| Zero
Storm |
One
Common Drama |
Two
for One |
Three
Pivotal Years |
Four
Generations |
Five
Ring Circus |
| Subject: | Sono sconvolto... |
| Date: | Wednesday, August 5, 1998 01:07:34 +0100 |
| From: | Jérôme |
| To: | Jérôme |
I started suspecting that more brain cells had not been on duty until now. Westford, where could that be? It must be far from Boston, otherwise I would know the place. Therefore, it is definitely outside the new 617 area code. It probably got the 718 area code instead. I double check the web and land, through another search engine, on 978. That one is entirely new to me...
I want to call. However, the conditions must be just right. Inside. I do not want him to block my path to Catherine. This time, I will tape the conversation; I just do not trust my memory all that much. I am shaking, because I know - I am dead sure - that I am going to talk to him in just a few minutes.
His wife answers. She thinks I want to speak to Mark; it must be his son. She finally passes me Armand.
It is Armand. Who prefers to speak in English; it '...has become his language'. Yet nature quickly takes over.
He tells me a lot more about my mother than my own father did, notwithstanding his memory which appears to have some lapses. That she was adopted by the Monnoyeurs (at which age he did not know). That she had a strong link to the Chinese (the Lu). That they parted on good terms. That he thought Mom would have returned to France to be with her family.
He says that he knew me. Up until the age of four. I, apparently, called him: "Le Monsieur"... Blank. I can only draw a blank. It does not ring any bell. Maybe I blocked it off, I have so few memories of my childhood anyways. Or it could have simply been innocence at work.
I still tremble as I write these lines. I have to write them. It is the only way for me to calm down.
Armand has no trace of Catherine. I truly believe him. He simply lost track of her.
He knows Catherine was married, then divorced. She has two children. She went to drafting school before getting married. (How curious that she chose a career path identical to her mother's. Then again, having seen those drawings in the trunk, it seemed quite natural that she pursue such a path. Coherence.)
He lost track. He will try to send me documents or information if he finds some. He is willing to meet me in September when I will be passing through... He could not tell me her married name, nor the town(s) where she had lived...
This is really too much. Both of them abandoned her. Sono sconvolto.