And Then Came Paulette

by Barbara Constantine

  “And yours has also got an unusual name, hasn’t it? Is Mo-je a Polish name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does it mean anything?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “Może. Perhaps.”

  “Mo-je means perhaps?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.”

  Of course the logical next step would have been to ask why “Perhaps.” Then she would have to go into detail, explain everything, talk about the past, and that scared him. To preempt things she started to yawn, making some excuse about a sudden and overwhelming tiredness, wished him goodnight and rushed off to bed. He was left standing stupidly, all alone in the middle of the kitchen. With a tea towel in his hand and the unpleasant sensation of having been discarded like an old sock. Until he heard the sound of her steps padding softly back up the corridor. She stopped and through the gap in the door said in a low voice:

  “It was Danuta who decided to call her cat that. She and Olenka. My daughters. They thought it was pretty.”

  It was the first time she had spoken to him of her children. Ferdinand was taken aback. He looked down and stared at the striped towel he had been using to dry his hands for the past few minutes. Yes, he muttered, it was a very pretty name.

  By the time they went to bed, it was almost two in the morning. They hadn’t sat up so late for ages. It did them good. They talked a lot. Ferdinand about his two sons; Marceline her twin daughters. They now knew quite a bit more about each other. She understood that he regretted not being a better father, while he knew she had lost her two daughters in an accident, nearly seven years before. It had shocked him to learn that. His heart started pounding. In the heat of the moment he almost took her by the hand. But he stopped himself just in time.

  And they didn’t just talk about sad things.

  They also had a bit of a laugh. Particularly when Ferdinand started to think out loud about what he would tell the children the next day. About Sham-alo, the tomboy. That he hadn’t been wearing his glasses that day? They knew very well he never wore them. That he’d had too much to drink? It was a feeble sort of argument, Marceline objected; he could do better. All right, but one thing was certain, he wasn’t the only one to get it wrong. He knew others who’d done the same: Raymond and Mine were past masters! And Alain and Barbara weren’t much better. He reeled off some names: Youki was in reality Youka, Riton should have been Rita, and the two mollies belonging to the Sauvage family, that was a good one, it turned out one of them had balls! It was hilarious when the vet told them . . .

  And so on and so forth.

  They talked for a long, long time. Until two in the morning.

  At the bottom of the stairs they almost gave each other a hug before going off to bed. With no ulterior motive, of course. But they lost their nerve.

  Next time, Mo-je?

  44

  The Two Boys in the Kitchen

  Ludo and Little Lu woke up on Saturday morning feeling ravenous. They went down to the kitchen, but no one was there. No Berthe to make a fuss of them and no sign of the two cats either. They put on rubber boots and oilskins that were far too big for them, over their pajamas, and went to see if the animals were outside. But the cats had disappeared, and the donkey too. It was bitterly cold, so they hurried to collect some eggs from the henhouse, a jar of honey from the old dairy and some walnuts from the cellar and raced back before they turned into blocks of ice.

  Ludo fetched a large knife to cut the bread and Little Lu, kneeling on a chair, broke the eggs into a bowl. After beating them with a fork they dipped slices in the slimy mixture, pressing them down like a sponge to soak up the liquid. Then Little Lu started hitting the nuts with a hammer and Ludo took a large frying pan out of the cupboard. The problem would be lighting the gas. At home when they cooked, Roland and Mireille dealt with all that. But now he would have to manage all on his own. He tried the lighter a few times. When he pressed the button it made the right sort of clicking sound. With matches he would have hesitated, but now with no flame it was cool, there was no risk of getting burned. When he felt ready, he took a deep breath, very quickly turned the knob on the gas, pressed the button and whoosh! the flame lit. He breathed out again, wiping his forehead. He was a bit hot. Of course Little Lu was dead impressed by his brother’s composure. He worked out in his head that there were still two years to go before he was eight and able to light the flame himself. A long time, but too bad, he was used to it. It was the same old story, you always had to wait: Birthdays, Christmas, vacations . . .

  They put some honey and walnut pieces on the French toast and wished each other Bon Appétit. Little Lu thought it tasted nice but needed a bit more salt. Ludo agreed, so he added a pinch. They finished off their plates, then prepared two more and went to knock at the Lumière sisters’ door. When Hortense saw them come in, she shouted with delight and kissed them greedily at least twenty times. There was so much saliva they had to wipe their cheeks on their sleeves. She asked for her dentures so she could try out their cooking. They were soaking in a glass of water beside her on the bedside table. In front of the two stunned children Simone retrieved them and rinsed them. She applied some pink paste and handed them to Hortense, who shoved them in and flashed a broad smile.

  The two sisters ate with great gusto, going into raptures about the cooks’ talent at each and every mouthful. With all that praise the Lulus were in seventh heaven.

  Hortense wanted to play cards. They suggested Happy Families, but she preferred Beggar-My-Neighbor. Before they started, Simone asked them to choose the color of the wool for the sweaters she was going to knit them. Their Christmas presents, she added, with a wink. Little Lu was horrified at this and nudged his brother in the ribs. Presents were supposed to be a surprise; otherwise it was nonsense! Ludo, also disgusted, shrugged. He thought about it, then bent down to whisper in his ear that he reckoned old people always did that kind of stuff—they didn’t know how to keep a secret. Little Lu thought it was a pity. He told himself he would never do anything like that when he was older.

  They played Beggar-My-Neighbor. As luck would have it, in the first two games each of them won once, and this put Hortense in a very bad mood. So they pretended not to notice when she started to cheat, and after that they let her win every single round. It was much more pleasant that way. And she was smiling again.

  45

  The Hands of Time

  Waking at dawn that same Saturday, Muriel stopped herself from going straight to knock on her landlord’s door. Even though she was dying to do so. She sorted out her things while waiting for a more reasonable hour. By the time she finally went, the landlord had already gone out, so that was a letdown. She left a note for him. On her return home she had nothing to do, everything was packed in her suitcase, knapsack and two cardboard boxes. She had no desire to unpack her books and notes and do some studying, so she started to pace around like a caged animal.

  As the landlord still hadn’t called by eleven-thirty she started to feel really down, but she couldn’t hang around; it was time for her appointment, so she went to the Place du Marché. Marceline had almost finished packing up. The crates of vegetables, jam and honey were already stacked in her cart and all that remained was to fold the tarpaulin. Muriel offered to help but Marceline suggested that first she should go over and introduce herself to Cornelius. He was a very special donkey, quite capable of refusing to take someone if he felt he’d been ignored. She handed her a piece of carrot, adding that it might help coax him if he was in a bad mood. Muriel stared at her. It seemed completely bonkers but she didn’t dare say so, let alone refuse. Having checked no one was looking, she went up to the animal, hesitated for a few seconds, then feeling like a real idiot, she said: Hello, my name’s Muriel, would you take me in your cart? But she did it all the same. In a low voice, of course. Cornelius stared at her out of one eye. He sniffed the air around her and then her hand. He took the carrot she was offering and munched it, nodding hi
s head up and down. Muriel, really impressed, couldn’t stop herself from throwing her arms around his neck to thank him. No one had ever told her that donkeys could understand words so well. She went back to announce the news and Marceline said: Phew!

  Hortense was terribly disappointed to learn Muriel had to leave so soon after the injection. And she let this be known in the noisiest way possible. If she had been capable of kicking the furniture to show her frustration, that’s what she would have done. She wanted Muriel to stay longer, young people were such a comfort: a breath of fresh air, strawberries and cream in winter. When she came into contact with children it perked her up—can you understand that, Simone? I’m sick to death of all these wrinklies! I don’t like them, they’re no fun and what’s more they stink! Simone raised her eyes to the heavens, muttering: there she goes, off again. But Muriel nodded to show it didn’t matter, she was used to it. There had been cases like that in her own family.

  The second injection.

  She was even more nervous for this than the first one. It threw her. So she focused all her attention on the preparations. She made a point of recalling, step by step and in the correct order, all those hygiene procedures, with the relevant technical terms and all the rest. But of course it was the injection itself she was nervous about. What if it went wrong this time? What if she hit a nerve or a blood vessel? That would be a catastrophe. To calm herself, and also Hortense, she started humming.

  And Hortense, who knew every single song, immediately identified the tune. She started to bawl:

  If we could stop the hands of time

  That mark the minutes of our lives

  We wouldn’t feel such apprehension

  Before the hour of separation . . .

  Once Muriel had left, Simone sat down on the edge of the bed and they finished the verse as a duet. With damp eyes and quavering voices:

  Having spent a life entire

  Always loving never hating

  With sad hearts we must not think

  Alas one day we’ll have to part

  Let’s not fret, but live in hope

  We cannot stop the hands of time.

  Hortense stroked Simone’s hand. And then, feeling suddenly perkier, she propped herself up against the pillows, wiped her nose on her bathrobe sleeve and asked for the large bag of wool. She found it difficult to choose what would work best for a scarf. But finally she went for the speckled one. It was modern; it would suit the young girl well, don’t you think? Simone, in conciliatory mood, replied that she thought that would be very good. To make things easier, she helped her to cast on. Hortense managed to knit three rows before she nodded off, overwhelmed by so much effort and emotion.

  46

  Old Boneshakers

  The cats must have been hard at work chasing mice during the night. After lunch, when Marceline opened the door of Muriel’s apartment-to-be, she found them each lying on a chair by the stove, with big round bellies. Too weary even to raise their heads and greet her. She started off by washing the bathroom floor, then the one in the kitchen. But when she got to the bedroom she noticed the old wallpaper was coming away from the wall in places. It was too depressing. She and Ferdinand agreed that they couldn’t leave it in that state, so they tore it all off. Then she prepared the paint with the children. Four pounds of mashed potato, four pounds of lime, starch to fix it all, and water. As for the color, they were thinking of green; boiling tarragon leaves worked and it smelled very nice, but it was the wrong time of year. So they went for terracotta bricks. They put some in a sack; hit them with a sledgehammer to make a powder, and then they added it to the mixture. This gave it a pink hue, which Ludo thought was perfect, especially for a girl’s bedroom.

  After the painting, the Lulus went off to play hide-and-seek in the barn. In a dark corner they came across two old bikes lying under the hay and covered with bird droppings. Not surprising given the string of swallows’ nests just above. Standing the bikes upright they found to their surprise that they were just the right size. As Ferdinand went past he explained that the bikes had belonged to their father and Uncle Lionel when they were children. Little Lu winced. He looked at Ludo to check his reaction. He was glad to see he was equally worried. Because it was really hard to believe their father had ever been little once upon a time. And even harder to believe that he had a brother whom they had never heard of. It just wasn’t possible. Faced with their incredulity, Ferdinand could think of no other solution than to show them a photo. On it were two little boys each sitting on a bicycle: one had round cheeks and smiled, while making a face; the other, a bit taller and less sturdy, was looking elsewhere, as though bored by having his photo taken. Ferdinand gave a running commentary: the little one with the stupid smile was their father at the age of seven, and the other one was their Uncle Lionel, age eight. They didn’t recognize their father, so they weren’t convinced. But Ludo read out aloud what was written beneath: Roland and Lionel, Christmas 1974. He looked carefully at the photo. The bikes were the same color as the ones they had found. Maybe there was something in this story after all?

  When Guy saw them come into his workshop he asked jokingly what they were doing with that pair of rusty old boneshakers. Little Lu protested: they’re not boneshakers! Those bikes belonged to Papa and his brother Lionel when they were little like us! Guy acknowledged his mistake and Little Lu explained solemnly that he had decided that morning to learn to ride a bike properly. Trikes were for babies. And he wanted to learn on this bike. Fine. And Ludo? He wasn’t too bothered: he had a cool mountain bike. But out of solidarity he backed his brother. And besides it wasn’t so bad to have a second bike here on the farm, one that he wouldn’t be afraid to damage on the crappy mud tracks. So Guy examined the two old . . . things. Even a basic repair job would involve a lot of work. The frames were heavy, there were no gears, and all the parts needed replacing. But it wasn’t a problem, he had finished fixing Muriel’s bike the previous night, so he had some time on his hands.

  First he gave the children protective masks and gloves. They thought dressing up was fun. Guy wanted them to put oil on the rusty parts to loosen them, without breathing in the fumes or getting any on themselves. Then he taught them to take off a tire using spoon handles. When it came to finding the punctures in the inner tubes, it was so cold in the workshop they preferred to do that in the kitchen. After blowing them up they plunged them in a bowl of water and when they pressed down the bubbles rose to the surface. They found that hilarious. Little Lu drew circles in pen around the holes to mark the spots where the patches should go.

  47

  Reminder Letter

  At the end of the day Ludo was worried. He wondered how he was going to check if his meeting with Guy the following morning was still on. He was only eight, but he had already suffered some big disappointments in his life. He was wary, knowing from experience that adults were capable of anything: changing their minds without warning, going back on their word without reason, ripping people off, wasting time, playing dirty tricks on kids—maybe not maliciously, but as though it was a normal thing to do. With complete impunity and no remorse. He wanted to tread carefully with the old uncle, grill him subtly, ask some discreet questions: Did they have alarm clocks on the farm when you were little, Uncle? Or did you just have cocks that went Cock-a-doodle-doo in the morning? But Guy whispered in his ear: Don’t worry, son, I’ll come fetch you at dawn. And when I say something I do it, period.

  At seven o’clock on Sunday morning Guy woke Ludo, as he had said he would. It was still dark. They went downstairs without making a noise, dressed warmly and went out. Behind Guy’s bike, resting on its kickstand, was the other one they’d found covered in swallow droppings in the barn, that had belonged to his father’s unknown brother. Now it was all cleaned up and ready to go.

  They pedaled along side by side without saying a word. At the speed they were going, the cold made their eyes water, reddened their cheeks, and chapped their lips.

  When the
y arrived they laid their bikes in the ditch, pulled down their coats, adjusted their hats and wiped the snot from their noses. They wanted to look a bit presentable. Then Guy signaled to Ludo to follow him, without making a sound. They walked along beside the high wall, he lifted the ladder that was hidden in the grass, leaned it against the wall, and one after the other they climbed over into the cemetery.

  Ludo asked Guy to wait a bit further on. He meticulously examined Gaby’s gravestone with his flashlight but he couldn’t find any crevice or little crack between the stones. Finally he slipped the piece of paper folded in eight into the ground by the rosebush at the end of the grave.

  The text of the new letter to Gaby (spelling mistakes not included) went as follows:

  Dear Auntie Gaby,

  I’m writing to tell you that every morning I think a lot about my dreams and I know you haven’t come to see me once. It makes me really sad you chose Little Lu instead of me and swam in the sea with him and the big fishes. Don’t forget it was me who asked you for dreams. It wasn’t Little Lu’s idea. Also I wanted to do it, as I love swimming underwater at the pool, I’ve got the record for that. Right now I really want to tell Little Lu he’s a bit of an idiot. But if I say that he’ll only cry and tell maman. He cries really easily, it gets on my nerves. I already wrote to you in my letter before, I don’t mind swear words, I use them all the time. Maybe if you come to see me in my dreams I’ll try not to use them. It’ll be really hard. But if you want I can try.

  Is it all right where you are? Here it’s real brass monkeys (that means it’s cold). Soon it’ll be Christmas; I hope we’re going to get lots of presents. Perhaps you already know everything that’s happening here. If not, I can tell you. Maman and Papa are going to get divorced soon. Uncle Guy has got used to not seeing you anymore, but he still doesn’t sleep at night and he’s always mending bikes. I think Ferdinand wants to kiss Marceline, but he can’t make up his mind. Also, you’re not going to be happy about this, but your lemon tree has died. Uncle Guy forgot to water it for ages.