Fresh Water for Flowers

by Valérie Perrin

  “I didn’t see Philippe again for the two following summers. Luc and I went off to Morocco. He phoned us from time to time to give us his news. He came to see us in May, almost three years after the episode at the beach. The year of his twenty-third birthday. He came on the Honda that Luc had given him with a girlfriend riding behind him. When he took off his helmet, I saw his face, his smile, his eyes, and, to the day I die, I’ll remember saying to myself: I love him. It was warm that day. We had supper, all four of us, in the garden. We stayed talking for a long while, about everything and nothing. The girlfriend, whose name I’ve forgotten, was very young. Very intimidated. Luc was thrilled to see his nephew again. Philippe had left school long before, he was drifting from one casual job to another. My heart skipped a beat when Luc suggested employing him at the garage. He told him he would train him, and if all went well, he’d take him on. I’ve never believed in God. I didn’t do any catechism, and I’ve rarely set foot in a church, but that evening I prayed: Dear God, please don’t let Philippe ever come to work with us. I immediately felt Philippe’s eyes on me. He replied to his uncle, ‘Let me talk to my father, we don’t want him kicking up a big fuss.’ We all went off to bed. I didn’t sleep all night. The following day was a public holiday. Philippe and his girlfriend got up late. We hung around until lunchtime. In the afternoon, Luc had a nap, and I stayed watching television with Philippe’s girlfriend, while he went off for a ride on his bike.

  “Since their arrival, I’d done all I could not to find myself alone with him. And then it happened at aperitif time. I went down to the cellar to fetch a bottle of champagne, I smelled his aftershave behind me. He wasted no time. He said, ‘I’m not going to come and work at your garage, but this evening, at midnight, you must come out to the garden, sit on the low wall, and wait.’ Before I’d even opened my mouth, he’d cut in, ‘I won’t touch you.’ He went straight back upstairs. I took the bottle and rejoined Luc and the young girl, sitting at the table waiting for me. Philippe arrived five minutes later, as though coming in from outside. I wondered what he was expecting of me. At the back of the garden, there was a log shed, and behind it, an old, low wall. An old, low wall Philippe had enjoyed skateboarding on as an adolescent. Indeed, Luc called it ‘Philippe’s wall’: ‘We should put some planters on Philippe’s wall,’ ‘Must give a lick of paint to Philippe’s wall,’ ‘Saw a lovely angora cat the other day on Philippe’s wall . . . ’

  “The evening went by in a haze, I drank like a fish. At 11 P.M., everyone got up to go to bed. Philippe looked at me, and then said to Luc, ‘Uncle, I don’t think I’ll be able to come and work for you, I spoke to the parents today, they made a big fuss about it.’ Luc replied, ‘Never mind, dear boy.’

  “I opened a book in bed, Luc fell asleep against me. The later it got, the more my heart raced. There wasn’t a sound in the house. At 11:55 P.M., I slipped a coat on, and went to sit on the low wall. I was in complete darkness. The garden faced the back of the house, so no street lighting. I remember jumping at the slightest noise. And I was afraid that Luc would wake up and look everywhere for me. I don’t know how long I stayed sitting there like that, not moving. I was paralyzed with terror. Nothing happened. Just silence all around me. But I didn’t dare move, thinking: If I move, Philippe will change his mind, he’ll come and work for us. If that had happened, I would have left. I would have got a divorce without saying a thing to Luc. It would have killed him to know that his adored nephew wanted me. It would have killed him to know that I loved him.

  “Philippe and his girlfriend finally turned up. He said to her, ‘Say nothing, let yourself be led.’ Philippe was holding her by the hand, she didn’t know where she was going, she’d been blindfolded. In his other hand, he had a flashlight, which he directed at me. He lit me up. It hurt my eyes. All I could see of them was their silhouettes. He placed the girl with her back to a tree. He was facing me. He put the flashlight down by his feet, still directed at me. It was like being caught in the headlights of a car. He said, ‘I want to see your face.’ The girl thought he was talking to her. He gave her a whole load of instructions, which she carried out before my eyes, not knowing that I was there, close by. ‘Since it’s forbidden, I at least want to kiss your face.’ He made love to the girl. I didn’t see him, I was blinded, but I sensed him staring at me. At one moment, he said, ‘Come, come, come.’ Until I got up and approached them. She still had her back to me, Philippe was pressed to her, facing her, facing me. I was so close to them that I could smell their bodies. ‘Yes, that’s it, see how much I love you.’ His eyes looking straight into mine, never will I forget it. Or his sad smile. How he held her, his thrusting, his eyes looking straight into mine, his climax, his victory over me.

  “I returned to my bedroom, shaking, I fell asleep against Luc. That night, I dreamt of Philippe. And the nights that followed, too. The next day, Philippe and the girl went home. I didn’t see them leave. I used a headache as an excuse to stay in bed. When I heard his motorbike start up, and then the sound of the engine fade away, I got up, promising myself never to see him again. But I thought about him. Often. The following summer, I organized a trip to the Seychelles with Luc for a romantic holiday, telling him I felt like having a second honeymoon with him.

  “I saw Philippe again the summer he was twenty-five. He turned up at the villa without warning. Luc knew, they wanted to surprise me. I pretended to be pleased, I wanted to vomit, too many emotions, loathing, attraction. That very evening, he was back making love to a girl under my windows, murmuring, ‘Come, come, come, see how much I love you.’ It went on for a month. I tried to avoid him all day long. When our paths crossed at breakfast, he’d say to me, with feigned cheeriness, ‘Good morning, auntie, sleep well?’ But he didn’t smile anymore. He seemed unhappy. Something had changed. And yet, every night, he was at it again with a different girl. I didn’t smile anymore, either. I, too, was unhappy. He had succeeded in contaminating me with an unhealthy love. I was more infected by him than in love with him.

  “On the last day of the holidays, I was the one who took him to the station. I told him that I never wanted to see him again. He replied, ‘Come, we’re leaving together. I feel that with you, everything is possible, with you, I can face anything. If you refuse, I’ll become a loser, a good-for-nothing.’ He broke my heart. I made him understand, gently, that I would never leave Luc. Never. He asked me if he could kiss me one last time, I said no . . . If I’d let him kiss me, I would have left with him.

  “On August 30th, 1983, once his train had disappeared, I knew that I wouldn’t see him again. I felt it. Not in that life, anyhow. You know, there are several lives within a life.

  “We lost touch with Philippe. At first, he continued to phone us, and then, little by little, as the years went by, nothing anymore. Luc thought that he’d ended up doing his parents’ bidding. That he’d sided with them. We returned to our routine, our life. A peaceful, serene life. A year later, we heard that Philippe had met someone, you, that he’d had a child, that he’d got married. That he’d moved. But he never called us to tell us so. I knew it was because of me. But Luc suffered greatly from not hearing from him anymore.

  “I think he would have loved to meet you, to meet your . . . Perhaps things would have been different. Easier. And then there was that tragedy. We learned about it almost by chance. The holiday camp. Horrendous. Luc wanted to contact Philippe. He phoned his sister to get your phone number, she slammed the phone down on him. He didn’t persist. He put it down to grief. Luc said to me, ‘And in any case, what could we say to them? Poor Philippe.’

  “In October of 1996, Luc died in my arms, heart attack. And yet it had been a beautiful day. We’d laughed together at breakfast. By late morning, he’d stopped breathing. I screamed to make him open his eyes, I screamed to make his heart restart, but it was no use. Luc couldn’t hear me anymore. I blamed myself. For a long time, I told myself that it had happened because of Philippe. Because of th
at funny, hidden love. That wasn’t funny at all.

  “I had him buried in the strictest privacy. I didn’t tell Philippe’s parents. What was the point? Luc couldn’t have tolerated seeing them at his funeral. He might even have come back to life for five minutes, to box their ears and tell them to beat it. I didn’t tell Philippe, either. What was the point? I decided to keep the garage, but I appointed a manager, I went away for several months, far from Bron. I needed to think, ‘time to grieve,’ as they say.

  “Distancing myself didn’t help me. Quite the opposite. I, in turn, nearly died. I had a nervous breakdown. I found myself in a psychiatric hospital under medication. I couldn’t even count to ten anymore. Luc’s death almost cost me my life, too. In losing my man, I lost my bearings. I was so young when I’d met him. When I began to resurface, I decided to take back control of the business. That garage, it was our whole life, particularly mine. I sold our house in the country to buy one in town, five minutes from the garage. On the day of the sale, when I handed the keys to the new owners, a blackbird was perched on Philippe’s wall, singing its head off.

  “In 1998, I was busy writing an estimate for a client’s vehicle when I saw him enter the garage. I was in my office and, through the glass partition, I saw him arriving by bike. He hadn’t yet taken his helmet off, but I already knew it was him. Fifteen years it was, since I’d last seen him. His body had changed, but his bearing was still the same. I thought I would die. I thought my heart, like my man’s, was going to stop. I never thought I’d see him again one day. I rarely thought of him. He was part of my nights. I often dreamt of him, but during the day, rarely thought of him. He belonged to my memories. He took his helmet off. He started to belong to the present. He looked awful. Unwell. What a shock. I had left a kid of twenty-five on a station platform, and now I was seeing a somber man. I found him terribly handsome. Tired-looking, but handsome. I felt like running into his arms, like in those Lelouch films. I recalled his last words, ‘Come, we’re leaving together. I feel that with you, everything is possible, with you, I can face anything. Otherwise I’ll become a loser, a good-for-nothing.’

  “I walked toward him. And me? I, too, had changed. I was almost forty-seven. I was scrawny. My skin had taken the flak. I’d drunk too much and smoked too much. I don’t think he cared a damn about that; when he saw me, he threw himself into my arms. ‘Fell into my arms’ would be more accurate. He sobbed. For a long time. In the middle of the garage. I took him to my place. Our place. He told me everything.”

  * * *

  Françoise Pelletier has been gone for an hour. Her voice is echoing between my walls. I thought she’d come to find me to hurt me, when in fact, she made me a gift of the truth.

  62.

  I no longer dream, I no longer smoke, I no longer even have a history, I’m dirty without you, I’m ugly without you, I’m like an orphan in a dormitory.

  Gabriel Prudent stamped out his cigarette, and went into the rose nursery five minutes before closing time. Irène Fayolle had already switched off the lights in the shop, and access to the gardens was closed. She had lowered the heavy iron shutters. She was in the storeroom when she saw him in front of the counter. He was waiting like an abandoned, neglected customer.

  They saw each other at the same time, her in the white light of a halogen lamp, him lit only by a red neon light hung above the entrance door.

  She’s still as beautiful. What’s he doing here? I hope it’s a nice surprise. Has he come to say something to me? She hasn’t changed. He hasn’t changed. How long has it been now? Three years. The last time, rather angry. He looks lost. Left without saying goodbye. Hope he doesn’t hold it against me. No, or he wouldn’t be here. Is she still with her husband? Has he made a new life for himself? Seems she’s changed the color of her hair, it’s lighter. Still in his old navy coat. Still all in beige. He looked younger on the television, last time. What has she been doing all this time? What has he seen, defended, known, eaten, lived? Years. Water under the bridge. Will she agree to have a drink with me? Why has he come so late? Does she remember me? He hasn’t forgotten me. It’s good that she’s here. We’re lucky, usually on Thursday evening, Paul comes to fetch me. I could just leave without saying a thing. Will he kiss me? Will she have any time for me? There’s the parent-teacher meeting tonight. Maybe I should have followed her into the street. Did he follow me? Pretended to bump into her on a sidewalk by chance. Paul and Julien are waiting for me outside the school at 7:30 p.m. The French teacher wants to talk to us. The first move, I’d like her to make the first move. That’s a song, that is. And live, each in our own place. Will we go to the hotel? Will he make me drink like last time? She must have things to tell me. There’s the English teacher, too. I must give her that present, I can’t leave without giving her that present. What am I doing here? Her skin, the hotel. Her breath. He doesn’t smoke anymore. Impossible, he’ll never quit smoking. He just doesn’t dare to here. His hands . . .

  Irène Fayolle’s Journal

  June 2nd, 1987

  I came out of the storeroom, Gabriel followed me, smiling shyly, he the great lawyer, he with all that charisma, that lofty tone, he couldn’t speak anymore, like a very small child. He who defended the criminal and the innocent, he couldn’t say a thing to defend our love.

  We found ourselves out in the street. Gabriel still hadn’t given me my present and we hadn’t exchanged a single word. I locked up the shop and we walked to my car. Like three years ago, he sat close to me, leaned his neck against the headrest, and I drove aimlessly. I no longer felt like stopping or parking. I didn’t want him to get out of my car. I found myself on the motorway, drove towards Toulon, and then along the coast as far as Cap d’Antibes. It was 10 p.m. when, with the tank showing empty, I parked beside the sea, near a hotel, La Baie Dorée. We walked over to the panels displaying the room rates and the restaurant menus. A blonde woman welcomed us with a lovely smile. Gabriel asked if it wasn’t too late to dine.

  It was the first time I was hearing the sound of his voice since he had entered the rose nursery. In the car, he hadn’t said a word. He had just searched for music on the radio.

  The woman at reception replied that, in that season, the restaurant was closed during the week. She would have two salads and some club sandwiches sent up to our room.

  We hadn’t asked for a room.

  Without waiting for a response, she handed us a key, for room 7, and asked whether we’d prefer white, red, or rosé to accompany our supper. I looked at Gabriel: when it came to alcohol, he did the choosing.

  Finally, the lady at reception asked how many nights we would be staying, and then it was me who replied, “We don’t know yet.” She took us up to room 7 to show us how the lights and television worked.

  On the stairs, Gabriel whispered in my ear, “We must look like we’re in love, for her to offer us a room.”

  Room 7 was pale yellow. Its colors were those of the Midi. Before disappearing, the lady from reception opened a bay window leading to a terrace; the sea was black and the wind gentle. Gabriel placed his navy coat on the back of a chair and took something out of it that he handed to me. A small object covered in wrapping paper.

  “I’d come to give it to you. I never thought that, by entering your rose nursery, we’d end up here, in this hotel.”

  “Are you sorry?”

  “Not on your life.”

  I removed the wrapping paper. I discovered a snow globe. I turned it over several times.

  The lady from reception knocked and pushed in a trolley, which she left in the middle of the room. She apologized and left as fast as she’d arrived.

  Gabriel cupped my face in his hands and kissed me.

  “Not on your life” are the last words he uttered that night. We touched neither the food nor the wine.

  The following morning, I called Paul to tell him that I wouldn’t be back immediately, and then hung up.
Then I informed my employee, asking her to look after the rose nursery on her own for a few days. Somewhat panicked, she said, “I’ve got to deal with the register, too?” Yes, I replied. And hung up, without saying goodbye.

  I thought I would never return. Disappear once and for all. Not face up to anything anymore, particularly Paul’s look. Run away like a coward. See Julien again, but later, when he was older, when he would understand.

  Neither Gabriel nor I had a change of clothes. The following day, we went to a boutique to buy some. He wouldn’t allow me to choose beige, and bought me colorful dresses trimmed with gold. And sandals. I’ve always hated sandals. People being able to see my toes.