Marlena de Blasi

by Amandine (v5)

  “I see. But I don’t think it’s good to practice on the bed linens.”

  “I wasn’t practicing. It’s a drawing of my mother. Of her face. Look, if you hold it like this you can see—”

  “Yes, yes, I do see. But why did you draw her on the pillow? Why not on—”

  “I do it all the time at school, and Sister Geneviève never seems to mind. When she changes the linens, I just draw my mother another time on the clean one. I told Sister Geneviève it helps me to sleep. To have her near me. I knew you would scold me, and so I never did it here. But last night I couldn’t sleep and I thought that if I drew her …”

  “I understand. We’ll just leave it be then. Leave it like this for next week. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “But you know that if you can’t sleep or if your dreams are … You know you can come to sleep in my bed or call me to come sleep with you. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes. But when those things happen to me in the dormitory and you’re not there … And besides, I’m seven now. I have to learn to be alone.”

  “Do you know how much I miss you, Amandine?”

  “You have to learn to be alone, too.”

  The words sting, and Solange stands quietly looking at Amandine, who has turned away, gone to stand by the window.

  “How would you like me to tell you a secret?” Solange asks.

  “A secret about what?”

  Solange goes to the sofa, sits down. “Come here and sit next to me. Closer.” With Amandine’s back nestled to her breast, her arms encircling her, Solange says, “Do you remember when I told you about the lady who came to see my grandmother? The one who came to talk about you?”

  “The one with eyes like a deer?”

  “Yes. She. Well, she left something for you in my care, Amandine. I am to save it for you until you’re older. I’m to guard it as I would guard you, Grand-mère told me.”

  “What is it? Where is it?”

  “I don’t know what it is. I’ve never opened the package. It’s hidden away in my things. I’ll show you the package if you want, but you mustn’t open it. It will be for you to open when the time comes. I have written your name on a little card and attached it to the package. Otherwise it’s just as it was when the lady left it.”

  “Oh yes, I would like to see the package.”

  Solange rises, goes to the armoire, opens one of the three narrow, long drawers where she keeps her underclothing. Riffling without looking, she pulls out a brown-paper-wrapped parcel tied with white string.

  “Here it is. You may hold it, but don’t shake it or be rough with it. Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  As though it is a just-born baby, Amandine takes the package tenderly in her hands, looks down at it. “Did it really come from that lady?”

  “It really did. And the reason why I’m telling you all this today, why I want you to know about this gift, is so that you will feel less alone. You see, this is a kind of symbol of the love your mother has for you.”

  “What’s a symbol?”

  “A symbol is a sign. An evidence of a sentiment. Of a feeling. In this case, whatever is in this package is a symbol of your mother’s love. It hardly matters what the symbol is … It might be something old, something that was precious to her, something that was hers when she was a child, I don’t know. But what does matter is that she wanted you to have it. Whatever is in this package represents the connection between you and her.”

  “The connection?”

  “Yes. The truth that you are part of one another.”

  “Really part of one another?”

  “Really. Whether she’s here or not, what she looks like … all those things you, you don’t know can never, ever change that single important fact. That she is your mother and you are her daughter.”

  “That’s two facts.”

  “You’re right. Two facts. Hold those truths tight to you, and I think you’ll be less lonely.”

  “When can I open this?”

  “My grand-mère said that the lady told her I should give it to you on your thirteenth birthday.”

  “Thirteen? And I’m only seven now. I’ll be so old by the time I’m thirteen.”

  “I think not, darling girl. I think you’ll be younger by then. Far younger than you are now.”

  “Is that how numbers really work? I mean, do we get more little as the numbers get higher?”

  “If we’re lucky.”

  “Oh.”

  “Now I think it’s time we went out to walk, so go get your—”

  “Red boots. I know.”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  EACH WEDNESDAY DURING RECREATION TIME THE STUDENTS ARE permitted a walk to the village, where the younger girls visit the chocolatier, the older ones the Monoprix for hairpins or tampons or violet water. One Wednesday, Amandine—who most often does not join in the outing—wanders off on her own, enters the newsstand, wishes the newsagent a good afternoon, looks about uncertainly.

  “May I help you, mademoiselle?”

  “Yes sir. I would like to see the film-star magazines.”

  “Ah, right here. Any particular one in mind?”

  “No sir. May I just look a bit?”

  “Bien sûr, mademoiselle. You’ll let me know if I can be of assistance?”

  She looks first at the covers, then selects one, leafs through it slowly. Nothing. She takes another one. Half an hour passes, and she has looked through all of them. The newsagent is working nearby, counting magazines and newspapers, cutting the string on bundles of new arrivals, arranging the shelves to accommodate them. He hums, and Amandine sways gently to his music. They are comfortable in one another’s company. As he pulls his small knife upward on the string from a newspaper-wrapped bundle of magazines, Amandine tells him, “That’s the one. That one, sir, may I please see it?”

  On the cover of the one Amandine asks to see is a close-up photo of the actress Hedy Lamarr.

  “Ah, Mademoiselle has excellent taste. The most beautiful woman in films. That’s what she’s called, you know.”

  Amandine smiles, shakes her head no. Takes the magazine from the newsagent, crouches down on the floor, and stares at the cover. She peruses the pages, looks back at the cover, back at the pages. Back at the cover. Amandine is crying. Slowly, she rips the cover from the rest of the pages, carries the severed cover to the counter, where the newsagent is serving other customers. When it is her turn, she says, “I don’t think I have enough money to buy the whole magazine, and so I’ll just take the cover. If that’s all right.”

  She is searching the depths of her midnight blue pouch, picking out coins, laying them one at a time on the counter in front of the newsagent and, in between, running the back of her hand across her tears. He begins to explain that one doesn’t buy only a magazine cover but quickly enters into Amandine’s mode of reasoning.

  “Well, for just the cover, it will be forty sous. More than enough here.”

  He hands back two of the coins to her. Pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, offers it to her, but she shakes her head. One more wipe with the back of her hand as she smiles her triumph smile at the newsagent.

  “Will that be all?”

  “Oh yes. All.”

  “Here, I’ll just wrap that for you.”

  He carefully rolls a half sheet of newspaper around the cover, tucks in the ends, all the while looking at Amandine. He hands it to her.

  “Thank you, sir. She’s my mother.”

  “For your mother. I see. Well, I hope she’ll—”

  “No sir. It is my mother. The lady in the photo is my mother.”

  Back in the dormitory, Amandine asks Sister Geneviève for two pins. She tells her the reason and, that evening after prayers, Geneviève comes to Amandine’s bed with a pincushion. Together they mount the Hedy Lamarr cover above Amandine’s bed. They stand back to admire their handiwork, and some of the nearby girls come to look at it, too.

  “It’s my mot
her. Isn’t she beautiful?”

  Two of the littler girls gasp in admiration, but one of the elder ones begins to laugh. Calls to her mates to come see the photo of Amandine’s “mother.” Soon all the girls clamor about the bed, pointing at the photo, arranging themselves in divalike poses, pouting their lips, googling their eyes, laughing and screaming at the good joke. Still laughing, one picks up Amandine under her arms, swings her about, shouts, “You don’t have a mother, and if you did she’d never look like that. She’d be short like an elf and have hair like a wild man—”

  “And big, sad eyes—”

  “And she’d walk like this—”

  “And talk like this—”

  In a circle now around her, they taunt. Over Geneviève’s warnings, her hands clapping, her feet stamping, they chant a long, sniggering song, each one taking a turn to sharply pat her on the back of her head, the nape of her neck until Amandine, barefoot in her white flannel nightdress, pushes through their line, leaps onto her bed, tears the photo from the wall, runs to the door, into the hall, down the stairs.

  Out into the courtyard, down the loggia, her feet barely touching down on the frozen stone of the pavement, she holds the photo to her chest, her breath coming roughly, a strange pain piercing her arms and shoulders. Anger must be worse than running is for my heart. Surely anger is worse. Better that I run away. I know it’s better that I run. She slows only when she mounts the convent stairs to the sisters’ cells. To her rooms. To Solange.

  “What? What are you doing? Get in here, bare feet, you’re all flushed and sweating—”

  Solange takes Amandine in her arms, pulls a blanket from the bed, wraps it around Amandine, sits down then on the sofa before the fire and rocks her, kisses her forehead, her cheeks, rubs her icy feet until they’re pink again. “Sssssh. First stop crying and understand that you’re safe now. And when you’re ready, you can tell me everything. Here then, what’s this?”

  She takes the magazine cover still clutched in Amandine’s left hand.

  “It’s my mother. They don’t believe it’s my mother and they—”

  “I understand. It’s okay.”

  Solange places the cover on the table near the sofa, looks at Amandine. “Why do you think that she is your mother?”

  “Because I went to the newsstand and I looked at all the magazines and I couldn’t find her in any of them, but then when I saw this photo, I began to cry. I didn’t cry when I saw any of the others. Only when I saw this one. So it must be her. It must be her, Solange.”

  “I see.”

  Solange holds Amandine to her once again, and both stay quiet.

  “You don’t believe me either, do you?” Amandine says without raising her head from Solange’s breast. “You don’t believe that she’s my mother.”

  “No. I don’t believe she is. And neither do you. Your inventions, I, I should have tried to stop them long ago, but I believed them innocent. I knew that you knew they were inventions. That you’d understood the difference between make-believe and, and what’s real. It’s perfectly fine to invent and imagine, but you must come back from those thoughts. You must come back, Amandine, come back from your daydreaming and your night dreaming. You must leave the door open—”

  “Leave what door open? The door to where? I make believe because there is nothing real. Nothing real that I want.”

  “Not to be with me?”

  “Not in the way we used to be. That wasn’t real either. That was also make-believe.”

  “That’s not true. The way we used to be was real. The way we are right now is real. The way we’ll always be together is real. I am so sorry that I am not her, but I am me. I’m real, and I love you.”

  As though she hasn’t heard Solange, Amandine says, “Will you please get me some writing paper? Pretty paper with flowers in the corners. Violets or roses. Violets. And envelopes, too.”

  “Yes. Violets. Of course, I’ll get some tomorrow.”

  “I have to go back now.”

  “No you don’t. I’ll go to tell Paul what has happened, though I’m certain that Geneviève has told her already. Let’s get you into your bed now and …”

  But Amandine is taking her raincoat from the armoire, slipping it on, rummaging through the shoe chest for her boots.

  “I know the way back. I’m not afraid. Not of the dark or of them.”

  She opens the door, and Solange does nothing to stop her. She walks out, closes the door. Opens it again.

  “I love you, too.”

  Cher Maman,

  You don’t know me. I mean we haven’t met. Actually we did meet, but it was when I was very little and I think you were very little, too. I just thought that you might be missing me, wanting to know about me. I didn’t want you to worry, and so I thought I would write to you to tell you that I’m fine. I’m well. My name is Amandine. I’m your daughter.

  I’m almost eight, and I have dark hair, curly and long and mostly all the time woven into plaits by Sister Geneviève. Solange used to make my plaits when I was little, but now that I live in the dormitory, Sister Geneviève does. Solange is like a big sister and an aunt and a teacher, but mostly she is my best friend. After you and Jesus, I love Solange best. And Philippe, too. I shall tell you of Philippe when I see you. His grandmother had blue hair.

  I can never quite tell the color of my eyes, which seems to change. It’s something like gray but very dark and almost blue, like the sky looks at night. But not exactly. Solange says they’re the color of the inside of an iris, the color deep inside. But not exactly that, either. I’m not big and I’m not small for eight. Well, maybe I am a bit small.

  I can read with the sixth elementary students and know my multiplication tables, and I love to write stories and read about princesses and saints but mostly about princesses. I love to listen to Solange when she tells me stories. She says they’re the same stories that her mother told her. She has a mother, too. And a father and a grandmother and sisters. I think she has eighteen cousins. Do you have cousins? I mean, if you have cousins, then they are my cousins, too. Would you tell me someday about my cousins? I imagine that their names are Susie and Jeannette and Christine and Diane. I don’t know too many boys’ names, so I only think about girl cousins. Do I have a grandmother? I hope she’s well, not growing too old before I can get to her to tell her how much I love her. Tell her please that I say prayers for her and that I will come to help her when she’s old. Tell her not to worry because as soon as I find her, I won’t ever leave her again. Actually, I don’t know why I went away. I can’t remember. Can you remember, Maman?

  Maman, what’s your name? In my mind, I sometimes call you Sophie, though I don’t know why. Sophie. Sophie. I whisper it. It sounds like a whisper, don’t you think? I feel sad that I don’t know your name, but it must be a beautiful name, and you must be beautiful, too. I know you are and I know that you’re good and sweet and I think you love flowers and the wind when the sun shines, yes, a cold wind under a hot sun is the best, especially a wind that makes you lose your breath and you have to walk backward with your arms outstretched and just let it carry you wherever it will. I always think that if I like something, you must like it, too. When I like something very much, I want you to see it or hear it or touch it. I want to know if it pleases you. Do you like raspberries? I’ve only tasted raspberries a few times, but I think there must be nothing better. Not even peas with lettuce, which I also like. And red is my favorite color. Do you wear your hair in plaits? Do you look like Hedy Lamarr? That’s how you look in my dreams, exactly like Hedy Lamarr, only your name is Sophie. Do you think that I will look like you when I’m big? Will I look like Hedy Lamarr, too? I don’t look much like her now, but I wonder.

  Jean-Baptiste is the doctor who takes care of us. He says I’m strong as an ox, but even so he comes to check my heart on the first Friday of the month, places a cold metal cup on my chest and looks into my eyes while he listens through tubes in his ears that are attached to the metal cup.
He always smiles then and shakes his head and tells me I’m a walking miracle, though I don’t really know why. And then he reaches into his big leather bag and pulls out a bar of chocolat, says it’s all the medicine I need. He always reminds me, though, not to run too fast, to climb the stairs slowly, to tell Mater Paul or Solange if I have a sore throat. But I never do. I mean I never, almost never have a sore throat. Do you get sore throats, Maman?

  I can’t remember all the things I wanted to tell you, and so I’ll write to you again tomorrow. But I did want you to know that Sister Suzette is teaching me to play the piano. Actually, she has been giving me lessons since I was three, but now I can reach the pedals much better and I’m playing “Für Elise” all the way through without any errors. But something is troubling me. Since I don’t know your name and I don’t know where you live, I don’t know how to get my letter to you. I think I’ll leave my letter in the chapel, under the vase in front of Our Lady. She’ll know what to do. She’s a mother, too. I’m sure she’ll get the letter to you. Really what I wanted to do is to tell you not to worry. I’m not lost, and I hope that you’re not lost, either. I’m right here waiting for you.

  Your

  Amandine

  Filling page after page of the notepaper with the violets in her achingly precise convent girl’s calligraphy, Amandine sits cross-legged on a stone bench in the loggia during recreation, her schoolmates’ jubilance unnoticed. She folds the thick packet of pages and urges them somewhat distortedly into an envelope. She licks the seal, presses down hard on it with both palms, tries to straighten the lopsided results by sitting on the envelope for a bit. The address is uncomplicated: Pour Maman. Having asked permission of Sister Geneviève to say a prayer in the chapel, she goes directly there.

  Amandine has never before been alone in the chapel, has never thought it so grand as it seems now, painted in the thin yellow light of a February afternoon. She genuflects, blesses herself with water from the stoup, walks slowly, assuredly to the statue of la Vierge. She curtsies, smiles up at her. “Bonjour, Notre Dame.”