“Molly, you are one of the people who mean the most to me, but as someone who loves ranking, you’ll be sorry to find out that you’re only in fourth place in my personal life. The winning position has been taken by force by my husband, Clara, and Benoît. Sorry …” The laughter in the room has warmth. You smile at me. You don’t even seem surprised by my presence. I lean toward you. “Molly, you perform this profession with passion and discipline. You’re better informed than your competitors. Is it because you get up earlier, or because you go to bed later? I have followed you wherever you went for years to learn your secret, and I think I’ve discovered it. It’s in your heart that it happens. You put more heart into it than all of us. The same goes for friendship. You put more heart into it than the others. That is why I’m proud to be in your life, to be your friend. Long live Molly!”
It’s dreadfully banal and facile, but the Americans adore grand words like heart, friendship, secret. I go back to my seat to the sound of applause. I’m not proud of myself. I would have liked to speak to you more subtly, with more panache and style. But what does it matter, since you look happy. I drink a large glass of water. The people at my table congratulate me. The evening goes on.
An hour later, we’ve finished our appetizers and the main dish has just been served, but the tributes are still sounding from the stage. The heat is becoming stifling. The headwaiters perform their tasks while ignoring the speeches and toasts presented with forced enthusiasm by the participants, into a mike that is sending whistling noises into the amps. I can sense that the evening, which began with a feeling of breeziness and warmth, is starting to flag. Your wheelchair has been pushed to our table. Now you’re at my side. You don’t eat anything. You confided in me that you’d had dinner before so that no one would see you struggling with your utensils. There’s no straw in the champagne glass that you pretend to drink from. You’re also faking your smiles. These tributes are like so many stabs of a dagger. All they are doing is reminding you of what will never again be. This gathering resembles a perfectly organized wedding to which they had merely forgotten to invite the betrothed. There is no reason to rejoice, nothing to celebrate, no hope on the horizon. The bride is in black, and this celebration is turning into a first-class funeral. That of your brilliant career.
Before dessert is served, the wire to the mike is pulled from the stage so that you can take hold of it without having to move. This is your moment to return the compliments. A small piece of paper has been placed in front of you by your father, who has taken it from his bag. It contains the list of all those you’d like to thank, something you do with grace and sweetness, with a word for each. Your throaty voice is still a bit frail, and the emotion makes it tremble. All of a sudden, everyone has stopped eating, and the silence in which we are all listening is our most beautiful sign of respect. My name is not on your sheet of paper, but you thank me for having come and, as I did, improvise, turning to look at me.
“You thought you were going to surprise me this evening, but I knew you’d find a way to come. Besides, your perfume gave you away. I smelled it in the hotel lobby, my French friend. In your country, the flag is blue like the way you love to eat steaks, white like the movie screen before the film begins, and red like the heart of our friendship that will never stop beating.”
I hide my face in my napkin. It’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever said to me. Then you put down your paper and raise your glass of champagne, which is nearly full. “I thank all of you for coming. I loved this evening, as I have loved every second I have spent in your company. Soon we’ll leave one another. I’ll let you run all over the world, in the whirlwind of your work. As for me, all my life I’ve dreamed of taking an early retirement to go and live in Tuscany. This evening, as you can see, I’ve already carried out the first part of my program.”
As if he’d waited for the end of your sentence to rush forward, a waiter comes toward you, trips on the microphone wire, and overturns his tray loaded with crèmes brûlées at your feet. God bless him. The overall hilarity his fall provokes keeps us from bursting into tears.
You signal your father, pointing out the door toward the restroom, but you also whisper in my ear as you place your right hand on mine, “This is too much emotion for me. I’m going to slip away without saying goodbye. What I said is true: I was sure you would come. The bit about the flag — I was thinking about it for three days. Not bad, huh?”
Since you have left, and because Peter, Paul, and Tom are going back to New York this evening, I decide to have a last drink at the hotel bar with Suzie. She lives a few blocks from your new apartment. She must be best able to tell me how you’re coping from day to day.
I would have done better to go to bed early. According to her, you’ve become “difficult.” The word makes my blood boil. Who in your place, condemned from one day to the next to go from hyperactivity to humiliating immobility, wouldn’t become like that? You, difficult? Instead, I find you defeated, apathetic, resigned. Suzie doesn’t at all agree. She gives me a portrait of you devoid of kindness. “Molly has changed a lot, and really not in a good way. It’s as if the world owes her a living, and everybody has to bow to her needs. For example, she’ll arrange to be with you and then cancel at the last minute without excuses. Or else when you’ve taken the time to come and see her, she’ll get rid of you just like that, without even offering you a glass of water, just because she feels tired. She doesn’t make any effort, leaves her TV on all the time, and watches it out of the corner of her eye even when you’re with her. You can imagine how much fun that is. No, I can assure you, she expects a lot of other people, with the excuse that she’s housebound …”
I’m shocked to discover that your American friends are slowly but surely dropping you. They’re sick of your demands, which always include the need for some favor from them. They find your humor more and more wounding, your company less and less pleasant. They think you’ve become rather stingy and that you’re always talking about money.
Tom, whom I call the next day from the airport to tell him about this conversation, tries to soften the portrait, but does admit that you can sometimes be difficult. “She’s not always perfectly nice, you know.”
I don’t get over my anger during the entire trip back. And why should you be nice? Illness doesn’t make people better. Living in a wheelchair hasn’t transformed you into Mother Teresa. And I’m glad it hasn’t. You’re still the same, probably more acidic, more brutal, more curt, more radical, more impatient, more intransigent. I understand you. Now that you know you’re condemned to passivity, you’re fighting with the only weapon left to you: your brain power.
IT’S THE BEGINNING OF MARCH, AND NEW YORK IS ALREADY HAVING MILD SPRING WEATHER. This time you’ve told me to come to your place. The building is welcoming with its silver canopy on the outside and its thick blue carpeting, as is proper for homes in the nicer neighborhoods.
The uniformed doorman bows as he opens the glass door for me; with the same gesture and without ever being discourteous, he inquires about my identity and goes to check the register to see if I’m really expected, then smiles and finally looks me in the eye. “I see, you’re the French woman? I’m Mr. Dennis. Let me welcome you.” He walks ahead of me to the elevator, pushes open the heavy iron door, and presses the button for your floor, as if he were receiving me in his own home.
The heat that pervades the apartment attacks my throat as soon as the door opens on a stout young black woman squeezed into a white T-shirt and sparkly red tracksuit. She shakes my hand without warmth before leading me behind her softly undulating backside to the living room, where she announces me in too loud a voice. “Molly, your friend is here.” She turns to me and adds incredulously, “Did you really come all the way from Paris? I love French men, they’re gorgeous!” Exploding into laughter, she plants herself right there with crossed arms while you kiss me, moved as we are to see each other again, and while I whisper a few tender words into your ear. She ends up inter
rupting us. “I’m Dinah, want something to drink?”
I’m dying for a nice cold Coke, but I tell myself that tea will take the longest to prepare. She goes to work in another room, from which she emerges less than two minutes later with a tray on which she’s hurriedly placed a kettle that is barely warm, a cup, and a tea bag. She puts all of it on a low table without taking the time to push aside a pile of magazines. She joins us quite peremptorily, standing there, her arms crossed, back leaning against a shelf. I know how much you love to steep your smoked Lapsang Souchong in a red stoneware teapot that you brought back from Paris, and I wait for you to reproach her for her offhand way of throwing together my tea, but you say nothing. You seem resigned, or else you’re too tired to notice anything at all. Dinah’s presence doesn’t seem to weigh on you, any more than the sound of the television whose volume I end up lowering with the remote, although I don’t dare turn it off completely. You seem happy to see me, and as usual you ask me a thousand questions about the children, my parents, our friends in common; but you still seem to have trouble concentrating on my answers. Your voice sounds steadier to me this morning than it did that evening in the Hamptons, but your eyes look more extinguished.
At any rate, it’s so warm that my head starts spinning, and I’m sure you’re suffering from it as well. I suggest we open the glass door leading to the terrace. “She’s going to expose us to a draft,” comments Dinah in a reproving tone. “She made me catch cold less than two weeks ago.”
That way of talking about you as if you weren’t there immediately irks me. “You know, fresh air gets rid of germs,” I say in a decisive tone.
It makes you smile. “I see you’ve kept your fighting spirit, unlike me.”
I take hold of your chair and push it onto the terrace, nimbly shutting the door before Dinah has the time to venture outside with us.
I let out a loud sigh. “Say, does she stick to you that much all the time?”
You merely lift your eyebrows. “It’s complicated, you know. Dad has a lot of trouble finding honest girls!” You start to tell me a sleazy tale of the previous nurse stealing a wallet. You admit that you suspect the one before her had a copy of your keys made; and besides that, you recently had the door to your apartment reinforced, which seemed way too expensive to you. “The worst are on the weekends, when three girls take turns. But you know, it’s kind of them to spend their time with me. I wouldn’t have that job for all the money in the world.”
I roll my eyes. “Sure, Molly, OK, but you don’t have their brain, either.”
Sadly, you gaze off into the distance. “You know, if you have to live in a wheelchair all day, it’s better to be mindless and think of nothing. I’m practicing, see, I live with the television on all day, that’ll make my gray matter go to pot, don’t you think?”
No, I don’t think so, but your sadness breaks my heart.
You point toward Dinah with your chin. “You know, I like the two of us alone together more, but I think it would entertain her having company, too. I’m so shitty to live with that I really owe her that.”
I tell myself that I’m going to have a hard time resisting your gloominess and that a change in mood is vital. I suggest improvising a lunch on your terrace.
Your face lights up and comes to life immediately. “We can go to the Italian supermarket, they’ve got some delicious products. I’ve been dreaming of your mozzarella and tomatoes. Remember you made some for me in Paris? Dinah will go with us because I’ve totally lost my sense of direction.”
I help Dinah move you to another wheelchair, one that can be folded, less comfortable but better adapted to the size of the elevator. It takes us a good five minutes, and already you’ve gone pale and are winded. I go to get you a glass of water. You drink it in one gulp. You close your eyes. There. You’re breathing better.
Now we’ve got to get your coat on, your scarf. The idea of coming out of your cocoon has you flushed and sweating. Dinah, who is obviously used to it, is caressing your hand. She begins listing things you’d better buy. Then you decide that the list should be written down, because you are afraid we’ll forget something. I look for a piece of paper, a pen. Your anxiety is at such a level that Dinah has to open her purse twice to show you that she really has remembered the keys and the wallet. You send her to get another shopping basket, because you think the one she is carrying won’t be enough. All of this takes about twenty minutes.
When the elevator arrives, I see immediately that it’s too small for the three of us, but before I have the time to offer to go down on foot, Dinah is ahead of me. “Could you go down and tell Dennis to help us? The downstairs door is so heavy.” As I rush down the stairs, I tell myself that I have judged Dinah a little too quickly. Yes, she’s intrusive, but she knows what she’s doing; and I see what a delicate operation it is to take care of you the right way.
The air on Columbus Avenue is mild. Dinah pushes the wheelchair and I make conversation. But I can tell that you’re distracted, anxious. You tensed up as soon as we had to cross the street. And then, everything frightens you. A dog barking, a child crying, a car horn, a police siren. When I point out to you how pleasant the sun on your face is, and ask Dinah to stop for a moment so that you can enjoy it a little, enjoy that sun that you so worshipped before, you shut your eyes and start breathing in tiny little gasps, as if you had to take precautions with everything, even with harmless things that are supposed to do you good, like taking advantage of a moment of nice weather.
It’s impossible not to be aware of the nationality of the products being sold in the small market we’ve just entered. As we go in, there are blinking neon lights in the colors of the Italian flag. From the loudspeakers come Neapolitan arias. The manager behind the cash register looks like a Soprano from the suburbs.
“Wait’ll you see,” you tell me, suddenly excited, “their burrata is out of this world!”
Dinah gets her two cents in immediately. “But it’s much too expensive! The price of the mozzarella is so much more reasonable. Especially since it’s just to put a few little pieces in a tomato salad.”
Gently but firmly, I explain to Dinah that today it’s my treat, because I’m the one who’s going to prepare the food. You move on by asking her in a conciliatory tone if she wouldn’t mind taking care of the rest of the list, because she’ll do it a lot more quickly than will I, who doesn’t know how the food is arranged, and while she does, you and I can go and pick out the lunch food. We agree to meet at the checkout. Dinah is sullen about it, but can only comply.
I use the situation to take everything back in hand: you, your wheelchair, and the spirit of doing the errands. I have you smell cheeses that you aren’t familiar with, sample several kinds of sausages, discover the sesame crackers I adore and the grissini dipped in chocolate that Clara and Benoît are crazy about. I choose a good wine and pick a bouquet of basil. To my great satisfaction, you’re smiling again and your color has come back. Just before we get to the checkout, you stretch out your right arm toward a shelf. “Did you see, they have the best pasta, the blue box. Dinah never wants to buy it, she thinks it costs too much, but why not get just one pack and say you’re the one who had the idea? If not, she’ll be furious.” I’m distracted by the line in front of the cash register and listening to you with one ear. I don’t quite understand what you’re saying, and I don’t see what the problem is with this pasta, which truly is supposed to be the best. In any case, it’s your money Dinah’s spending and you should get what you want. Suddenly, this gets on my nerves, and I take two packs of it, with two cans of a sauce that seems appetizing.
At the cash register, Dinah is watching me put down what I’m buying. She goes straight for the blue packets as soon as they appear on the moving belt and promptly removes them. “Oh no, Molly! We said that was too expensive.” Contrite, you lower your eyes without daring to respond.
Outraged, I keep control of myself to remain polite. “Leave it, Dinah. Today I’m paying,” I say fir
mly.
Dinah turns toward me, looks me in the eye, then looks me up and down. “Fine. Since that’s the way it is, there’s no need for me anymore. I’ll leave you alone.” She bends toward us, puts back the packets, and, with a theatrical gesture, leaves behind the keys and the basket on your knees. Then she turns and heads for the door.
Your shriek, Molly, is engraved forever in my memory. A child being torn away from his family wouldn’t have screamed as violently.
The Neapolitan singers seem to have doubled in volume, in this luxury minisupermarket where everyone has suddenly become silent.
Dinah continues imperturbably to amble toward the exit.
Finally, she stops at the threshold of the door and gives herself five long seconds of pure melodrama before coming back.
This time, I’m the one she’s heading for. “See? She absolutely cannot get so worked up.”
Finally, she decides to place her two hands on the back of your wheelchair. She looks at me triumphantly, bends toward you, takes out a pack of tissues, and delicately wipes a strand of drool that has flowed from your mouth. Then she produces a small bottle of mineral water from her bag and has you drink through a straw while caressing your hair.
We leave the store, attempting to save face as much as possible. The blue packets have stayed behind on the moving belt.
You’ll pretend to doze all the way back.
Mon amie américaine Page 8