My German Lover: The Epilogue

Paul hugged and kissed her one last time… and then, we walked down the stairs to the car that waiting for us…

That was the last time Paul saw his sister.

She died a few months later. Paul knew she was very sick… and later he said to me:

“…You know Jack… the only reason why I agreed to go to Paris is because I knew how sick she was. I wanted to see her one last time. Otherwise, I would never have left Will alone…”

“…But he was not alone…”

Paul grinned and said:

“Maybe. But he’s not so well you know….”

“What do you mean?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“… Oh…. I see. He did not tell you then…”

“What are you talking about?”

“He has Alzheimer’s disease…”

“…What?”

“Hey. We’re not young you know, in case you forgot! We’ll die one day…. Now, he’s in an early stage… but the disease will progress… Already I can see that he forgets things. You don’t believe me? Well… just ask him what he had for lunch a few hours ago, and he won’t be able to answer you. Ask François. He will explain everything to you. Will has no problem talking about the past… but he doesn’t remember what happened yesterday. And with time, it will only get worse…”

“…Shit Paul. Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that…”

“I know…”, he answered, with such a nice smile on his face…

“But… does he suffer?”

“Not really. He’s happy! Sure, he knows he has Alzheimer’s disease… but he doesn’t realize it. That’s why I didn’t want to leave him alone. But I wanted to see Catherine… and I knew that I wouldn’t be away for too long so…”

“…Now I understand. (…) It breaks my heart to hear that…”

“No. It shouldn’t. Look at me Jack: Will and I have been happy together. We are still happy. I never stopped loving him. And I know darn well that he still loves me. Even after all those years. We’ve been blessed Jack. Really. Now… let’s be honest. The end is near. All I hope for is that God will allow me to survive him, cause I don’t know what Will would do without me. I’ve always known that I’m stronger than he is. I want to be here for him till the last moment. I know you can understand that, because of what you went through with Mike…”

“Yes”, I softly answered. “I understand”. 

“I knew you would. Don’t feel sorry for us Jack. Remember what Catherine said to you: Not only are you a gentleman… but you’re a fine young man. We love you very much… you know that, don’t you?”

“…Yes”, I answered… looking at my feet… not being able to look at Paul straight in the eyes for fear of losing control over my emotions…

“Here Jack. Let me hug you. To Will and me… you are like the grandson we never had. Do you know that?”

“(…)”

“We love you Jack. Will loves you… and I love you. What we want for you in life is for you to be as happy as we have been. You understand?”

I raised my head and look at him with tears in my eyes…

“…Yes”, I answered. “I’ll do my best…”

“That’s not good enough Jack. We want you to succeed…”

“I will… I swear I will…”

“Good”, Paul answered. “Good”.

Eventually I flew back to Montréal and went on with my life. As I’ve always done…

Each Saturday morning, at nine o’clock, Paul and I talk over the phone. One week, I’m the one that makes the call… the week after, he calls me… and we talk. I tell him about what I’ve done during the week and he tells me about what happened at Bagatelle during that same week.

That’s how I learned that one morning, Lutz had fallen down the stairs. He broke his hip and had to go through surgery at Fort-de-France. Paul told me that his doctor didn’t want him to go back to Bagatelle because, according to him, the mansion was no longer suited for such an old man… with all those stairs…

“…What did Lutz say?”, I asked Paul…

“What he said? (…) The only thing he said was: “Don’t leave me here, guys…”

“What will you do?”

Paul burst out laughing and asked:

“… Aren’t you coming soon to Martinique?”

“…Yes…”

“Well… you’ll see then what we’re doing…”

A few weeks later I flew to Martinique to spend some time over there at our house. And as soon as I got there… what do you think I did? Yes. I went to Bagatelle. And what did I see?

First, Lutz was there alright! And he had a big smile on his face.

He was sitting in a wheelchair… and I don’t think that, at his age… he will ever walk again. But he doesn’t care!

Then Paul said to me:

“Come with me… I want to show you something…”

I followed Paul into the grand hall. At one point Paul turned to look at me and said:

“…You see?”

“See what?”, I answered, looking at a wall…

“Look…”, Paul answered while pushing on something on the wall. Part of that wall slid and right there, concealed behind the woodwork… there was an elevator! I couldn’t believe my eyes! It was so well concealed that I had not even noticed it…

I walked into the elevator and made it work. I was laughing my heart out…

“And now, we are all using it.”, Paul added… “Not only Lutz… but Will, Ludwig as well as me! To go to our bedrooms, we no longer have to use the stairs!” 

“…You’re the devil…”, I told Paul…

“What do you think? That we were going to leave Lutz at Fort-de-France! Over my dead body! Never! You hear? Never…”

Last winter, I went back to Martinique to spend a few days over there, as my dad still owns our house down there. In fact, my parents intend to move there permanently, the day my dad will retire.

And of course, as soon as I got to our house I didn’t lose time and went to see my old friends at Bagatelle.

They now have a new “tenant” there. Yup!

A few months ago, François decided to sell his house in Fort-de-France and move back to Bagatelle on a permanent basis. I have never asked about his age, but I know he’s about the same age as Ludwig, and I know that Ludwig will be 82 next September…

All that to say that François is not getting any younger. Most of his friends in Fort-de-France have died… and I suppose he was starting to feel a bit lonely there, all by himself. Anyway, he now lives at Bagatelle, with Paul, Will, Lutz and Ludwig…

I laughed, when I learned that François had moved from Fort-de-France to Bagatelle… and looking at my old friends I said:

“…It’s almost like how it was when you were all living in Paris during the war…”

“Yes…”, Paul answered, laughing…

“…Only, Franz is no longer here with us… And Hans, of course…”, Lutz answered in a soft voice…”

“Franz? Where is he… I didn’t see him this morning”, Will suddenly asked…

“No dear. He went for a walk. He will be back later…”, Paul answered, with such a lovely smile on his face…

“Oh… Yes.”, Will answered.

In March 2007, Will turned 87… and I’m afraid he’s not doing any better. As long as we talk about the past, he has no problem talking with us. But then he doesn’t remember about yesterday or the day before yesterday. Paul told me that one day, he will not even recognize me anymore. But for now, he has no problem recognizing me and we still have fun talking to him…

There’s another thing I’ve noticed: Will seldom speaks French anymore. Most of the time, he speaks German. I’ve asked my dad about that and he said that that was quite normal since Will is slowly regressing…

Sometimes, I think he realizes that he’s losing the battle… Who knows what’s going on in his mind. All I know is that when I’m at Bagatelle he smiles a lot…

As for Paul, he’s still in good health and does not take pills. For an old man, he’s still strong, and he still walks as fast as he used to! Paul will be 86 next August. The last time I was there he said to me:

“We will all stay at Bagatelle till the end. All of us. If we have to hire private nurses to help us… or even a private doctor, we will! Beside, we’re not all alone around here. Ludwig’s grandchildren live on the plantation, as some of Hans’ grandchildren do. So if we need help, we know they are there for us…”

And he’s right. They all love them very much. And they do care about them!

As I said earlier, Ludwig will be 82 next September, and he’s in good health… He’s very protective of his older brother Will… and of Paul! You should see him! He even reprimands them when they do something that he’s not happy with. Like recently, he forbid Will to go out alone for walks, for fear that he could get lost! When Paul told me about that, I asked him:

“And what did Will say…”

“What he said? He looked at Ludwig and said: “Get lost yourself!” Of course, I burst out laughing, hearing that…

I can see that they are still having fun, living all together like that!

One night that I was at Bagatelle, they were playing cards and I heard Ludwig say to Lutz:

“…Hey… you’re cheating…”

And then I heard Lutz laugh is ass off and answer:

“No I’m not! But you don’t know how to play. You should go back to school and learn how too play…”

Oh… and I almost forgot to tell you…

Last winter during that same vacation… something else happened. Yes. Someone else was vacationing at Bagatelle. Someone I had heard about in the past but that I had never met before.

“Hey Jack”, Paul told me… “Meet Mathieu. He’s my grand nephew from Paris… You have met his dad. You remember? When we were in Paris? Mathieu is Catherine’s grandson…”

It was true that while in Paris with Paul, I had met Catherine’s son. But I had never met her grandsons… All I knew was that she had three grandsons, and that the youngest one was about my age. That’s all.

“I’m the youngest one…”, Mathieu said, with a very nice smile on his face… “In fact, I’m the only one that is presentable, since my two older brothers are not as intelligent, as nice, as polite, as…”

“…Yeah yeah… I get the picture…”, I answered, laughing my heart out… “You forgot to mention “as good-looking”…

“That too…”, he answered, laughing…

I’m going to like that guy, I said to myself! He has a good sense of humor… and beside, it’s true that he’s very good-looking. He’s about 6 feet tall, well built… with curly black hair and deep blue eyes. Just like mine. And he’s about my age…

“…So, you’ve decided to spend some time in Martinique, huh?”, I asked him…

“Yes. I had never been to Martinique… and many times, I had been invited by Uncle Paul to come to visit…”

“…Hey you: Stop calling me “Uncle” Paul, will you”, Paul said… “ My name is Paul…”. You’ll have to get use calling me Paul cause otherwise, you will not spend a nice vacation here with us…” he added, laughing…

“Sorry”, Mathieu answered…

Then, Paul looked at me:

“Now you two better get along, cause we are too old to entertain Mathieu, and I count on you Jack for that. Beside… two good-looking guys like you shouldn’t have problems having fun together…” he said, looking at me with a twinkle in his eye…

In a second, I went red in the face… and so did Mathieu…

I think that if I could have, I would have killed Paul right there! He looked at me… knowing perfectly well what he had said… and he had that “innocent” smile on his face! Shit!

“Oh sure…”, I answered… “Count on me. Like if I was going to debauch him while he’s here…”

“Hey… I might like that…”, Mathieu answered, laughing his ass off…

Nevertheless, during our stay, we had lots of fun together. I showed Mathieu around… and made him discover the island…

One day, as we were talking, I learned that he didn’t have a girlfriend…

Was he gay? For once, my “gaydar” wasn’t working… and I couldn’t tell if he was. But I really had the feeling that he was…

One night after diner, as I was alone with Paul… I told him:

“I like Mathieu you know. In fact, I like him… a lot!”

“Oh yeah?”, Paul answered, with a nice smile on his face… “Well my friend… I think he likes you a lot too…”

“Why do you say that?”

“…He asked me a lot of questions about you, that’s why. Of course, I didn’t tell him everything about you… But he knows you’re gay, and he knows about Mike. When I told him, he felt real bad for you. He told me so…”

“Well, if he likes me like you say, he didn’t make the first steps…”

“Maybe he’s afraid of your reaction… I don’t know Jack. In fact, I’m not even sure if he’s gay. He didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask. And… I don’t know him that well you know. But if he doesn’t make the first steps, why don’t you take the lead and make them?”

“Yeah. Maybe… If only I was sure he’s gay…”

“Well… it’s for you to find out…” Paul finally said…

The morning after, as Mathieu and I were going to Sainte-Anne we drove right past Club Med. Mathieu turned across to look at me and said:

“…Did you know the Club was reopened recently? Paul told me I could spend a day there to do some scuba diving…”

I knew that the Club had been closed for almost a year, since they had decided to renovate the place. But I didn’t know it had reopened…

“…No, I didn’t know it had reopened. You like scuba diving?”

“Yes… Do you?”

“Yes. Sure…”, I answered while driving…

“We… would you like to come with me at the Club? We could spend a day there…”

Was he putting me through a test or what? If he knew about Mike… then why ask me to go there with him? To see how I would react? Okay pal, I said to myself, if that’s what you want to see then it’s fine with me!

“…Sure…”, I answered, after a moment of silence. “When do you want to go…”

“What about tomorrow?”, he asked…

“Perfect. I’ll be at Bagatelle at 9 to fetch you, then we’ll drive to Club Med…”

“Good”, he answered with a big smile on his face.

And indeed the morning after, we drove to Club Med. At the gate, I explained to the gatekeeper that we wanted to spend the day at the Club… so he opened the gate and we slowly drove down the private road leading to the main buildings. Yes. THAT road. The very same road where I had seen Mike disappear into the night. The night I had had that bad premonition about him…

But I had never told anyone about that bad premonition, so Mathieu didn’t know about it.

As I was driving down that road, I started looking around. From what I could see so far, nothing had changed… and of course, I did my very best to keep my composure so that Mathieu couldn’t see how troubled I was…

“It’s beautiful here…”, he said, smiling… looking all around.

“Sure is…”, I answered…

Then we reached the parking lot and I parked the car. We started to walk towards the buildings… and I soon realized that everything had changed. The buildings that used to stand there had all been torn down and new ones had been built. I started to feel better, realizing that…

We paid the fees… and the guy at the desk gave us a map of the Club. I took the map and looked at it…

“…No problem”, I told Mathieu… “I know where to go. Follow me…”

As we were walking through the tropical gardens towards the sea, I realized that everything had been torn down. And I could sense that Mathieu was watching me… Yes, I said to myself, he’s really putting me through a test…

We reached a new building standing right where the dining room used to stand. Oh, there was a dining room and a bar there alright, but everything had changed. Even the theater had been torn down and a new one had been built. And now, there was a big swimming pool right there, in front of us… I couldn’t help it but I grinned, thinking of how Mike would have loved that big pool…

“Why are you grinning?”, Mathieu asked…

“Oh… that pool wasn’t there before. What a good idea to have it built…”, I answered with a smile on my face…

The rest of the day was spent scuba diving, and we had lots of fun. All the people that were working at the Club were new employees… and I saw no one from the old days. They were all gone… I started to breathe easier because up until then, I was kind of apprehensive that I would come face to face with someone that had been working with Mike… and if that had happened, I really didn’t know what my reaction would have been…

As I said, we spent the day scuba diving and had lots of fun. As everything was included in the fare we had paid, all the gear we needed was there for us to use, even the wet suits! Of course, we had to change in order to put the wet suits on, but shit… they had private cabins for us to change, so I didn’t get the chance of seeing Mathieu change! I mean… of course, I wanted to “check” him out… after all, he had seen me at Bagatelle, while I was swim training. But even though I had invited him to join me into the pool, he never had. And while we were on vacation in Matinique, we never got the “chance” to go to the beach together for a swim… So I was kind of hoping that at Club Med, I would get the chance to see him in all his “glory”. But that didn’t happen! Shit!

Anyway. So we spent that day scuba diving… and at the end of the day I told him:

“…Let’s have a beer at the “Tour du port…”

“Where?”

“The “Tour du port…”… that’s where everybody goes at the end of the day to have a drink before getting ready for diner…”

“…Oh, sure…”, he answered, grinning…

So we walked towards the “Tour du Port”… and I was pleased to see that it was still standing. It had not been torn down like most of the other buildings.

Once there, I looked at the round building and soon realized that there was no longer a bar there… I stood there… looking at the building… and didn’t understand. As an employee was walking towards us I stopped him and asked:

“Hey… where’s the bar?”

“…Oh… you mean the old bar? Well… it’s no longer there. It doesn’t exist anymore. We heard about the bar that used to be there… and that it was a lot of fun. But that’s over dude…”

“Oh… thanks for telling me…”

“Yeah. The only bar we now have is located near the pool.”

“What about the disco? There was another bar over there…”

“Yeah. I heard about it. But sorry… the disco doesn’t exist anymore. All you’ll find there is a restaurant…”

“But then, where is the disco located nowadays?”

“We no longer have a disco pal. Sorry…”

Shit! Have they gone crazy or what? I asked to myself…

“You see…”, the guy added “now we’re looking for a different kind of “clientèle”… The kind of clientele that is looking for tranquillity, quiet and peace. And with lots of money. So, no more disco! Sorry dude! Have you been here before?”

“Yeah. You might say that. Thanks dude…”

“Sure”, the guy answered, walking away from us…

“You look shocked…”, Mathieu said to me…

“Oh… just a bit. I mean… that’s not the Club that I came to know. But then, that’s such a long time ago. Would you mind… there something else I’d like to see…”

“…Sure. What is it…”

“Oh… I just want to see if the huts where the employees used to live are still there…”

“Sure. No problem…”

We walk towards the place where Mike’s hut used to stand. There was nothing there anymore, except grass and small palm trees growing…

We stood there for a second or two, staring at the empty space…

“Do you mind if I ask you something?”, Mathieu asked me…

“Of course not. What do you want to ask me?”

“Why did you want to see that place…”

“Oh… a hut used to stand here…”

“Does it has anything to do with… Mike?”

I remained silent for a few seconds… then I turned across to look to Mathieu and said:

“Yes. It does. Mike’s hut used to stand right here where we are. But it’s gone. Like all the rest. And do you know what? I’m glad it’s gone. It doesn’t exist anymore. So now it can’t change. In my memory, it will always stay as it was. I know Mathieu that Paul told you about Mike. That’s okay with me. I’m happy that he told you about him. Yes… I loved him very much. But he’s part of my past. Not of my present. Mike will always be with me… but I’m going on with my life. Mike will never grow old, like I will. He will always stay the same. The way he was. A young, beautiful guy that I was so much in love with. I can’t change that, and I don’t want to. But you see… everything around here has changed since he died. And so have I. And looking at the Club as it now stands, well… it only proves to me that things have really changed. That life goes on. I have no problem living with my past. But I don’t live in the past. You understand what I mean?”

“… I think I do…”

“Fine. Now, lets’ go. There’s nothing left here for us to see…”

“Right. Let’s go…”

We left the Club and went back to Bagatelle. We had diner there with all the others, and had fun. I even played piano for them…