Marlena de Blasi

by Amandine (v5)

  “I see.”

  “Have you noticed that you don’t say ‘I know’ anymore? Now you say ‘I see.’”

  “I do?”

  Still she has not said Philippe’s name. She’s angry at him for leaving her. And so soon after I’d told her about her mother. Twice impaled. Or is it three times? I think she also mourns her childhood. Whatever shards that remained of it, she has buried. Like chocolates from a satin box, she chooses her words deliberately. So amenable, she seems to respond not according to what she thinks or feels or desires but to what others do. What others would have her do. No needs of her own. I know about that particular façade for pain. Far too early for her to be employing such feminine devices.

  CHAPTER XVII

  THOUGH EACH OF THEM IS SIX YEARS OLD, THE FOUR INFANTINE GIRLS in the beginners’ class with Amandine sob for their nannies; one swoons in open grief for a plush bear, left behind, which her mother promises to send by the post. These other four, if they read at all, read erringly, fidget, find undue glee or tragedy in equal measure. An oddity among them, Amandine is soon placed with the seven-and eight-year-olds, where she reads as well as or better than they, listens, comprehends, responds with poise and concentration. Astonished by, envious of the waifish younger girl, the older ones connive to thwart her, to push thorns, rub salt. There is much fodder for their undertaking: Amandine’s lisp, her stutter, her lurching walk—a remnant of her will to emulate Philippe. When the girls are called upon to read, they effect stutter and lisp; when asked to step up to the front of the class for recitation, they hobble awkwardly. Their laughter is as brazen as a blow to the cheek. Barely wincing, Amandine takes the stings as her due, further proofs of her own wickedness. The teaching sisters threaten to send the mischievous girls to Paul and hand out demerits for poor comportment, but these jeunes filles de la noblesse, young daughters of the nobility—the cosseted little chits as Paul defined them to Solange—are thick-skinned against admonition. Beware of Mummy and Daddy, say their taunting eyes.

  Understanding the way of things, Paul—had she the will to defend Amandine—would be impeded by her fear of displeasing. For displeasing these daughters of the Languedocian elite would result in the displeasure of their noble fathers who, in turn, would duly report such displeasure to the curia. Paul would be accused of ill-handling her assignments, of losing hold on the parents’ confidence and their purse strings. All this is moot, though, since Paul has no will to defend Amandine. In fact, now that the child is a student, Paul knows that the bishop, too, will be less likely to take up her case, to let fly any whiff of favoritism. Hence Paul feels free to look the other way when the teaching sisters tell her of Amandine’s plight, more so when she sees and hears it for herself. Paul, as she has been since the child was a baby, is blind to Amandine. She never addresses a word directly to her save to correct her and, even then, she speaks without looking at her. As Paul passes through the classrooms, she caresses a cheek, adjusts a collar, smiles now and then, but Amandine is invisible to her. The convent girls take note, take courage, intensify their sport. Amandine becomes invisible to them as well.

  It is only when Amandine returns to the convent for meals and to perform her daily chores that she is addressed, asked after, touched, and only by Solange and the other convent sisters. Otherwise she draws a curtain around herself so as not to be alone among the others.

  Bonne nuit, mes petites, beaux rêves. The dormitory sisters walk among the narrow white beds, here and there straightening a coverlet, patting a head. Tatters of smoke from the just-spent candles swirl about, and Amandine, covered to her chin, lies still, inhales it, gasps for it as if for breath. As though the sweet smoke is solace. She waits for the night music to begin, the adenoidal snuffles, the thin, whistling snores of the others, all of it ripping tiny holes in the smothering black. So still she lies that the thudding of her small, murmuring heart sounds like the hiss of creek water on pebbles. She closes her eyes so she can find Philippe. Yes, he’s still there. She tries to find her mother then. Yes, she’s there, too. Or is it her? How can I know? She changes the woman’s hair, her dress, her eyes, her smile; she puts all the pieces back together again, but still, is it her? Maman, is it you?

  Except in the refectory and at mass and sometimes at recreation, Amandine and Solange see one another only on weekends—Saturday at one until Sunday evening at six—when the other convent girls have been fetched by relatives from Montpellier or the towns close by. Amandine is permitted to stay Saturday nights with Solange in their rooms. Though Amandine looks forward to this time, she also knows that this weekly respite is only that, a twenty-nine-hour reprieve. An interval in what has become her real life. Things cannot be as they were before she went to live in the dormitory, before she began school. Before Philippe died. She reaches back further. She thinks about the changes and concludes that the biggest difference of all is inside of her. She no longer feels like a child. Surely not like a grownup either but rather lost somewhere in between. She begins to realize that the only person with whom she is comfortable is the imaginary figure of her mother. The figure who accompanies her everywhere, the one to whom she speaks in her mind and sometimes out loud, the one who soothes and counsels her, who protects her. She waits for her mother, looks for her, thinks she hears her voice. Especially on Saturday afternoons at one.

  It’s then that Amandine sits or stands on the edges of the group of her classmates in their Saturday clothes, screeching in their Saturday voices. Dragging their valises across the stone floors, jumping about in the dormitory hall, they wait for their parents to arrive. Amandine listens to them telling one another how lovely it is at home. The younger ones cry tears of joy as they wait, their cheeks red and flushed just as they will be on Sunday evening, when they will weep in sadness as they are ported back to school. She listens as the older girls recount the usual events of these weekends: tea parties, pretty dresses, afternoons at the ballet, pastries and chocolates in the cafés with Maman et Tante Julie. One by one the girls are whisked off by their mothers or aunties or nannies while Amandine carefully scrutinizes each of the women, how they speak and walk. Their clothes. She especially likes one woman who always wears a dark purple suit and a hat with a long brown, green-spotted feather, which curls down across her forehead. It’s a nice hat. She’s very pretty. Not as pretty as my mother, though. She pays less attention to the fathers. Wearing coats with fur collars and rounded hats like tipped-over woolen bowls, they rush in saying Vite, vite. One father wears high boots with pants tucked inside them and a long jacket that ends at his knees. “Riding clothes,” one of the older girls called this costume. Perhaps it’s next week when she will come for me. I wonder if her hat will have a feather.

  Solange desires to provide Amandine with some of the cultural events that are part of her classmates’ life beyond the convent school and so begins to plan outings for Amandine as her classmates’ parents do for them. To be able to afford these outings, Solange has begun to put aside the stipend that arrives for her via the curia each month—funds she would have spent on special foods to pique Amandine’s appetite, on her clothes and books and toys before she entered the school—to use for tickets to the theater in Montpellier, to the ballet, the operetta, symphony concerts. She and Marie-Albert sew a party dress for Amandine; layers of off-white tulle for the skirt, which they attach to a long-sleeved, crocheted bodice of the same color and, from a length of midnight blue velvet, a skirt, a waistcoat, and a small drawstring pouch. Tiny fingerless gloves and a Juliet cap that Marie-Albert crochets from spools of bronze metallic thread. The ballerina slippers and the cape from her convent uniform will suffice to complete the mise.

  Amandine submits to both the new clothes and the outings, and though she is courteous, appreciative, the curtain that she has drawn around herself is always more difficult to part, even for Solange. Unaware of the constant, quiet torture of Amandine’s days in the school, Solange believes that the child’s withdrawal is made of her grieving for Phili
ppe. Of that and of yearning for her mother. She believes that it is Amandine herself who has hindered friendships among the other girls, has preferred emotional seclusion from them. And now from her.

  One Saturday afternoon as Solange is brushing out Amandine’s tight school-day braids, she announces that they will take the bus from the village into Montpellier, to the train station. Solange tells Amandine that she has knitted a shawl for her grandmother, that she will send the package to Reims by rail. The package will be held there until one of the family fetches it when they go to the city during a market week. Solange chatters on about the wool she used in the shawl; did Amandine remember her working on it last summer? Dark green like pine trees with long black silk fringe. I’ve already wrapped it or I would show it to you again—

  “It’s okay. I remember it. I remember that it was beautiful. But why don’t you just deliver the shawl yourself? I mean, why don’t you go to Avise?”

  “Because Avise is so far away, and you have your studies and I my work.”

  Amandine takes the hairbrush from Solange’s hand, turns to look at her. “I can’t go with you, but you could go. Paul would say yes, I know she would. You could go for a while.”

  “But I would never go without you.”

  “Why? I live over there most of the time now,” Amandine says, nodding her head in the direction of the school, “and on the weekends I can stay here with Marie-Albert and the others. I would be fine.”

  “But wouldn’t you want to come with me to Avise someday if we could arrange things? A holiday perhaps. To see if you like it there.”

  “No. Never. I told you. I can’t go. What if my mother came to get me and I wasn’t here? I must always stay close to the convent. She knows where I am but I don’t know where she is, and so it’s I who must wait.”

  “I see.”

  “Anyhow, I didn’t even know you had a grandmother and another mother, I mean your own mother, until, until you told me, you know, about Paul. So why haven’t you ever gone to see them in all this time since you came here to take care of me? Why haven’t you?”

  “Well, some things happened many years ago between my mother and me that made me sad, and I guess I wanted to forget about her. For a while at least. I wanted to be away from her.”

  “You want to be away from your mother and I want to find mine. It’s funny, isn’t it?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps it’s funny.”

  “Is that why you didn’t make a shawl for your mother? Only for your grandmother? I mean because you wanted to forget your mother.”

  “Yes, I suppose that’s why.”

  “Did it work? Did you forget about her?”

  “In a way, yes.”

  “I don’t think I could ever forget about my mother.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you think your mother has forgotten about you?”

  “No. I don’t think she has.”

  “I don’t think so either. Not your mother about you nor mine about me. I don’t think mothers forget much of anything.”

  “No. I guess not.”

  “So what will you do?”

  “About what?”

  “About your mother.”

  “Nothing. For now, nothing.”

  “Well, if sometime you’d like to talk about her—or about anything that’s troubling you—I—”

  “I shall remember that. And I offer the same to you. You know that, don’t you? That if ever, whenever you’d like to talk about your mother—”

  “But I don’t know the words for some things. For some feelings.”

  “You don’t have to know all the words. Maybe if you begin I can help you to find more of them. The words, I mean.”

  “Okay. So are you less sad now than you were before?”

  “Yes. Less sad. Not sad in the same way.”

  “But still sad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is everyone in the whole world sad about something?”

  “Go get your red boots now. And your hat.”

  “And my purse.”

  Letting go of Solange’s hand and leaning backward to better view the Belle Epoque vault of the train station ceiling, Amandine, hands covering her ears against the screech of the stationmaster’s announcements, slowly turns herself in a full circle.

  “How far can you go on a train?” she asks Solange as the two stand still among the throngs.

  “Very far, if one wishes. Not on a single train but on a series of them. One can go almost anywhere on a train, one destination at a time.”

  “Almost anywhere?”

  “Yes. But not over the seas. Not over water. Not usually. One needs to take a ship for that. Or fly in an airplane.”

  “Train stations are my first favorite places.”

  “How quickly you’ve decided that. I think you might wait until you’ve seen a bit more of the world before—”

  “I don’t need to wait. I already know. And when I’m big, bigger, I shall ride trains everywhere.”

  “May I ride with you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Where shall we go?”

  “To find my mother.”

  “Yes, yes, of course, someday …”

  “Where do the people get on the trains?” Amandine wants to know.

  “Some of the tracks are along that wall. See the numbers above the doorways? Now look up there at the lighted board. The same numbers appear there. Do you see them?”

  “Yes.”

  “And next to each number is a departure time, the number of a train, and its destination. The place where it’s going. Look. From track number three at fourteen-forty, a train will depart for Paris.”

  “Track three at fourteen-forty, number 1022 to Paris.”

  “Perfect. That’s how to read the departure board. There is the same kind of board for the trains that are arriving. The ones that are coming here from somewhere else. Here, on this side. So if we look here we can see that, let’s see, what time is it right now? Ah, in seven minutes, at fourteen-ten, on track eleven, train number 3542 will arrive from Marseille.”

  Amandine studies first one board, then the other. Looks at Solange. Back at the boards.

  “Track six at fifteen-oh-five, train number 1129 in departure for Lyon. Where is Lyon? Can we go there today?”

  “Too far for today. Now come with me to deliver the package to that desk over there and—”

  “And then may we go outside to see the trains?”

  “Well, I guess … Yes, yes, we can. If we hurry we can meet the train from Marseille, don’t you think? Look again at the arrival board, and then you lead the way.”

  “Track eleven, let’s go.”

  As though they were indeed meeting someone, the two hurry out to the platform to stand among the small, noisy congregations who wait. Amandine moves closer to Solange, holds her hand more tightly, wiggles the other hand to move the satin rope of the midnight blue pouch farther up upon her wrist. She looks up at Solange. “Isn’t it wonderful here?”

  “Sssh, here it comes. You can’t see it yet, but you can hear it. Listen. Close your eyes and listen.”

  Amandine nestles her head against Solange. “It sounds like it’s rushing to get to us. As though it can’t wait to see us. Doesn’t it sound like that to you?”

  “I suppose it does. Yes, you’re right, just as though—”

  Amandine laughs and squeals as the snorting, spewing beast lunges into the station.

  Solange shouts above the noise, “Listen now. The stationmaster will announce it—”

  “Arriving from Marseille on track eleven. Track eleven arriving from Marseille.”

  Amandine watches as the passengers, smiling and waving, descend the metal steps from the car. She pays special attention to the women.

  “May we stay to see more trains? I want to stay here until—”

  “Let’s go back to look at the board and see when the next one is due.”

  “The next and then the next and—�
��

  “All right, two more. And then we’re off to tea. Aren’t you getting hungry?”

  Two more. And then another until, against the leaving light on platform number six, the midnight blue pouch swinging from her wrist, her hat askew, Amandine looks up at Solange. “I like it here.”

  “I do, too.”

  “I like the smell. It burns my nose, but I like it. I like the way the air tastes. It’s like the spoon when I lick away the pudding.”

  “It’s true, the air tastes like metal.”

  “I could stay here forever until her train comes. The one from … I wish I knew from where. Maybe it will be the next one. That’s the best thing about trains. The train you’re waiting for might be the next one.”

  “I think the sixteen-oh-three is right on time. Can you hear it?”

  “Yes, I think I can. It’s scary every time, but I like it, all the noise like a million horses galloping and smoke thick as fog on the creek and the sparks like the ones from the horseman’s spurs in the story Philippe told me. Now the stationmaster will say it. Get ready …”

  In perfect time with the stationmaster, Amandine and Solange scream at the top of their voices,

  “Arriving from Carcassonne on track six. Track six arriving from Carcassonne.”

  One Sunday morning months later, when Solange is arranging the sheets on Amandine’s chintz-draped bed, she picks up one of the pillows, holds it to the light, says, “What is this?”

  She peers more closely at what seems like a drawing of sorts on the pillow slip.

  “Amandine, have you by any chance been drawing on your pillows? This one is smudged with something like—”

  “It’s charcoal. We use charcoal in our drawing classes. We’re supposed to draw trees or flowers, but sometimes I draw faces.”