Tatiana de Rosnay - A Secret Kept

I told them about the Think Dome, the nightmarish yet incredibly inspiring complication of the affair, Parimbert peering over my rough copies, too vain to wear glasses. He never seemed to be pleased or displeased by my creations, merely puzzled, as if they triggered colossal concern. I began to suspect that he had no idea what the Think Dome was supposed to be. He just very much liked the idea of it. “Now, Antoine, remember, the Think Dome is a Bubble of Potential, a Liberating cell, a Closed Space that in fact knows how to set us Free.” They were hysterical with laughter. Hélène was wiping away tears. I told them about the seminar Parimbert had invited me to, where for an entire day, in a modern complex in the chic western suburbs, I had been introduced to his team. His associate was a terrifying Asian personage with a cadaverous mask-like face, whose gender was difficult to determine. All the people who worked with Parimbert seemed either about to collapse or on drugs, sporting glassy, intoxicated expressions. They all wore black or white. Some were very young, barely out of college. Others were seriously getting on. Nobody looked remotely normal. At one o’clock, stomach rumbling, I had been looking forward to lunch. But as the minutes ticked by, to my dismay, no lunch was announced. Standing at the head of the room, screens flashing behind him, Parimbert was droning on about the website’s success and how he was Expanding through the Entire World. I discreetly asked the haggard but elegant-looking lady next to me about lunch. She stared at me as if I had said “sodomy” or “gang bang.” “Lunch?” she repeated with a revolted whisper. “We don’t have lunch. Ever.” Distressed, I had asked, “Why not?” belly gurgling away all the more. She had not deigned to answer me. At four o’clock, green tea and bran scones were imperially ushered in. But my stomach balked. And I had spent the rest of the day feeling dangerously faint and had rushed to the nearest boulangerie as soon as I could to wolf down an entire baguette.

“You were so funny,” said Mélanie as we took our leave. Didier, Emmanuel, and Hélène agreed. A mixture of admiration and surprise. “I had no idea you could be so funny.”

Later, when I fell asleep, holding my snow princess close to me, I felt happy. A happy man.

Saturday afternoon. Mélanie and I stand outside the enormous wrought-iron door that leads into our grandmother’s building. We telephoned this morning, informed the placid, good-natured Gaspard that we were coming to visit Blanche. I haven’t been here since before the summer. More than six months. Mélanie types out the digital code, and we walk into the huge, red-carpeted hall. The concierge peers at us from behind the lace curtain of her loge, nods at us as we go past. Nothing much has changed here. The carpet may look a touch more threadbare, perhaps. An iron and glass, surprisingly silent elevator has recently replaced the creaky old-fashioned one.

Our grandparents lived here for more than seventy years. Since their marriage. Our father and Solange were born here. In those days, most of the imposing Haussmanian building belonged to Blanche’s grandfather, Émile Fromet, a well-off property owner who possessed several residences in the Passy area of the sixteenth arrondissement. We were often told about Émile Fromet in our childhood. There was a portrait of him above a mantelpiece, an unyielding-looking man with a redoubtable chin that Blanche luckily did not inherit but passed on to her daughter, Solange. We knew, very young, that Blanche’s wedding with Robert Rey had been a grand event, the faultless union between a dynasty of lawyers and a family of doctors and property owners. A cluster of respectable, highly regarded, influential wealthy people with the same upbringing, the same origins, the same religion. Our father’s marriage to a rural southerner had probably caused a certain commotion back in the sixties.

Gaspard opens the door to us, his asymmetrical face flushing with contentment. I cannot help feeling sorry for the man. He must be five years older than I am at the most, and he looks as if he could be my father. No family, no children, no life apart from the Reys. Even when he was young, he seemed wizened, shuffling about the place in his mother’s tow. Gaspard has been living here forever, in a room up under the roof, devoted to the Reys, like his mother, Odette. Odette had slaved for our grandparents till the day she died. She terrorized us when we were small, forced us to wear felt slippers so as not to mat the freshly polished parquet floor, urging us to keep our voices down, as “Madame” was resting and “Monsieur” was reading the Figaro in his office and did not want to be disturbed. No one knew who Gaspard’s father was. No one asked. When Mélanie and I were small, Gaspard did odd jobs around the apartment, errands of all sorts, and did not seem to spend much time at school. His mother died ten years ago, and he took over the upkeep of the place. It had given him a new importance he was proud of.

Mélanie and I greet him. Our arrival is the highlight of his week. When Astrid and I brought the children in to see their great-grandmother back in the good old Malakoff days, he was ecstatic.

As ever, when I enter this place, I am struck by the darkness of it. The northern exposure does not help. The 450-square-meter apartment never catches a glimmer of sun. Even in the middle of summer it harbors a sepulchral gloom. Solange, our aunt, is on her way out. We have not seen her for a long time. She says hello briefly, not unkindly, pats Mélanie on the cheek, does not ask about our father. Brother and sister live in the same vicinity, he on the avenue Kléber, she on the rue Boissière, five minutes away, but they never see each other. They never got along. They never will. It’s too late.

The apartment is a continuous succession of great rooms with molded ceilings. Grand salon (which was never used, too big, too cold), petit salon, dining room, library, office, four bedrooms, two old-fashioned bathrooms, and the out-of-date kitchen far away at the back. Every day, Odette used to wheel a squeaky table laden with food along the never-ending corridor from the kitchen to the dining room. I can still remember the sound of those wheels.

On our way here, we discussed how we were going to tackle our grandmother. We couldn’t exactly come out with “Did you know your daughter-in-law was having affairs with women?” Mélanie suggested that we look around the place. What did she mean? I asked. Did she mean to snoop? Yes, she meant to snoop, and her expression was so comical I had to smile. I felt oddly excited, as if she and I were embarking on some new and strange adventure. But what about Gaspard? I had asked. He watched over the place like a hawk. Mélanie had waved a nonchalant hand. Gaspard would not be a problem. The problem was where to look.

“Hey, guess what?” she had said with a sprightly voice as I parked the car along the avenue Henri-Martin.

“What?”

“I met a guy.”

“Another old lech?”

She had rolled her eyes.

“No. Actually, he’s a little younger than I am. He’s a journalist.”

“And?”

“And.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

“For the moment.”

The nurse on duty today is one we have never seen. But she seems to know all about us, greeting us by our first names. She informs us that our grandmother is still asleep and that it is not wise to wake her now, as she had a bad night. Can we wait another hour or so? Maybe have a coffee somewhere or do a spot of shopping? she suggests with a bright smile.

Mélanie turns in order to locate Gaspard. He is not far off, giving orders to a cleaning lady. She whispers to me, “I’m going to snoop. Keep him busy.”