Читать книгу The Confidant - Helene Gremillon - Страница 17

That letter stopped there; I was going to have to wait to find out what happened next.

It was precisely the suspense that got me thinking and made me reread it from another point of view, that of my profession as an editor this time. There was something literary about it, and now that I had noticed it, the same was true about the earlier letters. What an idiot I was not to have realised sooner! My mother’s death must have really made me lose my grip. Those letters were meant for me, all right: it was simply an author sending me his manuscript through the letters. I received too many manuscripts to read all of them, they piled up on my desk, and authors were aware of this, particularly the unpublished ones. That was why these letters didn’t really follow a traditional format; they were instalments of a book that I’d be receiving week after week. A crazy idea, but not stupid. The proof: I was reading them.

I started observing my authors closely, trying to trap them by insinuating this or that, hoping one of them would betray himself; they must have thought I was going mad. I would study their handwriting, searching for that capital ‘R’ in the middle of all the lowercase letters. I would take a close sniff, ever on the lookout for that woody perfume that came from the letters. I entertained every possibility. Could it be So-and-so? That would be just like him to write a thing about his childhood. It was becoming increasingly common to write about oneself, so if that was it, I would give it to him, straight to his face: that I was expecting a novel from him, a real one. I would aim for his glasses: it would be great if they fell off, I’ve always wondered what he’d look like without his glasses.

I was convinced the sender of the letters would show up at my desk one day. A stranger would ask to see me, and bring me the rest of his manuscript, apologising for having duped me, but hey, for fifty years he’d never duped a soul and for fifty years no one had paid him the slightest attention, so he’d decided to change tack.

And what if it were the little Mélanie? ‘Have any of your interns ever become one of your authors?’ If she thought I didn’t notice what she was driving at with all her questions…But no, it was impossible, she was too young, these letters were the work of someone older, you could tell, and besides she was too pretty to write like that.

It was Mélanie, in fact, who roused me from my thoughts, one hand on the microphone of the receiver to keep Nicolas, on the other end of the line, from hearing her:

‘Your friend insists on speaking to you.’

‘Tell him I’m in a meeting.’

‘I did, but he’s already called five times this morning, he said he knows you’re not in a meeting.’

‘If he doesn’t want me to be in a meeting, then tell him I don’t want to talk to him. People won’t let go if you lie to them, but they will if you tell them the truth.’

And if I told him the whole truth, I’ll bet you anything the guy would let go in no time; he’d probably run for his life.

At any rate I could not go on like that, it was too risky. I decided to go home early, especially as I was sure of finding something in my letter box. It was Tuesday, and I’d noticed the letters always arrived on a Tuesday; my correspondent had the idiosyncrasies of a serial killer.

In those days I still found the letters entertaining, almost friendly – a touch of mystery, in a world that was completely devoid of it, was hardly unpleasant. And besides, I wanted to find out what happened, what was this terrible tragedy involving Monsieur and Madame M.?

Not for one second could I imagine what was coming. The unthinkable does exist: I’m proof of it.