Melodie (23 page)

The blind drunk samurai receives a blow on the head, thus conclusively revealing his non-warrior origins . . .

I don't know how many times I've seen
Seven Samurai
since my first viewing when I was still a high school student, I've lost count . . . Each time I'm struck by the beauty of scenes like this one. And I especially like Kambei's firmly articulated reply: ‘A true samurai, even in a state of drunkenness, never loses control of his body.' Spoken by a character who is the embodiment of moral integrity (Kambei is the first samurai to decide to take part in re-establishing the
res publica
of the peasants), this phrase had sounded in my ears as a lesson to be remembered.

The savage candidate has failed the test. But that won't prevent him from being accepted among the true civilised samurai. Kambei, the civilised philosopher, becomes attached to Kikuchiyo, the savage who secretly admires him. As for me, I like them both and I admire the filmmaker who created the two of them together, placing one opposite the other as if they were two complementary beings.

27

UNFAITHFUL—YET YEARNING FOR FIDELITY

AFTER MÉLODIE
'
S DEATH
the habit of the daily walk was abandoned for a while. However, the need to take physical exercise together with our unfading memories of our dog meant that Michèle and I quite quickly rediscovered our enjoyment in taking a walk around where we lived, each time retracing one of the routes that we had taken with Mélodie.

It was May 2011. One Sunday morning, the weather mild and glorious, we let ourselves be tempted into going for a long walk, immersing ourselves in the profusion of light. It was one of those rare days that the inhabitants of Tokyo really appreciate, when the weather is dry, neither hot nor cold: a day without any climatic discomfort, midway between the oppressiveness of summer with its heat and humidity and winter sadly stripped of all adornment. Every street corner, every tree that signposted the route we used to follow, the cul de sacs where once, in complete safety, Mélodie would
go chasing after a tennis ball, Philosophy Park with its sandpit and swings, the memorial garden of Hyakkannon with its cherry trees, its maples and its Hundred Statuettes of the Merciful Goddess, all brought back the indelible presence of our dead dog, reminded us of the signs pointing to her singular existence. We took pleasure in every step, every stop we made, short or long, every laneway we ventured into, every play of light and shade created by the foliage quivering in the cooling breeze.

And so we had now arrived at the park of the Peaceful Forest. It was here that we used to shelter with Mélodie when it began to get hot in May or June: we were protected by giant trees majestically spreading their soft shade. It was here that we met our canine acquaintances. It was here that we'd met John, the huge pure-white golden retriever, Mélodie's father. We headed towards the shadiest part of the park, walking beside the 400-metre oval track, some early long distance runners there before us. Michèle pointed:

‘Look over there! Isn't that a cousin of Mélodie's?'

Sure enough, it was a young, pure-white golden retriever being walked a little awkwardly by a woman in a green hat with a wide brim.

We went up to the dog, which careered in every direction, skipping and jumping for joy. Michèle said:

‘He's still very young. How old is he?'

‘Three months … Today—it's his first outing after the vaccinations!'

At that moment a look of astonishment appeared on the face of the woman who was replying to Michèle's question while at the same time I recognised her as the woman I'd
tripped up several months previously, the evening that Mélodie died.

‘It's you!? This
is
a surprise! What a coincidence!'

As soon as I'd expressed my amazement I asked her what her dog's name was.

‘Cello.'

‘Cello. As in the instrument?'

‘Yes, I like the cello. That's why …'

‘Goodness!'

I explained to Michèle the whole mystery behind this unexpected encounter. Conversation then sprang up around Mélodie—I showed the woman with the green hat one of her photos that I'd kept on my iPhone—and about Cello, who was skipping around us, still with the same exuberance. It was a long time before we could bring ourselves to leave Cello, whose pure-white coat reminded us of Mélodie's at the same age. Seeing Cello we had the strange feeling of going back in time to the years when we were still young, very young, Michèle and I.

We wanted to make for the big avenue that separates the park from the administrative buildings that are part of the Ministry of Justice. Once the place where we'd meet other dogs, the straight avenue was deserted that morning. I remembered having taken a photo there of Michèle with Mélodie. Sitting on her hind legs next to Michèle, who was smiling that enchanting smile so typical of her, Mélodie too gave the impression that she was smiling …Words bubbled away in my head … I wanted to say something like: ‘We lived with Mélodie for twelve years. How happy we were! And, Michèle, you and I, we've been together for thirty-five
years … thirty-five years, do you realise? So that makes thirty-five years that you've lived far from the land where you were born and grew up! … Yes, I know I'm one of those people who values
deracination
. You know that I'm fond of the words of Hugues de Saint-Victor, quoted by Erich Auerbach and again by Edward Said: ‘The man who finds his homeland agreeable is yet an innocent beginner; he for whom every land is like his native land is already strong; but perfect is he for whom the whole world is like a foreign country.' I would go so far as to say that deracination is even the condition that makes possible the notion of citizen that we both defend. But I realise that deracination is also a kind of wrench, a tearing away … And that it hurts. You've been torn away from lots of things that were yours … for me and because of me … I know that it's been painful, that it still is, whether we like it or not … I hope that having me by your side has been, is and will continue to be something that soothes this pain, even just a little … This is all that I can wish for in the time remaining to us, which, I have no doubt, we'll spend together …'

But I didn't.

My first book in French,
A Language from Another Place
, had been published a few months earlier. With the book the desire to write in French became incandescent. A number of subjects for a future book had me in their grip, if not obsessed me. And, if I remember correctly, it was on that day that I decided to write a book about Mélodie and weave into it a literary reflection about fidelity, this virtue that is at once human and
yet scarcely human at all: human because man, by his destiny to be always already projected into an uncertain future, carries within him the prospect of fidelity, a desire for fidelity that is never extinguished; scarcely human because man—since he is a human, since he is no longer just an animal, since he has become fickle, as Don Alfonso teaches—by seizing this wonderful ability to transform himself, to construct himself continually, in short to give himself a story, could never be entirely faithful.

Oh, Mélodie! Have pity on me, I am just a poor wretched man who is unfaithful—but still I yearn for fidelity.

FINALE

28

‘ALL THE ANIMALS ARE DEAD': THE AFTERLIFE OF MÉLODIE

I HAVE A
cupboard—it has been made into a shrine, but it doesn't look like a shrine at all—that is now the quiet resting place of some unforgettable and unforgotten souls. In the cupboard there is a little box of lacquered wood for powdered tea that contains a tiny portion of my father's ashes that I had taken from his urn before it was placed in the grave. When I prepared this mortuary box, eighteen years ago now, I was brave enough to take a pinch of crumbled bones and taste them. Soon I think I'll do the same for Mélodie, whose urn I still keep close by me in the exact spot where her mattress lay. I shall get another box of lacquered wood and put in it some spoonfuls of powdered bone and a piece of shoulder blade or rib. The rest will be spread in the garden or somewhere else to return to the earth.

My father and Mélodie. As I've said, they are the two beings who appear most often in my dreams. They are dead,
but they are here. The ancients kept the ashes of the deceased for forty-nine days and then they would part with them in order to forget the sadness and to bury it away in their memories. I haven't followed their teaching, because, while I understand the lesson, I wanted to go on living close to these two beings who, beyond the silence of death, continued to send me messages of encouragement. The man led me to the language with which and in which I write this book; the animal
who never lies
reinforced my loathing of sophistry and thus urged me to regard Literature still more as a vast and perilous attempt to expose words that lie. Man lies right up until death. But there are words, and arrangements of words, which, making this ultimate hypocrisy visible, escape at the very last from the lie. This text of Céline's invites us to discover such words and such arrangements of words:

It's a fact, I still think of her, even now in this fever … in the first place I can't tear myself away from anything, a memory, a person, so how would I tear myself away from a dog? … I'm a virtuoso of fidelity … fidelity and responsibility … responsible for everything … a disease … anti-ungrateful … the world is good to you! … animals are innocent, even when they run wild like Bessy … in a pack they shoot them …

I really loved her with her crazy escapades, I wouldn't have parted with her for all the gold in the world … … oh, she didn't complain, but I could tell … strength all gone … she slept beside my bed … one morning she wanted to go out … I wanted to lay her down in the straw … right after daybreak … she didn't like the place I put
her … she wanted a different place … on the cold side of the house, on the pebbles … she lay down very prettily … she began to rattle … that was the end … they'd told me, I didn't believe it … but it was true … she was pointed in the direction of her memory … the place she had come from, the North, Denmark, her muzzle turned toward the north … a faithful dog in a way, faithful to the woods of her escapades, Korsör up there … faithful too to the awful life … she didn't care for the woods of Meudon … she died with two, three little rattles … oh, very discreet … practically no complaining … and in a beautiful position, as though in mid-leap … but on her side, felled, finished … her nose toward the forests of the chase, up there where she came from, where she'd suffered … God knows! …

Oh, I've seen plenty of death agonies … here … there … everywhere … but none by far so beautiful, so discreet … so faithful … the trouble with men's death agonies is the song and dance … a man is always on the stage…even the simplest of them …
*

We can marvel at the power and beauty of this text. Or rather the beauty that comes from the incredible power of the words, which take on the
cri de cœur
and the tears of a man going to pieces when faced with the death of his dog, a death that is at its most naked, its rawest, its truest. It was the author of
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
who, in
Encounter
, reminded me of and made me return to this magnificent passage from
Castle to Castle
. Bessy dies at Meudon from
cancer, missing the North, Denmark, where ‘for two, three hours … this was one of her escapades … wild in the animal world … woods, meadows, rabbits, deer, ducks …' It's the finest of all deaths: the death agony of the dog avoids all the song and dance that, necessarily and inevitably, accompanies man up until he dies … Ceremony, staging, spectacle, spiel, bling, a whole layer of falseness, which prevents us from seeing what it is that's essential and ends up destroying it …

Man tells lies even through the catastrophes that strew the earth with the dead in their thousands. For example, at the very time that an irremediable flaw of technology was revealed in the nuclear crisis at Fukushima, a crisis causing unspeakable suffering that in some respects is worse than death, man could not stop his lying. Faced with unbearable images and appalling risks, which at the least demand repentance and honesty on the part of those responsible for the disaster, we saw that man chose to carry on living with the lies, the humbug …

We know that in France, as in Japan, an inconceivable number of dogs and cats are abandoned and euthanised every year. We also know that every day, in many countries, the world over, millions of animals raised on hormones are industrially slaughtered on a massive scale for the greater good. This unheard-of violence is undoubtedly the end result of the theory of animal-machines as it became established in the classical age. The extreme in terms of landscape, the endpoint presented to us by this radical disjunction between men and animals, is perhaps that of the contaminated zones of Fukushima where dogs, cats, cows, pigs, hens and other animals are dying in a state of intolerable abandonment
and dereliction. It is indubitably one of the many, many consequences of the right claimed by modern man ‘radically to separate humanity from animality' to use Lévi-Strauss's expression, while at the same time blinding ourselves to our primary nature as living beings.