The Only Girl in the World

by Maude Julien

  Despite my minor infringements and major insults, the threat of imminent death is never fulfilled. A criminal idea gradually insinuates its way into my head: is it possible that my father isn’t actually a superhuman with the gift of great powers? Is it possible that everything he says is just hogwash?

  The thought is horrifying and exhilarating. All the same, I wonder whether the Beings of Light somewhere in the universe aren’t keeping a close tally of all my wrongdoings, and I ask myself whether some day I’ll end up torn limb from limb by my own lies: a Ravaillac who, in this instance, fully deserves the torture.

  The Grey Vest

  In the parcel from the La Redoute catalogue comes my new pair of black shoes with a small one-inch heel; I’ll be wearing them for the next year. I try them on and they pinch my feet. My mother ordered them without measuring my feet, simply choosing the next size up from the previous pair. I don’t know whether I’ve grown more quickly than I was supposed to, but these shoes really hurt. When I mention this she tells me, ‘It’s an issue of willpower.’ My father tells me about Chinese women, highly evolved creatures who have their feet bound to keep them small. I should accept how lucky I am and stop complaining. It would be unthinkable to place a special order for me. I can’t possibly revert to the previous pair, which is falling apart. The soles have so many holes in them that recently I had been slipping leaves inside them to stop my feet from getting too wet.

  I also now have to wear a horrible vest in heavy grey tweed that my father has had specially made for me. He wants me to wear it summer and winter, over my blouse or my jumper. It was made too big for me so that I could keep it for several years, and it has six pockets in which I have to keep a fountain pen, a ballpoint pen, a pencil, a pencil-sharpener, an eraser, a piece of blotting paper, a small notebook, and sheets cut from the letterhead paper of my father’s various Masonic organizations. I also have to have a few aluminium clips to hold papers together—not normal paperclips, which my father thinks are ‘accessories for the lazy’—and a box of pen nibs, which must be kept in a separate pocket from the fountain pen. These are specifically for musical scores, which have to be written in pen and ink. I also have a handkerchief, a screwdriver with a bit of cork over its tip so I don’t hurt myself on it, and a compass which I must use to escape if I’m kidnapped. If this happens and I have to make my way through a forest, my father advises me always to head north, otherwise I’ll end up going around in circles.

  An inside pocket is intended for German vocabulary cards—with a word written in German on one side and its French translation on the other—that my father has given me to learn. I also have to have a pair of pliers, but because they’re very heavy and make the pocket bulge out of shape, I’m usually exempted from carrying them. ‘You must keep your tools on you at all times so you can work anytime, anywhere.’ Wherever I am, I have to be able to sit a written impromptu exam, pass a Latin test, et cetera. Meanwhile, I should know how to repair a leak at a moment’s notice. In my father’s view, this vest corresponds to a sort of rank. He compares it to the work aprons of the ‘Companions of the Tour de France’, craftsmen who always have their tools with them. The vest means I can never use the ‘lazy excuse’ of not having the correct tool for the job.

  He insists that I keep this vest on from morning till night, except when I play the accordion. But it feels like a burden, a chain constantly reminding me that I have a mission to accomplish. I make the most of every opportunity to take it off, whether for a couple of minutes when I’m alone in my classroom or for thirty seconds when I go to the bathroom. I don’t know why my parents are so fixated on it. ‘You haven’t taken your vest off, have you?’ they ask me several times a day. I look them in the eye and reply, ‘No, I’ve kept it on the whole time,’ quaking at the idea that they might find out the truth.

  But, like the sword of Damocles hanging over my father’s head, my lies go undiscovered. I’m beginning to wonder whether I really need to build brick walls inside my head. I also find it increasingly difficult to resist the urge to explore every nook and cranny of this huge building. Of course, I have to be extremely devious. The times when I can escape the permanent monitoring amount to only a few minutes. As all the rooms are locked, the first thing I have to do is find ingenious ways to work out where each key is hidden.

  I now know that my father keeps the key to his bedroom under the doorsill. I make the most of the times when my parents are both on the ground floor to slip silently upstairs, take the key carefully from its hiding place, turn it gingerly in the lock and step into the massive master bedroom. Not wasting a second, I go over to the wardrobes that I’ve been expressly forbidden to open. I find fencing foils and helmets, and quilted jerkins. I’ve never seen my father fencing. Are these relics of a previous life? In another cupboard I find six or seven different coloured knight’s outfits: tunics with a large cross at the chest, long capes, and swords in sheaths with their bandoliers.

  Occasionally I manage to slip into my father’s office on the ground floor. I look through the drawers, taking great care not to move anything. I find different letterheads: those for the different Masonic Obediences to which he has belonged, some for his garage, and some for the airfield he ran. I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for and anyway I can’t stay more than two or three minutes. When I leave I make sure I put the key back exactly as it was.

  Over time my objective becomes clear: I now search in the hope of finding ‘adoption papers’ or any document proving that my parents are not my real parents. At night I tell myself that my real parents are away exploring dangerous parts of the world. They had to entrust me to this rich couple who are now refusing to hand me back. That’s why I’m kept prisoner.

  My mind often drifts back to the secrets hidden in the two safes in my father’s office. I feel that the key to my life is in them. I sometimes wonder what I would do if I could access these documents. I’d need to take them, run away immediately and head straight for the police station. But how to get out of this place? There are bars on the windows, the front door is always locked and, despite all my efforts, I’ve never worked out where that particular key is hidden. The more I think about it, the less hope I have.

  In the build-up to Christmas I promise myself I’ll alert the postman or the local firefighters when they come by for their annual tip. I don’t know why but my parents prefer to stay out of sight and give me the envelope with the money, which I hand through the small window in the dining room. I realize I could slip a plea for help into the envelope. During the hour I have alone for my homework I try to compose a note. I start ten different versions that all begin with the words ‘Tell the police’. But what to put next? I’m not starved, chained, beaten…Who would believe me?

  After lessons I go downstairs, discouraged by my powerlessness. On the floor below I can see my father from behind, sitting in the dining room. A tight fist grips my stomach, as it does every time I stand on this landing. I know I have to be extremely careful about the speed of my footsteps and how much noise they make. If he’s fallen asleep and my entrance wakes him with a start, he’ll accuse me of ‘sneaking up on him’. I deliberately make each stair creak. If I’m in any doubt, I silently go back up a few steps and climb down again, pressing my weight onto the ones that make the most noise.

  Once in the dining room, I have to sit with my head lowered and not speak or move a muscle until my mother comes in to eat. My father’s presence provokes an uncomfortable mixture of fear and revulsion in me. Out of the corner of my eye I can see him slumped in his chair, his back stooped, wearing his horrible worn-out vest, which stinks of sweat and decay. I turn helplessly towards the window overlooking the street, and through the net curtains I manage to make out cars and trucks going up and down the busy road to Saint-Omer. One time I heard my mother say they were heading for England. Oh, if only I could stow away on one of those trucks!

  I have a recurring nightmare: I wake to find my room extraordinarily bright, the
house flooded with sunlight, and realize it’s way beyond our regulation wake-up time. It’s strange my parents have let me sleep so late. I go and knock at my mother’s door; no one there. Nor at my father’s. I hurry to the dining room; it’s empty. Did I miss an instruction last night? I go up to the schoolroom, disconcerted not to have my watch on. I open the door… to find my parents lying under the large table by the blackboard. I lean closer: they are definitely dead. My head spins. ‘I killed them,’ I think. I must have got up in the night and killed them, like in those stories my father relishes telling about sleepwalkers. That’s it, it’s over. I feel incredible relief. But then the guilt strikes. I’m horrified. I’ve done the unthinkable. How will I get out of this? I can’t seem to feel any grief for them. I have only one thought: I’ll go to prison for killing them. Even in death they have me in their clutches. Should I run? But where? Should I leave them here, close the door and carry on living in this place as if nothing has happened? I wake in a sweat, my heart thudding, frantically wondering whether my nightmare has already come true, whether—in a moment of oblivion—I have already killed my parents.

  The Crystal Ball

  The gymnasium built on top of Arthur’s grave is a huge building, with ceilings eight metres high. It has a pommel horse, parallel bars, a beam, rings, a climbing rope, a ladder, et cetera. I’m now meant to become an accomplished gymnast, with no coach other than my mother and, of course, my own willpower. My parents have ordered sports gear for me: black gymnastic slippers and a pair of shorts.

  It’s the first time I’ve ever worn shorts. On my way to the gym where my mother is waiting for me to do an hour of exercises, I pass Rémi, who is putting the finishing touches to the outside of the building. He notices something at the back of my thigh. ‘What’s that big scar?’ he asks, looking uncomfortable. ‘Oh that? I don’t know, I’ve got another one here,’ I say, pointing to my chest. He looks increasingly horrified. A deluge of shame comes crashing down on me. These two scars have always been there, but I’ve never really thought about them. Doesn’t everyone have them?

  As soon as I get inside the gym I ask my mother about them. She replies evasively, saying they’re marks caused by an X-ray she had when she was pregnant. But Rémi’s repulsion pierces me. I feel ‘branded’, like an animal heading to slaughter. I see myself every day in the large mirror in the gym, and now I can’t help noticing the furrow running all along my thigh under the line of my buttock.

  I’m haunted by the image of this grimace-like scar. Whenever I’m in the gym I twist and turn in front of the mirror to get a better look at it. Yes, it looks like a big toothless mouth, its lips turned inwards, sown carelessly together with a row of big, uneven stitches. On bath days I try to get a better look at the other scar, which runs around my left side from my chest up under the armpit. It’s a swollen, snaking gash, hatched with big sloping hemstitches. When I run my finger over the notches I can feel a tangle of dips and bumps under the hardened skin. I feel mutilated, like Gwynplaine in Victor Hugo’s The Man Who Laughs. It feels as if, like him, I have ‘a cesspit of pain and anger in my heart and a mask of contentment on my face’.

  A few weeks later I bring up the subject again with my mother. This time she explains that, shortly after we came to the house, when I was not yet four, I was playing in the garden and fell through the basement window above the cellar, injuring my thigh. When I tried to climb back up, I injured my chest. Has she forgotten about the ‘marks caused by the X-ray’? Apparently not, because a few weeks after that she reverts to her first explanation. Later still, she makes a vague reference to an ‘initiation’.

  I do not dare talk about the scars with my father. I can’t imagine asking him even the most trifling question. ‘Sneaking up on him’ by questioning him when my mother has already given me her answer would smack of betrayal. Besides, he himself sometimes brings up the subject during lessons about the dead, but never in connection with X-rays or a fall: ‘You must learn to move between the realms of the living and the dead, as Beings of Light do. Your scars are identifying signs that will help the latter recognize you when you meet between realms.’

  I can’t really see the connection between identifying signs and scars from a fall as a child. But perhaps my father is using a coded language for some higher level of initiation, and I’ll understand only later in my training? I desperately hope that at some stage he’ll tell me that these horrible marks will fade away. Ever since Rémi blanched at the sight of my scar I feel even more like a breed apart than before. I don’t want to be like the criminals of days gone by, whom my father talks about: branded with an ‘L’ for forced Labor and an ‘F’ for Forger. I am not a criminal. Once the Beings of Light have recognized me, there will be no further reason for my scars to exist, and I do hope they disappear.

  Luckily my initiation is going ahead in leaps and bounds. Three or four times a year, on precise dates known to my father, he says to my mother, ‘Go to your room, Jeannine, and don’t come out until I call you.’ Then he summons me to the ballroom and I know this means we’ll be performing what I call the ‘ritual of the crystal ball’. My father never talks about it so I don’t know how he would describe this ball, or whether it is actually made of crystal. He puts on white gloves, then takes out a square box made of blond wood from the large bookcase.

  We sit down facing each other. He lifts off the lid. Then, holding the wooden base in both hands, he carefully places it onto the table, the ball balancing on its support. It’s crucial not to touch it, even with the tips of our fingers, so as not to ‘damage its purity’. He makes circular movements with his hands a couple of inches from the surface of the ball. Then it’s my turn to take over with these clockwise movements. When he feels we should ‘rebalance’ the energies, I have to circle my hands the other way.

  I don’t really understand what all this is for and I think I’d rather not know. Some instinct buried deep inside me is whispering, ‘Be careful, if you get involved in this you’ll never get away, you’ll stay locked up here forever.’ But at the same time I’m scared of doing something wrong, because my father puts such emphasis on the correct orientation of energies: ‘It’s because Hitler reversed the energies of the swastika that everything blew up in his face.’

  Then he takes out one of his pendulums. He has dozens of them, but the green one, with the green string and the green case, is his favourite. While he rotates it around the ball to ‘recharge it with energy’ I barely breathe, feeling as if something portentous is happening right before my eyes. Next he goes to sit further away, leaving me alone, looking at the ball. I have to stare right at it and ‘open myself up to its teaching’.

  Once, while I’m concentrating on the ball, all of a sudden I hear snoring. After a quick glance to check that he really is asleep, I decide to give free rein to my devilish curiosity. This ball is such a mystery! Is it even crystal? I need to touch it. I bring my hands slowly closer; my breathing accelerates. If I touch it, will everything explode? But I can’t fight the urge; I have to know. Even so, I give a little start when my hands come into contact with it. Nothing happens. My fingers don’t disappear. I’m fascinated by the strange substance. It’s not glass; it’s dense and opaque. I lift it up a little. I’m so surprised by the weight of it that I lurch to one side and almost drop it. Fear slams through me and my hands start to shake under the weight of the ball. Luckily my father carries on snoring. Still holding the ball, I manage to get to my feet without scraping my chair. Now I’m standing holding the ball firmly in both hands and I try to put it back on its stand. For some minutes I struggle to position the ball so that it remains stable. Then by some miracle, I find the correct angle and it slips perfectly into place.

  When I sit back down the screech of my chair wakes my father. He gives a little cough and comes to sit opposite me. I stay motionless, as if under a spell, my eyes glued to the ball. He must notice the sweat on my face, the mistiness in my eyes and the moistness under my nose, because I can hear
the satisfaction in his voice as he says, ‘Aha, there we are! You’re finally opening up to it…’

  To my horror I suddenly notice my fingerprints on the ball. I’m going to be incinerated on the spot, either by the ball itself or by my father’s anger. ‘That’s enough for today,’ he says, taking the base in his gloved hands. He does a sort of bow before putting the thing back in its box. I stammer something about not feeling very well and run to the bathroom to throw up.

  When I come out of the bathroom I’m startled to find him standing guard by the door. Oh God! The ball has given away my crime! He eyes me probingly. ‘That’s good, you’re starting to understand and accept the teaching.’ I mutter that I need to go back to the bathroom. To my surprise he accepts this. I hear his voice through the door: ‘The pollutants in your mind and body are being expelled. This is what knowledge will do for you.’

  At night I sometimes wonder whether I should go down with a cloth and wipe off my fingerprints. But I never find the courage to do it. So my stomach liquefies every time my father summons me to the ballroom. I picture him opening the box and the ball squealing, ‘She touched me!’ Or my father eventually noticing the fingerprints. In my fear I swallow hard and produce great beads of sweat. Meanwhile my father is still convinced I’m opening my mind to the knowledge of the Initiates. Luckily, my mother is excluded from this initiation. She would notice the unholy marks straightaway.

  Périsaut

  After two years of painful, clumsy attempts, I finally manage to execute three somersaults three days in a row. My father rewards me by buying me a pony that he baptizes ‘Périsaut’. Arthur died two years ago; I miss him. A new pony won’t bring my friend back. But my father doesn’t understand that.