Fresh Water for Flowers

by Valérie Perrin

  Anaïs Caussin (aged seven), Léonine Toussaint (aged seven), Nadège Gardon (aged eight), and Océane Degas (aged nine) were in Room 1, situated on the ground floor. They left their room without permission, and without making any noise so as not to wake up their supervisor (Lucie Lindon), who was sleeping in one of the rooms adjoining theirs. They went to the kitchen, located five meters from their bedroom, at the end of the main corridor. They opened one of the fridges and poured milk into a two-liter stainless-steel saucepan in order to warm it up. They used a gas cooker with eight rings (two electric, six gas). They lit one of the gas rings with household matches. They searched in the storeroom at the back of the kitchen to find cocoa powder and in the cupboard for four mugs, into which they poured the hot milk.

  They each carried their mug of hot milk back to their bedroom. (The four mugs were found in Room 1—non-flammable ceramic.)

  The four victims had placed the stainless-steel saucepan back on the gas ring, which, mistakenly, hadn’t been switched off but turned down to low.

  The plastic handle of the stainless-steel saucepan began to melt, then to catch fire. (Saucepan found, stainless-steel non-flammable.)

  Ten minutes later (estimated approximate time), the flames coming from the plastic handle began to reach the kitchen units located above and to the right of the gas cooker.

  The plastic-coated cladding covering these kitchen units proved to be highly toxic. Organic compounds (lacquers and varnishes) that are very volatile.

  It was also noted that the four children hadn’t closed the door to the kitchen, or to their bedroom.

  Between the moment when the four victims left the kitchen and the moment when the toxic gases had invaded the kitchen, the corridor, and their bedroom, between twenty-five and thirty minutes had gone by.

  As previously stated, Room 1 was located around five meters from the kitchen. The emanation of toxic gases produced by the combustion of the kitchen units must have rapidly plunged the four children into a coma, and caused their deaths by asphyxiation and poisoning.

  The bodies of the four victims were found burned to ashes in their beds. They were asleep when they inhaled the toxic gases, and that proved fatal to them.

  Room 1 caught fire when one of the windows in that same room exploded due to the heat, creating a draft.

  Due to the explosion and the extreme temperature, all the windows in the room exploded, allowing some of the toxic gases to escape outside. The other bedrooms (to which all doors were closed) on the ground floor were not affected.

  The supervisor (Lucie Lindon), who occupied the room adjoining that of the four victims, immediately evacuated the two bedrooms on the ground floor, in which eight children were sleeping (unharmed), and which weren’t affected by the fire.

  It was not possible for Lucie Lindon to enter Room 1.

  After ensuring that all the occupants on the first floor (twelve children and five adults) were safe and sound, Lucie Lindon alerted the fire brigade.

  It was harder than usual to reach the latter as it had been commandeered to keep people safe at a firework display, ten kilometers from the place known as La Clayette.

  Alain Fontanel and Swan Letellier again attempted to enter Room 1 by any means, but in vain. The heat and the height of the flames were too extensive.

  Between Lucie Lindon’s telephone alert and the arrival of the fire brigade, twenty-five minutes elapsed. The call was made at 23:25, and the fire brigade arrived at the location of the fire at 23:50.

  A large part of the left wing had already been devastated by the flames.

  It took three hours to get the fire under control.

  Due to the young age of the four victims, and the advanced level of calcination of the bodies, identification using dental records was not possible.

  This is what the investigation revealed.

  It’s roughly what was written in the police report, drawn up for the public prosecutor.

  It’s what was said during the trial (which I didn’t attend), as repeated to me by Philippe Toussaint.

  It’s what was written in the newspapers (which I didn’t read).

  Detached words, devoid of pathos, precise. “Without drama, without a tear, those pathetic and derisory arms, because there are certain pains that weep only on the inside,” as the song goes.

  Edith Croquevieille was sent down for two years, one without remission, because the kitchen door had not been locked, and the surfaces of floors, walls, and ceilings at Notre-Dame-des-Prés were in a bad state of repair. It was never explicitly said, or written, that the children were responsible. One can’t accuse four little victims of seven, eight, and nine years old. But to me, it was implied in the director’s sentence.

  What immediately struck me as problematic, in these experts’ reports, is that Léonine didn’t drink milk. She absolutely hated it. A single sip was enough to make her vomit.

  52.

  Here lies my garden’s most beautiful flower.

  While watching the colorful fish in the huge aquarium, covering an entire wall in the Chinese restaurant, Le Phénix, I’m reminded of the Calanque de Sormiou. Of the sunshine, of the beauty in that light.

  “Do you swim often in Marseilles?”

  “When I was a kid I did.”

  Julien Seul pours me another glass of wine.

  “The Hôtel du Passage, the Blue Room, the wine, the pasta, the lovemaking with Gabriel Prudent, all that is written in your mother’s journal?”

  “Yes.”

  He takes a notebook out of his inside pocket. With its stiff navy-blue cover, it looks like the Prix Goncourt winner of 1990, Les Champs d’honneur, which Célia gave me.

  “I brought it for you. I’ve slipped some colored sheets between the pages that concern you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My mother mentions you in her journal. She saw you, several times.”

  I open the notebook at random, look furtively at her handwriting in blue ink.

  “Keep it. You can return it to me later.”

  I put it away, at the bottom of my handbag.

  “I’ll take care of it . . . How does it make you feel, discovering your mother’s other life in her journal?”

  “It’s as if I were reading someone else’s story, a stranger’s. And my father did die a long time ago. ‘It’s ancient history,’ as they say.”

  “It doesn’t bother you that she’s not buried alongside your father?”

  “At first, I found it hard. Now it’s fine. And also, I would never have got to know you.”

  “Once again, I’m not sure that we know each other. We’ve met, that’s all.”

  “Then let’s get to know each other.”

  “I think I need a drink.”

  I down the wine he’s just poured me, in one.

  “Usually, I don’t drink much, but right now, that’s impossible. And that way you have of looking at me. I never know whether you want to arrest me or marry me.”

  He bursts into laughter.

  “Marry or arrest, comes to the same thing, right?”

  “Are you married?”

  “Divorced.”

  “Do you have children?”

  “A son.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Seven.”

  An awkward silence.

  “Would you like us to get to know each other at a hotel?”

  He seems surprised by my question. He strokes the cotton tablecloth with his fingertips. He smiles at me again.

  “You and me at a hotel, that was one of my medium- or long-range plans . . . But, since you’re suggesting it, we can reduce the waiting time.”

  “The hotel, it’s the start of the journey.”

  “No, the hotel is already the journey.”

  53.

  Don’t cry ove
r my death. Celebrate my life.

  The second time I saw Sasha, he was in his vegetable garden.

  When I entered his house, it was in a mess. Saucepans spilling out of the sink, cups scattered everywhere, empty teapots, too. Numerous papers spread across the low table. The tea caddies covered in dust. But the walls still smelled as good.

  I heard some noise at the back of the house. Classical music coming from outside. The door that led to the vegetable garden, at the back of the kitchen, was wide open. I saw the sunlight.

  Sasha was at the top of a ladder that was leaning against a cherry-plum tree. He was collecting the sweet fruit in a potato sack. When he saw me, he smiled at me with his matchless smile. And I wondered how it was possible to seem so happy in such a sad place.

  I immediately thanked him for the packet of tea and the list of Notre-Dame-des-Prés staff. He replied, “Oh, you’re welcome.”

  “How did you manage to find the photos and addresses of those people?”

  “Oh, wasn’t difficult.”

  “Edith Croquevieille and the others, do you know them?”

  “I know everyone.”

  I wanted to ask him questions about those people. But I couldn’t.

  As he came down his ladder, he said to me:

  “You look like a sparrow, a fledgling that’s fallen from the nest. You’re a sorry sight. Come here, I’m going to tell you something.”

  “How did you get my address? Why did you send me the funerary plaque?”

  “It was your friend Célia who gave it to me.”

  “You know Célia?”

  “A few months ago, she came to the cemetery to place a plaque on the tomb of your little girl. She asked me where it was, I accompanied her. She told me she’d imagined the words you would have had engraved if you’d come here, in person. She’d chosen the words for you. She just couldn’t understand why you had never set foot in the cemetery. She said it would probably do you good. She spoke to me about you for a long while. She told me you were in a bad way. So, the idea came to me. I asked her permission to send you the plaque so you would come and place it yourself. She hesitated for a long time, and then agreed.”

  He grabbed a Thermos left at the end of one of his garden’s paths, and poured me some tea in a glass from the kitchen, murmuring, “Jasmine and honey.”

  “I had my first garden at nine years old. One square meter of flowers. It was my mother who taught me how to sow, water, harvest. I sensed that it would be my thing. She always said to me, ‘Don’t judge each day by what you can pick, but by the seeds you sow.’”

  He went quiet for a few moments, then grabbed my arm and looked into my eyes.

  “You see this garden? Twenty years I’ve had it. You see how beautiful it is? You see all these vegetables? These colors? This garden is seven hundred square meters, that’s seven hundred square meters of joy, love, sweat, endeavor, determination, and patience. I’m going to teach you how to look after it, and once you know, I’ll entrust it to you.”

  I said that I didn’t understand. He pulled off his gloves and showed me the wedding ring on his finger.

  “You see this wedding ring? I found it in my first vegetable garden.”

  He led me under an arbor of climbing ivy and made me sit down on an old chair. He sat facing me.

  “It was a Sunday, I must have been around twenty, and I was walking my little dog not far from the social housing I lived in, in the suburbs of Lyons. I left the car park behind me and took a random path. There was some so-called ‘countryside’ a bit higher up, a few meadows that had ended up in the midst of the concrete, arid meadows, not very attractive, and a cluster of old trees. At the end of the path, I fell upon a group of people sitting under an oak tree and cleaning beans at an old, oilcloth-covered table. I was struck by how happy they looked. They were neighbors, people who lived in the social housing whom I knew by sight, people who didn’t smile like that when I passed them in the stairwell. All around them, I could see their hodgepodge gardens. They grew fruit and vegetables. I realized that it was those little plots of land and the well that put those smiles on their faces. I asked them if I, too, could have a garden like them. They told me to phone the town hall, that they rented the plots for peanuts, that there were a few left, back there.

  “I proudly dug up my plot in October and covered it with manure. The following winter, I grew my seedlings in empty yogurt pots. Squashes, basil, peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, zucchini. I had grand ideas. I was ambitious for my vegetables. I planted them in spring. I followed the gardening manuals, I gardened with my head, not my heart. Without paying attention to the lunar cycles, the frost, the rain, the sun. I also planted some carrots and potatoes directly into the soil. I waited for it all to grow. I dropped by occasionally to do some watering. I was counting on the rain.

  “Of course, nothing grew. I didn’t realize that you have to spend days in the garden for the magic to work. I didn’t realize that the weeds, the ones that grow around vegetables, if you don’t remove them every day, they drink all the water, they kill off everything.”

  He got up to go into his kitchen and returned with almond cakes on a china plate.

  “Eat, you’re looking thin.”

  I said I wasn’t hungry, he replied, “Don’t care.” We enjoyed his cakes, smiling at each other, and then he picked up his story:

  “By September, as if my garden were mocking me, only one carrot had appeared. Just one! I saw its yellowing top, alone in the middle of the dry, badly aerated soil. Soil I hadn’t remotely understood. Mortified, I pulled the carrot up, ready to throw it to the hens, when I saw there was a silver wedding ring wedged onto my pathetic, deformed vegetable. A real silver wedding ring someone must have lost years before, in the soil of my garden. I rinsed my carrot, took a bite out of it, and pulled the wedding ring off. I took it as a sign. It was as if I’d failed my first year of marriage by not understanding my wife at all, but still had dozens more ahead of me to make up for it.”

  54.

  She hid her tears but shared her smiles.

  Wash his clothes with powder detergent, dry them, except for the sweaters, fold while still warm, put away, according to color, on his shelves. Do the shopping: fluoride toothpaste, Auto-moto magazine, Gillette razorblades, chamomile anti-dandruff shampoo, shaving foam for tough stubble, fabric softener, polish for the biking leathers, Dove soap, packs of lager, milk chocolate, vanilla yogurts.

  The things he likes. The brands he prefers.

  In the bathroom, clean hairbrush and combs. Tweezers and nail-clippers ready for use.

  Baguette, crusty. Everything cherry-flavored. Meat to chop up without breathing through the nose. Brown it and braise in a cast-iron casserole. Lift lid and check pieces of dead animal, add flour, put on a plate, bay leaves soaking in onion sauce.

  Serve.

  Eat only the vegetables, pasta, mashed potato. Eat only the side dishes. Which is what I am. A side dish.

  Clear the table.

  Wash the floor, the kitchen. Vacuum clean. Air the place. Dust. Change the channel immediately when he doesn’t like the program. Switch off the music. Never music when he’s around: my “moronic” singers give him a headache.

  Him going off for a ride, me staying home. Going to bed. Him getting back late. He wakes me up because he makes a racket, doesn’t care about the water running in the sink, the stream of pee hitting the toilet, the doors slamming. He sticks himself right behind me. He smells of another woman. Pretend to sleep. But sometimes he wants me anyway. Despite the other woman, the one he’s just left. He slides inside me, strains, grunts, I close my eyes. I think of elsewhere, I go for a swim in the Mediterranean.

  That’s all I knew. Just that particular smell. Just that particular voice, just his words and his habits. The last years of my life with him occupy more of my memories than the early ones, the ones that sped
by, the short, lighthearted, and carefree years of love. When our youths were intertwined.

  Philippe Toussaint aged me. To be loved is to stay young.

  It’s the first time I make love with a man who’s sensitive. Before Philippe Toussaint, a few guys at the hostel and from Charleville. Just clumsiness, beaten-up lives banging together. Making a noise, jerks who don’t know how to caress. Who botched learning French from textbooks, botched learning love.

  Julien Seul knows how to love.

  He’s sleeping. I hear his breathing, it’s a new breath. I listen to his skin, I breathe in his gestures, his hands on me, one on my left shoulder, the other around my right hip. He is all over me. Outside of me. But not within me.

  He’s sleeping. How many lives would I need to fall asleep against someone? To trust enough to close my eyes and let go of the souls that haunt me? I’m naked between the sheets. My body hasn’t been naked between sheets since the dawn of time.

  I adored this moment of love, this surge of life.

  Now I would like to go home. I want to be back with Eliane, the solitude of my bed. I would like to leave this hotel room without waking him, run away, in fact.

  Saying goodbye tomorrow morning seems impossible to me. A dialogue almost as unbearable as meeting Stéphanie’s eyes when I lost Léonine.

  What would I say to him?

  We’d downed a bottle of champagne to brace ourselves, finally, to touch each other. We were terrified of each other. Like people truly attracted to each other are. Like Irène Fayolle and Gabriel Prudent.

  I’m not after a love story. I’m too old for that. I’ve missed the boat. My meager love life is an old pair of socks shoved to the back of a closet. That I never got rid of, but that I won’t ever wear again. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters apart from the death of a child.