The Book of Proper Names: A Novel

by Amélie Nothomb

  She uttered the word rarely, but when she did it was with a solemn clarity that commanded attention. You would have sworn that she chose her moments for maximum effect.

  Clémence had been six when Lucette was born: she remembered very clearly what her sister had been like at birth, at the age of one, at two, and so on.

  “Lucette was ordinary. She cried a lot, she was alternately adorable and unbearable. There was nothing special about her. Plectrude is nothing like her. She’s silent, serious, thoughtful. You can sense how intelligent she is.”

  Denis gently mocked his wife: “Stop talking about her as though she were the second coming. She’s a charming child, that’s all.”

  He lifted Plectrude up above his head, his heart melting.

  * * *

  MUCH LATER, PLECTRUDE said, “Papa.”

  The next day, out of pure diplomacy, she said, “Nicole” and “Béatrice.”

  Her pronunciation was impeccable.

  She started speaking as parsimoniously as she ate. Each new word demanded as much concentration and meditation as the new types of food that appeared on her plate.

  Whenever she saw an unfamiliar vegetable in the depths of her mashed potato, she pointed it out to Clémence.

  “That?” she asked.

  “That’s leek. Leek. You try it, it’s very good.”

  Plectrude first of all spent half an hour contemplating the piece of leek in her spoon. She brought it up to her nose to gauge its scent, then she went on studying it for ages and ages.

  “Now it’s cold!” said Denis, crossly.

  She didn’t care. When she decided it was time to conclude her examination, she took the food in her mouth and let it sit there. She delivered no verdict. She began the experiment over again with a second piece, then a third. The most astonishing thing was that she continued in this fashion even when her final judgment, after four attempts, was: “I hate it.”

  Normally, when a child hates some food, he knows it the minute it touches his tongue. Plectrude, on the other hand, wanted to be sure.

  It was the same with words; she stored any verbal novelties inside her and examined them from every angle before taking them out again, most often out of context and to everyone’s surprise: “Giraffe!”

  Why did she say “giraffe” when they were preparing to go out for a walk? She was suspected of not understanding her own declarations. Yet she did understand. It was just that her thoughts were independent of external contingencies. All of a sudden, just as she was slipping on her coat, Plectrude’s mind had finished digesting the vastness of the neck and feet of the giraffe. So she had to utter its name, to alert people to the emergence of the giraffe within her internal universe.

  “Have you noticed how lovely her voice is?” said Clémence.

  “Have you ever heard a child who didn’t have a pretty voice?” observed Denis.

  “Exactly! Her voice isn’t pretty, it’s lovely,” she replied.

  * * *

  IN SEPTEMBER SHE was sent to nursery school.

  “She’ll be three in a month. It might be a bit early.”

  That wasn’t the problem.

  After a few days, the teacher told Clémence that she couldn’t keep Plectrude.

  “She’s too little, isn’t she?”

  “No, that’s not it. I’ve got children younger than she in the class.”

  “So?”

  “It’s because of her eyes.”

  “What?”

  “She makes the other children cry just by staring at them. And I have to say that I understand them. I feel uneasy when she stares at me.”

  Clémence, filled with pride, announced to everyone that her daughter had been expelled from nursery school because of her eyes. No one had ever heard anything like it.

  * * *

  PEOPLE WERE ALREADY murmuring, “Have you ever heard of a child being kicked out of nursery school?”

  “And because of their eyes!”

  “That kid does have a funny way of staring at you!”

  “The two older ones are so well behaved, so nice. She’s a little demon!”

  Clémence was careful not to ask her neighbors whether they knew the circumstances of her birth. She preferred to think that people assumed Plectrude was hers.

  She was delighted that she was remaining so close to the child. In the morning, Denis went off for work, driving the two older children, one to school and the other to nursery school. Clémence stayed alone with the last little girl.

  As soon as the door closed on her husband and children, she transformed into another person. She became the composite of fairy and witch that Plectrude’s presence awoke within her.

  “The coast is clear. Let’s go change.”

  She changed in the most profound sense of that word; not only did she swap her normal clothes for luxurious fabrics that made her look like an Indian queen, she swapped her maternal soul for that of a phantasmagoric creature with exceptional powers.

  Under the child’s steady gaze, the twenty-eight-year-old liberated from within her breast the youthful fairy and the ageless witch that dwelt there.

  Then she undressed the child and clothed her in a princess’s dress she had secretly bought for her. She took her by the hand and led her to the big mirror, where they contemplated themselves.

  “Have you seen how beautiful we are?”

  Plectrude sighed with happiness.

  Clémence danced. Plectrude joined in delightedly. Clémence held her hands, then suddenly grabbed Plectrude by the waist and made her fly through the air. Plectrude uttered cries of joy.

  “Now look at the things,” demanded the child. This was part of the ritual.

  “What things?” asked Clémence, pretending not to know.

  “The princess things.”

  * * *

  THE PRINCESS THINGS were the objects which, for one reason or another, had been selected as noble, magnificent, unusual, or rare—worthy, in fact, of the admiration of such an august person as this little girl.

  On the oriental carpet in the drawing room Clémence gathered together her old jewels; carmine velvet slippers that she had worn for only a single evening; a lorgnette, its lenses set in a gold art nouveau frame; a silver cigarette box; a brass Middle Eastern flask encrusted with large fake stones; a pair of white lace gloves; gaudy plastic medieval-looking rings from a toy dispenser; and a gold cardboard crown.

  They had before them a pile of the most disparate yet marvelous objects. With your eyes half closed, you would have said it was a real treasure trove.

  Mouth agape, the little girl stared at this pirate booty. She picked up each object in turn and studied it with ecstatic gravity.

  Sometimes Clémence would dress her up in all the jewels and the slippers; then she handed her the lorgnette and said, “Now you can see how beautiful you are.”

  Holding her breath, the little girl looked at her reflection in the mirror: staring through the gilded circles she discovered a queen, a brightly-colored priestess, a Persian bride on her wedding day, a Byzantine saint posing for an icon. Inside all of these images she recognized herself.

  Anyone might have burst out laughing at the sight of this tiny child, decked out like some insane reliquary. Clémence smiled but didn’t laugh. What struck her, more than the comedy of the scene, was the beauty of the little girl. She was as beautiful as the engravings you saw in antique fairy-tale storybooks.

  “Children today aren’t as beautiful as that,” she thought, absurdly—the children of the past were surely no better.

  She put on some “princess music”—Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev—and prepared a lunch of gingerbread, chocolate cupcakes, apple turnovers, amaretti biscuits, flan, and, to drink, sweet cider and almond syrup.

  Clémence spread these treats out on the table feeling a mixture of amusement and guilt. She would never have allowed her two older daughters to eat only sweets. She justified herself by reflecting that Plectrude was different: “It’s a meal for
fairy-tale children.”

  She closed the curtains, lit candles, and called Plectrude in. The little girl barely nibbled, listening with big, attentive eyes to what her mother told her.

  * * *

  AT ABOUT TWO O’CLOCK in the afternoon, Clémence suddenly realized that the older girls would be coming back in barely three hours, and that she had to fulfill the tasks that a mother has to perform.

  Then she jumped into her ordinary clothes, ran to the corner shop to buy proper food, came back to get the apartment looking halfway decent, threw the dirty laundry into the washing machine, and then set off for school to get the children. In her haste, she didn’t always remove Plectrude’s disguise—for the simple reason that, in her eyes, it wasn’t a disguise.

  So what people saw was a cheerful young woman walking along the street, holding by the hand a tiny creature looking like the princesses in A Thousand and One Nights.

  The spectacle provoked in turn perplexity, laughter, amazement, and disapproval.

  Nicole and Béatrice always uttered cries of delight when they saw their little sister. Some mothers said in loud and audible voices, “No child should be dressed up like that!”

  “She isn’t a circus animal.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if that child turned out badly.”

  “It’s shocking, using children to draw attention to yourself like that.”

  There were also adults whose hearts melted at the apparition. The apparition took pleasure in their admiring looks, for she had noticed, in the mirror, that she was very beautiful—and had felt a voluptuous excitement as a result.

  Here we should digress in order to conclude an incipient sidetrack that has already gone on too long. We might call it the “Arsinoé encyclical.”

  In Molière’s play The Misanthrope, the young, pretty, and flirtatious Célimène finds herself being scolded by a bitter old hag named Arsinoé who, green with jealousy, comes to tell her that she should not enjoy her beauty so much. Célimène offers her an utterly delectable reply, concluding “you would do well to concern yourself less with the actions of others, and take a little more pains with your own.” Alas, Molière’s genius seems to have counted for nothing, since now, almost four centuries later, people persist in delivering moralistic, wet-blanket obloquies when anyone has the temerity to smile at her own reflection.

  The author of these lines has never felt any pleasure at seeing herself in a mirror, but had such grace been bestowed upon her, she would not have refused herself that innocent pleasure.

  The following is addressed particularly to all the Arsinoés in the world. Who are these fortunate creatures hurting by enjoying their own beauty? Are they not rather alleviating our sad condition, by allowing us to gaze upon such marvelous faces?

  Here the author is talking not about those who have transformed fake prettiness into contempt and exclusiveness, but those who, simply delighted by their own image, wish to bind others to their natural joy.

  If these Arsinoés used the same energy trying to get the best out of their own physiques as they do ranting at girls like Célimène, they would be only half as ugly as they are.

  * * *

  BY THE END of school, Arsinoés of all ages were furious with Plectrude. Good Célimène that she was, she didn’t care, and paid attention only to her admirers, on whose faces she could read enchanted surprise. She took an innocent pleasure in this, which made her even more beautiful.

  Clémence brought the three children back home. As the older girls did their homework or a little drawing, she prepared proper meals—ham, mashed potato—sometimes smiling when she thought about the different kinds of food she gave her various offspring.

  But she could not have been accused of favoritism: she loved all three children equally. Each one was loved in the image of what inspired it: well-behaved and solid for Nicole and Béatrice, wild and enchanted for Plectrude. It didn’t make her any less of a good mother.

  * * *

  WHEN THE LITTLE one was asked what she wanted for her fourth birthday, she replied without a moment’s hesitation: “Ballet shoes.”

  This was a subtle way of informing her parents what she wanted to be when she grew up. Nothing could have given Clémence greater pleasure: at the age of fifteen she had failed the entrance exam for the petits rats—“little rats”—of the Paris Opéra School, and had never got over it.

  Plectrude was enrolled in a course of ballet lessons for four-year-olds. Not only was she not rejected because of her hard stare, she was immediately distinguished by it.

  “This little girl has the eyes of a dancer,” said the ballet teacher.

  “How can anyone have the eyes of a dancer?” asked Clémence, astonished. “Wouldn’t you say that she has a dancer’s body, a dancer’s grace?”

  “She has all that. But she also has a dancer’s eyes, and, believe me, it’s the most important and most precious thing. If a ballerina has no gaze, she will never be present in her own dance.”

  What was certain was that, when she danced, Plectrude’s eyes attained an extraordinary intensity. She’s found herself, thought Clémence.

  * * *

  THOUGH NOW FIVE, the little girl was still not going to nursery school. Her mother felt that going to ballet classes four times a week was enough to teach her the art of getting along with other children.

  “They teach other things than that in nursery school,” Denis protested.

  “Does she really need to know how to stick stickers, and make pasta necklaces, and macramé?” said his wife, staring at the ceiling.

  In fact Clémence wanted to prolong her secret life with Plectrude for as long as she possibly could. She adored the days she spent in her daughter’s company. And the dance lessons had one undeniable superiority over nursery school: the mother was allowed to be present.

  She watched ecstatic with pride. The other little girls looked like ducklings.

  After class, the teacher made a point of coming to tell her, “She’s got to stay at it. She’s quite exceptional.”

  Clémence brought her daughter home, repeating the compliments she had received about her. Plectrude accepted them with the grace of a diva.

  “Anyway, nursery school isn’t compulsory,” Denis concluded, with a certain amused fatalism typical of the submissive husband.

  * * *

  BUT—ALAS!—KINDERGARTEN was compulsory.

  In August, as her husband was preparing to put Plectrude’s name down for it, Clémence protested. “She’s only five years old!”

  “She’ll be six in October.”

  This time he stuck to his guns. On the first of September not two but three children were driven to school.

  Plectrude was not opposed to the idea. She liked showing off her satchel. So there were strange scenes as Plectrude set off for her new school: it was the mother, not her child, who wept.

  Plectrude was soon disenchanted with kindergarten. It was very different from ballet lessons. You had to stay sitting down without moving for hours. You had to listen to a woman who wasn’t saying anything interesting.

  Recess came. She dashed into the playground to practice her jetés. Her poor legs had been still for too long.

  While she did this the other children played together. Most of them had known each other since nursery school. They told each other things. Plectrude wondered what they could have to tell each other.

  She went closer to listen. She heard a steady hum produced by a large number of voices, not all of which she could match with their owners. They were talking about the teacher, holidays, someone called Magali, and playing Chinese jumping rope. Give me a chocolate bar, and Magali’s my friend, shut up you’re too stupid, aaaaaoooww, haven’t you got any Snickers, why aren’t I in Magali’s class, stop it, we’re not going to play with you, I’m going to tell teacher, Ooh you sneak, all you had to do was stop pushing me, Magali likes me more than you, and anyway your shoes are ugly, stop it, girls are so stupid, I’m glad I’m not in your cl
ass, Magali …

  Plectrude ran off, terrified.

  * * *

  THEN YOU HAD to listen to the teacher again. What she said wasn’t always interesting but, at least, it was about one thing rather than all that chatter. It would have been bearable if she didn’t have to remain immobile. Fortunately there was a window.

  “You there!”

  At the fifth “You there!”—and by virtue of the fact that the whole class was laughing—Plectrude realized that she was being addressed, and turned with startled eyes.

  “Well it’s about time!” said the teacher.

  All the children were staring at the girl who had been singled out. It was an awful feeling. She wondered what her crime could possibly be.

  “You will look at me, not the window!” said the woman.

  As there was no possible response to this, the child said nothing.

  “You say, ‘Yes, miss!’”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “What’s your name?” the teacher asked, as though she was thinking, I’ve got my eye on you!

  “Plectrude.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “‘Plectrude,’” she articulated in a clear voice.

  The children were still too little to be aware of the outrageousness of the name. The teacher opened her eyes wide, checked her class list, and finally said, “Well, if you’re trying to attract attention, you’ve succeeded,” as though Plectrude had chosen her own first name.

  The girl thought, She’s the one who’s been trying to attract attention all morning. You can tell she can’t bear not to be looked at. She wants to be noticed, but she’s not in the slightest bit interesting.

  But the teacher was the boss and the child obeyed. She began staring at her with her eyes wide open. Miss was disconcerted, but said nothing. The worst thing happened at lunchtime. The pupils were led into a vast cafeteria dominated by the smell of children’s vomit and disinfectant.

  They had to sit down at tables of ten. Plectrude didn’t know where to go and closed her eyes to avoid having to choose. She found herself at a steam table staffed by large women.

  Others carried food containers whose contents were unidentifiable. Panicking, Plectrude could not decide which foreign bodies to put onto her plate. So the ladies served her themselves, and she found herself looking at a dish of greenish mush and little squares of brown meat.