Free Augustino and the Choir of Destruction by Marie-Claire Blais Page B

Sylke, and Gudrun had opened their secret files and smoked cigars as they put the finishing touches on their strategy, oh yes, this time there would be an unredeemable, final solution, the decision had been made, Sylke and Klaus wondered why their fathers had forgotten them here with these nuns, would they ever be a family again, or would they just visit their fathers’ graves once a year, and tomorrow each one would have their father’s ghost sticking to their skin, each would have a hanged man or suicide, why would no one have pity on these innocents? You’re wandering into forbidden territory, Adrien said with that professorial voice of his . . . which interests nobody, he might have added, it might be different if Joseph, your father, were the writer in the family, but you weren’t a prisoner in Buchenwald like him, he seized control of himself under Daniel’s smouldering gaze, is he fishing for compliments the way all these young authors do, Adrien wondered, well, bravo, my friend, I’m glad to see that you’ve been doing such good work, say, is your father still going to play the violin tonight the way he did for the millennium festivities, it was very moving to hear, Daniel knew only too well these gambits of Adrien’s when he refused to talk about Daniel’s books, this attitude was one more reason to retreat to the monastery in Spain, he thought as he explained that his father had little time for the violin now that he was Chairman of the Institute of Marine Biology, and so his technique had suffered, talking to Adrien, Daniel had the feeling that he was just chatting, going on, when he would rather be talking literature with the nationally renowned poet who was snubbing him and whose wife then came over and hugged Daniel as if to intercede for him, Suzanne’s sudden kiss, full of spontaneity, and Daniel blushed with pleasure, when you’re in Spain, I’m going to miss our Friday breakfasts on the terrace when I can read you my poems, she said, you’re not hard on me the way my husband is, too bad so few writers of your generation like being around us, Daniel, sometimes I say to myself, you are my only friend, at least I know you won’t make fun of me if I laugh and push away that word, old-age, which is the enemy of joyfulness. Children inherit their father’s past, even if it’s only partially revealed to them, Daniel thought, and Ari walked farther out onto the jetty with his daughter Lou in his arms, look at all the stars in the sky and the boats lit up like cakes with candles on them, tomorrow’s the race all those sailboats are waiting for, too bad one of them way over there is the eerie recreation of a torpedo-boat, your real name is Marie-Louise, no, Lou, stammered the child, then she let out screams that pained her father’s ears, Lou, Lou, Lou, father and daughter, wrapped up in the same night-shadow, high on the stone road, so small-seeming, so far, at the far end of the wharf, Lou’s face showing the grimace of pain that comes so quickly to small children, resolute, she did not cry, but her father saw that the large movements of the waves under the planks of the jetty did not scare her, though she didn’t much like it, all that blackness around them, the stars that barely lit the rippling waves, why did her father make her do this walk every evening, water and waves didn’t reassure her much, except when they were warm, calm, and contained in the pool at home, where she could wade after she had painted her body with her father’s pencils and brushes, that liner over there, that’s Le Commodore , Ari said, that’s a pretty big vessel that’s going to pollute our beaches, and the boat watching us is L’Ange de la paix, The Angel of Peace is watching all of us, hear that, Lou, that’s nothing but the wind and the waves, the ocean breeze forever in you hair and mine, as everlasting as the sky and the sea,