The Rain Watcher Read online

  Linden tiptoes around the bed to have a look at his father’s face. His skin still seems gray and furrowed.

  “Is he all right?” he asks his mother uneasily. Shouldn’t they call a doctor? Lauren is bent over her phone, fingers flying over the keyboard. Paul looks ghastly, she admits, but he’ll be fine; she’s not worried. He’s been overdoing it lately, as usual, she adds, pushing her glasses up over her head. Paul can never say no to a new tree to save, even if it’s on the other side of the country. He hasn’t had a proper rest since last summer. And when he is at home, he’s constantly on the go, roaming every square inch of the domain, keeping an eye on his beloved lime trees. It was difficult to get him to come to Paris, she goes on, lowering her voice; they are all aware of how much he dislikes the city.

  Linden has no urban reminiscences of his father. Everything to do with Paul Malegarde steeps in nature. His earliest memory of his father was watching him tread the craggy land at Vénozan with his precise, steady gait, followed by Vandeleur, his faithful gardener, a dog or two on their heels. Paul’s hands seemed perpetually grimy, but Linden soon learned it was not filth that coated his palms, but the grit of soil, and the fine, dusty powder that lined bark. His father caressed trees as if they were the most beloved creatures in the entire universe. A tree is just as much alive as they were, Paul told his little boy, lifting him up so he could also touch the rugged, coarse surface. A tree must fight for survival, his father told him, and it must do this every single second. It has to fight to find water, space, light; it has to ward off heat, drought, cold, predators; it has to learn to battle storms, and the bigger the tree, the more vulnerable it is to wind. It seems simple, Paul told him, how trees live, standing in the sun with their roots in damp soil, but there’s much more to it than that; trees can anticipate; they are aware of seasons, of sunlight, of temperature changes. They transfer huge amounts of water; they channel rain as it falls; they have a power man must learn to respect. Humans would be nothing without trees, his father said. He could go on and on, and it never bored Linden. Even the botanical appellations of trees fascinated him as a child. Quercus, Prunus, Ficus carica, Olea, Platanus were the ones he remembered by heart—oak tree, prune tree, fig tree, olive tree, and plane tree. And his father’s favorite, Tilia, for lime tree, or linden, after which both he and his sister had been named. The arboretum, situated just above Vénozan, was composed of fifty majestic limes, planted over two hundred years ago, well before the house was built in 1908 by Maurice Malegarde, Paul’s grandfather. This was, Linden knew, where Paul had taken Lauren, during the heat wave of 1976. She, too, had fallen under the spell. How could she not? The lindens created a wide canopy with the velvety abundance of their interlacing branches and leaves. To stand beneath their magnificence in June or July was like showering in a honey-perfumed green glow, encircled by the humming of bees darting from bud to bud.

  As he looks down at his father, Linden remembers he has never been to Vénozan with Sacha. Sacha has never seen the lime trees in full bloom, knows very little of that part of his life, because Linden has pushed it behind him. In the almost five years they have been together, a trip to the Drôme with Sacha has never been mentioned. Why? Is it because his father has never officially invited them? Is it because Linden has not mustered up enough courage to go? It is not the first time these thoughts have visited him. As usual, he brushes them away, troubled.

  A few moments later, up in his room, Linden calls Sacha on FaceTime. It is ten o’clock in the morning in California. Sacha is at the start-up, in Palo Alto. The beloved face shows up on the screen, the hazel eyes, the desirable smile. Linden tells Sacha about his day—the rain, the river, his father’s haggard expression. Sacha talks about the start-up, the cats, the weather, which is so glorious that it’s hard to imagine the Parisian downpour. After saying good-bye to Sacha, Linden starts thinking about how he is going to spend the rest of his evening. He scrolls through the contacts on his phone. There is one name, of course, that jumps to his mind without even having to read it. A name that isn’t even in his list anymore. Hadrien. The number he remembers is no longer in service, but he still knows it by heart. And he remembers the address, too: 20, rue Surcouf, Paris 75007. Third floor, door on the right. The sadness. The pain. Why is it some memories never fade?

  The next name he picks is Oriel Ménard. He gets her voice mail after a couple of rings. She is a photographer he met when he graduated from Gobelins, École de l’Image in 2003, the prestigious Parisian school of visual communication. A few years older than he, she was already by then a fully-fledged photographer, and she gave him a few helpful hints when he started out on his own. She now works for a French photo agency and specializes in author portraits for renowned publishers. He is in the middle of leaving her a message when she calls him back, delighted to hear he is in town for a family gathering. They agree to meet in half an hour at Le Dôme, on the corner of rue Delambre and boulevard du Montparnasse. Armed with a hotel umbrella, a warm scarf around his neck, Linden runs down the street in the icy deluge, leaping to avoid large puddles. People hurry past, enfolded in raincoats. Cars roll by, wheels making rubbery squelching sounds. At the Dôme, almost empty, save for another couple, a dour waiter tells him it’s never been this bad: the rain, torrential, incessant, terrible for business. He might as well hand in his notice, get the hell out of Paris, before the serious trouble begins, before the river wreaks havoc on them all. Linden asks him if he really believes the Seine will overflow. The man stares at him and inquires politely but with a touch of sarcasm if monsieur has been living on another planet.

  “I live in San Francisco,” admits Linden sheepishly. And over there, he adds, it’s the earthquake that everyone is afraid of, the famous “big one,” which doesn’t stop people from getting on with their lives. The waiter nods, it’s the same thing here; Parisians are getting on with their lives, but the rain has not stopped, the forecast is not good, and the Seine might well flood just like it did in 1910, and then what? The city will be paralyzed, thousands will be homeless, economic activity will freeze, and the government, he thinks, should be taking the matter more seriously, like they did last November. What are they waiting for? Why are they being so circumspect? They need to act now, fast, while the river is up to the Zouave’s ankles; after, it will be too late. To Linden’s relief, the waiter’s diatribe is interrupted by Oriel’s arrival. Linden has not seen her for a while. She still has the same wiry brown hair, tiny button mouth, gray eyes. She is pretty, waiflike, always dressed in black. They speak in French. It feels good to let forth in his father’s tongue. At first, the French seems rusty; he senses American intonations popping up here and there, fights against them, readjusts, and then after a couple of minutes, he regains his usual complete fluidity. They order chardonnay, and all of a sudden, as they click their glasses together, Oriel lets out a peal of laughter.

  “I’ve just remembered something!” she says. Does he recall what happened when they first met, in 2003? Linden, amused by her mirth, says he doesn’t. Oh, it was excruciating, she says, sipping her wine. He was twenty-two; she was twenty-four. They were at a party held for Gobelin graduates in a loft near the Bastille, and she had made a fool of herself by trying to seduce him. It does come back to him now, her doggedness in a dark corner, pressing her lips against his. He had kissed her back, nicely, and when she wanted to take matters further, he had politely pushed her away. Still, she did not get the hint, kissed him again, running her hands against his thighs, under his shirt, murmuring he didn’t have to be shy, that she’d do everything, he could just relax, close his eyes, until he had stated, as simply as he could, that he wasn’t into girls. She had stared back at him, gray eyes fluttering wide open, had remained silent for a few seconds, and then had muttered, did he mean he was … and he had finished her sentence: gay, yes, he was gay. And she had looked so crushed, he felt sorry, stroked her face, and said it didn’t matter. Then she had said, and he remembered that part well, that he certainly
didn’t look gay, so how could she tell? It was unfair; he was so good-looking, tall, masculine, how could she ever know? He had asked, sotto voce, with a wicked grin, if she could describe what looking gay meant, and she had clapped her hand to her mouth and muttered sorry. Did he realize they had been friends for over fifteen years, she now asks. Isn’t that rather remarkable? What about another glass of chardonnay to celebrate? Linden gestures to the waiter. Oriel goes on to insist it is indeed notable, especially since he has become who he is, Linden Malegarde; she utters his name exaggeratedly with her beguiling French accent. Famous worldwide for his arresting portraits, and the best part is that he has not changed, not one bit; all that success could have turned him into a conceited prig, but no, he remains such a nice guy. She claps him heartily on the back. Linden feels uncomfortable with this sort of chitchat, wondering if the other person harbors any well-concealed bitterness regarding his fame, and as she continues, he stares into his wine, listening to the rain fall onto the glass roof. Oriel says she could tell the world all she knows, when he wore the same black leather jacket and black jeans, over and over again, when his hair was long and wavy, like a Pre-Raphaelite hippie (he cringes), when he lived in the fifteenth with his American aunt, who spent her evenings waiting for a phone call from her married French lover. Linden soberly tells her his aunt Candice died six years ago, that he had not been able to make it to her funeral and had felt so guilty. Candice had been crucial to him during the years he had lived in her flat. He refrains from telling Oriel how Candice died, the miserable aftermath of her death, how it had left its mark on him.

  The glum waiter brings the second round, and when he is gone, Linden whispers under his breath that the guy was being most disheartening about the Seine flooding before she got here. Oriel’s expression is solemn. She whispers back that the waiter is right; inundating could well occur and it would be hell. Linden jeers at her, what is she going on about? She sounds like those pessimistic journalists on the news, painting the bleakest of pictures and frightening everyone.

  “This is perhaps not the ideal weekend for being in Paris, you know,” Oriel says matter-of-factly. Because of the rain, she means? She stares at him again, as if he were an idiot. Yes, the rain and the flood, does he realize what might happen, in a city like Paris? He has no idea, does he? Her tone is irritating. Well, there haven’t been any governmental warnings, have there? No one’s being told not to come to Paris. Isn’t she exaggerating a little? Not at all, she retorts. She has a close friend who works at city hall, and they’re getting all worked up. The river is up to 3.80 meters at the pont d’Austerlitz, she says, and if this goes on for any longer, according to her friend, they’ll stop all fluvial traffic, to begin with. If the rain does not cease, they’re in trouble. The level is rising too fast. Puzzled, Linden says he thought centennial flooding occurred only once a century, that the city had learned its lesson well since 1910, that Paris is prepared. That’s what everyone thinks, she points out wryly, everyone thinks Paris is safe. Everyone thinks the Seine has been tamed, that the flooding will not happen again. But Paris is not safe. Her friend Matthieu said the situation could well become disastrous, quickly, much more quickly then anybody could ever imagine, and they would know more by tomorrow, she says, or even during the night. Matthieu told her the Seine’s flow was constantly monitored, that the tricky part was trying to anticipate whether the swelling was an ephemeral one that could abate in two or three days, like in November, or, on the contrary, one heralding a dramatic flood. Last time, even before the water rose to six meters, under the Zouave’s waist, the prefecture had sent out dire warnings, displaced citizens situated in certain areas of the twelfth, seventh, and fifteenth arrondissements, dispatched the army, closed some Métro stations, shut down the Louvre and d’Orsay museums, but the river had finally subsided. The government had been criticized for getting the Parisians agitated and worried for nothing. Two months later, the authorities were watching their step and were conscious they could not go wrong.

  “I’m here for my father’s birthday and my parents’ wedding anniversary,” Linden tells Oriel. It is not an event he can easily cancel. Surely he can make sure they avoid all flooded areas, wherever those might be. Oriel looks serious again. She’ll text him if she hears anything from Matthieu. The Seine will make headlines; of that, they can be sure. Good news, or bad news. Most probably bad news. Linden interrupts her, this is sinister; it’s getting him down. What about a bite to eat? And what about her work? Is she still photographing authors? Aren’t they a pain? He’s had a few of those recently, some bestselling ones who think they are kings of the world because they’ve sold millions of copies. They order seafood and more wine, and Oriel is now happily chatting about her job. A couple of hours later, when they part, it is still raining.

  When Linden gets back to the hotel, at midnight, there is a note under his door from his mother. Your father seems better. Had vegetable soup and is now fast asleep. See you tomorrow. Tilia texted to say she’d had a drink with an old friend and gone to bed early. He does not turn on the television. Instead, he takes his iPad out of its case and logs on to the hotel’s Wi-Fi. Sacha has sent him some messages, which he responds to swiftly. His agent, Rachel, who is aware that he is not working for the next few days, has emailed him some propositions. He’ll check them out later.

  Linden looks up the word Seine. The name comes from Sequana, used by the Gauls and Romans who navigated along the river and settled by its swampy shores to later form Lutèce, the future city of Paris. An ancient Celtic goddess with healing powers, called Sequana, was worshipped at the river’s source, near Dijon. She was represented in a small boat, graceful arms aloft. Linden reads on. He is amazed to discover that the river had often destroyed the city it nurtured; there have been at least sixty serious inundations since fluvial recordings were first registered in the sixth century. The most drastic one to be measured against the pont de la Tournelle was in February 1658, when the Seine gushed to 8.96 meters, its highest-ever recorded level. Dozens of people drowned as houses built on the pont Marie were whisked away by torrential waters.

  When sleep takes over, Linden’s last thought is not for Sacha, nor for Sequana and her ornamental headband, nor for the rain still drumming outside, but for his father, sleeping in the room below, with his mother; his father, whom he loves but whom he cannot talk to. Something always holds him back. Timidity, apprehension, whatever it is, it means they cannot have proper conversations. They never have had. To make matters worse, Paul is the reserved type, apart from his two favorite topics, trees and David Bowie. Linden wonders if Lauren hadn’t carefully crafted this family weekend with hopes of interaction sprouting between father and son. The uneasy feeling perseveres. What if Paul does not want to know more about his son, who he is, whom he loves?

  TWO

  A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.

  —DIANE ARBUS

  I remember her name. But it was never spoken after the thing happened. I remember her face, too. Soft and round. Pink velvety cheeks. Her voice. Her hair, light brown. Her scent, lemony. She was young. Probably seventeen, maybe younger. She was a village girl from the area. Her father was a truffle harvester. She was hired to look after me, two afternoons a week, because my mother was expecting. I was four. I didn’t know how to read or write yet. I was too small for school. She came, always smiling, and we would go for walks around my grandfather’s property.

  There was so much to see. Especially in summer. The black pond high up on the clump, near the pass, where toads croaked. We would throw pebbles at them, and laugh while they swam away. The cypress trees at the end of the vale, rising high and proud like warriors. She called them “the Mohicans.” Careful, the Mohicans are coming to get you, she’d say playfully to scare me. Sometimes they did look like giant Indians with huge feathers in their headbands, striding down over the hills. We would sit in the lavender fields quietly. She made daisy chains and strung
them over her head. Oh, she looked pretty. We sang “À la Claire Fontaine.” We counted butterflies. We coaxed caterpillars into old matchboxes to examine them as they writhed. We picked apricots from overladen branches in July. We fetched milk and eggs from the neighboring farm. They had sheep out in front, their white collie herding them in. I was a happy little fellow. When horseflies stung me, she knew how to make it better. She’d blow on the ugly pink bite and hum a little tune for me under her breath.

  A couple of times, in February, when the mistral blew strong and it was freezing, she took me to her father’s well-protected truffle field to watch him harvest the rare wild mushrooms from beneath the oak trees. His bitch was trained to sniff them out and locate them under limestone and roots. I loved watching the dog glue her nose to the ground, scratching the earth with her paws. The girl’s father then carefully extracted the truffles with his special spade. The mushrooms didn’t look like anything extraordinary to me, small, black, irregularly round, sometimes lumpy, but the girl’s father said they were priceless. He always made me smell them. Such a musty, strong odor. I wasn’t sure if I liked it. But when I took my truffle home, carefully wrapped up in a cloth, my parents were always pleased.

  I need to choose the right words now. I have to explain exactly what happened and how it felt to me, as a child.

  Go back to that child’s mind, those childlike eyes. Not looking back as a grown man. Say it right, say it true, even if it fills me with horror.