by Anna Gavalda
He put his helmet and gloves on the counter: “Hold on a minute here, just one minute. I don’t think you understand, okay?” He was trying hard not to get annoyed. “I’ve come all the way from Paris and I have to go back there later, so if you could—”
A nurse came over.
“What’s going on?”
This one was more imposing.
“Yes, hello, I, um, sorry about the bother, but I have to see my grandmother who was brought in yesterday as an emergency and I—”
“Your name?”
“Lestafier.”
“Oh, yes.” She gestured something to her colleague. “Come with me.”
The nurse explained the situation briefly, gave him a rundown on the operation, told him what the rehabilitation period would involve and asked for details about the patient’s lifestyle. Suddenly bothered by the smells and the engine noise still thrumming in his ears, Franck had trouble following her.
“Here’s your grandson!” the nurse announced gaily as she opened the door. “You see? I told you he’d come! Okay, I’ll leave you now,” and to Franck she added, “Come and see me in my office, otherwise they won’t let you out.”
He didn’t have the presence of mind to thank her. What he saw there, in the bed, broke his heart.
He turned aside to try to pull himself together. Removed his jacket and sweater, and looked for somewhere to hang them up.
“It’s hot in here, isn’t it.”
His voice sounded strange.
“You okay?”
The old lady, who was bravely trying to smile at him, closed her eyes and began to cry.
They’d removed her dentures. Her cheeks seemed terribly hollow and her upper lip was sucked into her mouth.
“So! You been partying again, that it?”
It cost him a superhuman effort just to use that bantering tone.
“I talked with the nurse, you know, she said the operation was very successful. So now you’ve got a nice little piece of metal in you.”
“They’re going to put me in a home.”
“Of course not! What are you talking about! You’re going to stay here for a few days and then you’ll go to a convalescent home. That’s not a home, it’s like a hospital, only not as big. They’ll pamper you and help you to walk and then, presto! Back to Paulette’s garden.”
“For how long?”
“A couple weeks . . . then it’ll depend on you. You’ll have to make an effort.”
“You’ll come and see me?”
“Of course I’ll come. I’ve got a beautiful motorbike, you know.”
“You don’t drive too fast, I hope.”
“Bah, it’s a regular tortoise.”
“Liar . . .”
She was smiling through her tears.
“Stop it, Grandma, otherwise I’ll start crying too.”
“No, you won’t. Not you, you never cry. Even when you were just a little kid, even the day you twisted your arm, I never saw you shed a single tear . . .”
“Cut it out, all the same.”
He didn’t dare take her hand because of all the tubing.
“Franck?”
“I’m here, Grandma.”
“It hurts.”
“That’s normal, it’ll pass, you have to get some sleep now.”
“It really hurts.”
“I’ll tell the nurse before I leave, I’ll ask her to give you something.”
“Are you leaving right away?”
“Of course not!”
“Talk to me a little. Tell me what you’ve been up to.”
“Wait, let me switch off the light. The lighting in this place is truly horrible.”
Franck raised the blinds and the room, which faced west, was suddenly bathed in a gentle twilight. Then he moved the armchair to the other side so he could take her good hand between his own.
At first it was hard to find the words, he’d never been one for fancy talk or telling stories. He began with little things, the weather in Paris, the pollution, the color of his Suzuki, a description of his menus and that sort of trivial stuff.
And then, with the help of the fading day and his grandmother’s almost peaceful face, he began to share more precise memories, and intimate things that were harder to talk about. He told her about why he’d split up with his girlfriend, the name of the new girl he had his eye on, how he was getting on at work, his exhaustion. He did an imitation of his new roommate and he heard his grandmother laughing gently.
“You’re exaggerating . . .”
“I swear I’m not. You’ll find out when you come to see us, you’ll see.”
“Oh, but I don’t want to go up to Paris.”
“So we’ll come down here, and you’ll make us a nice meal.”
“You think so?”
“Yes. You can make your potato cake.”
“Oh no, not that, that’s just country food.”
Then he told her about the atmosphere in the restaurant: how the chef would fly off the handle, how one day a minister came into the kitchen to congratulate him, about the skill of young Takumi, and about the price of truffles. He told her the latest about Momo and Madame Mandel. Finally he fell quiet to listen to her breathing and he realized she’d fallen asleep. He got up without making any noise.
Just as he was about to go out the door Paulette called him back: “Franck?”
“Yeah?”
“I haven’t told your mother, you know.”
“That’s good.”
“I—”
“Shh. Go to sleep now. The more you sleep the sooner you’ll be on your feet.”
“Was I right?”
He nodded and put a finger to her lips.
“Yes. Go on, go to sleep now.”
He was dazzled by the harshness of the neon lights and it took him forever to find his way out. The nurse he’d spoken to earlier stopped him on his way.
She pointed to a chair and opened Paulette’s file. She began by asking a few practical and administrative questions, but Franck didn’t react.
“Are you all right?”
“Tired.”
“Have you eaten?”
“No, I—”
“Hold on. I’ve got something right here.”
She pulled a tin of sardines and a packet of crackers from the drawer.
“Maybe this will do you?”
“And what about you?”
“No problem. Look, I’ve got loads of cookies. Want a little java with that?”
“No, thanks. I’ll get a Coke from the machine.”
“Go ahead, I’ll have a little glass of something to keep you company but . . . don’t tell anyone, okay?”
He ate, answered all her questions and then picked up his gear.
“She says it hurts.”
“She’ll feel better tomorrow. We’ve put some anti-inflammatory in her drip and she’ll feel better when she wakes up.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s my job.”
“I meant for the sardines.”
He drove fast, collapsed on his bed, hid his face in the pillow to keep from breaking down. Not now. He’d managed for so long, he could hang on just a bit longer.
7
“COFFEE?”
“No, Coke, please.”
Camille took little sips. She was sitting with her elbows on the table in a café opposite the restaurant where her mother had told her to meet. She now placed both hands flat on the table on either side of the glass and closed her eyes, breathing slowly. No matter how infrequent these lunches were, they always played havoc with her insides. She would leave again bent double, staggering, feeling like she had been scraped raw. As if her mother were trying, with a sadistic and probably unconscious diligence, to pick at scabs and open a thousand little wounds one by one. In the mirror behind the bottles Camille could see her now, going through the door into Jade Paradise. She smoked a cigarette, went to the toilet, paid for her drink and crossed the street. Hands in her poc
kets, and her pockets crossed over her stomach.
Camille saw her mother’s hunched figure and sat down across from her, taking a deep breath:
“Morning, Mom.”
“Aren’t you going to kiss me?”
“Morning, Mom,” she said more slowly.
“How are things?”
“Why do you ask?”
Camille held on to the edge of the table to stop herself from getting up again right away.
“Because that’s what people usually say when they meet.”
“I’m not ‘people.’ ”
“What are you, then?”
“Oh, please, don’t start, okay?”
Camille turned her head and looked at the horrid décor of pseudo-Asian stucco and bas-reliefs. The tortoise-shell effect and “mother-of-pearl” inlay were made of plastic, and the lacquer was yellow Formica.
“It’s nice here.”
“No, it’s horrible. But I don’t have the means to invite you to Tour d’Argent, so there. Anyway, even if I did, I wouldn’t take you. The way you eat it would be money down the drain.”
Great atmosphere.
Camille’s mother began to giggle sarcastically:
“Though you could go there without me because you do have money. It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any—”
“Stop right now,” threatened Camille, “or I’ll leave. If you need money, just tell me and I’ll lend you some.”
“That’s right, I hear you’ve got a job now, a good job, interesting to boot. Cleaning lady. Really hard to imagine for someone who’s as messy as you are. You never fail to astonish me, you know that?”
“Stop, Mom, stop right there. We can’t go on like this. We cannot, don’t you see? At least I can’t. Change the subject, please. Change. The. Subject.”
“You had a great job and you went and ruined everything.”
“A great job. Like hell . . . And I don’t miss it at all, either. I wasn’t happy there.”
“You didn’t have to stay there all your life. And anyway, what is ‘happy’ supposed to mean? That the new ‘in’ word or something? Happy! Happy! If you think we’re here on earth to frolic around and pick daisies, you’re just plain naive, young lady.”
“No, no, you can relax, that’s not what I think at all. I’ve been in good hands so I know we’re here to have a hard time. You said so often enough.”
“Are you ready to order?” asked the waitress.
Camille could have kissed her.
Her mother spread her pills on the table and counted them with one finger.
“Aren’t you sick of taking all that crap?”
“Don’t talk about what you don’t know. I’d be long dead if it weren’t for these pills.”
“What makes you say that? And why don’t you take off those awful glasses? There’s no sun in here.”
“I feel better with them. This way I see the world the way it is.”
Camille decided to smile, and patted her mother’s hand. It was either that or go for her neck and strangle her.
Her mother smiled, moaned a bit, talked about her loneliness, her back, the stupidity of her colleagues and the woes of co-ownership. She ate with gusto and frowned when her daughter ordered a beer.
“You drink too much.”
“Yes, you’re right! C’mon, cheers. For once you’re not saying something stupid.”
“You never come to see me.”
“And now? What am I doing here, then?”
“Always the last word, right? Just like your father.”
Camille froze.
“Ah, you don’t like it when I talk about him, do you,” she declared triumphantly.
“Mom, please . . . Don’t go there.”
“I’ll go wherever I like. Aren’t you going to finish your plate?”
“No.”
Her mother shook her head disapprovingly.
“Look at you. You’re a skeleton. If you think that’s what the boys like—”
“Mom—”
“What, ‘Mom’? I worry about you, that’s normal, you don’t bring children into the world to watch them waste away in front of your eyes!”
“So why did you bring me into the world, then?”
The moment she said it Camille realized she’d gone too far and now her mother would put on her drama queen act. There would be nothing new, she’d seen it a thousand times and her mother had it down pat: emotional blackmail, crocodile tears, and suicide threats. At random or in that order.
She wept, reproached her daughter for leaving her just like the girl’s father had done fifteen years earlier, said she was an ungrateful child and wondered what earthly reason she had left for living.
“Give me a single reason to be here, one single reason.”
Camille rolled a cigarette.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
Camille was silent.
“Thank you, my dear, thank you. Your answer couldn’t be any clearer.”
She sniffed, put two restaurant coupons on the table, and walked out.
Don’t get emotional; the sudden departure has always been the apotheosis, the curtain’s descent, on her mother’s theatrics.
Usually the star would wait until after dessert, but it was true they’d been in a Chinese restaurant and her mother didn’t especially like fried bananas, lychees, or other sorts of sickly-sweet nougats.
No. She mustn’t get emotional.
It was never easy, but Camille had learned certain survival tricks long ago. So she resorted to her usual tactic and tried to focus on what she knew for sure. There were a few really simple tenets, full of common sense. Hastily assembled little crutches she could reach for when she had to see her mother. Because there wasn’t much point in these forced encounters—absurd and destructive as they were—if her mother didn’t get something out of them. And Catherine Fauque did get something out of them, for sure: being able to use her daughter as a doormat was very gratifying. And even if she often stomped off with an outraged flourish in the middle of dinner, she always went away satisfied. Satisfied and replete. With all her abject good faith and pathetic vindictiveness intact, and an ample supply of grist to her mill for next time.
Camille had taken a while to figure this out and, moreover, she hadn’t managed it on her own. She’d had help. Some of the people who knew her, especially in the early days when she was still too young to judge her mother, had given her the keys to understanding her mother’s attitude. But that was in the old days, and all those people who’d looked out for her then were no longer around.
And now the kid was having a very hard time of it.
She really was.
8
THE table had been cleared and the restaurant was emptying. But Camille didn’t move. She kept smoking and ordering coffees so they wouldn’t kick her out.
A toothless old Asian man in the back of the restaurant was jabbering and laughing to himself. The young woman who had waited on their table was standing behind the bar. She was drying glasses, and from time to time she scolded the old man in their language. He would frown, sit quietly for a minute, then start up again with his nonsensical monologue.
“Are you getting ready to close?” asked Camille.
“No,” the girl replied, putting a bowl down in front of the old man, “we stop serving but we stay open. You want another coffee?”
“No, no, thanks. Can I stay a little bit longer?”
“Of course! You can stay. As long as you’re here, it gives him something to think about.”
“You mean I’m the one who’s making him laugh like that?”
“You or anyone.”
Camille stared at the old man, then smiled at him.
Gradually, the anxiety her mother had plunged her into began to fade. She listened to the sounds coming from the kitchen: running water, pots and pans, the radio, and incomprehensible refrains in a shrill key which had the young girl jiggling
her feet, keeping time. Camille watched the old man as he lifted long noodles with his chopsticks, dribbling broth down his chin, and she suddenly felt as though she were in the dining room of a real house.
There was nothing on the table in front of her other than her coffee cup and tobacco pouch. She moved them over to the next table and began to smooth the tablecloth.
Slowly, very slowly, she ran the flat of her hand over the cheap, stained paper that covered the table.
She went on doing this for several long minutes.
Her mind grew calmer and her heartbeat accelerated.
She was afraid.
She had to try. You have to try. Yes, but it’s been such a long time since—
Ssh, she murmured to herself, ssh, I’m here. It will be fine. Look, it’s now or never. Go on, don’t be afraid.
She raised her hand a few inches from the table and waited for it to stop trembling. Good, you see? She reached for her backpack and rummaged inside: there it was.
She brought out the little wooden box and put it on the table. She opened it, took a small rectangular stone and rubbed it against her cheek; it was soft and warm. Then she unfolded a blue cloth and lifted out a stick of ink; there was a strong scent of sandalwood. Finally she unrolled a little mat of bamboo slats in which two brushes nestled.
The larger one was of goat’s hair, and the other, much finer, of pig silk.
She stood up, took a pitcher of water from the counter and two phone books, and bowed slightly to the crazy old man.
She put the phone books on her seat so she’d be able to stretch her arms out without touching the table, poured a few drops of water onto the slate stone and began to grind the ink. The voice of her master echoed in her ear: Turn the stone very slowly, little Camille. Oh, even slower than that! And longer. Maybe two hundred times because, you see, as you do that you’re loosening your wrist and preparing your mind for great things . . . Don’t think about anything anymore—stop looking at me, you naughty girl! Concentrate on your wrist, it will guide you for the first stroke and it is the first stroke alone which counts; that is what will give life and breath to your drawing.