Read Online Invisible Love by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Howard Curtis - Free Book Online Page B

little?”
    After these words, silence fell on the room. The percolator hissed. The television murmured the results of the horse races. A fly, suddenly desperate to attract attention, flattened itself against the wall. Everyone was asking themselves the question: Which is easier to love, a man or a dog? And which is better at returning our love?
    It was a disquieting question.
    Lost in thought, I walked mechanically back to my house. My Labradors were delighted to see me, leaped in the air, and wagged their tails so enthusastically that their bodies were thrown off balance. As I stroked them, it hit me for a fraction of a second that I didn’t give them back as much as they gave me, and that Samuel Heymann, in his passion for Argos, had far surpassed me. That had been pure love, the love of his life . . .
    I opened my most expensive bottle of whiskey, an old malt from the island of Islay, the one I had intended for Samuel. That evening, I drank for two.
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    *
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    The next day, his daughter Miranda came to see me.
    I barely knew her, had only met her two or three times, but had liked her right from the start. She was lively, precise, independent, unaffected, almost abrupt, one of those modern women who charm you by their very refusal to use their charms. Addressing me as a man would have done, in a manner devoid of undertones, she had put me at my ease, so much at ease that subsequently, when I had noticed how fine her features were and how feminine her legs, I felt a surprise tinged with wonder.
    Miranda stood there in the morning mist with her shock of red hair, smiled, asked if she was disturbing me, brandished some croissants she had just bought, and suggested a coffee. There was as much naturalness as authority in the way she took control.
    As we went into the kitchen, I offered her my condolences, which she received with her head bowed, inscrutable. She sat down facing me.
    â€œMy father liked talking with you. Maybe he told you things . . . things he wouldn’t have told me.”
    â€œWe talked mostly about books and whiskey. That was it, really—books and whiskey.”
    â€œSometimes, when people talk about some general subject, they connect it with a specific memory.”
    I sat down and told her that, in spite of all my efforts, our conversations had never taken a personal turn.
    â€œHe was protecting himself,” I concluded.
    â€œFrom what?” Miranda said with exasperation. “Or from whom? I’m his only daughter, I loved him, but I know nothing about him. He always behaved impeccably toward me, but he was always a stranger. That’s my one reproach: he did everything for me except tell me who he was.” From her basket she took an unwieldy volume. “Look at this.”
    It was a photograph album, each stiff page protected by silk paper. I leafed through it sadly. It began with the wedding of Samuel and Édith, a pretty redhead with a sweet mouth; at their feet, a Beauceron posed, as proud as if it were the couple’s child. Then a baby appeared on the scene—it, too, watched over by the animal. These group photographs showed a smiling family of four, a trio formed by the married couple and the dog, to which the baby was added. When Miranda was five, Édith disappeared.
    â€œWhat happened to your mother?”
    â€œA brain tumor. She died very quickly.”
    The photographs now were of a reconstituted family: the dog had taken the wife’s place beside its master, and it was Miranda who stood in front of them.
    â€œDo you notice anything?” she asked suddenly.
    â€œEr . . . There are no photographs dating from your father’s childhood or adolescence.”
    â€œHis parents died during the war. Like lots of Jews whose families were murdered, he didn’t like to talk about them . . . I don’t know anything at all about my grandparents, uncles or aunts. He was the only one who