by Maude Julien
The Flying Machine
Shakespeare is not an author. He is actually many different authors, five to be precise. Five Initiates (the same as in the ‘just and perfect’ Freemason Lodges), who littered those famous plays with coded messages that no layperson would ever detect. This was the surest way of perpetuating their ideas throughout the ages without risking censorship. Similarly, his Globe Theatre in London was a symbolic site loaded with energies. It was built on a polygonal base like a baptistery in order to radiate hidden ideas and further England’s supremacy. My father makes me read lots of Shakespeare plays—Henry IV, Richard III, King Lear, Coriolanus, Hamlet, et cetera—in the original English. I don’t understand any of it and I’m sure he doesn’t either. But that doesn’t matter; he says these blind readings still feed my mind very effectively. I’m more fascinated by the magnificent books printed on paper so thick that the letters seem to be engraved onto them. There is in this room a serene literary aura that I find soothing. Perhaps my father is right, perhaps the plays really are nourishing my mind.
He shows me other beautiful books, like those devoted to Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions. I stroke their gilded bindings and my fingers can almost read their titles embossed in the leather. I stop short when I come to some bewitching drawings that my brain struggles to decipher. My father explains that Leonardo designed a flying machine long before planes were invented, and he even drew a blueprint for a helicopter. He was a genius and a very great Initiate, and he enlightened Francis I of France and managed to push back the tide of religious obscurantism. As the reincarnation of Beings of Light, he knew how best to use energies. His particular gift was his total mastery of the ‘divine proportion’ found in every animate and inanimate aspect of the universe, a proportion known as the ‘golden ratio’. The parts of the human body conform to it, as do pentagons and pentagrams. The Egyptians followed this ratio when they built the pyramids, and Hiram of Tyre also used it in building Solomon’s Temple.
My father says Leonardo da Vinci is among us still, through a series of reincarnations, and lives in Venice where he runs secret Lodges. I’m dazzled by the man’s art, his intelligence and the breadth of his knowledge. How does he manage to remember everything when he’s reincarnated? I feel ashamed that I can’t remember anything and have no recollections of my former lives. I’d so love to meet da Vinci. I wonder if my father knows how to find him?
It must be wonderful to be so intelligent! Maybe my father’s right. If I become a superhuman I might be of interest to people like Leonardo da Vinci. And I’d be released from the torment inside my head when I don’t understand what’s being asked of me. I need to pull myself together! First I must stop being such a softie. I decide that I won’t look at Linda when I let her out. And when I shut her in I won’t apologize to her or indulge her with petting. I put my program into operation. Linda looks up longingly for eye contact. I throw her a harsh ‘Get out!’ I can feel my heart breaking at the thought of what this is doing to her. But I hold out, gritting my teeth. Until the next morning, that is, when all my resolve melts with just one look at her. I tell her I’m sorry and hate myself for what I did. She doesn’t bear any grudges, though—she’s overjoyed to have me back.
But how do superhumans rise above their emotions? This question tortures me for weeks. The only suffering I can inflict is on myself. I punish myself for my sentimentality. I rip up some of my secret notes on onion-skin paper; I even contemplate tearing up the Hungarian Rhapsody score. In my mind, there’s a battle between the half of me that says, ‘No! That Rhapsody is Madame Descombes, you can’t do that!’ and the other half that retorts, ‘Oh, really? Stop your pathetic excuses!’
Then one day, I have no idea why, the tussling abruptly stops. Was a meditation on death unusually tough? Did a test of courage come at the wrong time? Whatever it is, my fascination suddenly evaporates. I see my father as he truly is: a friendless, loveless man, who never gives or receives any kindness, and who even terrorizes animals. I look at my mother and see a woman who can’t even speak freely to her own husband, can’t use his first name, and has to listen to her radio in secret. Is that the path to enlightenment? It’s the exact opposite of da Vinci’s flying machine! My father is not trying to fly; he shoots at birds in the sky and chooses to stay cloistered in this ghastly place. But I want to be free, I want to fly away. If that means living outdoors, well, that’s fine by me. If it means not having any food, so what? The only sustenance that matters is the love in my dog’s eyes and the hope of meeting people who dare to truly live. I can’t stop my father, my ‘thought master’, from filling me with his gibberish…but in my mind I’m no longer bound by his world of so-called superhumans.
Luckily I have music and books to calm the pandemonium inside my head. In the evenings I re-read Les Misérables, and it does me good. I feel an almost physical pleasure in my brain, as if something were opening up inside it, transporting me to a different world filled with different stories. I know these stories are made up, but I believe they’re very close to real life. When the electricity is cut off, I rest the book on my chest and rapturously remember the final passages. When I re-read The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, I’m completely overcome. I’m in love for the first time, and my love is Quasimodo. I am moved by his hidden beauty. Lying wide-eyed in the dark, I picture myself walking proudly on his arm. As we pass by, people turn to look, suddenly dazzled as they see his beauty for the first time.
Friendship
After mowing the lawn my mother and I rake the grass cuttings into little heaps. My father is in charge of ‘operation bonfire’, which is tricky in a part of the world where the grass is rarely dry. He digs several holes into the pile of cuttings and pours petrol into them. Then he rolls pages of newspaper into the shape of little torches, lights these and throws them into the holes.
One day, one of the paper torches misses its target. A tongue of flame leaps up my father’s legs; he starts hopping around like a goat, contorting frantically as he tries to put out the flames on the bottom of his pants. My mother and I are paralyzed, astonished by this dancing jumping jack. For years now my father has hardly even walked, as if he had some serious handicap with his legs. Since he’s been using crutches so much, we were worried he would ask for a wheelchair next.
Finally, through gritted teeth, my mother mutters, ‘Your father is just a pathetic fraud. I hate that man.’ She is waiting for me to agree with her but I’m too frightened she’ll use my words against me. ‘Of course, you’re always on his side,’ she snaps.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ my father bellows. ‘Light the fire now!’ I snap out of my dazed state and do as I’m told, filled with boundless sadness that when my mother reached out to me I missed my chance to reach back.
In front of my father I shrivel up in fear, but when my mother talks negatively about him, she really messes with my mind. It’s usually when we’re walking downstairs to join him out in the grounds or when he’s ‘summoned’ both of us together. ‘I hate that man,’ she mutters. ‘What is all this crap about? Your father never got further than high school. Who does he think he is?’ But as soon as we’re with him, she becomes small and obedient, all ‘yes, of course’ and ‘I’ll do it right away’. It’s bewildering, as if she’s forcing me to do the splits emotionally, like when she pushes down on my shoulders in the gymnasium to splay my legs apart.
I sometimes wonder whether these rants of hers are just a trap to corner me into confiding my negative thoughts. But no, her hatred is genuine. Particularly when it includes me. These moments strike me like lightning. ‘Who do you think you are?’ she spits suddenly, and I stiffen with fear and confusion. It’s as if someone is whispering things in her ear that make her angry. ‘Oh, you think you’re your father’s daughter, do you?’ she says bitterly. ‘Well, you’ll get what you want…I’m only stuck here because of you. It’s all your fault.’ I’m so shaken that it’s hard to hold back my tears. That’s when she hits me with: ‘Stop the charade
!’
At other times she sings my father’s praises, listing the sacrifices he’s made all these years. It’s for my sake that he paid for her long study programs, so that I can reap the benefits now. I’m an ungrateful daughter, failing to live up to his expectations.
I just don’t understand what she wants and I don’t know how to satisfy her. I wish she would say, ‘He’s keeping us both prisoner and we should work together to escape.’ I think I would even prefer her to say frankly that she loves him, that she does everything for him and that if it doesn’t suit me, then tough. That would be clear, at least I would know what I’m up against and would stop having my heart cut to ribbons by her sudden changes of attitude and inconsistencies.
After all, I don’t expect much from her anymore. Every day I continue to prepare my new hiding place in my room. I silently retrieve all my onion papers that I slipped under the stair rugs, and I re-read my stories before hiding them again. The one I find most moving is set in the trenches during the 1870 Franco-Prussian war. A Prussian soldier called Leopold is injured. Jean-Baptiste, a Frenchman, launches himself on Leopold to kill him. But just as he is about to bayonet him, they make eye contact and Jean-Baptiste can’t bring himself to kill the injured man. He deserts his command, carries him away from the front lines, and tends to his wounds. The two men don’t speak each other’s languages but they communicate with their eyes and gestures. They are eventually caught by the French army and condemned to death. They face the firing squad with their hands locked together in a handshake. Infuriated, the officer gives the order to fire. The two friends are still holding hands as they fall. Everyone is touched by the story of their friendship, even the Prussians. Cheers for Jean-Baptiste ring out from the Prussian trenches while French soldiers chant Leopold’s name. Soldiers on both sides throw down their weapons and venture towards each other to shake hands, emulating Jean-Baptiste and Leopold’s final gesture. There are mutinies on both sides and the war comes to an end. A ‘Leopold—Jean-Baptiste’ treaty is signed between France and Prussia, which becomes a pact for world peace. The First and Second World Wars never happen.
As I fall asleep I come up with a title for my story: ‘Friendship’.
Thales’ Theorem
My father has always told me I would start my period at thirteen. I’m thirteen now and today I found blood in my underwear. I wait till lesson time before telling my mother. She drops everything and goes to tell my father, then reappears with a packet of maxi pads and hands them to me without a word of explanation. Luckily the instructions are printed on the packaging. She finishes the lesson early and says, ‘Go to the ballroom and wait for your father.’
I am nervous. God knows what I will hear. When I walk into the ballroom I’m struck by the abundance of light streaming in: before going upstairs, my mother opened all the shutters that have been closed for at least a year. I stand and wait. My father makes his entrance, clearly moved almost to tears. He goes over to the bar, fills one of his precious crystal glasses with Chivas whisky and brings it to me. I’m rooted to the spot with surprise: my father has never gone to the trouble of getting a glass, holding a bottle or pouring a drink for anyone, ever.
‘Sit down,’ he says. ‘You’re a woman now. That calls for celebration. Drink it all.’
While I drink down the whisky one burning mouthful at a time, he goes back over the teachings he has already given me about menstruation. Firstly, stomach cramps associated with periods exist only in the minds of hysterical women. Secondly, periods last only two and a half days, three at the most, and recur exactly every twenty-eight days. And thirdly, they constitute a period of receptivity: ‘You are particularly sensitive to good energies, as well as bad. So no one must ever know when you are menstruating. You should also stay away from animals because they can sense it and they could unwittingly reveal the information to your enemies.’
Because of this greater openness and sensitivity, I must be even more selective about what goes into my brain: I mustn’t read anything ‘light’ or listen to advertising. I should feed my mind only intelligent material and meditations with the spirits. But there’s nothing for me to worry about. I’ll be regular as clockwork just like my mother. He will keep a record of my dates and ensure I won’t get ‘polluted’.
My father also explains the special power a woman has during her period. Her blood, which is shed naturally, is the power of life itself, of renewal. Men don’t have this power because their blood is shed only through violence. They therefore don’t have women’s capacity for personal renewal, so their energies dwindle inexorably—except, of course, in the case of great Initiates, but that’s another story. Most religions are afraid of this female power. Judaism, for example, would have women believe they are impure, in order to distance them from their powers. Similarly, the reign of matter makes them believe they have stomach cramps. I, however, must avoid making these mistakes and maximize my powers by fully absorbing my father’s teachings.
Maybe it’s because I’m a woman now or maybe my father is tired of hearing my scales all day long, but this summer he has commissioned the construction of a ‘music pavilion’, carefully insulated against cold and sound. All my instruments will be kept here and this is where I will practise. Since having my period, I’ve also done less work as an apprentice bricklayer. My mother is often nearby and I have the feeling she is keeping an eye on my contact with Albert and Rémi.
My mother still quakes at the thought of my homework coming back from the correspondence school with bad marks, or even average ones. My father is very quick to reprimand her harshly in front of me. She has managed to find a loophole that allows her to obtain the answer sheets early: she now sends the examiners my ‘homework’, which consists of the answer sheets that she has made me copy out, making a few minor changes. My marks are now consistently excellent. My father is satisfied and my mother relieved. I should be too, but deep down I resent her. I couldn’t care less about good marks. I want to learn. ‘I’m warning you,’ she says, ‘if you talk to your father about this, I’ll tell him you’re the one who’s making the corrections. And that’s the truth, anyway!’
Eighteen or nineteen out of twenty isn’t good enough. She wants to impress my father and flaunt her extraordinary teaching skills. I have to shine. She made me complete the seventh and eighth grades in one year. At thirteen and a half, I’m already in ninth grade. That’s easy when you’re just copying out the answer sheets, but we both know it’s fake. I am increasingly angry; she is depriving me of the true education that is absolutely necessary in order for me to grow and become strong enough to one day take off. My ‘pure’ and ‘superior’ education is phony. The protection I’m meant to benefit from in this house is phony. My father’s grandiose teachings are phony. My whole life is a charade. When I ask her for proper lessons she says, ‘You’ll just have to learn from the answer sheets. All it takes is intelligence and will.’
When it comes to maths, it’s a disaster. She doesn’t understand any of it and is no help at all. I toil over the manuals but without outside help I can’t get anywhere. Because my work is always excellent, I can’t even turn to the teachers at the correspondence school. I can’t find help anywhere. One day we come to the lesson about Thales’ theorem. I read the lesson and don’t understand a word of it. I desperately draw various triangles, but nothing makes sense. My father knows his pyramids, so I could ask him, but my mother strictly forbids it. I’m devastated. If I can’t do maths, that means no medical studies. Goodbye to my dream of becoming a ‘surgeon of the head’, goodbye to my medical and healer heroes…I’m condemned to being shut away here forever. Even if I manage to get out, by some miracle, I won’t know how to do anything.
Goodbye, Linda
Linda is nearly eleven, very old for a German Shepherd. She is lame and her eyesight is failing. In spite of everything, my father still wants her to be locked in her kennel. When I let her out in the evenings I sometimes notice she’s had a little ‘accident’
. She looks up at me with such shame in her eyes that my heart constricts. No, it’s not your fault, Linda, you shouldn’t be behind this fence.
One evening I find bloodstained diarrhoea in her kennel. I tell my mother right away and she is worried, but we mustn’t tell my father because he’s sick. We don’t know how to make Linda more comfortable. She has stopped eating and is visibly getting worse. My father decides to take to his bed, so now we’re confined to his room for goodness knows how many days.
Périsaut won’t leave Linda’s side for a minute. When I go down to feed them he’s always right there with his head inside the kennel.
We spend a second night attending to my father. The silence is suddenly broken by wailing. It is Périsaut whinnying helplessly at the top of his lungs. I can see my mother is listening too. I want to say something but she whispers, ‘Be quiet, you’ll wake your father.’ My heart is pounding. I know; I understand. Linda is dead, and Périsaut is mourning her. I remember how desolate Linda was when Arthur died. I’m overwhelmed by the same pain, a grieving child’s pain, all over again.
When he wakes, my father sends me to see what’s going on in the garden. I walk down the steps from the terrace. Périsaut is there pawing the ground; he comes up to me, turns back towards the kennel, then comes back towards the kitchen again. I can see his distress but I just can’t seem to walk any further. Until I’ve seen her, Linda is still alive. Eventually I make it to the kennel. The floor is covered in blood and she’s lying stretched out with blood all over her hindquarters.
When I go in to share the news, my mother looks upset. We set off to dig a grave over by the aviaries, not far from where Arthur is buried. It has rained a lot recently, so the earth is soft. Périsaut follows and watches us work. My mother locks him in the stables, worried he’ll want to dig up Linda the way Linda tried to dig up Arthur. We can hear his sorrowful little whinnies as we bury his friend. When I open the door to let him out, he stays in the stable, as if doing penance. My mother and I have to spend a third night watching over my father. Périsaut cries right through until morning.