Memories

By

Nana

Chapter 33

Author’s Notes: At long last, an update! Sorry for the long delay. My studies have kept me from making any update for so long. I hope that you will still enjoy this story after the long lapse. Reviews are welcome, as always. Belated Happy New year, everyone!

It was strange how, in the succeeding days and weeks after seeing the apparition of Oscar, Françoise didn’t mention the episode ever again. Perhaps it was her way of denying ever seeing her, denying whatever inevitability Oscar’s sudden appearance seemed to herald. That was how she saw it anyway, and no amount of comfort and reassurance from me could ever make her change her mind.

Certainly Françoise’s reaction upon seeing her had been alarming enough as it was. It had made my blood run cold the way she had suddenly frozen by the doorway of her office, her words dying in her throat as she stared at the windows with widening eyes. When she opened her mouth, I had thought she was going to scream. But she never did. Except for a gasp so faint as to be nearly inaudible, she could not utter a sound. She had slumped, as though in a faint, into my arms but she did not lose consciousness, and she could never stop staring at the windows— bright with the clear light of summer.

“What is it?” I had asked, voice hoarse with anxiety.

At last she had begun to speak rapidly, breathlessly, her gaze sliding to me for a brief second: “Don’t you see her? Don’t you see her? She’s standing right there!”

“Who?” I had turned my gaze back at the bright square of light across the room where not even a shadow had been visible.

“She’s…she’s gone,” Françoise had said after a moment, raising a hand dazedly to her eyes. Wiping her hair away from her forehead, my hand had come away moist with sweat.

There had been no time to really sit down and discuss it then; Françoise had been running late with her next appointment. She had merely a few minutes to drink a glass of water and regain her shattered composure.

Afterward, one would not have suspected the inner turmoil storming inside the smooth façade, to judge from the way she had conducted herself at the office for the rest of the day. But that had just been a show. Naturally, going out to the movies had been out of the question for the evening, and any amorous plans for the rest of the night had to be called off owing to a drastic deflation of spirits.

Worst of all, I had awakened to the sound of quiet sobbing at four in the morning. It had been unbearably heartrending. Already I had a dreadful feeling that more sleepless nights were to come. For the past months Françoise had had difficulty sleeping precisely because of those dreams of Oscar François, and now that Oscar had made the leap to invade her waking moments as well, God only knew what to make of it.

Putting a hand gently on her shoulder, I had whispered, “It won’t do any good worrying about it. Go back to sleep.”

She had wrenched herself violently away from me. In the dark, her voice had seemed curiously disembodied as she cried, “How could you say that? After everything that’s happened, how could you even think to say that?”

I had sighed as I sat up in bed. Perhaps anger was a better alternative to fear; certainly Françoise was far more familiar with the former, but to have a tempest break over my head at four in the morning was something I’d rather avoid if I could.

“Did she tell you why she has come?” I had asked in what I hoped was a reasonable tone.

“No. I already told you she didn’t say anything. She just stood there looking at me.”

“What do you suppose she wants then?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know, André? You’re not helping at all!”

I had closed my eyes and counted to five in my head. My voice, when it had finally came out, sounded okay. “Perhaps it meant nothing at all.”

“How can that be possible?!” she had thundered. Suddenly there had been an ominous pause. Then, in a flat voice, she had said, “You don’t believe me do you?”

“Of course I believe you,” I had said, trying to keep it from sounding like a retort. “I never said anything about not believing you.”

“You think this is just stress, don’t you?” she had continued. “You think this is some sort of hallucination that I’m having—”

Light had suddenly flooded the room as I turned on the bedside lamp. She had been sitting up in bed, disheveled, tears streaking down her cheeks. In that one moment my irritation had melted away. “Look,” I had said softly, “I never said anything about not believing you, all right? And we are not going to have our first serious quarrel at four in the morning.”

“André, André…” she had moaned as I took her in my arms. “Why is this happening? Is it not enough that we have tried everything to alter the pattern this time around? Did she mean to tell us that we will fail in the end? Will we lose each other? Is that what she wanted to tell us?”

“How can you think that?” I had argued. “Things did change for Rosalie and Alain, and it was all because of you. De Brun might be hopeless, but you did try to help them, so you actually succeeded in altering the pattern quite a bit. With all this as evidence against destiny having a free hand in things, how can we possibly not alter the ending?”

“I don’t know!” she had sobbed quietly into my shoulder. “She’s still here, isn’t she? Obviously, she hasn’t found rest yet.”

“And what are we going to do about it?”

“See to it that she finds some peace, obviously,” Françoise had answered slowly. “But how?”

“I don’t know,” I had said, “but it will come in due time. But like I said, it’s no use worrying about it now. So how about catching a bit more sleep?”

Françoise had stared at me, shaking her head a little in wonderment. “How can you take this so calmly, André?” she had asked.

“Well, finally being with you is already my happy ending,” I had said with a shrug. “No matter what happens now, nothing can take that away from us.”

Perhaps that incident had helped make up her mind, and fast. Before I had known what was happening, I was sitting down to tea with The Sisters by the next weekend.

Needless to say, it had been most awkward. I had not been forewarned, and had imagined that it was going to be the usual weekend affair at her parents’ house. Thank God her parents had been abroad at that time. Their presence at such an important and unrehearsed moment would have been the pinnacle of my embarrassment.

Françoise had already informed Marie Anne, Hortense, Catherine and Josephine of our present situation. It had been their attempt to relay their approval of our relationship that, had I not been caught unprepared, would have been deeply touching and amusing.

As things had stood, I was swallowing a mouthful of tea when Marie Anne leaned in and said, “Well, well, we’ve heard something very interesting from Françoise. I dare say it’s about time you guys got on with it.”

Pretending not to have noticed how I had choked on my tea, Josephine had chimed in, “We’ve been wondering why it was taking so long, you know.”

Stunned, clutching a napkin to my mouth as I coughed away, I had turned haplessly to Françoise, who had resolutely refused to meet my gaze. She had been staring down at her lap, fighting to keep from laughing as Hortense had continued with: “We’ve always known you’re just right for each other.”

“And you’re almost family anyway, André,” Catherine had finished helpfully.

There had been an awkward silence for a few seconds as we stared dumbly at each other, then everybody had burst out laughing.

“Oh dear, that didn’t come out quite right, did it?” Marie Anne had said.

“No, it didn’t,” Françoise had agreed as she tried to catch her breath. “Whatever happened to the celebrated eloquence of the de la Saigne women?”

“Well, I am sure André will overlook this one episode,” said Josephine with a mischievous look. “After all, he will need to overlook a lot more from us over the coming years.”

Thinking back on that bright summer day just weeks ago, when we could still laugh over anything at all...ah, such luxury! The memory never failed to bring a smile to my lips.

It was such a contrast to the days that followed as summer cooled to September, when talk suddenly erupted about Maxim Carraut of the Justice Department and his apparent bombshell of a case against de Brun. After months of collecting evidence, Maxim and his team had decided that it was time to come out with their findings, the biggest fraud case in the French financial world in recent years. Ever since it broke, the story was splashed across the front pages of every major newspaper in the country.

Maxim could not have chosen a worse time. Needless to say, everyone in de Brun had been in an uproar ever since.

But then, just about the whole of France was in an uproar this year alone. And toward the first week of September, social tension was again on the rise as more fires broke out across Paris. Arson was cited at the latest incident at L'Hay-les-Roses which killed fifteen people. These fires had become so common this year that people could no longer shrug them off.

And there was talk in the streets. Plenty of angry talk, of protest...

I lowered the newspaper that I had been reading and sighed. Around me, the cheerful din of the little café seemed muted as I lapsed back into that time when Françoise had seen Oscar.

What had it really meant, to see Oscar’s apparition?

Surely, there was unfinished business, but in what form shall it take? Everything that had happened in the present had played out closely to the original version of events. Now, in order for the rest of the story to take place, a revolution must occur. But at this day and age, could France be capable of a civic unrest possessing the same magnitude and violence as The Revolution?

I did not think that was possible. The present time may not be all that good, but Oscar had lived in extraordinary circumstances, and ultimately hers had been an exemplary fate that could not be replicated very easily these days. The horrors of the Terror had seen to it such that turbulence of that enormity would not be easy to bring about again.

What then?

Something was going to happen, but what?

This was a question that I did not want to bring up in front of Françoise, for I knew that it already occupied her thoughts constantly. She never mentioned the incident with Oscar again, but I could feel that she had doubled her vigilance and watchfulness ever since. She was forever on edge, though she was successful in masking it at work.

But at home, when one was alone with her, one could almost feel as though she were already grieving for me, as if—

I was roused from my thoughts by the feel of a heavy hand on my shoulder.

“Alain,” I said, half rising.

I should have known that there was a huge possibility of meeting Alain among the crowded cafes and bars of Montmartre after the office hours.

He gestured for me to be seated once more as he took the chair opposite me.

“How is Diane?” I asked.

“She’s doing fine, thanks.”

Silence for a few seconds.

“So,” he said carelessly, reverting to a shade of his former self, “I see you’ve managed to escape from the leash of the boss once again.”

I stared at him tersely. Normally these were the kind of remarks that would have sent my temper soaring within a split second, but Alain could not fool me now. Not after what had happened in Françoise’s office months ago.

You love her too, Alain, and I’m not going to let you forget that I know…

Something of that thought must have been reflected in my look, for Alain flushed and looked away from my unfaltering gaze after a few seconds.

“So how is she, by the way?” he muttered.

“She’s…she’s very well. We were wondering how you’ve been.”

One would not have thought of sensitivity and Alain going together, but upon hearing that glitch in my voice (ever so slight, it seemed to me), he suddenly brought his gaze—sharp and alert now— back at me, so that I was the one now struggling to avoid flushing and looking away.

“So you’re together now, is that it?” It was a statement, not a question.

Silently cursing my transparency, I forced myself to return his gaze with one as even and serene as I could muster.

Alain scoffed. “Well,” he said, “I suppose I ought to extend my congratulations. When will we hear the wedding bells?”

“Cut it out Alain,” I said, sighing. “Do you really suppose that matters now?”

“I suppose not. I suppose we’re to worry more about our work…while it lasts,” answered Alain, his eyes on the folded newspaper beside me. He didn’t need to catch the headlines on this one. Almost every major newspaper was carrying the same story.

“I’d do away with my shares of the stocks if I were you,” I said.

“Too late. They’re already worth next to nothing minutes after the news broke,” said Alain. “Don’t worry. I’ve done away with mine the moment I got them. So now what?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see what comes next.”

“In other words, we resign ourselves to fate. Is that it?” said Alain, a sneer in his voice. “Like cattle waiting for the butcher?”

Refusing to take the bait, I said pensively, “You don’t seem to believe in fate very much, do you?”

“The hell I don’t,” retorted Alain. “But I do believe in fighting whatever it throws your way.”

“That’s a good attitude to take, I suppose,” I said. Then, before I could stop myself: “Have you any military people in your family, Alain?”

“Why? What’s that got to do with anything?” he asked suspiciously.

Thinking it may not be a good time to open up about the possibility of a General de Soissons as an ancestor to Alain, I said, “But how much in this world is governed by fate and how much is decided by our actions, I wonder?”

Clearly, Alain did not know what to make of my remark. “Certainly we’re in need of a miracle to pull out of this mess, courtesy of the people upstairs in the main office,” he merely said.

I smiled. “And will you follow Françoise wherever she goes, whatever she chooses to do from this moment on?” I asked.

Alain stared at me, his dark eyes unreadable. “Wouldn’t you?” he asked, his tone hushed for once.

“Without a doubt,” I said.

“Then that makes the two of us,” he said. “She’s one hell of a woman, I’d grant her that.”

His tone was gruff, as if edged with emotion, and thoroughly unapologetic. Not that I expected any from Alain.

I smiled, wondering where my jealousy was at a time like this. It must have cost a great deal for Alain, who would probably rather die than be caught praising Françoise, to gush so. Love certainly could change a person overnight. Normally I would have been raging with jealousy. Instead, I was grateful. Grateful that Francoise would have sturdy allies to rely on when the time came. Grateful that she was well-loved by her people.

As we sat talking for a few moments more in that café, brightly lit against the twilight that gradually encroached, little did we know that we had only a month and a few weeks left before the time came. And once it came, time began to run out fast.

More Author’s Notes: The time sequence for this part of the story is the last quarter of 2005. The fire at a block of apartments in L'Hay-les-Roses really did occur, one of several fires that rocked France that year and which fueled more turbulence in the coming months. The end is so near already!

Posted: January 17, 2009