In the meantime, I’d like to learn more about your life. What do you do for a living and how do you have so much free time if you have not yet reached the age of retirement (which, you have noticed, retreats gradually as we approach it, like a carrot dangled in front of a donkey in an attempt to keep it moving)?
As for me, I never stop running around, like your wife, even if my destinations are less recreational: office, work meetings, supermarkets to supply the household, school visits for the higher-level education of my children, and so on and so forth … Give me something to look forward to and tell me when I can finally experience the joy of theater clubs, gymnastics classes, meals at a restaurant, and especially time to relax in the middle of the week! Unless of course you are the descendant of a multimillionaire family, in which case this will never be an option for me.
And no, I won’t explain to you what I meant about the female behaviors you probably misinterpreted thirty years ago. Holding no degree in female psychology, my only knowledge comes from my age and the fact that I am a woman. I will only say that I am amazed that you were so naïve that you believed that a young woman is not in love simply because she does not say that she is … Why insist on the honesty and transparency of the “weaker” sex when it is not possessed by those of the supposedly stronger sex?
One last thing: How can you remain impartial about the journey taken by your book? You lost it more than thirty years ago between two airports, I found it at the end of the world (for the Bretons, that goes without saying) and you’re not at all curious to know how it got there?
You have to admit that it’s rather unbelievable that these pages could travel all these years on the wind and tides without anyone throwing them in the recycling bin. Not that I think your book doesn’t deserve to survive, but our fellow citizens normally demonstrate a certain negligence with things that don’t belong to them …
You probably think I’m overstepping, but I admit to a typically feminine curiosity concerning this mystery. With my network of Breton relations, I have set in motion a plan that, I hope, will allow us to identify the author of the last pages and to find out how your book arrived in Finistère …
Your indiscreet correspondent,
Anne-Lise
from Sylvestre to Anne-Lise
LES CHAYETS, MAY 18, 2016
Does my book really deserve so much fuss? I am astonished at the idea of all these Breton souls trying to find my coauthor … I hadn’t considered the possibility of meeting him one day and I’m amazed to find that you are ready to smoke him out and make him admit to writing something he might not wish to take responsibility for.
It’s true that my nature is to be private—my friends would say secretive—and that I have a tendency to be reserved around all people I spend time with. I would never have dared, for example, to ask you questions about your hobbies and your profession as you asked me with such ease. To answer you, I’ll simply say that I am not yet retired, and also not the rich descendant of a wealthy family free from material concerns. No. I am merely lucky enough to be able to work from home, with access to a computer and an Internet connection.
If it seems I spend my days being lazy, it’s because I only sleep four hours at night and I abuse my keyboard while my colleagues rest their neurons. It’s so I can take advantage of the best hours of the day to stroll or lounge in an armchair with a book in my hand. But don’t worry, you’re not writing to a freeloader, I diligently fulfill the professional duties I am assigned …
I don’t know whether the frantic rhythm that guides your existence suits you (in which case you would belong, like my wife, to the category of Rodents, a name I’ve chosen because they always seem to be running after something that they alone can see) or if you are the opposite, and you aspire to a more contemplative life and see business as a necessary evil (which would classify you, like me, in the category of Folivora…).
I hope the weekend you spent on the shore of the Iroise Sea at least allowed you to clear your head. Have you noticed the tyranny we typically exert on our minds? When we order our thoughts to follow a straight path that’s already been drawn rather than allowing it to deviate as it should?
Try this experiment: isolate yourself from your peers (for example one day when your family is going to a hockey game or a costume ball or any other type of activity, fake a horrible headache that will force you to stay home alone), sit at a window that looks out onto a patch of greenery or, if you are hopelessly surrounded by concrete, choose a tree spurting out of a sidewalk. Sit however you wish, in a chaise longue, cross-legged on a piece of furniture, with your back against your balcony wall, it doesn’t matter, and observe. Begin by contemplating the trunk as if it were the magnificent accomplishment of a great and little-known sculptor, then, slowly, let your eyes climb along the branches until you reach the highest twig you can make out.
Why? When I do this exercise, my mind surrenders completely. I hope that you will also feel that lightness of being—a state in which nothing is dictated.
I’ll stop this flight of fancy here because I don’t want you to take me for a Buddhist or an expert of any other form of spirituality, which is not the case. I simply crossed paths with a vocational rehabilitation advisor and those people have a certain talent for distracting our attention from the elements that disturb it …
Sylvestre
from Anne-Lise to Sylvestre
RUE DES MORILLONS, MAY 21, 2016
Dear Sylvestre,
Has my curiosity unsettled you? It’s true that as I grow older, I prefer to take the more direct path, in life and in conversation. If you had known me at twenty years old, you would have been amazed by my silence and my restraint, and of course, I would have never bothered you by asking about your life or conducting research on your book without your consent.
Now that the harm is done, I owe you the details that I now know. The plot thickens around your manuscript and soon we will require the help of a real Hercule Poirot to resolve what I will call henceforth “the mystery of room 128” …
I have a dear friend, Maggy, who lives year-round in the small Breton port where I spent that infamous weekend in April. Thanks to our long friendship and a natural tendency to drag each other into incredible adventures since the age of ten, she agreed to go to the hotel to find out who had left your novel in the spot where I’d found it (here I am acting like the owner when I only stayed there three nights). After an interview with the staff, we have concluded that the object in question (the term doesn’t do you justice, but it shows you just how much the investigators have entered into their roles) was introduced into room 128 two days before my arrival. I won’t go into the details but, bizarrely, I think we will have to expand our search to all the occupants of the hotel.
Why, you will ask. I don’t know yet. However, refusing on principle to give up, I came up with a plan likely to get us past this roadblock (perhaps this “us” is a bit presumptuous? If that’s the case, I promise to put a stop to the whole thing).
I wrote a letter that was sent, with the permission of the hotel manager, to all the people who stayed in the hotel on the date in question.
Dear Sir (Madam),
You stayed at the Beau Rivage Hotel on … and we hope that you have a pleasant memory of your stay. In order to assist a guest, we are hoping to find the origin of a manuscript forgotten in one of the rooms of our establishment. If you have the slightest clue to help us figure out where it came from, we would appreciate it if you could please contact the person at the address below.