And Their Children After Them

by Nicolas Mathieu

  * * *

  —

  The little crowd suddenly seemed to part in the middle and began to move in a circle, like a school of fish. Évelyne Grandemange, the widow, had just appeared. Holding her arm was a very tall, slim, hunched man with a pockmarked face. This was her nephew Brice. Everybody knew him; he had that truck and van rental place on the road to Étange.

  “She seems to be doing okay,” said Vanessa.

  It was true. Évelyne seemed in good shape. She was even doing a bit of a star turn, all smiles, saying hello to everyone, an eternal Gauloise in her hand. Anthony, who hadn’t seen her for a few months, was startled to see how deeply she had settled into old age. She looked sunken, withered, her face somber and furrowed, as if kneaded by the years. Her shining eyes and tireless smile almost clashed with the rest of her looks. Her legs, especially, didn’t bode well. They looked like two wooden sticks. Anthony hoped he wouldn’t have to kiss her; it would feel cold.

  “Do you think we ought to go over?”

  “Whatever you like,” answered Vanessa.

  “I don’t know what to say to her.”

  “Well, just tell her you’re so sorry. That’s all.”

  “I don’t really feel it.”

  “Haven’t you ever been to a funeral before?”

  “No. What about you?”

  “My grandmother, when I was a little girl.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  “Pfff! You doofus!”

  They stopped talking and stood there. All in all, Anthony was quite pleased that she’d come. The hearse appeared, bearing the coffin. It was a long, old-fashioned pachydermic Citroen CX bright with chrome, with lots of windows to show the interior. There was something majestic about its movement, and people parted as it passed. It was so quiet, you could hear the sigh of its hydraulic suspension when it stopped. The crowd fell silent as well. A body inside was on the verge of disappearing. A cold future that awaited us all. People stopped kidding around.

  “Damn, I wonder where my father is,” said Anthony.

  “Are you sure he’s going to come?”

  “I hope so.”

  Even after all this time, Anthony still worried that Patrick would show up dead drunk. He had too many memories from before, from his childhood and then the rest, the crises during the divorce, finding his father in a pathetic state, weeping and saying he was going to shoot himself. Best not to think of it.

  Two men wearing identical eggplant-colored polyester suits got out of the CX. The taller one’s tennis socks were visible. His shorter partner wore glasses that darkened in sunlight. They lowered the tailgate, and Brice the nephew and another man came over to lend a hand. When they hoisted the coffin, it seemed surprisingly light, and too small.

  “How did they ever fit him in there?” someone wondered.

  “At the end, he was just skin and bones.”

  “Still, it’s not like they folded him in half.”

  The crowd gradually arranged itself into a cortège behind the deceased. The coffin led the way, followed by the widow, all alone. Behind her, people came in twos and threes, walking in silence, with children held by the hand and the old by the arm. In the nave, which was cool and empty, the organ was already playing drawn-out notes that echoed in people’s chests and under the stone arches. The pews gradually filled as the coffin was set on stands. Two white candles stood guard on either side.

  Anthony, Hélène, and Vanessa slipped into a row halfway between the choir and the porch. Unused to being in church, Anthony looked at the stained glass windows, the sculptures, and the images of agony and glory without understanding any of it. For him and for many others, the meaning of that language had been lost. All that remained was pretentious decorum and empty gestures. At least it was cool.

  The priest tapped the microphone to make sure that the speakers worked. He began:

  “Dear brothers, we are gathered today to remember…”

  Anthony turned around in the hope of spotting his father in the crowd, but he still wasn’t there. On the other hand, his cousin was a few rows away, with his girlfriend, Séverine. He and Anthony shared a smile, and his cousin even winked at him. He’d completely dropped out of circulation after he started going with her. She was a knockout biracial girl who competed in beauty contests. Even here, dressed in sober black, she still caught people’s eye. The cousin was totally at her beck and call. You could understand why. Still, it was stupid.

  Aside from that, the rogues’ gallery of faces summed up old Grandemange’s life pretty well. The family, the neighbors, old workmates, two deputy mayors, business owners, drinking buddies, and guys from the Société des fêtes. Gathered at the back were his CGT union brothers, guys who shared a look of cocky aloofness that went with their refusal to get dressed up. And then there was Dr. Reswiller, in a houndstooth jacket and black polo shirt, with glasses on his forehead and Paraboots on his feet, as usual. He had suspected that there was something wrong with Luc’s pancreas from the very beginning. He ordered some extra tests, which confirmed his diagnosis. Reswiller had been Grandemange’s doctor for nearly forty years, and together they agreed to put off hospitalization as long as possible, since he was as good as dead anyway. When the pain became unbearable, he was put in a double room with a parking-lot view, television, and a morphine drip. Very soon, he sank into a coma. In two weeks, it was all over.

  During the ceremony, the priest summed up the deceased’s life, which had been neither very long nor very exemplary. It filled a single sheet of paper. To begin with, he had a father and a mother who died during the war, leaving two children. Luc was the youngest and had a rough time, growing up in boarding schools as a war orphan. For people who had only known him as a big, easygoing mastodon of a guy, always joking and complaining, those memories seemed almost impossible. Grandemange had loved nature, rock ’n’ roll and Charles Trénet, hunting, and drinking. He met Évelyne in 1966 and married her. The priest then ran through the list of his jobs, which paralleled the valley’s economic history: Metalor, Rexel, Pomona, City2000, Socogem. But he said nothing about the lean years, unemployment, layoffs, union activism, politics, or the most recent campaign, during which Grandemange had put up posters for the National Front.

  The priest concluded soberly, noting that for Luc Grandemange “friendship” wasn’t an empty word, and that he had always been deeply involved in the town’s life. Seated in the front row, Évelyne listened in silence, her hands gripping a dry handkerchief. Along with that, you had to stand up, sit down, pray. In general, everything that had been said was forgotten. The nephew read a poem by Éluard. People sang, tentatively. Those who wished to bless the coffin did so. The organ played. It was over.

  As they went out, Anthony was relieved to see his father standing in the back near the door, hands in his pockets. He had gotten a haircut and put on his blue suit. That’s when you realized that he’d lost quite a bit of weight, in spite of the belly that stretched his shirt.

  “Stay close to me,” whispered Hélène, who was as white as a sheet.

  Anthony reassured her. In the distance, his father watched them, a slight smile playing on his lips. Aside from that, he seemed in great shape.

  7

  Steph parked the 205 with the top down near the train station. This was a functional, century-old building with a clock high on the wall that read 4:10 p.m. Clémence remarked that they were super early. Steph didn’t even hear.

  She had been waiting and getting herself ready for ages. These last few days she had been careful to drink her two daily bottles of Contrex mineral water. She had lain out in the sun, but not too much, an hour at most, patiently building up her tan so as to get the perfect smooth suntan, a golden skin with a few pale marks on her naked body, a memory of her bikini.

  The moment Steph got out of bed, she stepped onto the scales feeling vaguely worried. She liked to eat an
d party. She enjoyed staying up late and tended to drink a lot. So she had started watching her weight to the ounce, tracking how much sleep she got, and taking great care of her body, which was prone to extraordinary changes, depending on the moment, the light, her fatigue, and what she’d had to eat. She polished her nails, made up her eyes, treated her hair to two shampoos, first one with seaweed, then one with eggs. She gave herself a facial. In the shower, she scrubbed her skin with coffee grounds. She entrusted her legs and pussy to her beautician. She was clean, appetizing, calibrated to the millimeter.

  Today, she was wearing a brand-new tank top, a striped Petit Bateau number that was so tight, Clémence asked if it was designed for a six-year-old.

  “We’re gonna have to wait for hours,” said Clem, who was already feeling bored.

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but we are.”

  They went to Platform 2, which was completely deserted. The girls both had long hair and were wearing Converses and skirts. The train would arrive at 4:42, with a two-minute stop, maximum. The Heillange station hardly served any purpose anymore, but survived as a matter of principle because the deputy mayor had made it a political issue, because a town without a train station was nothing at all. On the shabby walls, illegible posters gave the schedule of the regional TER trains, which no longer stopped here. The advertisements were six months old. The weather was horribly oppressive. Clémence decided to go wait in the shade. A feverish Stéphanie took to staring at the point on the horizon where the tracks converged.

  She felt happy. She was about to get her reward.

  Steph had been sweating blood these last few months. She had always skated through life, doing as little as possible. Merely acting doleful and looking cute were enough to get her through most situations. Except that as exam time approached, her father had suddenly started harboring unexpected ambitions. Or maybe he’d begun to panic about Steph’s future. Whatever the case, he’d read her the riot act. Unless she passed her baccalauréat with honors, he said, she could kiss her car and her vacation goodbye.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  She still remembered the moment when he lowered the boom. She was standing in the kitchen, eating a strawberry Yoplait. That’s probably why she would hate that flavor for the rest of her life.

  “I’m just warning you, that’s all,” he said. “Either you pass with honors or you won’t get a car.”

  “But I already took the written driving test.”

  “So what? I saw your girlfriend’s father at the stadium yesterday. She’s going to take a préparatoire course in Lyon.”

  That bitch Clémence! Always slaving away on the sly. Whereas with all her screwups, Steph was now up against the wall.

  “But she’s been working like crazy ever since elementary school!”

  “So what were you doing all that time?”

  “That has nothing to do with it! Where in the world is this coming from? I can’t make up ten years in three months, that’s nuts.”

  “I’ve talked it over with your mother. That’s the way it is. Also, you’re going to finish your college applications. That’s been dragging on for weeks.”

  “Okay, fine.”

  “When?”

  “I’ll get to it.”

  “Today!”

  “Jesus…” Steph groaned.

  In disgust, she tossed her Yoplait in the garbage, spoon and all.

  The ultimatum hit especially hard because she’d just found a little Peugeot 205. It had 140,000 miles on the odometer, but it was red and a convertible—and her parents had said yes. She and Clémence had been dreaming nonstop about what they would do with it. And now the dream was imploding just like that, right in their remodeled kitchen.

  Ever since he’d started aiming for the mayoralty, Pierre Chaussoy had developed a rabid appetite for conformity. It had gotten so bad that Steph’s mother could hardly go out in a miniskirt anymore. And now he wanted an offspring with diplomas. He was less of a pain when all he cared about was cars and getting a new coupé every year.

  All things considered, the threat to Steph’s vacation was the most serious. If she bugged her parents long enough, she would eventually wind up getting a car. It was essential for getting around here, and cheap, so they wouldn’t give her a hard time. The vacation, on the other hand, was something else. They’d grumbled about it from the start. The plan was a pretty big deal. The Rotiers owned a fabulous house in the Basque country near Biarritz, a sheepfold facing the ocean, to which they invited a chosen few every August. Stéphanie and Clémence had scored invitations for the first time this year, a signal honor.

  It should be said that Steph and Simon were now pretty much seen as a couple, despite the breakups, psychodramas, reconciliations, and separations that were their standard operating procedure. She was his girlfriend, and that was that.

  Starting in April, Steph’s life became a sedentary nightmare. She had been counting on passing the baccalauréat with a B– average, thanks to helpful coefficients in English and sports on the oral exams. But her dad’s demands had thrown her into homework hell. Worse, she was practicing for her driver’s license at the same time.

  So for weeks on end, Steph endured a series of exhausting days. She got up at six and studied before breakfast, especially history and geography, subjects that demanded an unreal amount of memorization. Yalta, the United States, Japan, the Missile Crisis, the Trente Glorieuses…was there no end to this crap? She bought Bristol index cards, writing notes in blue ink and emphasizing dates in red. She had some Muesli and orange juice and continued studying in the car on the way to school. Then she had classes, followed by tutoring in math.

  In her major, every subject counted, even philosophy. Plato’s Republic, seriously? Who dreamed up these insane programs? In a country ravaged by unemployment, socialism, and Asian competition, were younger generations really expected to be interested in that ancient bullshit? In the library, Clémence got a good laugh when she saw Steph aim two fingers at her temple, but that didn’t help her understand the allegory of the cave.

  After a while, she decided to focus on “annales,” well-edited little study guides that summarized everything you needed to know to avoid being humiliated on exam day. She underlined the main points but was so anxious that she wound up highlighting practically every single line. Sometimes, when she got the blues, she would fold her arms on her desk and bury her head in them. The weather was beautiful and Roland Garros would be on TV soon.

  In the evening, Clémence would drop Steph off at the driving school. Her instructor, who wore Bermuda shorts and Pataugas boots, would drape his arm around her headrest. For the whole driving lesson, she had to endure the smell of his armpits and the sweaty presence of this car-crazed clown. It was enough to make you weep. The guy had an especially disgusting way of teaching parallel parking. As she was pulling in, he would slide close, watch the rearview mirror, and mutter, “Yes…Yes…No…That’s good. A little to the right. Gooood. Yes.” What a creep! Once, she yanked the handbrake and ditched him, stalking off without a backward glance.

  When she got home, Steph went at it again, studying until nine, if not later. Clémence came over and they would cram together. The girls also spent a fair amount of time figuring out college majors. Steph had never taken much interest in her orientation. She was now discovering a whole nebula of programs in the liberal professions, secondary degree tracks, dead-end paths and useless bachelor’s degrees, and technical diplomas that led to well-paying jobs with no hope of promotion. Clémence, on the other hand, had those career paths down cold, had been preparing for them since forever. Steph was only now discovering that there was no such thing as destiny. In reality, you had to build your future like a construction game, one brick at a time. You had to make the right choices, because you couldn’t afford to take a path that required a great deal of effort and d
idn’t lead anywhere. Clémence had all this stuff at her fingertips. Her father was a doctor, and her mother, an education inspector. Those people had practically invented the game.

  At times, Steph would space out. Her mind wandered. She started thinking about Simon Rotier, wondering what he was doing. She hardly had a second to devote to him, and, knowing Simon, he probably wasn’t sitting around twiddling his thumbs. Whenever they ran into each other in the hallway at school, she couldn’t help demanding to know what he’d been up to. Their conversations quickly turned nasty. Also, that slut Virginie Vanier was buzzing around him, with her big teeth and her big tits. Too bad. Steph had to stay focused. Honors. The car. The vacation. The Basque country. Once there, she would go swimming every day. They would go surfing, have barbecues, party nonstop. She and Simon would fuck in the shade of the pine trees, with the taste of salt on skin, the rustling of the wind, the ocean so close.

  “And itchy sand up your ass,” added Clémence.

  Steph grinned. She no longer saw her friend the same way. Now that she was thinking about her future, her options, and the way careers were made, she was suddenly becoming conscious of a new fact: the world belonged to the students who were the first in their class. All those kids, the ones people mocked for being followers, timid, brown-nosers, and conscientious, had the right idea from the very beginning. If you want a crack at the good jobs and later an exciting, respected life with couture suits and pricey heels, it isn’t enough to be cool and well born. You have to do your homework. This came as a real shock for Steph, who had largely relied on her basic don’t-give-a damn attitude and a fondness for sliding and board sports.