IT WAS NOT YET DAWN. Ania had woken early, apprehensive about the day, for which she felt completely unprepared. The hearse was already there, beneath the trees. One at a time, Jean-Louis in his black suit collected the round leaves, like coins, that had fallen from the birch trees during the night. Ania hadn’t thought of bringing anything special to wear to the ceremony; she didn’t know which, her body or her heart, made her submit to the convention to be present.

Downstairs, the sofas had been pushed aside to leave a passage to the bedroom, and the breeze raised the white sheet like a billowing sail. Clara wasn’t dressed yet. She had just had time to slip on a pair of jeans under her long T-shirt. With her hip resting against the dresser, her arm wrapped around her bust, she was talking with a tall man, somewhat stooped, whose face Ania was shocked at recognizing, a handsome face swollen by alcohol. He was an editor, someone from the circle of friends that her mother had made among the neighbors when they had bought Les Épinettes. He had assiduously accepted her invitations and was very fond of her, it was said. As he took Ania’s hand, she felt the insistence of a poignant loyalty.

Several worn, orange-colored notebooks had been taken off the shelves above the desk. It had been Gabriel’s wish that they be published, and she realized that this had been the focus of the discussion. Clara had taken a step back to let her in on the conversation. With the tension accompanying her welcome, Ania understood that Clara was intent on publishing them but couldn’t make the decision without her agreement.

“These are for the last two years, Christian already has the others,” Clara noted with a smile. “They’re magnificent,” she added, alluding strongly to the fact that Ania had barely glanced at them. Maybe she felt authorized to dispose of them precisely because of her negligence. Yet Ania had always known about the notebooks, they had always been accessible. Gabriel had started to take precautions after his wife died. Ania learned of her mother’s death indirectly from Jacqueline, who was mortified that Gabriel had meticulously described the woman’s lengthy suffering, lying there for more than an hour in the dust at the edge of the road, slick with blood, her expression one of shock (from the pain or the idea that she would die now and in this way), her summer dress sliced by the sheet metal where her stomach had been, the dark violet coils tumbling out like a newborn. He had continued with the same egotistical precision to chronicle her life, their life, until that terrifying moment, as well as his resentment at having to change the sheets when Ania had had her first period as she turned eleven.

Of course, Clara had no idea that one could suffer in this way from someone else’s indifference; she who had never disappointed anyone. To feel authorized to appropriate such intimate details was a sign of great presumptuousness. “Do you ever feel compassion?” Ania calmly blurted out. Clara burst out laughing, a short, hysterical outburst. “I didn’t see you shed any tears,” she shot back, suddenly erect. “You let years go by without a word. You’re the one who can’t love; you don’t know how to be generous.” Her virulence seemed to erupt from a well that had been filling slowly for days. Ania couldn’t get over her hypocrisy. “And now you tell me this?” Clara reacted with a slightly deranged smile. “I’ve tried to understand you.” Christian stood there listening, motionless, his head tilted to the side where his large, beautiful hand rested on the wood of the desk. He attempted a gesture of appeasement to which Clara responded as if she had touched a burning ember. The broken veins on his forehead made him seem vulnerable, a man she must have found cowardly for his unwillingness to take the situation in hand. She turned away, then bent over the desk to grab a large envelope and left to get dressed, offering Ania a barely audible apology. Christian lowered his eyes. “Gabriel called her several times last Saturday,” he said softly to Ania, “but she had taken a room at the airport and had turned off her phone. Obviously, she feels that this wouldn’t have happened if he had been able to speak to her.”

So Clara had lied that first day in Monceau. Ania was absurdly hurt. She became aware of her assumption of the woman’s integrity, as if this were something inevitable, something her pride made necessary. “And that explains why the notebooks have to be published,” she remarked, trying to hide just how shaken she was. Christian took her hand in his. “I loved your mother, you know,” he confided, as if to attest to the sincerity of what was about to follow. “The first notebooks are very beautiful, even those that concern you. The last must be surreal. Clara thinks they’re prophetic. I imagine she’s trying to reassure herself by showing who and what really killed him. Suffering makes you a bit crazy,” he added, releasing Ania.

THE SHEET ACROSS THE DOOR had been removed, and the warm breath of autumn flowed through the room. The body appeared to have been forgotten next to the casket, placed on a type of folding stand alongside the bed. Armand had appeared in the living room, accompanied by a couple with a newborn, who was sleeping on his father’s chest. Behind them, Jean-Louis was cleaning up the ash that had fallen from the chimney, feeling useless and unhappy in his suit. Ania made her way through them to get some air. She hadn’t tried to call Novak, hoping he would forget, like all the other promises he had made to Théo. The room was filled mostly with people she barely knew. Nothing forced her to stay other than the stubborn need not to belittle herself in front of Clara. Outside, in the open air, still and golden, with the deep grass beneath her feet, Ania walked down to the small stand of hazelnut trees that she had rediscovered upon her arrival the night before. Snails had left a viscid trail on the low branches, spread out like a skirt. Ania reached up to shake loose a few still green nuts that released an acidic liquid when she bit them. “Don’t eat them, they’re not ripe,” Jacqueline shouted from a distance. She approached, after a moment’s hesitation, then stopped a few steps away to look at her, as if disappointed once again, after all these years, at the loss of the beloved little girl. The bitterness and sorrow were embedded on her features. Ania noticed she was wearing new shoes that were already beginning to hurt her feet.

“It’s hard for us, you know, he gave us so much,” she said, touching Ania’s cheek with the back of her hand. “Do you realize that no one knows about the funeral?” She was about to add something, but the sentence remained unsaid beneath the narrow line of her ravaged smile. “All these stories, it’s really something.” She sighed, and in that sigh, her anger rose and collapsed. Ania spit into her palm the milky bean she had placed in her mouth. “He spent his life looking for stories,” she remarked, with all the compassion she was still capable of. Jacqueline shook her head in sorrow, retreating before all that might be cause for regret. Ania didn’t want to insist; it was pointless to continue talking about these things since they didn’t see eye to eye. Besides, you couldn’t just make it all go away, not the pain and not the attachment that had grown between them over the years, when all of them had done what they could.

“Do you know what he did with my things?” she asked, trying to elicit her compassion for her own wounds this time. “Everything’s in the small room in the attic, we weren’t sure what you wanted to keep.” Jacqueline again moved toward Ania, as if she were trying to rediscover her with the tips of her fingers. “I thought you had thrown them out,” Ania said, almost regretfully. Jacqueline looked at her with compassion. “Do you really dislike us that much?” The idea must have troubled her for a very long time to have caused such resentment, and she took her arm for a moment, holding it beneath her own before walking away.

As she went up to her room, Ania passed Clara’s parents, encumbered by a tall, noisy bouquet in cellophane. This was the man who had married them. He greeted Ania with a smile, obviously without realizing who she was. Clara had her mother’s features, even the same straight hair, which her mother wore sculpted behind her like a helmet. But it was the only resemblance between her and this couple, harsh and thickset in appearance, for whom she was still the attentive daughter. And confident as well, thought Ania, seeing her finally relent, her shoulders quivering and her face distorted.

ANIA HADN’T HAD ANY COFFEE. A bad headache added to the growing depression caused by her ambivalence about being there. From the garden there arose the sound of footsteps on the fallen leaves. She looked out the window. Jacqueline was closing the shed, Clara was smoking under the cherry trees, taking long drags, her head thrown back. Ania saw her near the angle of the wall, through the red flame of the leaves. She was wearing soft, dark slacks that flowed down her lovely legs, and a beige turtleneck under a short patent-leather jacket with a wide belt. There was something ostentatious and desperate in her attire. Ania wondered what rage within had given her such resourcefulness and coolness in the face of adversity. Voices could be heard on the side of the house, and someone had just rang the bell on the front gate. Clara bent to see whom Jean-Louis was letting in. Novak and Théo had arrived; they were waiting near the shed. Ania wondered how long they had been there and if it was possible that they had come by train and walked from the station.

Théo’s bangs were stuck to the side with hair gel. His hand in Novak’s, Théo looked around, apparently uneasy at not seeing her or seeing her angry. Ania withdrew mechanically from the window. It was the first time she had had the opportunity to observe him alone with his father, and she no longer recognized him completely. The anthracite fabric of his new jacket shone in the light. Ania couldn’t get over the fact that Novak had thought about and taken the time to buy him clothes; she had never known him to be so attentive to his son’s wishes.

Clara crushed her cigarette in the grass and came to greet them. Novak took the hand she extended toward him. That she seemed to guess who he was made him blush briefly. The cut of his suit made him appear a bit thuggish, a bit of an outlaw, which he tried to conceal by remaining circumspect. Clara, however, displayed no sign of displeasure at seeing them there without having first notified her. Standing a couple of steps back, Théo never took his eyes off her. She was very attentive toward him, placing her hands on her knees as she bent to greet him. She was looking at Gabriel’s grandson; Ania would have liked to know what she saw and the extent to which there was and there remained a generational connection between them. She guessed that some part of the innocence with which Théo had grown to accept their life together had disappeared.

JEAN-LOUIS HAD COME UP TO TELL HER that everyone had arrived and that they were about to put Gabriel in the coffin. He observed her from the doorway, incapable of concealing his befuddlement at discovering that she was planning to dress as she had the day before. Ania watched as another car arrived, with local plates, out of which stepped the man who had been her pediatrician for many years. “Look who it is,” Jean-Louis said, but without saying anything more. He was folding his handkerchief, which he placed back into his pocket after wiping his eyes, stating that he had to go back downstairs. Bits of cotton fluttered from the dried blood on a cut on his chin. Ania went over to remove them. Jean-Louis allowed her do so, motionless, his neck stiff, a vein pulsing beneath the collar of his shirt.

“Jacqueline told me about your stuff. Everything is upstairs. We can take a look later if you like. We weren’t sure you were going to return,” he added, still worried she might not believe him. Ania made a sign that she wasn’t in a hurry and let him go downstairs. He had changed, he had grown old these past few years, more than she would have expected. His severed fingers gripped the banister with unexpected caution. He was no longer the man who tore out the nettles at dawn, cleared the snow in winter, and came to wait for her every day at school. An infinite nostalgia for everything that had gone wrong in her childhood began to weigh down on her like a stone.

THREE OF THEM STOOD AROUND THE BED to lift the body, which suddenly seemed to stand before them, stiff as a mummy with ashen features, unrecognizable from the rictus of its parted lips. Clara groaned as the body shifted in the arms of a fourth bearer, who placed it with a kind of tenderness in the coffin. When he was carefully settled, one of the men came and bent over Clara’s ear, and returned to gather two of the bouquets, which he placed at the dead man’s feet.

It was only then that Ania began to grow uneasy about Théo’s whereabouts. Standing straight before his father, who held his shoulders as if he were trying to keep him on the ground, he followed the scene with the seriousness of a little pope. He hadn’t noticed that his mother was there, hadn’t even looked for her and at that moment of that brutal ceremony might even have forgotten her. Ania wanted to understand what had fascinated him so much at the idea of being present as well as the source of the emotion that seemed to unsettle him when the coffin was closed.

Clara held one arm folded over her stomach, her fingers on her chin, in an attitude more of perplexity than pain. She barely reacted to the sound of something—a lamp or vase—that had been knocked over in the living room. The men finished gathering the bouquets while Jean-Louis went to see what had happened. Ania took the opportunity to go out to the garden; the violence she felt was unexpected.

The hearse, parked on the grass, was open. Fleurs-de-lis decorated the satiny padding of the interior. Ania approached and could see her reflection in the body of the hearse, just as Gabriel had seen her for the last time on the train. She realized how much she had let herself go since Théo was born. Soon, all of that would seem far away and harmless, she thought. Half hidden in the shadow of a lime tree, a man was watching her. He took out a cigarette and lit it as he came toward her. It took a few seconds for Ania to recognize Mourad and was surprised that he appeared to recognize her immediately.

He had put on weight and there were thick whorls of flesh beneath his eyes. “Do you remember the photo?” he asked, with that strange, feminine voice of his. “Your father kept it in his office in Monceau; he said you looked like a shaman.” Ania replied that she had found it when she had met Clara earlier in the week. She was no longer bitter now but felt that her courage had abandoned her. Mostly, she felt like an orphan.

Mourad smiled affectionately, perhaps trying to determine what remained of the wistful little girl who had so affected him at the time. “What a waste,” he said after some moments, turning toward the house. Ania wondered just what had been wasted for this tender and loyal man, who had apparently remained one of the close friends Clara had mentioned. She thanked him for coming, feeling guilty, as well, for his attachment. Théo was leaving the garden, grimacing in the light as if he had just woken up. His bangs, swept to the side, gave him a moonlike face on which his confusion now appeared even greater. He clung to his father, who pulled him over to the side to make way for the coffin.

The gate was wide open again, revealing the familiar landscape of the fields bordered with rust-colored stands of trees beneath the magnificent sky. Clara had made a sign to Mourad to ride with her in her parents’ car, and Ania spontaneously followed Novak, who had parked on the gravel outside, anticipating that the seating arrangements in the cars had already been determined. Théo walked on, propelled by his father’s hand on his neck. Ania watched as he twisted slightly to look for her. She was unable to explain the resentment she felt for him then.

Novak had had the car washed and had removed the papers that were always on the seat. The announcement, folded in two, was stuck next to the gear shift. So Théo had taken it upon himself to remove it from her bedroom. “He told me you said it was okay for us to come together,” Novak informed her, in response to her reproaches. Ania glanced at her son in the rearview mirror. Sitting in the middle of the seat, he was busy flattening the collar of his jacket. It was upsetting to see him become someone, someone she knew nothing about. She decided not to say anything to him. The unending calm of the landscape around them eased her malaise. Novak put his arm through the lowered window, waiting until he understood when to leave and where to go. His jacket tightened around the armholes; he had removed his earrings, and the empty holes formed a painful pattern on his ear. Ania rested her neck on the back of the seat and closed her eyes. Seeing the two of them like this, their sincerity and their eagerness to mirror that other world in which they played no part, left her feeling defenseless.

Clara’s parents’ car had just passed through the gate. Clara quickly got out to tell Novak to follow immediately after them. She made a sign of complicity to Théo, who sat forward between the seats, feverish, concentrated, his lips tightened by a thin fold of white saliva. Ania turned to touch him on the knee and pull him toward her. “Are you still sick?” The boy moved his head from side to side but did not look at her, his attention absorbed by the motion of the car. Ania pinched his knee again. “You know, Théo, I’m not going to keep the house, and Clara is going home tomorrow, we won’t see her again.” Novak had started the car, skidding a little on the gravel; he stared at Ania, surprised by the cruelty of her remark. Théo didn’t react, however, focused on what was going on outside, pouty and silent. Ania bent to take hold of his hand. “Everything will be all right in a few hours,” she told herself with relief.

At the final intersection before the village, the lead cars turned right to join, just below the railroad tracks, a road bordered with small gardens filled with orange and purple dahlias. Clara had failed to tell them that there would be no Mass. It was another concession made to the petitioners, whose violence and determination Ania was unable to comprehend. Théo’s palm was damp and alive in her hand. He had advanced farther between the seats at the approach of the cemetery, whose moss-covered walls rose up among the fields. This stage of the ceremony seemed to demand yet more courage from the boy.

Novak parked away from the other cars. Clara stood with her back to the gate. She was talking with her father, who listened as she fingered a cigarette, trying to convince her of something. Then, suddenly, she moved quickly away, her hands pressed to her eyes in a gesture of such suffering that Théo gripped Ania’s shoulder, as if to urge her to do something. The dark circles absorbed his face now and his chin began to quiver slightly.

THE GRAVE WAS IN THE LAST ROW, not far from the other entrance to the cemetery. A backhoe was idling by the side of the hole, waiting to push the pile of yellow clay that had broken apart on the gravel walkway. Ania hadn’t expected that things would take such a concrete turn or that Gabriel would be buried next to her mother. She realized then that she had never come to pay her respects. Gabriel had been so careful to keep her away from the drama. The day of the funeral, Jean-Louis had sent one of his great-nieces to play games with her all that afternoon, in an atmosphere of boredom and barely concealed fear. Ania remembered the crowd and the type of euphoria created by the alcohol mixed with the violence of their sorrow once they had gotten over the shock. It had been agreed she would have dinner and spend the night with Jacqueline, but when the time came, Gabriel had lacked the courage. He took her for a long walk along the river, walking silently at her side, his hand pressing her own, and his face breathing in the hot air of summer with that brazenness, that rage for impropriety that would ultimately avenge him for having killed the woman he had loved so much and who had offered him the world.

CLARA’S FRIENDS, THOSE WHO HAD COME with Armand, waited a few steps away, along with several others from the village. Mireille, however, was not there nor were any of the friends from the Sunday dinners, except for Mourad. Ania noted that a police car was parked near the far entrance, where four young men in ironed shirts now appeared, alongside several girls, whose long hair fell across astonishingly weary shoulders. They must be Loïc’s friends, she thought, since they’re joining the watchmaker and his wife, who appeared to have been there for a while, standing by the wall. The woman’s gaze remained directed at the ground, and she barely made room to let the young newcomers stand next to her. The priest asked several times for everyone in that uneasy crowd to come together. Ania didn’t know any of the young men or women. She imagined that in a few years, Théo would display the same sort of irresolute slovenliness.

Clara turned around to look at her. Seeing that Ania intended to stay in the back with Théo, she slipped her arm beneath that of Jacqueline, which she pressed to the warmth of her own until they were ready to walk to the grave. Gulls had appeared with the first rays of the sun above the hills. They circled for a moment before scattering among the fields like crumpled papers. Jean-Louis allowed himself to be distracted by their arrival. His attitude reflected his deep indignation over the shortened ceremony, which Ania was unable to explain, not understanding who or what, beneath the golden backcountry sky and the falling leaves, was responsible for things being the way they were.

IT WAS LATER, JUST AS THEY WERE GETTING into the car, that a man who had arrived on foot by the road suddenly appeared in the parking area. Ania wouldn’t have paid any attention to him if Théo hadn’t stood up between the seats to look. The man walked directly to Clara’s door, rapped on the glass and, when she cried out, seeing his face there before her, began to insult her. Novak undid his seat belt to intervene, but Ania screamed at him not to get involved. Things were bad enough already; in fact, it was madness to have let the acrimony get as far as it had. The man was rapidly pulled away by an employee of the mayor’s office whom Ania hadn’t noticed before, then someone ordered everyone to get back in their cars and leave. Sitting next to Mourad on the backseat, Clara remained bent over, her head buried in her jacket. Ania wondered if she had been injured, and her fear shocked her.

STANDING BY THE EXIT TO THE PARKING AREA, his hands on his hips, the man sternly examined the faces behind the windshield. He had a large mop of light red hair mixed with gray, a high, creased forehead, and a dazed look. Ania had no idea who he was. It was almost eleven o’clock and she hadn’t even bothered to find out what was happening after the ceremony. A kind of bottomless fear wrapped her in herself, and she wished she had never set foot in her father’s world again. Théo, too, had been shocked by the altercation. With his back stiff against the seat and his lips sealed, he looked like he was struggling with a sudden desire to vomit. Ania placed her hand on his flushed cheek, but he pushed it away, intrigued by what was going on in front of the car.

A crowd had formed not far from the other exit to the cemetery, where Ania was surprised to discover that the road had been blocked to cars, most likely just after they had driven through a short while earlier. Among them were the four young men she’d seen with Loïc’s parents. Two gendarmes were trying to prevent them from going after the vehicles stopped at the roadblock, while a third instructed the drivers to turn around. The tension was rising on both sides. A few steps behind the group, the young men’s girlfriends formed a compact and stubborn wall, echoing the growing anger. Chloé was there, wearing a long overcoat that made her look like a little old lady. Ania hadn’t seen her at the cemetery. She was about to lower her window to ask if she wanted a ride, but Théo reacted with such ill humor that she gave up the idea. In any case, she wasn’t all that curious to learn who these people were and why they were so angry. Novak parked on the shoulder to allow the other cars to maneuver. He took the time to remove his jacket and grab some mint candy for Théo from the trunk of the car. A small light green van had stopped at the bend in the road below them. There was a woman inside, on the passenger seat, and she had opened her door to observe them.

THEY HAD BEEN THE LAST TO LEAVE the parking area and now found themselves far behind the others. Ania told Novak to take the road alongside the gardens bordering the railroad tracks. Jacqueline had cultivated several of those parcels and used to bring Ania with her when the strawberries were ripe. For a while they had also had a large garden at Les Épinettes, but one day Jean-Louis had turned it into a lawn without anyone ever knowing why. Ania thought that after the sale, she would have neither the opportunity nor the desire to return to the area, a place about which she could recall even the smallest details.

None of the guests had returned by way of Les Épinettes. They found the gate locked, a bouquet of white lilies placed among the rocks against the pillar. Novak insisted on honking his horn while Théo, now crying, decided to throw up against the wall. Ania went with him to hide him from the roadway and hold his forehead. Both of them were shaken by his convulsions. They should have returned home immediately, but Théo was too sick and Ania felt twinges of guilt at leaving the property unattended.

CLARA CALLED SHORTLY AFTER they had managed to get inside and found all the windows open to the garden. She apologized for having lost them. “We waited for you by the old train station, but not for very long given the way things were going,” she said in a flat tone of voice. Everyone was at her parents’ and they were welcome to join them if they decided to stop by. Her voice was tense, almost flat from exhaustion, not at all welcoming. Ania hesitated before asking if she knew who the man was who had insulted her at the cemetery. Clara responded as though she had been looking forward to the question. “They are idealists,” she answered at once with unconcealed contempt. “They’ve been a pain in the ass for some time now,” she added, with a kind of violent sob. “Let them make their mosaics and leave me the hell alone.”

Ania recalled that a few years earlier, Gabriel had told her about an artisan and his wife who had moved next door to them at Les Épinettes. He said they were hoping he would invite them over, which must have been the reason for the wall of reeds planted at the bottom of the garden.

Clara blew her nose and then informed Ania she would probably be sleeping at her parents’, in which case she would stop by to pick up her things the following day. She failed to add that she would never set foot in Les Épinettes again, but her uninhibited sniffling said it for her. “The lawyer has your address,” she said after she had calmed down. “He won’t get in touch with you right away, and there are quite a few debts, especially on the house and the apartment in Monceau.” Ania couldn’t explain the relaxed tone with which she said all this. “I probably won’t be here tomorrow when you arrive,” she told Clara before saying goodbye and hanging up.

Novak had followed the conversation from the terrace facing the garden, over which the beautiful light of summer’s end spread. Ania made a sign to him that she would tell him some other time. Théo returned from the bathroom looking hopelessly defeated. He was hot, he had a headache, he couldn’t throw up anymore. Ania went to kiss his hair. His discomfort joined them to one another once more with a sense of limitless need.

Around them, the misarranged sofas gave the impression of a recent shipwreck. Ania was a bit upset with Jean-Louis for having left while leaving things were still in disarray. Novak offered to help rearrange the furniture. He was hoping to look around and maybe even sleep there, but Ania felt that their lives had already been sufficiently reintegrated. She accompanied him to his car, parked by the shed, and let him see the Zodiac that Gabriel had put into the water that day long ago and that had impressed him so strongly. The place was absolutely silent when he left. Ania shut the gate behind her but didn’t lower the bar. She stayed with Théo all that afternoon, dozing in front of the television, uneasy at the thought of all she would have to sort through, discard, and uncover.

IT WAS AROUND SEVEN O’CLOCK, after Théo had finally fallen asleep in the small bedroom upstairs, that Ania was awakened by the sound of an Audi. Clara wouldn’t be coming back, and Jacqueline was in the process of locking the gate. She had slipped on a parka like a cape over her dress and undone the buckles of her shoes. Ania saw her raise her eyes to the bedroom, but apparently without noticing her, then turn back to wait for Jean-Louis, who had gone to arrange some papers using the car’s interior light. She appeared calm and distant. Ania watched them enter the house, holding one another by a finger. The house, with all the lights out in the pale night must look to them like a large steamer trunk that had washed up on shore. Ania had an intuition, a very clear one, of the vertigo of silence and emptiness that inhabited them. She felt the approach of a similar apprehension like an immense regret still to come.