One Day I'll Tell You Everything

by Emmanuelle Pagano

  I tried to reply through tears and snot, but it was too painful because of all the memories resurfacing, pale and mucousy, still sticky with all that stuff, memories of spring snow, dull grey, slippery, dangerous mud everywhere; in our neck of the woods, when we say spring snow, we know exactly what that means, because spring is just a less harsh winter and therefore more snow, more wind and only slightly less cold.

  It was spring when Maman died, my brother continued, it was spring when Maman went into labour, she didn’t die in hospital, she didn’t even die on the way there, we brought her here, to the hospital, two days later, I have no idea why, probably for an autopsy.

  When she started to bleed, I said, it was during a snowstorm, you said so yourself, you remember it, and yet how old were you? There’s no spring snow plough that can clear the road fast enough, the snow’s too sticky, snow cutters are even slower, and how do you expect choppers to fly and then land in a snowstorm like that? Down on the bottom farm the snow always swirled like crazy, you know how we even called it the cyclone, where the lake is now, we used to say, I live on the bottom farm, in the cyclone.

  My brother smiled as he recalled how proud we were, as little boys, to live in the cyclone. He hasn’t cried since his accident. He was about to the day before yesterday, but his tears subsided, and anyway mine were enough. I certainly cried enough for two, even three, so then we started laughing, laughing like lunatics, and I said to myself that laughing together so much, in memory of what people call misfortune, that must be the gift of being siblings, the gift of being brother and sister.

  That’s what I said to myself, but I made sure not to say it to him, it’s what I said to myself, just for me, just to myself while he was laughing, while my little brother was laughing as he raised his bandaged index finger because laughing triggered the pain, and then his gesture triggered our laughter again, after all it was pretty impressive, three choppers for a finger.

  Marie is the last one I pick up, and the first one to deliver the fresh and juicy rumour about my brother.

  Adèle, is it true that you know Axel? How do you know him? Do you really have the same surname as him? Was he your husband? My mother said he hadn’t been back for ten years.

  They all start on it, intermingling the rumours with their various adolescent worries.

  Yeah, he never worked around here. Apparently he even refused jobs on the plateau worksites, because his mother drowned in the reservoir. No, you idiot, she died before then. But still, after the flood barrier, that’s when they brought in the wind turbines.

  The older kids start having a go at each other about the turbines, and here we go, they undo their seatbelts and stand up, some for, some against.

  I stop the bus.

  Marie and Marine stare at them, incredulous and amused, and a bit anxious because of the time. On my right, Nadège is smiling, bored. I look at her, she gestures to me to ignore them, but I can’t drive when they don’t have their seatbelts on.

  Teenage boys in the early morning, in an argument laden with adult pretensions, geopolitical analysis. They defend their territory.

  The lakes are artificial, but not all of them, the flood barriers are narrow, the gorges long and straight and the mountains oval and shapely. The plateau is really long, the wind turbines huge, but how many girls are there in the area?

  Julien is angry, his Adam’s apple is going up and down. He’s standing up, facing Joël. I find their battles tiring, they go back a long way, to the old days, well before the flood barrier. Girls have always been able to head off elsewhere and invent new topographies for themselves.

  With the same anxious movement, Marine and Marie look at their watches, but the boys, ambushed by my silence, go and sit down.

  I start the motor again cautiously, because the snow is coming down, it’s really coming down, and now I can scarcely see the strip carved out by the snow plough’s bow thruster anymore, although I know it is not far in front.

  In the glare of the headlights, the colours of the trees are weird. The fog is stubborn, as if the nighttime snow and wind was not enough. I cannot see a thing; it seems like all the bad weather has converged here since the wind started up again, and yet I have to keep going. And the kids are making a drama out of it. Marie asks me why there’s no winter detour. Is it because of the landslide? If they don’t want us to go on the road down below, do you think there’s going to be a landslide there too? Will the snow be cleared from the pass? Why don’t they build the tunnel?

  I turn around to her. Trust me, calm down, we’re following the snow plough.

  If they start talking about the tunnel I’m really going to lose it.

  The tunnel and the wolves, that’s what they argue about the most. I hear Sébastien asking if anyone has a spade, and Nadège saying that by the time they find out anything about my life, Nielle will have grown a beard and Sylvain will be out of his hoodie. Sylvain replies, Yeah, that’ll be the day we find out why that guy on the road came back when school started, and why we haven’t seen him since.

  (on the way to the primary school)

  The snow stopped and the wind dropped, I couldn’t even say when, just like that, during my break, and so gradually that I didn’t notice. In the dawn, blocks of sunlight land on the cliffs, above the gorges. It’s a sunrise that resembles a sunset, and I can get a good look at things before I head to the farm gates and have to tackle nervous mothers.

  The witch never accompanies Lise and Minuit. For safety reasons, I am forbidden to drive to their house, even along the dry road. The children walk the two kilometres to the road, which is more or less clear of snow. They wait for me at the foot of the hill, like their big brother does. Lise told me last year that when the fog is so thick that she has to watch out for the snow on the ground, or when the snowstorm is too wild, she steps in her brother’s footprints all the way to the bus stop, so that she doesn’t get lost. And Minuit walks in my footsteps, but holding onto my coat.

  My brother and I loved finding footprints in the snow. Especially ones that were a few days old. On some late mornings, the softened snow trickled into the hollows. By evening that water was frozen, but not at the bottom, only in the middle of the footprints, where it turned into a thin strip of ice, a transparent hymen that I took time and a huge amount of pleasure to rupture with new footsteps.

  Lise buckles in Minuit and scoots to the back to sit in the sun. The route we take is full of bends, but it’s horizontal almost all the way, and more or less follows the opposite direction from the sun. Towards the west in the morning, towards the east in the evening, well, not exactly, it depends on the season, but this morning, in mid-November, my route does correspond to the principle of heading away from the sun at pick-up time for the little kids. Lise looks out the back window, basks in the sunrise, and as she’s almost a redhead, she is engulfed by the light. This afternoon, she will place herself in the sunset in the same way, in the soupy sunlight, and her face will glow red, then her cheeks will lose their lustre while I return the children to their homes. Right now the sun is hitting the rear-vision mirror, I can’t look at it.

  We’re following the European Watershed. It’s funny, the sky and the earth seem to have a dividing line between them too: in front of us the murky grey of the night, and behind us sickeningly bright colours. And by twisting around trying to see everything, Lise is going to end up vomiting for sure.

  I drive round the mountain to pick up Thierry, Nielle’s little brother. The sun changes sides, then settles once again on Lise’s skin. Thierry sits down next to her and makes a face. We lose the sun briefly as we descend a bit for a few kilometres, and as we ascend again it is no longer rising but already caught in the blades of the wind turbines. I reach for my sunglasses as I greet two brothers, Tom (Year Three) and Bruno (Year One). They climb on board and show me the spiderwebbed snowflakes unravelling in their hands, laughing at the play of light on the tiniest sprigs.

  The snow poles are garlanded with goatees of ic
e from a succession of days of windy, freezing fog. After all the recent anxiety about the weather forecast, it’s frustrating: there are just these stupid toupees around orange posts, and a few remarks from the mothers.

  God, it was terrible during milking this morning.

  And you didn’t have too much of a hard time picking up the big kids in this weather?

  God, it was terrible.

  When I used to be frightened of the dark, a darkness that seemed denser because of the tide pool around the farm, and when I didn’t want to go and tie up the dogs or empty the compost (it was on my list of chores), my mother used to say: Go on, be brave, you have to scare the darkness, and then you won’t be frightened anymore. So I stepped out into the night, making threats, but in the middle of summer the air was thick and seething with things that moved. The dark-blue flowers of the gentian plants filled the darkness, they seemed far too alive to me, they fluttered and that was it, I was too frightened. I tore back home, with no idea where I had dropped the bucket of compost.

  This morning I was calm. I haven’t been frightened of the dark for a long time, what’s more I prefer night-time snow to daytime snow, it’s less arrogant. I drive in the snow, the wind, the rain, the fog or the sunshine. In the cold it’s sometimes a strain on the engine, but I brave the elements, as they say, and the mothers are in awe of me.

  It’s really stupid and irresponsible, but one day I’d like to be caught up in a natural disaster like my brother was, in an accident on the mountain. I’d like to be trapped inside a huge storm, a snowstorm in which the bus broke down and emergency services had to be called, the whole shebang.

  The twins Paule and Nil climb in, silent and sullen, welded together.

  Driving is easy. Beneath the chassis I hear the dull, reassuring crunching of the freshly scattered pozzolanic ash.

  The gusts of wind have left outlines of shapes in the fields, in some places bumpy diagonal lines on the road, but there are no real snowdrifts before we reach the school. Just a busy trip, my mind focused on the children, on the pick-ups, no wandering thoughts.

  (on the way to the high school)

  Nadège says hello, looking at me from below, her face contorted in an exaggerated smile. I say hello back. She sits down next to Sylvain and continues to stare at me. I sigh, she looks away. I wonder if it’s that obvious. Yesterday, when I went to see my brother at his place, in the town below, he looked at me oddly, in the same way, from below.

  I met a guy in the village square on Saturday, we barely spoke, except to say hello, goodbye, so I have no idea what Nadège or my brother could possibly interpret from my face.

  What’s the matter? I said to my brother yesterday.

  Nothing, nothing at all. Nothing, he repeated, smiling, before changing the topic.

  What? I wanted to slap him.

  Nothing, Adèle, I didn’t say anything.

  I start the engine again in a bad mood. I’m worried about Axel, nothing to do every day, apart from going to the physio. I’m frightened that he won’t be able to manage by himself. I made him a few little meals for the week. I will go and visit him next weekend if the roads are clear, it takes at least two hours on dry roads, so who knows at the moment. He’s not used to looking after himself, he was almost never home, he went from construction site to construction site. When I arrived yesterday, I was shocked at how bleak his apartment was. I asked him to come and stay at my place, but he replied with the irrefutable argument that the only place he could see the specialist physio was down in town.

  I’m worried, but I can’t stop thinking about the guy, the hunter, and feeling absurdly happy.

  On Saturday, around five or six o’clock, I was in the square, on my way back from getting bread, a heavy Briard loaf, still warm from the baker’s second batch. It was my end-of-the-day time, when I felt syrupy and warm, and I saw him, standing there, smiling. He wasn’t like the others. Night was drawing in. He was leaning against one of the pick-up trucks, away from the group. I knew they had all come back from the hunt—deer or wild boar, I have no idea, I couldn’t care less—they were noisy, idiotic as usual. If he hadn’t had an orange vest and that annoyingly cocky stance, I would have sworn that he wasn’t one of them, because hunters don’t turn me on at all.

  Nadège tries to persuade Sylvain to lift up his hood a bit and then whispers something into his neck. I really wonder which of them she’ll end up choosing. Joël pretends to have his mind on other things, and Nielle acts as if she has never been of any interest to him, but it’s impossible. All of a sudden I get the sinking feeling that I too am in the same situation, in love so much it’s hurting me, like when I was fifteen, in love like an adolescent, with a jerk of a hunter.

  He studied me for a while, I think, before saying hello, and I gave a confusing response. That happens to me often when I pre-empt questions. I assume, for example, that a person is going to say good evening to me, so I say thank you and to you too, and it sounds stupid, because the person said see you tomorrow. I don’t remember what I said to him that missed the mark on Saturday, but I do know that whatever I said fell flat and he laughed. His laugh was attractive, and so was he in his orange vest.

  Just thinking about him makes driving very uncomfortable. And last night’s snow is getting on my nerves. I’d much rather go via the gorges, even though they’re off limits. I know there’s access before eight, after five, and on the weekend there are even minivans that use those roads, I passed a few yesterday when I went to see my brother, so why can’t my little vehicle get through? The weather is so mild and overcast today that if it ends up raining on the snow, it will be like a skating rink. At least in the gorges it’s less slippery.

  I have another problem with greetings: I never know what time to start with the good evenings, I invariably launch into them too early or too late. If I run into someone in the afternoon, I always make a mistake, and the person responds with good afternoon or good evening—whichever one I didn’t say. Perhaps that’s what happened on Saturday.

  Here we go, it’s raining, what did I say. Oh boy, you’re in a bad mood today, Adèle…And it’s going to be sludge everywhere now.

  Tomorrow, if the cold weather returns, all this snow swollen with water will freeze, we’ll be able to walk on it without snowshoes, and the sound of it cracking will be really loud.

  In the meantime, it’s sludge, like in spring.

  They say there’s no spring here, it’s just more snow during longer days. I think spring comes in obscure ways, in the unexpected mild spells of autumn, in the cold snaps of summer. The range in temperatures is more and more frequent, the severe droughts weaken the rocks, the fluctuations in freezing and thawing produce movement in the soil, the traffic on the roads intensifies the vibrations, the mountain is collapsing, and as well as all that, we don’t even know what to wear anymore.

  I should have been disgusted by him in his orange vest. I don’t like hunters, even though I know the hunts are necessary, and I wouldn’t take part in one myself. Around here, the hunters even take the trouble to knock on doors in the evening, on remote farms, in order to warn people that they’ll be there at dawn the next day, and the whole morning, on the edge of the forest, or in so-and-so’s field, we’re telling you for the kids’ sake, they say. I can’t stand weapons, and I don’t like the men’s smug, self-satisfied expressions, and he looked just like that, full of it.

  I walked past, right next to him, he said good afternoon (or good evening) as, with a resounding whomp, he heaved a tarpaulin over an enormous carcass in the back of a pick-up. Thinking about it now, it was probably too bulky to be a wild boar or a deer. I wonder if young stags pass through the shooting area occasionally, when the hunters are taking off their vests and diving into the forest.

  It’s really all just off-white mud now. I told the Year Nine kids to shut up so that I could concentrate on my driving, as if their negotiations over a SIM card were the source of my irritation. I’m so hopeless, too full of his laugh
ter, his voice, his gestures, to ignore the brute. It was nothing at all (how long—not even a minute or two), but the memory of it is clenched inside my belly and my scars contract, they’re almost completely taut. I picture him hitching his gun over his shoulder in slow motion. My scars trace the shape of my outer labia and they’ve been sensitive for ten years whenever desire makes them contract, not painful, but more sensitive than the labia of normal girls. I feel like an eternal convalescent, a new patient.

  I gained a great deal of composure from the postoperative treatments. They took up two or three hours of every day in all. I performed the tasks patiently, I felt inordinately relaxed. I tried not to touch my clitoris—a bit of the head of the penis that had been retained and provided with a nerve supply. It was so intensely sensitive that I could scarcely stand putting on jeans. The dilation exercises with surgical dildos were pretty unpleasant, but at the physio I met a young mother with whom I became friendly, and I enjoyed catching up with her there. I told her all about my second birth. Without any embarrassment, she told me about her failed episiotomy, her anger, her problems bonding with the baby, the useless father, the anxious older brother, all the endless postnatal worries. I caught her drawing little sketches. She blushed and shut her notebook quickly. One day she confessed to me that she wanted to write a novel, but that it always turned into a cartoon without speech bubbles. I’ve lost my words, she said. It was as if she had forgotten where she’d put them: I can’t find my words. She cried when I told her my story, I told her everything, she was so natural, sweet, a brunette with pale skin, beautiful, sincere. I had the impression she was crying over her own story as she listened to mine. These intimate crying sessions were wonderfully good for both of us.