Forgetfulness Read Online Free PDF Page B

Thomas was always within earshot, working alone all day long without interruption except for lunch. He worked in the downstairs room that looked south up the couloir, the land rising until the roads ended and the snow-covered summit began, the route of smugglers for many centuries and refugees of the Napoleonic War at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Francisco Goya's war. There had been a stream of refugees from the Spanish Civil War. Thomas claimed that at the end of the day when he looked up from his easel to the panorama beyond his window he could hear the sound of marching feet, the strangled cries of the wounded, and the creak of leather and weapons. Thousands fled Catalonia in the miserable years 1937 and 1938, settling mainly in Aquitaine. A few were still alive, men and women of very great age, and their descendants were scattered all over southern France, a Spanish diaspora. Not even Franco's death could reconcile them to their homeland because so much had been lost, too much to forgive. Forgiveness was a blasphemy. Thomas thought often of the Spanish refugees when he was working because he was a species of refugee himself, a displaced person.
    He told her that with no explanation.
    And you still feel displaced?
    Not often, he said. Almost never.
    Florette heard piano music and immediately raised her head to discover its source. The notes rose and faded away and when her head fell back to the canvas she realized the music was inside her, refugees abruptly assuming the guise of a tune that she could not identify, though it stayed with her, the tempo resembling a heartbeat or the pain-throb in her ankle. She lay still, trying to imagine herself in other circumstances. She wondered what Thomas would do and what he would be thinking; at least he wouldn't have to worry about a pee. Thomas was good under pressure, as he had been that day in old Bardèche's café. She had never told him about Bardèche-on-Monday-evening—where was the need to do so? Certainly that was not the occasion, the afternoon in the café when he
shyly proposed to her. You never knew how men, even worldly men, would react to such a declaration. It was always a mistake to believe you knew someone's heart, even if it was the person closest to you in all the world. Publicly, Thomas kept his thoughts to himself, using courtesy to disarm his adversaries. Now and then people came to the house to see him. Thomas said they were journalists and sometimes they were, critics from newspapers and magazines eager to know whom he was "doing." But there were others who didn't look like journalists, in their business suits and city hats, their polished shoes, always carrying briefcases, even the women; the smaller the woman, the larger the briefcase. They were often brusque. Thomas would usher them into his office where they could take account of the photographs on the walls, Thomas in a variety of locations and wearing a variety of hats, a bowler, a trilby, a beret, a kaffiyeh, a topee, before being directed to admire the view, the mountain route of refugees.
    A trail of misery, he would say.
    And what the refugees found was scarcely better than what they had left behind, except for the killing.
    Thomas would close the door, having arranged with Florette to knock in one hour and propose tea. She would bring in the tea tray and watch while the visitor, with evident chagrin, switched off the tape recorder; and all this time Thomas was looking at her and beaming, as if tea at four P.M. were the most important moment of the day. Thomas poured the tea and made small talk before explaining that he and Florette had chores, a trip to the market or the post office, a long-delayed visit to the dentist because a molar was acting up. And the visitor would look appropriately crestfallen, how disagreeable for Mr. Railles. Then, rising reluctantly, the visitor would point to the canvas on the easel and say, Very interesting. It definitely has your signature.