Free Invisible Love by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Howard Curtis

survived.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œDuring the war, he was hidden in a Catholic boarding school in Namur. By a priest. Father . . . André. Don’t you notice anything else?”
    I sensed where she was trying to lead me. Like me, like the villagers, she was wondering about the importance of the dog, wondering if it was the accident that had led to her father’s desperate act. I didn’t dare mention the subject myself, assuming that, for a daughter, such a suspicion must be a source of great suffering.
    She was staring at me, urgent, demanding, trusting. I finally stammered, “Miranda, what was your relationship with your father’s dogs?”
    She sighed, relieved that I had finally gone to the heart of the matter. Finishing her coffee, she sat back in her chair and looked at me. “Daddy only ever had one dog at a time. A Beauceron named Argos. I’m fifty now and I knew four of them.”
    â€œWhy a Beauceron?”
    â€œNo idea.”
    â€œAnd why Argos?”
    â€œNo idea either.”
    â€œAnd what did you think of them?”
    She hesitated, not very accustomed to formulating these feelings, but wanting to do so. “I loved them all. Really loved them. First of all, they were good dogs, lively, affectionate, devoted. And besides, they were my brothers, my sisters . . . ” She broke off for a moment to think, then went on, “They were my mother too . . . And my father, a little . . . ” Tears welled up in her eyes. She had surprised even herself.
    I tried to help her. “Brother or sister, Miranda, that I can understand, because the dog obeyed your father and became your companion. But . . . your mother?”
    A faraway look came into her eyes. Although she was staring down at the floor, it was obvious from their opaque stillness that, inside, they were focused on memories.
    â€œArgos understood me better than Daddy did. If I was sad, or angry, or ashamed, Argos would sense it immediately. He knew all my moods. Like a mother . . . He would tell my father. Oh yes, there were lots of times when Argos interceded with Daddy to remind him that he should be paying attention to me, listening to me, getting me to open up. At those moments, when Daddy obeyed him, Argos would sit upright between us, watching both of us, making sure that I was telling my father, in the complicated language of humans, what he, a dog, had immediately grasped.”
    Her voice had become both softer and more high-pitched, and her hand shook as she put her hair back in place. Without realizing it, Miranda was reverting to the little girl she was talking about.
    â€œAnd it was Argos that I got all the hugs and kisses from,” she went on. “Like a mother . . . Daddy was always very reserved with me. The hours we spent, Argos and I, lying side by side on the carpet, dreaming and talking! His was the only body I touched, and the only body that touched me. Like a mother, don’t you think?”
    She was questioning me like a lost little girl who wanted confirmation that she was correctly defining what she had lacked.
    â€œLike a mother . . . ” I echoed approvingly.
    She smiled, reassured. “I had often had Argos’s smell on me. Because he’d jump on me. Because he’d lick me. Because he’d cling to my legs. Because he needed to prove his affection. In my childhood, Argos had a smell, and Daddy didn’t. He would keep his distance, he didn’t smell of anything, or else he smelled clean. I mean, he had a civilized smell, the smell that comes from bottles, eau de cologne or antiseptic, a man’s smell, a doctor’s smell. Only Argos had a smell all his own. And I had his.”
    She looked up at me, and I said in her place, “Like a mother . . . ”
    A long silence followed. I didn’t dare break it, guessing that Miranda was remembering all the happy times in her past. She was