Fresh Water for Flowers

by Valérie Perrin

  Madame Pinto goes past me again to fill up her watering can. Behind her, Claire, the woman from Mâcon’s oncology unit, makes for Thierry Teissier’s grave, clutching a potted rosebush. I go over to her.

  “Good morning, madame, I would like to plant this rosebush at Thierry Teissier’s grave.”

  I call out to Nono, who is in his hut. The gravediggers have a hut where they get changed, take a shower at midday and in the evening, and wash their work clothes. Nono says that the smell of death cannot cling to his clothes, but no detergent exists to stop it sullying the inside of his noggin.

  While Nono digs where Claire wants to plant the rosebush, Elvis sings: Always on my mind, always on my mind . . . Nono puts in a little peat and a stake so the rosebush grows straight. He tells Claire that he knew Thierry, and that he was a good guy.

  Claire wanted to give me money for watering Thierry’s rosebush from time to time. I told her that I would water it, but that I never accepted money. That she could slip some change into the ladybird-shaped moneybox in my kitchen, on top of the fridge, and that such cash donations went toward buying food for the cemetery’s animals.

  She said, “Fine.” And that, normally, she never did this, attend the funerals of patients from her unit. That it was the first time. That Thierry Teissier, he was too nice to be buried under the ground, like that, with nothing around him. That she’d chosen a red rosebush for what it symbolized, and she wanted Thierry to live on through it. She added that the flowers would keep him company.

  I took her to see one of the loveliest tombs in the cemetery, that of Juliette Montrachet (1898–1962), around which various plants and shrubs have grown, combining colors and foliage harmoniously, while never being maintained. A garden tomb. As though chance and nature had come to an amicable agreement.

  Claire said: “These flowers, they’re a bit like ladders up to heaven.” She thanked me, too. She drank a glass of water at my place, slipped a few notes into the ladybird moneybox, and off she went.

  10.

  Talking about you is making you exist,

  saying nothing would be forgetting you.

  I met Philippe Toussaint on July 28th, 1985, the day that Michel Audiard, the great screenwriter, died. Perhaps that’s why Philippe Toussaint and I never had much to say to each other. Why our dialogues were as flat as Tutankhamun’s brain scan. When he said to me, “That drink, shall we have it at my place?” I immediately said, “Yes.”

  Before leaving the Tibourin club, I felt the looks of the other girls. The ones kicking their heels in the endless line behind him, since he had turned his back on them to look at me. I felt their eyes, covered in shadow and mascara, killing me, cursing me, condemning me to death when the music stopped.

  No sooner had I said yes than we were on his motorbike, a too-big helmet on my head and his hand on my left knee. I closed my eyes. It began to rain on us. I felt raindrops on my face.

  His parents rented a studio for him in the center of Charleville-Mézières. As we went up in the lift, I was still hiding my bitten nails under my sleeves.

  As soon as we were inside his place, he threw himself on me without saying a word. I also stayed silent. Philippe Toussaint was so handsome that he took my breath away. Like when my primary-school teacher had done a lesson on Picasso and his Blue Period. The paintings she’d shown us, using her ruler on a book, had taken my breath away, and I’d decided that the rest of my life would be blue.

  I slept at his place, dazed with the pleasure he’d given my body. For the first time, I’d enjoyed making love; I hadn’t done it in exchange for something. I began to hope that it would start again. And we did start again. I didn’t leave, I continued to sleep at his place. One day, two days, then three. After that, everything merged together. Days became fused, one to the next. Like a train whose carriages my memory can’t distinguish anymore. All that’s left is the memory of the journey.

  Philippe Toussaint turned me into a dreamy sort. An entranced little girl who, looking at the photo of a blond, blue-eyed boy in a magazine, thinks: This picture belongs to me, I can put it in my pocket. I spent hours caressing him, one of my hands forever lingering on some part of him. There’s a saying that beauty can’t be eaten as a salad, but me, well, I dined on his beauty like a three-course meal. And if there were any leftovers, I helped myself again. He went along with it. I seemed to appeal to him, as did my caresses. He possessed me, and that’s all that mattered.

  I fell in love. Thank goodness I’d never had a family, I would’ve abandoned it myself. Philippe Toussaint became my sole focus. I directed all that I was and all that I had at him. My entire being for just one person. If I could have lived in him, inside of him, I wouldn’t have hesitated.

  One morning, he said to me, “Come and live here.” He said nothing more. Just that, “Come and live here.” I left the hostel over the top of a wall—I was still underage. I turned up at Philippe Toussaint’s with a suitcase containing all that I owned. Meaning, not much. Some clothes and my first doll, Caroline. She spoke when she was given to me (“Hello, Mommy, my name is Caroline, come and play with me,” and then she laughed), but the batteries, the damp circuits, the moves, the foster families, the social workers, the caseworkers, it had all taken her breath away, too. School photos; four LPs, two of Etienne Daho (Mythomane and La Notte, la Notte), one of Indochine (3), one of Charles Trenet (La Mer); five Tintin books (Le Lotus bleu, Les Bijoux de la Castefiore, Le Sceptre d’Ottokar, Tintin et les Picaros, Le Temple du soleil); the pencil case I’d used during my scant education, with the signatures of all the other dunces (Lolo, Sika, So, Stéph, Manon, Isa, Angelo) scrawled on it in ballpoint pen.

  Philippe Toussaint moved a few things to make space for mine. Then he said:

  “You really are a strange girl.”

  And I replied: “Shall we make love?”

  I didn’t feel like getting into that conversation. I never felt like getting into a conversation with him.

  11.

  Soothe his rest with your sweetest singing.

  A fly is swimming in my glass of port. I deposit it on the outside ledge of my window. As I’m closing it, I see the detective walking up the road, the light of the street-lamps on his coat. The path leading to the cemetery is lined with trees. Down below is Father Cédric’s church. And behind the church, the few streets that make up the town center. The detective walks fast. He looks frozen stiff.

  I feel like being alone. Like every evening. Speak to no one. Read, listen to the radio, have a bath. Close the shutters. Wrap myself in a pink silk kimono. Just feel good.

  Once the gates have been shut, time belongs to me. I’m its sole owner. It’s a luxury to be the owner of one’s time. I think it’s one of the greatest luxuries human beings can afford themselves.

  I’m still wearing winter over summer, when normally, at this hour, I wear summer. I’m a bit annoyed with myself for suggesting to the detective that he come to mine, for offering him my help.

  He knocks on the door, like the first time. Eliane doesn’t move. She’s already settled in for the night, curled in a ball under the countless blankets in her basket.

  He smiles at me, says good evening to me. A sharp chill enters as he does. Quickly, I close the door. I pull out a chair for him to sit on. He doesn’t take his coat off. A good sign. It means he won’t stay long.

  Without asking him a thing, I take out a crystal glass and pour him some of my port—1983 vintage—the one José-Luis Fernandez brings me. When he sees the collection of bottles inside the cupboard that serves as my bar, my visitor’s big brown eyes get even bigger. There are hundreds of them. Fortified wines, malts, liqueurs, eaux-de-vie, spirits.

  “I don’t traffic alcohol, they’re gifts. People don’t dare give me flowers. One doesn’t give flowers to cemetery keepers, especially since I sell them. One doesn’t give flowers to florists, either. Apart from Madame Pinto, who br
ings me vacuum-packed dolls every year, the others all go for bottles or pots of jam. I’d need several lives to down it all. So, I give a lot of it to the gravediggers.”

  He takes off his gloves and has a first sip of port.

  “What you’re drinking there, it’s the finest I have.”

  “Divine.”

  I don’t know why, but I’d never have imagined him coming out with the word “divine” while sipping my port. Aside from his hair, which goes off in all directions, there’s nothing frivolous about him. He looks just as sad as the clothes he wears.

  I take a notebook and pen, sit facing him, and ask him to tell me about his mother. He appears to think for a few moments, breathes in, and replies:

  “She was blonde. It was natural.”

  And then nothing more. He’s back studying my blank walls as if there were masterpieces hanging on them. From time to time, he raises the crystal glass to his lips and swallows the liquid in small sips. I can see that he’s savoring it. And that he’s relaxing as he drinks.

  “I’ve never known how to do speeches. I think and speak like a police report, or an identity document. I know how to tell you whether a person has a scar, a beauty spot, a growth . . . whether they limp, their shoe size . . . At a glance, I know the height, weight, color of the eyes, of the skin, the distinguishing feature of an individual. But when it comes to what they feel . . . I’m incapable of knowing. Unless they have something to hide . . . ”

  He finished his drink. Immediately, I pour him another and cut some slices of comté cheese, which I arrange on a porcelain plate.

  “When it comes to secrets, I have a good nose. I’m a real hound . . . I immediately spot the giveaway gesture. Well, that’s what I thought . . . before discovering the final wishes of my mother.”

  My port has the same effect on everyone. It’s like a truth serum.

  “And you? You’re not drinking?”

  I pour myself a teardrop and clink glasses with him.

  “That’s all you’re drinking?”

  “I’m a cemetery keeper. I drink only teardrops . . . We could talk about your mother’s passions. When I say ‘passions,’ it doesn’t have to mean for the theater or bungee jumping. Just what her favorite color was, where she liked to walk, the music she listened to, films she watched, whether she owned cats, dogs, trees, how she spent her time, whether she liked the rain, the wind, or the sun, her favorite season . . . ”

  He remains silent for a long while. He looks as if he’s searching for words, like a lost walker searches for the path. He finishes his drink and says to me:

  “She liked the snow and roses.”

  And that’s it. He has nothing else to say about her. He seems both ashamed and helpless. It’s as if he’s just admitted to me that he’s afflicted with some obscure ailment. Not knowing how to speak about a loved one.

  I get up and go over to my register cupboard. I take out the one for 2015 and open it at the first page.

  “This is a speech that was written on January 1st, 2015, for Marie Géant. Her granddaughter was unable to attend the burial because she was abroad for work. She sent it to me and asked me to read it at the funeral. I think it will help you. Take the register, read the speech, write notes, and you can return it to me tomorrow morning.”

  He immediately got up, tucking the register under his arm. It’s the first time a register has ever left my house.

  “Thank you, thank you for everything.”

  “Are you sleeping at Madame Béant’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you had supper?”

  “She prepared something for me.”

  “You’re setting off for Marseilles tomorrow?”

  “At the crack of dawn. I’ll bring you the register before I go.”

  “Leave it on the ledge, behind the blue window box.”

  12.

  Sleep, Nana, sleep, but may you

  still hear our childish laughter

  up there in highest Heaven.

  SPEECH FOR MARIE GÉANT

  She didn’t know how to walk, she ran. She couldn’t keep still. “Jamboter” is the verb for what she did, an expression from eastern France. Say to someone, “Arrête de jamboter,” and it means: “Sit yourself down, once and for all.” Well, it’s done now, she’s sat herself down, once and for all.

  She went to bed early and got up at five in the morning. She was first to arrive at the shops so she wouldn’t have to wait in line. She had an almighty horror of waiting in line. By 9 A.M., she’d already got all her groceries for the day in her string bag.

  She died during the night between December 31st and January 1st, a public holiday, she who had slaved away her entire life. I hope she didn’t have to wait too long in line at the gates of Heaven with all those revelers and road-accident victims.

  For the holidays, at my request, she would get two knitting needles and a ball of wool ready for me. I never got further than ten rows. Put the years end to end, and I must have finally made an imaginary scarf, which she’ll wrap around my neck when I’ll join her in Heaven. If Heaven’s what I deserve.

  When she phoned, she’d say, with a chuckle, “It’s the old dear here.”

  She sent letters to her children every week. Her children who had moved far away from her home. She wrote just like she thought.

  She sent parcels and checks for every birthday, name day, Christmas, Easter, for the “poppets.” For her, all children were “poppets.”

  She liked beer and wine.

  She did the sign of the Cross over bread before slicing it.

  She said, “Jesus and Mary.” Frequently. It was a form of punctuation. A kind of period she put at the end of her sentences.

  On the sideboard, there was always a large wireless that stayed on all morning. Since she’d been widowed very early on, I often thought that the radio announcers’ masculine voices kept her company.

  From midday, the TV took over. To kill the silence. All the inane game shows would be on, until she dozed off in front of The Flames of Love. She commented on what every character said, as if they existed in real life.

  Two or three years before she tripped and was obliged to leave her flat for the retirement home, someone stole her Christmas garlands and ornaments from her cellar. She phoned me in tears, as if her lifetime of Christmases had been stolen.

  She often sang. Very often. Even at the end of her life, she said, “I feel like singing.” She also said, “I feel like dying.”

  She went to Mass every Sunday.

  She threw nothing away. Especially not leftovers. She reheated them and ate them. Sometimes, she made herself sick from eating the same thing, again and again, until it was all gone. But she’d rather vomit than chuck a crust of bread in the bin. An old leftover itself from the war, in her stomach.

  She bought mustard in cartoon-covered glasses, which she saved for her grandchildren—her poppets—when they came to stay with her during the holidays.

  There was always something tasty simmering in a cast-iron pot on her gas stove. Chicken with rice did her for the week. And she saved the chicken stock for her evening meals. In her kitchen, there were also two or three onions sweating in a pan, or a sauce, that made your mouth water.

  She was always a tenant. Never an owner. The only place that ever belonged to her was her family vault.

  When she knew we were coming for the holidays she would wait for us at her kitchen window. She looked out for cars parking in the little lot down below. We could see her white hair through the window. No sooner had we arrived at hers than she would say, “When will you be coming back to see the old dear?” As if she wanted us to leave again.

  These last years, she no longer waited for us. If we made the mistake of being five minutes late at the retirement home to take her out for lunch, we’d find her in the dining room with the o
ther old folk.

  She slept wearing a hairnet to preserve her perm.

  She drank the juice of a lemon in warm water every morning.

  Her bedcover was red.

  During the war, she was the soldier’s pen pal of my grandfather, Lucien. When he returned from Buchenwald, she couldn’t recognize him. There was a photo of Lucien on her bedside table. Then the photo was moved, along with her, to the retirement home.

  I used to love wearing her nylon slips. Because she bought everything by mail order, she received lots of gifts, knickknacks of all kinds. As soon as I arrived at her flat, I would ask her if I could go and rummage in her cupboard. She would say: “Of course, off you go.” And I would rummage for hours. I would find prayer books, Yves Rocher creams, sheets, lead soldiers, balls of wool, dresses, scarves, brooches, china dolls.

  The skin on her hands was rough.

  A few times, I did her perm for her.

  To save money, she never let the tap run to rinse the dishes.

  Towards the end of her life, she would say: “What did I ever do to the Good Lord to end up here?” referring to the retirement home.

  I started to desert her little flat when I was seventeen to sleep at my aunt’s, about 300 meters away. A fine apartment above a large café, and also a cinema popular with youngsters, with its table football, video games, and choc-ices. I still went to eat with the old dear, but I preferred to sleep at my aunt’s for the cigarettes we’d smoke on the sly, the all-day cinema, and the bar.

  I’d always seen Madame Fève, a sweet lady, doing the housework and ironing at my aunt’s. Then one day, I came face to face with my grandmother as she was vacuuming the bedrooms. She was replacing Madame Fève, who was on holiday or unwell. It happened occasionally. So I discovered.