by Maude Julien
Days go by, blurring into each other. I feel as if my whole life is just one and the same day, an arid, endless, merciless day. I’m chained to my schedule like an ox to a cart. I pull with all my strength, but I don’t understand, or think, or ask any questions. I hardly even breathe.
Weather permitting, my father regularly allocates extra chores around the grounds: weeding, lawn-mowing, clearing the gutters…the afternoon routine is turned upside down for a couple of days. ‘You’ll have to catch up on everything,’ my father says, giving me one of his probing stares.
Catching up means my lessons are shifted around and now go on until 11:30 p.m. It means not having my brief moments of respite, like the hour of revising in the afternoon and the hour of reading in the evening, times when I can dream, secretly choose what I read, or think about those I love. Catching up means hitching a ten-ton trailer to my cart.
When there’s manual labour to do, I can no longer practise my music, but the lessons with Yves still continue. I try to explain to my parents that I need time to learn the pieces. ‘Excuses are for cowards and the lazy,’ my parents tell me. ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way.’ However much I will my fingers to move over the required notes at the required speed, I never can. Irritated by my mediocre efforts, Yves hurls insults at me. I’m not allowed to tell him I’ve been working in the grounds.
The schedule is my despot and I’m its slave, all the more chained to it because I never manage to ‘catch up’ on the backlog. I exhaust myself trying to meet it, to complete all my tasks. There’s now a constant tick-tock inside my head, growing louder and louder, stopping me from thinking about anything else.
I don’t know whether it’s because of the freezing cold summer, but a little while after Arthur’s death, my teeth start chattering for no reason. I am unable to prevent my mouth from moving, but it will eventually stop on its own. Every time my jaws start quivering I have to make a huge effort to prevent anyone from hearing the clickety-clack of my teeth.
My mother accuses me of ‘acting up’. My father inflicts a special anti-tooth-chattering exercise of willpower. Despite their protestations and punishments, I just can’t stop. In the end my parents resign themselves to it, but on one condition: I chatter my teeth ‘in silence’. To deaden the sound, I’ve taken to sucking in my cheeks so that the flesh cushions my jaws. The inside of my cheeks is now lined with a rough layer of bleeding skin. When I have an attack in the night I slip my index finger between my teeth to give the hidden wounds in my cheeks a rest.
In spite of the miserable weather, my father decides to have the greenhouse renovated. He wants to grow vines in it. Albert and Rémi come to do the work and I help by transporting bricks and cement. Given the temperature, the usual Ricard aperitif is replaced with mulled wine. The bricklayers take off their overalls at six-thirty in the evening and come onto the verandah where I pour a drink for everyone, including myself. My father watches as I fill my glass: he wants to be sure I have as much alcohol as the workmen. I drink without a word, even though I don’t like the smell of the wine and hate it when my head spins.
When work on the greenhouse is finished, my father decides to extend the dovecote. I like the pigeons. It’s heartwarming to see an egg one day and then find a little living creature the next. I watch the mother pigeons feed their young then settle on the nest, and I think how warm it must be under there.
Two eggs hatched a couple of days ago. One of the chicks isn’t moving. His brother, a tiny featherless thing, breaks my heart with his wide little beak and clenched pink feet. He must be so sad all alone in the nest. I see him gradually grow a covering of white down, and I baptize him Whitey. I’m worried about him: he’ll be flying soon and that’s just when my mother likes to kill and cook them. I garner all my courage and speak directly to my father just as we are getting up from the table. ‘Excuse me, Daddy…’ It feels very strange calling him ‘Daddy’. I only ever use the word in Father’s Day letters. He must be surprised too because he turns to me, attentive. ‘Daddy, can I take care of Whitey for a long time?’
I don’t know how else to formulate my request. I daren’t say clearly: ‘Could Whitey not be killed?’
I shake as I wait to hear his verdict.
‘Who on earth is Whitey?’
‘A white baby pigeon. I’ll take care of him. I won’t take any time out of my work schedule, I’ll get up earlier.’
I don’t know if it’s the magic of the word ‘Daddy’ or because, although he hasn’t said so, my father understands my grief, but he says, ‘Yes, if you like.’ And I breathe a sigh of relief for Whitey. My heart is bereft of joy, but I’m going to look after that little ball of white fluff. Albert and Rémi probably won’t need a labourer for the modest work that needs doing on the dovecote, but I’ll have to go there at least twice a day to give them beers. That will be my chance to look after Whitey.
He grows up into a handsome and affectionate white pigeon who never forgets his foster mother. When he sees me in the garden he flies down onto my hand to say hello. After letting Linda out one evening, I even manage to introduce them to each other. I can tell there won’t be the same connection between them as there is with Pitou, but I’m glad to know Linda will never do Whitey any harm.
Red Toothpaste
Cleanliness is not one of my father’s preoccupations, so I don’t have many household chores. On the rare occasions when I’m told to sweep the huge ground-floor rooms, I collect great piles of fluff. Hanging from the corners of rooms, spiders are free to weave their webs at leisure, and some create structures so enormous that we have to intervene: I fetch a special long-handled feather duster from the laundry and my father, the tallest of us, has to bring down the webs.
He may well be a knight and a great master but he’s not very coordinated. He shakes the duster in every direction with his long, painfully thin hands, crushing the dusty webs and leaving trails of grey all over the walls. My mother and I silently watch the operation from a safe distance—the duster has been known to come down on our heads.
As for washing the dishes, it’s quite simply a waste of time. My father has decided that at the end of meals we should just put our placemats over our plates and used cutlery, and put them with the used glasses in the sideboard in the dining room, ready for the next meal. Dishes and cutlery are washed once a week.
On the other hand, he doesn’t forget to instruct us to clean the huge chandelier in the living room once every two years. My mother and I have to climb up a big stepladder and polish each piece of crystal individually. And every other year all the copper items in the house have to be burnished with Brasso.
From time to time I also have to mop the floors in the bathrooms. But no one cleans the bath or the basins, which are covered in a disgusting film of scum. According to my father, washing removes our immune defences. That is why the sheets and towels are washed only twice a year. Underwear is washed once a month. We have a sort of professional iron, but as neither my mother nor I know how to use it, we hardly ever do any ironing.
Clean laundry is hung up in the cellar where it becomes saturated with an appalling smell. Much later, as I slip between my sheets or dry myself with my towel, that smell still makes me feel sick. My parents don’t even seem to notice it.
I must have an unhealthily well-developed sense of smell. I hate the smell when I hold the pot for my father to urinate into, or flush the toilet full of his excrement, or take off his socks in the evening. I hate the smell when I have to pick up rotting weeds and leaves. When I go down to the cellar I almost suffocate in the mustiness mingled with the smell of germinating potatoes and fruit stored on racks.
I watch in wonder as the ducks preen themselves, taking forever to smooth out their feathers. Linda also licks her paws meticulously when they get dirty. One of my favourite jobs is hosing down the paving stones and seeing them come up clean and shiny. When Raymond runs his repulsive hands over me, I almost gag. I so wish I could clean my sullied skin under th
e hose.
There is only one exception to the general lack of cleanliness, and that is teeth. My mother is very proud of her ‘dents du bonheur’—the French expression to describe the gap in her front teeth—which is something of a distinguished feature, and she is intransigent about brushing teeth morning and evening. She is responsible for ordering toothpaste. Last year she made a mistake and a huge parcel of the brand Email Diamant was delivered. The paste is red and too runny to stay on the brush. The tube has a picture of a matador who seems to be jeering at me with his stupid smile. To my great shame, I spatter dirty specks of red over the basin, the floor and my shoes.
My mother, on the other hand, perfectly masters the matador’s toothpaste, a feat that confers on her a peculiar power, especially over my father who is even more inept than I am. She glances scornfully at the results of our incompetence. After a while, I leave fewer and fewer marks, while he leaves more and more. When she sees the constellation of countless red marks on his bathmat, my mother eyes him in scornful silence. An unfamiliar expression flits over my father’s face: he looks sheepish.
As a great dental specialist, my mother is always saying that tooth decay and toothaches are entirely the sufferer’s fault. One day, seeing me fiddling with a tooth that is starting to come loose, she leads me off to the laundry. From the sewing box she takes some ‘extra-strong’ thread—once used for repairing the hot air balloons—and winds a length of it around my wobbly tooth, and ties the other end to the doorhandle. Bam! She slams the door, and the tooth is ripped out. I’m dumbstruck, as much by the element of surprise as by the pain.
Since then she’s taken to exploring my mouth regularly. With one hand she holds my head back firmly, using the other to inspect my jaws. The day comes when she identifies another loose tooth, and decides to give it the same treatment. But this one withstands the force. She repeats the performance, slamming the door harder. The pain is blinding.
Hearing the noise, my father arrives to find quite a scene: blood streaming from my mouth and a thread dangling from the doorhandle. With a murderous look, he yells, ‘Go and get the whisky, Jeannine.’ My father is a great healer and whisky is his miracle remedy for anything from scrapes to toothaches. He makes me drink a good glassful, telling me to hold it in my mouth for as long as possible.
I know my mother will never pass up the opportunity to extract my other baby teeth by force, particularly as she resents me for attracting my father’s attention. She is becoming obsessed with the state of my teeth. When I feel one of them starting to move, I resist touching it in front of her. But it will soon be impossible to hide it from her. I make up my mind to pull it out myself.
I steal the reel of extra-strong thread and take it out of my pocket only when everyone has gone to bed. But how to cut it? Scissors are banned from my bedroom. I rub it up and down on the edge of a drawer until it eventually wears through. Now I tie the thread to the wardrobe door and try to slam it smartly the way I’ve seen my mother do it. But I can’t help myself softening the blow. The tooth comes loose a bit, but doesn’t come free. I have to start over, again and again. With each attempt my courage dwindles, and my anger at myself grows. I shout insults at myself in my head: ‘You’re just a sissy! A coward! You’ll never do anything worthwhile in your life!’
I go to bed defeated. Hating my teeth, my body, hating everything about myself. As a punishment I bite my arm till it bleeds.
I don’t want to go on living in fear of the day my mother finds the loose tooth. The very next morning I tell her, ‘One of my teeth is wobbly.’ Her face lights up. She waits until we’re in the classroom, out of earshot of my father. She slams the door with one firm swing. I can see a hint of disdain in her face but it’s nothing compared to the contempt I feel for my own cowardice.
The Cave
When I turn eight my father gives me an abridged edition of Das Kapital to study. Karl Marx is an important thinker and my father wants me to start familiarizing myself with his ideas. Why is he so important? Because he didn’t merely describe the inner workings of human relationships; he dared to go further and suggest a way to make a fairer world. Of course, his ideas are utopian, but my father likes their audacity and is sorry that Freemasonry kept itself separate from any revolutionary dimension. Marx is misunderstood by most Freemasons, who see him as the devil incarnate. They are wrong, according to my father. And so, from a very young age, I am brought into contact with pure and powerful thinking that protects me from the cesspit of sheep.
This version of Das Kapital may well be written in simplified terms but I don’t understand a word of it. I read and re-read it, but my eyes are simply scanning a succession of meaningless unconnected words. I ask my mother to explain at least the beginning. She gives me a horrified ‘Certainly not! Do you want the Communists to throw us out?’ Her response leaves me just as confused as the contents of the book.
I don’t know whether my father realizes that my mother does not share his opinion of Marx, or of politics in general. At the moment he is very worked up, almost jubilant at the thought that Mitterrand might finally ‘chuck out de Gaulle’, whereas my mother seems afraid. I’m not sure I understand what’s going on. Charles de Gaulle is the President of France and I think that’s why his name contains a reference to France. I don’t know who Mitterrand is, only that there are presidential elections going on. For the first time in a year, we finally leave the house so my parents can vote. My father insists on voting. Before getting into the car he hands a small sealed envelope to my mother and says imperiously, ‘Put that in the ballot box’. He turns to me and says, ‘You stay with your mother and make sure she does as I’ve said.’ My mother doesn’t look happy, but she does as she’s told.
When the election results are announced, my father is furious with ‘the stupid, gutless sheep who just want to keep bleating under the same shepherd’. My mother doesn’t say a word, but I can tell she’s gloating.
My father often talks to me about Karl Marx. ‘Now you’ve read his work,’ he says, ‘you know about man’s exploitation of man and you can see that the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class, as he puts it so well.’ He often reiterates this idea. I don’t understand the word ‘emancipation’ and dare not ask him what it means. It all seems very worrying to me, but I nod my head enthusiastically. I shudder at the thought of him discovering the full extent of my deception and stupidity. I have learnt a few passages by heart in the hope that this will be enough to fool him if he ever decides to question me on the subject.
There are other authors I have to study now: Plato, Kafka and Nietzsche. First, Plato’s The Republic. Like my father, Plato is an Initiate. I will grow thanks to him because he will help me recognize the true light. He will stop me from being drawn to false glimmers like stupid insects drawn to electric light bulbs that kill them. I will also develop a deeper understanding of a vital concept my father has already discussed with me several times: the concept of ‘the cave’ and how all men are chained within its depths.
Ever since I was little, my father has told me that this cave is steeped in almost total darkness while outside all is Light, Beauty and Freedom—things that the prisoners can’t see. They can see only a flickering reflection on the walls of their prison-cave. My father always ends these teachings with the words: ‘That dark cave is out there, beyond our gate. In our house, though, you can enjoy the light and freedom I give you. I hope you realize how lucky you are.’
I was very impressed by these descriptions. I wondered whether there was also a cave under the village, and who were those poor people chained down there in the dark. Now, I understand that it’s a metaphor for the evil of the world and man’s impotence. I like immersing myself in The Republic. I don’t understand much of it, but unlike Das Kapital, even the passages I don’t grasp have a soothing effect, with their calm orderliness that feels full of meaning. What Plato says about Socrates makes me want to find out about him too. I ask to read his books
and my mother says, ‘No, you can’t.’ Why? No answer.
The Republic is the complete opposite of my father’s chaotic teachings, which jumble terrifying ideas with episodes from his own life and horrible historical events. The last time he summoned me it was to go back over the two subjects that most obsess him: ‘energies’ and the Nazis. He explained what caused the downfall of the Third Reich, the most powerful regime in all history: Hitler tried to do things ‘too quickly’, decided to ‘turn his energies in on themselves’, as is clear from the swastika itself, which is merely an inversion of an ancient Indian religious symbol.
In my father’s opinion, that is the worst choice anyone can make. When they spin in the right direction, energies help Beings of Light in their mission to reintegrate humanity and achieve salvation for fallen mankind. But it takes enormous time and effort to focus those energies in the right direction. When oriented the wrong way, energies can be far more powerful with even less effort. Which is why people who are in a hurry, like Hitler, like those bad roots, are tempted to reverse the direction. Those misdirected energies lead to chaos and even end up turning against those who use them.
In Hitler’s entourage, there was one worthy man: Rommel. Had Hitler listened to him, the world wouldn’t be where it is today. But he opted to listen to Göring, a piece of scum and a loser who thought his shit didn’t stink. Göring stole works of art not because he loved art, but because he only knew how to slavishly copy the Führer, his master, in everything. Göring was the most dangerous of them all because, like all the feeble-minded, he knew how to appeal to the selfishness, stupidity and greed of the flock.
These are the despicable types I need to be wary of in the future, because they will try to destroy me. Only with extensive training can I have any hope of resisting them.