Pan Bouyoucas - Portrait of a Husband with the Ashes of His Wife

In the distance, a rooster crowed. And as if it were Alma expressing her gratitude with that song, it was with a lighter heart that he took the shovel to cover the hole that now contained the ashes of his beloved, while the orange ball of the new day was emerging on the horizon, accompanied by the ringing of his cell phone.

He was so far away in his thoughts that for a moment, he was stunned.

“Hello?” he said finally.

“It’s Franck. Sorry to wake you up but it’s important.”

“Did something happen?”

“Yes. Are you still on Leros?”

“Yes, why?”

“You mustn’t leave the ashes there.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to bug me about that again?!”

“If you insist on respecting your wife’s last wishes, listen to what I have to say.”

“I’m listening.”

“The letter Groslin had you read wasn’t written by Alma. I’ve just found out. I’m shooting nights and the actress is a friend of Ninon Conti. We were chatting and she told me that this afternoon, Ninon talked to her about Alma’s last wishes. I was right, eh? Groslin couldn’t help boasting about it to his wife.”

“Will you get to the point,” Doctor Maras murmured. “What did Groslin tell his wife?”

“You won’t breathe a word to Hélène? If she found out that you heard it from me she’d kill me. Promise?”

“I won’t say a word. What did Groslin tell his wife?”

“Mélissa had contacted him to say you were coming to Paris and to tell him she’d send him a letter that she was going to write, imitating her mother’s signature. That was why he made you wait another day. He wasn’t in Marseille; he was waiting for the letter from your daughter.”

There are people like that, embittered people who won’t admit that others are not like them, and who try to contaminate them with their bitterness at all cost. And now that he had spat out his venom, Franck concluded dejectedly though in fact he was delighted:

“I knew this news would come as a crushing blow but I can’t keep mum about a deceit like that, knowing how much you care about doing your very best at the task that Alma imposed on you.”

LONG AFTER FRANCKhad hung up he was still staring at his cell phone, lost, while the sun was giving back their colours to the sea and earth, and from the distance came the sound and its echo made by a woman beating a rug on her balcony.

When finally he emerged from his thoughts, he looked at his watch, realized that Mélissa hadn’t gone to bed yet — in Montreal it was still the night before — and called her.

“When does your plane get in?” she asked blithely.

He wasn’t the type to use cunning, especially not with his daughter with whom relations had always been candid. He asked her then straightforwardly if she had written the letter Groslin had given him.

“What? Who told you that? It can’t be Groslin, you wouldn’t have got to Leros.”

So as not to involve Franck and screw things up in his marriage he told his daughter that he’d re-read the letter and decided that it wasn’t Alma’s writing. Too nervous and forced, as if someone were trying to imitate her.

“Too nervous?” Mélissa exclaimed. “She’d just found out that she was dying!”

“If she was so agitated, why hadn’t she phoned Groslin instead of writing? Now that I think of it, why didn’t Groslin bring me the envelope too?”

“Ask him.”

“Mélissa, I can’t take any more of this nightmare.”

“What about me? I’ve just lost my mother, I don’t know what’s going on in my life, my father disappears just when I need him most, and all you can think of to tell me… Shit! When will we see the end of those goddamn ashes?”

She could not go on; choked by a sob, she hung up.

When Doctor Maras came back to the hotel with the urn and the shovel, he was in such a state that when the Dutch woman, who was having breakfast in the garden, noticed him, she rushed over, saying:

“What happened? They wouldn’t let you bury the ashes there either?”

He was so shaken he told her everything. But when he said that he was considering calling Serge Groslin, she burst out laughing, making her bosom heave.

“It seems as if you absolutely want to find out that she was happiest with another man!”

“Not at all. I just want to be sure…”

“But it’s obvious that your daughter wrote the letter. And it’s very much to her credit. You ought to be wondering instead why she wrote it. It certainly wasn’t to deceive you because her mother loved that French man, but to make you stop searching. And so that you would take care of her a little.”

“She just had to ask me…”

“And overwhelm you with her academic worries when you were mourning your wife?”

She wrapped an arm around him tenderly.

“Take the ashes home and try before it’s too late to save what can still be saved. You don’t know how lucky you are to have a daughter like her.”

DOCTOR MARAS WASback in Montreal twenty-six hours after departing Leros and one week after taking off for Paris. Mélissa hadn’t come to the airport to meet him. He had called from Athens to let her know when he would arrive but her cell was still dead so he went home by taxi.

Mélissa had taken good care of her mother’s garden. The lawn was mowed, the plants properly watered and growing green and vigorous. Even the bird-feeder was well-stocked with seeds. Mélissa wasn’t there however to welcome her father. Doctor Maras took some time to unpack, shower, and make coffee to recharge his batteries: They would have lots to tell each other when his daughter came home.

He would say nothing more about the letter, he’d be careful not to preach to Mélissa about her education. Like him, she had opted for medicine when very young. While he had never regretted his choice, his daughter’s enthusiasm had waned and she felt a need to make her way towards other horizons, devote her dreams to a profession not so “tedious.” As if he’d become a surgeon just to make piles of money. But he won’t stand up for himself, won’t even try to convince her that talent, passion, and a vocation are not the prerogative of artists only. His daughter was living the first real heartbreak of her life. It was his duty to listen to her, to say the words that would most likely bring her strength and comfort in her suffering, to let her sail on her own. Even if she was toying with the idea of studying theatre like her mother, he wouldn’t object, though he was well aware of the problems that she’d encounter along the way. It was he in fact who should change his attitude, look at his child through different eyes, with no illusions, and let her surprise him. Mélissa had both feet on the ground, she had curiosity and drive. She would just have to rediscover passion to start making progress again.

But there was no sign of Mélissa and two cups of coffee later he called Simon, her boyfriend, also a medical student.

“Is Mélissa at your place?”

“No.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“I haven’t spoken to her for a week.”

“But I asked you to look after her while I was away. What happened?”

Simon hesitated to reply, as he had hesitated the previous Saturday.

“Was it because of school?”

“Did she talk to you about it?”