For a moment I think they’ve spotted me. But no, a second later I hear the cries of a baby. The only new-born baby I know of is the little disabled one that his grandmother, who does the housekeeping at Papé and Mamy’s house, pushes around the place in a pram.

It’s over.

No more noise.

I go on down, stumbling on each step of the black staircase. I plunge into the endless tunnel, an eternity, I tiptoe through all that remains of my childhood, and by the time I reach the toilets a whole lifetime has almost passed by. I lock myself in, as if I’ve crossed to the other side of the Mediterranean, of humanity, of the Milky Way. I sit down on the toilet seat without turning the light on, relying only on the faint light that trickles in; I take out my notebook and transcribe all the words that have just exploded out there, in black, I draw letters with feet, as if they were alive and swarming.

I copy them out.

Lines and lines. To punish myself. To expiate the guilt of my family.

Write them out. Write them out for me a million times.

My father is cheating on my mother.

My father is cheating on my mother.

My father is cheating on my mother.

My father is cheating on my mother.

My father is cheating on my mother.

*

*     *

There were three pages like that.

He flicked through them, amused.

If this diary was published one day, how much of that would the publisher dare to keep?

3 Dialogue from the film, The Big Blue, directed by Luc Besson, © 1988, Gaumont.

40

20 August 2016, 3 p.m.

Cars passed, sounding their horns as they swerved towards the precipice, insulting the oblivious owner of the Passat that was parked halfway across the winding coastal road. Clotilde didn’t hear them.

She held the envelope in her hand, thunderstruck. Gently, she opened it.

She read it slowly, like a child in its first year at primary school reading the words of a retired teacher.

My Clo,

Thank you, thank you for agreeing to do that. Thank you for standing under the oak tree. Otherwise I don’t know if I would have recognised you. You have grown into a very pretty woman. Your daughter too, perhaps even more beautiful. She looks like me, I think. At least she looks like the woman I once was.

I would so like to talk to you.

This evening. It’s possible this evening, if you can do it.

Around midnight, go and stand at the bottom of the path that leads to the Casa di Stella.

Wait there. He will come and guide you.

Wrap yourself up, it’s bound to be a bit cold.

He will lead you to my dark room. I won’t be able to open the door. But perhaps the walls will be thin enough for me to be able to hear your voice.