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

in the shop, and make an effort to help him. But eventually the pain made it impossible for him to move. First he was given crutches. Then a wheelchair was ordered for him.
    When the chair was delivered to Avenue Lepoutre, Laurent exclaimed venomously, “Well, Jean, you once wondered how you would react if your love was put to the test, now you’re going to find out.”
    Jean went to Laurent and placed a finger on his mouth. “It’s a test for you, not for me. I’m not forcing myself to take care of you, I’m not making any sacrifices, I love you.”
    Laurent, unable to bear being diminished like that or the way other people looked at him, became aggressive, picked quarrels with the friends who visited him, drove everyone away then, like a petulant child, complained of being alone. Biting, wounding, killing with words was the last power he had left, the last proof of his virility. The only thing in him that was getting any stronger was his anger.
    Jean had the idea of buying a house in Provence. That would allow them to get away, to enjoy the sun, the countryside . . . even find some peace, perhaps? He purchased an eighteenth-century residence in gilded stone, installed a manager in his shop in Brussels, and moved to France with Laurent.
    When Laurent died, one Christmas Eve, Jean’s first thought was to kill himself. Then, standing by the glittering tree, around which lay gifts that would never be opened, he thought of the people who would have to be informed, the funeral arrangements that would have to be made, all their affairs that needed settling . . . It would be cowardly to just slip away and leave strangers to deal with such thankless tasks! Out of respect for these strangers, he put off his suicide.
    He returned to Brussels with Laurent’s body, purchased two lots in the cemetery at Ixelles, and arranged a simple ceremony.
    At the lawyer’s office, the old fellow insisted on reading a document Jean had hoped he would never have to hear: Laurent’s will. As he already knew, Laurent had left everything to him. The lawyer took the opportunity of his visit to advise him to make a new will of his own. The existing one was out of date, given that the two people it mentioned—Laurent and David—were both dead.
    Jean thought about this. These last few years, during which he had hidden the gravity of Laurent’s condition, had isolated him from his friends and colleagues, his former customers, his distant relatives. Nobody had been there to share his ordeal. Who had been generous to him? Who should he be generous to?
    He had several ideas, all possible, none tempting. Finally, exhausted, he was about to ask the lawyer to suggest some charities when an image came back to him: the image of Geneviève leaving the hospital, pushing her paralyzed Eddy in his wheelchair. She knew what he had been through! She had been through it herself! Hadn’t she devoted her time to a disabled man, hadn’t she lost loved ones—her Giuseppe who had returned to a self-imposed exile in Italy, and above all her David?
Her
David?
Their
David . . . Laurent had loved him so much . . .
    He burst out laughing.
    The lawyer thought he was feeling dizzy.
    â€œAre you all right, Monsieur Daemens?”
    â€œPerfectly all right.”
    Since, in Laurent’s eyes, David had been Jean’s child symbolically, why shouldn’t Jean regard Geneviève as the mother of his son?
    â€œThere’s a woman I was more or less married to once. I’d like to leave everything to her.”
    And so Jean dictated the will that transformed Geneviève Grenier, maiden name Piastre, who had married in Sainte-Gudule Cathedral one April 13, into his sole heir.
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    After that, he decided to let himself die.
    Alas, his good health kept him alive. There was nothing he could do about it. Sadness, boredom and revulsion were enough to ruin his life, not to end