I showed her the photograph of Yves Grimbert that I had found on Facebook. She got up abruptly to fetch a bottle. ‘Don’t you think this calls for whisky rather than tea?’ she said, in a voice that sounded almost tragic. I agreed completely.⁹ It was true that I couldn’t really handle hard spirits and would much rather have drunk wine. But I wanted to go along with her, to impose my own tastes on this story as little as possible. And in the end, I liked the pleasant heat that radiated through my throat; my head started to warm up nicely too, and I almost regretted all those years of drinking without a drop of whisky. A drink that propelled us towards the dark, painful part of the story. Madeleine had never known why Yves had suddenly left for the United States. Presumably he’d lacked the courage to tell her the truth, but what truth? The years had flown by, leaving her as bewildered as she had been that first day after his departure, and now here was a French writer to sweep up the crumbs of her unbroken despair.

1. 9. It would be possible to associate every moment of one’s life with a liquid mood; there are lemonade moments and cherry vodka moments. This morning, for example, I felt quite excited by my project – very much a papaya juice mood.

32

I don’t know how long our conversation lasted, but after a while Patrick came back into the living room. Well, almost: he stood in the doorway, one foot still in the corridor. He watched us, caught between stupefaction and irritation. ‘You’re drinking whisky?’ he said finally, as he stared at the answer to his question. I accept that it could have struck him as incongruous, seeing his wife get drunk with a perfect stranger in his living room. He wanted to help me in my project, but there were limits. It was time I left.

The three of us quickly said goodbye. Out on the landing, I thought I could hear raised voices behind the door. Apparently I had outstayed my welcome and caused a marital row. I had to be careful not to disturb the equilibrium of this family; not to damage the Martins’ ecosystem. By the time the lift arrived, I could no longer hear anything. That is perhaps one way to measure how worn down a couple is: when their arguments are over in a matter of seconds.

33

Walking home, I contemplated the richness of the day’s harvest. A little earlier that day, after thinking about Six Characters in Search of an Author, I had found Pirandello’s book in my apartment. Leafing through it, I’d come upon this phrase: ‘Life is full of infinite absurdities, which, strangely enough, do not even need to appear plausible, since they are true.’ Indeed, the truth often seems improbable. I was worried that my writing about reality might be considered less credible than fiction. I feared that my readers would not believe me, that they would think this entire story invented; that they would imagine I had never left my apartment and spoken to the first person I encountered. Sometimes I tell the truth and it sounds like a lie. But what can I do? Life is implausible.