Invisible Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

engine and drove impatiently to Avenue Lepoutre.
    Every time they got back from the churches where they had been spying on the Greniers, Jean and Laurent made love. Every time, their lovemaking was fueled by a different feeling. This time, there was a kind of violence in it, a controlled violence of course, which meant “I really want you” and revived the magic of their first embrace.
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    *
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    The birth of David brought about a rebirth in their relationship. Jean and Laurent forgot the vow they had made on the threshold of the church—never to see Eddy or Geneviève again—and followed events in the Marolles with great interest.
    Angela’s items of gossip being somewhat fragmentary, Laurent decided to investigate for himself. He had discovered that some of his fellow electricians and stagehands at the Théâtre Royal du Parc lived in the Marolles, and so he got into the habit of going with them to the local bars, and even took up bowling.
    Within a few months, he managed to find out that the Spaniard wasn’t a Spaniard, he was Italian, his name was Giuseppe, and he, too, was married, which explained his secretiveness.
    Although nobody was aware of the affair between Geneviève and Giuseppe, anyone seeing Geneviève cross the street with her baby carriage, full of beauty and energy and self-confidence, could sense that this woman was blossoming, physically and emotionally.
    At last, Angela announced that in one of the quarrels she overheard through the wall Geneviève had asked for a divorce.
    â€œHe’s refusing, of course. Without her, that good-for-nothing will be penniless. But she’s giving as good as she gets, is our Geneviève. I can hardly recognize her.”
    â€œTell me, Angela, do you think she has a lover?”
    â€œ
Scherza
! When you’re lumbered with
un pezzo
like that,
sarebbe giudizioso
to take a lover, but not her!
Santa madonna
. . .”
    As soon as Angela left the store, Jean turned to Laurent and said in a voice trembling with emotion, “Our little Geneviève’s a fighter.”
    â€œYes. I’m proud of her.”
    â€œIs she going to make it?”
    â€œIf you saw her with her David in her arms,” Laurent cried, “you’d know she will.”
    Jean and Laurent discussed Geneviève, Eddy, Giuseppe, David, Minnie, Johnny, and Claudia as if they were talking about their own family. Without their realizing it, the story of that other couple had become part of their life. It was as if they were close friends.
    It never even crossed their minds that if anyone had mentioned their two names—Jean Daemens and Laurent Delphin—to the Greniers, the latter would not have known who they were talking about.
    Angela’s next piece of gossip was that her neighbor was going to move house. Even though her husband was refusing a divorce, she was going to present him with a fait accompli and move out with her four children. Jean did his best to conceal his joy, but then took advantage of Angela going out to run an errand and called Laurent at the theater to tell him the news.
    That evening, they went to L’Écailler du Roi on Place des Sablons to celebrate. There, surrounded by blue decor that resembled the sea, they drank copious amounts of champagne. What factory worker or cleaning woman living in the damp buildings of the Marolles would have imagined that above their heads, in the upper town, two men were sitting in one of the most expensive restaurants in the city and celebrating the emancipation of one of their neighbors?
    They spent the following Monday trying to figure out a way to help Geneviève move out while remaining anonymous and not arousing any suspicion. They had thought up a number of plausible scenarios by the time Angela said to Jean in the shop on Tuesday, “You know what happened,
Signor
Daemens? Eddy Grenier had a stroke! Just like that!”
    â€œIs he dead?”
    â€œNo.