The Only Girl in the World

by Maude Julien

  He describes other ordeals I will likely have to contend with, such as being ‘tortured to get me to speak’: having my fingernails torn out, my nipples clamped or burned, the soles of my feet lacerated then covered in salt. ‘That’s one of the reasons you have to be stronger than your body, do you see? You have to be able to suffer torture without giving them what they want to know.’

  While my father talks I keep my eyes pinned attentively on his, but I can feel my mind turning to ice. I am constantly tormented by the same question: will I hold out without talking? I honestly think I won’t. My father is wrong. I am not made of the stuff of superior beings. When put to the test, I am bound to disappoint him. I am already completely, hopelessly disappointed in myself.

  Gregor and Edmond

  Reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis, another one of my required readings, I am horrified by Gregor’s transformation. No one knows how it happens, but his nightmare becomes reality: he wakes one morning and finds he has turned into a repulsive insect overnight. I can’t breathe when I think that the same thing could happen to me. I too could devolve into some abject creature, relegated to a room that gradually degenerates into a repository for all the family’s filth. I find Gregor disgusting; I see myself in him. Like him I am unable to communicate, I have no companions. I feel like a cockroach, trapped in a suffocating space.

  I am haunted by Gregor’s fate: to be thrown into the garbage. Here I have been, dreaming naively of the adventures of Ulysses, inspired by his dazzling courage and intelligence, and delighted by his wonderful ingenuity against the Cyclops. Or dreaming of the stories by Jules Verne, whose characters—Phileas Fogg, Captain Nemo, Cyrus Smith and Samuel Fergusson—are the unforgettable heroes of my childhood. Since reading Metamorphosis, I keep hearing a chilling little voice inside my head saying, ‘Stop dreaming. You’re Gregor, you’ll end up like Gregor.’

  Luckily, I’ve managed to obtain my father’s permission to read authors other than Plato-Kafka-Nietzsche in my ‘free’ reading hour. Alexandre Dumas, for example, whom he fortunately seems to like. He prescribes The Mohicans of Paris and The Knight of Maison-Rouge. After wading through these dark political intrigues that fail to captivate me, I take The Count of Monte Cristo from my father’s shelves, a two-volume edition with black and white illustrations and a handsome beige binding.

  I’m immediately transported. I am Edmond Dantès; we are one and the same. I feel his every emotion: his incomprehension at the monstrous punishment meted out to him; his horror at being thrown into a dungeon without knowing why or for how long; his dashed hopes; his headlong descent into rebellion, rage and despair. I am Edmond when he bangs his head against the walls, when he almost dies from being cut off from the world. Everything about the book stirs me. I experience his meeting in prison with his saviour Abbot Faria as a deliverance. The abbot cures me of my despair too, and frees me from a longing for revenge. He opens my mind to the infinite horizons of knowledge and their incalculable value. I can recite Dantès’s words: ‘My true treasure is your presence, it is the rays of intelligence that you have poured into my heart.’

  I am Gregor, but I have found my role-model, my example, my ideal. Dantès shows me the path to freedom. When I run a trickle of cold water at night to wash my hair in secret, I’m moving away from Gregor and towards Dantès. When I see workmen from the Cathelain factory walking purposefully along the sidewalk, or hear schoolchildren laughing in the street, I’m coming closer to Dantès. Life is stronger than anything else, there is always a solution, and I will find it. I’m sure of that.

  But when my father berates me, my confidence crumbles and only Gregor’s world feels real. When my mother looks at me, it’s not that I become Gregor, I already am Gregor, lying on my carapace, my belly exposed, ludicrously waving my little legs in the air, incapable of getting upright.

  Like Edmond, I now realize my greatest handicap is ignorance. I won’t be free while I have no access to true knowledge. I want to be sent to a boarding school where I’ll be taught mathematics, the sciences, languages, the history of the world, geography, astronomy and the natural sciences. If all I have to feed off is the handful of subjects my mother knows—which she only grudgingly passes on—I’ll be asphyxiated. I beg her to send me to a boarding school, to choose a really strict one where they teach using the cane as a threat. ‘How can you betray Monsieur Didier’s teaching like this?’ she replies. ‘You’re very lucky, because I’m not even going to tell him that you’ve said something so shameful.’

  I swallow my disappointment and avoid her gaze. I think of Abbot Faria’s ‘rays of intelligence’. I imagine them slicing through infinite space towards me, reaching me, caressing me with their glow, consoling me. Beneath the radiance of Abbot Faria’s beams, all the nightmarish images—where I see myself locked behind the gate of the house forever or rotting in the bottom of a rubbish bin—gradually fade and eventually vanish in the immense light of intelligence.

  Yesterday a whole section of the big wall around the estate fell down. ‘It’s because of the frost, because of this arctic winter,’ declares my father. But I detect a note of anxiety in his voice, and incredulity, as if this is something that never should have happened. The masonry fell outwards. ‘We’ll have to clear the neighbour’s field,’ he says. ‘But you won’t be doing it, you mustn’t go outside the wall.’ I wonder whether he’s afraid the neighbour will be angry with him. I’d love to see our neighbour, I’ve never seen one, and I really like the word: ‘neighbour’.

  Albert and Rémi, the bricklayers, are called out for the emergency. They install metal posts and run wires between them, then attach lengths of jute to the structure to fill the gaps. It’s a temporary solution. While the weather remains icy, they cannot rebuild the wall. They tell us we must wait for a mild spell.

  Since the wall fell down, my morning-walk-with-minimal-clothing has been cancelled, perhaps so that I won’t trip over the struts, which are difficult to make out in the dark. My father is worried that the ‘makeshift arrangement’ won’t hold, so I’m told to carry out a daily inspection at 11 a.m., before my German lesson. It is a meticulously timed mission: the return trip has to be completed within ten minutes, just enough time to cast an eye over the barrier.

  Every day after my morning lessons, I head off to do my round at the far end of the grounds. When I come to the gap, I raise the corner of the tarpaulin. I could easily get through the mesh of wires. I think about it all night: if I’m quick, I could scrape for a few minutes and try to get through to the other side. By morning, I’ve made up my mind. I set off at a brisk pace and start running as soon as I’m out of sight.

  When I reach the wall, I’m overcome with emotion. I lift the tarpaulin quickly and slip between the wires. That’s it, I’m on the other side. My feet are on the hardened ground of the outside world. It’s the first time I’ve been out alone, without my parents, almost free. I gaze transfixed; there are fields around me in every direction, as far as the eye can see. Here and there low hedges, thickets of gaunt trees. No walls, no gates, no fences. My heart swells inside my chest as if the air were better here. I take a few hesitant steps. To my right I see a little mound, I can’t make out what it’s made of. It’s just a few paces away and I desperately want to see it close up. But the tick-tock of the timer inside my head tells me I don’t have time; I have to get back.

  I spend the whole day thinking about those funny little things piled up in the neighbouring field. I can also feel the weather getting warmer; Rémi and Albert will be rebuilding the wall soon. I must seize this opportunity to explore. The next day I run over to the gap even faster. I will be reprimanded if I go over the allotted ten minutes, but who cares, I’m consumed with curiosity.

  I step over to the other side again. The air smells wonderful. I walk over to the mound: it’s made up of thousands of small, shiny metallic pieces. There are lots of different shapes, lots of nuts and bolts, and also some extraordinary little coils unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The
y look like wood shavings curled up on themselves, only in metal. I pick up a perfect one, tightly sprung, and slip it into my pocket, careful not to cut myself on the sharp edges.

  I breathe in the great expanse of space around me. It’s such a shame that the tick-tock inside my head won’t let me think of anything but my parents back in the house, timing my trip.

  It’s not long before the bricklayers come to repair the wall. First they take down the temporary barrier. I picture the gap standing naked and open, nothing blocking the way through. While the work is going on my father forbids me from going to that part of the estate.

  Having thought about it, I realize that the mysterious pile most likely serves as a rubbish tip for the Cathelain factory nearby, that those pieces of metal are waste. This does nothing to diminish the value of my precious little shaving, which I keep carefully hidden in the lining of my bedroom curtain. Sometimes, when I’m alone in the evening, I take it out to look at it. It reminds me of that glorious, intoxicating escapade, which was as magical as it was unhoped for.

  The Orange Book

  The upkeep of the garden takes a lot of work: digging, planting vegetables, picking fruit, repainting fences. My mother and I devote many hours to it. The most monotonous chore is weeding. My mother has special gloves ordered from the Manufrance mail-order catalogue so, in theory, she’s the one who is supposed to pull out the thistles. But, depending on my father’s mood, I am sometimes told to do it. I work with my bare hands. I make every effort to grip the thistles right down at the root, but I’m not very good at it and my hands often get covered in prickles.

  My father never lifts so much as his little finger. He ‘directs’ and ‘monitors’ our labours, presiding from his crate, a wooden box with the word ‘Libourne’ stamped on it, once used for transporting wine. When he feels we’re too far away from him, he cries, ‘Maude, the crate!’ I have to hurry back, pick up the crate and move forward until he says: ‘Stop!’ Then he sits back down.

  Over time, the instruction has become increasingly clipped. Now he simply says, ‘Crate!’ But his voice still strikes me like a lightning bolt.

  My father is very keen on the electric fence erected around Arthur’s grave to prevent Linda from trying to dig up the pony. He has electric fences put along all the walkways, aiming to ‘discipline everyone’. I think his main aim is to stop ‘outsider’ animals coming and frolicking freely in the grounds, particularly stray cats, which he loathes. My father thinks cats are traitors, evil creatures that rob us of our energies. He tells me that any cats venturing onto our land will get caught because, even though they can pass freely under the fencing, their tails will inevitably touch the electric wires and they’ll get a decent shock.

  Soon the whole estate is crisscrossed with these wires. In certain places, the fences have up to three rungs of wire, one above the other. In order to make them a more effective trap for intruders, my father gets us to paint the posts with green Ripolin paint, as camouflage.

  When I pick up fallen branches I now have to work around these fences. Any branches that touch both the fence and the ground give off an annoying tsit-tsit-tsit-tsit. One day, while pulling up weeds near a stand of trees, I am not careful enough and get an electric shock. I scream. My father jumps in surprise, almost falling off his crate. ‘Idiot, moron, good-for-nothing, sissy!’ he bellows furiously. He orders me to grab the wire in both hands and hold it until he allows me to let go. I brush my fingers over the wire but snatch them back straightaway, terrified by the steely taste in my mouth and by my racing heartbeat. I try again several times without success. Beside himself, my father works himself into such a towering rage that I end up grasping the wire in my fist. I don’t know how many seconds go by. All I know is the shocks are unbearable.

  My father snaps at me that from now on I’ll have a new ‘electric fence’ test as part of my tests of willpower. Every day, or at least twice a week, I’ll have to hold the electric fence for ten minutes without betraying any feeling, no twitching or grimacing, not even a blink. I soon find I actually cope quite well. It’s just a question of tolerating what is, of course, an unpleasant feeling but at least it is a known quantity. I would willingly swap a whole day on the electric fence for a single session of meditating on death in the cellar—a test that still leaves me just as devastated as the first time.

  My progress on the will-strengthening front is too slow, so my father bolsters my training with other exercises. Like the ‘spinning’ test which takes place near the swimming pool, in the ‘rotunda’, a raised pergola built where two cement paths meet. I have to stand in the middle, close my eyes and, on my father’s order, start turning on the spot, faster and faster like a spinning top. I have to make sure I stay right in the centre of the circle. As soon as I hear ‘Stop! Exit to the right’ or ‘Exit to the left’ I have to walk steadily down the appropriate path.

  My efforts are hopeless. I feel giddy, my temples pound frantically, my legs give way, I start to shake with anxiety. When the order to stop comes, I try to walk straight but usually stagger and knock into the balustrade. Then I know I’ve failed and I’m overwhelmed with panic. I can’t even look around to establish right from left. My father is very displeased. ‘Don’t go thinking you’ll get away with this,’ he says. ‘We’ll keep going till you get it right, it’s just a question of willpower.’

  I feel terribly ashamed. It’s not exactly rocket science. Maybe I have something wrong with my brain and my father is trying to cure it. The spinning test is one of the tests that leave me feeling extra sad. In my bed at night I picture myself succeeding at it; I concentrate and manage the perfect exit. But however hard I try in reality, I fail, and it becomes more and more distressing.

  This year my father introduces a new anti-celebration ritual for my ninth birthday. On the morning of my birthday, he summons me to the largest room, a place so cold this time of year that we rarely set foot in it. He makes me sit down in front of an orange mathematics book, gives me a list of problems to solve and leaves me there on my own. No getting up until I’ve finished. Just reading the first one makes my head spin: ‘Town A and town B are 20 km apart. At 10 a.m. Monsieur X sets off by train from A to B. The train travels at a constant speed of 60 km/h. At 10:10 Monsieur Y sets off by bicycle from B towards A and travels at a constant speed of 15 km/h. At what time do Monsieur X and Monsieur Y pass each other?’ There’s also a question about a cyclist who changes speed for part of the journey, another about a leaking tap and a basin filling up…

  Hard as I try, I can’t find even the beginnings of a solution. I’m not allowed to cry, not allowed to leave and not allowed to ask for explanations. I can feel myself growing more stupid by the minute. Hours go by; I try different operations and scribble various figures. I move on to the next question, thinking I’ll come back to this one later, but the second gives me an equally hard time. I’m starting to get thirsty, but I know I won’t be allowed to eat or drink until I’ve finished. Mealtimes come and go. It’s getting late in the evening. It’s 10 p.m. already. I make up my mind to submit my work to my father. He glances at it then turns his steely eyes on me. ‘Do you really think this is right?’ he asks. ‘If you think it’s right leave it with me. But if you’ve made any mistakes, you’ll have three extra problems to solve for each mistake. It’s up to you.’ I quickly take back the sheet of paper and go back to work.

  Around midnight my mother says, ‘Go to bed. You can finish in the morning. Your father will let you have some breakfast, but that’s all.’ I have a feverish night’s sleep, haunted by trains and bicycles barrelling towards each other. The next morning, I sit down to the orange book again. The only interruption I’m granted is the forty minutes during which I attend to my father. I rack my brain, scour it, spur it on. At the end of the day, when I’ve written the exercises out neatly, I agonize about handing them to my father. I know he’s going to ask, ‘Do you think it’s right?’ And do I think it’s right? No, I really don’t…

  I
have another night of torment and wake feeling terrible, forced to face the orange book again in my zombie-like state. After an interminable length of time, my father finally decides to suspend the test. He closes the orange book and says, ‘We’ll come back to this next year. We’ll see whether between now and then you can learn to use your brain.’

  Cuvée 1945

  My parents’ philosophy on the subject of sickness can be summarized in one line: ‘Being sick doesn’t exist. It’s all in your head. Get up!’ Except when this thing that only exists in weak people’s minds gets to my father. Then all activity stops immediately. The constant treadmill of my schedule grinds to a halt. My mother and I go into my father’s bedroom, close the door and draw the double drapes. And we stay there motionless in silence, in the dark, in the stale air and the unbearable stuffy smell until he feels better. As I’m not allowed out, Linda is not shut in from eight in the morning till eight in the evening. Even mealtimes are all over the place. We have to wait until my father feels like eating.

  He usually asks for rice cooked with lots of sugar. My mother goes and makes enough for the three of us. We have to eat exactly the same food and drink the same drinks as him. We hold his plate while he eats. He spatters his sheets and we clean them up before eating our own food at the desk. Sometimes he wants a hot toddy made with cognac, and my mother brings up three glasses on a tray.

  I’m in charge of the chamber pot, so I can’t go anywhere. I’m also responsible for monitoring his breathing, which has to be nice and ‘regular’. I’m not too sure what that means. And I don’t know what I should do in the event of a problem. I imagine he would tell me himself. But from time to time he falls asleep and then his rasping breath frightens me. I go over and look at him close up, slightly disgusted by the beginnings of a greying beard on his chin. I hate myself for this reaction; I’m a bad daughter.