A Secret Kept

by Tatiana de Rosnay

  My father talks to me, something about plumbing problems in their country house, but I don't listen. I look around the room and try to remember what it was like when my mother was still alive. There were plants by the windows; the floorboards glistened a lustrous chestnut. There were books in one corner and a chintz-covered sofa, and a desk where she used to sit and write in the morning sun. What did she write? I wonder. And where did all her stuff go? All her books, her photos, her letters? I want to ask my father, but I don't. I know I cannot. He is now complaining about the new gardener Regine hired.

  No one ever talks about my mother. Especially here. She died here. Her body was carried out through that very entrance, down those red-carpeted stairs. Where did she die, exactly? I was never told. In her room, which was just beyond the entrance? Here, in the kitchen, all the way down the endless corridor? How did it happen? Who was there? Who found her?

  Aneurysm. I had looked it up recently on the Internet. It happened. Like a bolt of lightning. It happened to people at any age. Just like that.

  Thirty-three years ago my mother died in the very apartment I am sitting in now. I don't remember the last time I kissed her. And it hurts me, not remembering.

  "Are you listening to me at all, Antoine?" asks my father sarcastically.

  When I get home, my children are already there. I can hear the din of their presence as I toil up the stairs. Music, footsteps, loud voices. Lucas is watching TV, dirty shoes on the sofa. As I come in, he rushes up to greet me. Margaux appears in the doorway. I still can't get used to the orange hair, but I don't say anything.

  "Hey, Dad . . ." she drawls.

  There is a movement behind her, and I see Pauline appear over her shoulder. Her best friend since they were small. Except that Pauline now looks like a twenty-year-old. A minute ago she was a scraggy little thing. Now it is impossible not to notice her full bosom and womanly hips. I don't hug her the way I used to when she was a kid. In fact I don't even kiss her on the cheek. We sort of wave at each other from a polite distance.

  "Is it okay if Pauline sleeps over?"

  My heart sinks. I know that if Pauline spends the night, I will not see my daughter, except at dinner. They will then retire to Margaux's room, giggle and whisper all night long, and there will be no "quality time" with my child.

  "Sure," I say halfheartedly. "Is it all right with your parents?"

  Pauline shrugs. "Yeah, no problem."

  She has grown even more, it seems, during the summer, looming over Margaux. She is wearing a short jean skirt and a tight purple T-shirt. Fourteen years old. Nobody would believe it just looking at her. She probably has her period. I know Margaux has not started yet. Astrid told me not very long ago. With a body like that, Pauline attracts all sorts of men, I realize. Kids from school, and older. Guys my age. I wonder how her parents deal with those issues. What they tell her. What she knows. Maybe she has a regular boyfriend, maybe she has sex, is already on the pill. Fourteen years old.

  Arno comes breezing in, clapping me on the back. His phone chimes, and he answers it, saying, "Hold on a sec." He disappears. Lucas turns to the TV and the girls take off. I am left alone in the entrance. I feel like a fool.

  I go into the kitchen, my feet making a lot of noise on the creaky floorboards. There is nothing else to do but to cook them dinner. A pasta salad, with mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, and ham cubes. As I stand there chopping up the cheese, my life feels so empty, I almost laugh. I do. Later, when the food is ready, it seems to take ages to get them to come and sit. They all have something better to do.

  "No iPods, Nintendos, or cell phones at the table, please," I say firmly, plunking the food down.

  My words are greeted with shrugs and sighs. Then silence punctuated by slurps and munches as they tuck in. I look at our little group as from a distance. My first summer without Astrid. Yes, I hate every minute of it.

  The evening stretches out in front of me like a parched meadow. The girls are closeted up in Margaux's room, Lucas is glued to his Nintendo, and Arno is riveted to the Internet in his own room. It was a mistake, I now realize, to have Wi-Fi installed here and computers for each of them. They revert to their personal spaces, and I end up hardly seeing them. Nobody watches TV anymore en famille. The Internet has taken over, silent and predatory.

  I lie down on the couch and watch a DVD. A Bruce Willis action movie. At one point I press pause to call Valerie and Melanie and to text Angele about our next rendezvous. The evening wears on. Muffled giggles come from Margaux's room, little pings and pongs from Lucas's Nintendo, and from Arno's I can just make out the brassy beat emanating from his headphones. The heat gets to me, and I doze off.

  When I open my eyes, groggy, it is nearly two in the morning. I stagger up. Lucas is fast asleep, his cheek squashing his Nintendo. I gently put him to bed, doing all I can not to wake him. I decide not to knock on Arno's door. After all, he is still on vacation, and I can't face another altercation about how late it is, that he should be asleep at this hour. As I walk to my daughter's room, the unmistakable whiff of a cigarette tickles my nose. I pause, my hand on the doorknob. More stifled laughs. I knock. The laughter ceases. Margaux opens the door. The room is hazy with smoke.

  "Are you girls smoking in here?" My voice comes out strangled, almost humble, and I cringe, hearing myself.

  Margaux shrugs. Pauline is flat out on the bed wearing nothing but flimsy blue panties and a frilly bra. I avert my eyes from the roundness of her breasts, which seem to leap out at me.

  "Just a couple of cigarettes, Dad," says Margaux, rolling her eyes.

  "But you're only fourteen," I bluster. "This is such a dumb thing to do . . ."

  "Well, if it's so dumb, why do you do it, Dad?" she sneers.

  She closes the door in my face.

  I am left there, arms akimbo. I lift my hand to tentatively knock again. I don't. I retreat to my room and sit on my bed. What would Astrid have done in this very situation? I wonder. Shouted at her? Punished her? Threatened her? Does Margaux dare smoke under her mother's roof? Why do I feel so useless? It can't get any worse than this. Or can it?

  Even in her severe blue hospital uniform, Angele is sexy. She wraps her arms around me, heedless of the fact that we are in the hospital morgue, that corpses lurk on the other side of the door, that bereaved families sit stricken in the nearby waiting room.

  Her touch electrifies me.

  "When are you free?" I whisper. I haven't seen her for more than three weeks. The last time I came to see Melanie, I was with my father, and there wasn't the slightest possibility of spending time with Angele. My father was tired and needed to be driven back home.

  She sighs. "Pileup on the highway, couple of heart attacks, one cancer, one aneurysm--everybody seems to have chosen the same time to die."

  "Aneurysm . . ." I murmur.

  "A young woman in her thirties."

  I keep her close to me, stroking her smooth, glossy hair.

  "My mother died of an aneurysm in her mid-thirties."

  She looks up at me.

  "You were a kid."

  "Yes."

  "Did you see her in death?"

  "No. I closed my eyes at the last moment."

  "Aneurysm deaths usually look good. This young lady is lovely in death. I hardly had to work on her."

  The place where we are standing is cool, quiet, a little corridor off the waiting room.

  "Have you checked on your sister yet?" she asks.

  "I just arrived. She is with the nurses. I'm going back there now."

  "Okay. Give me a couple of hours. I should be done by then."

  She kisses me on the mouth, a warm, wet kiss. I make my way back up to Melanie's ward. The hospital seems fuller, busier than usual. My sister's face is less pale, almost pink. Her eyes light up when she sees me.

  "I can't wait to get out of here," she whispers. "They're all very nice, but I just want to go home."

  "What is Dr. Besson saying?"

 
"She says it could be quite soon."

  She asks how my week was. I grin, not quite knowing how to begin. A wretched week, in every way. Tiresome paperwork for the car insurance. Another argument with Rabagny about the day-care center. More exasperation with Florence. Our father and his aging, tired face, his short temper. A difficult weekend with the kids. School had just started and everyone was tense. Never had I felt more relieved to drop them off at Malakoff. I just tell Melanie it was one of those crappy weeks where everything goes wrong.

  I sit with her for a while. We talk about the letters she has been getting, flowers, phone calls. The old beau has sent a ruby ring from a place Vendome jeweler. Sometimes I think she is going to talk about the crash, but she doesn't. Nothing is coming back to her yet. I need to be patient.

  "I can't wait for fall, for winter." Melanie sighs. "I hate the end of summer. I hate the heat, I hate everything about it. I can't wait for chilly winter mornings and hot-water bottles."

  Dr. Besson comes in, shakes my hand. She tells us that Melanie can be driven back to Paris by ambulance within the next weeks, probably after the middle of September. She will be allowed to convalesce in her own home for at least two months, under the care of a physiotherapist and with regular visits to her doctor.

  "Your sister has been very brave," she says later, as we fill out paperwork in her office. She hands me a stack of social security papers and insurance forms. Then she looks right at me. "How is your father?"

  "You think he's ill, don't you?"

  She nods.

  I say, "He hasn't told me or my sister what's wrong with him. I notice how tired he is, but that's all I can tell you."

  "What about your mother?" she asks. "Does she know something?"

  "Our mother died when we were young."

  "Oh, I'm sorry," she says quickly.

  "Our father is remarried. But I'm not sure what my stepmother can tell me about his health. We aren't very close."

  She nods. Pauses awhile. Then says, "I just want to make sure he's under medical supervision."

  "Why are you worried?"

  She looks at me. Shrewd hazel irises. "I just want to make sure."

  "Do you want me to talk to him?"

  "Yes," she says. "Just ask him if he's been seeing his doctor."

  "All right," I say. "I will."

  As I make my way back to Angele's office, I wonder what it was about my father that Dr. Besson noticed. What did her expert medical eye see that I didn't? I feel annoyed, concerned. I haven't seen my father since my last visit. Nor have I spoken to him. But I have dreamed of him in the past few weeks, as I have dreamed of my mother. Noirmoutier coming back to me, like the tide rising over the Gois passage and the gulls circling over the rescue poles. Dreams of my father, my mother, when they were young, on the beach. My mother's smile, my father's laugh. Dreams of my recent stay with Melanie. The night of her birthday, how beautiful she looked in her black dress. The elegant couple next to us, raising their glasses of champagne in our direction. The chef exclaiming, "Madame Rey!" Room number 9. My mother's room. Since the night of the accident, I have dreamed of Noirmoutier again and again. Noirmoutier has never left me.

  Hospital morgue, reads the sign. I knock once, then twice. No answer. I stand outside Angele's door for a long time. I guess she isn't done yet. I go and sit in the small waiting room reserved for the bereaved. It is empty right now, and I feel relieved that I'm the only one there. Time creeps by. I check my phone. No missed calls. No voice messages. No texts.

  A small noise makes me look up. A person wearing goggles, a mask, a paper skullcap, latex gloves, and light blue overalls tucked into rubber boots is standing in front of me. I rush to my feet. A gloved hand takes off the goggles and the mask. Angele's beautiful, chiseled features appear.

  "Hell of a day," she says. "Sorry I kept you waiting."

  She looks tired, her face drawn.

  Behind her, the door to her offices is partially open. I glance into the space I can see from here. A small blue room. Completely bare. Linoleum. Beyond that, another door, open as well. White walls, white tiled floors. Gurneys. Vials and various tools I can't make out. A strange, powerful smell floats in the air. She smells of it too. I can pick it up on her overalls. Is it the smell of death? Of formaldehyde? All I know is that this is the first time I ever smell it and the first time I smell it on her.

  "Are you afraid?" she asks gently.

  "No," I say.

  "Do you want to go in?"

  I don't hesitate. "Yes, I do."

  She takes off her gloves, and the warm flesh of her hand meets mine.

  "Come into Morticia's lair," she whispers. She closes the heavy door behind her. We are standing in the first room. "This is where the bodies are wheeled in so that their families can see them for the last time. The viewing room."

  I try to imagine what goes on here. Was it in a place like this that Melanie and I were shown our mother's body? It must have been. Something in my mind goes blank, and I can't imagine or remember anything. If I had seen her in death all those years ago, if I hadn't closed my eyes, it would have been in a room like this one. I follow Angele into the larger room beyond. The odor here is stronger, almost overpowering. Like sulfur. There is a body covered with a white hospital sheet, on a gurney. The place is very clean. Pristine surfaces. Shining instruments. No stains. Light pouring through the blinds. I can hear the hum of air-conditioning. It is cooler in here, cooler than anywhere else in the hospital.

  "What do you want to know?" Angele says.

  "What you can tell me."

  She smiles. "Let me introduce you to this afternoon's patient."

  She gently moves the sheet back from the form on the gurney. I feel myself stiffening, as I had all those years ago when the sheet was removed from my mother's body, but the face that appears is a peaceful, tranquil one. An old man with a bushy white beard. He is wearing a gray suit, a white shirt, a navy blue tie, and patent leather shoes. His hands are crossed on his chest.

  "Come closer," she says. "He won't bite."

  He looks asleep, but as I come near, I can see the utter stillness of death.

  "This is Monsieur B. He had a heart attack. He was eighty-five."

  "Did he come in looking this good?"

  "When he came in, he was wearing stained pajamas, his face was crumpled up, and he was bright purple."

  I flinch.

  "I start by washing my patients. I take my time. I wash them from head to toe. I use this special hose here." She points to a nearby sink and faucet. "I use a sponge and detergent. While I do this, I bend and flex arms and legs, so that rigor mortis doesn't set in too fast. I close the eyes with special little caps, and I suture the mouth, but I hate that word, so I'd rather say I close the mouth, and sometimes I use an adhesive because it looks more natural. I hate those small-stitched mouths some morticians make. If there has been trauma to the face or body, I work on those areas with wax or other methods. Sometimes that takes a while. Then I start the embalming process. Do you know what that is?"

  "Not exactly," I say truthfully.

  "I inject the embalming fluid via the carotid artery. Right here." She points to Monsieur B.'s neck. "I pump it in. Slowly. And I pump the blood out from the jugular vein. Do you know what the embalming fluid does?"

  "No."

  "It restores natural color. It delays decomposition, at least for a while. When I pumped up Monsieur B., for instance, it took all the purple out of his face. After the arterial embalming, I use an aspirator to suck all bodily fluids away. Stomach, abdomen, heart, lungs, bladder." She pauses. "Are you okay?"

  "Yes," I say, and again, I am truthful. This is the first time I've seen a dead body, apart from the shape under the sheet that was my mother. I am forty-three years old and I have never laid eyes on death. I inwardly thank Monsieur B. for looking so peachy pink and content.

  Did my mother look like this? I wonder.

  "Then what do you do?"

  "I fill all the
cavities with concentrated chemicals and then I suture all incisions and orifices. That takes a while too. I won't go into details. You wouldn't like it. And then I dress my patients."

  I love the way she says "my patients." They are stone dead, but they are still her patients. I notice that during the entire time she has been talking to me, her gloveless hand is on Monsieur B.'s shoulder.

  "The last thing I do, which is what I was working on when you knocked, is makeup. It has to be natural. Sometimes I ask for recent photos of my patients so I can see what they looked like when they were alive. I try to stick to that."

  "Has Monsieur B.'s family been to see him yet?"

  She looks at her watch.

  "Tomorrow. I'm very happy with Monsieur B. That's why I showed him to you. I'm less happy . . . with my other patients of the day."

  "Why?" I ask.

  She moves away from the gurney and stands by the window. She is silent for a while.

  "Death can be very ugly. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, you can't get a body looking peaceful enough for the family to see it."

  I shiver, thinking about what she sees every day.

  "How does this not get to you?"

  She turns to look at me.

  "Oh, but it does." She sighs, puts the sheet back over Monsieur B.'s face. "I do this job because of my father. He committed suicide. I was thirteen years old. I'm the one who found him. I came home from school, and there he was, slumped over on the kitchen table with his brains splattered over the walls."

  "Jesus," I breathe.

  "My mother was in such a state that I had to make all the calls, do everything, organize the funeral. My older sister collapsed. I grew up that day. Became the tough cookie I am now. The mortician who worked on him did an incredible job. He reconstructed my father's head with wax. My mother and family could look at the body and not faint. But I was the only one who had seen my father in death. I was the only one who could compare. I was so impressed by the mortician's craft that I knew I wanted to do that later on. I passed my exam and became a mortician at twenty-two."