Fresh Water for Flowers

by Valérie Perrin

  “The rooms are luminous and fragrant, like you.”

  It amused him that I was living on rue Paradis.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re mine.”

  “I’m your paradise intermittently.”

  “You know the curves heartbeats produce on an electrocardiogram?”

  “Yes.”

  “The curves of my heart, that’s you.”

  “You’re a smooth talker.”

  “I should hope so. I’m paid a fortune for it.”

  He told me that I didn’t know how to cook, that my gift was getting flowers to grow, not cooking some creature in a casserole.

  He asked me whether I missed my work.

  “No. Not really. The flowers maybe, a little.”

  He asked me if he could smoke in the kitchen.

  “Yes. You’ve gone back to cigarettes?”

  “Yes. It’s like with you, I can’t stop myself.”

  As usual, he spoke to me of his ongoing cases, of his big daughter he hardly heard from, and of his little one, Cloé. He told me that he missed her too much, that he would probably go back to living with her mother.

  “Yes, to live with my daughter again, I’ll have to go back to square Karine. And going back isn’t really my thing.”

  He asked me for news of Julien, too.

  Before leaving, he kissed my lips. As if we were two adolescents. “Amour”—is the word masculine or feminine?

  October 22nd, 2002

  It’s Gabriel day.

  Now, whenever he’s passing through Marseilles, he comes to have lunch here. He gets two daily specials at the delicatessen down below (because what I cook is disgusting: “Not enough butter, not enough cream, not enough sauce, you boil everything, I prefer my vegetables simmered in wine.”)

  He rings at my door with our lunch in foil containers. He always finishes what’s left on my plate. Generally, I eat little. And when Gabriel is in my kitchen, I eat less than little.

  He’s living with Karine again to be close to Cloé. Or so he says. Indeed, I make that point to him, “Or so you say.” He replies, “Don’t be jealous, you have no reason to be jealous. Of anyone.”

  “I’m not jealous.”

  “A little, maybe. I certainly am. Are you seeing someone?”

  “Who on earth would I be seeing?”

  “I don’t know, a lover, a man, men—you’re beautiful. I know you turn heads whenever you arrive somewhere. I know you’re desired wherever you go.”

  “You, I’m seeing you.”

  “But we don’t sleep together.”

  “Want to finish what’s on my plate?”

  “Yes.”

  April 5th, 2003

  It’s a Gabriel day. He called me yesterday evening, he’ll come to my place in the late afternoon, after court. I must get some Suze, Gabriel loves that aperitif.

  There are the days without. And the Gabriel days.

  November 25th, 2003

  Yesterday evening, Gabriel arrived late. He ate some leftover soup, a yogurt, and an apple. He drank a glass of Suze, too. I could tell that it was to please me.

  “If I fall asleep, tomorrow morning, wake me at 7 A.M., please.”

  He said that as if he was used to sleeping over, when it had actually never happened. Twenty minutes later, he dozed off on my sofa. I put a blanket over him. I couldn’t sleep a wink because he was in the room next door. The man next door. All night, I thought: Gabriel is my man next door. I remembered a scene from Truffaut’s film, The Woman Next Door, when Fanny Ardant leaves the hospital and says to her husband, while thinking of her lover whom she’s about to kill, “That’s good, you thought of bringing me my white blouse, I love it [she inhales it] because it is white.”

  This morning, I found Gabriel lying on his front; he had kicked off his shoes. There was the smell of stale smoke in the sitting room; he’d got up during the night to smoke. A window was half-open.

  I was sorry he hadn’t come to join me in my bed. He took a shower, had a quick coffee. Between each gulp, he said to me, “You’re beautiful, Irène.” As usual, before leaving, he kissed my lips. When he arrives, Gabriel inhales deeply at my neck. When he leaves, Gabriel kisses my lips.

  July 22nd, 2004

  I’ve decided to sleep with Gabriel. At our age, there’s a statute of limitations. And anyhow, we’re hardly going to have it off when we’re in eternity. As soon as I opened the door to my apartment, Gabriel knew, saw, read, sensed that I wanted him. He said:

  “Oh no, this is where the shit starts.”

  “It won’t be the first time.”

  “No, it won’t be the first . . . ”

  I didn’t allow him time to finish his sentence.

  85.

  Do not stand at my grave and weep,

  I am not there, I do not sleep.

  I am a thousand winds that blow.

  My list for Nono is done. This year, like every year, he’s the one who’s going to stand in for me, who’s going to take over watering the flowers on the tombs of families who are on holiday. As for Elvis, he will take care of Eliane and the cats. And Father Cédric will look after the vegetable garden, and the flowers in the garden. I’ve given him the index card handwritten by Sasha—he did one for every month.

  AUGUST

  Priority of the month: watering.

  Watering must be done in the evening because then you get the coolness all night, but, importantly, not too early; otherwise, the earth is still hot and the water evaporates immediately, so watering too early is like pissing in the wind.

  Watering must be done at nightfall with a watering can—use water from the well or collected rainwater. The can is gentler than the hose; use the hose and you flatten the soil and it can’t breathe anymore. The soil must breathe. That’s why, occasionally, you should scratch carefully with a hook around the base of plants, to aerate it.

  Pick ripe vegetables.

  Tomatoes can wait a few days.

  Eggplants every three days, otherwise they fatten and harden.

  Beans every day. And to be eaten at once. Either preserve them, or freeze them after removing stalks, or distribute them to people around you.

  Ditto for everything else: never forget that one grows to share, otherwise it’s pointless.

  Father Cédric won’t be alone in tending the vegetable garden. Since the dismantling of the “Jungle” in Calais, some Sudanese families have been lodged at the château in Chardonnay. He goes there three times a week to help the volunteers. A young couple, Kamal and Anita, both nineteen, are due to have a baby. Father Cédric got permission from the authorities to have them stay with him. He will try to protect them for as long as possible, once the child is born. Long enough for them to return to studying, get a diploma, and, crucially, a permanent right to remain. It’s a precarious situation—Father Cédric says he’s living on a powder keg, but it’s a vulnerability he welcomes. And as long as it lasts, he will embrace the joy of sharing his daily life with an adopted family. Whether it lasts a month or ten years, he will have lived it.

  “Everything is ephemeral, Violette, we’re merely passing through. Only God’s love remains steadfast in all things.”

  Since they have been living at the presbytery, Kamal and Anita come to my kitchen every day, and unlike the others, stay longer. Anita is madly in love with Eliane, and Kamal with my vegetable garden. He spends hours deciphering Sasha’s index cards and my Willem & Jardins catalogues, when he isn’t giving me a hand. He’s really good at it. The first time I told him he had a green thumb, he didn’t understand and responded, with bafflement, “But Violette, I’m black.”

  I gave my Boscher reading-method book, The Little Ones’ Day Out, to Anita. She reads it aloud to me, and when she makes a mistake, stumbles over a word, I correct her without even looki
ng at the pages, since I know it by heart.

  When Anita opened the book for the first time, she asked me if it belonged to my child; I replied with a question, “May I touch your tummy?” She replied: “Yes, do.” I laid my hands flat on the cotton of her dress. Anita started laughing because I was tickling her. The baby gave me a few kicks. Anita told me that he was also laughing. And so, we laughed, all three of us, in my kitchen.

  If someone dies and there’s a funeral to organize, it’s Jacques Lucchini who will stand in for me. Since I had to give Gaston something to do during my absence, I asked him to collect my mail and put it on the shelf beside the phone. I’m almost certain that he won’t be able to break one of my letters.

  From my bed, I contemplate my still-open suitcase, sitting on top of my chest of drawers. I’ll finish packing it tomorrow. I always take too much stuff to Marseilles. I wear almost nothing at the chalet. There’s too much “just in case” in my luggage.

  The first time I saw that suitcase was in 1998. Philippe Toussaint had gone for good, but I still didn’t realize it. Four days earlier, he had kissed me goodbye, mumbling, “See you later.” He was due to question Eloïse Petit, the second supervisor. The only one left he hadn’t spoken to. He had said to me, “After that, I’m done. After that, we change our life. I can’t stand any more of all this, these tombs. We’ll go and live in the Midi.”

  He changed life on his own.

  On Eloïse Petit day, he changed direction. Instead of going to see her, he headed to Bron, to see Françoise Pelletier again.

  For four days, I was on my own. I was kneeling at the back of the vegetable garden, my nose in the leaves of the nasturtiums I’d attached to bamboo stakes. Like every time Philippe Toussaint was away, the cats had gravitated to the house, and were playing hide-and-seek around me, all darting about, and one of them ended up knocking over a basin of water, they all jumped, and, in their panic, landed in the water. I couldn’t stop laughing. I heard a familiar voice, coming from the door of the house, saying, “It’s good to hear you laughing all on your own.”

  I thought I was hallucinating. That the wind in the trees was playing a mean trick on me. I looked up and saw the suitcase on the table under the arbor. It was as blue as the Mediterranean on really sunny days. Sasha was standing in front of the door. I went over to him and stroked his face because I couldn’t believe it was really him. I thought he had forgotten me. I said to him, “I thought you had abandoned me.”

  “Never, do you hear me, Violette? Never will I abandon you.”

  He gave me a rough outline of his first months of retirement. He had visited Sany, his almost-brother, in the south of India. In Chartres, Besançon, Sicily, and Toulouse, he had visited palaces, churches, monasteries, streets, other cemeteries. He had swum in lakes, rivers, and seas. Had soothed aching backs, sore ankles, and superficial burns. He had just come from Marseilles, where he had done some window boxes of aromatic plants for Célia. He wanted to give me a hug before going to Valence to pay his respects at the tombs of Verena, Emile, and Ninon, his wife and children who were buried there. Then he would return to India to be with Sany.

  He had just dropped his things off at Madame Bréant’s. He was going to stay two or three nights there, long enough to see the mayor, Nono, Elvis, the cats, and the others.

  That blue suitcase was for me. It was full of presents. Teas, incense, scarves, fabrics, jewelry, honeys, olive oils, Marseilles soap, candles, amulets, books, Bach LPs, sunflower seeds. Everywhere Sasha had been, he’d bought me a souvenir.

  “I’ve brought you back an impression for each trip.”

  “The suitcase, too?”

  “Of course, one day you, too, will set off.”

  He walked around the garden with tears in his eyes. He said, “The pupil has surpassed the teacher . . . I knew you’d do it.”

  We had lunch together. Every time I heard an engine in the distance, I thought it might be Philippe Toussaint returning. But no.

  * * *

  Nineteen years later, it’s a different man I find myself waiting for. In the morning, when I open the gates, I look for his car in the car park. Sometimes, along the avenues, when I hear steps behind me, I turn around, thinking: He’s here, he’s come back.

  Yesterday evening, I thought someone was knocking on my road-side door. I went down but there was no one there.

  And yet, the last time Julien slammed his car door and said to me, “Be seeing you,” just as if bidding me farewell, I did nothing to keep him. I smiled and replied, confidently, “Yes, safe journey,” just as if I were saying to him, “It’s for the best.” When Nathan and Valentin waved at me from the back of the car, I knew I wouldn’t be seeing them again.

  Since that morning, Julien has given me just one sign of life. A postcard from Barcelona to tell me that Nathan and he would be spending the two months of summer over there. And that Nathan’s mother would be joining them from time to time.

  The meeting of Irène and Gabriel will have helped Julien and Nathan’s mother. I was a bridge, a crossing between them. Julien had needed to know me to realize that he couldn’t lose the mother of his child. And thanks to Julien, I know that I can still make love. That I can be desired. Which is at least something.

  86.

  We have come here in search, in search of something or someone. In search of that love that is stronger than death.

  January 1998

  On the day Violette had seen him talking with Swan Letellier in Mâcon, Philippe had felt someone’s eyes on the back of his neck. A familiar presence behind him. He had paid it no attention. Not really. Not enough to turn around. Swan Letellier was now facing him. The face of a rat. This thought had already crossed his mind at the trial. Small, deep-set eyes, craggy cheeks, thin mouth.

  On the phone, Letellier had said to him, “Meet me at the local bar, around midday, it’s quiet then.”

  Like the others, Philippe had coldly asked him the same questions, his tone and look menacing, “Don’t lie, I have nothing to lose.” He always stressed the final one: who could have turned on a rickety old water heater?

  Letellier didn’t seem to know what had gone on that night. He had turned white as a sheet when Philippe had told him, in one breath, what Alain Fontanel had admitted: Geneviève Magnan going off to hug their sick son, then returning to the château and panicking at finding the four bodies, asphyxiated by carbon monoxide, the idea of starting the fire to make it look like a domestic accident, Fontanel kicking Letellier’s door to wake him up, wake all the staff up.

  But Letellier hadn’t believed this story. Fontanel was an alky, he must have said any old thing to a father searching for an explanation for the inexplicable.

  He did remember the muffled banging on the door. Their difficulty waking up because they had been smoking joints with the supervisor. The smell, the smoke, the fire. How inaccessible Room 1 was, the flames already too high, that impenetrable barrier. That sudden hell. That moment you tell yourself that it’s a nightmare, that none of it’s real. He could still see the girls outside in their nighties, barefoot in their slippers or badly laced shoes, and all the staff going crazy. Mother Croquevieille choking. And the others, shocked, shaking, and praying. The wait for the fire brigade. Counting, and counting again, how many children were safe and sound. Their sleepy eyes, when they, the adults, would never sleep soundly again. The little girls, terrified by the flames and the grown-ups’ wan faces, asking for their parents. Whom they had had to call, inform, one after the other. Whom they had had to lie to, also, not admitting that inside, four of the girls had perished.

  Swan Letellier had added that he still felt guilty to that day. None of it might have happened had the supervisor remained on the ground floor.

  Lucie Lindon and he had said nothing to the authorities about Geneviève Magnan because they had felt at fault. Lucie Lindon shouldn’t have asked Geneviève Magnan to sta
nd in for her. But Swan had really insisted on it. They had all failed in their duty.

  Croquevieille, who would do anything not to spend a centime—the ill-fitting lino in the rooms, the asbestos under the eaves, the fiberglass that no longer insulated anything, the peeling paintwork, the lead pipes, the fire that had spread too fast, the toxic fumes given off by ancient kitchen units. No, no one was in the clear, not Magnan, or Lindon, or Fonatanel, or himself. They were all up to their necks in it, and it was too much to bear . . . The only thing he was sure about was that no one would have intentionally turned on one of the water heaters on the ground floor. All the staff knew that they mustn’t be touched. Indeed, those old things were hidden behind plasterboard units, out of the children’s reach. He well remembered Edith Croquevieille’s words the day before the first guests, of those due in the next two months, arrived: “It’s the middle of summer, our guests can wash their faces with cold water, and the rest with hot water in the brand-new communal showers.” Swan Letellier remembered because he did the cooking and serving of the food. The fryers and refectory were his domain. He couldn’t care less about the château’s washing facilities.

  Then he had gone quiet. He had had a few gulps of coffee, looking troubled, silently going over what Philippe had just told him. Was this extraordinary version of events to be believed? Fontanel supposedly setting fire to the kitchen? The children inhaling a toxic gas? Letellier had ordered an espresso from the bistro’s waiter with just a flick of his hand. He was clearly a regular there. Everyone said “tu” to him.

  When Letellier had learned of Geneviève Magnan’s suicide, he hadn’t been surprised. Since that night, she had been just a shadow of her former self. You only had to see the state she was in at the trial. The last time he had spoken to her was the day the wife had come to wait for him outside the restaurant where he worked. He had called Geneviève in a panic to tell her that she had come asking him questions. Philippe heard himself asking, aggressively: