Invisible Love by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Howard Curtis Read Free Book Online Page A

life, but they had to remain apart.
    At the age of eighteen, David got enough money together to buy himself a secondhand motorcycle. The two lovers shuddered, fearing he might have an accident. Every evening, they would drive through Rue des Renards, where the Greniers lived, to make sure that the bike was there, intact, tied to a bench not far from the entrance, and as soon as they spotted the blue bodywork they would sigh with relief.
    The thing they could never have foreseen happened one Tuesday in November.
    Opening their newspaper to the local news page, they learned that a drunken brawl had broken out in the rough area near the Gare du Midi, a brawl that had left two people wounded and one dead. The dead person was an innocent bystander, a high school student riding a motorbike.
    Jean and Laurent turned pale. Could it be David?
    As the item did not mention the name, they jumped straight into their car. Of course, on the ride to the Marolles, they laughed at their own panic, kept telling themselves that there were dozens, even hundreds of young men who rode motorcycles. But their nonchalance was feigned—what they really felt was an awful, nagging premonition that something terrible had happened to David.
    They were right. When they reached the building, not only was the motorcycle not there, but the neighbors were laying flowers along the wall.
    David had died when his bike had skidded as he had tried to avoid the fight.
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    Rarely had so much genuine grief been seen at a funeral service. David had been idolized: everyone who had met him—whatever their age or sex—had fallen under his spell and found it hard to accept that he was gone.
    Johnny, Minnie, Claudia—his brother and sisters—were trying hard to put on a brave face. At the end of their tether, red-eyed, their features haggard, they would have liked to be alone with their grief: living it in public was a kind of desecration. Luckily, their understanding spouses looked after the children—David’s nephews and nieces, shattered at the loss of their young uncle—and welcomed the guests.
    Geneviève was not crying. She sat as pale and stiff as a marble statue, staring into the distance, above people’s heads. It was as if everything had died in her. She showed no emotion, looked nobody in the face, and replied to the condolences mechanically, as if she had sent an automaton in her place.
    At the end of the row, next to the harmonium, Eddy sat huddled in his wheelchair. His face was completely expressionless. Was he grief-stricken, or pleased that this false son who wasn’t even his had finally gone? His true thoughts lay hidden within his crippled body.
    Jean and Laurent managed to maintain their dignity during the service, but broke down when the coffin was lifted. To think that David, their David, young, handsome David, was lying lifeless in the wooden box being carried through the church by his friends . . . Pushing back their chairs, they rushed out, reaching the front steps before the cortège, ran to their car and drove home, where they took refuge, closing the shutters to give free rein to their despair.
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    The two men had changed.
    Up until now fate had spared them, but after the scandal of David’s death they relaxed their vigilance. They did nothing to hold back the wrinkles, the white hair, the sadness. They aged overnight.
    Their lives had become meaningless.
    Reaching the age of sixty, Laurent, having lost interest in his profession, took early retirement.
    As often happens, this sudden cessation of activity proved fatal. He complained of discomfort, then of shooting pains. Finally, a medical examination revealed that he had multiple sclerosis, a disease whose worst characteristic is that it can develop in various unpredictable ways. Laurent knew he was doomed, but did not know if he had one year or twenty left to live.
    At the beginning of his martyrdom, he would join Jean