Patrick and Jo came to pick me up at Saint-Exupéry airport. Strangely, I was almost disappointed that it wasn’t What’s-his-name, buttoned up in some weird checked jacket.
I can’t tell them a thing. What I learned direct from Magnus, I’ll never tell a soul. As he poured out a flood of words to Cristelle, I felt as if I was hearing Annette’s words. The ones she had confided, one evening in Sweden, to her father, who was sworn to secrecy.
There are two things I’ve learned from being close to the elderly. Two immutable things that they repeat to me year by year, room by room, shift by shift:
“Make the most of life, it goes fast.”
“Never tell a secret. Even to your brother, your child, your father, your best friend, a stranger. Never.”
I hand them a box of Daim bars while making up a deadly dull story: Jules’s grandparents weren’t there. I met their neighbors, who spoke French and told me that Magnus and Ada had left Sweden two years ago to live in Canada.
Jo tells me it’s just as well: I’m too stressed by the whole affair anyway. My parents died in a road accident. It’s sad, but that’s how it is, and when you’re twenty-one, you have to think about the future, nothing but the future.
While she’s talking, Patrick nods his head like those dogs at the rear windows of cars. What I like most about those two is their love.
I’m ashamed of having lied to them, but what else could I do? I can’t betray Annette. And since I’m not sure she’s resting in peace, I don’t want to make any more noise.
My eyelids are heavy, I feel like sleeping. I see the streets of Stockholm again, the frozen canals, Christmas in the store windows, the beer drinkers, the snow. The aroma of those cinnamon buns dunked in the tea served by Magnus and Ada. Their beautiful faces, their tears, too, begging me to persuade Jules to write to them, to see them, to forgive them. And Cristelle, her bottle-green woolly hat still firmly on her head, translating the words, repeating to me, You’re our only hope of reconciling with Jules.
“Juju, Juju, wake up!”
I was in the middle of a dream. Jules was getting married, I was holding the train of the bride, whose face I couldn’t see, and when she did finally turn around, it was Janet Gaynor.
We’ve arrived. Patrick has parked his car outside Gramps and Gran’s. It’s already dark. Must be around 5:30 P.M. The light’s on in the kitchen, and in Jules’s room. Tomorrow I have to do their presents. Just two days until Christmas.
I can’t face going into that house on my own. Still half-asleep, I suggest to Jo and Patrick that they come in for a drink. They can’t: Jo’s on duty tonight, she starts her shift in an hour.
“Justine, I have to tell you something.”
Suddenly, Jo looks serious. She never calls me Justine, always Juju. And so Patrick looks serious, too. Those two can’t look serious separately.
“What is it?”
“Hélène Hel was taken to the ER last night.”