Catherine Leroux - The Party Wall

The daffodils blossomed early and she has cut nine of them, one for each year since Micha died. This is the first time she’s thought fit to pick such cheerful flowers. Before, she would bring lilies and tulips. In their black hearts, tulips understand the gravity of grief, and the lilies’ heady fragrance speaks the language of the dead. The daffodils, with their double petals, their frills and sparkling colours say something quite different: “I no longer mourn for you,” and Madeleine confirms this out loud as she straddles the small springtime brook that splits the property in two. The truth is she stopped mourning years ago. But she has never dared to declare it to him so clearly.

It was Micha who asked that his ashes be interred by the willow tree. He liked to go there for a smoke and some tranquility. Her husband was neither a gambler nor a philanderer; he never lied and hardly ever drank. But he bore a burden that had to be laid down from time to time the way one lays down arms or a dead weight. He would take this break at the foot of the willow, a cigarette between his lips, his eyes searching through the vaulted branches. Madeleine comes up to the willow and enters the precinct of the boughs as though setting foot in a temple.

The stone that marks the place where the ashes are buried is as smooth as the day her son lifted it out of the sea. One of the last things they did together, as a family. That was before he became no more than a sail on the horizon. Madeleine mechanically runs her hand over the stone and places the daffodils beside it. For five minutes she remains silent with her eyes closed before heading back. She finds nothing to say to Micha on such occasions, which is odd because she talks to him constantly. People who hear her no doubt believe that Madeleine keeps up this conversation with the unseen to ward off her solitude. They are unaware that, even when her husband was alive, she never stopped speaking to him like this. From the very beginning of their marriage she had gotten into the habit of telling him certain things when he was not around.

Back in the house, she opens the windows wide. The smell of gasoline comes out of nowhere. Sniffing the air absentmindedly, she consults a blue notebook containing sixty or so phone numbers. Madeleine dials the last one on the list, the number of a farm in Mississippi. But the voice that answers is not her son’s. “He left three days ago,” the person at the other end informs her in the lilting English that is scorned in the US but that Madeleine has always been fond of. She hangs up and puts a pencil stroke through the number. He’s moved again without warning. “Don’t worry, you’ll hear from him soon. It’s always like this, you know that,” she tells herself reassuringly.

The young man crosses the misty village. The scent of hay at this hour is stronger than anything, but it will soon be supplanted by the smell of hot asphalt. Out of the corner of his eye he catches sight of what he needs. What he’s been looking for without knowing it, the thing that could save his life. His emaciated shadow leaves the road, followed by his tail, a slim braid almost a metre in length slipping out from his close-cropped hair. He’s wearing a khaki jacket, worn out jeans, and a battered pair of sneakers; a bag like an empty stomach is slung over his shoulder. The outfit of someone who is just passing through. His face is gaunt and yellowish. His hands are empty but they could have been carrying a heavy rock. Or a bone.

He hunches his shoulders as he walks toward an old Chevrolet Monte Carlo. Squinting, he sees the car’s interior is overrun with tall grass. Just when he is about to give up, he realizes his mistake: the relatively clean windows have created the illusion that the vegetation growing all around has invaded the inside of the car. He runs his fingers over the pitted body, where the rust has traced the map of an elusive territory, possibly the Everglades or Baffin Island. Near the house, the owner of the car looks up from the huge mower blade he’s been polishing. One of those old men who stay strong as a draft horse to the very last, as anyone can tell just by looking at his hands laying the tools down on the porch like the fangs of an enormous dog letting go of its prey. He walks toward the visitor with a stooped yet steady gait. An honest man, the young man decides, true to his habit of sizing people up in a flash. He is rarely wrong.

The old hand settles on the chrome next to the young.

“How old is she?”

“Twenty-three. Runs like she was ten years less. I’ve pampered her her whole life. But since there’s only me here now, I’m keeping just the other one,” the old man says, pointing to a grey pickup farther up the driveway.

“How much are you asking?”

“Five hundred.”

The visitor opens the door and grimaces as he sits down in the driver’s seat. The old man hands him the key; the motor growls without putting up a fuss. The leather is torn here and there, the wing mirror is cracked and breaks up the sky on the passenger side. The young man pulls the hood release and steps out to inspect the motor. Then he shuts the massive lid, which drops down with a mighty thwack.

“Three hundred and I’ll take it off your hands right away.”

“Three fifty. The tank’s full. That’s worth almost fifty dollars.”

The young man rummages in the back pocket of his jeans, pulls out a wad of bills and counts them while trying to keep his fingers from trembling. Along with the money, he gives the old man the sun-bleached For Sale sign. The old man pins it under his arm, counts the money and offers his hand, which the young man pumps with a show of energy before seating himself again behind the steering wheel.

“Come around this way. I’ve got my lettuce over there.”

The young man gently eases himself out of the tall grass. The fragrance of spring rises together with the scent of leather and gasoline. The car responds smoothly, but the brake pedal’s action is a little slow, something he’ll have to remember. He touches the tip of his cap by way of goodbye, a salute he reserves exclusively for old people, for the witnesses to a disappearing world. Everything here seems to be on the point of dying. The village road is deserted, except for a cat, except for the fox keeping watch from a distance. The young man presses down on the accelerator and speeds eastward with the windows rolled down. The radio is dead. What a shame. What luck.

From the window of her office, Madeleine looks at the watchman doing his rounds. This is what she does when her eyes need a rest. There’s the sea, of course, but it isn’t at all restful. It’s a struggle, a call, a mystery whispered with every rising tide. The watchman, on the other hand, is calm and predictable. Afflicted by gout, he limps but has never taken a day off. He circles around the lighthouse like a grey satellite; his hobbling in no way diminishes his reassuring presence.

Like everyone else, the watchman has a name, but Madeleine always calls him monsieur le gardien . He is a kind, quiet man who believes in angels and extraterrestrials. About once a year he uses his break time to tell her about an apparition, a glow glimpsed from the shore, a movement in the autumn sky. Madeleine is not put out by these strange beliefs. On the contrary, knowing her watchman is on the alert for all possible forms of intrusion gives her a sense of tranquility.

As for the students whose job it is to welcome the crowds of tourists during peak season, they are all called Sarah or Sandra. Madeleine did her best to hire a Megan this year, but the girl declined after the interview. So she will have to fall back on the same Sandra as last year, the one who fabricated historical facts rather than rely on the documented information about the lighthouse. For the time being, Madeleine and the watchman are the only ones welcoming the “regular” off-season visitors — groups of school children and elderly people.