Adrien
Janey’s story came out on Wednesday morning. I read it in my flat, knowing that my teammates and family were reading it too. I didn’t expect anyone to be happy with me, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when Robert pounded on my door at the pension. He was my best friend and had been the only person who knew my father was alive and torn up by the war.
He stormed into my place, a copy of the paper in his hand.
“What the fuck, Adrien?”
“Good morning to you, too,” I said. “Coffee?”
He flapped the paper at me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“That you want to finish med school?”
I sighed, crossed my arms. “I have responsibilities to the team.”
“You think we can’t win without you? Is that it, you arrogant bastard?”
I was taken aback until I saw the glint of laughter in Robert’s eye.
“I know you can’t win without me,” I shot back, fighting my own smile. “In fact, you should let me play forward and tend goal. Just be safe.”
“Well, I would, except you got your ass red carded.”
“I’m sorry about that. And about the team dropping back to fourth.”
“Yeah, well, we’ve got to play the best game of our life and hope we have the points when it’s done. I hate to say it, but your goals this season might save our ass.” Robert raised a brow. “Tell me the truth. Did you do it to get thrown out of the game? Or did you do it for the girl?”
“Her name is Janey,” I said. “And the truth is…maybe a little of both.”
Robert nodded. He tossed the paper on my desk next to the anatomy textbook I had been poring over.
“I’d say I’d explain to the guys the situation, but I think this article did it for you. And I’m sorry if I added any pressure to you. All I can think about is football. I eat, sleep, live for it. It’s all I want. But it’s not all you want, is it?”
I shrugged. “It’s what I need.”
Robert nodded. “Come to La Cloche tonight. We’re still your family too, no?”
“You are, but I have to study. I’m behind and have a final coming up.”
We clasped hands and gave each other a half hug.
“It wouldn’t be so terrible, would it?” Robert asked at the door. “To play for Ligue 2. Or 1 for that matter? To be a huge star?”
I thought a minute before answering.
“When my father was well, he used to tell me the footballers were his heroes. And I wanted to be that more than anything. To make him proud. And when he came back from the war, his mind broken by what he’d seen and done, I began to want something else. I was hardly seven years old but I wanted to be a hero for him then too. To make him well. So I played football and I went to med school. One of those things is going to help him and my family.” I smiled ruefully. “That’s all that matters.”
On Thursday morning, I went to visit my mother and sister. I had tried to call Maman several times, but Sophie told me she was too upset with me to talk.
Janey had class, but met me at the nearest Metro station after. She flew at me immediately, and threw her arms around my neck. Her happiness radiated through her body, and I kissed her hard, wanting her at once.
“This was a bad idea,” I said, holding her tight, as people streamed past us like water around an island. “Meeting in public after so long…”
“I know,” she said, breathlessly. “Two days without seeing you felt like forever.”
“Fortunately, my mother is the equivalent of a long, cold shower.”
Janey laughed but it faded quickly. “I’m scared she’ll hate me more than she already does. She blames me for your red card.”
He rolled his eyes. “Christ, the damned red card. They’ll put that on my grave. ‘Here lies Adrien Rousseau. Son, husband, father, punched his own teammate and blew a final.’”
She laughed and linked her arm in mine as we headed to my family’s house. And having her there, on my arm as a partner, and not as a prop, was the best fucking feeling in the world. Better than an overtime goal or a cheering crowd. I glanced down at Janey as we walked.
I want this, always.
Outside my family’s building, a man wearing a long coat, hat, and rumpled suit, was glancing at a paper in his hand and then up at the numbers on the front of the building.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
The man turned. He looked to be about my father’s age, with a grizzled face and heavy eyes. He was clean-shaven and had some heft around the middle, and yet I could almost see him as haggard and gaunt.
He took off his hat. “Bonjour. I am looking for M. Rousseau.”
“That’s me,” I said.
“You are Adrien?” the man said. “From the article?” He retrieved a torn-out copy of Janey’s article from an inside pocket of his coat. “I was looking for your father, but perhaps you are who I should talk to after all. My name is Paul Lenaerts. In 1954, I worked at the Edouard Toulouse Psychiatric Hospital.”
Beside me, Janey gasped just as I flinched.
“You knew my father?”
“Not very well. It is best if you come to my hotel and I will explain.” He looked to Janey. “Both can come. Are you the writer of this article, miss?”
She nodded. “I am.”
M. Lenaerts smiled. “I’m so glad you did. I have some items that do not belong to me, and I’m so happy to be able to return them to their rightful owner.”
Janey and I exchanged looks, and the hope burning in her light blue eyes fed mine.
We took a cab to a little hotel in the 7th, and Paul Lenaerts explained that he was Belgian, but had worked for the French government as an envoy in ‘54 to help with the withdrawal of troops after the Viet Minh took control over northern Vietnam, essentially losing the war for France.
“I was working with the Veterans’ Affairs Office—though everything was in chaos,” Paul said. “I saw how many of the men were broken down by the war, and instead of going back to work for the embassy, I stayed in Marseille to tend to the wounded.”
“My father was in Marseille for a year before he came home,” I said, exchanging another glance with Janey. “I was too young to know the name of the hospital, or I’ve forgotten it.”
Paul nodded. “I was an administrator at Edouard Toulouse, not a doctor, and so had very little interactions with patients.” He smiled warmly. “But he was quite a character, your father. Everyone told tales about Victor.”
The cab rolled to a stop at the front of a boutique hotel. Paul led us upstairs to his small, but elegantly appointed room.
“The train ride from Brussels was only an hour and twenty minutes,” he said, “yet I feel as though I am sixteen years late.”
He moved to the side of the bed and pulled out a flat, square bundle wrapped in a moving blanket and taped along the front. He set it down on the floor and reached for a letter opener on the hotel’s small desk, speaking as he worked to cut the tape.
“My daughter attends the Sorbonne. She called me Wednesday night to tell me about the article, and how the footballer’s father had fought in the war. She thought it might interest me since she knew my work in Marseille.” He drew down the blankets protecting the work inside. “When she told me your father was an artist as well, I immediately thought of these.”
My heart nearly stopped as Paul carefully retrieved three oil paintings from within the protective layers of blanket and leaned them against the bed, side by side. Janey gripped my hand.
I stared at the three paintings.
Laos. Khmer. Vietnam.
They were nothing like my father had ever done before, but I knew they were his. I would know his art anywhere, like his fingerprints. The paintings were of soldiers in the field—long strokes of the brush rendering tall, dry grass as helicopters droned black on the horizon. The sun felt merciless, as if it would burn my fingers to touch the canvas. The men’s faces were scarred by shadow cast by their helmets, and drawn by what they had seen. As with my father’s other work, they were stark in their simplicity; beautiful in their honesty.
“Please forgive me,” Paul said quietly. “I left Marseille before Victor, and went back to Belgium. When the hospital was cleared of veterans, many items had been left behind. One of the administrators knew I was something of an art buff and sent these to me. They’re not signed; I had no way of knowing who they belonged to. I was busy with a new assignment and so put them in storage where they sat for sixteen years.”
“Pieces of him,” Janey whispered. “He said these were pieces of him.”
“I will help you authenticate them, if necessary,” Paul said. “I understand they might be of some financial help to you.”
I nodded slowly, though the idea of selling these made my heart ache.
I turned to shake Paul’s hand. “Thank you for this.”
He smiled warmly and gestured to Janey. “Thank her. If it wasn’t for her article these might have languished in my garage for another sixteen years.”
We left the hotel. I had two of my father’s paintings tucked under each arm, and Janey held the other. Out in the street, under the sunshine, I awkwardly maneuvered my way close to her and kissed her.
“You did this,” I whispered. “You did this for me.”
Tears stood out in her eyes and she smiled. “Only because you let me. Because you trusted me.”
I sucked in a breath to compose myself. “There’s a lot happening, isn’t there?” I asked. “Between us?”
She nodded quickly. “Quite a lot, I think.”
“Yeah,” I said, holding her gaze. “Quite a lot.”
Janey blinked quickly and stood straight, tossing a lock of her long hair over her shoulder. “Stop stalling, Rousseau, we have to get these to your mother.”
I laughed and kissed her again. “I guess we do.” My smile faltered. “Though it’s going to hurt to sell them.”
“This is your future,” Janey said, hefting one painting. “This is your father taking care of himself and his family, and you. So you can do what you were meant to do.”
We boarded the Metro. Doing what I was meant to do was right in my grasp.
But it won’t mean as much anymore, if I don’t have Janey.