Fresh Water for Flowers

by Valérie Perrin

  I hope you were riding a pony, my darling, or in the Calanque, being a mermaid.

  After the 5:50 train, I’d stretched out on the sofa, and had just dozed off. My heart raced when the phone rang—I thought I’d forgotten the 7:04. I answered it. I’d just been dreaming that Mother Toussaint gave me a teddy bear with no eyes and no mouth, and I was drawing them in with one of your felt-tip pens.

  A policeman spoke to me, asked me to confirm my particulars, I heard your name, “Château Notre-Dame-des-Prés . . . La Clayette . . . four unidentified bodies.”

  I heard the words “tragedy,” “fire,” “children.”

  I heard, “I’m so sorry,” your name again, “arrived too late . . . firemen unable to do anything.”

  I saw you again, bursting your egg with the pizza dough and making the napkins vanish while I counted: Three daily specials, plus two children’s meals, plus five drinks.

  I could have not believed the man speaking to me on the phone. I could have said to him, “You are mistaken, Léonine is a magician, she will reappear,” I could have told him, “It’s a stunt by Mother Toussaint, she’s taken her from me and replaced her with a rag doll that has burnt in bed,” I could have asked for proof, hung up, told him, “Your joke is in very poor taste,” I could have said to him . . . But I instantly knew that what he was telling me was true.

  Ever since my childhood, I had never made a noise, so that I would be kept, so that I wouldn’t be abandoned anymore. I left yours, your childhood, screaming.

  Philippe Toussaint appeared, took the phone, spoke some more with the policeman, and then he started to scream, too. But not like me. He insulted him. All the bad words we forbade you from saying, your father said them. In a single sentence. Me, your death destroyed me. After that yelp, I stopped speaking for a long time. Him, your death enraged him.

  When the 7:04 went by, neither of us went out to lower the barrier.

  God, who had deserted the château of Notre-Dame-des-Prés that night, at least deigned to make an appearance around our barrier because one tragedy, on the list of our lives, must have been enough. No car came by, no car came to smash into the 7:04. At that time, that road is usually very busy.

  For the following barriers, Philippe Toussaint went and alerted someone, asked for help. I’ll never know who came.

  As for me, I lay down in your room and never left it.

  Dr. Prudhomme arrived—I know, you don’t like him, you called him “smelly” when he treated your tonsillitis, your chicken pox, your ear infections.

  He gave me an injection.

  And then another one. And yet another one.

  But not on the same day.

  Philippe Toussaint called Célia for help. He didn’t know what to do with my pain. He passed it on to someone else.

  Apparently, Philippe Toussaint’s parents arrived. They didn’t come to see me in your room. They did the right thing. For the first and last time, they did the right thing. They left me alone. They set off for La Clayette, all three of them. They set off toward you, toward your nonexistent remains.

  Célia arrived, after, later, I don’t know, I’d lost all notion of time.

  I remember that it was dark, that she pushed open the door. She said, “It’s me, I’m here, I’m here, Violette.” Her voice had lost all its sunniness. Yes, even in Celia’s voice, darkness descended when you died.

  She didn’t dare touch me. I was in a heap, on your bed. A heap of nothing. Célia gently forced me to eat something. I vomited. She gently forced me to drink something. I vomited.

  Philippe Toussaint phoned to tell Célia that nothing remained of the four bodies. That it was total devastation. That you had all been reduced to ashes. That it wouldn’t be possible to identify you, one from the other. That he was going to issue a formal complaint. That we would be compensated. That all the other children had gone home. That instead of them, there were cops everywhere. That you were all going to be buried in the children’s section, together, with our permission. He repeated that, “buried together.” And that to avoid the journalists, the crowds, the chaos, it would take place in the strictest privacy, in the little cemetery of Brancion-en-Chalon, a few kilometers from La Clayette.

  I asked Célia to call Philippe Toussaint back, so he would recover your suitcase.

  Célia told me that the suitcase had burned. Célia repeated, “They didn’t suffer, they died while they slept.” I replied, “We will suffer for them.” Célia asked me if I’d like an object or item of clothing to be slipped inside the coffin. I replied, “Me.”

  Three days went by. Célia told me that the following day we would set off early. That she must take me to Brancion-en-Chalon for the funeral ceremony. Célia asked me what I would like to wear, if I would like her to go and buy me some clothes. I refused the shopping and I refused to go to the funeral. Célia told me that that wasn’t possible. That it was unthinkable. I replied that, yes, it was possible, that I wouldn’t attend the funeral of my daughter reduced to ashes. That she was already far away, elsewhere. Célia said to me, “For you to grieve, it’s crucial. You must say a final goodbye to Léonine.” I replied that no, I wouldn’t go, that I wanted to go to Sormiou, to the Calanque. That was where I would say goodbye to you. The sea would bring me close to you, one last time.

  I left with Célia, in her car. I don’t remember the journey. I was in a haze due to medication. I didn’t sleep; I wasn’t awake, either. I was floating in a kind of dense fog, in the trance of a permanent nightmare in which all senses are anesthetized, all except for pain. Like those people who are put under for an operation, but can feel the surgeon’s every incision. The level of grief crushing my bones was pushed to the maximum of unbearable. Breathing hurt me.

  “On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your level of pain?” On “indeterminate, infinite, perpetual.”

  I felt as if I were being amputated all day long.

  I told myself, “My heart will give way, it will give way, as fast as possible,” I hoped it would be as fast as possible. My only hope was to die.

  I was clutching two old bottles of plum brandy to my chest. Bottles that Philippe Toussaint had already had back in the studio. From time to time, I downed a mouthful, which burned me inside, just where I had carried you.

  We took the steep road down to the Calanque de Sormiou. It’s known as “the road of fire.” I hadn’t noticed that the previous year.

  I didn’t undress before going into the sea. I went under the water, I closed my eyes, and I heard the silence, and I heard our last holidays, the happiness, the opposite of tears.

  I immediately sensed you, I sensed your presence. Like a dolphin’s strokes, brushing against my stomach, my thighs, my shoulders, my face. Something gentle that came and went in the currents of the water around me. I sensed that you were fine where you were. I sensed that you were not afraid. I sensed that you were not alone.

  Before Célia grabbed me by the shoulders and got me back up to the surface, I heard your voice clearly. You had the voice of a woman, a voice that I would never hear. I think I heard, “Mommy, you must know what happened that night.” I didn’t have time to reply to you. Celia screamed:

  “Violette, Violette!!!”

  Some people, vacationers in bathing suits, like us last year, helped her bring me back to the shore, just to the shore.

  44.

  Warbler, if you fly above this tomb,

  sing him your sweetest song.

  The weather is magnificent. The May sun caresses the soil I’m turning over. Three of the older cats rediscover their youth in the middle of the nasturtium leaves and chase after imaginary mice together. A few wary blackbirds sing, a bit further along. Eliane sleeps on her back, all four legs in the air.

  Squatting in my garden, I finish planting my tomato seedlings while listening to a program on Frédéric Chopin. I had put my little bat
tery radio on a wooden bench I picked up in a yard sale a few years ago. I repaint it blue or green, from time to time. The passing years have given it a fine patina.

  Nono, Gaston, and Elvis have gone for lunch. The cemetery seems empty. Although it’s lower than my garden, there are certain avenues I can’t see due to the stone wall separating them.

  I’ve taken off my grey-jersey top to liberate the flowers on my cotton dress. I’ve pulled on my old boots.

  I like giving life. Sowing, watering, harvesting. And starting again every year. I like life just as it is today. Bathed in sunshine. I like being at the essence of things. It’s Sasha who taught me how.

  I’ve set the table in my garden. I’ve made a salad of multicolored tomatoes, and a lentil one, bought a few cheeses and a large baguette. And I’ve opened a bottle of white wine, which I’ve placed in an ice bucket.

  I like fine china and cotton tablecloths. I like crystal glasses and silver cutlery. I like the beauty of objects because I don’t believe in the beauty of souls. I like life just as it is today, but it’s worthless if it isn’t shared with a friend. While watering my seedlings, I think of Father Cédric, who is such a friend, and whom I’m expecting. We lunch together every Tuesday. It’s our ritual. Unless there’s a burial.

  Father Cédric doesn’t know that my daughter rests in my cemetery. Apart from Nono, nobody knows. Even the mayor is unaware of it.

  I often speak of Léonine to others because not speaking of her would be to make her die all over again. Not to speak her name would make the silence win. I live with my memory of her, but I tell no one that she is a memory. I make her live elsewhere.

  When I’m asked for a photo of her, I show her as a child, with her gappy smile. People say she looks like me. No, Léonine looked like Philippe Toussaint. She had nothing of me.

  “Hello, Violette.”

  Father Cédric has just arrived. He has a pastry box in his hands and says to me, smiling:

  “A love of fine food is very naughty, but it’s not a sin.”

  His clothes have a whiff of incense from his church, and mine of powdery roses.

  We never shake hands or embrace, but we do clink our glasses.

  I go to wash my hands and then rejoin him. He’s poured us both a glass of wine. We sit facing the vegetable garden and, as usual, we speak first of God, as of a mutual old friend not seen for a while: for me, a villain I give no credit to, and for him, an extraordinary person, exemplary and devoted. Then we discuss international and Burgundian news. And then we always end with the best, novels and music.

  Usually, we never transgress into the personal. Even after two glasses of wine. I don’t know if he has ever fallen in love with anyone. I don’t know if he has ever made love. And he knows nothing about my private life.

  That day, for the first time, while stroking My Way, he dares to ask me if Julien Seul is “just a friend,” or if there’s more between us. I reply to him that there’s nothing between us apart from a story that he started telling me and that I’m waiting to hear the ending of. The story of Irène Fayolle and Gabriel Prudent. I don’t say their names. I just say that I’m waiting for Julien Seul to tell me the end of a story.

  “You mean to say that when he’s finished telling you this story, you won’t see him anymore?”

  “Yes, probably.”

  I go to get the dessert plates. The air is sweet. The wine has gone to my head.

  “Do you still want to have a child?”

  He pours himself another glass of wine and puts My Way down by his feet.

  “It wakes me up at night. Yesterday evening, I saw The Well-Digger’s Daughter on TV, and as it just deals with that, basically, just with fatherhood, love, and filiation, I cried all evening.”

  “Father, you’re a very handsome man. You could meet someone and have a child.”

  “And leave God? Never.”

  We plunge the backs of our dessert forks into the sugar-fondant and ground-almond topping of one of our pastries. He can hear my disapproval, but says nothing. He simply smiles.

  Often, he says to me, “Violette, I don’t know what you and God said to each other over breakfast this morning, but you seem very angry with him.” And I always reply, “It’s because he never wipes his feet before entering my house.”

  “I am united with God. I committed myself to his path. I’m on Earth to serve him, but you, Violette, why not start over?”

  “Because in life, one can never just start over. Take a piece of paper and tear it, you can stick each piece back together as much as you like, the tears will always remain, and the folds and the scotch tape.”

  “Sure, but when the pieces are stuck back together, you can continue to write on that sheet.”

  “Yes, if you own a good felt-tip pen.”

  We burst into laughter.

  “What are you going to do about your desire for a child?”

  “Forget it.”

  “A desire can’t be forgotten, especially when it’s visceral.”

  “I’ll grow older, like everyone, and it will pass.”

  “And if it doesn’t pass? It’s not because one grows older that one forgets.”

  Father Cedric breaks into song:

  “Along with time, along with time, goes, everything goes. The other whom one adored, for whom one searched in the rain, the other whose mind one could read, with just a glance . . . ”

  “Have you ever adored someone?”

  “God.”

  “Someone?”

  He replies to me, with a mouth full of crème pâtissière:

  “God.”

  45.

  We think that death is an absence,

  when in fact it’s a secret presence.

  Léonine continued to make her belongings disappear. Her room emptied, bit by bit. Her clothes and toys went to the charity Emmaüs. Every time Paulo, that was his name, parked his truck with its picture of l’Abbé Pierre, the charity’s founder, outside my house, and I passed him bags full of pink, I felt as if I were donating one of Léo’s organs for another child’s benefit. For life to go on through her dolls, her skirts, her shoes, her castles, her beads, her cuddly toys, her crayons.

  She made Christmas disappear. We never had a tree again. The famous synthetic tree, to avoid killing living ones, will probably remain the worst investment of my life. Easter, New Year, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, birthdays . . . I never again blew out a candle on a cake after her death.

  I lived in a kind of permanent alcoholic coma. As if my body, to protect itself from the pain, had put itself into a state of inebriation without my swallowing the slightest drop of alcohol. Well, not always. Sometimes I drank like a bottomless pit. And that’s what I was, a bottomless pit. I lived in cotton wool, my movements were stilted, as if in slow motion. Like Tintin, when he was still hanging on the wall of Léonine’s room: I walked on the Moon.

  I finished off the grenadine. I finished off the Prince biscuits, the Savane cakes, the pasta shells, the Advil Drops. Meanwhile, I got up, I lowered the barrier, I went back to bed, I got up again, I made food for Philippe Toussaint, I raised the barrier, I went back to bed again.

  I said thank you to all the “Sincere condolences” in the Grand-Rue. I replied thank you to numerous letters. I filed the countless drawings by classmates in my choice of a blue folder. As if Léo had been a boy. As if she hadn’t really existed.

  The worst of the worst was meeting the horrified eyes of Stéphanie, behind her register, every time I went through the door of the Casino. That and nights, that’s what I dreaded the most. I steeled myself for hours to manage to leave the house, cross the road, and open the door to the mini-market. I looked down while pushing my little shopping cart along the narrow aisles, until Stéphanie’s eyes met mine. The sorrow, the despair that clouded her eyes like a fog as soon as she caught sight of me.
It was more than a mirror, it was desolation. She didn’t bat an eyelid when she saw what I was placing on the register’s conveyor belt. The bottles of alcohol. She announced the total, followed by “please.” I held out my debit card, entered my PIN, goodbye, see you tomorrow.

  She no longer suggested the latest products to me, “the tops,” as she put it. All that stuff she’d tried out. The dish soap that softens your hands; the washing powder that smells nice and washes well even at thirty degrees, even in cold water; the delicious vegetable couscous from the frozen section; the magic duster; the omega-3 oil. You don’t suggest anything anymore to a mother who has lost her child. Not special offers, not savings coupons. You leave her to buy whiskey, eyes down. I could still feel Stéphanie’s eyes on my back as I opened my front door.

  We dealt with insurers, lawyers. There would be legal proceedings, the management of Notre-Dame-des-Prés would be sued, we’d get the establishment closed down for good. Of course, we would receive compensation.

  How much does a life weighing seven-and-a-half years cost?

  Every night, I heard Léo’s voice again, her woman’s voice, saying to me, “Mommy, you must know what happened that night, you must know why my room burned down.” It was those words that made me keep going. But it took me years to act on them. I wasn’t physically able to. And the pain was far too strong for me to manage to resuscitate myself.

  I needed time. Not time to feel better, I would never feel better. Time to be able to move once again, to be on the move.

  Every year, from August 3rd to 16th, the SNCF sent people to replace us. Philippe Toussaint, who refused to follow me in my “morbid delirium,” left on his bike to meet up with Charleville friends, and I left for Sarmiou. Célia came to pick me up at Saint-Charles station, took me down to the chalet, and then left me alone with my memories. From time to time, she would visit me and we would drink Cassis wine while contemplating the sea.

  For me, All Souls’ Day was in August. I immersed myself and I felt the presence of my daughter who was no longer there.