by Anna Gavalda
‘What did he answer?’
‘Nothing … just dismissed it.’
‘Stop, stop, that’s plenty!’
‘I was living on the second floor of a building that was completely grey, buried in the sixteenth arrondissement. It was such a sad … My parents couldn’t afford to live there, but the address was prestigious, you see. The sixteenth! We were squeezed into a grim apartment that never got any sun, and where my mother forbade us to open the windows because there was a bus depot just underneath. She was mortally afraid that the curtains would … would become soiled … oh, this nice little Bordeaux has me speaking like her … I was terribly bored. I was too young to interest my father and my mother just fluttered around.
‘She went out a lot. “Time spent helping in the parish,” she would say, rolling her eyes. She overdid it, acted shocked at the behaviour of certain church ladies whom she had made up out of thin air. She would take off her gloves and toss them on the hall table as if she were throwing in her notice, then sigh, prance around, chatter, lie, sometimes tripping herself up. We just let her talk. Paul called her Sarah Bernhardt, and after she left the room my father would resume reading Le Figaro without a word … Some potatoes?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘I was a half-boarder at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly. I was as grey as my building. I read Catholic comics and the adventures of Flash Gordon. I played tennis with the Mortellier boys every Thursday. I … I was a very good, very dull boy. I dreamed of taking the lift to the sixth floor just to have a look … Talk about an adventure! Going up to the sixth floor! I was soft in the head, I swear.
‘I was waiting for Patrick Frendall.
‘I was waiting for the Pope!’
He got up to stoke the fire.
‘Anyway, the trip wasn’t a revolution … a bit of a lark at most. I always thought I would … how shall I say … throw off the yoke one day. But no. Never. I kept on being that very good, very dull boy. But why am I telling you all this? Why am I so talkative all of a sudden?’
‘It was me that asked the question.’
‘Well, that’s still no reason! I’m not boring you to death with my trip down memory lane?’
‘No, no, on the contrary. I really like it.’
• • •
The following morning, I found a note on the kitchen table: Gone to office. Back later.
There was hot coffee, and an enormous log on the fire.
Why didn’t he tell me he was going?
What a strange man … Like a fish, always twisting away from you, slipping out of your hands.
I poured myself a large cup of coffee and drank it standing up, leaning against the kitchen window. I looked at the robins swarming around the block of lard that the girls had put out on the bench the previous day.
The sun had almost risen above the hedge.
I was waiting for them to wake up. The house was too quiet.
I wanted a cigarette. It was stupid, I hadn’t smoked in years. But that’s what life is like … You show what incredible willpower you have, and then one winter morning you decide to walk four kilometres in the cold to buy a pack of cigarettes. You love a man, you have two children with him, and one winter morning, you learn that he has left because he loves someone else. Adding that he doesn’t know what to say, that he made a mistake.
Like calling a wrong number: ‘I’m sorry, it was a mistake.’
Why, think nothing of it …
Like a soap bubble.
It’s windy. I go out to put the lard out of the way.
I watch television with the girls. I’m horrified: the characters in the cartoons seem so stupid and spoiled. Lucie gets annoyed, shakes her head, begs me to be quiet. I want to tell her about Candy.
When I was little, I was hooked on Candy.
Candy never talked about money, only about love. And then I shut up. That will teach me to act like little miss Candy …
The wind blows harder and harder. I give up the idea of walking to the village.
We spend the afternoon in the attic. The girls play dressing-up. Lucie waves a fan in her sister’s face:
‘Are you too hot, Countess?’
The Countess can’t move. She has too many hats on her head.
We bring down an old cradle. Lucie says that it needs a new coat of paint.
‘Pink?’ I ask her.
‘How did you guess?’
‘I’m very clever.’
The telephone rings. Lucie answers.
At the end, I hear her ask:
‘Do you want to talk to Mummy now?’
She hangs up shortly after. Doesn’t come back and join us.
I continue to strip the cradle with Marion.
I find her when I go down to the kitchen, her chin on the table. I sit down next to her.
We look at each other.
‘One day, will you and Papa be in love again?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘I already knew it, anyway …’
She got up and added:
‘You know what else?’
‘No, what?’
‘The birds have already eaten everything …’
‘Really? Are you sure?’
‘Yes, come see.’
She came around the table and took my hand.
We were in front of the window. There was my little blonde girl next to me. She was wearing an old dress-shirt and a moth-eaten skirt. Her ‘You’re a Barbie girl!’ sneakers fitted right into her great-grandmother’s button-up shoes. Her mother’s large hand fitted completely around hers. We watched the trees in the garden bending in the wind, and probably thought the same thing …
THE BATHROOM WAS so cold that I couldn’t lift my shoulders out of the water. Lucie shampooed our hair and gave us all sorts of wild hairdos. ‘Look, Mum! You’ve got horns on your head!’
I knew it already.
It wasn’t very funny, but it made me laugh.
‘Why are you laughing?’
‘Because I’m stupid.’
‘Why are you stupid?’
We danced about to dry ourselves off.
Nightdresses, socks, shoes, sweaters, dressing gowns, and more sweaters.
My two little Michelin men went down to have their soup.
There was a power cut just as Babar was playing with the lift in a big department store, under the angry gaze of the operator. Marion started to cry.
‘Wait here, I’ll go and turn the lights back on.’
‘Waah! Waaaaahhhh!’
‘Stop that, Barbie Girl, you’ve made your sister cry.’
‘Don’t call me Barbie Girl!’
‘So stop.’
It wasn’t the circuit breaker or a fuse. The shutters banged, the doors creaked, and the whole house was plunged into darkness.
Brontë sisters, pray for us.
I wondered when Pierre was going to return.
I brought the girls’ mattress down into the kitchen. Without an electric radiator, it was impossible to let them sleep up there. They were as excited as could be. We pushed back the table and laid their makeshift bed next to the fireplace.
I lay down between them.
‘And Babar? You didn’t finish …’
‘Hush, Marion, hush. Look right in front of you. Look at the fire. That’s what will tell you stories …’
‘Yes, but …’
‘Shhhh.’
They fell asleep immediately.
• • •
I listened to the sounds of the house. My nose itched, and I rubbed my eyes to keep from crying.
My life is like this bed, I kept thinking. Fragile. Uncertain. Suspended.
I lay there waiting for the house to blow away.
I was thinking that I had been cast off.
It’s funny how expressions are not just expressions. You have to have experienced real fear to understand the meaning of ‘cold sweat’, or been very anxious to know e
xactly what ‘my stomach was in knots’ means, right?
It’s the same with ‘cast off’. What a marvellous expression. I wonder who thought it up.
Cast off the mooring lines.
Untie the wife.
Take to the sea, spread your albatross wings, and go and fuck on some other horizon.
No, really, what better way to put it?
I’m starting to sound bitter; that’s a good sign. Another few weeks and I’ll be really nasty.
The trap really lies in thinking that you are moored. You make decisions, take out loans, sign agreements, and even take a few risks. You buy houses, put the children in rooms all painted pink, and sleep entwined every night. You marvel at this … What is it called? This intimacy. Yes, that’s what it was called, when you were happy. And even when you were less happy …
The trap lies in thinking that we have the right to be happy.
How ridiculous we are. Naïve enough to think that for even a second we have control over our lives.
Our lives slip through our fingers, but it’s not serious. It’s not that important …
The best thing would be to know it earlier.
When exactly ‘earlier’?
Earlier.
Before repainting the bedrooms in pink, for example …
Pierre is right, why show your weakness?
Just to be hurt?
My grandmother often said that nice home cooking was the best way to keep a good man. I’m certainly a long way off, Grandma, a long way. First, I don’t know how to cook, and then, I never wanted to keep anyone.
Well, then, you’ve succeeded, Granddaughter!
I pour myself a little cognac to celebrate.
One little tear and then bedtime.
THE FOLLOWING DAY seemed very long.
We went for a walk. We gave bread to the horses at the riding school and spent a lot of time with them. Marion sat on the back of a pony. Lucie didn’t want to.
I felt as if I were carrying a very heavy backpack.
In the evening it was showtime. Lucky me – every night there’s a show at my house. On this evening’s programme: ‘The Little Gurl Who Dident Wanta Leev.’ They took great pains to distract me.
I didn’t sleep well.
The next morning, my heart wasn’t in it. It was too cold.
• • •
The girls whined endlessly.
I tried to amuse them by pretending to be a prehistoric cavewoman.
‘Now look, this is how the cavemen used to make their Nesquik … They put a pan of milk on the fire, yes, just like that … and to make toast? Simple as can be, they put a piece of bread on a grill and voilà, they held it over the flames … Careful! Not too long, or it will burn to a crisp. Okay, who wants to play cavewoman with me?’
They didn’t care, they weren’t hungry. All they cared about was their stupid television shows.
I burned myself. Marion started to cry when she heard me yell, and Lucie spilled her cocoa on the couch.
I sat down and put my head in my hands.
I dreamed of being able to unscrew my head, put it on the ground in front of me, and kick it hard enough to send it flying as far as possible.
So far that no one would ever find it again.
But I don’t even know how to kick.
I wouldn’t shoot straight, that’s for sure.
At that moment, Pierre arrived.
He was sorry, explained that he couldn’t get in touch earlier because the line was down, and shook a bag of warm croissants under the girls’ noses.
They laughed. Marion took his hand and Lucie offered him a prehistoric coffee.
‘A prehistoric coffee? With pleasure, my little Cro-Magnon beauty!’
I had tears in my eyes.
He placed a hand on my knee.
‘Chloé … Are you all right?’
I wanted to tell him no, that I was not in the least bit all right, but I was so happy to see him that I answered the opposite.
‘The bakery has lights, so it’s not a local power cut. I’ll go and find out what’s happened … Girls, look outside, the weather is beautiful! Go and get dressed – we’re going mushroom hunting. With all the rain last night, we’re going to find plenty!’
The ‘girls’ included me … We climbed the stairs giggling.
How nice to be eight years old.
We walked all the way to the Devil’s Mill, a sinister old building that has delighted several generations of small children.
Pierre told the girls stories about the holes in the walls:
‘Here’s where his horn struck … and there, those are the marks of his hooves …’
‘Why did he kick the wall with his hooves?’
‘Oh, that’s a long story … It was because he was very cross that day.’
‘Why was he very cross that day?’
‘Because his prisoner had escaped.’
‘Who was his prisoner?’
‘The girl at the bakery.’
‘Madame Pécaut’s daughter?’
‘No, no, not her daughter! Her great-great-grandmother!’
‘Really?’
I showed the girls how to have a miniature tea party with acorn caps. We found an empty bird’s nest, pebbles, and pine cones. We picked cowslips and broke hazelnut branches. Lucie brought back moss for her dolls and Marion stayed on her grandfather’s shoulders the whole time.
We brought back two mushrooms, both of them looked suspect!
On the way back, we heard a blackbird singing, and a little girl asking in a curious voice:
‘But why did the devil capture Madame Pécaut’s grandmother?’
‘Can’t you guess?’
‘No.’
‘Because he was very greedy, that’s why!’
She thrashed at the underbrush with a stick to chase away the devil.
And what about me? I thought. What can I chase away with a stick?
• • •
‘Chloé?’
‘Yes.’
‘I want to tell you … I hope … Or rather, I’d like … Yes, that’s it, I’d like … I’d like you to feel you’re still welcome at the house because … I know how much you love it. You’ve done so many things here. In the bedrooms, the garden … Until you came, there was no garden, you know? Promise me that you’ll come back. With or without the girls …’
I turned toward him.
‘No, Pierre. You know very well that I can’t.’
‘What about your rosebush? What is it called, anyway? That rosebush you planted last year?’
‘Maiden’s Blush.’
‘Yes, that’s it. You loved it so …’
‘No, it’s the name I loved. Listen, this is hard enough as it is …’
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’
‘What about you? Can’t you look after it?’
‘Of course! Maiden’s Blush, you say … How could I not?’
He was overdoing it a little.
On the way back, we ran into old Marcel, who was returning from the village. His bicycle was weaving dangerously across the road. How he managed to stop in front of us without falling off, I’ll never know. He put Lucie on the seat and invited us for a quick drink.
*
Madame Marcel smothered the girls with kisses and planted them in front of the television with a bag of sweets on their knees. ‘Mummy, she has a satellite dish! Guess what! A channel with nothing but cartoons!’
Thank God.
Go to the ends of the earth, clamber over thickets, hedges, ditches, get a stuffy nose, cross old Marcel’s courtyard, and watch Teletoons while eating strawberry-flavoured marshmallows.
Sometimes, life is wonderful …
The storm, mad cow disease, Europe, hunting, the dead and the dying … At one point in the discussion, Pierre asked:
‘Marcel, tell me, do you remember my brother?’
‘Who, Paul? I should say I do, that little monkey … He drove me crazy with that little
whistling of his. Made me think there were all kinds of things to hunt! Made me think there were birds we don’t have in these parts! That little rascal! And the dogs went crazy! Oh, I remember him all right! Such a great kid … He often headed off into the forest with the priest. He wanted to see and know about everything … My word, the questions that boy would ask! He always said he wanted to study so he could work in the forest. I remember how the priest would answer, “But my boy, you don’t need to go to school! What could you learn that I couldn’t teach you?” Paul didn’t answer, he said he wanted to visit all the forests in the world, to see other countries, travel through Africa and Russia, and then come back here and tell us all about it.’
Pierre listened to him, gently nodding his head to encourage the old man to keep talking.
Madame Marcel stood up. She returned and held out a sketchbook to us.
‘Here’s what little Paul – well, I call him little Paul, but he wasn’t so little at the time – gave me one day to thank me for my special deep-fried acacia flowers. Look, that was my dog.’
As she turned the pages, you could see the tricks of a little fox terrier who looked spoiled to death and a real show-off.
‘What was his name?’ I asked.
‘He didn’t have a name, but we always called him Where’d-He-Go, because he was always running off. That’s how he died, actually … Oh … We just loved that dog … We just loved him … Too much, too much. This is the first time I’ve looked at these drawings in a long time. Normally, I try not to poke around in here, it’s too many deaths at once …’
The drawings were marvellous. Where’d-He-Go was a brown fox terrier with long black whiskers and bushy eyebrows.
‘He was shot … He was poaching from poachers, the little imbecile …’
*
I got up. We had to leave before it got completely dark.
• • •
‘My brother died because of the rain. Because he was stationed out in the rain too long, can you imagine?’
