Tatiana de Rosnay: A Secret Kept

“Yes, I saw that,” I say. “What of it?”

“What do you know about brain aneurysms, Antoine?”

“Well, I know an aneurysm is a like a small bubble or a tiny blister that forms on the surface of a brain artery. I know the aneurysm has a thin wall compared with the thicker wall of a normal brain artery. And the danger is when that weaker wall bursts.”

“That’s pretty clear. Good.”

She pours out some more coffee.

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Because I do think your mother may have died of a ruptured brain aneurysm.”

I look at her in dismayed silence. Finally I mumble, “You don’t think there was a fight with Blanche?”

“I’ll tell you what I think happened. But when I do, it will still be up to you, Antoine. You will have to believe what you think is true.”

“You think I’m exaggerating the story? That I’m imagining things? That I’m being paranoid?”

She puts an appeasing hand on my shoulder.

“Of course not. Keep your hair on. Your grandmother was a homophobic old bitch. Just listen to me, okay? February seventh, 1974. Dr. Dardel sees your mother at the avenue Kléber. She has a severe migraine. She is in bed, in the dark. He gives her the usual medicine, and it clears up a day later. So he thinks. So she thinks. So everybody thinks. But the bad news about a brain aneurysm is that it can swell, slowly, surely, and maybe your mother had it for a while in her brain, but nobody knew, and her occasional migraines came from there. When an aneurysm swells up, before it bursts, before it bleeds, it puts pressure on the brain or on places near the brain, like optical nerves, for instance, or face and neck muscles. ‘Migraine, nausea, vomiting, eye pain. Double vision.’ If Dr. Dardel had been a little younger and perhaps a little more dynamic, with those symptoms, he should have had your mother sent to the hospital right away. My two doctor friends confirmed this to me by e-mail. Maybe Dr. Dardel had a busy schedule that day, maybe his mind was on other urgent matters, maybe he wasn’t worried. But the aneurysm in your mother’s brain grew and swelled. And on February twelfth, 1974, a couple of days later, it ruptured.”

“Tell me how you think it happened.”

“It happened while she was with your grandmother, that very morning of February twelfth. The story is the same, your mother in her red coat, walking to the avenue Henri-Martin. But your mother probably doesn’t walk that fast, because she is not feeling well at all. She is still nauseous, and maybe she even vomited that morning. She feels dizzy, and her step is unsure. Perhaps, most probably, there is a stiffness in her neck. But she wants to confront your grandmother, and for her, this is just the tail end of her migraine. She is not worried about her health. She is much more worried about June. And facing your grandmother.”

I bury my face in my hands. The idea of my mother toiling up the avenue Henri-Martin in pain, her arms and legs weighing a ton, going to face Blanche like a brave little soldier heading out to battle is unbearable.

“Go on.”

“The story continues, similar to yours. Gaspard opens the door, maybe he notices how ashen she is, how short of breath she is, but she has only one goal, tackling your grandmother. Maybe your grandmother notices something too, that Clarisse’s face is alarmingly pale, that her speech is slurred, that she doesn’t seem to stand up straight, as if she were tipsy. The conversation is the same, Blanche flaunts the photos, the detective’s report, and Clarisse says she will stand her ground, that she will never stop seeing June, loving June. And then it happens. Suddenly. Like lightning. The worst pain ever. Like a shot aimed at the back of her head. Clarisse lurches, puts her hand to her temples, and she falls right there and then. Maybe she does knock her head on the table corner, but she’s already dead. There is nothing your grandmother can do. There is nothing the doctor can do. When he comes, he knows. He knows he made a mistake by not sending her to the hospital a few days before. He probably carried that guilt all his life.”

Now I understand why Laurence Dardel was bothered about me asking for that file. She knew a medical eye could easily pick out her father’s malpractice.

Angèle comes to sit on my knees, which is not easy, considering how long-legged she is.

“Does this help you? At all?” she asks softly.

I put my arms around her, nestling my chin in the crook of her neck.

“I don’t know. What hurts is not knowing what really happened.”

She strokes my hair.

“When I came back from school that day, the day my father shot himself, there was no note. He left nothing. It drove us mad. It drove my mother mad. Just before she died, a couple of years ago, she told me how dreadful it was, not knowing why he had killed himself even after all those years. There was no other woman. No financial problems. No health problems. Nothing.”

I hold her tight, thinking of her at thirteen discovering her dead father. No note. No explanation. I shudder.

“We never knew. We had to live with that. I learned to. It wasn’t easy, but I did.”

And it dawns on me that this is precisely what I am going to have to do.

“It’s time,” says Angèle vigorously. We are having our coffee after lunch, and the sun is so exceptionally warm that we are sitting outside on the patio, in front of the kitchen. The little garden is slowly coming to life. Spring is not far. I can smell it tickling my clogged-up Parisian nose. Grassy, humid, fresh, and pungent. Delicious.

I glance at her, surprised. “Time for what?”

“Time to go.”

“Where?”

She smiles. “You’ll see. Put something warm on. The wind can be tricky.”

“What are you up to?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

I used to be edgy, at first, riding behind her on the Harley-Davidson. I wasn’t used to motorcycles. I never knew which side to lean on during a turn, and as a city boy, I was convinced that bikes were too dangerous to be trusted. I had never driven one in my life. And I had never ridden behind anyone, let alone a woman. Angèle drove her Harley every day from Clisson to the hospital at Le Loroux, rain or shine, sleet or snow. She hated cars, being stuck in traffic jams. She bought her first Harley when she was twenty years old. This was Harley number four.

A pretty woman on a vintage Harley gets noticed, I soon discovered. The distinctive throaty exhaust roar of the Harley turns heads, but so does the black leather-clad, curvaceous creature sitting atop it. Riding behind her was much more pleasant than I had anticipated, as I am stuck to her in a quasi-sexual posture, my thighs engulfing her, my crotch glued to her stupendous ass, my stomach and chest fixed to her hips and back.

“Come on, Mister Parisian, we haven’t got all day!” she yells, throwing me my helmet as the Harley growls invitingly.

“Are we expected?”

“Well, yes, we are!” she says exultantly, checking her watch, “and if you don’t get a move on, we’ll be late.”

We weave down bumpy country roads lined with fields touched by the first magical promise of spring. The sun is positively warm, but the bite of the air stays nippy. We drive for what I guess must be an hour or so, but it doesn’t seem long at all. It is in fact heavenly to be tucked snugly behind Angèle, the Harley’s rumbling vibrations strong in my loins, the sun caressing my back.

It is not till I see the signposts for the Gois that I understand where we are. I had never realized how close Clisson was to Noirmoutier. The scenery strikes me as completely different in the wintertime, browner tones, no green. The sand on the shore appears darker too, earthier, but no less beautiful. The first rescue poles seem to greet me, and the gulls circle overhead with piercing cries as if they remember me. The beach stretches far away, dark brown, touched with gray. The dark blue sea sparkles under the sun, and I can see the black, uneven lines of conches, shells, seaweed, rubble, cork, and pieces of wood.