Invisible Love

Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Howard Curtis

• Publisher: Europa Editions
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781609452148
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Littérature générale

Five unforgettable stories. "What a delight when a writer hits his target as deftly and with such beauty as Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt does in Invisible Love " ( New York Journal of Books ). In this latest collection, two young lovers secretly love the child they will never be able to have; an esteemed physician and survivor of the Nazi concentration camps finds inner peace thanks to the love of a faithful dog; a man loves his wife through the memories of her first husband; and a mother rediscovers love for her child when someone tries to take that child from her. And finally, Séverine and Benjamin understand that they have lost the love of their lives when they see themselves through the eyes of a young terminally ill girl. Love is not easy, and not always easy to find; at times, it is obliged to circumvent social norms, and thus transform them; it must be desired, sought, defended. We cannot know what life has in store for us, but we do know that whatever it is, it will only be meaningful if borne on the wings of love. Schmitt's sublime stories remind us how true this is. Praise for Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt "There is a surprising sweetness to Schmitt's stories of redemption and reconciliation. They carry a slight pleasant aftertaste, a lingering hint of delight." — The Boston Globe "Schmitt's stories capture a quirky, clever, feminist, very French sensibility." — Publishers Weekly "Moral fables, gilded mini-legends: Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt's stories are fiendishly efficient. Schmitt is a prodigious story-teller with a style both elegant and assured." — Les Echos

A HEART UNDER ASH

You know, Auntie, you don’t have to lose every game . . . ”

Gathering his aces and jacks, the boy in the cherry-red T-shirt gave his aunt a gentle look. She quivered with an indignation that was half-feigned, half-genuine.

“I’m not doing it on purpose. Either I’m bad, or you’re really good.”

Jonas smiled, unconvinced, and started to shuffle the cards again.

Alba gazed at the teenager—his frail chest, his long arms, his tapering fingers—sitting cross-legged on the virgin wool rug: even though he played regularly, he didn’t have the dexterity of those who are used to cards; he wasn’t fast, wasn’t precise, wasn’t fond of those broad gestures that impress the girls; he handled the cards with composure.

She liked that about him. He never fell into the traps set for young people. With nonchalant grace, he avoided the usual effects, the vulgar desire to impress. He remained different. Even if he had been raised by the worst of crooks, he wouldn’t have learned any bad ways.

She burst out laughing. “I wonder if either of us really likes this game.”

Intrigued, Jonas looked up again, making his head of blond hair shake.

“What if we discovered one day,” she went on, “that neither of us could stand old maid, Russian bank, or belote, but that we were pretending, just to keep each other happy?”

He laughed, then sighed. “Well, anything I did just to please you would please me, too.”

His words moved her. How handsome he was, with his well-defined lips, as red as his sweater . . .

“Me too,” Alba murmured, fighting her emotions.

Why weren’t men like him? Pure, simple, attentive, generous, easy to love? Why did she get along better with her nephew—who was also her godson—than she did with her son or her husband? She shook her head to dismiss these thoughts and cried, “You’re a sorcerer!”

“Me?”

“Or a magician.”

“Oh, yes? What tricks can I do?”

“Steal hearts,” she said, leaning forward and pinching his nose.

As she did so, she had the fleeting, unpleasant impression that she hadn’t found the right tone, doubtless because she was forcing her smile or exaggerating her cheerfulness.

Jonas’s eyes clouded over, and his face changed. Shifting his gaze to the window, he murmured, a bitter crease at the corner of his mouth, “Sometimes, I’d like to do that.”

She shuddered. What a fool she had been! She had just realized the incredible stupidity of her words. Steal hearts! The very words to avoid with a boy who . . .

She stood up, her temples throbbing, wanting nothing more than to run away. Quick, create a diversion! Wipe out the gaffe. Don’t let him think about his misfortunes . . .

She ran to the window. “I’m bored with cards! What would you say to a walk?”

He stared at her in surprise. “In the snow?”

“Yes.”

She was delighted at his surprise. In suggesting going out, she wasn’t treating him like his cautious mother, who always kept him in the warm bosom of the house.

“Auntie, we’re going to slip.”

“I hope so!”

“Hooray! I’m your man.”

As feverish as dogs being taken for a walk, Alba and Jonas looked through the closet in search of the appropriate gear, and, as soon as they had put on parkas, thick gloves, and fur-lined boots, they ran outside.

The cold greeted them, sharp and bracing, living up to their expectations.

Arm in arm, they advanced along the path.

It was a dazzling morning. The sun shone out of a clear blue sky. Around them, the snow had erased rocks, ponds, roads, and meadows; all was whiteness, from the cliffs to the hills, a whiteness in which a few houses were nestled, a whiteness interspersed here and there with copses of dwarf birches, a whiteness crisscrossed with streams like black stripes.

From below, the sea cast its breath up to them, a powerful smell of salt and seaweed, a smell that fed on the vastness.

Jonas quivered. “Do you think we’re at the beginning of spring or the end of winter?”

“March 21 is only the middle of winter. The sun’s higher but not the barometer. There are still frosts and snowfalls.”

“I’m crazy about my country!” Jonas cried.

Alba smiled. What point of comparison did he have, this boy who had never yet left his island? His enthusiasm expressed something else: the fact that he cherished life, that he enjoyed existing, even if, like the local climate, he went though some rough moments.

A cell phone rang. Jonas took a while to answer because of his gloves. It was his friend Ragnar.

Listening to him, he turned pale.

“What is it?” Alba asked anxiously.

“Eyjafjöll has erupted.”

“What? The volcano?”

“Last night . . . ”

Jonas resumed his conversation with Ragnar, listening to what the latter had to tell him. At that instant, Alba panicked. The “cabin”! The little house where she and her sister had spent their childhood was near Eyjafjöll. Had it been touched by the seismic shocks? By the jets of lava? By the showers of ash?

As Jonas watched her, she walked around in circles, crunching the hard snow, tormented by anxiety. For two centuries, the volcano had been dormant, and during that long sleep, generations of her family had lived in that wooden cabin with its roof of earth and grass . . . Of course, even in her mother’s day, and then for her sister and her, the cabin had been just a holiday home, where they spent thirty days a year, far from the city, but those days were wonderful, filled with a sense of their past, the centuries-long history of the Ólafsdóttirs.

Jonas hung up and hastened to inform his aunt. “They’ve declared a state of emergency. There was an eruption at the Fimmvörðuháls pass. They’re going to evacuate the inhabitants of the village of Fljótshlíð for fear of floods.”

“Floods?”

“Because of the heat of the lava, the compacted snow and blocks of ice will turn to water, Auntie.”

She could breathe more easily: the cabin wasn’t anywhere near there!

In thinking that, she realized she hadn’t spared a second’s thought for the farmers. Because the house remained empty all through the year, she had stupidly generalized from her own case, neglecting the fact that other Icelanders who lived in the area would have their livelihoods endangered.

“Do they have any idea what’s going to happen next?” she asked.

“The geologists say it may last a while.”

“I’m going there tomorrow.”

Energetically, she took Jonas’s arm again, as if they were setting out on a journey.

For a few yards, the boy proceeded at her pace, then she sensed that his breathing had turned to panting and that he was holding her back.

She turned: Jonas’s face was drained of color, his lips were pursed, and he was breathing grey steam into the air.

“Are you all right, Jonas?”

“You’re too quick for me.”

He can’t manage even as much as he used to, she thought, it’s getting worse. Did I do something stupid by suggesting we go out? Katrin’s right to keep him indoors. Let’s go back quickly. Well, no, not quickly—as calmly as possible.

She had the impression that Jonas had heard her, because he calmed down and gripped her elbow. They walked back cautiously, with measured steps.

Once inside, Alba suggested hot chocolate. Over two steaming cups, sitting in the brushed steel kitchen, they resumed their chat.

“I shouldn’t say this out loud,” Jonas declared, “but I love natural disasters.”

“Are you crazy?”

“I love the fact that nature’s strong, that it humiliates us, that it reminds us of its power, that it puts us in our place.”

“Then welcome: Iceland is the country where you should have been born.”

“Do you think we choose, Auntie? Do you think our soul flies over the world, looks down, and then decides, ‘Oh, look, I’m going down there, to that piece of land, to that family, because they suit me’?”

“Some say so.”

“I’m sure of it. I got togeth...