I feel certain I am going mad again.
VIRGINIA WOOLF, March 28, 1941
Perhaps the answer lies in the title of my autobiographical novel, The Night Will Be Calm.
ROMAIN GARY, December 2, 1980
WHEN SHE AWOKE, it was still early. She had a quick shower, noiselessly; Adriana was still asleep, with the cat nestled against her. She decided to buy croissants, Andy’s favorite. It would take only ten minutes or so. As she got dressed, she thought back to the other nocturnal conversation she’d had with her granddaughter, just after the clicking noise incident.
“Mums, why are you so angry with François?”
Clarissa had known this was going to come up at one point. Andy was too astute not to guess at what was going on. Clarissa’d had to think carefully about what she was going to say. She realized she had not spoken to anyone about François, about what François had done. She wasn’t ready yet, and there were things a fourteen-year-old could not understand. But she felt she had to give some element of truth to her granddaughter. She couldn’t stay wrapped up in silence forever.
She had said, “He disappointed me.”
“Can you explain why?”
Clarissa had stroked Andy’s hair in the dark. Where could she begin? When had it started? Disappointment wasn’t the right word. It sounded too meek, too nice. What she felt was much more powerful and deep-rooted.
“He hurt me badly.”
Andy had reached up to caress her grandmother’s cheek.
“I hate him for that, Mums. I really hate him. For whatever he did. And I’m not going to ask what it is. I don’t think you’ll tell me anyway.”
“No, I won’t. I can’t.”
“Do you think you’ll ever patch it up?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
She thought of how she had felt when she stepped into the small apartment. She could still smell the perfume. It made her want to retch.
“You’re that angry.”
“Yes.”
“But you’ve been together for so long!”
“I know. But at this point in my life, I want to move on without him.”
“I understand, Mums. I won’t mention him again. I’m here if you ever need to talk. I know you think I’m too much of a kid to understand all the adult stuff. But I know how to listen. You taught me how to do that.” Her granddaughter’s love safeguarded her, toning down her unhappiness. She had managed to drop off, listening to Andy’s soft breathing at her side. This morning, she felt less vulnerable.
Clarissa never took the elevator. She enjoyed tearing down the stairs as fast as she could. It took longer climbing the eight flights back up, but it was part of a grueling routine she stuck to. She was fond of stating that all those steps were her way of staying fit. As she rushed past the fourth floor, a door opened, and she found herself facing a brunette in her forties who was wearing sports gear and waving at her. She slowed down, saying hello in return. Her new neighbor’s name was Adelka. She was a painter. This was the first time Clarissa had spoken to another artist from the residence. She had occasionally crossed paths with some of them, but it hadn’t gone further than an exchange of nods and smiles.
Adelka went down the stairs with her. She was off to run alongside the Seine. Clarissa had a closer look, taking in her brown eyes, thick black hair, tanned skin. This young woman had a charming air about her. Her voice was musical, her smile attractive.
“What do you think of the residence?” she asked her neighbor suddenly.
They were outside at present. Adelka said she had never lived in a place like this. It was impressive. She had been overjoyed to hear her application had been accepted. Many artists had been turned down.
“And what about you? Are you enjoying it, as well?”
Clarissa didn’t hesitate long.
“I’m not sure, to tell the truth.”
They were walking toward the river, on the old boundaries of the Champ-de-Mars. Contemporary structures, white and resplendent, now took up the space. The artificial trees were pleasantly effective. A couple of electric cars zoomed silently by. It was a calm, enjoyable spot.
“What do you mean?” Adelka asked. “I know you’re up on the top floor. It must be quite something.”
“Yes, the view is stunning. It’s another matter. I feel like someone is watching me all the time.”
The coffee-colored eyes narrowed in on her.
“I get it. But to me, that level of surveillance makes me feel safe. I wasn’t safe before. I had a violent husband. He gave me a tough time. He smashed up my art material, when it wasn’t my face. I know he’ll never be able to set foot in the residence. The bastard is blacklisted!”
She burst out laughing. Clarissa couldn’t help joining in.
“I have a persona non grata husband, as well.”
“Join the club! And what did yours do to get banished from the residence and from your life?”
“He wasn’t the brutal type, like your ex.… But…”
“You don’t have to tell me, you know.”
It felt wonderful to talk at last, to open up the dams. This woman knew nothing about her, about her life. Clarissa found it easier to unburden herself to this smiling stranger who was her daughter’s age than with her long-standing friends, the ones she hadn’t wished to see since the breakup.
“I found out in the most shocking way that he was cheating on me.”
Adelka made a face.
“Ouch. Not fun. And what did you do?”
“I left him. On the spot.”
“And you ended up here, right?”
“That’s right.”
“You’ve been married for a long time?”
Adelka walked swiftly; she had the muscular legs of a sportswoman. Clarissa adjusted her stride, attempting to follow her without panting too much.
“Long enough for me to understand I didn’t want to stick around for a single minute more.”
“You look like a woman who knows what she wants.”
“So do you.”
They both grinned.
Clarissa asked her about her art, what themes she was involved in. Adelka replied she was interested in bodies. Not young and lovely ones, but hidden ones, different ones, bodies that had nothing to do with beauty criteria.
“And what about you? You’re a writer, I believe?”
“That’s right. I’m taking notes right now. I’m exploring language. Written language and how it comes to authors. How we choose our words. How we pick some words and not others…”
“How ambitious! I feel bad that I haven’t read your books. I’ll make up for it.”
“Not a problem at all. And I’m not familiar with your art.”
“How about coming down for a drink one of these days?”
“With pleasure.”
Clarissa said good-bye, watching Adelka run at a vigorous pace toward the Seine. She went to the bread shop to get Andy’s croissants. A couple of customers there were enthusiastically discussing last night’s hologram display. She hurried home, then patiently waited in the lobby for her retina to be scanned. The gate slid open with a chime, and a mechanical voice stated, “Welcome back to the residence, Clarissa Katsef.”
In the hall, she crossed paths with Ben, the residence’s handyman, who made sure each installation ran smoothly. He had already dropped by her place to check on her network power. He was a young man in his thirties with a mop of curly red hair. Engrossed in his device, he asked her if everything was functioning properly at home. She said yes, thanked him, and embarked upon climbing the stairs. He seemed surprised she wasn’t using the lift. Once she got to her floor, she realized it was getting more and more difficult to take each step. She felt drained and breathless, and had to wait a few minutes to catch her breath. When she felt better, she pressed her index finger to the glass plate on the door. It swung open with a click.
“Hey, Mums! You were away for ages!”
“I went to get you croissants, and I met my charming fourth-floor neighbor.”
Andy appeared to be flustered.
“I need to talk to you!”’
Clarissa put the croissants in the oven.
“Mrs. Dalloway, heat the oven to one hundred and fifty degrees, please.”
“Right away, Clarissa.”
“Something happened!”
Startled, Clarissa turned to look at Andy, who was hopping up and down.
“What’s up, missy?”
Andy lowered her voice.
“Mrs. Dalloway talked to me!”
“What do you mean, she talked to you?”
“I was playing with the cat, and I heard her voice!”
Clarissa froze.
“Her voice? And she said what?”
“She asked me how I was, something like that.”
“You’re joking.”
“No, I’m not, Mums, and don’t make that face. I nearly had a fit when I heard her. I was kind of scared. So I just stood there and I shut up and waited for you. But she went on chatting to me.”
Clarissa remained silent, thinking. What did this mean? She didn’t like it. There was something amiss. She felt she was being double-crossed.
Then she said in a clear, forbidding voice, “Mrs. Dalloway, did you talk to Adriana while I was out?”
A slight pause.
“Hello, Clarissa! I obey only you. Remember? I was programmed to do just that.”
Andy opened wide eyes and gaped.
“Are you sure, Mrs. Dalloway?”
“Perfectly sure, Clarissa.”
“Perhaps you don’t recall, Mrs. Dalloway?”
“Everything I say to you is recorded, Clarissa.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Dalloway.”
“You’re welcome, Clarissa. Happy to help.”
“What the…” began Andy.
Clarissa silenced her with an uplifted finger. Her mind was racing. Did this mean she had to be careful now? Should she watch out? No talking? “They” would hear her, right? She picked up her phone, about to send a text message to Adriana. She stopped. Not a good idea. Wouldn’t “they” be able to read her texts, as well? Probably.
Clarissa wondered if she wasn’t overdoing things. Since François, she’d been spotting evil everywhere. Andy was watching her, puzzled. Perhaps she thought her grandmother had gone crazy. Clarissa grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. She scribbled a few sentences, wrote them very small, in case “they” could zoom in to see what she had written.
“What are you doing?” whispered Andy.
Clarissa handed her the paper wordlessly.
Don’t talk. Don’t use your phone. Write down exactly what Mrs. D. said and where you were standing when it happened.
Andy understood instantly. She nodded in silence, took the paper, wrote something carefully, and gave it back.
I was in the living room. She said several things: “Hello, Adriana, did you sleep well?” I said, “Are you talking to me?” and she said, laughing, “Is there another Andy here? I don’t think so.” Then she said, “Do you like Mums’s new home?” and “You enjoyed last night’s show, didn’t you?” And then because I was silent, she said, “You’re not saying anything, Andy. Have you lost your tongue?”
Clarissa read it without a word. She tore up the paper and tossed the shreds into the bin. She said blithely, “How about getting dressed, Andy? We could go for a walk and take the croissants with us.”
Once they were out of the residence, Andy shot questions at her.
“Why are you looking so worried, Mums? Why is this Mrs. Dalloway thing getting to you?”
Clarissa didn’t want to alarm her granddaughter. She briefly explained that during the setup process, she had been told several times that her virtual assistant would respond only to her voice. She suspected they were telling fibs and felt wary. There was something amiss. And being watched persistently was becoming uncomfortable.
“Can’t you turn the Dalloway whatsit off? Put it on pause?” asked Andy.
“I don’t think so. That won’t stop the cameras from filming.”
“What if you stuck something onto the cameras?”
“Good point. I hadn’t thought of doing that.”
They had come to the beginning of the rue de Sèvres.
“I forgot to tell you one last thing, Mums.”
“Fire away, missy.”
“Mrs. Dalloway spoke to me in English at first, and then in French. Isn’t that weird?”
“No, not really; she was programmed to speak to me in those two languages.”
Andy swiveled around to look at her grandmother.
“You know what bugged me? It was like she knew me. She knew who I was, knew I was bilingual, knew everything about me.”
Later, after Jordan had come to pick up her daughter, Clarissa wandered around the flat with a roll of masking tape. She needed to count the number of surveillance cameras, small black globes in each room. There were ten of them. The only place without them was the small room with the toilet. She decided to get going on the one situated near her bed. She took off her shoes, clambered up on a chair, and stuck a piece of tape onto the black sphere. A sense of freedom surged though her. She never would have thought that being filmed constantly could bother her to such an extent. Why hadn’t she reacted when she signed the lease? Perhaps it was time to check.
Installed in the living room, Chablis at her feet, she used her device to pore over the document she’d received when she moved in, as well as the rules of procedure. Artists are required not to cause any noise: no music or parties after 23 hours. Inebriety will be reprimanded and will lead to discharge after three notices. Clarissa could not help but smile. Surely that was a bit over the top! She hadn’t noticed when she had seen the document for the first time that the names of the other artists were all listed. There were two apartments per floor, apart from the eighth, hers, where she was alone. On the list of names, she made out two sculptors, four painters, five musicians, one poetess, and two writers (herself included). C.A.S.A. offered a messaging service, allowing members of the residence to communicate with one another through a specific channel. She decided to test it.
“Mrs. Dalloway, send an internal message to Adelka, fourth floor, left.”
“Of course, Clarissa, go ahead.”
“Dear Adelka, I was very happy to meet you this morning. I hope to see you again soon. Your eighth-floor neighbor, Clarissa Katsef.”
“I sent it, Clarissa.”
“I’m not sure where this messaging service is shown, Mrs. Dalloway.”
“You can read your messages on the communication panel situated in the entrance. However, I can read them to you, as well.”
“Fine. Please do that when they arrive.”
“I’ve taken note of that, Clarissa.”
Clarissa dived back into the contract. It was clearly stipulated that each flat was furnished with a set of cameras “to meet security requirements.” She had signed that document. Counterpedaling would undoubtedly prove to be problematic. While she was giving it a thought, Mrs. Dalloway spoke up.
“Clarissa, you’ve received an answer from your fourth-floor neighbor, Adelka Miki. Should I read it to you?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Here’s the message. ‘Hello, Clarissa! I was very pleased to meet you, as well. I’ve just received Topography of Intimacy, which I will now start. You see I’ve wasted no time! What about a drink, end of day, whenever? See you soon. A.’ Do you wish to answer?”
“Just say ‘Thanks,’ and ‘See you soon.’”
“It’s done.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Dalloway.”
“You’re welcome, Clarissa.”
“By the way, please remind me to answer that letter from the bank. For my meeting.”
“But you already did answer the bank, Clarissa. Your meeting is next week.”
“Really?”
“Do you wish to see a copy of the message you sent? And check your schedule?”
Clarissa had no memory of answering the bank’s letter, nor of adding the event to her schedule.
All of a sudden, an insane craving grabbed at her: the urge to abuse Mrs. Dalloway, shooting her mouth off about everything that was on her chest, all that she could no longer put up with. She yearned to scream at the top of her voice, to stamp her feet, to spill her guts. Mrs. Dalloway didn’t exist. She wasn’t a human being. How would she react? Whatever could Mrs. Dalloway say in order to calm her down, to reason with her? Perhaps she’d stay quiet, after a while. Perhaps she hadn’t been encoded to face a string of insults. Clarissa should give it a go, just to see. While she hesitated, the doorbell rang. Mrs. Dalloway announced, “Clarissa, it’s Ben. May he enter?”
“Sure, Mrs. Dalloway.”
The door opened, revealing the tall, gangly figure wearing white overalls. Ben asked her if an alarm had gone off in her place. She said she’d heard nothing.
“Okay if I check something out?”
“Go ahead.”
She followed him into the bedroom. He went straight to the camera covered by the tape and stood in front of it. Clarissa felt as if she’d been caught red-handed. Should she say her granddaughter had done it? Not a clever idea, considering she had been filmed doing the deed herself. Ben was typing something into his device. He remained silent; so did Clarissa. After a while, he extended a never-ending arm and picked the tape off. He turned toward her.
“You’re not supposed to stick anything on these.” He sighed. “Otherwise, the alarms go off.”
She decided to speak up freely. She admitted to him she could no longer bear being monitored, especially in her bedroom. She hadn’t taken all this in when she’d signed the contract, and never guessed it would hassle her this way. Ben listened, nodding his head. He seemed in another world. He finally said, “You’ll get used to it. It’s always like that, in the beginning.”
“But who is watching? You?”
“Nope. I just fix stuff that breaks down.”
“So, who is?”
“It’s for security. No worries.”
He asked her if the network was working properly. She said yes. He explained that each flat had its own. Hers was CLARISSA8 and the password was the one they’d chosen together. If ever she needed to change it, she’d have to do it with him.
As he walked toward the entrance, she held him back with a question.
“About my virtual assistant, please?”
“Go ahead,” said Ben, his gaze locked on his screen.
She would have liked him to look at her, to pay attention. Arms crossed, she decided to wait until he raised his eyes, surprised by her silence.
“That’s better,” she said with a sarcastic smile. “I’d like to talk to you about Mrs. Dalloway.”
“I’m listening,” he said edgily.
“During the setup process, I was told she would react only to my voice.”
“That’s the case.”
“This morning, Mrs. Dalloway spoke to my granddaughter directly. Is that usual procedure, in your opinion?”
“If your granddaughter, or any other person speaks to your assistant, it won’t obey that individual. But the assistant may initiate a conversation with someone who happens to be in your home.”
“I would rather that not be the case. Mrs. Dalloway doesn’t need to intervene with anyone apart from me.”
Ben shrugged.
“That can’t be modified. All virtual assistants follow C.A.S.A. protocol. Dr. Dewinter can explain that better than me. I have to go, Mrs. Katsef. Anything else?”
Ben went back to his device. She felt like shaking him.
“No. Thanks.”
She watched him go with his nonchalant tread. The door closed behind him. She longed to shout “You little asshole!” but the black globes on the ceiling held her back. Could she reasonably hold out in this strange flat where she felt eyes on her at all times? She locked herself up in the small toilet room to calm herself down. Nobody could see her there.
Later on, to get away from the monitoring, she tried shifting the furniture differently in her office. She shoved the desk behind the sofa, so that she could not be seen when she sat to work. While she jostled the table, she hurt her hip. She caught sight of herself in the entrance mirror: wheezing and red in the face. A fit of giggles took over. Seriously, she looked like a lunatic! A madwoman!
Installed at her desk, she felt safe for the first time, a marvelous sensation that made her spirits soar. “They” couldn’t see her here, hidden by the back of the sofa. Hands flat out on the table, she breathed in and out calmly, like Elise had taught her all those years ago. This was where she was going to write. This was where she was going to create. This past month had been taxing. Writing would pull her through, the way it always had.
She hadn’t looked at her hands for a long time. Stunned, she noticed she was still wearing her wedding ring, the thin golden circle François had slipped on her finger at the town hall in the fifth arrondissement. His name and the date of their marriage were engraved inside it. Despite the passage of time, her hands had remained long and slim, and she slid the ring off easily.
She thought about everything that wedding band had witnessed, seasons, voyages, encounters, lectures, readers, hours of work; simple everyday actions, and the gestures of love: François’s body, the number of times her hands had landed on his skin, how it had become familiar to her, like his beauty spots, his carefully groomed beard, his robust neck. The wedding band that had observed every detail of the secret apartment on rue Dancourt.
She found an envelope, glided the ring inside, and placed it in the back of a drawer. A thin white circle remained on her finger, vestige of the jewel she’d worn for so many years, but a sense of liberty blossomed up within her, powering her with an energy she hadn’t felt for weeks, to such an extent that she grabbed her notebook, the one she hadn’t opened since she got here, a pen, and began to write.
Mia White was waiting for her very nicely, facing number 108, rue du Bac, absorbed not by her mobile, but by a book, an actual book made of paper. She looked like she did in her photos: a lovely young girl with long chestnut hair, wearing jeans, a jacket, and sneakers. Before she went up to her, Clarissa observed her; Mia White seemed captivated by what she was reading, holding her book to her face as if it were a treasure she could not possibly relinquish. The pavement was somewhat narrow in front of Romain Gary’s last home, and the young girl had to regularly step back in order to let pedestrians by, but even when she did that, she never took her eyes off the page. What was she reading with such interest? Clarissa drew nearer. It was a vintage edition of Promise at Dawn, a paperback that had been read over and over again, lent, lost, found, with warped pages and a torn and tattered cover, everything Clarissa loved: a well-thumbed book.
“Oh! It’s you!”
So Mia White had spotted her. What a smile!
“You’re bang on time,” said Clarissa in French.
“I’m the punctual type,” said Mia White, speaking in French, as well.
They turned around to face the large pale building behind them.
“So it was here,” said Mia White.
“Yes, here. But no need to get emotional looking up at those second-floor windows. Romain Gary’s place gave on to an inner courtyard.”
They crossed the street to get a better view.
“I’d like to know…” Mia White paused in mid-sentence, shyly.
“What?”
“That scene, in Topography of Intimacy, about Gary’s apartment. Did it really happen that way? The way you wrote it?”
“More or less.”
“I loved your book, but I especially loved that bit.”
Clarissa searched the young girl’s face. Mia White seemed perfectly sincere. Her magnificent eyes, riveted to Clarissa’s own, brimmed over with discernible esteem. It had been a while since anyone had looked at Clarissa that way. It felt good.
“Would you mind telling me again how it happened? It would be such an honor.”
Mia White spoke in English this time. Not that it made any difference to Clarissa. She knew all too well how true bilinguals were incapable of sticking to one language; they switched from one to the other with astounding changeability, making interlocutors who didn’t have the possibility to express themselves seamlessly in two languages feel giddy. Mia White had no accent in either French or English, like herself.
Clarissa pursued in English, pointing to the building. She told Mia she had first come to 108, rue du Bac several years after Gary died. She had just moved to Paris, after spending her childhood, her adolescence, and her university years in England. She worked as a property surveyor for a notary office and a real estate agency. She lived on rue d’Alésia, with the young man who would soon become her first husband. She had no idea the writer Romain Gary had committed suicide here on December 2, 1980. Her colleagues and she were to assess an apartment on the third floor. While they worked, the writer became the topic of their conversation.
Clarissa knew nothing about Gary. One of her associates was familiar with his life story. Clarissa was captivated by the flamboyance of his existence: Born Roman Kacew in Lithuania, the only child of an impassioned and whimsical mother, he became, in turn, an aviator, war hero, writer, diplomat, and filmmaker. He moved into number 108 in 1963, with his wife, the American actress Jean Seberg. He had lived there for nearly two decades. As Clarissa listened, her inquisitiveness had grown. In those days, the late eighties, with no Internet and no Google, she reminded Mia White, smiling, books were still purchased in bookstores. That evening, she had gone to buy Promise at Dawn. The title had enticed her. Looking at the back cover, she discovered a man with thoughtful features, startlingly clear eyes, a well-drawn mouth. At that point, books didn’t have such a large part in her life. She wasn’t yet the reader she would later become; she read seldom, and slowly.
It had taken her a while to immerse herself in Romain Gary’s realm. She bought other books, The Roots of Heaven, White Dog, and The Life Before Us, which he had published under another name: Émile Ajar. Little by little, Romain Gary’s prose had acted upon her like a sort of drug. She had been taken aback by his seductive fusion of delicacy and potency. His writing, both poetic and brutal, appealed to her. She had been expecting the ascetic and irreproachable works of a grand intellectual; instead, she stepped into the teeming world of a creative virtuoso who had never ceased to reinvent himself. Who was Romain Gary? All his life, he excelled in the art of covering his tracks. A young author, Dominique Bona, had just published the first biography concerning him. Clarissa had devoured it.
Clarissa crossed the street again, with Mia White following her, over to the iron fence enclosing number 108. She placed her palm on the handle. She said in French, “I needed to come back here regularly, especially since I’d read his books. I was following in his footsteps, setting my hand where he’d set his over and over again, like an intimate pilgrimage.”
“I understand,” said the young woman solemnly.
“You don’t find it morbid?”
“No. Not at all. It’s like paying tribute to him.”
There was curiosity mingled with admiration in Mia White’s scrutiny. Clarissa took up with her story. One morning, as she was passing by, some time after the measuring of the third-floor flat, she noticed the gate of number 108 was held open by a wedge. She had made the most of it, slipping inside. She hurried to the main stairway, on the right. As she went up the steps, she discovered movers emptying Romain Gary’s old apartment on the second floor. The door was half-closed. She had hesitated, fleetingly, on the landing. Since 1980 and Gary’s death, she realized, several occupants had probably lived here one after the other. She was not going to walk into a home that still bore his imprint, as his furniture, paintings, and books were no longer here. But it was the layout of the flat that drew her in, how this man, whom she found mesmerizing, had moved within these very walls, how he had occupied the premises. She put one foot into the entrance. She remembered the third-floor flat measured with her colleagues was L-shaped, 372 square meters, with eight rooms giving on to a tree-lined private lane.
Romain Gary’s sixty-six-year-old body had been carried from here, over this threshold, and down the stairs behind her. She moved forward, cautiously at first, then with a firmer gait. If someone asked her what the hell she was doing, she’d say she had made a mistake and ended up on the wrong floor. But no one came. She had remained alone in a string of vast rooms leading one into the next. She noticed the parquet floors had here and there been replaced by charcoal slate tiles, that fireplaces had been removed. A large bedroom overlooked the courtyard and its chestnut trees. She had a gut feeling it had happened here. The bed must have been placed against the wall on the left, between two electrical sockets. A bed made of copper. She’d read that in the biography. He’d lain down for the last time where she was standing now. He had placed his last handwritten letter at the foot of the bed. A note that began with “D-Day. No connection with Jean Seberg.” A year before, in 1979, the actress, with whom he no longer lived, had been found dead in her car near avenue Victor-Hugo in Paris, the police ruling her demise a probable suicide. After that, Romain Gary had given up writing for good.
Clarissa’s expert gaze, honed by her professional training, scanned the room. The radiator was vintage; so was the door leading into the adjacent bathroom. She passed into it. There had been no recent refurbishments here. She’d read that Gary used to dictate his books to his secretary (and lover) while he took his bath, cigar clamped between his teeth. Romain Gary had looked at himself daily in this very mirror. In this private place, he had washed and groomed himself, had tended to his body and its needs. These walls had witnessed his nakedness.
It felt like he was beside her now, buttoning up one of his custom-made mauve satin shirts, an ornate cabochon ring on his left hand, and he seemed close enough for her to make out the blue intensity of his eyes, his bittersweet smile, and the beard he carefully blackened to wipe out traces of gray. Did she perceive the acrid waft of a Montecristo? Almost. She stood at the heart of his private life, where he had slept, dreamed, and loved; where he had decided to end it all. The perimeter of his death was revealed to her.
Clarissa went on, while Mia White listened attentively. Tuesday, December 2, 1980, had been a rainy day. After lunching with his editor in the neighborhood, and relishing a last cigar, Romain Gary had walked home along the rue de Babylone. He was by himself. He had closed the shutters and the curtains. He had planned it all. He had not faltered. He had done what he had intended to do. Killing himself, in his room. He had taken the Smith & Wesson from its case, spread a red towel over his pillow, and had lain down, the barrel lodged between his lips. No one had heard the gunshot.
Clarissa remained quiet for a while.
“When I read that part in your book, I felt like I was there with you,” whispered Mia White.
Clarissa continued. She had looked at the ceiling for a long moment, which must have been the last thing Gary’s eyes had glimpsed. She had wondered, since that rainy afternoon, what Gary had left behind. Those who slept there, in that room, within those walls, had they not been marked, in one way or another, by his bloodstained wake? Without meaning to, Clarissa had picked up the writer’s fragility, connecting to his torment, loneliness, and despair; the emotions had engulfed her as soon as she had walked into his old apartment, leaving their stain on her.
“Did Gary transmit a form of gloom to you?” asked Mia White.
“He had already done that through his books. There’s this beautifully melancholic quote in The Life Before Us: ‘It’s always in the eyes that people are the saddest.’ I experienced a special connection with him that day on rue du Bac.”
“Did you already know you were going to write about that moment?”
“No,” said Clarissa impulsively. “Writing came much later to me, via another angle, via Virginia Woolf and what I felt when I visited her home. But the fascination with this place, for this room, has never left me. Telling you this story all these years later revives it all.”
The two women were now walking up the rue du Bac toward the Seine. Mia White’s long chestnut hair rippled in the light breeze.
“Are you working on a new book?” she asked.
“More or less. I haven’t gotten very far because of my move.”
“Which area did you move to?”
Her beguiling smile. Her wide blue eyes.
The small inner voice murmured: Never get specific with a reader, remember, nothing about where you live. Cloud the issue. It’s okay to lie. Don’t give any indications, addresses, street names.
“I’m in the new district, at the top of avenue Gustave-Eiffel, near the Tower Memorial.”
Too late.
“Oh, I never would have thought you’d choose to live there! I thought you didn’t like modern buildings.”
“On the contrary, it’s a nice change, being somewhere brand-new. No one’s lived there before me.”
“You like it, then?”
Don’t tell her about Mrs. Dalloway, about the cameras, about the spooked cat. Shut up.
“Very much so.”
Mia White was shorter than Clarissa. She moved gracefully. Pedestrians often turned around to stare at her, Clarissa noticed. They strolled along the river, toward Île de la Cité. Clarissa asked her if she’d made some new friends. The young girl said she’d met a couple of nice people. She missed her boyfriend. He lived in England. They saw each other every other weekend.
The conversation became slightly idle. Time was ticking by. Clarissa knew one should never spend too much time with a reader. At times, they became inquisitive, asked too many questions, turned out to be clingy. This wasn’t the case with Mia White. She seemed to be enjoying Clarissa’s company, and nothing more. Clarissa asked her about her own writing. The young girl blushed.
“How sweet of you to remember that! Yes, I’m writing. But I’d never dare show you anything.”
“What language do you write in?”
“For the moment, in English. It’s not easy making a choice, when you’re bilingual. And yourself?”
“Ah, well, I’ve decided to no longer make that choice, you see.”
Mia White’s eyes grew even larger.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve decided to write my new novel in two languages at the same time.”
The inner voice again. What the hell are you doing? Why blab about your writing projects with a stranger?
“How are you doing this? It sounds amazing!” exclaimed Mia White.
They had turned back and were now standing in front of the rue du Bac Métro station. Clarissa could have added nothing more, said good-bye, and departed. She didn’t feel like being alone, returning to her silent flat, her fearful cat. This smiling young girl did her good.
“What about a break at that café?” she suggested. Mia White agreed, with pleasure. She ordered a Coke, and Clarissa, some tea.
“What do you speak with your family?” asked Mia White. “Me, it’s English with my dad, French with my mum, a mix of both with my sister.”
“My first husband is an American, so I spoke to him in English. And to make sure our daughter became bilingual, I always addressed myself to her in French. My second husband is French, but I sometimes speak to him in English, Lord knows why!”
They laughed in unison and Clarissa ignored the annoying inner voice: What the hell are you doing, pouring your life out? Rambling on about your husbands, how ridiculous! She was letting go at last. She hadn’t chatted with a friend for such a long time.
“I get the oddest questions,” said Mia White, and Clarissa noticed for the first time what a pleasant voice she had. “I’m asked what language I dream in. That stumps me. I think about it, and I just don’t know. Isn’t that strange? What about you?”
Clarissa couldn’t bring herself to tell Mia White about her recent dreams. Ever since she had started living in the residence, they seemed more and more vivid. In the past, she’d had difficulty remembering them. Now she didn’t have to write the dreams down. Now, when she awoke, they lingered, shadowing her all day long. She kept on hearing the voice as well, the reassuring murmur that whispered to her while she slept. She couldn’t recall what it was saying. All she knew was that it meant well. And, come to think of it, she had no idea which language it was using.
“I wish I knew, but I’m like you, I don’t have a clue,” she said, not wishing to discuss her dreams any further. She wondered if Mia White perceived her hesitancy. “Do dreams have a language, in your opinion?”
“Well, they must. But perhaps, to people like us, our unconscious doesn’t decipher language. I’m also asked what I swear in. I had never really noticed that before. But when I paid attention, I realized it was French. God knows why! And you? Do you prefer cursing in French, as well?”
Clarissa smiled again, but with a touch of bitterness this time. She thought of the expletives that had rushed to her lips while she had been packing her bags, François standing next to her, begging and pleading for her to stay. She hadn’t pronounced a single one of them; she had remained wordless, but they stormed around inside her head, loud, blunt, and obscene. English? French? Probably French, because that was François’s mother tongue.
She said nothing of all this to Mia White, who seemed to take in every one of her movements and reactions with her intense, unwavering gaze. To escape it, Clarissa looked down at the sunbeam caressing their hands. Mia White’s were tiny and golden.
“A mix-up, isn’t it?” Mia White said lightly. “And what about your book, then? I’m so curious to know more.”
The young woman was waiting for her to speak. For a few seconds, Clarissa stayed quiet, watching the shaft of light playing with her spoon. Then she sprang forth. She said she had never translated her own writing. She had written some books directly in French, others in English. There was invariably a pang of regret from having to choose one over the other. She then worked with translators, a task she often found difficult. Recently, she’d decided to experiment: writing simultaneously in both languages, two documents opened up on her computer, one in English, one in French. It was bewildering at the start, and then all of a sudden, there had been a revelation, acting upon her like a boost, heightening her energy. She had shifted from a quiet country path to a motorway. She wrote her text, no longer paying attention to the language she was writing in. She wrote. That was it. Language no longer mattered. Or rather, both languages now had their significance, because each of them bestowed on her the sentences or words she was seeking, which she then had to transpose with care, perfecting them with the patient and meticulous fine-tuning used on an antiquated receiver, so that the frequency she obtained was the same in English and in French. She perceived herself as a voracious foraging bee harvesting pollen for two separate hives, another pleasing image.
“How amazing!” exclaimed Mia White, dazzled.
Heartened, Clarissa went on. The manuscript was coming along like a two-headed monster, thriving homogenously. She didn’t favor one language over the other, and wanted above all for the text to end up identical in both. At times, as she labored over a description, she switched directly to the other language, which instantly gave her a new boost. It was like playing out Jekyll and Hyde in an unprecedented scientific experimentation. Who was Hyde? Who was Dr. Jekyll? English or French? It didn’t matter. She wasn’t certain she’d go on writing in this way. All she knew was that she certainly didn’t regret giving it a go.
“I’m sure you’re aware Samuel Beckett wrote in English and French, as well,” said Mia White. “And so did Julien Green.”
“Yes, that’s right. And did you know Romain Gary also translated himself?”
Mia White looked surprised. No, she had no idea. Clarissa explained that Gary wrote White Dog in English first, like Lady L, and other novels, and then adapted them to French, which was unexpected, considering he was brought up learning Polish and Russian, and that neither French nor English had been his mother tongue.
“His real name was Kacew?” asked Mia White.
“Yes.”
“Pronounced like your pen name?”
“That’s right.”
“Clarissa for Virginia Woolf and Katsef for Romain Gary.”
“Yes. I started writing because of those two writers.”
“Yes, I read that. I hope you’ll tell me about Woolf next time we meet.”
“With pleasure.”
Oh, come on, said the inner voice. Because you’re going to see her again? Seriously? You’re going to go on prattling? You don’t know anything about her. You have no idea who she is. You think she’s sweet and charming, but perhaps she’s none of that. Wake up.
“This is my mobile number,” said Mia White, with her enchanting smile. “I’ll let you get back to me.”
Later, on the phone, Clarissa told her daughter she had made two new friends. A young reader, barely older than Andy, and her fourth-floor neighbor, with whom she was going to have a drink at the end of the week. Jordan congratulated her, and told her about the brooch belonging to Aunt Serena, sent by Mimsy and Pimsy, which had just arrived.
“It is pretty?”
“Hideous.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“No idea. Sell it? Andy doesn’t want it. I’ll have it appraised, but I’m sure it’s not worth much.”
“I’ll thank Grandpa and Arthur on my end.”
Clarissa hung up after lovingly saying good-bye to her daughter.
She hadn’t told Jordan she felt more and more tired, that she still slept badly, that her dreams were beginning to disturb her.
She hadn’t told Jordan about the infinitesimal dark zone behind Mia White’s luminous smile.
As she made her way to her room along the corridor, she heard a metallic clicking sound. Startled, she stood still. Was this the sound that had frightened Andy?
Then she noticed Chablis.
The cat was frozen to the spot, its fur bristling. Arching its back, it was staring up toward the ceiling, petrified.
I spent some time hanging around in front of the building on rue Dancourt. There was a small café just in front of the passageway railing, from where I could see all the way into the courtyard to the main door.
I knew she was a long-haired blonde. That was all. I had to see her. To see her with my own eyes.
How long had this double life been going on for? I had no idea. I remembered how often my husband had recently been away for business trips. Did she go with him? Did his coworkers know? Who knew anything about this?
I had never checked to see if he really left Paris. I trusted him.
The little café on rue Dancourt was a quiet place. The manager was nice and not too chatty. I always had my notebook with me. I pretended to work, but to tell the truth, I was incapable of writing anything. My eyes never left the railing.
A lot of people passed by there. Day after day, I became familiar with the residents. The elderly lady and her dog. The trim gentleman with his briefcase. A tall and handsome bearded young man. A mother and her teenaged daughter, not speaking to each other. A grouchy old man. A woman of my age with her grandchildren.
I’d see my husband go by with his shopping basket. He’d come back all chirpy-looking, with tarts from the bakery and flowers. I’d watch him, incredulous.
I longed to tear out of the café, run after him along the passageway, insult him and fling his pastries and bouquets into the gutter.
He was always alone. No woman by his side. I waited for a blonde to appear. There was one, but she had short hair and a boyish look. In her thirties. Not his type. But what was his type? I wondered. She seemed tired and fed up. One evening, she was holding a small girl by the hand. I nearly had a fit. My husband had a hidden child! He had never dared tell me. The blonde was his mistress. I remained rooted to the spot. I hadn’t known what to do.
A few days later, the blonde went by with a fat, hairy man. He was holding her by the waist, kissing her neck. I sighed with relief. Nothing to do with my husband.
Still no sign of a long-haired blonde. Was she already in the flat? Did she live there? They were never together outside. Was there another entrance? I checked. There wasn’t.
I wasn’t getting it. All sorts of qualms came over me. Maybe there was no blonde. Just a place where my husband went to be alone. But what about the tartlets, the flowers?
Was this a bachelor pad where he met a string of women? I couldn’t quite believe that. He was, after all, getting on.
What was he hiding from me, then? A fling with a man? I felt dizzy.
Writers really have too much imagination.
I had to calm down, to stop spinning stories in my head.
There was only one thing to do. Confront them.
No, better still. Tackle her, without my husband. Deal with her alone.
Face-to-face.