119. Simone

I have broken a rule. Ok, it was a rule set by me and for me. Still I have broken it and now I have to live with the consequences. 

During the summer I spent an afternoon carefully removing Simone's letters from their rusty cardboard binder, one at a time, and, one at a time, carefully placing them in clear plastic pockets.

While I was doing this I promised myself I would make the conscious effort not to even glance at the contents of the letters. Especially the last one. I had to discover the letters as Simone had and as my blog readers did. One at a time. I thought this was very noble of me. 

But yesterday as I was replacing letter 49 into its folder (after taking a picture of it), I did the unforgivable and took a peek at the last letter of the last folder. I don't know what made me do it, the winter sunlight suddenly lighting up my desk, the drag of a particularly gloomy autumn ...

Whatever the reason I read the last letter. Not entirely, no. The tragedy in it made me close the dusty folder.

I know now that Julien must have gone through some terrible times and that maybe he never even married Simone. Maybe they never lived together in the house with the beautiful floor tiles. Maybe these letters were sent back to him, by Simone herself or by someone else. He married an other (boring) girl and moved into this house. Unable to forget Simone, he hid the letters in a corner of the attic where he would go and sit on Sunday mornings, tears in his eyes, caressing the letters as if by magic they would bring his Simone back. Did they? Will I find out? At least it is a comforting thought to me to know that no-one found them and that they remained tucked away in the attic until the day I saved them from my husdand's hand and from the skip.