Tatiana de Rosnay: A Secret Kept

“Excuse me. You just said somebody committed suicide?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said,” he drawls, brandishing his BlackBerry.

“And you’re complaining we’re going to be late?” she hisses in the coldest voice ever.

He stares back at her.

“I have an important meeting,” he mutters.

She looks at him scathingly. Then she gets up, and as she heads to the bar, she turns around and says, just about loud enough for the entire carriage to hear, “Asshole.”

The English lady and I share a drink at the bar, some Chardonnay to cheer us up. It is dark now, and the rain has stopped. Huge floodlights illuminate the tracks, revealing the gruesome ballet of policemen, ambulances, firemen. I can still feel the thwack of the train hitting that poor woman’s body. Who was she? How old was she? What despair, what lack of hope could have led her here tonight, waiting in the rain, kneeling on the tracks, her hands joined?

“Believe it or not, I’m on my way to a funeral,” says the English lady, whose name is Cynthia. She gives a dry chuckle.

“How sad!” I exclaim.

“An old friend of mine. Gladys. Tomorrow morning. She had all sorts of grisly health complications, but she was terribly brave about it. I admired her very much.”

Her French is excellent, just a trace of a British accent. When I comment on it, she smiles again.

“I’ve been living in France all my life. Married a Frenchman.” She winks.

The pretty girl comes back into the bar coach and sits not far from us. She is talking on her phone, waving her hands about. She looks agitated.

Cynthia goes on, “And just as we hit that poor person who decided to put an end to his or her life, I was in the middle of choosing a poem to read at Gladys’s funeral.”

“Did you find your poem?” I ask.

“I did, indeed. Have you ever heard of Christina Georgina Rossetti?”

I grimace. “I’m not very good with poetry, I’m afraid.”

“Nor am I. But I wanted to choose one that was neither morbid nor sad, and I think I have at last found it. Christina Rossetti was a Victorian poet, totally unknown in France, I believe, and wrongly so, for most talented in my opinion. Her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti stole the limelight. He was rather more famous. You may have seen his paintings. Pre-Raphaelite stuff. Rather good.”

“Not very good at paintings either.”

“Oh, come on now, I’m sure you’ve seen his work. Those somber, sensuous ladies with flowing auburn hair, full mouths, and long dresses.”

“Perhaps.” I shrug, smiling at the expressive way her hands suggest abundant bosoms. “What about the sister’s poem? Can you read it to me?”

“I will. And we shall think about the person who just died, shall we not?”

“It was a lady. The ticket inspectors told me.”

“Then I shall read this poem for her. Bless her soul.”

Cynthia takes the poetry book out of her bag, slides her oversize owl-like glasses over her nose, and begins to read in a loud, theatrical voice. Everybody in the bar coach turns around.

“When I am dead, my dearest,

Sing no sad songs for me;

Plant thou no roses at my head,

Nor shady cypress tree:

Be the green grass above me

With showers and dewdrops wet;

And if thou wilt, remember,

And if thou wilt, forget.”

Her voice goes on, soaring through the sudden hush, above the grating, scraping noises of whatever is going on outside, which I don’t want to think about. It is a poignant poem, beautifully simple, and somehow it fills me with hope. When she finishes reading, some people murmur their thanks, and the pretty girl’s face is tearful.

“Thank you,” I say.

Cynthia nods. “I’m glad you like it. I think it is fitting.”

The girl comes up to us timidly. She asks Cynthia for the author of the poem and writes it down in her notebook. I ask her to join us, and she sits down gratefully. She says she hopes we didn’t think she was rude-what she said to the man in black earlier on.

Cynthia scoffs. “Rude? My dear, you were remarkable.”

The girl smiles ruefully. She is unusually good-looking. Her figure is exceptional, swelling breasts only just visible under a loose, dark sweater, long line of hip and leg, round buttocks under tight Levi’s.

“You know, I can’t help thinking about what happened,” she whispers. “I almost feel responsible, as if I killed that poor person myself.”

“That’s not what happened,” I tell her.

“Perhaps, but I can’t help it. I keep feeling that bump.” She shivers. “And I keep thinking about the man who was driving the train… Can you imagine? And with these high-speed trains, I guess there’s no way you can brake fast enough. And this person’s family. I heard you saying it was a woman… I wonder if they’ve been told by now. Has she even been indentified? Maybe nobody knows. Maybe her loved ones have no idea that their mother, sister, daughter, wife, whatever, is dead. I can’t bear it.” She starts to cry again, very softly. “I want to get off this awful train, I want this to never have happened, I want this person to be still alive!”

Cynthia takes her hand. I don’t dare. I don’t want this lovely creature to think I’m coming on to her.

“We all feel the same,” says Cynthia soothingly. “What happened tonight was dreadful. Horrible. How can anyone not be upset?”

“That man… That man who kept saying he was going to be late,” she sobs, “and there were others too. I heard them.”

I too will be haunted by that thwack. I don’t tell her, because her awesome beauty is stronger than the hideous power of death. Tonight I am swamped by death. Never in my life has death hovered to such an extent around me, like the buzz of a persistent black moth. The cemetery my apartment gives onto. Pauline. The carcasses on the road. My mother’s red coat on the petit salon floor. Blanche. Angèle’s feminine hands handling corpses. That faceless, desperate woman waiting for the train under the drizzle.

And I am glad, so glad, relieved even, to be but a man, a mere man who in the face of death feels more like reaching out and groping this gorgeous stranger’s breasts than breaking into tears.

I never tire of Angèle’s exotic-looking bedroom, with its saffron gold ceiling and its warm, cinnamon red walls that make such an interesting contrast with the morgue she works in. The door, window frames, and baseboards are painted midnight blue. Orange and yellow silk embroidered saris hang over the windows, and small Moroccan filigree lanterns cast a flickering, candlelit glow on the bed, which is covered with fawn linen sheets. Tonight there are rose petals scattered over the pillows.

“What I like about you, Antoine Rey,” she says, fumbling with my belt (and I with hers), “is that underneath that romantic, well-behaved, charming exterior, those clean jeans and crisp white shirts, those lovat green Shetland sweaters, you are nothing but a sex fiend.”

“Aren’t most men?” I ask, struggling with her knee-high black leather motorcycle boots.

“Most men are sex fiends, but some of them even more than others.”

“There was this girl on the train…”

“Mmmh?” she says, unbuttoning my shirt.

Her boots at last clunk to the floor.

“Amazingly attractive.”

She grins, slipping out of her black jeans.

“You know I’m not the jealous kind.”

“Oh, yes, I know that. But thanks to her, I was able to get through those three excruciating hours waiting on the train while they were scraping the poor lady off the wheels.”