The Long Summer of Monsieur Loiseau

Alex came back late at night, alone.Harry woke up when the lock turned, and by the time Alex entered the bedroom, he had turned on the light, stepped across the room, and hugged him.Alex sighed softly and leaned into Harry's arms, wrapping his arms around his neck.Harry kissed his forehead, put his hand on the back of his head, and stroked it gently.No one spoke.

Alex was still wearing the same suit when he was taken away, with a beard that hadn't been shaved for several days, and his eyes were bloodshot.While he was washing up, Harry went to the kitchen to make tea, added half a finger's worth of brandy to the cup, thought about it, poured some more, and took it to the bathroom.

The water was rushing and misty, and Alex huddled in the corner of the bathtub, under the faucet, hot water trickled down the curve of his shoulders and back, gathered slowly, and overflowed his knees.Harry softly called his name, knelt down by the bathtub, and handed over the teacup.

"Thank you," Alex said hoarsely, taking a sip of the hot tea, half-closed his eyes, "Brandy, I love you."

"I can't tell whether it's me or Brandy that you're in love with."

Alex turned his head and gave him half a smile. The alcohol and hot water brought back a little blood to him: "For now, it's brandy."

"Heartbreaking."

"Would you mind passing me the soap?"

Harry took the teacup from him, set it on the floor, brought soap and a razor, and Alex obediently let him shave.It would have been an easy task, with no risk of getting scratched as long as the other person didn't speak, but Alex was clearly not good at keeping quiet.The people from Section [-] had him under house arrest in the "Gloucester" hotel—Harry pieced together images of the past five days from his scattered but continuous narrative—it must have been a room dedicated to interrogation, with additional There were padded walls, the inside door handles were removed, no windows, no phone, a tiny bathroom with a sink, also windowless, yellowed towels, and of course no razor blades.The agents came twice a day, morning and afternoon, or so Alex guessed, and there was nothing in the room to help him tell the time.They were polite, yet aggressive, asking the exact same questions each time, pressing Alex to reveal his co-conspirators in the attempted bombing, which Alex had never heard of.He was not tortured, but the lights in the room were never turned off, preventing him from sleeping.Detectives always came in when he was extremely tired and pressed him if he knew who the mysterious "Jacob" who wrote for the "Horn" magazine was.Alex had no idea, but no one believed him.Until a few hours ago, Connelly, the detective who presided over the interrogation, suddenly opened the door, told him to go, took him downstairs, and stuffed him into a taxi.It was then that he caught a glimpse of the name of the hotel.

Harry dipped the blade in the water to rinse off the foam: "Stay away from Barry in the future, and don't go to those dangerous parties again."

"They have a lot of interesting insights."

"Interesting enough to mess with MI[-]? No thanks." Harry pulled the towel off, dipped it in hot water, and wiped Alex's face clean. "George was here yesterday."

"Here? In our apartment?"

"Yes."

"What does he want to do?"

"Let me keep an eye on you and don't let you get into trouble again."

"If only he could have imagined how much you 'watched' me—"

"Speaking of which, Digby warned us to 'be careful'."

"When did you see Digby?"

"A day or two ago, I didn't know what happened to you, and I was looking for all channels to find out the news."

"That doesn't need Digby either."

"I suspect he knows."

"what do you know?"

"us."

"There's nothing he can do."

"In any case, we should still be cautious."

Alex sighed, turned off the tap, and slid down the tub a little, letting the hot water wash over his shoulders. "I've always been cautious."

"Be more cautious than you are now, go to less parties, you know how difficult you are to deal with when you're drunk?"

"These two things have nothing to do, Harry, you worry too much."

"You worry too little."

"Because there was nothing to worry about, this time it was just a misunderstanding."

Harry wanted to say something, but gave up before he could speak, put the towel on the edge of the bathtub, stood up, and was about to leave the bathroom, but Alex grabbed his wrist: "Mr. Prudence."

Harry looked at him. "We're going to flood this apartment again."

"I do not mind."

"I don't mind, I'm the one doing the cleaning."

Alex snorted noncommittally, and pulled Harry's hand under the water, between his legs. "I promise I'll help."

-

"As I said before, facing Alex, you will compromise sooner or later." Prudence said that climbing the lighthouse exceeded his physical limit, and he stopped on the way back to the nursing home. The number of breaks has increased significantly. "He didn't go to the dock workers' meeting anymore, but that doesn't mean he gave up other social activities. Alex is still a regular at every cocktail party and party in Oxford. As for Barry, Ambassador Morton snatched him back from MI[-] not long after, and he disappeared for a while, then came back soon, talking and laughing in the salon as if nothing had happened. Out of a tacit understanding social etiquette, no one mentions the arrest. people's attitude towards me hasn't changed, they see me as Alex's newest cat toy, wondering why I've been around him for so long, but still no one says In one word, if there's one thing so-called high society excels at, it's silence."

There were no footprints left on the deserted sand, no swimmers to be seen.The two walked the rest of the distance slowly, wiped off the mud and sand on the soles of their shoes on the mat outside the door, and returned to the warm reception room.The fireplace was still burning brightly, and after the rain had stopped, the little sunlight made the small room look more cozy.Prudence rummaged in the small iron box for a while, took out a small stack of letters, and returned to the rocking chair.

"In the summer of 1954, the Loiseau family went on vacation in the mountains of Tuscany, where they had a holiday home. I did not go with them, first of all because it was not suitable, and I was not his 'family'. Second, I I found a temporary job writing for a newspaper, replacing a reporter on a long vacation, not very interesting, interviewing fruit growers, copying my grandmother’s delicious tart recipe, etc., but it’s an errand that has nothing to do with reporters, and I enjoy it ...you can imagine Alex doing nothing in Italy, because he never stopped writing letters."

Prudence pulled one of them out and handed it to the reporter.

"Dear Harry,

I don't see why you have to stay in London, London in the summer is the most boring place I can imagine, you should come to me, I have a hundred excuses to make it happen.Harry, there's a clay tennis court and a hammam, the kind with the amazing mosaics and the circular skylight, imagine what we could do in it.

Lyra and her husband are here too, and the doctor is probably more dull than you, but luckily they distract Baba, so my vacation is pretty quiet.Georges didn't come, of course not, went to Strasbourg with his wife, I heard.

My day-to-day: Woke up at 08 to crazy roosters (need to remind Giovanni to kill these nasty birds, that's our honest Italian helper, everyone calls him Jodi). 30:[-] Breakfast, I like the dry sausage here, they are probably the only thing I like in this wilderness.Walking after breakfast is my favorite part of the day, followed by sitting under the fig tree reading and writing letters, like now.The tree was struck by lightning, half dead, half alive, and I was on the living side, and the bugs were so annoying, they used to drop in my cider, yes, Harry, I know what you're trying to say, I still I can imagine you frowning.Before you lecture me with your puritanical philosophy, please forgive a poor man who spends summers alone in the mountains, without alcohol, I don't know how to keep my sanity.

There's a theater in this place, can you believe it?Yesterday afternoon, I went to see a play performed by local people. I had no idea what they were performing. The script may have been written by them themselves. They must have had a good afternoon. The audience may not be so.

Tried to finish The White Poppy, didn't work, still can't decide whether the protagonist lives or dies, sometimes death is a better ending, but never an easy decision.Enclosed is a snippet and let me know your opinion.

Also, thank you for the jam recipe you sent last time, it didn't work, but thanks anyway.

yours,

A in Cortona (*note 1)

1954. 7, 11

In the afternoon of the day

Jody isn't due at the town post office until tomorrow, so I tore open the envelope again and got on with some more writing.Possibly the worst way to write a letter is to write it in your diary, dear Harry, forgive me for going that way.I was invited by the villagers to taste olive oil today. I think each tastes the same, but the locals obviously take oil pressing very seriously.No Italian, apologetic the whole time, Jody was busy flirting with the fruit growers' wives, note the plural, somehow I seemed to be the only one who noticed it.

Love the Orchard Dog, maybe we should get one on Juniper Row too, maybe a cat would be better?Which do you prefer?Reply to inform.

A.

Unfortunately, still trapped in Cortona"

The reporter put down the letter, took off his glasses and wiped them.

"If you want to ask a question, ask," Prudence said.

"You look very happy."

"Yes, two carefree young boys, deep in the honey of love and sex."

"So where is the turning point?"

Prudence didn't think about it for a long time, as if he had anticipated this question a long time ago: "It's also summer, Mr. Rivers. In my opinion, the saddest story is not the unstoppable external force that separates the two characters, because this Then they still love each other. The most regrettable stories always happen quietly, rooted in people's individual flaws. It is not until many years later that people look back to hear the thunder and realize that the first rain was early. It fell."

tbc.

Note 1: Cortona, a small village located in Tuscany, Italy.