Melodie (12 page)

His account of the party set me thinking. It didn't occur to me to do the same for my fiftieth birthday, but if I'd wanted to, how many invitations could I have sent out to different
parts of the world? Of course, in my culture of origin there's definitely something false, affected or even pretentious, in the very idea of celebrating one's birthday. But leaving that aside, how many friends would I have had around me at a party I didn't for a second imagine myself having? How many people beyond the family circle could I have asked to come and share the pleasure of being together?

It is said that this country is inhabited by eight million gods. Eight million is the metaphor for the infinite or numberless, like Don Giovanni's
mille e tre
(1003: the number of his Spanish conquests). I can imagine the mental universe of the archipelago's inhabitants being turned upside down by the arrival, in the sixth century, of the universal principle that Buddhism embodied. At that time each clan, each tribe, each village, each local community had their own gods to protect them. Did they feel the need to reach out to the Other in its difference amid this motley and divided array? No, I don't think they did. You lived in keeping with the cult of your gods, and you could forget about all the rest. You were very close to your neighbours. You could almost touch them. But you didn't see them or feel them. Does this ancient and millennial epoch live in me? Does it constitute one of the deepest layers of my being? Am I determined by the sediments of this collective past? Who am I?

For Christmas, in 2003 or 2004, I had planned a gathering at our home that would bring together a dozen or so people. Given the size of our apartment this was the maximum
number we could think of inviting. I set myself a challenge: that of diversity. My intention was not to compete with my Parisian friend but to follow his example in surrounding myself with a diverse mix of people. I invited some of our friends and friends of my daughter's—people of my age, young people and the not-so-young—men and women who for the most part didn't know each other. There were French people, a cultural attaché from the embassy and an unemployed PhD in sociology who was looking for a teaching position; there was a Moroccan who wasn't bound by the dietary prescriptions of his religion and his Cameroonian girlfriend, who, unlike him, was careful to adhere to them; there was a young African American, the friend of a friend, who'd come to present me with a colourful cowboy waistcoat; there was a Canadian woman of Haitian origin who wrote poems; there was a young Chinese woman, a Uighur, on a study trip to Tokyo, who did the tango and didn't eat pork; there was a French-German atheist who was culturally Jewish, and a Palestinian woman who asked to leave the gathering and go and pray in a quiet corner of the apartment; there was a German of Turkish origin who, after brilliant studies in Tokyo, had found a job in a Japanese firm. And finally, amid this whole mixture of cultures, religions and dietary habits, there was us and a Japanese couple, a very old friend who'd worked in finance for a long time and who, with his wife, was now enjoying the peaceful life of a retiree … What made it possible to gather together so many different individuals to make up this engaging company for an evening was the fact that there was one language that they all shared. They all spoke French. They spoke it more or less well, but they spoke it and they forced themselves to
speak it. Some while eating sushi arranged on a large, slightly rounded, rectangular tray, others while partaking of the homemade carrot salad that filled a cherry wood bowl. Still others communicated in French seated around a plate of cheeses and a big lacquer platter filled with bread, the two dishes placed next to each other on a little round table made of glass. As for me, leaning against the traditional-style chest of drawers of a deep maple colour that stood in the corner close to the glass door of the living room, I was having a discussion with my ex-banker friend as I poured him some of the Italian red he'd brought himself.

It was at that point that I heard distinctly plaintive little cries, a series of moans coming from my study. I could also recognise amid the voices and the softly playing back ground music the sharp little sounds that Mélodie made when scratching on the door. I'd taken the step of shutting her in my study before the guests arrived so that the evening wouldn't be disturbed by the kind of canine exuberance that was not always universally appreciated. She could hear voices, other voices than those she was used to, laughing voices, voices that rose up at times like musical notes played
fortissimo
. The same little sounds were repeated; the same plaintive cries, closer and closer together, went on longer before stopping suddenly after a brief, stifled bark. She was clearly protesting about the treatment that had been inflicted on her, being forcibly separated from those who were happily adding their voices to mine and my wife's and my daughter's. Her voice howling and her paws knocking at the door, she expressed her desire to meet us beyond an invisible divide that separated her from the human community.

Her sorrowful moans pained me. I addressed the gathering.

‘Good evening, I bid you all welcome! I'm so happy that you're here. But … there's something I have to say if I'm to be perfectly frank with you. Even though this evening has got off to such a good start there's something stopping me from really enjoying it. As we stand here there's a being somewhere else in this house who is in distress … That soft moaning sound? Can you hear it?'

All at once the voices gave way to the background music that subtly filled the apartment. I lowered the volume. There was silence. Then we heard little moans like the delicate twittering of birds or, rather, the sad, lingering sound of a flute coming from the wings of a concert hall. In the end they elicited a scattering of broad smiles on the faces of the guests.

‘When she sees this happy throng she'll be very excited at first, but she'll calm down quite quickly and enjoy being part of it all. Can I let her come in and join you?'

No one was allergic to dog hair, no one was afraid of this other living creature not quite like us. I went to open the door of my study. She was sitting on her back legs. She looked at me for a long time; she was trembling with impatience.

‘Are you coming?'

Scarcely had she heard the first syllable of my signal than she leapt forward in one bound. Three seconds later she was scurrying about in the forest of legs and running madly from one person to another before lying on her back, her legs in the air in front of the Haitian poet, who knew exactly how to deal with this exuberant ball of energy ready to lavish you with affection. Mélodie's tension relaxed. When she stood up again she gave the poet her front paws in turn as if to thank
her for her pats. Then she went off, as naturally as could be, to lie on her dining room mattress. No doubt reassured by the presence of humans nearby, she soon began dozing.

The voices rose up again, intermingling. And the music, muted and lilting, was now playing again as well, just lightly perceptible to our ears. The party went on till late. No one wanted to take their leave of any of the others. In the end there was nothing left to eat or drink. On the table there was only a large carafe of water in the shape of a stork, like the magic fountain at an ancient festival where young lovers would come to quench their thirst. The guests, in little groups of two or three whose composition changed from time to time, gossiped animatedly and in every corner. As for me, with the concern appropriate to the inspirer of this motley gathering of a winter's evening, I went from one group to another as if to form them into a joyfully woven whole.

It was at that moment, when no one was expecting it, that there appeared a most unusual sight. Mélodie, who up until then had been sleeping on her mattress, got up suddenly and came and stood right in the middle of the living room. Crouching down in front of her, I took her right front paw in the way I usually did and said to her,

‘What's going on, my friend? Are you coming to take part in our gathering?'

The voices grew quiet. All eyes, in a kind of childlike wonder, converged on the one who'd just taken up a spot among us. The eyes of the dog, wide open, shining, with a disarming candour, looked all around her as if checking the presence of those she'd noted a few hours before. With that she rested her head on her two paws, giving a deep sigh.

Someone burst out laughing. A woman's voice said,

‘It might be time to go off to bed …'

This remark, which was doubtless addressed to Mélodie, was enough to remind us that time had slipped by without our realising it, in the absence of a reason to think of it. It was true; we did have to go our separate ways.

There was getting up to go. Belongings were gathered up and visits were made to the little room next to the bathroom. Goodbyes were said in the hall. There was hugging. Shoes were put back on. There was more hugging. Finally the exit was made. But instead of dispersing, we gathered again in front of the house, quite naturally, without anyone prompting us to do so. A whispered conversation was struck up for a few seconds. Then we went our separate ways. The wind had swept away all the clouds. The city was plunged into the silence of the night. The moon, silvery, almost white, in the infinitely high and starry sky shone its light on the men and women who were gradually moving further into the distance and coupled them with a faithful shadow. We went back into the house.

Mélodie was sleeping at the foot of our bed.

20

WAITING

SHE WAITS
. Mélodie is one who waits, who does nothing but wait. Her life will have been made up of waiting. But waiting for what? Waiting for the return of the one to whom she feels attached.

That morning, as usual, I had taken her for a walk and, after a long stroll through the laneways of Nakano, we made a stop at Philosophy Park before getting back to the house. Once the passers-by thinned out in the vacant land adjoining the park, I was in the habit of taking off her leash so that she could freely explore the area in her own way, from end to end and in every nook and cranny. So that's what I did. I knew that if, say, a child was frightened by her presence I only needed to call loudly to her, and she would come straight back to me. But that day things took a different turn.

Mr D, the vet, came along with his female golden retriever, Momo—he would regularly get her to chase the frisbee.
I greeted him and thanked him for looking after Mélodie two weeks before when she'd had a split dewclaw. The greetings over with, I turned round to the ex-patient. But I could no longer see her … She had disappeared … She had fled—that's what I guessed straight away—as soon as she'd seen the man who had hurt her so dreadfully—he'd cut away half of her broken dewclaw together with the nerve that ran underneath it. I cried out her name. Now there were only Mr D and his dog on the vacant land. I took my leave of the vet and ran into the different parts of the park, shouting, screaming her name louder and louder: I looked around by the baseball stadium; I checked the area around the tennis courts; I also searched the cherry-tree garden; finally I continued the search as far as the pagoda and its surrounds. But in vain. Not the shadow of a dog. I was beginning to panic …

‘Mélodie! Mélodie! Where are you? Come back, please come back! Mélodie!'

So there I was, dashing around frantically, looking in all the out-of-the-way corners of the park where a lovable dog, all atremble, might be hiding. In my right hand I held the red leash, and in the left, the little walks bag containing the bottle of water and some advertising liftouts. I was hot. I was bathed in sweat; big drops of perspiration ran down my cheeks and down my back the whole length of my spine. I looked at my watch. It was past ten o'clock. That meant we should have been home more than an hour ago. I was exhausted. I sighed despondently.

It was then that a woman in her forties, who was holding a Shiba on the leash, spoke to me. Seeing me in the state of panic that showed I was a master looking for his dog, in
this highly visible state of distress, no doubt she felt sorry for me:

‘Are you looking for your dog? I don't know if it's yours, but there's a dog over there, on the footpath, near the entrance.'

‘What does it look like? Is it a big dog? Is it a golden retriever?'

‘Yes, it is, it's a golden retriever. It was sitting, looking towards the entrance … It looked like it was waiting …'

‘Thank you, madam.'

Having stammered these few words of thanks, I strode off at once. I headed straight for the exit. ‘Oh, so you'd decided to go back home, you little rascal!' I said to myself. ‘Well, I didn't think of that!' I arrived at the exit, I hurtled down the stairs, I leapt onto the footpath of Nakano Avenue. And yes, there I found the frightened runaway. She was sitting on her back legs, straight as a rod. As soon as she saw me, she bowed her head forward a little, as if she was embarrassed and felt a sudden rush of uneasiness.