Tatiana de Rosnay - A Secret Kept

“I want you to come up with thoughts. Just get them down on paper and come back to me with them. Let your positive energy flow. Be creative. Be daring. Go with your inner force. No need to be timorous here. The Think Dome has to be near my office. You will be sent a layout of this floor.”

I take my leave and head down the avenue Montaigne. The luxury shops are in overdrive for Christmas. Elegant women laden with designer shopping bags totter past on high heels. The traffic roars. The sky is dark gray. As I make my way to the Left Bank, I think of Pauline. The funeral. Her family. I think of Astrid, on her way home right now, landing later on today. I think of how, despite the death of a teenager, Christmas still approaches, inexorable, women still shop on the avenue Montaigne, and men like Parimbert take themselves seriously.

I am at the wheel, Astrid on my right, the boys and Margaux in the back. This is one of the first times since the divorce that we are all together in the Audi. Like the family we used to be. Ten o’clock in the morning, and the sky is as overcast as it was yesterday. Astrid is fighting jet lag. She has not spoken much. I went to pick her up at Malakoff earlier on. I had asked if Serge was coming and she said he was not.

It is a one-hour drive to Tilly, the small town where Suzanne’s family owns a house. Pauline’s entire class will be there. Lucas has decided he wants to come. His first funeral. What was my first after my mother’s? Probably Robert’s, my grandfather. Later on, a close friend who died in a car crash. Another who had cancer. I realize that this is also Margaux’s first funeral, and Arno’s. I glance at their faces in the rearview mirror. No iPods, I notice. Their faces are drawn and pale. They will remember today. They will remember today for the rest of their lives.

Since Saturday, Arno has been withdrawn. I still have not had my father-son talk with him. I know I need to schedule this, that there is no point avoiding it. Astrid does not know about Arno yet. It’s my job to tell her. After the funeral.

After the funeral. Will it bring closure? How will Suzanne and Patrick ever recover? Will Margaux be able to heal slowly? The country roads are empty and silent. Monotonous winter scenery. Leafless, lifeless trees. If only the sun could come out and light up the gloominess. I find myself craving that first morning sunlight, the warm touch of the rays on my skin, closing my eyes to it, basking in it. Please God, or whoever it is up there, please send some sun for Pauline’s funeral. I don’t believe in God, Margaux had said fiercely at the morgue. God wouldn’t let a fourteen-year-old die. I think of my religious upbringing, Mass every Sunday at Saint-Pierre de Chaillot, my first Communion, Mélanie’s. When my mother died, did I question God’s existence? Did I resent Him for letting my mother die? When I think of those dark years, I find myself remembering so little. Only pain and sorrow come back. And yes, incomprehension. Maybe I did feel, as my daughter does today, that God had let me down. But the difference is that Margaux can say this to me. There was no way I could ever have voiced this to my own father. I would never have dared.

The little church is packed. The entire class is here, all Pauline’s friends, all her teachers. But also her friends from other classes, from other schools. I have never seen such a young assembly at a funeral. Rows and rows of teenagers dressed in black, each holding a white rose. Suzanne and Patrick, standing at the door, greet every person coming in. Their bravery impresses me. I cannot help imagining Astrid and me in the same circumstances. I can tell that Astrid is thinking the same thing. She hugs Suzanne desperately. Patrick kisses her. Astrid is already in tears.

We sit just behind the first row. The noise of chairs grating the floor slowly abates. Then a woman’s voice singing the purest and saddest hymn I have ever heard rises from somewhere. I cannot see the singer. The coffin comes in, carried by Patrick, his brothers, his father.

Margaux and I have seen Pauline’s body. We know she is in that coffin, wearing her pink shirt, her jeans, her Converse sneakers. We know because we have seen her, we have seen the way her hair is brushed back, the way her hands are folded on her stomach.

The priest, a youngish man with a flushed face, begins to speak. I hear his voice, but I cannot make out his words. I find it unbearable being here. My heart begins a fast, thick thud that hurts. I watch Patrick’s back, directly in front of me. How can he stand so straight? Where does he get his strength from? Is this what believing in God is all about? Is God the only way to help deal with this nameless awfulness?

The priest’s voice drones on. We sit and stand. We pray. Then Margaux’s name is called. I am startled. I did not know she was going to say something during the ceremony. Astrid glances at me questioningly. I shake my head.

Margaux stands near her friend’s coffin. There is a moment of silence. I wonder fearfully whether she is going to make it. Whether she will be able to speak, to say anything at all. Then my daughter’s voice rings out with a vigor that surprises me. Not the voice of a timid teenager. The voice of an assured young woman.

“ ‘Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.’ ”

W. H. Auden. “Funeral Blues.” She doesn’t need to read from a piece of paper. She says the verses as if she had written the poem herself. Her voice is hard, deep, full of restrained anger and pain.

She continues with the same strength and conviction.

But then, for the first time, her voice falters. She closes her eyes. The church is absolutely quiet. Astrid holds my hand so tight it hurts. Margaux takes a deep breath, and her voice comes back, but it is a whisper now, so low we can barely hear it.

“She is telling us now about hopelessness.”

When she returns to her chair, the church fills with a tense and poignant silence that seems to last forever. Astrid is holding Lucas. Arno has grabbed his sister’s arm. The very air swells and vibrates with tears. Then the priest’s voice buzzes on, and other teenagers come to speak, but again, I don’t make out the words. I stare at the paved stoned floor and wait for it to be over, gritting my teeth. I find I cannot cry.

I remember the stream of tears that had gushed from me the day Pauline died. Now it is Astrid who is crying in the chair next to me. Crying as I did that day, crying her eyes out. I put my arm around her, hold her close. She hangs on to me for dear life. Lucas watches us. He hasn’t seen us do that since before Naxos.

Outside, it appears that my prayers have been answered, because a whitish sun timorously shines from behind clouds. We slowly follow Pauline’s coffin to the adjoining graveyard. We are quite a crowd. Villagers peer at us from their windows. So many young faces. Margaux has gone ahead to join her classmates. They are the first ones to see Pauline’s coffin lowered into the grave. One by one they each throw a rose into the opening.

Most of them are crying openly. Parents and teachers silently wipe away tears. This too seems to last forever. A young girl collapses with a thin scream. There is a rush toward her. A teacher gently picks her up, carries her away. Astrid’s hand finds her way into mine again.

After the burial, there is a gathering at the family house. But most people take their leave, eager to get back to their day, their life, their work. We stay on for lunch because Pauline was Margaux’s best friend. Because we feel we need and have to be there. The dining room fills up with close friends and family. Most of them we know. The four teenagers here were Pauline’s closest friends. Part of the tightly knit gang.