Memories

By

Nana

Chapter 36

Author's Notes: It is now 2 am in Tokyo but I have, at last, finished this penultimate chapter to Memories! Will wonders never cease! Hahahaha. It's in its first draft and I am sure there are a lot of mistakes, but I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did writing it. Thank you so much for waiting so patiently and for writing all your wonderful reviews to cheer me on. I hope this is worth the wait, and I hope the contents will answer all the questions you guys have posted in your reviews.

So this was how it felt like to die. To be pierced by a thousand arrows, to bleed silently inside, to be dying every single second it took me to get to the hospital.

Yet in the very beginning, I had felt nothing. Clutching the phone to my ear, hearing Alain's trembling voice on the other line, his words registering briefly before my mind shut down entirely, I had felt nothing.

André's been in an accident…been tailing him along the Colonne de Juliet when suddenly this car came accelerating out of nowhere…unconscious, badly hurt…in the emergency room now…doctors attending to him…

Perhaps André, like myself, had not felt anything at the moment of impact- that frozen moment in time before everything changes, where nothing was ever going to be the same again. Strangely, this was what had been occupying my mind when I got downstairs, as if in a dream, to hail a taxi. If André had not felt anything during the accident, then thank God. Surely He had accorded him more mercy than He would me. For surely, surely, this was a sign that I had lost. No matter how hard I had struggled to overcome this moment, to make it not happen, it had. I had lost, and Fate had won.

And I knew then what was going to happen next: I was going to lose André. Even now, as we made our way to the hospital (oh, how could time slow down so!), perhaps he was already lost to me. The trembling began then, and the pain. And once it arrived, it came in waves, such agony that I would have gladly torn my heart out just to make it stop.

Yet the tears stalled. Even after I arrived in the emergency room, with Alain anxiously explaining to me about André's emergency surgery, with only the recently empty bed with the hideously bloodstained sheets beside us to tell that André had ever been there, I did not cry. No, the tears would not come. I felt that everything seemed tightly wound up inside me, wringing my heart, yet the tears would not spill.

Everything seemed like a dream. Yes, a dream that I would wake up from soon. I stared uncomprehendingly at Alain as he talked on, telling me about the sleek black car that had rammed into André, sending him sprawling into the plaza, then doubling back to make sure it had done its job before speeding off. And all the while I kept telling myself, "This is the moment when I will wake up."

And yet it never happened. I never awoke.

Alain paused and stared at me as I stood mutely in front of him. "Françoise, are you all right?" he asked.

It was the harsh timbre of his voice that burst the dreamlike bubble surrounding me. All of a sudden everything in my vision shifted, became clear as crystal. The myriad, urgent noises of the emergency room, Alain's drawn face, and most of all those bloody sheets ()

If I stretched a hand to touch the stains I knew they would still be fresh and warm.

I turned and walked out without replying to Alain's query, walked out into the bustling street with its early morning traffic, mind racing, thoughts slamming into each other so fast that they would not permit the tears to come.

Of course, of course, they would want André dead. That would serve me right for going against them. After all, what difference could one human being make against a monster of an institution? Be it a monarchy or a corporation, what was one life to them? They knew that if they had André they would have me right where they wanted me. If André were to die, then I was as good as dead, even if I were still alive. That was what it all meant—all those visions of Oscar François, all her warnings. I finally understood now. That was what she had meant when she had visited me in my dreams. Remember, she had said. All her prescient memories—to no avail. No avail. She had lost and I had lost. Nothing could undo the thread woven by the Fates.

And—a more hideous realization—I was not going to die after André. Not in this life. Nothing was going to claim my life and make it mercifully short. If André died, I would live on, day after day, year after year, a lifetime of tears that would never dry. A vast, empty, meaningless future awaits me with only memories of what could have been to keep me company. It would be like dying again and again, even if everything inside me had already been extinguished. An unbearable existence. This was what Oscar had come to warn me about—this latest twist in my fate and its consequences. It was crystal clear now, now that it was too late.

So I rushed into the traffic, flinging my arms wide, screaming, "Here I am! Here I am! It's me you want, isn't it? Why don't you just kill me now?"

Afterwards, Alain would say I was out of my mind, but I could honestly tell you I wasn't. Everything was so clear, so painfully, excruciatingly clear. I could feel each sensation right down to the smallest detail when all I wanted was to not feel anything: the frenzied sound of car horns, the biting grip of Alain's hand on my arm as he pulled me away from the screeching cars, his terrible scream: "Are you out of your damn mind?"

And I clearly remembered what I told him as I struggled in his arms, and I meant it, every single word of it: "No. No! Let me go, Alain! It's much better this way! You don't understand! I cannot live without André. Can't you understand that? Why can't you understand that?"

He shook me then, shook me so hard I thought my neck was going to snap. "Now you listen to me!" He cried roughly. "André is not going to die! Do you hear me? He's going to pull through and I'd be damned if I have to break it to him that you've gone on ahead!"

And there was something in what Alain said, something that only he could think to say in a situation like this, that checked me…made me want, of all things, to laugh. Only it didn't come out that way. The tears came then—a torrent. I distinctly remembered sagging against him, as if all the strings that had held me aloft were suddenly cut, and saying over and over, "You're ridiculous. So bloody ridiculous! Alain, how can you possibly be so absurd?"

He merely held me tighter, both of us weeping all the while.

And that was how the haze cleared, even though, as I told you, I saw everything so clearly. Or thought I did.

"I must see Antoinette." No sooner were the words out of my mouth when I realized this was it. This was the day I bow out of de la Saigne Industries, from de Brun. From Antoinette and the world I had always known.

Alain sighed as he leaned back wearily on the tiny hospital lounge seat. It had taken me almost a full hour to calm down and by the look on his face, I could tell he wasn't entirely convinced I could be trusted to act rationally. Not yet anyway.

"Is it wise? In your present condition? Perhaps your parents ought to know first about André. Hell, we haven't informed them or André's grandmother yet—"

"No," I cut in. "We go to de Brun now."

The operations on André were still ongoing. In the end it would take the surgeons nearly five hours to patch him up. I had to be away, far away from here if I were to retain my sanity. The meeting with Antoinette could not be postponed. It was as fate would have decreed it. I was so tired of fighting it all off, yet I could not stop, even if it meant my heart had died and I were merely going through the motions.

Because that was how Oscar had gone through it.

Damn you, I cursed silently, savagely, at the thought of her. Damn your stubbornness and courage, your unyielding principles. To what end have they taken you? I've never wanted to live anyone's life but my own. Why am I obliged to live out your life here, now? How many times must your personal tragedy play itself out before it all stops?

But even before I had finished thinking it, I knew grief and anger were screwing up my perspective. Because the choices Oscar had made were also my choices; no matter what happened, even if we were given other alternatives, we would not decide differently. Our conscience would not allow us to choose the personal above the greater good. This is who we are, who we've always been regardless of the heavy cost.

And no matter what, this final nightmare would never stop. It did not stop for Oscar François and most certainly it will not stop for me, whether or not André dies. Not until the final act was played out.

Of course, on the way to de Brun, it was not clear how I was to approach Antoinette with my resignation, how to tell her without the consequences that will inevitably ensue. True, we had pretty much parted ways months ago but I had hoped to avoid this kind of severance, almost as physical as a cut inflicted by a knife— a fatal wound, irreparable. I had hoped Antoinette could be saved. Lauzun, of course, was there to prove me wrong.

As fate would have it, there he was in the lobby, just as Alain and I were entering. He paused as he saw us coming, then breaking out in a wide grin, drawled languidly, "I see you're here without your usual lackey. Where is André? Indisposed, I take it?"

Here he tutted sympathetically, his gaze sly and amused. For the life of me, I did not know how I managed to restrain myself from flying at him. Perhaps Alain's warning hand on my arm, his grip tight enough to crush, was the reason.

He knows. And nobody was supposed to know yet. Not even my parents, not Nanny. Nobody except Alain and myself.

Of course, of course…I had thought from the start that it had to be an inside job, hadn't I? It was his job from beginning to end. Why I would be jolted by his brazen revelation was beyond me, but it did.

"There'll be hell to pay, Lauzun," I muttered as we stalked past him.

"Oh, I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," he replied easily. It was a good thing the lift doors were closing on us then, otherwise I wouldn't have known what I could have done to the man.

As we ascended the building, I contented myself with a violent, open-handed blow on the polished lift doors, forceful enough to warp and distort our images on their chrome surfaces; the sound, a thunderclap in a box.

"Françoise…"

"I'm fine," I said shortly without looking back at Alain. Despite the nastiness of it all, Lauzun had served his purpose. He had now provided me with a clear reason to present to Antoinette.

All the pieces of the puzzle were now falling into place.

As I strode into the room, Alain and Antoinette's hapless, protesting secretary trailing in my wake, Antoinette rose from behind the massive oak table that used to have been Auguste's. She looked tired and pale, but her head and shoulders were set defiantly in silent, regal dignity.

The final confrontation. It was heartbreaking.

"It's all right," she murmured to the secretary. "Leave us."

I nodded to Alain to do the same. I heard the door close behind us quietly.

"Tell me you don't know," I said.

Antoinette began to shake her head, bewildered. "Françoise, I don't even know what you're talking about," she said, her tone so unhappy that I almost burst into tears again.

Of course you don't…you weren't a part of it. You couldn't have known about it, but that won't make a difference soon…not if you're just going to do nothing.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath to keep my voice steady. "André's been in an…" I bit my lip. It was no accident. "He was hit by a car earlier today."

I watched as Antoinette let out a faint gasp, her hand fluttering to her mouth as she stared at me in horrified disbelief. "What?" she said uncomprehendingly. "How, where…is he all right?"

"He's still in surgery. I don't know if he's going to pull through or not."

"Oh, Françoise," she said, sinking back down in her seat. "I am so sorry to hear that. I—"

"There is something else you should know," I cut in, deliberately steeling myself for the next blow. "It was no accident, and I know who's behind it."

She stared speechlessly at me as I continued, her eyes wide as I told her everything about what went on with Lauzun.

"No, no. That can't be," she said dazedly as I finished. "It doesn't make sense. I'm sure you must have gotten it all wrong."

"How can I possibly have gotten it wrong?" I asked coldly. It was just as I feared. A nightmare coming true. She wouldn't believe me.

Antoinette shut her eyes tight and shook her head again, as if to ward off an encroaching headache. "No. I am sure he must have meant it differently…in your present state, and I don't blame you, you could have just taken his words the wrong way…"

I felt my hands clenching into fists by my side. "How long are you planning to stick your head below the ground, Antoinette?" I asked, unable to keep the sharp edge off my voice. Everything was unraveling deep inside me and I could not get a hold any longer.

Something in her look changed, grew guarded.

"To continue hiding from the truth is one thing, but to harbor murderous sons of bitches and taking their side by refusing even to acknowledge—"

"Stop it!"

"Come on! Wake up, Antoinette!" I cried, frustration lacing my tone. "Do you really think these people can actually help you out of the mess de Brun is in? If I were you I'd be careful to make sure they put in their signatures in every document they hand you before you sign, because I can promise you they won't hang for any it when the time comes. You will."

"Enough!"

"I know you don't want to hear it but somebody's got to tell you! I see Fersen has not made much of an impact when it came to advising you. Why is it you're always choosing to turn away from the very people who could actually help and running headlong into disaster by listening to filth like Lauzun—"

"Françoise!"

I broke off, reining in whatever else I had wanted to say. An awful silence descended, broken only by our breathing— ragged, almost like sobs.

At last Antoinette spoke, and her voice was vey calm, dead of inflection: "The very people who could actually help, you said. I trusted you, Françoise, to help, and look what happened. Look at what you did. Please don't stand in front of me and lecture me about Lauzun, when you didn't help at all."

I shook my head in disbelief. "You cannot think the answer lies in trusting him, Antoinette," I said. "Please tell me that's not so."

"Who can I trust then, Françoise?" she asked.

"Has it finally come to this?" I asked, aghast.

"It has passed well beyond it," said Antoinette quietly. "Very well. If there's any advice you would want to give, let me hear it."

"Make a clean breast of everything and accept the consequences," I said.

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

"It is the only option you have left. Soon you won't have any."

"I'm sorry, Françoise. Truly I am." Antoinette smiled sadly.

"Then there's nothing more to be said. I must insist on my resignation."

"Granted."

It was a wonder that no tears were spilled during the encounter with Antoinette. Neither of us had given way, but then I had not expected her to. Wrong her decisions may be and furious as I was, it did not escape my notice how much I had admired her, even then. That regal dignity, that sense of self she had always possessed, would only emerge during the most trying of times. If nothing else, her poise will serve her well in the months to come. She will be stripped of everything else, everything except her own person, and yet that would emerge as a small victory for her.

An extraordinary woman who lost everything but never herself.

We will never see each other again.

As for me, I was done.

I was done the moment I left Antoinette's office. Just done. Shattered to a million pieces. Alain had to make the phone calls to my parents, Nanny and everyone else. Back at the hospital, André was still in surgery. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Everything seemed fragmented, unreal. Père arriving with Nanny not long after. Père's embrace, Nanny's tears, all occurred as if from a great distance. I could not feel anything.

After surgery, André was wheeled directly into the ICU. He was as stable as they could possibly hope, the doctors said. They hoped there would be no deterioration during the night. There was no point in lingering, so Père took me home. Not to my apartment, but the House. I could not possibly be left alone by myself, although I would have preferred it that way.

No dinner, I told Mother and the Sisters, who started arriving late that evening. I could not stand the ordeal. At last, they put me to bed, but there was no chance of sleeping that night. I called for wine to be brought up.

Later, much later, unable to withstand my room at last, I got out and treaded unsteadily down the grand staircase of the silent, dark house. Aimlessly wandering from one dark room to the next, I finally found myself in the picture gallery.

And suddenly I remembered her.

She was here. I had deposited her here after her presence in my apartment had unnerved me all those months before. I had forgotten.

A turn around the corridor and there she was, resplendent as the Roman god of war on horseback. Bright moonlight flitted in through the tall French windows, illuminating her in cool blues and dark hues. It was so strange, so uncharacteristic of Oscar François to commission a portrait of herself in this way, back in 1789. Did she have a presentiment of how things would turn out?

A stir of rage at the thought of presentiment. A great deal of good that did us. Even if you did have an inkling of how things would turn out, you were powerless to stop it, weren't you, Oscar? As powerless as myself, even after all your warnings, all those dreams about you, about a life that might or might not have been mine. But then, you knew how things would eventually play out, so why let me go through it all now if it just meant that things were going to fall in the same, unchangeable pattern?

Why?

I must have been more inebriated than I had supposed, for I did not realize I was speaking out loud, that my voice had risen to a shrill scream at my last question. Nor did I realize that I had gone down on my knees in front of the portrait, as though all my strength had finally left me. For the first time in my life, I realized what defeat felt like.

I must have been more inebriated than I had supposed, only, at that last instant, I could have sworn that Oscar was standing right in front of me, framed against the pale slanting bars of moonlight. She spoke, as clearly as though she were indeed alive and not a figment of my imagination. Just a few words, and I felt the burden lift from my shoulders. And the expression on her face…

Hurried footsteps, a babble of voices not far behind me. I tore my gaze from her to glance at the direction of the noise, and when I turned back, she was gone.

I was never to see her again. Not outside her portrait.

A few days later, I found myself in André's old apartment. It was the only place I could go to for some peace and quiet nowadays. Before or after the hospital, then right before returning to the House for dinner and bed.

André had still not awakened from his drug-induced coma. I could not stay forever in the hospital, especially after Madame Dubois and Angelique had paid their unnerving visits— stories to be told another day. The main reason why I couldn't stay in the hospital too long was because news of my resignation from de Brun had hit the papers and television, sending the expected, concentric rings of aftershock waves throughout France and beyond. As a result, the media had camped out in full force before the hospital, the House, in front of de Brun, everywhere they thought I would put in an appearance. I did not know how much longer I could sneak off and keep André's apartment a secret from them, but it was secret enough for now.

Even though he had moved in with me, André had allowed the lease on the apartment to drag on until it would expire naturally as accorded in the contract, and that would have been at the end of the year. In the meantime, there had been little opportunity to clear away his belongings so most of his stuff was still here.

Lying on his bed with the last of the day's light filtering in through the open windows, I felt as though I was finally cleansed of all the grief and misery of the past few days. I thought about Oscar and her portrait. How strange life was, and time; the ebb and flow of forces too strong to be conquered by mere mortals. Yet sometimes, somehow, an exception to the forces of nature would exert itself.

How did Oscar do it? As if I were opening a music box to listen to its tinny scrap of melody, gazing upon her portrait that first time— no, even before that, upon hearing of the existence of that portrait— had unleashed her memories, to be played out only once.

Only once, like a long-forgotten aria. Only for me.

Remember, she had told me.

And that night, reduced to a drunken puddle in front of her, wailing, asking why I had to go through it all, she had simply replied, "Because you must remember."

And I had. For now I could do nothing but wait and see whether I had remembered enough, and whether I was just in time to avert catastrophe.

How did she do it, encasing her memories in her portrait?

But perhaps that was the answer to everything, wasn't it? Why did people ever want to have their portraits painted in the first place? To look upon her portrait— her only surviving picture— was to remember her. And people long-gone were never truly dead, so long as they were remembered. The painting was an assurance that she would never be consigned to oblivion. Hers had been a short life, the manner of her death overshadowed by the great events unfolding throughout France more than two centuries ago. Had she felt an urgency to leave behind something of herself?

How shall we call this series of events then? A ghost story? A collection of memories? Whatever this was, it was her story, which would prove useful— a matter of life and death— to a woman who lived in the present, living another life that was not unlike hers.

Only one thing missing now…

Going through the mess on André's desk, my eyes strayed to the bulletin board nearby, with its many pictures of me, mostly. Slowly I reached out to touch the more faded ones. There were older photos under the recent ones. Under layers of these pictures I came across one where André and I gazed up into the camera, my seven year old arms draped over his eight year old shoulders from behind.

Tears started as my heart gave a lurch, and in an instant I was back in that garden, my mother's rose garden. My mother had taken that picture and had given it to André as a present.

Oh André…André…what a fool I was to have known you almost all my life and waste all that time not seeing you...

And was this Oscar's final lesson? Her last wish? The entire reason behind why I had to remember her memories? For the sake of saving this one man who was my entire life? I was sure it was so.

My phone was ringing. I was being summoned back to the hospital. André was finally awake. My André.

No more regrets. No more wasting time. Slipping the picture of André and myself into the deep pocket of my coat, I let myself out of the apartment.

What had happened was nothing short of a miracle. We had done it. We had managed to get beyond the last chapter of an old story and onto a page in our lives that was white and unwritten and totally new.

More Notes: Wow, we are almost done with the story! Just an epilogue and Memories is done! Hope to post that very soon! Reviews are welcome, as always!