Where We Going, Daddy?: Life With Two Sons Unlike Any Other

by Jean-Louis Fournier

  Parents should only have normal children; they could all win equal first place at the beautiful baby competition and, later, in their school exams. Abnormal children should be banned.

  It’s not really a problem for my little birds, no one need worry. They’ll never cause much trouble with their tiny little willies.

  I’ve just bought a secondhand American car, a Camaro. It’s dark green with a white leatherette interior, a bit flashy.

  We’re going to Portugal for a holiday.

  We’re taking Thomas with us, he’s going to see the sea. We’ve picked him up from La Source, the special school he attends near Tours.

  The Camaro glides along the road, silently.

  After spending a night in Spain, we arrive in Sagres, our destination. The hotel is white, the sky blue, and the light over the sea intense, almost African.

  How wonderful to be here at last. We get Thomas out and he’s thrilled; he looks at the hotel and claps his hands and cries, “La Source, La Source!” He thinks he’s back at his school. Perhaps he’s dazzled by the sun, or it’s a joke, he’s saying it to make us laugh.

  The hotel is a bit precious, the staff are dressed in wine-colored uniforms with gold buttons. The waiters all wear badges with their names on them, ours is called Victor Hugo. Thomas wants to kiss everyone.

  Thomas is served at the table like a little prince. What he doesn’t like is the way the maître d’ removes the presentation plates from the table before serving us. He gets angry, hangs onto his plate, won’t let anyone take it from him and cries, “No, mister man! Not my plate, not my plate!” He must think that if someone takes his plate he won’t get anything to eat.

  Thomas is frightened of the ocean, the noise of its great waves. I try to get him used to it. I walk into the water with him in my arms, he clings to me, terrified. I’ll never forget the terror in his eyes. One day he finds a trick to stop this torture and make us take him out of the water: he adopts a tragic expression and—shouting really loudly so we can hear him over the crashing waves—says “Poop!” Thinking it’s urgent, I take him out of the water.

  I soon realize it isn’t true. I’m overcome. Thomas is no fool, there are a few sparks in his little birdbrain.

  He is capable of lying.

  Mathieu and Thomas will never have subway cards or prepaid parking cards in their wallets. They’ll never have wallets and their only card will be a disability card.

  It’s the color orange, to be cheerful. It has the words “marked musculoskeletal impairment” in green letters.

  It was supplied by the local authorities in Paris.

  Their degree of disability, in percentage terms, is 80 percent.

  The local authority has no illusions about their development, it has supplied the cards for an “indefinite” period.

  The cards have their pictures on them. Their funny faces, their vacant expressions … What are they thinking about?

  I still use them now. I sometimes put them on my windshield when I’ve parked illegally. Thanks to them I can avoid a fine.

  My children will never have a résumé. What have they done? Nothing. Kind of convenient, no one will ever ask anything of them.

  What could you put on their résumés? Abnormal childhood, admitted long-term to special school, first La Source, then Le Cèdre—The Source and The Cedar Tree, they get all the best names!

  My children will never have a criminal record. They’re innocent. They haven’t done anything wrong, they wouldn’t know how to.

  Sometimes, in winter, when I see them in balaclavas, I picture them as bank robbers. They wouldn’t be very dangerous with their unconvincing gestures and shaky hands.

  The police would catch them easily, they wouldn’t run away, they can’t run.

  I’ll never understand why they’ve been so heavily punished. It’s profoundly unfair, they haven’t done anything wrong.

  It’s like a terrible miscarriage of justice.

  In an unforgettable sketch, Pierre Desproges takes revenge on his young children and the horrors they give him on Father’s Day.

  I haven’t actually needed revenge. I’ve never been given anything. No presents, no loving notes, nothing.

  On that particular day, though, I’d have paid through the nose for a yogurt pot transformed into a receptacle for loose change by Mathieu. He would have wrapped it in mauve felt and decorated it by sticking on stars he had cut from gold paper all by himself.

  On that particular day I’d have paid through the nose for a badly written note from Thomas in which he’d toiled to form the words “i luv yoo verry mutch.”

  On that particular day I’d have paid through the nose for an ashtray as gnarled as a Jerusalem artichoke that Mathieu had made out of modeling clay and engraved with the word Daddy.

  Because they’re not like other people, they could have given me presents unlike other presents. On that particular day I’d have paid through the nose for a pebble, a dried leaf, a bluebottle, a horse chestnut, a ladybug …

  Because they’re not like other people, they could have done drawings for me unlike other drawings. On that particular day I’d have paid through the nose for odd-shaped animals like weird Dubuffet-style camels and Picasso-style horses.

  They didn’t do anything.

  Not because they were unwilling, not because they didn’t want to, I think they would have wanted to, but they couldn’t. Because of their shaky hands, their poorly focused eyes, and the straw inside their heads.

  Dear Daddy,

  Because it’s Father’s Day, we wanted to write you a letter. So here it is.

  We won’t congratulate you on what you’ve produced: take a look at us. Was it that hard making children like every one else? When you know how many normal children are born every day and you see what some parents look like, you’ve got to think it’s not rocket science.

  We weren’t asking you to produce mini geniuses, just normal kids. Once again you wanted to be different. Well, you won, and we lost out. Do you think it’s fun being handicapped? We do have a few advantages. We’ve avoided going to school, no homework, no lessons, no exams, no punishments. On the other hand, no rewards, we missed out on quite a lot of stuff.

  Maybe Mathieu would have liked playing soccer. Can you see him out on the field, a fragile little thing amidst great strong brutes? He wouldn’t have come out alive.

  Do you think it’s fun spending your life with handicapped people? Some of them are really difficult, they scream the whole time and stop us from getting to sleep, and there are vicious ones who bite.

  Because we don’t bear grudges and we’re fond of you, we’re going to wish you a happy Father’s Day.

  On the back of this letter there’s a picture I’ve done for you. Mathieu can’t draw so he just sends you a kiss.

  Children who are not like the others aren’t some sort of nationwide specialty, there are several different versions.

  In the special school that Thomas and Mathieu go to there’s a Cambodian child. His parents don’t speak very good French, their meetings with the head doctor of the establishment are difficult, sometimes epic. They often come out very upset. They always strenuously challenge the doctor’s diagnosis.

  Their son isn’t a Mongoloid, he’s Cambodian.

  Nobody mention genetics, it’s bad luck.

  I’m not the one who thought of genetics, it’s genetics that thought of me.

  I look at my two misshapen little kids and hope it’s not my fault they’re not like other people.

  But the fact that they can’t speak, they can’t write, they can’t count to a hundred, they can’t ride a bike, they can’t swim, they can’t play the piano, they can’t tie their shoelaces, they can’t eat mussels, they can’t use computers … surely that isn’t because I haven’t brought them up properly, it’s not because of their environment …

  Look at them. It’s not my fault if they’re lame and hunchbacked. It’s the fault of just being unlucky.

  Maybe
“genetics” is the technical term for being unlucky?

  My daughter Marie told her school friends she had two handicapped brothers. They wouldn’t believe her. They said it wasn’t true, she was showing off.

  There are some mothers who stand over their children’s cots and say, “I don’t want him to grow up, I wish he could stay like this forever.” The mothers of handicapped children are very lucky, they can play dolls for longer.

  But one day the doll will weigh seventy pounds and it won’t always be docile.

  Fathers take an interest in their children when they’re older, when they’re inquisitive and start asking questions.

  I waited in vain for that time. There was only ever one question: “Where we going, Daddy?”

  The best gift you can give any child is to provide answers to their curiosity, give them a taste for the wonderful things in life. I never had the opportunity with Mathieu and Thomas.

  I’d have really liked being a teacher, helping children learn things without boring them.

  I’ve made cartoons for children that my own kids haven’t seen, and written books they haven’t read.

  I would have liked them to be proud of me. For them to say “My dad’s better than yours” to their friends.

  If children need to feel proud of their fathers, then perhaps, as a form of reassurance, fathers need their children’s admiration.

  In the days when there used to be a test card between television programs, Mathieu and Thomas were quite capable of sitting and watching it for hours. Thomas likes television, particularly since the day he saw me on it. He doesn’t even have good eyesight but he managed to make me out in the middle of a group of people on a small screen. He recognized me and cried out, “Daddy!”

  After the program he wouldn’t come and eat, he wanted to stay in front of the TV. He kept shouting, “Daddy, Daddy!” He thought I would come back.

  Perhaps I’m wrong when I think I don’t mean much to him and he could easily live without me. I find it touching but it makes me feel guilty too. I can’t really see myself living with him, going to the supermarket every day to look at the Snoopies.

  Thomas will be fourteen soon. At his age I was taking my first major exams.

  I’m looking at Thomas. I really struggle to see myself in him, we’re not alike. Maybe it’s better that way. I can’t say for which of us. Whatever made me want to reproduce myself?

  Pride? Was I so pleased with myself I wanted to leave little copies of myself on the planet?

  Did I want to leave some trace, so that someone could follow me?

  Sometimes I feel I have left a trace, but the sort you leave when you’ve walked over a waxed wooden floor with muddy shoes and someone yells at you.

  When I look at Thomas, and when I think of Mathieu, I wonder whether I did the right thing making them.

  Have to ask them.

  At the end of the day, if you put all their little pleasures end to end—Snoopy, a warm bath, a cat rubbing against them, a ray of sun, a ball, a walk to the supermarket, a stranger’s smile, toy cars, French fries—I hope it makes their time here bearable.

  Something has just reminded me of a white dove at the children’s special school, in the workshop where they did art, daubing paint over sheets of paper.

  When the white dove flies across the room some of the children clap their hands in wonderment. From time to time it drops a little feather that zigzags its way to the floor, watched by at least one pair of eyes. There’s a sort of peacefulness in the workshop, perhaps because of the dove. Occasionally it comes to land on a table or, better still, on a child’s shoulder. You can’t help thinking of Picasso, of Child with a Dove. Some of them are afraid and scream in terror. But it’s a good-natured dove. Thomas runs after it calling it “li’l chicken.” He wants to catch it, perhaps to pluck it?

  The world of man and beasts has rarely seen such harmony. Something is communicated between the two birdbrains. Saint Francis of Assisi isn’t far away, neither is Giotto with his paintings full of birds.

  The innocent have their hands full. Full of paint.

  Thomas is eighteen, he’s grown, he has trouble standing upright, the brace isn’t enough, he needs a stake, a support. I’ve been chosen.

  A stake has to have its feet deeply embedded in the earth, it has to be strong and stable, able to stand up to the wind, it has to stay upright in a storm.

  Funny idea to have chosen me.

  I now oversee his money, I have to sign his checks. Thomas couldn’t give a damn about money, he doesn’t really know what it is. I remember one day in a restaurant in Portugal he took all the bills from my wallet and handed them out to everyone. I’m sure that if I asked Thomas his opinion, if he had one to give, he would say, “Go on, Dad, make the most of it, let’s have some fun, let’s blow my disability allowances together.”

  He’s no skinflint. We could buy ourselves a beautiful convertible with his money. We could set off like two old friends wanting to party, looking for a good time. We’d go down to the coast, like they do in films, we’d go to fancy hotels full of candelabras, and eat in big restaurants, we’d drink champagne and talk about cars, books, music, movies, girls …

  We’d walk along the seafront in the dark, strolling over huge deserted beaches. We’d watch phosphorescent fish leave luminous trails in the black water. We’d philosophize about life, death, and God. We’d look at the stars and the lights glimmering along the coast. We’d have rows, because we wouldn’t have the same opinions about everything. He’d call me a stupid old asshole and I’d say, “Have some respect, please, I’m your father,” and he’d say, “That’s nothing to be proud of.”

  A handicapped child has the right to vote.

  Thomas has come of age, he’s going to be able to vote. I’m sure he’s thought long and hard about it, weighed the pros and cons, meticulously analyzed both candidates’ policies and economic viability, he’s inventoried the administrative staff of both parties.

  He’s still hesitating, he can’t make up his mind.

  Snoopy or Garfield.

  After a silence he suddenly said, “How are your boys?”

  He obviously didn’t even know one of them has been gone for several years.

  There was probably a lull in the conversation, he didn’t want the social death of an awkward pause. The meal was over, everyone had talked about their news, the mood needed rekindling. The master of the house had the knowing twinkle of someone with a good joke to tell as he added, “Did you know Jean-Louis has two handicapped children?”

  The information was greeted with deafening silence, then a strange murmuring, a combination of compassion, amazement, and curiosity from those who didn’t know. One charming woman started gazing at me with the sad moist-eyed smile women have in paintings by Greuze.

  Yes, my news is my handicapped children, but I don’t always feel like talking about them.

  What the master of the house expected of me was to make people laugh. A perilous undertaking but I did my best.

  I told them about the previous Christmas at the institute the boys went to. How the children knocked over the Christmas tree, the choir in which everyone was singing a different tune, the Christmas tree then catching fire, the movie projector falling over during a screening, the cream cake being turned upside down, and the parents on all fours under the tables avoiding blows from some pétanque balls that one ill-advised father had just given to his son who was now tossing them up in the air, and all of this with “Away in a Manger” playing in the background.

  At first they were slightly embarrassed, they didn’t dare laugh. Then, gradually, they dared to. I was a triumph. The master of the house was pleased.

  I think I’ll be asked again.

  Thomas talks to his hand, he calls it Martine. He has long conversations with Martine, she must talk back but he’s the only one who hears her.

  He puts on a soft little voice to say nice things to her. Sometimes he raises his voice at her, apparently
not at all happy; Martine must have said something he doesn’t like, so he shouts and yells at her.

  Maybe he’s annoyed with her for not being good at things?

  It has to be said Martine isn’t very adept and doesn’t help him much in his everyday life, with getting dressed and eating. She’s not accurate, she knocks his glass over when he’s drinking, she fumbles, she can’t button up shirts or tie shoelaces, she often gets the shakes …

  She doesn’t even know how to stroke the cat properly, her stroking is more like hitting, and the cat gets frightened and runs away.

  She can’t play the piano, she can’t drive a car, she can’t even write, she’s only just up to doing abstract paintings. Maybe Martine answers back, saying it’s not her fault, she’s waiting for orders. It’s not her job to take the initiative, it’s his.

  She’s just a hand.

  “Hello, Thomas, it’s Daddy on the phone.”

  Total silence.

  I can hear very loud, labored breathing and the teacher’s voice:

  “Can you hear, Thomas? It’s Daddy.”

  “Hello, Thomas, do you know it’s me? It’s Daddy. How are you, Thomas?”

  Silence. Just the labored breathing … Eventually Thomas starts talking. Since his voice broke it’s powerful and loud.