Chapter 17 Chapter Eleven

We didn't see each other again until dinnertime, both disturbed by the two of us who had recovered so suddenly, and I wasn't hungry at all. So does he.We all knew that Anna had to come back.It would be too much for me to remember for a long time the grief-stricken face of Anna before she left, her grief and my responsibilities.I had forgotten my patient strategy and such careful planning. I felt completely out of my mind, out of control.And I saw the same feeling on my father's face. "Do you think she will abandon us for long?" he said. "She must have been to Paris," I said.

"Paris..." Father chewed thoughtfully. "Maybe we'll never see her again..." He looked at me in bewilderment, and reached across the table to grab my hand: "You must hate me. I don't know what's got me... When I went into the woods with Elsa, she... Anyway, when I kissed Elsa, Anna probably got there, so..." I didn't listen to him.The scene of Elsa and her father huddled together in the shadow of the pine tree seemed to me both amusing and unreliable, because I didn't see them.The only thing that was certain, cruelly certain, that day was Anna's face.

That pained, betrayed face that lasts in my memory.I took a cigarette from my father's cigarette case and lit it.Here's something Anna doesn't allow: smoking with meals.I smiled at my father: "I understand very well: it was your fault... It was a moment of madness, as they say. But Anna must forgive us, and eventually you." "How to do it?" His complexion was very bad, and I felt pity for him.Then I pitied myself.In short, why did Anna leave us in this way, torment us with such insolence?Has she no obligation to us? "We wrote to her," I said, "to ask her to forgive me."

"That's a brilliant idea," exclaimed my father. Finally found a way to get out of the guilt-ridden state of inaction. Before we finished our meal, we rolled up the tablecloth and pushed away the cutlery.Father brought a big lamp, some pens, a bottle of ink, and his letterhead.We sat down face to face, almost smiling, because we felt that Anna's return was possible because of this touching scene.A dragon flew over, drawing a series of shining arcs in front of the window.Father lowered his head and began to write. The letters we wrote to Anna that night were filled with kind emotions.I can't think of it now without a sense of disgusting mockery and cruelty.Our father and daughter are like concentrated and clumsy primary school students, sitting under the lamp, silently doing this impossible homework: "Find Anna".Nevertheless we produced two epistle masterpieces.The letter was filled with sincere apologies, warmth and remorse.By the end of the writing, I was almost convinced that Anna could not be unmoved after reading the letter; our reconciliation was just around the corner.

I've even imagined a very coy, comical scene of forgiveness... It will take place in Paris, in our living room: Anna enters the living room, and... The phone rang.It was already 10 o'clock.We looked at each other in amazement, then hope; it was Ana, calling to say she forgave us, she was back.Father jumped towards the phone with a few strides, and called out in a cheerful voice, "Hello!" Then he just said, "Yes, yes! Where? Yes." In a very low voice.It was my turn to stand up: I was terrified, I looked at my father and his unconscious hand covering his face.Finally, he gently put down the receiver and turned to me.

"She's had an accident," he said, "on the road to Estelle. It took them a while to find her address. They called Paris first, and they told them our phone number. " He spoke mechanically, without any change in tone.I dare not interrupt him. "The accident happened in the most dangerous area. It is said that there were many accidents there. The car fell from a height of 50 meters. It would be a miracle if she didn't die..." I remember the rest of the night like a nightmare: the road under the headlights, my father's blank face, the hospital... my father wouldn't let me see her.I sat on a bench in the waiting room, looking at a lithograph of a Venetian scene.I thought nothing of it.A female nurse told me that this is the sixth accident in this place since the beginning of summer.Father didn't come back.

So I thought, in this matter of death, Anna is different from us again.If we, my father and I, were to commit suicide (even if we had the courage to commit suicide), we would put a bullet in the head and leave an explanatory last note to forever disturb the mind and sleep of those responsible.But Anna gave us a costly gift: convincing us quite possibly that it was an accident.A dangerous spot, her car is not stable.A gift that we are too weak to accept at the mention of it.Besides, I say suicide today because I like fantasy.Is it possible for people to commit suicide for people like my father and me who don't need anyone, dead or alive?Besides, when I talked to my father, it was never just that it was an accident.

At 3 o'clock in the afternoon the next day, we returned home.Elsa and Cyril sat on the stairs waiting for us.They stand before us like two banal, forgotten figures: neither the one nor the other knew Anna, neither loved her; They stood there with their sorrow, with the double allure of their beauty, and with their embarrassment.Cyril took a step towards me and put his hand on my arm.I looked at him: I never loved him.I used to think he was kind and attractive; I used to love the joy he gave me.But I don't need him.I'm going to go, leave this house, this boy, this summer.Father is with me.He also took my arm.We go inside.

There are Anna's clothes, her flowers, her room, her fragrance.Father closed the shutters and took a bottle of wine and two glasses from the refrigerator.This is the medicine we can find.Our letter of apology is still on the table.I push them away.They float to the floor.My father walked towards me with a filled wine glass, hesitated, then walked around to avoid stepping on the letter.I find it all symbolic and off-putting.I took the glass with both hands and drank it down.The room was dimly lit.I saw the shadow of my father standing by the window.The sea laps on the sand.