Read Online Concerto to the Memory of an Angel by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt - Free Book Online Page A

is more varied, richer, more changing than the waves, capricious like a woman. All sailors are in love with the clouds.
    Greg’s mind skipped from the contemplation of the light outside to his inner turmoil; he had never taken the opportunity to be like this, a man, a simple man, minute in the middle of the vast ocean, divided between the infinity of nature and the infinity of his thoughts.
    As night his meditation ended in sobs.
    Ever since he had received the telegram he had been aware that he was also the widower of the young woman that Mary had once been.
    And in the course of these three days, the father who would disembark the next day on the pier in Vancouver had lost all his daughters.
    All of them. Not just one. Four.
    Â 
    The freighter would soon make landfall. Vancouver was visible on the horizon.
    Lively, gracious seagulls swooped with precision, the true masters of a coast they knew better than any sailors, and which they could travel faster than any ship ever could.
    On land, autumn was resplendent after a hot summer; the trees blazed in bright hues of yellow and orange; leaves were dying, sublimely, as if through these intense colors they were grateful for the surfeit of sunlight they would surrender all too soon.
    The ship finally entered the port of Vancouver. Tall buildings, vigilant and erect, reflected in their windows the clouds and waves that bore the nostalgia of distant places. From one hour to the next the atmosphere changed, alternating between sun and rain in showers that the local inhabitants called “liquid sunshine.”
    The
Grandville
pulled alongside the pier with its towering derricks.
    Greg was startled. He saw familiar figures along the dock. They were expecting him.
    He counted, immediately. And saw his wife and three daughters, immediately.
    One of them was missing.
    He did not want to know which one, yet. He looked away and immersed himself in the mooring maneuver.
    Once the ship was made fast he examined his mourning women, who stood in a row twenty meters below him, tiny yet distinct.
    There it is.
    Now he knows.
    He knows who has died, and who is alive.
    His heart bursts. On the one hand, a daughter has just been wrenched from him, and on the other, three of them have been restored to him. One has fallen but the others are reborn. Incapable of reacting, frozen, he feels like laughing, and he needs to cry.
    Betty. So it was Betty, the youngest, the one he hardly had time to love.
    The gangway is brought; he walks down.
    But what is this? The moment he steps on land, Betty springs out of a box where she was hiding, and goes to join her sisters to hold their hands and greet their father.
    How is this possible?
    Standing frozen on the pavement, Greg counts: his four daughters are there before him, thirty strides away. He no longer understands a thing, he is paralyzed: his four daughters are alive. He clings to the ramp behind him, can no longer swallow his saliva. Was it a mistake, then? From the beginning . . . The telegram was not for him! It was meant for someone else. Yes, they had handed it to him when in fact it was destined for another sailor who had an only daughter. Death has spared his family!
    Overjoyed, he runs up to them. He takes Mary in his arms and crushes her against him with a laugh. Surprised, she lets him stifle her. He has never embraced her with such warmth. Then he hugs his daughters several times, touching them, feeling them, checking that they are alive, he does not say a word, he cries out in happiness, his eyes mist over with emotion. Never mind. He’s not ashamed anymore, he won’t hide his tears—Greg, the modest, reserved, taciturn man; he kisses them, holds them tight, especially Joan, who trembles with astonishment. Every one of them seems like a miracle to him.
    Finally he murmurs, “I am so happy to see you all again.”
    â€œDid they tell you?” asks his wife.
    What is she talking about? Oh no, not her . . . Not her too