The Long Summer of Monsieur Loiseau

"I pushed everything away and did everything I could to get back to the UK," Prudence continued. "My sympathetic editor-in-chief arranged for me to fly after hearing it was an emergency, and I was lucky enough to get one The B52 bomber was about to take off from Berlin that afternoon, taking a few American diplomats to London on the way, I caught this behemoth, landed in London that night, and caught the last train to Oxford. No one at 55 Juniper Street Well, Alex didn't leave me a note. I called the Loiseau mansion, but no one answered. I wanted to go straight to Cornwall, but it was too late, there was no train, The car rental company was also closed, so I waited in the apartment all night anxiously, and rushed to the train station early the next morning."

"I arrived in the afternoon, and it's hard to describe the depressive atmosphere in the mansion. There was no one in the hall, and the curtains were drawn, like a horror movie set. Alex mentioned that Martha now lives on the first floor, without saying which one." room, so I searched door by door, and found her next to the dance hall that hadn’t been used for a long time.”

"My first thought was that she was really old, not just the outside. She was wearing a black veil, and she was a mother in mourning. I was also careful when I hugged her, afraid that she would melt, or shatter. I asked her where Alex was, she didn't know, said Alex left shortly after the funeral, didn't tell her the destination, or that she didn't remember, her attention Not there. Martha held a stuffed bear in her hand. The fur had fallen out from the belly and around the nose, and it looked like it had ringworm. She kept touching the bear's little fur as she spoke. It was George's favorite toy when he was a child. The Baroness ordered it from a Russian toy dealer. There was a small suit like George's, and a hunting suit. It became a family tradition. Lyra and Alec The Baroness would order a new one when he was born. The other two bears were nowhere to be found, and this one was left standing alone on a shelf in the utility room."

"'George will talk to the bear and put him on the pillow. What do you think he said?' Martha told me, sitting the bear on her lap and straightening her faded little bow tie."

"She insisted on taking me to see George's tombstone, behind the chapel, not far from where he was married five years ago. The path leading to the chapel is lined with pine trees and has grown into an airtight tunnel But at that time the trees were small and tied with brackets, like stick figures drawn by children. It had rained earlier, and the road was slippery, with twigs and leaves falling. Martha couldn't walk fast, so I asked her My arm. The wind shakes water droplets from the treetops now and then, but we don't mind."

"The Loiseaus have one of those family mausoleums with low stone vaults, but Georges isn't in it, maybe because he committed suicide, though I don't think the Barons are particularly religious. Martha said it was a morning , when George died, everyone heard gunshots, but the first to find him was his wife. The gun was hidden in a locked wooden box, high on a bookshelf. No one knows how George found it Went there, maybe he'd been looking for it quietly for a long time. The doctor was called quickly, then the police, although everyone knew it was useless. The funeral was very low-key, including Martha, only seven Personally. The Baron did not invite George's comrades. They arrived a few days later with bouquets and mementos. The wilted bouquets had been cleared when I went to the cemetery, leaving a soggy ribbon and a few knickknacks , someone left a bronze medal, pressed on a piece of cardboard, 'To George, Captain Forever'."

"'Why did this happen, Mr. Prudence?' Martha asked me."

"I don't know. Martha didn't expect me to answer, of course. I wasn't in the mood to continue the subject, my mind was full of Alex. I said a few words of reassurance and left the mansion, which is now a cemetery, as soon as possible. .”

"Nobody knew where Alex was going, I asked everyone I could think of and they were all amazed I didn't know. I revisited all the places we'd been together before, restaurants, bookstores, hairdressers , a club 10 minutes away by car, and a shop selling handmade wooden toys, and then went back to Juniper Street and waited for a day, and even called the small hotel in Saint-Malo on a whim, no, Mr. Loiseau is not there .”

"Alex didn't take his typewriter and manuscript with him, and I stayed at home and read his stories one by one, all in fragments, full of dialogue without beginning and end and situations lacking context, A young boy runs along the bank of a river, stepping on a rusty fishhook buried in the mud, the next page shows a Dutch gunboat firing on a deep-water harbor held by British colonists, and a ragged girl walks through a blazing street , looking for a lost hook. I saw his parents, George, Martha, the long-lost Lyle, and me in all these fleeting moments. As with himself, he It also breaks us down and shapes us back into shape in order to create order out of this chaotic life without order. This is Alex's way of understanding the world."

"There was a reissue of Agnes's Kite on the desk, the vellum was half torn, and I tore out what was left, and took the book out. Miss Simmons's illustrations show crows gathering silently in the corner and Slender, sad-looking skeleton, I can probably understand why Alex likes her interpretation. There is another manuscript under the mail package, not thick, about ten pages, neatly bound, with Alex This must be his most important story at the moment, because only then can he arrange the manuscript in such an orderly manner. Yes, Mr. Rivers, you guessed it, that is the draft of "Eternal Summer", but the It wasn't called that at the time, and the title was simply Summer. I saw my own name, and the opening line was 'Harry Prudence's life began on a gravel road that seemed to have no end'. I My hands began to tremble, and I had to sit down to read the dozen or so unfinished pages. Then I put the manuscript back where it was, and went to the bathroom to wash my face."

Prudence sighed.

"I couldn't stay in Oxford indefinitely, the editor was very patient, but there was a limit to this patience. I couldn't put it off any longer and had to return to Bonn. With little hope, I ended up at 'Puffin and the Trident' , the bartender said Alex hadn't been here in almost two months. I asked him if I could sit at the table Alex used to hang out and he said whatever. I ordered a stout and walked around the stairs, I sat down by the window facing the small garden. It was past eleven o'clock in the morning, the students hadn't come yet, the tavern was quiet, I couldn't believe it was five years ago that I first came here, it felt more like yesterday."

"I handed an envelope to the bartender and gave him five pounds back, asking him to hand it to him if he saw Alex, with the addresses of my usual hotels in Bonn, Paris and Geneva, and the editor's Private phone number where Alex can reach me, that's the quickest way. Just to be on the safe side, I left an identical letter at 55 Juniper Street, and one at the club reception, Ma Sha also copied an address, so wherever Alex showed up, there was contact information."

"But he never came to me. Complete silence."

"I went back to Bonn, where I lived in a small bare room, nineteen square meters, with only a bed, a table and chairs, and a sink. But I rarely stayed in this room, whenever possible , all in the newspaper office, where there were always people and lights, and the typewriter and the ringing phone made me feel better."

"I decided to keep the Juniper Street flat, and the landlord told me the Baron had stopped paying the rent bills, so I sent the check myself, and it was 1957, Mr Rivers, a journalist who was not well paid. One Christmas I went back to London to find that Alex had taken away my clothes, typewriter and manuscripts, and mine was packed and deposited with the porter. I returned my monthly rent check, saying that Mr. Loiseau had moved out in October and told the landlord not to cash my check. I dragged the box out and stood by the roadside for a while, not knowing where to go. I stayed in a hotel that night, took the train to London early the next morning, left my luggage at the house of my father, whom I hadn’t seen for a long time, bought a ticket for the ferry across the English Channel, and returned to Bonn. For a while I was vengeful Feeling angry, as if Alex owed me a chance to explain, but in the end that anger also slowly dissipated, leaving a hollow like a bomb crater."

Both Prudence and the reporter watched the fire, and there was a silence for a moment.

"I thought this was the end. But of course it wasn't, it was just an intermission and my story with Alex is far from over."

The second part is over.

Part III. Crepuscule