But Louise doesn’t want to surrender. She just sits there, knees pressed to her chin, not saying a word. The little girl’s feet tap softly against the wicker laundry basket. ‘Louise, I know you’re in there,’ she says, laughing. Suddenly Louise stands up, knocking Mila to the floor. Her head bangs against the bathroom tiles. Dazed, the child cries and then, seeing the triumphant, resuscitated Louise standing above her, staring down at her from the heights of her victory, Mila’s terror is transformed to hysterical joy. Adam runs to the bathroom and joins in the girls’ jig of delight, the three of them giggling until they can hardly breathe.
Stéphanie
At eight years old, Stéphanie knew how to change a nappy and prepare a baby’s bottle. Her movements were sure and her hand did not tremble as she slipped it under the fragile neck of a newborn and lifted it up from the cot. She knew they had to be laid down on their backs and never shaken. She gave them baths, holding them firmly by the shoulder. The screams and cries of babies, their laughter and their tears were the soundtrack to her memories as an only child. Adults were thrilled by the love she showed the little ones. They thought she was exceptionally maternal and devoted for such a young girl.
When Stéphanie was a child, her mother, Louise, ran a crèche at home. Or rather in Jacques’s home, as he always insisted on pointing out. In the mornings, the mothers dropped off their children. She remembers those women, rushed and sad, standing with their ears glued to the door. Louise taught her to listen for their anxious footsteps in the corridor of the apartment building. Some of them went back to work very soon after giving birth and they handed their tiny newborns over to Louise. They also gave her – in opaque bags that Louise put in the fridge – the milk they’d pumped during the night. Stéphanie remembers those little containers arrayed on the shelf of the fridge with the children’s names written on them. One night she got up and opened the bag belonging to Jules, a red-faced baby whose sharp nails had scratched her cheek. She drank it all without pausing. She never forgot that taste of rotting melon, that sour taste which stayed in her mouth for days afterwards.
On Saturday evenings she would sometimes accompany her mother to vast-seeming apartments where they would babysit. Beautiful, important women passed her in the corridor, leaving a lipstick trace on their children’s cheeks. The men didn’t like to wait in the living room, embarrassed by the presence of Louise and Stéphanie. They hopped up and down on their heels, smiling stupidly. They scolded their wives then helped them put their coats on. Before leaving, the woman would crouch down, balanced on her thin stilettos, and wipe the tears from her son’s cheeks. ‘Don’t cry any more, my love. Louise is going to tell you a story and give you a hug. Aren’t you, Louise?’ Louise would nod. She held those children as they struggled and screamed that they wanted their mothers. Sometimes, Stéphanie hated them. She was horrified by the way they hit Louise, the way they talked to her like little tyrants.
While Louise put the children to bed, Stéphanie would rummage through drawers and in boxes left on pedestal tables. She pulled out photograph albums hidden under coffee tables. Louise cleaned everything. She did the washing-up and wiped the kitchen countertops with a sponge. She folded the clothes that madam had tossed on her bed before leaving, hesitating over which outfit to wear. ‘You don’t have to do the washing-up,’ Stéphanie would repeat. ‘Come and sit with me.’ But Louise adored that. She adored observing the parents’ delighted faces when they came home and realised that they’d had a free cleaning lady as well as a babysitter.
*
The Rouviers, for whom Louise worked for several years, took them to their country house. Louise worked and Stéphanie was on holiday. But she wasn’t there, like the hosts’ children, to sunbathe and stuff herself with fruit. She wasn’t there to bend the rules, to stay up late and learn to ride a bicycle. If she was there, it was because no one knew what else to do with her. Her mother told her to be discreet, to play silently. Not to give the impression that she was taking advantage of the situation. ‘I know they said this was sort of our holiday too, but if you have too much fun they’ll take it badly.’ At the table, she sat next to her mother, away from the hosts and their guests. She remembers that the other people talked and talked while she and her mother lowered their eyes and swallowed their meals in silence.
The Rouviers found it hard to deal with the little girl’s presence. It embarrassed them; it was almost physical. They felt a shameful antipathy towards that dark-haired child, in her faded swimsuit, that clumsy child with her blank face. When she sat in the living room, next to little Hector and Tancrède, to watch television, the parents couldn’t help feeling annoyed. They always ended up asking her to do them a favour – ‘Stéphanie, be a sweetie, go and fetch my glasses from the entrance hall’ – or telling her that her mother was expecting her in the kitchen. Thankfully, Louise forbade her daughter from going near the pool, without the Rouviers even having to say anything.
*
On the second-to-last day of the holiday, Hector and Tancrède invited some neighbour kids to play with them on their brand-new trampoline. Stéphanie, who was hardly any older than the boys, did some impressive tricks. Some risky jumps and somersaults that brought shouts of enthusiasm from the other children. In the end Mrs Rouvier asked Stéphanie to get down, to let the little ones play. She went over to her husband and, in a compassionate voice, said to him: ‘Maybe we shouldn’t invite her again. I think it’s too hard for her. It must be tough, seeing all the things she’s not allowed to do.’ Her husband smiled with relief.
Myriam has been waiting for this evening all week long. She opens the front door of the apartment. Louise’s handbag is on the armchair in the living room. She hears children’s voices singing. A song about a green mouse and boats on the water, something turning and something floating. She moves forward on tiptoes. Louise is kneeling on the floor, leaning over the edge of the bath. Mila dunks the body of her Russian doll into the water and Adam claps his hands as he sings. Delicately, Louise picks up balls of foam and places them on the children’s heads. They laugh at these hats that fly off when the nanny blows on them.
In the metro, on her way home, Myriam had felt as impatient as a lover. She hadn’t seen her children all week and tonight she had promised herself she would devote herself entirely to them. Together, they would slip into the big bed. She would tickle them and kiss them, she would squeeze them against her until they were dizzy. Until they struggled.
Hidden behind the bathroom door, she watches them and she takes a deep breath. She feels a frenzied need to feed on their skin, to plant kisses on their little hands, to hear their high-pitched voices calling ‘Mama’. She feels suddenly sentimental. This is what it’s like, being a mother. It makes her a bit silly sometimes. The most banal moments suddenly seem important. Her heart is stirred by the smallest things.
This week she came home late every night. Her children were already asleep and, after Louise left, she would sometimes lie nuzzled up to Mila, in her little bed, breathing in the delicious smell of her daughter’s hair, a chemical odour of strawberry sweets. Tonight she will allow them to do things that are normally forbidden. They will eat chocolate sandwiches under the covers. They will watch a cartoon and fall asleep late, all snuggled up. In the night she’ll get a few kicks in the face and she’ll sleep badly because she’s so worried about Adam falling off the bed.
*
The children come out of the water and run, naked, into their mother’s arms. Louise starts cleaning up the bathroom. She wipes the tub with a sponge and Myriam tells her: ‘Don’t bother, there’s no need. It’s late already. You can go home. You must have had a tough day.’ Louise pretends not to hear. Squatting down, she continues scrubbing the edge of the bath and tidying up the toys that the children have tossed around.
Louise folds the towels. She empties the washing machine and makes the children’s beds. She puts the sponge back in a kitchen cupboard and takes out a saucepan, which she puts on the ho
b. Helplessly, Myriam watches her work. She tries to reason with her. ‘I’ll do it, don’t worry.’ She tries to take the saucepan from her, but Louise grips the handle tightly in her palm. Gently, she pushes Myriam away. ‘Go and rest,’ she says. ‘You must be tired. Enjoy your children. I’ll make their supper. You won’t even see me.’
And it’s true. As the weeks pass, Louise becomes ever better at being simultaneously invisible and indispensable. Myriam no longer calls to warn her that she’s going to be late and Mila no longer asks when Mama is coming home. Louise is there, single-handedly holding up this fragile edifice. Myriam lets herself be mothered. Every day she abandons more tasks to a grateful Louise. The nanny is like those figures at the back of a theatre stage who move the sets around in the darkness. She picks up a couch, pushes a cardboard column or a wall with one hand. Louise works in the wings, discreet and powerful. She is the one who controls the transparent wires without which the magic cannot occur. She is Vishnu, the nurturing divinity, jealous and protective; the she-wolf at whose breast they drink, the infallible source of their family happiness.
You look at her and you do not see her. Her presence is intimate but never familiar. She arrives earlier and earlier, leaves later and later. One morning, coming out of the shower, Myriam finds herself naked in front of the nanny, who does not even blink. ‘Why should she care about my body?’ Myriam reassures herself. ‘She’s not prudish like that.’
Louise encourages the couple to go out. ‘You should make the most of your youth,’ she repeats mechanically. Myriam listens to her advice. She thinks Louise wise and kindly. One evening Paul and Myriam go to a party thrown by a musician whom Paul has just met. The musician lives in an attic apartment in the sixth arrondissement. The living room is tiny and low-ceilinged, and the guests are crammed close together. There’s a very happy atmosphere and soon everyone starts dancing. The musician’s wife – a tall blonde with fuchsia lipstick – passes round joints and pours shots of vodka into ice-cold glasses. Myriam doesn’t know these people at all, but she talks with them and laughs loudly, her head thrown back. She spends an hour in the kitchen, sitting on the countertop. At three in the morning, the guests say they’re starving and the beautiful blonde makes a mushroom omelette that they eat bent over the frying pan, their forks clinking.
When they go home, about 4 a.m., Louise is dozing on the sofa, her legs folded up under her chest, hands joined together. Paul delicately spreads a blanket over her. ‘Don’t wake her up. She looks so peaceful.’ And Louise starts sleeping there, once or twice a week. It’s never clearly stated – they don’t talk about it – but Louise patiently builds her nest in the middle of the apartment.
*
At times, Paul worries about the nanny’s long hours. ‘I don’t want her to accuse us of exploiting her one day.’ Myriam promises to take control of the situation. Naturally so rigid, so strict, she blames herself for having let things slide. She is going to talk to Louise, get everything out in the open. She is at once embarrassed and secretly thrilled that Louise takes it upon herself to do so much housework, that she accomplishes what she’s never been asked to do. Myriam is constantly apologising. When she gets home late, she says: ‘I’m sorry for abusing your kindness.’ And Louise always replies: ‘That’s what I’m here for. Don’t worry about it.’
Myriam often gives her presents. Earrings that she buys in a discount boutique near the metro station. An orange cake, the only sweet treat that Louise seems to like. She gives the nanny clothes that she doesn’t wear any more, even though for a long time she thought there was something humiliating about that practice. Myriam does everything she can to avoid wounding Louise, to avoid making her jealous or upset. When she goes shopping, for herself or for her children, she hides the new clothes in an old cloth bag and only opens them once Louise has gone. Paul congratulates her on being so tactful.
Everyone in Paul and Myriam’s inner circle ends up knowing about Louise. Some of them have seen her in the neighbourhood or in the apartment. Others have only heard about the feats of this legendary nanny, who seems to have sprung straight from the pages of a children’s book.
‘Louise’s dinners’ become a tradition, an unmissable experience for all the couple’s friends. Louise is aware of each person’s tastes. She knows that Emma shrewdly conceals her anorexia behind a vegetarian ideology. That Patrick, Paul’s brother, is a connoisseur of meat and mushrooms. The dinners generally take place on Friday evenings. Louise spends all afternoon cooking while the children play at her feet. She tidies the apartment, makes a bouquet of flowers and sets the table so it looks pretty. She goes all across Paris to buy a few yards of material, which she uses to hand-stitch a tablecloth. When the places have been set, the sauce reduced and the wine decanted, she slips out of the apartment. Sometimes she bumps into some of the guests in the building’s lobby or near the metro station. She replies shyly to their congratulations and their knowing smiles, to the way they pat their stomachs and lick their lips.
One night Paul insists that she stays. This is no ordinary day. ‘We have so many things to celebrate!’ Pascal has given Myriam a very big case, which she is well on her way to winning thanks to an astute, aggressive defence. Paul is also very happy. One week ago, he was in the studio, working on his own music, when a well-known singer came into the producer’s booth. They talked for hours, about their shared tastes, the arrangements they imagined for the songs, the incredible material they could get their hands on, and in the end the singer asked Paul to produce his next album. ‘There are years like that, where everything goes perfectly. You have to know how to enjoy it,’ Paul declares. He grabs Louise by the shoulders and smiles at her. ‘Whether you like it or not, tonight you are eating dinner with us.’
Louise takes refuge in the children’s bedroom. She spends a long time lying next to Mila, caressing her temples and her hair. In the blue glow of the nightlight, she observes Adam’s face, surrendered to sleep. She can’t make up her mind to leave the room. She hears the front door open and laughter in the corridor. A bottle of champagne is popped open, a chair is pushed against the wall. In the bathroom, Louise reties her bun and puts on some mauve eyeshadow. Myriam never uses make-up. Tonight she is wearing a pair of straight-leg jeans and one of Paul’s shirts with the sleeves rolled up.
‘I don’t think you’ve met, have you? Pascal, allow me to introduce our Louise. You know everyone is jealous of us for finding her!’ Myriam puts her arm round Louise’s shoulders. Louise smiles and turns away, slightly embarrassed by the familiarity of the gesture. ‘Louise, this is Pascal, my boss.’
‘Your boss? Oh, give me a break! We work together. We’re colleagues.’ Pascal laughs loudly as he shakes Louise’s hand.
*
Louise is sitting at one end of the sofa, her fingers with their long varnished nails tensed around her glass of champagne. She is as nervous as a foreigner, an exile who doesn’t understand the language being spoken around her. She shares embarrassed, welcoming smiles with the other guests on either side of the coffee table. They lift their glasses to Myriam’s talent and to Paul’s singer, one of whose melodies someone hums. They talk about their jobs, about terrorism and property prices. Patrick describes his plans for a holiday in Sri Lanka.
Emma, who is sitting next to Louise, talks to her about her children. Louise knows how to talk about that. Emma has worries, which she explains to the reassuring nanny. ‘I’ve seen that lots of times, don’t worry,’ Louise repeats. Emma, who has so many anxieties and to whom no one listens, envies Myriam for being able to depend on this Sphinx-like nanny. Emma is a sweet woman, her feelings betrayed only by her constantly wringing hands. She is smiling but envious, a neurotic flirt.
Emma lives in the twentieth arrondissement, in a part of the neighbourhood where the squats have been transformed into an organic crèche. She lives in a small house, decorated with such taste that it almost makes you uneasy. You have the impression that her living room, crammed with knick-knacks and c
ushions, is designed to provoke envy rather than for its inhabitants’ comfort.
‘The local school is a disaster. The children spit on the ground. When you walk past it, you hear them calling each other “whores” and “queers”. Now, I’m not saying that nobody ever says “fuck” in their private school. But they say it in a different way, don’t you think? At least they know that they’re only supposed to say it when no grown-ups are around. They know it’s bad.’
Emma has even heard that, at the state school, the one in her street, some parents turn up in pyjamas, half an hour late, to drop off their children. That one mother, in a veil, refused to shake hands with the headmaster.
‘It’s a sad thing to say, but Odin would have been the only white kid in his class. I know we shouldn’t give up, but I don’t think I’d handle it well if he came back to the house talking about God and speaking Arabic.’ Myriam smiles at her. ‘You know what I mean, don’t you?’
They stand up, laughing, and move to the table. Paul seats Emma next to him. Louise hurries into the kitchen and she is greeted by bravos when she enters the living room, carrying the meal. ‘She’s blushing,’ Paul says, amused, in a too-shrill voice. For a few minutes, Louise is the centre of attention. ‘How did she make this sauce?’ ‘Ginger – what a good idea!’ The guests vaunt her prowess and Paul starts talking about her – ‘our nanny’ – the way people talk about children and old people in their presence. Paul serves the wine, and the conversations soon rise high above such earthly considerations as food. They speak louder and louder. They stub out their cigarettes in their plates and the butts float in puddles of sauce. No one has noticed that Louise has withdrawn to the kitchen, which she is energetically cleaning.
Myriam shoots an irritated look at Paul. She pretends to laugh at his jokes, but he gets on her nerves when he’s drunk. He becomes salacious, tactless, he loses all sense of reality. When he’s had too much to drink, he issues invitations to horrible people, makes promises he can’t keep. He tells lies. But he doesn’t seem to notice his wife’s annoyance. He opens another bottle of wine and taps on the edge of the table. ‘This year, we’re going to give ourselves a treat and take our nanny with us on holiday! You have to enjoy life, right?’ Louise, a pile of plates in her hands, smiles.
Lullaby Page 4
