Moutiou

(Extract from the 1st chapter)
Text protected by intellectual property laws.

 

Chapter 1
On the trail of lost happiness

 

Ouistreham, 1983, a spring morning.

 

Sitting in front of the small desk in his hotel room, Charles delicately finished inserting the letter he had just written into an envelope. The old man had had no trouble getting his words down because, before sitting down in front of that desk, he had spent a good part of the night sorting through his memories and, with them, traced the spectrum of this letter that was so important to him and to his heart. Her handwriting adorned each letter with beautiful curves and gave a singular grace to the words beautifully affixed to the envelope. After meticulously sealing the fold, he looked at it for a few seconds, then slipped it, ever so delicately, into his jacket pocket. The open window had long since let the sea breeze cause the curtains to rustle irregularly. Charles took no notice. Without hurrying, the old man slowly crossed his room to the bathroom. It wasn't to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything. He went in like a ritual performed many times over. His eyes quickly settled on the bathtub he had so often immersed himself in with her. The desire to take a bath, like so many other things, was no longer on the agenda. A bath alone, like breakfast alone or any other moment of the day, had no flavor without her. 

It didn't take long for the old man to delve into his memories. 

Just last year, he stood there in the same spot. He stood watching Madeleine take her bath. Amazed by the beauty of his companion, he had spent long minutes devouring her with his eyes. Fifty-two years, fifty-two years he'd been looking at her like that, with the same desire. All these years had passed without a shadow being cast over the love of his life, without any weariness altering his pleasure in looking at her. Not once was his gaze less filled with wonder than at the first moment of their love. From the first to the last day, looking at her was like breathing. In fact, for Charles, looking at her was certainly breathing harder.

 

Unfortunately, death doesn't always announce itself before knocking on your door. Sometimes, it sets to work so swiftly that it grabs you by the throat in one swift movement, taking only a second to reduce your life to nothing. It was like this, in the apparent gentleness of a night, that the forces that govern the universe had decided to send it the worst of their messengers. Death had stolen Madeleine from him, the love of his life, the woman who had given him a new dimension. Less than three months before that day, death had slyly paid them a visit. One night, lurking in the marital bed, she had waited until they were both asleep, hand in hand, to strike her, to snatch her beloved away. If thousands of mornings had sounded the joy of waking up together, this morning, more insidious, had sounded, without any warning, the death knell of their love life and had taken Madeleine, his one and only reason to live. Once a year, for fifty-two years, this hotel, this room and this bathroom had been the silent witnesses and accomplices of their love.  Behind the soothing image of Madeleine in her bath, the years of love flew by at high speed, broken up a few times by the changing covering of the bathroom walls, which for a brief moment became the chronological archive of their past vacations. Charles saw all those happy years flash by.

 

All the pain of this sudden disappearance was still vivid and increased tenfold. The old man turned pale. Burning tears began to fill the deep wrinkles in his face with bitter salt. Projected into the past of those early days, he saw himself naked in front of her for the very first time. He remembered almost immediately the awkwardness of their two bodies, which didn't yet know each other but were already trying with all their limbs to marry, grip and embrace to form one whole. His memory went over his sweetheart's face again. Starting from the mole, the sublime artifice and cardinal point by which his eyes knew their bearings, his hand stroked Madeleine's face as if for one last time, etching the memory of every curve, redrawing her lips, grazing her eyebrows. She was still there, invisible, but there! Madeleine totally inhabited his mind. Despite death, she remained the driving force behind his breathing. It was Madeleine and nothing else that still distributed the energy his heart needed to circulate his blood. 

 

Even before he returned, Charles knew he'd be reliving similar emotions. That's why, among other things, he decided to stay away from Madeleine for three days. Three days without standing by her side, three days without looking at her, without talking to her - it was the end of the world, but also the immense pleasure of plunging one last time into the past before joining his beloved for eternity. In any case, he had no choice but to be there. He had a mission, and it was out of the question for Charles not to fulfill it. He'd made a promise to Madeleine, and he'd made the same promise to himself. If those three days had brought him more tears than the ink of his pen had left on paper a few minutes earlier, his memories filled him up, kept him on his feet, enabled him to continue living just long enough to leave in peace.  You don't mourn a lifetime of love for two. After just a few years of sincere love, you know, and Charles, like Madeleine, has known for a long time, that you can no longer live alone because you simply can't live without the other person. After long minutes of absence, the old man wiped his face, left the bathroom and bedroom and headed for reception. His every step seemed sure and precisely calculated. He knew every nook and cranny of this hotel...
In front of the reception desk, he placed his hand on the table.

 

Stéphane Théri