure, he asked me to guide him to Roscoff, where we found our bartender and his ladylove. On Sunday night all four of us ate together in a restaurant.
I thought of you; you would have loved this meeting between people from all over who never would have crossed paths without your matchmaking. So, despite your insistent and incorrect allusions to my relationship with our devastatingly charming Anglo-Franco-Belgian, thank you for these lovely encounters you’ve set in motion. William has changed his plans and sends his excuses. He won’t stop in Paris after all. He went straight back to Lozère to conduct further research concerning your author before heading back to Belgium and then setting off for the United States, where he will participate in a poker tournament.
He is as enthusiastic as you are about the idea of solving this mystery, but when I spoke to him about those lines he added, he sealed up like an oyster … He told me he was a lover of poetry, but his tone was so fake that I thought he might be the worst liar I’d ever met! (Do you think I should try my hand at poker?)
There you have it, my dear Lisou, the full story you’ve been waiting for. It’s true that I hesitated before opening the door of my hideout to a person I knew nothing about, or almost nothing. I finally decided to get over my suspicion, and I don’t regret it. We spent three wonderful days together; my guest was always very considerate and kept a comfortable amount of distance. Also, I can’t remember hosting a less invasive person than William. The first night, he cooked alongside me and we discussed children’s literature. I told him about my profession and I introduced him to Where’s Waldo? (we even searched for the little red gentleman for at least an hour!). William is probably the only Englishman not to know who Martin Handford is (perhaps his Belgian side is to blame) and I remedied that state of affairs. On the other hand, he is unbeatable when it comes to other Anglo-Saxon authors. Before he left, he wanted us to go eat on the coast with a thermos of coffee and a few crêpes. We were there for the sunrise, alone facing the landscape that transforms in each moment. We were sitting across from a somber and brooding sea. After our first cup of coffee, it was covered with golden wavelets, and by the time we left, it had donned that steel armor that suits it so well.
Thanks to you, I met someone unusual (I mean, we’re talking about a poker player!) but very interesting, who I am sure I will keep in touch with in the months to come. So forget your unlikely ideas and instead look into whether you’re available on the dates I’ve suggested below, for your beer-bottle-cap figurine increased my desire to visit Brussels tenfold …
More very soon,
Your still-solitary friend,
Maggy
P.S. Is it true that you bought Bastien a nearly two-foot-tall Manneken Pis? Did you give it to him in the middle of a meeting or did you casually place it on his desk during a coffee break?
from Anne-Lise to Sylvestre
RUE DES MORILLONS, JULY 14, 2016
Dear Sylvestre,
I would be thrilled to be your first reader and I am glad to know we are not on bad terms.
Because I have a few vacation days to take, I’m thinking of heading to Brussels with a friend. Since I can’t be gone for too long, I will resist the tempting portrait you’ve painted of the beaches in the South and I will return to the office at the beginning of August. Then, three weeks later, I’ll go supervise my son’s move into his student apartment. So I’ll spend the last days of the month painting (walls, don’t get too excited) and building furniture sold in a kit by the Nordic people with their twisted sense of humor …
The quest that brought us together is on hold for now, even if Mr. Grant has promised to do a bit of investigating into his family. But your book has the power to connect people, there’s no doubt about it, and you have to live with this responsibility. So I am curious to know the subject of your next novel: Can you give me a hint to tide me over until it’s in my hands?
From where I’m writing to you (on the little desk in my office, in a slanting ray of inspiring morning sun), my view looks out onto a Parisian garden with a very beautiful tree. For several weeks now, every time I look at it I’ve practiced the meditation exercise you taught me (that’s what it is, right?) and which, I have to admit, brings me a comforting sense of well-being. Is that your secret? Your Folivora sensibilities are fed by exercising your full consciousness in order to grasp the world around you in complete serenity? And above all, were you thinking of this practice when you said this, thirty years ago:
I was walking behind her and observing her, in complete quiet. I had no desire to flaunt her as my property nor to cry out to the world “this woman is mine,” no. It was enough for me to look at her at any hour of the day, in the morning sun or the calming twilight, and to rediscover her at each moment through her unexpected movements which rendered her unfamiliar to me once again.