have tried to anticipate and skirt obstacles like an Olympic skier. My imagination is so agile that I glide effortlessly between the little red flags. Philippe’s imagination is both infinite and inflexible. It’s a dangerous combination. He stays planted on the ground while looking down over reality. Between us, we do a good job of imagining everything that could happen.
I figured I shouldn’t tell him the news: your hairdresser hanged herself in her salon.
He got home a little late from school, and I was annoyed, worried; my composure had slipped once more.
‘Kimi went back to her country,’ I said.
But once the truth is silenced, there is no going back.
‘Actually, I don’t know what happened, but the salon is closed at any rate.’
Philippe looked at me, incredulous. He must have felt like a small explosion had happened a few hours before.
‘Did she leave or not?’
‘Yes, she left.’
‘What’s with you?’
I took his backpack and set it on the kitchen chair.
‘What about my hair?’ he asked.
For once, I was so happy that he reverted to his obsession that I started to laugh.
‘I’ll cut it. You know I’m good at things.’
He knows. I can do anything if I put my mind to it. I don’t give up until I’ve exhausted every possibility.
I laid the instruments out on the table: a glass of water, comb, scissors. I took my time, injecting a bit of ceremony into the proceedings. Philippe was getting impatient. I told him to sit down and be still. I spread an old sheet over his shoulders. I started cutting. My heart was racing. I was afraid of making a mistake, so I tried to recreate Kimi’s gestures from memory.
‘I know how Kimi does it. I’ve watched her closely. But you have to be as patient with me as you are with her.’
Which was of course impossible. Kimi made everything around her serene.
But I kept moving with her gentleness anyway.
Philippe has very thick hair: it made the job all the harder, but also made it easier to camouflage mistakes. I hurried a little so he wouldn’t start to lose his cool, and finally I was done.
I removed the sheet with a theatrical flourish. Like the moment of glory in a bullfight.
‘Voilà! The handsomest boy in the world!’
Philippe ran his hand over the back of his neck. He went to look at himself in the entryway mirror. He smiled at me.
‘It’ll do.’
Then I cleaned up the kitchen while he did his homework.
I needed to save my energy for the after-dinner chess game, but I couldn’t get Kimi’s smiling face out of my mind. I poured myself a drink, hiding it from Philippe’s view. If I could have, I would have locked myself in the bathroom to drink it. Having a glass of wine, then two, and then three . . . I had come to the conclusion that children see this as an act of weakness. The simple truth is that I have a witness to everything I do. Sometimes I resent Philippe for it.
I had to think some more. A hole had just opened up in my everyday life, and I couldn’t help but look through it, even though doing so was dangerous. The implausibility of Kimi’s act made continuing on with my day and its series of activities seem almost unbearable. I couldn’t believe it was suicide. Kimi’s apparent happiness was what we had hung our future on. I hoped someone would call to explain what had really happened. Perhaps I had imagined it all, my conversation with Harriet and all the rest. I had to focus, and I was afraid that Philippe would start talking. There was a fog around me, and I didn’t want him to make it any denser – or to lift it, truth be told.
I picked up the phone and dialled the number for the salon. One day, someone would have to penetrate the four greying walls again and answer me. I knew it was an absurd thought. All the same, I had to dial the number and then hang up, like when in a moment of insanity one night you call the person who dumped you. It offers a semblance of proof of existence. And proofs of existence are important. Sometimes they are the only thing that will calm you.
In fact, I was finding proofs of Kimi’s existence pretty flimsy now that she was gone. Even the adjective ‘dead’ seemed unreal alongside her name.
I looked through the papers to see whether they said anything about her. Nothing, anywhere. And nothing in the obituaries, of course. The investigation wasn’t over, and the body had to be kept on ice in such cases. So Kimi’s body was resting in a morgue, and maybe no one was interested in that body except me. I was exaggerating my own importance, because she did have a fiancé. But I wasn’t ready yet for that thought, which led straight to other theories.
The day was still warm, and I went out on the deck to drink my glass of wine. Philippe joined me.
‘It’s summer,’ I said, turning my glass on the table.
‘Not yet, gawd!’
He sat across from me.
‘You’re not cutting any lilacs?’
‘Yes, in a minute.’
‘Why not now?’
‘Tonight, Philippe.’
‘Tonight we’re playing chess.’
‘I can do both.’
‘You won’t though.’
‘You’re right, I never keep my promises!’
I pushed a stray strand of his hair back into place. I would have liked to stroke his head until his eyes closed.
‘Maybe Kimi’s dead.’
‘Not everyone dies, Philippe.’
‘Of course everyone dies! What are you talking about?’ His blue eyes were lit by a small weak flame. ‘Except you,’ he added mischievously.
‘That’s right. Everyone dies except me.’
Rudi had the right to die. I even told him to go at the end, but it wouldn’t happen that way for me. I had to survive everything. It was oppressive.
But I had picked up the pieces pretty well, I thought.
I poured another drink.
I made dinner, pretending to be cheerful. We ate. Then we shuffled our pieces around the chess board, not exactly prodigies. I was the one making things seem gloomy; I wasn’t playing well. My mind was somewhere else. I lost the game, but Philippe took no pride in winning. I was ashamed. So for once, we went out for a bike ride under the stars. It was a good idea. Philippe relaxed, prattling on about the night. Whether he slept or not, he would win the tournament tomorrow. His will was stronger than anything. And I could predict the future, although I didn’t say so.
I prepared for the next day, where there was no room for Kimi. This was how I had been getting through the past year, one day at a time. The death of the tiny hairdresser – that’s what I had always affectionately called her – changed nothing. At least, that’s what I thought that night. Everything had to be visible; I had to see our lives in the rustling of the leaves in the trees; sometimes I had to freeze the frame, a self-awareness strong enough to see Philippe and me back to the present.
He won the tournament. I had his grandparents, aunt and two uncles over for dinner. Tomas and Stefan took turns spinning him in the air, and as usual it scared me. Some men are strangely driven to defy danger, even when there isn’t any. Then my sister Christine washed the dishes while my parents snuck a listen at Philippe’s chest. Rudi was probably laughing, wherever he was. ‘Released’ is what they say. I don’t know. But in the end, we laughed all the time together, and I didn’t see why it shouldn’t continue. So I laughed with Rudi in the hallway that led