It isn’t a title. It’s the only clear reference I came away with from a trip that, if it weren’t for a certain umbrella that I still have, I’d be certain was a dream.
Jacques, the director of the very tiny, independent, and of course now defunct publisher that put my first novel out in French, had insisted that I go.
“It’s one of the loveliest resorts in France.”
“Jacques, it’s the middle of November,” I said.
Jacques gave me a look of pretend impatience that tended to be his go-to when offering me counsel.
“Don’t forget, you aren’t living in the Caribbean anymore. In this country, the sun and the sea mean something else.”
An indecipherable argument, but it won me round, nonetheless.
My plane took off from Paris Orly at 2:00 p.m. I checked the weather on the Internet and saw there was a 90 percent chance of rain in Biarritz.
“Take your umbrella,” said Luz Marina.
“What if they don’t let me board with it?”
“Do you really think they won’t?”
“I don’t know, I guess someone might be waiting for me when I arrive.”
In the end, I didn’t take it.
Since it was the first time I’d flown from that airport, I left earlier than I needed to. Naturally, there were no holdups and I ended up with time to spare before my flight was called.
I went and found a food stall and bought myself a slice of tortilla and a beer. I sat down, ate the tortilla and took a sip of the beer. I got my cell phone out and, after another sip, took a photo of myself and WhatsApped it to my brother Richard, who was living in Sydney at the time. Although it was almost midnight there, he messaged me straight back. I said I was on my way to Biarritz to launch my novel.
“Killing it, bro!” he wrote.
And, as I sat drinking that beer and waiting for my plane in Orly Airport—a wait I would be repeating the following day since it was literally a flying visit—I did feel like an important writer.
It was a one-hour flight. Stepping off the plane, that beery effervescence was still just about in me, but it immediately went flat when I found nobody waiting for me in arrivals. I called Jacques, who said it was very odd.
“Here,” he said, “write down the hotel address and jump in a cab. I’ll reimburse you when you get back. It’s the easiest way. Your hotel’s right across from the library where the launch is being held. Rafaela, the woman who’s going to be interviewing you, said so.”
During the taxi ride, the pouring rain prevented me from getting much of a view of the city. We were there in a little under a quarter of an hour. I can’t remember the driver’s face or the name of the hotel. There was nobody in reception. I waited for ten minutes and called Jacques again. Suddenly a light came on in back and a young man appeared. I hung up.
Seeing my passport, the young man addressed me in a throaty, French-accented Spanish.
I was worried he was going to tell me there was no reservation under my name, but luckily everything was in order.
“Mr. Sarcos. The directrice of the library left a note for you. Your event is at 6:00 p.m. If you get there five minutes early, that’ll be fine. It’s just across the road here.”
The rain was getting heavier and I decided to stay in my room. I fell asleep for two hours. I dreamed that I was going around Biarritz in the rain looking for an umbrella. Nobody could understand me, and I kept on failing to find any roof or awning to shelter under. I woke up ten minutes before the launch. I had two missed calls from Jacques and a voicemail, probably from Jacques as well. I’d listen to them afterwards. I brushed my teeth, put my shoes on, grabbed my scarf and jacket, and headed out.
I got only slightly wet—the library really was right across from the hotel. The sprinkling of rain cleared my head a little and at the same time made me feel like I was still inside my dream.
I opened the glass door of the main entrance, letting a woman come out first. She looked bleary-eyed and had a cigarette in her mouth.
“Mr. Sarcos?”
She’d taken the cigarette out of her mouth and was holding out her hand to shake.
“I’m Rafaela. How are you? How was your flight?”
“Good, thanks.”
“Two minutes, I’ll just smoke this.”
“Are you Spanish?”
“My parents. I’m French.”
“I see.”
“I imagine your French is perfect?”
“Je me débrouille,” I said, forcing a smile.
She didn’t look entirely convinced.
Then, having taken barely three drags, she went to put it out.
“Smoke away,” I said. “Don’t hurry.”
“No,” she said. “The people will get impatient.”
“Is it busy?”
“Not exactly. This was a terrible day to have picked.”
It sounded like a complaint, which rankled a bit. Jacques came to mind, and I felt like calling him and giving him an earful, but then I remembered that he was the only person who had shown any interest in my novel, to the point of actually translating it himself, for the press run by him and his wife.
There were four people in the auditorium. Three elderly ladies sitting together and one young guy, twenty-five or so, over in a corner, who looked like a fellow Venezuelan.
I prepared myself for the worst. Yet, to my surprise, Rafaela did a wonderful job of introducing the book. Not only had she read the novel, she had also prepared about six pages of notes, organized thematically. She began by giving a précis of my book that, to this day, I myself have never managed to equal. And then, between the answers I gave, she made a series of observations that showed a comprehensive grasp of all the hidden keys I’d used to link together the main story and the various subplots.
“There’s one final thing about your book that I’d like to emphasize,” Rafaela said, as a prelude to closing the conversation.
At that moment, the young guy got up and left.
I can’t remember Rafaela’s final point. I do on the other hand remember that she was tactful enough not to even try opening it out to “the audience,” that always embarrassing moment when the silence grows heavy around you as, with a smile, you keep the curtain in place beyond which lies the wondrous back room that every great writer’s work conceals and that nobody, ultimately, could really care less about.
I finished the small bottle of water I’d been provided with, while Rafaela picked up her book and her notes.
“In terms of dinner, I’m going to be honest with you,” she suddenly said, using the informal tú address now for you. “I’ve got a kid, and he needs someone with him constantly. Do you mind if I head off? Can you get something to eat on your own?”
I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Yes, of course,” I said. “No problem.”
It was still raining outside. I crossed to the hotel, and again there was nobody in reception. I went up to my room and, without taking my jacket off, listened to the voicemail. It was Jacques, calling to check everything was okay and to tell me not to worry, that Rafaela would take me out for dinner after the event.
My stomach rumbled. That slice of tortilla and beer, and the dreams of having made it as a writer, all seemed like a very distant memory.
I went back downstairs. The young guy in reception had reappeared. It was still raining.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a brolly I could borrow?” I asked.
“A what?”
“A brolly.”
He didn’t seem to understand.
“Un parapluie,” I said.
‘Ah! D’accord. An umbrella.”
“Right.”
He went over to a storeroom and came back out with a big, burgundy-colored umbrella.
I thanked him and went out.
Of course, I said to myself, that’s why nobody in the dream could understand me.
The receptionist had told me that it was only a ten-minute walk to get to the downtown area, straight along the road the hotel was on.
It was dark by now. The rain grew twice as heavy and then eased off. Everywhere was closed, Biarritz a ghost town. I followed the road all the way to the coast and found the dark mass of the ocean before me. I went along the seafront in the direction of an immense balcony of sorts, which was studded with pretty lights. The beach could just be made out fifty meters below. To the left stood what appeared to be the city’s grandest hotel, large, also lit up, and empty. To the right, another hotel, not so ostentatious but just as deserted. I went back to the main street and continued walking.
Almost immediately, I came to a square bordered by another viewing platform. Instead of a luxury hotel, a church stood on this section of coast. Next to the church, the lights of the single restaurant apparently open at that hour. But what time was it? Looking at my cellphone, I found that it was barely 8:00 p.m.
Everything on the menu was expensive, but this was going to be on Jacques. I ordered the daily special and a bottle of the best red wine they had.
The waiter was Spanish, so I decided to ask him why everything was so empty. He seemed surprised by the question.
“It’s a Tuesday. Plus, it’s always dead here in November and January.”
Both the food and the wine were excellent. An hour and a half later, the taste of grilled calamari still on my lips, and a little drunk, or possibly more than just a little, I paid the check and left.
The rain had become a light drizzle. I put up my umbrella anyway and set off in the direction of the hotel. Now the empty city and my absurd trip combined to generate an inexplicable euphoria in me, altogether in keeping with the setting.
On the corner before my hotel, I passed a business that was open. It was a pharmacy. As I went by, I saw the cashier and a young man inside. Out of the corner of my eye, I recognized the young man as the one who had been at my launch. He recognized me too and waved. Stopping, I backtracked a couple of steps.
“How’s it going? Out for a tootle?”
I’d been right about where he came from: that was a very Venezuelan thing to say.
“Right, tootling.”
“And how’s everything seemed to you?”
Maybe because I was drunk, I told him how everything seemed to me. He listened all the way to the end, before asking if I wanted to join him for a drink in his home.
“Sure,” I said.
He paid the cashier, who handed over a paper medicine bag. We began walking and after a few minutes, a little further on from the hotel, we stopped outside a building. Holding up the pharmacy bag, he said:
“This is for my old man. He’s really ill. I hope you don’t mind.”
Rafaela’s difficult child came to mind. I’m not so sure now that her name was Rafaela. I can’t remember the young guy’s name either.
“No, not at all. Are you sure it’s okay with you?”
“Absolutely. Let’s go up.”
The apartment was on the second floor and had very high ceilings. The living room was filled with books and with model airplanes suspended from the ceiling by invisible wires.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, turning and going down the hallway that led to the bedrooms.
I heard voices. A black woman of around forty, wearing a nurse’s uniform, came out and nodded a greeting. She went through into the kitchen, poured herself a glass of water, came back through the living room again, nodded politely at me, and disappeared back down the hall.
“The nurse and I split the care,” the young guy said, coming back in.
“No other family?” I asked.
“No. It’s been tough. But it won’t be long now.”
The father had cancer. He’d refused chemo. It was just a waiting game now.
A week earlier, the father had lost control of his faculties. The metastasis was in his brain. He would only be conscious for short periods. The old man spent most of the time sleeping or crying out in pain.
“The only thing that calms him down are Yazmina’s massages. Or being read to.”
“What do you read him?”
“War novels. But even those don’t do it now. I’m always trying to find new things. That was why, when I saw about your launch, I decided to come along.”
“I guess you were disappointed.”
“Oh, no. It was just that, from what you described in your discussion, your novel sounds quite complicated. And my old man, when he doesn’t understand something I’m reading him, it unsettles him, and he starts moaning and grizzling.”
He opened a bottle of wine and gave me the story of his young life thus far. It’s likely that he told me his father’s as well, but I can’t remember any of what he said. Which is why I sometimes can’t help but feel that the whole thing was a dream, the trip as well as that night, as well as the books that, thanks to that trip, I’ve gone on to write.
Halfway through bottle number two, the old man began to cry out. His son jumped to his feet.
“I’ll be right back.”
I poured myself another glass and took a closer look at the model airplanes, which were all from the Second World War.
I then realized that the moaning had stopped without me noticing. Only the young guy’s voice could be heard; he seemed to be talking to his father. I sat back on the sofa and carried on waiting. It had been a half hour and he still wasn’t back. Then the murmur of his voice was gone as well. I got up, put the glass down on the living room table, and peeked down the hall. I made my way through the darkness, using the old man’s bedroom light to guide me. Rather than a door, the bedroom had a curtain. I drew it back a small way and saw the hospital bed surrounded by various contraptions, the drip and all the tubes inserted into the patient’s skin. To one side of him was the son, asleep sprawled across a book. I went to leave, but the creaking parquet gave me away. Son and father both woke up.
“What’s the time?” asked the startled son.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I was just leaving.”
The old man began to murmur and make pained noises. The son got up and the book fell to the floor. I went over, leaned down, and picked it up.
“Wind, Sand and Stars,” I said. “One of my favorites.”
“My father loves it. Seeing as he was a pilot and all . . .”
The old man’s moans grew louder, he was almost howling.
“Give me ten minutes and I’ll see you out. I don’t want to wake Yazmina.”
“Let me read to him. Can I?”
“Honestly, you don’t have to.”
“No, I’d like to though. Where were you up to, more or less?”
And I started reading to the old man. The son stood listening for a minute and then went out.
It happened precisely as the son had described. The old man lay quietly, eyes half-closed, seemingly on tenterhooks, as he listened to the anecdote about the pilots and the Bedouin living together in the desert. Whereas when Saint-Exupéry moved onto a description, or wrote about the workings of airplane engines or the rules and regulations surrounding the Airmail Service, the grizzling began. Now that he was on death’s door, he couldn’t waste time over these technicalities or allow himself the luxury of deferring the essence of such a beguiling story, which acted like a gust of fresh air in a night that could always be his very last.
“Thank you,” he suddenly said.
He had a flinty voice. The old man appeared to be conscious and was now observing me.
“No problem,” I said, closing the book.
I know that the father and I had a brief exchange. But the only thing I remember is his answer to the single question I put to him:
“What are those scars from? Did you get them in the war?”
He had an identical scar on each of his arms. A straight line, about four inches long, which began just beneath his shoulders and reached down almost to the respective forearms.
The old man turned his head slightly and, seeing what I was talking about, gave a smile.
“It was a promise I made. To give up the drink,” he said, and, with that, promptly went back to sleep.
When I returned to the living room, I saw that the bottles and glasses had already been tidied away. The son was sitting on the sofa.
“It didn’t used to be like that, you know. He’d read me the technical parts and always skip the rest. All as a way of showing me that Saint-Exupéry had been a pilot who also wrote. And not the other way around.”
“Your old man is doubtless wise. I’m sure he’s had a very interesting life.”
“A total fucking asshole is what he is.”
“I don’t doubt that either. His story about the scars and the promise is pretty amazing.”
“What story?”
I filled him in on our brief conversation.
“He told you that?”
I nodded, yawning.
“Seriously?”
Scratching his head, he led the way downstairs to the door onto the street.
“While he was still on his feet, my father was an incurable drunk.”
I shrugged.
“Maybe he meant something else,” I said, for want of anything else to say.
The next morning, I closed the hotel bedroom door behind me and went down with my overnight case. The receptionist wasn’t there. I hung my key on the hook and put the umbrella down on the counter.
It was a beautiful sunny day outside, as though the previous day’s rain and cold were all in my head.
I went back inside, picked up the umbrella, and, going out onto the street once more, opened it, and set off in the direction of downtown Biarritz.
There I would find a taxi to take me to the airport, or at least that was my hope.