Read Online Augustino and the Choir of Destruction by Marie-Claire Blais - Free Book Online Page B

these things are as unavoidable as they are brief . . . he would write to Frédéric, he would phone him tonight from Delhi to say he would soon be back, as a prisoner of his senses, he did feel so unworthy of the Hindu tradition he’d wanted to take up, didn’t he? Frédéric understood him, didn’t he? He had just written to him, warning him to be financially prudent and not to let into their house everyone who came to the door begging for help, Frédéric’s weak point was never being able to say no to the most off-the-wall and marginal of people. Whenever Charles was not keeping an eye on him, wasn’t he always giving his money to whoever needed it without discriminating, it seemed an incorrigible fault in him, Charles thought, exhorting his friend to exercise caution and not go out to jazz sessions alone at night, but in his declining health to make sure Edouardo was always nearby. In his letters to Frédéric, Charles omitted Cyril’s name, surely it was better that way, and he repeated to himself that the burn he got in India would certainly heal soon. My dear Caroline, he wrote me, I can tell you everything, including what to do, but I no longer know what to think. The problems I have with Charly, her disobedience, her nastiness, keep me from replying to Charles. I think it all began with Jacques, who left us before he was fifty, the just man, the Kafka specialist, impartial, exuberant, how is it he was struck down like the patriarch Job on his bed of manure, with wounds, low blows, and so on — for that is how he is seen in paintings — Jacques the first of wave in an infinite ocean? The first breaker before so many others? He left us so suddenly, we all felt ourselves going with him. We were dismayed, not even able to shed a tear, unlike Tanjou, to whom Jacques had promised to return every evening as the sun set on the sea, his faithful visits would be heralded in pink to recall his exuberance in life, Tanjou waited, but Jacques never came, perhaps only in a slight breeze, a summer’s breath on Tanjou’s mouth. We need to be concerned when we completely change our habits or build up fantasies, Charles, however, wasn’t, he walked down Delhi’s lush green streets, hand-in-hand with Cyril, seeming to put on his partner’s daring, his limitless temerity, and his former virtue of temperance was gone, now his life was stormy and exalting, and he wrote these new verses as soon as he was alone in his room by the river, no dryness, no dessicated regimentation for him, there were no rules for poets, all at once his lines took on a volcanic quality, ardent and sensual as his writing had rarely been, that he had always avoided these excesses and was now metamorphosed did not bother him. I wrote to tell Charles that his friend, the poet Jean, had let me down badly, never answering the letter I sent via Charly. Never. I was certainly not expecting that moment of ashes on the ocean near The Island-Nobody-Owns. I thought we all had so much time ahead of us, Charles did too. Jacques was the one who caused all this upset, Harriett, Miss Désirée, he shook us all up, the last time I took his picture, it was summer, but he was cold, and I could sense him shivering under his corduroy pants and turquoise sweater—almost the colour of his eyes—do you know what Tanjou says to me, Caroline, that I don’t love him enough, is it true, Caroline, I’m not detached nor impassive, or that’s just the way I am, this feigned frigidity, and then he wept, poor child, and went on repeating, you don’t love me enough, God what can you do, tomorrow, later on, tell him Jacques loved him well enough, very much, don’t forget, and through my lens I captured Jacques like a painter, his ironic expression, his pale cheeks, saying good-bye to him all the while. Was it the loss of the little cloth handbag or the loss of her memory that affected Caroline more on