One time when he was on leave, Papyrus came home with a motorcycle and sidecar instead of a car. You can imagine our excitement. He took us for a spin — me on the back hugging him around the waist and Gabriel in the sidecar. Back at the château we stubbornly refused to get off and made him ride around a second time, but with me in the sidecar and Gabriel behind Papyrus. Gabriel had less fun that time because it’s true the sidecar is really something special! The experience gave me one of my first life lessons: those who begin by doing what they prefer so as not to die before having got to it don’t really know how to manage their pleasure. In my view it’s crucial always to go in the direction of improvement. But really, life is a screwed-up hodgepodge and one can’t know for sure how to improve it.
For my mother the motorcycle and sidecar was a terrible experience.
Papyrus made her get on behind him and took off at full speed toward the forest, where he had fun taking sharp turns — so much fun in fact that once back at the château he didn’t notice that Mother was nowhere to be seen. He left his motorcycle in the garage and went off to drink tea quietly beside the fire.
Geoffroy and Aunt Bette stopped by and the three of them fell into cheerful conversation. Some time went by before Papyrus took them out to see his new toy.
“Wow, fantastic! And does it go fast?” asked Geoffroy enthusiastically.
“Very fast. A while ago I was really having fun in the forest. Want to take a ride?” Suddenly he turned as white as a sheet. “Shit, shit, shit!” he said.
“What’s the matter? What’s gotten into you?”
“Marguerite! I lost Marguerite!”
He then jumped on his vehicle and sped off toward the forest, leaving his two guests in puzzled amazement.
He found Mother in tears at the base of a beech tree, in pain everywhere and deathly cold. I don’t know if she was suffering more from her wounds or from having been so ignominiously forgotten. He picked her up in his arms, placed her in the sidecar, and then returned home at a gentle speed. I think he was horribly embarrassed.
Mother did not talk to him for weeks after that, even though he seemed finally more considerate. I remember being very surprised at his kindness toward her, and maybe that was in fact why she hesitated to make peace with him. She must have been terribly afraid of losing what little respect her sprained ankle, fever, and bruises had won for her.
When it came to our misdeeds, the solidarity between me and Gabriel was total. But one day he did something for me that was truly generous, even though for once he was unquestionably innocent and under no obligation.
Papyrus’s Bavarian pipe had a place of honor on a little table between two red velvet-covered armchairs positioned near the hearth. When he would come back from a walk or get up from a meal, he would always sit in the same place, fill his pipe, and smoke it with manifest satisfaction. His silver tobacco case engraved with the family’s coat of arms was always full and I loved the smell of it. One day when I was feeling lonely and bored — Gabriel had been kept after school and Mother was as usual hiding in her sitting room doing embroidery — I took the pipe and a pinch of tobacco and went off to steal some matches from the kitchen. I went up to my room and imitated all of Papyrus’s gestures: I filled the pipe, lit it, and sucked on it while twisting my face as he would do and letting air pass to the side like a giant fish. The smoke burned my throat horribly and I started coughing uncontrollably. Young and inexpert, I had even forgotten to open the window to get rid of the smell. It was around six p.m. and Arlette, our attractive maid, entered to get the bed ready for the night.
“Christiane, what is all this smoke?” she exclaimed, rushing to open the window.
I seized the moment of her back being turned to stash the pipe under the bed, but the noise I heard there made me more nervous still.
“Have you been smoking? Christiane, where’s this smell coming from?”
“I don’t know. It must be from outside.”
“No it’s not, and in fact it’s less strong now that I’ve opened the window. And what about these matches? What are you up to, Christiane?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to burn some papers.”
“And where are they, these burnt papers?”
“Listen, Arlette. I will never do it again, now leave me alone. Nothing bad has happened, okay?”
“Okay, but you give me back those matches right now, and if I catch you with them again, I will repeat everything to Madame the Countess.”
“No, please don’t! I’ll be spanked and sent off to say prayers!”
“Ah, you are truly insolent, but you do make me laugh!”
Arlette really loved us and we loved her. She was very young and attractive with her rosy cheeks. She had a very welcoming bosom and when we were young Gabriel and I used to love resting in her warm embrace. Now we were a little too old to be granted such favors. Given to laughter, refreshingly cheerful, and tender — Arlette was the complete opposite of our mother. However, at that moment I just wanted her to scram. Since she had all the beds to prepare and the dining room, she didn’t stay long. She simply shut the curtains, folded down my bedspread, placed a pitcher and water glass on the bedside table, and passed the bed warmer between the sheets.
As soon as she closed the door behind her, I rushed to look under the bed with beating heart, almost fainting, and discovered what I had been fearing all along: Papyrus’s pipe lay broken into three pieces. I was dizzy from a rapid-fire series of thoughts and emotions. What should I do? Commit suicide? Perhaps. But maybe I should see if there wasn’t another way out. Should I get rid of the pieces? He was likely to lecture all the servants and it was also likely that, to avoid injustice, Arlette would say what she’d come across in my room. Should I accuse someone? I had my faults but I was not up to doing that. Especially over a crime that I had committed myself. I was desperate. In fact the only option was suicide — while hoping to be unsuccessful, of course.
At that moment Gabriel burst into my room and threw his school bag on the ground.
“What a jerk that Benoît is! Because of him I had to stay after school.”
I was petrified by my predicament and couldn’t speak.
“What’s wrong with you? What a face you’re making!”
I remained speechless, tears in my eyes. Images of my long fall into shameful desolation continued to pass before my eyes in slow motion. I was emotionally and physically exhausted.
“Hey, what’s the matter? Have you seen a ghost or what?”
In a way, yes, I had imagined the ghost of my “failed suicide” with me lying in a real pool of my own blood. Better that than unleashing the wrath of Papyrus.
“Hey, are you going to tell me what this is all about or not?”
I held out my dirty hands holding the broken pieces of pipe and burst into tears. He took them, now with his own lugubrious air.
“Oh shit, how did you do that?”
I told him the whole story as best I could, but I was crying so much that I had to start over from the beginning several times. He listened to me, serious and silent. I sat on the bed and he sat next to me and put an arm around my neck.
“Do you want me to say I did it?” he asked in a knotted-up voice.
“No, you’d get such a beating! I’ll have to confess, but I’m really afraid.”
“Listen, we’ll say it was me.”
“But aren’t you afraid?”
“Of course I am, but less than you, I think.”
“He won’t let you go in the sidecar anymore.”
“For a long time do you think?”
“I don’t know. Neither of us ever did anything this bad before.”
“Well, too bad, we’ll still say it was me.”
“No, I can’t accept that.”
“How shall we tell him, and when? As soon as he gets back? Or should we wri
te a letter?”
“But the letter will arrive after he’s already back.”
“Should we tell him as soon as he arrives or wait until he notices the pipe’s missing?”
“No, as soon as he arrives.”
“That way there’ll be no dessert, but too bad.”
“I’ll save you my whole piece and give it to you later.”
During the few days that remained until Papyrus’s return we were so mortified that we behaved like angels. At the end of each meal that we ate with religious solemnity I offered my portion of rice pudding or crème brûlée to Gabriel, but his stomach was as knotted as mine.
The following Saturday, when we heard in the distance Papyrus’s motorcycle approaching, I said to Gabriel, “Listen, I was the one who did this dumb thing, so I’m the one who should be punished.”
“You didn’t see your face the other day! You don’t have the nerve. We’re saying it was me and that’s final.”
“That makes me feel awful, Gabriel. I don’t want you to miss out on the sidecar.”
Papyrus was already at the front door.
“So, my children, you don’t come and kiss your father anymore? No sidecar today?”
We went up to him and put out our hands.
“Look at you both! What’s the matter?”
Gabriel, trembling slightly, showed Papyrus the pieces of pipe.
“I’m sorry Papyrus,” he said in the smallest voice.
“What happened? Did you knock it over?”
Gabriel nodded without daring to say a word.
“That’s a pity. I’d bought it in Monaco with Geoffroy. I’ll try to glue the pieces together and keep it as a souvenir at least. Get in the sidecar and we’ll go see if we can find a similar one in the village.”
He bought a less beautiful pipe that day but it allowed him to have a smoke in his customary way.
When Papyrus died and Gabriel and I were dividing up his few remaining possessions, we came across the repaired broken pipe. I insisted that he keep it. Having been so loyal and courageous, he deserved to have it. After that pipe drama, I became more patient and generous with my brother — my jealousy was dissolved by my infinite gratitude.
Chapter Thirteen
The next day I was taken to the cardiology wing. I shared a room with a young woman who looked about forty. She had a sweet air and a beautiful smile, which made me like her immediately. She told me to call her Josephine. She had fainted while leaving an Odéon movie theater and that’s how she ended up in the same hospital as me.
“Just like that with no warning?”
“I hadn’t eaten anything plus I’d been really hot. When I stood up I didn’t feel well but I did manage to leave the cinema and then, bam, lights out!”
“Just like me! I hope you liked the movie at least.”
“Nope, it stunk actually!”
“Since my husband’s death I don’t go to movies, even though I live only a few doors from where you were.”
“Oh really, where?”
“Do you know the church Saint-Sulpice?”
“Yes, of course. Everyone knows Saint-Sulpice.”
“It’s the only church I know besides Notre-Dame. Churches aren’t my thing.”
“Me neither, I’m Jewish.”
“You’re Jewish?”
“Does that surprise you?”
“No, but I never would have guessed.”
“Because I’m black, perhaps?”
“Yes, that must be it.”
“You’re not the first person to find that surprising!”
I was amused by how sincerely puzzled she looked. Our lunches came. This time the odor was worse than the appearance. I must have made such a pitiful face, for she bounded down to the foot of her bed and seized a brownish pasty substance that was on my tray.
“So you find it disgusting? Me too.”
She took whatever it was immediately to the toilet and flushed it away along with her own portion. She then returned to her bed after placing the empty container on my tray.
“Mission accomplished. A yogurt is not going to be enough for you, but I have some apples and cookies. We’ll get by with that.”
“My daughter will be here soon and we’ll ask her to go buy us something. We can do that, right?”
“Just avoid asking.”
She rinsed an apple and handed it to me. By the early afternoon my daughter had still not arrived, but Josephine was completely engrossing and I was extremely curious to learn her life story. Her mother, a French teacher and a Jew, had married an atheist poet from Cameroon. She had spent her childhood in Cameroon and moved to France about twenty years ago. She worked at a little bookshop in the rue Caulaincourt. She earned a meager salary but her love of books made up for it somewhat. She also got along with the landlord and his family.
“And do you have a family? A husband I mean, and children?”
She exhaled slowly with puffed-out cheeks and turned toward the window as if to find in the clouds some refuge from my prying questions.
“I’m sorry if that was nosy of me. It’s sort of the way I am, you see.”
“You’re not being nosy, it’s just that I still have scars, you understand.”
“Better than you know. You can imagine that at my age a person has accumulated a goodly number of wounds and scars.”
“And are you married?”
“I’m a widow and I find it painful. He took everything with him. Everything that I was before becoming an old lady. In fact, it’s since he died that I’ve really become old.”
“You’re in mourning for him and for yourself?”
“That’s exactly it.”
“Je suis envahi de brume / Et de solitude / Aujourd’hui, / Et je fuis.”
[“I’m invaded by fog / and solitude / today / and I’m fleeing.”]
“Who’s that from?”
“Léopold Sédar Senghor, the great Senegalese poet, do you know him?”
“No, I only know of him, but I like those lines.”
“Really? That pleases me. My father venerated him and recited his poetry often.”
I liked Josephine a lot.
Catherine arrived around four p.m. She looked annoyed on my behalf to see that I’d been assigned a double room with someone else, but I told her how pleasant my roommate was and that calmed her down. Luna also arrived with a box of chocolates. I was pleased to be able to offer something now to Josephine. Catherine told me how she had spent the morning with Lorenzo explaining that she was not ready to accompany him back to Milan. He had been very insistent but she feared that all this rushing about was going to lead to disaster and insisted on taking her time. I didn’t know how to respond because I was so pessimistic about the theatrical total renunciation she hoped for, so I chose to say nothing. Loving the same man one’s whole life is, it must be said, an audacious project — and yet I had managed to do it, more or less. I believe the only way to save a marriage is to practice some sleight of hand to avoid the abyss of monotony. One must seek light within the darkness, color amid the gray. One must be creative, bold, and unflinching. One needs a sense of humor, of course, and a touch of derision, but also imagination and myth. One must have a gift for the fantastic.
I introduced my new friend to my daughter and Luna.
The doctor came by on his rounds and explained to each of us that we needed to stay a few more days to have further tests. I was rather put out by this news, but Josephine did not seem to mind very much. We organized our storage bins with Catherine and Luna looking on, and they offered to see right away about getting us a proper dinner.
When they returned, our disgusting food trays had already arrived. But Josephine simply repeated her disposal procedure of that morning.
“But why are you throwing all that away?” asked C
atherine in horror.
“We’re not going to eat that slop!” replied Josephine.
“But you don’t need to flush it down the toilet! Why not just leave it on your tray?”
“To avoid upsetting them.”
“But you’re not going to upset them! It’s absurd to throw out food.”
And so it was that Catherine managed to harangue the only reassuring human being I’d met over the last twenty-four hours.
Josephine got back in her bed.
Luna offered her some potato chips and salted peanuts, which she readily accepted.
“Today you’ll have to make do with what I found at the bar, but tomorrow we’ll do a proper shop.”
“Oh but this is great, really. Always better than that hospital slop! But tell me, Catherine, what are you going to do? Are you going to stay in Paris or return to Milan?”
“Luna has to go back Saturday, and I was thinking of staying one more week to think things over more.”
“Well, do exactly what you think is best, my dear. Madame Joseph can shop for you if you give her a list.”
“That’s okay, but thanks. Luna and I are taking care of things.”
After they left, Josephine and I watched television and chatted. We talked about our families. I made her laugh several times — something which always gives me enormous pleasure. Even at my age, I like laughing. And what’s more amazing is that I manage to do it still. Gabriel was like me, but we didn’t lack lucidity and realism. The softness of our childhood probably forged in us the conviction that no matter what happened there is always derision and laughter as a way of thumbing one’s nose at tragedy. I would like to die laughing — that would be my triumph over this last humiliation, laughter as my ultimate rebellion. Josephine seemed to appreciate my old-lady insolence as coming from someone who has nothing left to prove, but more importantly I think she understood the painful underside of my ironic barbs. It was my way to remain standing during the storm, refusing to yield to adversity and to show my fears and sufferings.
The Devil's Reward Page 9
