Fresh Water for Flowers

by Valérie Perrin

  He was a meter away from me. I wanted to touch him, undress him, undress myself, for him to take me, make me squeal like before, against the rock. Never has anyone despised themselves as much as I despised myself at that moment.

  Him, distraught, lost in my kitchen, which I hadn’t cleaned for ages. Since I’ve been on the dole, I don’t do a damned thing. Me who’s responsible. Me the guilty one.

  He got up and left without looking at me. After he’d gone, I sat in his seat. His scent remained.

  After school, I’ll drop my kids off at my sister’s. She’s much nicer than me, my sister. I’ll tell them to be good. To stay put. I’ll take the money from the last time. On the way home, I’ll buy some rope at Bricorama.

  66.

  The death of a mother is the first

  sorrow one weeps over without her.

  Would you like a taste?”

  “With pleasure.”

  I pick a few cherry tomatoes and get Mr. Rouault to try them.

  “Delicious. Are you going to stay here?”

  “Where do you want me to go?”

  “With your inheritance money, you could stop working.”

  “Ah, no, no. I love my house, I love my cemetery, I love my work, I love my friends. And anyhow, who would look after my animals?”

  “But come now, all the same, buy yourself a little property, something, somewhere.”

  “No way. Then I’d forever be obliged to go there. You know, second homes put a stop to any other journeys, the ones you decide on at the last moment. And anyhow, can you imagine me with a second home, honestly?”

  “What are you going to do with all that money, if it’s not indiscreet to ask?”

  “What does a hundred divided by three come to?”

  “33.33333 to infinity.”

  “Well, I’ll give 33.33333 and infinity to Restos du Coeur, Amnesty International, and the Fondation Bardot. That will allow me to save the world a bit, from my little cemetery. Come, Mr. Rouault, let’s have a drink.”

  He picks up his cane and follows me, smiling. We sit under my arbor to savor a wonderful chilled Sauterne. Mr. Rouault takes off his suit jacket and stretches out his legs, while plunging his fingers into the salted peanuts.

  “Look how beautiful it is today, every day I’m intoxicated by the world’s beauty. Of course, there’s death, grief, bad weather, All Saints’ Day, but life always gets over it. There’s always a morning when the light’s beautiful, when the grass sprouts again from the scorched earth.”

  “I should send you the siblings who insult each other in my office, they could do wisdom internships around you.”

  “Personally, I think inheritance shouldn’t exist. I think we should give everything to the people we love while we’re alive. Our time and our money. Inheritances were invented by the Devil, to make families tear themselves apart. I only believe in donations while one is alive. Not in the promises of death.”

  “Did you know that your husband was rich?”

  “My husband wasn’t rich. He was too lonely and too unhappy. Luckily, at the end of his life, he lived with the right person.”

  “How old are you, dear Violette?”

  “No idea. Since July 1993, I no longer celebrate my birthday.”

  “You could make a new life for yourself.”

  “My life is fine as it is.”

  67.

  On the quicksand into which life has slipped

  grows a sweet flower my heart has picked.

  In August of 1996, a year before moving to the cemetery, I left the Sormiou chalet earlier than usual. I took a train to Mâcon, and then a bus that stopped at Brancion-en-Chalon on its way to Tournus. My bus passed through La Clayette, I saw the château of Notre-Dame-des-Prés, in the distance, through the window, for the first time. My bus stopped a few minutes later, in front of the Brancion-en-Chalon town hall, and when I got off, I was shaking from head to toe. My legs struggled to carry me to the cemetery. With every step, I kept seeing the château again, the windows, the white walls. I had glimpsed the lake, just behind, glistening like a sea of sapphires. It was a very hot day.

  The door to Sasha’s house, on the cemetery side, was half-open; I didn’t go in. I went straight to Léonine’s tomb, still seeing the walls of the château. Standing in front of the headstone engraved with the names of my daughter and her friends, for the first time I felt bad for not having been to the funeral, for leaving her to depart alone, for not having placed even a white pebble on her tomb. And yet, once again on that day, I knew that Léonine was far more present in the Mediterranean I’d just come from, and among the flowers in Sasha’s garden, than beneath this tombstone. I walked over to Sasha’s house with an aching heart.

  He didn’t know I was there, I hadn’t told him I was coming. I hadn’t seen him for more than two months. Since Philippe Toussaint had forbidden me from doing so. The house was tidy. The door leading to his vegetable garden wide open. I didn’t call to him. I went out and saw him lying on a bench, having a nap, a straw hat shading his face. I approached him very gently, he immediately jumped up and hugged me.

  “There’s nothing more beautiful than the sky seen through a straw hat. I like looking at it through the holes without the sun harming me. My little sparrow, what a lovely surprise . . . Are you staying all day?”

  “A little longer.”

  “That’s wonderful! Have you eaten?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “I’m going to make you some pasta.”

  “But I’m not hungry.”

  “With butter and grated Gruyère, come, follow me, we’ve got work to do! Have you seen how everything has grown? It’s a big year for the garden! A big year!”

  At that moment, seeing him bustling about and smiling, I felt a warmth in my belly, a little like happiness. Not something put on, not one of those spurts of life that lasted but seconds, but a plenitude, a smile on the lips not instantly erased, quite simply, desire. I was no longer remote-controlled, I was inhabited.

  I would have liked to keep the summer and that moment, the garden, and Sasha forever.

  I stayed with him for four days. We started by picking the ripe tomatoes to make preserves. First, we sterilized the jars in a pan of water that Sasha brought to the boil over a wood fire. Next, we chopped and deseeded the tomatoes, before putting them in the jars with freshly picked basil leaves. Sasha taught me the importance of having new rubber washers to seal the jars hermetically. We heated them up for fifteen minutes.

  “Now we can keep these jars for at least four years. But you see, all the people lying in this cemetery, they put things aside, and what good did it do them? Us two, we’re not going to wait for anything, and this evening we’re opening one up just for us.”

  We did the same thing with the beans. We removed their stalks, put them in the jars with a glass of salted water, sealed them, and brought them to a boil.

  “This year, my beans appeared over a single night, just two days ago; they must have sensed you were coming . . . Never underestimate your garden’s powers of divination.”

  On the second day, there was a funeral. Sasha asked me to accompany him. I’d have nothing to do, just be with him. It was my first time attending a funeral. I saw the faces, the grief, the pallor, the smart, dark clothes. I saw hands being shaken, people arm-in-arm, heads bowed. I still remember the speech given by the son of the deceased with tears in his voice:

  “Dad, as André Malraux said, the finest tombstone is our memory. You loved life, women, great wine, and Mozart. Every time I open a good bottle or come across a beautiful woman, every time I savor a great wine in the company of a beautiful woman, I’ll know that you’re not far away. Every time the vines change color, from green to red, and the sky gradually lights up with a gentle glow, I’ll know you’re not far away. When I listen to a clarinet concerto, I’ll know that
you’re there. Rest, Dad, everything’s taken care of.”

  When everyone had left, and we’d returned to Sasha’s, I asked him if he ever kept the eulogies he heard. If he recorded them somewhere.

  “What for?”

  “I’d like to know what was said on the day of Léonine’s funeral.”

  “I keep nothing. Vegetables don’t grow year after year. Every year, you have to start from scratch. Apart from cherry tomatoes: they grow all on their own, pretty messily, pretty much anywhere.”

  “Why are you telling me that?”

  “Life is like a relay race, Violette. You pass the baton to someone, who takes it and passes it to someone else. I passed it to you, and one day you will pass it on.”

  “But I’m alone in the world.”

  “No, I’m here, and there will someone else after me. If you want to know what was said on the day of Léonine’s funeral, write it yourself, write it later, before going to bed.”

  On the third day, I read Léonine her eulogy.

  I found Sasha in one of the cemetery’s avenues. We walked along the tombs, he spoke to me of the dead, both long-time residents and those who had just moved in.

  “Do you have children, Sasha?”

  “When I was young, I wanted to do like everyone else, I got married. And there’s a bloody stupid mistake, an idiotic idea: doing like everyone else. Good manners, pretenses, and received ideas are all killers. My wife was called Verena, she was very pretty, and had a gentle voice, like you. In fact, you resemble her a little. Like the young, pretentious twit that I was, I thought her beauty would turn me on. On the day of the wedding, when I saw her in her white lace, shy and blushing, when I lifted the veil covering her lovely face, I knew that I was lying to everyone, starting with myself. I placed a cold kiss on her mouth as the guests applauded us, and all that interested me was the muscles under the men’s shirts. I got myself drunk before the first dance. The honeymoon night was nightmarish. I tried my best, I thought of my wife’s brother, dark with big brown eyes. But it didn’t work, I didn’t manage to make love to her. Verena put ‘it’ down to emotions and drunkenness. As the weeks went by, the nights spent close to one another, I finally made it. I finally took her virginity. I can’t even tell you how unhappy it made me, her eyes full of love and affection when I had only managed to touch her thanks to my disgusting imagination. Night followed night, and all the men in my village got the same treatment, I touched them all through her.

  “Then we moved house. Second stupid mistake: changing address doesn’t change your desire. It sticks to the suitcases. Unlike migratory birds and weeds, it doesn’t have the ability to adapt to all climates. I changed windows and doormat, but I continued to look at men. I cheated on my wife countless times in public restrooms. What a disgrace . . . Through continually pretending, I became ill. I wasn’t pretending to love Verena, I sincerely loved her. I devoured her with my eyes, but only with my eyes. I loved her gestures, her skin, her movements, but I saw the lovely lock of brown hair that fell across her face as barring me. I finally came down with blood cancer. My white blood cells started eating up my red ones. Those white cells, I saw them as women in bridal gowns multiplying in my veins; shame was devouring me. It may seem strange to you, but my stays in hospital came as a relief to me. They relieved me of that obligation to ‘honor’ Verena in our bed. To ‘dishonor’ her, more like. Between the sheets, I continued to close my eyes and caress her body while thinking of someone else, anyone else. Even TV presenters.

  “Verena became pregnant. I saw this pregnancy as a ray of light, as the only positive to come from the three bleak years since our union. I watched her belly growing, I took up gardening again. I returned to being an almost happy man. That child was my dream. And he was born. A son we baptized Emile. Verena looked at me less, desired me less, she was devoted to her child, and I felt better and better. I had lovers, a gentle wife, the mother of my son, I was almost swimming in happiness, a polluted happiness, but happiness all the same. I’m a great father, you know? And a child is very handy when one no longer wants to touch one’s wife. She’s tired, vulnerable, often has a headache, hears him crying during the night, too hot, too cold, teething, a nightmare, an ear infection. I made love to Verena just once, after a boozy New Year’s Eve, and that was enough for her to get pregnant again. Three years after Emile’s birth, Ninon was born. An adorable little girl.

  “I had two children with Verena. Two children. I gave life, the real thing, twice over. Which just shows that God has a laugh at everything, even poofs.”

  “How old are they now?”

  “The same age as my wife.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “They no longer have an age. They died in 1976, in a car accident. On the Highway to the Sun. I was supposed to join them three days later, by train, at our seaside rental. Do you know why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why I was supposed to join them three days later?”

  “ . . . ”

  “I told Verena I had some work to catch up with. In ’76 I was an engineer. The truth was, I’d planned three days of sex with a colleague. When I was told they had died, I went mad. I had to be confined to a mental hospital for a long time. It was there, between those white walls, that I learned how to heal others with my hands. You see, dear Violette, you and me, we’ve had our share of tragedy, and yet here we are. Between the two of us, we’re like all of Victor Hugo’s novels put together. An anthology of great woes, small joys and hopes.”

  “Where are they buried?”

  “Close to Valence, in Verena’s family vault.”

  “But how did you wind up here, at this cemetery?”

  “After my release from hospital, I was a social misfit. The mayor here has known me forever and he employed me as a roadman. The fellow in blue overalls talking to himself while sweeping around the municipal trash cans, that was me. When I had regained some strength, I applied for the post of cemetery keeper, as it was vacant. My place was among the dead. The dead of others.”

  Sasha took my arm. We passed a man and a woman, who asked him where a particular tomb was. While he was giving directions, which avenues to take, I watched him. As he had spoken to me of his lost family, he had gradually become a little stooped. I thought how we were two survivors who were still standing. Two shipwrecked people that an ocean of adversity hadn’t managed to drown entirely.

  Once the man and woman had thanked him, I put my hand in his and we carried on walking.

  “At first, the mayor hesitated. But my loved ones had been dead a long time, there was a statute of limitations. You don’t need me to tell you that between death and time, there’s always a statute of limitations . . . Look, the weather’s splendid. Today I’m going to teach you the art of taking rosebush cuttings. Do you know what ‘August branches’ are?”

  “No.”

  “They’re branches that start producing new wood in August. Brown spots appear on the green, the same spots you can see on my hands. They’re signs of old age. They’re known as ‘August branches.’ Well, believe it or not, it’s with these old branches that you’re going to create young shoots. Isn’t that incredible? What do you feel like eating this evening? What if I made you avocados with lemon? It’s good for you, packed with vitamins and fatty acids.”

  On the fourth day, he drove me to Mâcon station in his old Peugeot. He had slipped some jars of tomatoes and beans into my suitcase. It was so heavy, I struggled to lug it all the way to Malgrange.

  On the way, between the cemetery and the station car park, he told me that he wanted to retire. That he was tired, that it was time for him to hand over to someone else, and that someone could only be me.

  68.

  Of their love that’s bluer than the sky around them.

  You won’t put your teenage years behind you.

  You won’t celebrate being twenty-f
ive and still unmarried by St. Catherine’s Day.

  You won’t dance any slow dances.

  You won’t have a handbag or painful periods.

  You won’t have braces on your teeth.

  I won’t see you growing taller, getting fatter, suffering, divorcing, dieting, giving birth, breastfeeding, loving.

  You won’t get acne or an IUD.

  I won’t hear you lying. I won’t have to cover up for you, or stick up for you.

  You won’t nick coins from my purse. I won’t open a savings account for you in case of a rainy day.

  You won’t be on the Pill.

  I won’t see your wrinkles and liver spots appearing, or your cellulite and stretch marks.

  I won’t detect cigarette smoke on your clothes, I won’t see you smoking, and then quitting smoking.

  I’ll never see you drunk or high.

  You won’t study for your baccalauréat while watching Roland-Garros; you won’t have it in for Madame Bovary, “that pathetic female”; or for Marguerite Duras; or for your teachers.

  You won’t have a scooter or a broken heart.

  You won’t French-kiss anyone, you won’t climax.

  We won’t celebrate you passing your bac.

  We’ll never clink glasses together.

  You won’t use deodorant, you won’t get appendicitis.

  I won’t fret about you getting into a stranger’s car. That you’ve already done.

  You won’t have toothache.

  We won’t go to the ER in the middle of the night.

  You won’t sign on at the employment office.

  You won’t have a bank account, or a student card, or a young person’s discount card, or a social security number, or loyalty cards.

  I’ll never know your tastes, what appeals to you. Which clothes, which literature, which music, which perfume.

  I won’t see you sulking, slamming doors, running away, waiting for someone, taking a plane.