Tatiana de Rosnay: A Secret Kept

All best to you,

Donna W. Rogers

As I opened the letters with slightly trembling fingers and started reading, I thought fleetingly of Mélanie, wishing she could be there with me, sitting next to me in the privacy of my bedroom, sharing these precious vestiges of our mother’s life. The date read “July 28, 1973. Noirmoutier, Hotel Saint-Pierre.”

Tonight I waited for you on the pier, but you did not come. It grew cold, and after a while I left, thinking maybe it was difficult for you to get away this time. I told them I just needed a quick walk on the beach after dinner, and I wonder if they believed me. She always looks at me like she knows something, although I am sure, perfectly sure, that nobody knows. Nobody knows.

My eyes teared up, and I sensed I could no longer go on reading. It didn’t matter. I could always read them later. When I felt stronger. I folded the letters away. The photographs were black-and-white portraits of June Ashby taken by a professional photographer. She looked rather beautiful-strong, arresting features, piercing eyes. On the back of the photographs was my mother’s round, childish handwriting: “My sweet love.” There were other photographs, a color one of my mother wearing a blue and green evening dress I had never seen, standing in front of a full-length mirror in a room I did not recognize. She was smiling into the mirror at the person taking the photo, who I assumed was June. In the next photograph, my mother was in the same pose, but stark naked. The dress lay at her feet, a crumpled blue and green heap. I sensed my face growing red, and I quickly averted my eyes from my mother’s body, a body I had never seen in the nude. I felt like a Peeping Tom. I did not want to look at the other photographs. Here was my mother’s love affair exposed in all its blatancy. Would it make any difference if June Ashby had been a man? I forced myself to think about this, hard. No, I did not think so. At least not for me. Was the fact that she was having a lesbian affair more difficult to stomach for Mélanie? Was it worse for my father? Was that why Mélanie did not want to know? I felt relieved that my sister was not here with me after all, that she had not seen the photographs. I then picked up the small Super 8 reel. Did I really want to know what was on it? What if it was intolerably intimate? What if I regretted watching it? The only way to find out was to have the film converted to a DVD. It was easy to locate a place on the Internet that did just that. If I sent the film first thing next morning, I would receive my DVD in a couple of days.

The DVD is now in my backpack. I got it just before I left to catch the train, and I have not yet had time to view it. “5 minutes,” reads the data printed on the cover. I take it out of my bag and finger it nervously. Five minutes of what? The expression on my face must be overwrought; I feel the pretty girl watching me. Her eyes are inquisitive, not unkind. She looks away.

The daylight dims as the train dashes forward, swaying slightly as it reaches its full speed. Another hour to go. I think of Angèle waiting for me at the Nantes station, and then the wet ride on the Harley to Clisson, thirty minutes away. I hope the rain will have abated. But she never seems bothered by rain. She has all the right gear.

I take my mother’s medical file out of my bag. I have read it carefully but have learned nothing from it. Clarisse started seeing Dr. Dardel just around the time of her marriage. She often had colds and migraines. She measured 1 meter 58, smaller than Mélanie. She weighed 48 kilos. A tiny wisp of a woman. All her vaccines were in order. Her pregnancies were supervised by an obstetrician, Dr. Giraud, at the Belvédère Clinic, where Mélanie and I were born.

All of a sudden a loud, ominous thwack is heard, and the train lurches sideways violently, as if its wheels have struck branches or a tree stump. Several people cry out in shock. My mother’s file slinks to the ground and the English lady’s tea spills all over the table. She exclaims, “Oh dear!” and dabs at the mess with a napkin. The train slows down instantly and comes to a shuddering halt. We all wait in silence, looking at one another. The rain beats down on the windowpanes. Some people get up, try to peer outside. Panicked murmurs arise from each side of the coach. Nothing happens for a while. A child whimpers. Then a cautious voice is heard on the loudspeaker: “Ladies and gentleman, our train is blocked due to technical difficulty. More information to come. Apologies for the delay.” The stout man in front of me lets out an exasperated sigh and grabs his BlackBerry. I text Angèle and describe what has happened. She texts back almost instantly, and her message makes my blood run cold.

I hate to tell you this, but that’s not a technical difficulty. That’s a suicide.

I get up, startling the English lady, and walk toward the head of the train. Our coach is situated in the front, near the engine. Passengers in the adjoining carriages are just as restless and impatient. Many of them are using their phones. The noise level gets increasingly louder. Two ticket inspectors appear in their dark uniforms. Their faces are positively morose.

With a sinking heart, I know Angèle is right.

“Excuse me,” I say, cornering them in the small space between two coaches, near the toilets. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

“Technical problems,” mumbles one of them, wiping his damp forehead with a shaking hand. He is young, and his face seems awfully white.

The other man is older and perceptibly more experienced.

“Was it a suicide?” I ask.

The older guy nods grimly. “It was. And we’ll be here for a while. Some folks aren’t going to like it.”

The younger guy leans against the toilet door, his face paler than ever. I feel sorry for him.

“It’s his first time.” The older guy sighs, taking off his cap and running his fingers through thinning hair.

“Is the person… dead?” I manage to ask.

The man looks at me quizzically.

“Well, when a high-speed train is going that fast, that’s usually what happens,” he grunts.

“It was a woman,” whispers the younger man, his voice so low I can hardly hear him. “The driver said she was kneeling on the tracks, facing the train, her hands clasped as if in prayer. There was nothing he could do. Nothing.”

“Come on now, kid, get a grip,” says the elder man firmly, patting his arm. “We need to make an announcement. There are seven hundred passengers on this train tonight, and they’ll be here for another couple of hours.”

“Why does it take so long?” I inquire.

“The body remains have to picked up one by one,” says the older inspector wryly, “and they’re usually stretched along the tracks for several kilometers. From what I just saw, with the rain and everything, it’s not looking good at all.”

The younger man turns away as if he is going to be sick. I thank the other man and stagger back to my seat. I find a small bottle of water in my bag and drink hastily. But my mouth still feels dry. I text Angèle.

You were right.

She texts back:

Those are the worst suicides. The messiest kind. Poor person. Whoever it was.

The announcement finally comes. “Due to a suicide on the railway, our train will experience considerable delay.”

People around us groan and sigh. The English lady stifles a little cry. The fat man bangs his fist down on the table. The pretty girl had her earphones in and didn’t hear the announcement. She digs them out.

“What happened?” she asks.

“Somebody committed suicide and now we’re stuck here in the middle of nowhere,” whines the man in black. “And I have a meeting in an hour.”

She stares at him with her perfect sapphire eyes.