by Maude Julien
I’m covered in mud, but I can’t abandon Pitou. He has succeeded in escaping from his father but is struggling helplessly, about to drown. I lean forward again and manage to grab him. Then my foot slips and I end up back in the water. By clutching onto the pontoon I haul myself onto the bank at last, without letting go of Pitou.
The poor thing shivers in my hands, his wet feathers clinging to his sides. ‘He’s freezing!’ I cry. ‘He’s going to die of cold!’ My father, who was overcome by rage only moments earlier, suddenly softens. Does Pitou remind him of the rabbit he loved as a child and that his father, a heartless man, had served at the dinner table one evening? ‘You’ll just have to put him in the oven to warm up,’ he grunts.
Overjoyed, I run to the kitchen. Once Pitou is dry, I keep him with me the rest of the day, and every day after that. My father definitely has a soft spot for him. He lets me take him everywhere, comfortably nestled in a box filled with cotton wool.
A few days later the honeymoon is over, and I have to take Pitou back to the duck pen. But his father is still just as hostile: as soon as he sees Pitou, he lunges at him, hitting him with his beak. I ask my father if Pitou can live outside the fence around the pond. ‘If you like,’ he says, ‘but when Linda eats him, you’ll only have yourself to blame.’ Pitou shows absolutely no fear of Linda. He wanders freely around the garden except for the area by the pond, which he avoids like the plague. Despite my efforts to teach him to swim, he struggles like a thing possessed and makes pathetic noises as soon as I take him near water.
Pitou grows into a handsome black duck with a red head. Whenever he sees me, he comes waddling over. He stays right by my side while I’m working in the grounds of the property and makes me laugh with his peals of exuberant quacking. He’s lucky that he’s a Barbary duck, which means he can’t fly: he doesn’t need to have his wing clipped like the others. But the thing that makes me really happy is that he gets on very well with Linda. When she’s locked up during the day, he slips between the bars and joins her in the back of the kennel.
Linda and Pitou are my darlings, I’d do anything for them. My parents understand this. If they want me to do something, they need only say, ‘Watch out! If you don’t do it, Linda will be locked up for two extra hours a day for a month,’ or ‘We’ll put Pitou in a wooden crate for three days with nothing to eat or drink’ or, worse still, ‘We’ll put Pitou back where he belongs’—that is, the pond, where I know he wouldn’t survive. So my minor rebellion instantly dissolves.
My father often mentions the story of Pitou when he’s teaching me about human nature. ‘If you go and live with other humans, they’ll treat you the way the ducks in the pond treat Pitou. They won’t think twice about making mincemeat of you for the stupidest reasons, or for no reason at all.’
Lindbergh
My father doesn’t like me doing nothing. When I was little, I was allowed to play in the garden once I’d finished studying. But now that I’m almost five, I have less free time. ‘You mustn’t waste your time,’ my father says. ‘Focus on your duties.’
In spite of everything, my mind sometimes wanders, and I sit there staring into space. Or when there’s construction work to do on the grounds, I might stop to catch my breath. And then, without fail, this horrible silence descends on me. My heart starts pounding. I turn around slowly, and there he is behind me, standing bolt upright. ‘What are you doing?’ he roars. I’m helpless: I can’t open my mouth, which makes me look guilty, I know. Overwhelmed with fear, I feverishly go back to work.
I don’t know how he does it, but my father has a sixth sense when it comes to my weaknesses. The minute I relax, I know he’s there, right behind me, with his piercing eyes. Even when he’s not there in the flesh, I can feel his eyes boring into the back of my head.
When my mother and I are clearing undergrowth on the grounds, I admire a marvellous tree out of the corner of my eye. It’s not the biggest or the fullest, but it’s the most beautiful. It has a big, low-hanging branch which sticks out horizontally from the trunk, then gracefully curves around before heading skyward. I dream of sitting in the crook of that curve, which looks as if it was made for a child to play in. One day, when my mother was some distance away, I sat in delight on that low branch. I don’t remember how long I stayed there. But I clearly remember my father’s hand violently pulling my hair from behind and throwing me to the ground so sharply that it knocked the breath out of me. I didn’t hear him approach. Ever since then, I settle for gazing from afar at the tree of happiness.
I don’t have much free time, anyway. Between schoolwork, music, my share of the housework, and serving my father, my days are very full. I can sometimes sneak into the big room which looks out onto the street. I watch passers-by for a few minutes. I try to go there in the mornings, at about eight o’clock, before lessons with my mother. That’s when the workmen head to the Cathelain factory, just on the other side of the grounds. They walk briskly past the house, carrying their lunch in pails. Occasionally I manage to see them in the evenings too, around six o’clock. They look tired as they head home, but I can tell they’re happy. Occasionally I see a woman waiting for them along the way, or a child running to greet them. I look at those faces. At night, in bed, I picture myself later in life, married to a factory worker who sets off in the mornings with a pail filled with a meal I’ve made for him.
In the mornings I also see children on their way to school, in groups or pairs. It seems extraordinary to me, this heading off to school. I dream of having to do that. Of course, my ‘school’ is on the second floor. I summon all my courage and bring it up with my mother: I suggest that I could go out of the gate on the grounds, as if I too were heading off to school, then come back along the fence to the front door. My mother listens without a word.
A little later I’m summoned to the dining room. My parents look very serious, as usual. My father starts talking about the famous American aviator Charles Lindbergh, whom he met when he was young. He is one of the few living people he respects. They have a lot in common. To start with, they were both born in 1902. Like Lindbergh, my father was an aviator and, like him, he is a very high-ranking Freemason. Charles Lindbergh had a son, a baby who was kidnapped and killed. This was the ‘crime of the century’ and it had a profound effect on my father. Does he make it clear to me that this happened a long time ago, before the war? Regardless, his solemn tone makes such an impression that I think the tragedy has only just happened. My heart aches for this poor Charles Lindbergh.
Now my mother chimes in. ‘The Peugeots’ son was also kidnapped,’ she says. I don’t know exactly when this happened, but imagine it’s very recent as well. Luckily, the child was saved, but he’d nevertheless faced terrible danger. My father has connections with the Peugeots too, because for a long time he owned the largest Peugeot car dealership in Lille.
‘You’re in danger, too,’ he says, looking at me intently. ‘People will try to abduct you. That’s why you mustn’t go out. It would only take one car—like the black 403 that snatched little Eric Peugeot—to drive past you, and you’d vanish with your kidnappers.’
He reminds me of another safety measure I already know well: the lights must never be switched on when the shutters are open, because this would make us easy targets for a potential sniper hiding on the other side of the road. First the shutters have to be rolled down using the crank handle, and only then can the lights go on.
I’m given to understand that there’s a ‘wave of child kidnappings’ going on at the moment. After the Lindbergh baby and the Peugeot boy, I’m third on the list. I must look very frightened because my father takes the trouble to reassure me. He tells me I’m lucky to have scars ‘marking both sides of my body’ so I don’t run the risk of becoming a victim of the ‘white slave trade’. And these scars would certainly help my father recognize me in any circumstances. My trust in him should never waver.
My mother endorses this: ‘Monsieur Didier can do everything and see everything.’
I don’t know whether I feel reassured or terrified.
My father reiterates the fact that everything he does is for me. That he devotes his entire life to me, to training me, shaping me, sculpting me into the superior being I’m destined to become. He tells me he has loved me since long before I was born. He has always wanted to have a daughter he would call Maude. Maude with an ‘e’, like the wife of Robin Hood’s sidekick, Will Scarlet. An exceptional woman, a warrior, an Amazon, faithful to her love until she dies. He tells me he dreamed of me even when he was very young. And as soon as he could, he did what needed to be done in order to bring me into the world. It was a lengthy undertaking. First he had to find the woman who would give birth to me. He found my mother, who was only five or six when he chose her. She was the youngest child of a northern mining family and he was already a very rich man, so he had no trouble convincing her parents to entrust her to him. He kept her away from her family to protect her from outside influences. He threw himself heart and soul into bringing her up and giving her the best education possible, and then when the time came, she gave birth to me.
I need to understand just how much my very existence is a result of my father’s plans. I know I must prove worthy of the tasks he will set for me later. But I’m afraid I won’t measure up to his vision. I feel too feeble, too clumsy, too stupid. And I’m so frightened of him. The sheer heft of him, his big head, his long thin hands and his steely eyes—I’m so terrified my legs give way when I come close to him.
I’m all the more horrified because I’m alone against this titan. I can expect no comfort or protection from my mother. ‘Monsieur Didier’ is a demigod to her, one she both adores and loathes, but would never dare to oppose. I have no other choice but to close my eyes and, shaking with fear, put myself under my creator’s wing.
My father is convinced that the mind can achieve anything. Absolutely anything: it can overcome every danger and conquer every obstacle. But to do this requires long, rigorous training away from the impurities of this dirty world. He’s always saying, ‘Man is profoundly evil, the world is profoundly dangerous. The earth is full of weak, cowardly people driven to treachery by their weakness and cowardice.’ My father has been disappointed by the world; he has often been betrayed. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are to be spared from being polluted by other people,’ he tells me. That’s what the house is for, to keep the miasma of the outside world at arm’s length.
He sometimes tells me that I should never leave the house, even after he’s dead. His memory will live on here, and if I watch over it, I’ll be safe. Other times he informs me that later, I’ll be able to do whatever I want, that I could be President of France, master of the world. But when I leave the house, it won’t be to live a pointless life as ‘Mrs Nobody’. It will be to conquer the world and ‘achieve greatness’. I’ll have to come back from time to time to recharge myself ‘at home base’: in other words, in this house, which absorbs more and more of my father’s power every day.
There is also a third possible scenario: for me to stay at the house to put into practice the lessons in discipline he has been drilling into me since childhood. And to prepare myself for the day when I’m called upon to ‘raise up humanity’. I ask him how I’ll know when it’s time to raise up humanity. ‘I’ll let you know, even if I’m no longer here.’
When I think of my secret dreams of a factory-worker husband and his lunch pail, I feel ashamed.
To avoid disappointing him too much I wage war on my many faults. But there’s one I just can’t control: I have a habit of twitching my nose and mouth and screwing up my eyes. ‘Stop making faces,’ my mother often says. My father hates it. Since I was little he has made me sit facing him ‘without moving a muscle’.
At first I had to stay still for a few minutes. Then a quarter of an hour. Once I turn five, he adds what he calls ‘the impassivity tests’ to my daily schedule, between eight and eight-fifteen in the evening. Then the sessions become even longer and are held at any time of day, sometimes lasting several hours and delaying my lessons and homework, which then all have to be caught up. And now my mother has to do them too—when we’re alone she’s quick to tell me how much she resents me for this.
‘You mustn’t reveal anything with your face or your body,’ my father says in his deep voice, ‘otherwise you’ll be eaten alive. Only weak people have facial expressions. You need to learn to control yourself if you want to be a great poker player.’
Do I want to be a great poker player? I don’t know, I’ve never played poker. But I have to be ready in case I ever need to later. At various difficult times in his life, my father pulled through thanks to his skill at poker. He was able to appear perfectly neutral while reading his adversaries’ body language and facial expressions like a book.
The hardest part of these impassivity tests is the itching. It’s there right from the start, tickling in every direction. It stops after a while. Then it starts up again even worse and becomes pure torment. The one who really can’t cope is my mother. There always comes a point when one of her arms or legs shoots up as if on a spring. It takes enormous effort not to burst out laughing. ‘Your mother has St Vitus’s Dance,’ my father spits with utter contempt, still scrutinizing the mirror in front of me to check I haven’t moved so much as an eyelash. He views ‘St Vitus’s Dance’ as a hallmark of the weak and inept.
I’m afraid I’m weak and inept too. Playing chess with my father is torture. I have to sit very upright on the edge of my chair and respect the rules of impassivity while I consider my next move. I can feel myself dissolving under his stare. When I move a pawn he asks sarcastically, ‘Have you really thought about what you’re doing?’ I panic and want to move the pawn back. He doesn’t allow it: ‘You’ve touched the piece, now you have to follow through. Think before you act. Think.’
Kennedy
I’m in my mother’s room, in pyjamas. She’s dictating a strange letter to me; it starts: ‘My darling little Daddy’ and includes ‘I love you’ many times. Ever since I’ve known how to write, my mother has dictated ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ and ‘Happy Father’s Day’ letters to me. Not knowing the exact dates, she decided Mother’s Day fell on the third Sunday in May, and Father’s Day, on the third Sunday in June.
I don’t say anything, but I always think this is very strange. We never use terms of endearment because they’re ‘for the weak and sappy’. The word ‘darling’, for instance, is never said in our house. Writing ‘My darling little Mummy’ feels even more bizarre, given her tone of voice when she dictates the words. In actual fact, my mother loathes my name and goes out of her way never to utter it. And I make sure I never call her ‘Mummy’.
Because they’re a ‘present’, the writing time for these letters is taken out of my allocated sleep time. At bedtime she makes me sit on the footstool at her dressing table, which makes it quite difficult to write neatly. Usually, when I make an inkblot with my pen, she gets hysterical and has me start over, ten times if need be. But on these occasions the quality of my writing doesn’t matter. If I don’t know how to spell a word, she says, ‘Write it however you like.’ That’s also odd. She normally hits me over the head with a ruler if I make a spelling mistake.
Sometimes what she dictates makes me laugh to myself. Like today, when the letter ends with ‘I hope I’ll have a husband like you when I’m older.’ A complete lie. If I have a husband when I’m older, I hope he’ll be like the Cathelain factory workers, and not like my father. Last year, I had to write: ‘I’d never want any other daddy but you.’ Can you choose your own father?
When I’ve finished writing my ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ letter, she dismisses me without a kiss. In our house, we never touch, even on Mother’s Day. I have to go back to my room and wait till she’s in bed before slipping my letter under the door. The next morning, she shows it to my father, saying, ‘Look what I found when I woke up this morning.’ The letter to my father has to be slipped under his door one day before Father’s
Day: to prove I haven’t forgotten the date.
I don’t understand these letters at all, like plenty of other things. But I don’t ask questions. The only answer I’d get would be: ‘There are rules and you have to follow them. Stop asking stupid questions.’
The waking-up rule is one example. My bedroom is separated from my mother’s by her bathroom. At six-thirty every morning she opens my door—wham!—and she flicks the light on and yells, ‘Get up!’ My mother thinks people who get up at seven are ‘slackers’. Under her watchful eye, I have to get straight out of bed and dress in less than two minutes. Then she says, ‘Go and wake your father and see how he’s doing.’
Everything is always exactly the same each morning. The only variation is that my mother sometimes says, ‘see if he’s in a good mood’ instead of ‘see how he’s doing’.
But this morning is different. Something’s wrong. She goes back to her room as soon as she’s put the light on. I dress as quickly as possible to avoid getting cold. Then I wait, not sure what to do. If I don’t go and wake my father, I’ll get in trouble. But if I go when she hasn’t told me to, I’ll get in trouble too. I rack my brains, trying to remember whether they said anything yesterday evening…In the end, I decide it would be better to go and knock on my father’s door.
Is the change in routine because it’s my birthday today? As far as my father is concerned, birthdays are not celebrations, and I have to be trained so that mine never becomes one. Which is why every November 23rd I have a longer school day and no recess. I’m waiting anxiously to know what the new ‘teaching’ for my sixth birthday will be.