A Secret Kept

by Tatiana de Rosnay

  "What I am about to say, I have told no one. No one knows. No one knows, and no one has talked about it since 1974."

  Gaspard's voice is so low that we have to lean forward. The bed creaks as we do so.

  A stealthy chill. Is it my imagination, or do I really feel it creeping up my spine? Gaspard is crouched on the floor. I can see the top of his head, the bald spot crowning it.

  Gaspard's whisper is heard again. "The day she died, your mother had come to see your grandmother. It was early. Your grandmother was still having her breakfast. Your grandfather was away that day."

  "Where were you?" inquires Melanie.

  "I was in the kitchen, helping my mother. I was making orange juice. Your mother loved fresh orange juice. Especially mine. It reminded her of the Midi." A touching, pathetic smile. "I was so happy to see your mother that morning. She did not come often. In fact, she hadn't been to see your grandparents for a long time, since Christmas. When I opened the door, it was like sunshine on the landing. I did not know she was coming. She had not called. My mother was not warned. She was annoyed, my mother. She made a fuss about petite Madame Rey turning up just like that. She was wearing her red coat, and how beautiful she was with her long black hair, her pale skin, her green eyes, such a beauty. Like you, Mademoiselle Melanie. You are so much like her, sometimes it hurts to look at you." The tears well up once more. But he manages to hold them back. He breathes slowly, taking his time. "I was in the kitchen, cleaning up. It was a lovely winter day. I had many chores to do, and I did them thoroughly. And then my mother rushed in, her face white. She was holding a hand over her mouth like she was going to vomit. I knew then that something dreadful had happened. I was only fifteen years old, but I knew."

  The chill creeps along my chest, my thighs, which begin to tremble. I dare not look at my sister. But I can sense how stiff her presence is next to me.

  A silly tune comes on. I wish Gaspard would turn it off.

  " 'Pop pop pop muzik, pop pop pop muzik. Talk about pop muzik . . . ' "

  "My mother could not speak for a moment. Then she screamed, 'Call Dr. Dardel, quick! Look up his number in Monsieur's address book in the study. Tell him to come right now!' I rushed to the study, and I made that phone call, trembling all over, and the doctor said he'd be right there. Who was ill? What had happened? Was it Madame? She had high blood pressure, I knew that. She had recently been given new medication. All sorts of pills to take during her meals."

  Dr. Dardel is a familiar name. He was my grandparents' closest friend and personal doctor. He died in the early '80s. A stocky, white-haired man. Much respected.

  Gaspard pauses. What is he trying to tell us? Why is it so long-winded?

  " 'New York London Paris Munich everybody talk about pop muzik.' "

  "For God's sake, get on with it," I mutter, teeth clenched.

  He nods hurriedly.

  "Your grandmother was in the petit salon, still wearing her dressing gown. She was pacing up and down. I couldn't see your mother. I couldn't understand. The door to the petit salon was ajar. And then I saw part of the red coat. On the floor. Something had happened to petite Madame Rey. Something that nobody wanted to tell me."

  Footsteps are heard creaking past the door. He stops, waits till they fade away. My heart is thumping so hard I am certain they can both hear it.

  "Dr. Dardel was there in a flash. The door to the petit salon closed. Then I heard an ambulance. Sirens right outside the building. My mother would not answer any of my questions. She told me to shut up, and she boxed my ears. They came to get petite Madame. That was the last time I ever saw her. She looked like she was asleep, her black hair around her face. She was very pale. They carried her away on a stretcher. Later on that day, I was told she was dead."

  Melanie gets up awkwardly, knocking the radio with her foot. It turns off. Gaspard stumbles up as well.

  "What are you talking about, Gaspard?" she snaps, forgetting to lower her voice. "Are you saying our mother had the aneurysm here?"

  He looks petrified. He stammers, "I--was ordered by my mother never to mention that petite Madame had died here."

  Melanie and I gape at him.

  "But why?" I manage to say.

  "My mother made me swear not to tell. I don't know why. I don't know. I never asked." He seems about to cry again.

  Melanie whimpers, "What about our father? Our grandfather? And Solange?"

  He shakes his head.

  "I don't know what they know, Mademoiselle Melanie. This is the first time I have ever talked about it to anyone." His head droops like a wilting flower. "I'm sorry. So sorry."

  "Do you mind if I smoke?" I say abruptly.

  "No, no, of course, please."

  I go and stand near the small window, light up. Gaspard picks up the photograph on the shelf.

  "Your mother confided in me, you see. I was young, only fifteen, but she trusted me." He says this with infinite pride. "I think I was one of the only people she trusted. She used to come up here in this room to see me and talk to me. She didn't have any friends in Paris. So she talked to me."

  "What did she tell you when she came up to see you?" Melanie asks.

  "So many things, Mademoiselle Melanie. So many wonderful things. She told me all about her childhood in the Cevennes. The little village where she used to live, near Le Vigan, that she had never been back to since her marriage. She told me that her father and her mother sold fruit at the market. She lost her parents when she was still young. Her father had an accident and her mother a bad heart. She was raised by her older sister, who was a hard woman and did not like it when she married your father, a Parisian. She was lonely sometimes. She missed the south, the simple life there, the sun. She was lonely because your father was very often away for his business. She talked about you and Mademoiselle Melanie. She was so proud of you. You were the center of her world."

  A pause.

  "She said that having you two made everything worth it. How you must miss such a mother, Mademoiselle Melanie, Monsieur Antoine. How you must miss her. I had a mother who never showed me any affection. Your mother was all love. She gave us all the love she had."

  I don't need to look at him to guess that his eyes are full of tears. I don't need to look at Melanie either. I finish my cigarette and toss it out of the window into the courtyard. Icy air comes blasting in. In the next room, music comes on, startlingly loud. I glance at my watch. It is getting on for six o'clock, and night has fallen.

  "We need you to let us back into our grandmother's apartment," says Melanie, her voice still shaky.

  Gaspard nods humbly. "Of course."

  During the entire way down, no one breathes a word.

  The nurse leads us into the large, shuttered bedroom, where we can barely make out a hospital bed, its back slightly upright, and the diminutive form of our grandmother on top of it. We politely ask the nurse to leave, as we need to talk to our grandmother in private. She obeys.

  Melanie turns the bedside lamp on, and we can at last see our grandmother's face. Blanche has her eyes closed, and her eyelids flutter when she hears Melanie's voice. She looks old and tired, and fed up with life. Her eyes open slowly and they linger on Melanie's face and then mine. No reaction. Does she even remember who we are? Melanie takes her hand, talks to her. Again the eyes, going from Mel to me silently. A thick necklace of wrinkles along her shriveled neck. Getting on for ninety-four, I calculate.

  The room around us has not changed either. Heavy ivory curtains, thick carpets, a bookshelf, a coiffeuse in front of the window, with the familiar objects that have been there forever: a Faberge egg, a gold snuffbox, a small marble pyramid, and the same photographs that gather dust in their silver frames: our father and Solange as children, Robert, our grandfather, then Mel, Josephine, and me. A couple of photos of my children when they were babies. None of Astrid. Nor of Regine. And none of our mother.

  "We want to talk to you about our mother," says Melanie clearly. "About Clarisse."

>   The eyelids flicker again and close. This looks like a dismissal.

  "We want to know about the day she died," Melanie goes on, ignoring the closed eyelids.

  The parched eyelids quiver open, and Blanche looks at both of us in silence for a long time. I am certain she is not going to say a word.

  "Can you tell us what happened here on February twelfth, 1974, Grand-mere?"

  We wait. Nothing. I want to tell Melanie this is hopeless. Not going to work out. But all of a sudden Blanche's eyes seem to open even wider, and there is a peculiar expression in them, something almost reptilian, which disturbs me. I watch her dried-up chest heave laboriously. The eyes don't blink, staring out at us, glowering at us, defiant, dark spots in a deathly, skull-like countenance.

  As the minutes crawl by, I begin to understand that my grandmother will never speak, that she will take what she knows to her grave. And I loathe her for it. I loathe every inch of her repulsive, crumpled skin, every inch of what she is, Blanche Violette Germaine Rey nee Fromet, from the sixteenth arrondissement, born to wealth, born to prosperity, born to excellence.

  We stare at each other, my grandmother and I, for what seems an eternity, causing Melanie to glance from her to me, taken aback. I make sure Blanche receives the entirety of my abhorrence, that she gets the full blast of it, up front, spilling out onto her immaculate nightdress. My disdain for her is such that it has me shaking from head to toe. My hands itch to grab one of the embroidered pillows and smother the white face, to snuff out the arrogance in those blazing eyes.

  It is a fierce, silent battle between her and me, and it lasts forever. I can hear the ticktock of the silver alarm clock on the bedside table, the footsteps of the nurse just behind the door, the subdued roar of the traffic along the tree-lined avenue. I can hear my sister's nervous breathing, the wheeze of Blanche's old lungs, my own heart thumping the way it did in Gaspard's room, moments ago.

  Finally the eyes close. Very slowly, Blanche's gnarled hand creeps over the coverlet like a desiccated insect and presses on a bell. A strident ring is heard.

  The nurse instantly steps in.

  "Madame Rey is tired now."

  We leave in silence. Gaspard is nowhere to be seen. As I go down the stairs, ignoring the elevator, I think of my mother being carried out right here, on a stretcher, wearing her red coat. My chest feels tight.

  Outside, it is colder than ever. Melanie and I find we cannot talk to each other. I am shattered, and by the pallor of her face, I know Melanie is too. I light up a cigarette while she turns to her phone, checks it. I offer to drive her home. From the Trocadero to the Bastille, the traffic is dense on a Saturday evening, as usual. We don't speak, but I know she is thinking exactly the same thoughts.

  The truth about our mother's death. Something so monstrous that for the moment, not talking about it keeps it at bay.

  Parimbert's personal assistant is a beefy woman called Claudia who hides her excess fat beneath a billowing black dress that looks like a cassock. She talks to me in a patronizing, irritatingly amicable way. First thing on Monday morning she is already on the phone, harassing me about the Think Dome deadline. The project has been accepted by Parimbert, but a new delay has come from one of my suppliers, who is not on time delivering the special luminous screens I ordered, which changed color constantly and formed the dome's entire interior. On another day, at another point, I would have submissively sat back and let this woman haggle. Not anymore. I think of her caffeine-stained teeth, her furry upper lip, her patchouli perfume, her Mozartean Queen of the Night screeches, and my disgust, impatience, and annoyance bubble up with just enough energy to detonate with the efficient precision of a pressure cooker. It does me so much good it almost feels like the aftermath of sex. I can hear Florence gasping in the next room.

  I slam down the phone. Time for a quick smoke in the chilly courtyard. I slip into my coat. Then my phone rings. It is Melanie.

  "Blanche is dead," she announces flatly. "Passed away this morning. Solange just called me."

  Blanche's death does nothing to me. I did not love her. I will not miss her. The detestation I felt at her bedside on Saturday is still fresh. Nevertheless, she was my father's mother, and I think of him. I know I should call him. I should call Solange. I don't. I go smoke my cigarette out in the cold. I think of the difficult days ahead concerning Blanche's inheritance and how Solange and my father will fight. It will get ugly. It already did a couple of years ago, and Blanche wasn't even dead yet. We were kept out of it. Nobody told us, but we knew there were conflicts and complications between brother and sister. Solange felt that her brother, Francois, was the favorite sibling, that he had always been advantaged. After a while she stopped seeing him. And us.

  Melanie asks if I want to come by later and see Blanche's body. I tell her I will think about it. I sense a tiny distance between my sister and me, a new one--one that wasn't there before, one I have never felt. I know she didn't approve of my aloofness toward Blanche, the way I stared down at her on Saturday, the way I showed her my true feelings. Melanie asks if I have called our father yet. I say I will. Again, she sounds as though she disapproves. She tells me she is on her way to see our father. And the way she says it hints that I should be doing that as well. Fast.

  When finally I get to my father's place, it is evening. Margaux is silent during the drive, earphones in her ears, eyes riveted to her cell phone, fingers flying as she texts message after message. Lucas is in the back, engrossed by his Nintendo. I feel as if I am alone in the car. Modern kids are the most silent brand ever.

  Melanie opens the door to us. Her face is pale and sad. Her eyes are tearful. Did she love Blanche? I wonder. Will she miss her? We hardly saw our grandmother anymore. What did she mean to Melanie? But Blanche was the only grandmother we had, I realize. Clarisse's parents died when she was young. Our grandfather passed away years ago, when we were teenagers. Blanche is our last link to our childhood, and that is why my sister is crying.

  My father is already in bed. I am surprised to hear this. I glance at my watch. Seven thirty. Melanie says in a low voice that our father is very tired. Is there reproach in her voice, or am I imagining things? I ask her what is wrong with him, but she brushes me away as Regine appears, overly made up and glum. She hugs us in a distracted, offhand fashion, offers drinks and crackers. I explain that Arno is at his boarding school, that he'll be back for the funeral.

  "Don't talk to me about the funeral," Regine groans, pouring herself a hefty glass of whiskey with an unsteady hand. "I don't want to deal with all this. I never got on with Blanche. She never liked me, and I don't see why I should have anything to do with her funeral, for God's sake."

  Josephine comes in, looking rather more graceful than usual. She kisses us and sits down next to her mother.

  "I just spoke to Solange," says Melanie, her voice firm. "She will be making all the arrangements for the funeral. You don't have to worry, Regine."

  "Well, if Solange takes over, then there is nothing any of us will need to do. Your poor father either. He's far too tired to face Solange right now. Blanche and Solange were always rude to me, looking me up and down because I didn't have the right figure, because my parents weren't as rich." Regine goes on, pouring more whiskey and knocking it back viciously. "Always made me feel like I wasn't good enough for Francois, that I wasn't proper enough to be a Rey. Ghastly Blanche and her even ghastlier daughter."

  Lucas and Margaux exchange surprised glances. Josephine exhales noisily. It occurs to me that Regine is more than tipsy. Only Melanie keeps her eyes to the ground.

  "No one is ever good enough to be a Rey," slobbers Regine, lipstick smudging her teeth. "They made bloody sure we all knew that. Even if you come from a high-quality family with fine money. Even if you come from a family of decent people. Never good enough to be a fucking Rey."

  She starts to bawl, her empty glass clattering to the table. Josephine rolls her eyes and gently but firmly pulls her mother up. I can tell by her rou
tine gestures that this happens often. She hauls the weeping Regine away.

  Melanie and I look at each other. I think of what lies ahead. The candlelit bedroom on the avenue Henri-Martin where Blanche's body awaits me.

  But it is not the sight of my dead grandmother that frightens me tonight. She was practically dead when I saw her two days ago, apart from the dreadful, glaring eyes.

  What frightens me is having to go back there. Back to the place where my mother met her death.

  Melanie takes my children back home. She has already been to see Blanche's body with Solange and our father earlier today. I turn up alone at my grandmother's house. It is late. Nearly eleven. I am worn-out. But I know Solange is waiting for me. The only son. It is my duty to be there.

  The grand salon is surprisingly full of elegant strangers sipping champagne. Friends of Solange, I suppose. Gaspard, dressed in an austere gray suit, explains that yes, they are indeed her friends, and they've come to comfort Solange tonight. He adds in a low voice that he needs to talk to me about something important. Can I wait for him before I leave? I say I will.

  I always thought my aunt was a lonely, reclusive person, but when I see tonight's turnout, I guess I am wrong. But what do I know about my aunt? Nothing. She never got on with her older brother. She never married. She led her own life, and we saw little of her after our mother's death and the Noirmoutier summers. She did, however, look after Blanche a great deal, especially after Robert--her father, my grandfather--passed away.

  Solange comes toward me as I stand in the entrance. She is wearing a pearl necklace and an ornate embroidered dress that seems a trifle glamorous for the occasion. She seizes my hand. Her face is swollen, her eyes fatigued. I wonder what her life will be like now, without her mother to look after, the hiring of nurses, that enormous apartment to run. She takes me to Blanche's room, and I can only follow her. There are people standing around the bed, praying. I don't know them. A candle is lit. I gaze at the silent form on the bed. But the only thing I imagine is her terrible eyes glaring out at me. I look away.