Tita

by Marie Houzelle

  “Doing?” Loli says slowly, as if trying to remember. “Oh, I was just waiting for the children to come out of school.”

  “The children? What children?”

  “The ones my friends look after.”

  “And why would you wait for those children? Why would you spend time chatting with your friends in front of the école laïque instead of coming straight home with Tita and Coralie?”

  “It was just a minute or two,” Loli says. “It depends on which school lets out first. Usually it’s the école laïque and then my friends wait for me. So that we can walk back together.”

  “Well, from now on we’ll do things differently. Tita is old enough to walk to school on her own. You’ll only have Coralie, so you can take the bicycle, it will be faster. And make sure I don’t see you wasting time with your friends.”

  This doesn’t sound like Mother, who’s usually nice to Loli and proud of being a good patronne, loved and looked up to by every person who’s ever worked for her. And it’s so unfair to Loli, who’s at her disposal all day every day except Saturday evening (when she goes to the dance at the Grand Soleil) and Sunday (when Father drives her to her village in the morning, and her parents’ landlord drives her back after dinner). Loli chose to work in town, but it must be lonely for her in this house, away from her family. What’s wrong with her spending a little time with her friends? Mother doesn’t want her to toil nonstop like a slave!

  I wonder if she was envious when she saw Loli and the other maids, laughing, arm in arm. Maybe when she was young she had the kind of friends Loli has now, girls who worked like her in beauty salons. She often reminisces about going to the opera with her girlfriends in Lyon — they could only afford the promenoir so they must have been standing very near each other, thrilled and happy, the way the maids looked in front of the school.

  In Paris, she loves to go out with my cousins and pretend they’re all a bunch of friends. She does have friends here too, but they are ladies who sit in armchairs and drink tea. They discuss fashions, films, books, who looks good and who doesn’t, what is done and what is not. Mother negotiates it well enough, but it doesn’t come to her naturally.

  When Mother is gone, I join Loli in the kitchen. She’s making the vinaigrette, and there are tears on her cheeks. I kiss her. “You’ll have to be careful at noon,” I say, “but in the morning Mother is still in her robe, so you can walk back with your friends.”

  “You little spy!” Loli laughs. “You devil! You’re telling me to disobey your mother!”

  “Not at all. What she said was, ‘You can take the bicycle,’ but you can also walk with your friends on the way back!”

  “Okay, but what about the ‘Don’t waste time with your friends’ part?”

  “What Mother said was, ‘Make sure I don’t see you wasting time’. In the morning, she won’t see you.”

  Loli is shaking her head. “I don’t think that’s what your mother meant.”

  “You might be right,” I say. “But what’s important is what she actually said.”

  “I don’t know,” Loli says. “What’s important for me is to keep my situation. It makes me sad not to see my friends as usual, and I don’t understand why I shouldn’t, but your mother is my patronne, and I’ll do what she says.”

  I know there are much worse patronnes than Mother. I’ve heard stories of maids who are given only leftovers to eat, are made to scrub all day and darn at night until they fall asleep. This happens when there’s only one maid, and the patronne is lazy, stingy, or just cruel.

  It’s different with us, because Ginette cleans, Grandmother cooks, and Mother goes to the market on her bicycle, does most of the laundry, makes our clothes, and takes care of our bodies. Mother likes cleaning too, especially spring cleaning, taking down the curtains, pulling out the furniture, throwing buckets of water onto the tiles, emptying the cupboards, scouring the wood floors upstairs, waxing them. As a result, our house smells better than most. Mother and Loli get on well most of the time, they work together cheerfully and they relax when they’re done. But Loli needs to see her friends, and not only at the dance on Saturday nights. We’ll have to find ways. We always do. For instance, when Loli wants to meet her boyfriend in the back street, Coralie and I keep a lookout.

  I’m glad that I’ll be allowed to walk to school on my own, but I’ll miss listening to the maids on the way home. And Coralie will miss walking. She’ll have to stay put on the back of the bicycle instead of running around with the other maids’ children. She always wants to play with the neighbor boys, but she’s not allowed to, because we’re supposed to play with girls. Which doesn’t make sense, because in Coralie’s class half the children are boys, and in the schoolyard she plays with them. Is it because the neighbor boys go to the state school? But the neighbor girls we play with go to the école laïque too, so I don’t know.

  In most of the books I read, the children don’t go to school. At least, the girls. The boys sometimes go to boarding school. In the comtesse de Ségur’s novels, boys are sent to boarding school (or threatened with the prospect) when they’re naughty, jealous or mean, when they disobey or lie. The girls stay at home, but they “work”: they learn penmanship, sewing, sums, history, religion, drawing, piano. They have tutors who come to their house a few hours a week, or a governess who lives with the family, or both.

  I don’t think I’d like to have all my lessons at home. “How can you like your school?” Eléonore asked me yesterday. “You have to stay until six p.m. instead of five, you recite all those prayers, you get heaps of homework, plus all those lines to write when you’re punished!”

  Yes, Sainte-Blandine is tough. But grown-ups seem to see that as a good point. I often hear people say about me, “She’s so advanced! They do push their students at Sainte-Blandine, you know, they’re good at that.” I don’t feel “pushed” at all. Just the opposite: thwarted. But I don’t know what to think, because I’ve never been to any other school.

  There’s something I like about school anyway: I don’t have to be so good there. My work is usually good, because I enjoy studying, but I am not. My reputation at school is practically the opposite of what it is at home. At home, I’m Mother’s dream daughter: clean, quiet and polite. At school I’m restless, I ask too many questions, I mislay my books, and I get punished a lot. It wasn’t always like that, and I don’t know precisely how it started, or when. But this year I’ve become something like the class rebel, and it’s such a relief from being a petite fille modèle.

  Eyelash

  Just before dinner, as Coralie and I are washing our hands, the phone rings. Through the half-open door, I see Father come out of the tasting room into the hall and go to the phone, which sits on top of a high black cabinet filled with bottles of eau de vie and liqueur. “Yes, yes,” he says. “I see.” “Yes, I understand.” “Of course, I’ll be there.” His voice isn’t warm and relaxed as usual but stiff, almost solemn. Something is happening.

  Mother comes downstairs and he says something to her I can’t hear. Instead of moving into the dining room, they stand there and go on whispering. Coralie throws some water at me and says, “Come on! Can’t you smell the soup? Artichoke! And Loli won’t bring it till we all sit down!” She pushes me into the dining room, where Grandmother is putting away her knitting. I hear Mother exclaim, “Again!” Father has his hand on her upper arm as they come into the room.

  Over dessert (tiny tart-smelling strawberries), Father says, “Tomorrow morning, Justine will arrive on the 7:49 train.”

  “Yay! Do we get a vacation too?” Coralie asks.

  “It is not a vacation,” Father says. He’s doing his best to sound normal, but his voice is weary. “She can’t go on at Sainte-Gudule, so we’ll have to find another school for her. Meanwhile, she’ll stay here.”

  “What’s wrong with Sainte-Gudule?” Coralie asks.

  “She’ll tell you when she gets here. If she wants to.”

  “She’s always going to n
ew schools,” Coralie moans. “Why can’t we go to a new school? We’ve been at Sainte-Blandine for ever!”

  Father laughs. Not a very happy laugh, but he’s not making fun of Coralie either. I think he finds it appealing that she always wants something. “Enjoy Sainte-Blandine while you can,” he says.

  “Enjoy it?” Coralie cries. She’s right, “enjoy” is not quite the right word. But compared with what lies ahead of us, with boarding school and being locked up all week...

  Mother breathes in noisily. “What I don’t understand,” she says, “is why something always goes wrong between Justine and those nuns. Justine is such a clever girl, and so affectionate. I never have any trouble with her.”

  In the evening, when Coralie is asleep, I retrieve Henry Brulard, which I’ve hidden under the cloth of my altar to the Virgin. I read, “My mother, Mme Henriette Gagnon, was a charming woman, and I was in love with my mother. I hasten to add that I lost her when I was seven.”

  In love with his mother?

  “I wanted to cover my mother with kisses,” he goes on, “and I didn’t want her to wear clothes. She loved me passionately and kissed me often, I kissed her back with such fire that she had to leave. I hated my father when he came in and interrupted our kisses. The place I always wanted to kiss was her breast.”

  His mother died when he was the age I am now. I wonder what would have happened if she had lived. Maybe he would have fallen out of love, the way I have. Maybe not. “She didn’t participate in this love,” he says. Then what about “She loved me passionately”? But I like the way he contradicts himself after two paragraphs. It’s not because he’s lying, but because he’s trying to capture many kinds of truth.

  “I was the criminal, I loved her charms furiously.” The way he describes her, though, isn’t very furious: “She was plump and fresh, very pretty and only, I believe, not quite tall enough.” And why does he call himself a “criminal”? I wonder as I turn off the light. I’m too tired to put the book back under the Virgin, so I keep it close to me under the sheets. It feels more precious to me than any other book. The cover is of an unusual blue, soft and mixed with grey, white, and a bit of green. The letters are black, except for the title and Le Divan, which must be the publisher. Inside, there’s a map of Grenoble in 1776. In spite of all the drawings, maps and floor plans, I’m pretty sure this book is not “for children”.

  In the morning, Father and I cross the street and the station forecourt to welcome Justine, who gets off the train with a suitcase and a large blue bag. She kisses Father over and over, then me. “You can’t imagine how happy I am to see you both! How’s my dear Odette?”

  “Asleep,” Father says. “And very well.”

  As we walk toward the house, Father carrying the luggage, Justine says softly, “I’m sorry. I tried my best, but...”

  “I know,” Father says. And sighs. And goes into his study.

  In the kitchen Justine kisses Loli on both cheeks. Loli shakes her by the shoulders. “How’s the bad girl? What did you do this time?”

  “Nothing!” Justine moans. “Practically nothing. They just caught a letter I was writing to a boy. As if it were any business of theirs.”

  “Boys!” Loli laughs. “Here’s your tea. Do you want a boiled egg?”

  “No, thanks. Just some bread. Loli, honestly, you don’t know what nuns are like. Obsessed!”

  “There. Try this honey, it’s from my grandmother. Pure rosemary. You need to eat, you’re so pale. And thin. Are you in love?”

  Justine shrugs. “No! Yes! Not really. What about you?”

  I’d like to hear more, but it’s time for school. Loli has forgotten about my porridge. I discreetly take my bowl into the scullery, holding my breath (the cheese larder) and throw the contents into the garbage. Back in the kitchen, I drink up my orange juice before we leave.

  Justine yawns. “I think I’m going to take a nap,” she says. “But I’ll say hello to Odette first. Is she awake?”

  “Yes, she’s waiting for you,” Loli says.

  Justine has been at Sainte-Gudule for five months, I reflect on the way to school. For her, a record. When she first got there, she told me it was a school for stupid girls who have failed everywhere else. “So at least I won’t have to work,” she said. “I’m far ahead of the rest. They aren’t just lazy, like me. They’re incredibly slow-witted. Seriously, they don’t have a clue.”

  Then I heard Father tell Monsieur Bonnafous, his accountant, that Justine’s new school was extraordinarily expensive. Why would Father want to pay a lot of money for a bad school? Because he didn’t have a choice. Justine had already been expelled from five schools in three years.

  At noon, I look for Justine and find her upstairs sitting at Mother’s dressing table, applying some kind of cream under her eyes. “Look at these rings,” she says. “What do you think? Is it a good idea to cover them up? Or do they make me look older, more interesting?”

  “You look perfect with or without,” I say. And she does. Always. Her ponytail, tied with a black polka-dot scarf, has style. So do her tight jeans, her large white shirt, the thin silver chain around her neck, and her red lace-up espadrilles. As soon as you see her, you know she comes from Paris. Nobody here looks so completely in control, down to the minutest detail, and so relaxed, so confident about their appearance.

  “I hope Father doesn’t find another school for me,” she says. “It’s hardly worth while. Only a few weeks left before summer vacation.”

  I’m happy she’s here, but I wonder why she didn’t stay with her mother. I don’t ask, because we never talk about her mother. Never. I don’t even know her mother’s name. I thought I did: when Father mentions her (which is seldom) he uses a word I long assumed was her first name. I’d never heard it before, and I had no idea how to spell it, so I vaguely imagined the woman was foreign, or came from another planet. I finally managed, only a few months ago, to analyse this designation into Mon-ex, “My ex”.

  Father doesn’t seem to talk to Mon-ex but she writes to him, mostly to ask for money. When he writes to her, he has to wait for ever before she sends him what he needs — some piece of information, or a paper with her signature. I’d like to know more about Mon-ex. Won’t Justine miss her if she stays here for several months?

  “Won’t you miss Paris?” I ask.

  Justine rolls her eyes. “How can anybody miss Paris? You have no idea what Paris is really like, or you wouldn’t ask. You only know Aunt Caroline’s house in Vincennes, where you’re pampered all day by the cook and the maids. Aunt Caroline’s chauffeur drives you to the Eiffel Tower, the Tuileries, the puppet shows in the Luxembourg. You can’t imagine what it’s like to live in Paris, for most people. For us! It’s all so drab. The rain, the crowds, the pressure. The métro!”

  “What’s wrong with the métro?” I ask.

  She shakes her head, fast, and shivers dramatically. “I can’t begin to tell you what’s wrong with the métro! As soon as you get down there, everything and everybody looks terminally sepulchral. All you want to do is kill yourself.”

  I’ve been in the métro a few times, and what I’ve noticed is people in all kinds of outfits, some of them speaking outlandish languages. But she and our brothers greatly prefer Cugnac. They like everything here. They always get depressed when it’s time to go back to Paris. Justine especially will check her calendar and say, “Only three days of happiness left.”

  At the end of each vacation, on her last day in Cugnac, she needs to say goodbye to all her cherished locations, and she takes me on a tour. She usually sheds a few tears under the fig trees in La Fourcade, then we bicycle to the church, the place du marché, the pine forest on the hill, and the terrace above the canal. There she’ll say, “And now I’ll go back to my lugubrious life.” Maybe there’s something awry with Paris that I can’t imagine. Or with her mother?

  “I’ll take you to the real Paris sometime,” Justine goes on, spreading something green on her eyelids. “You’ll see. Y
ou don’t know your luck. Here, put your hands together and hold this eyelash between two fingers. Don’t show me! I’ll have to guess which fingers, and if I’m right I won’t go to school until October.”

  I turn my back to her and place the eyelash between my middle fingers. When I show her my hands, she looks at them for quite a while, frowning, and chooses the ring fingers.

  “Shit! I lost!”

  “You’re here,” I say. “Let’s have fun while we can.”

  She stands up, and kisses me. “You’re so much more sensible than I am.”

  “Lunch!” Loli calls from the hall downstairs.

  As we go through the library and the music room to the landing, Justine says, “This afternoon I have to go and see mademoiselle Verdier. Father wants me to take English lessons with her, and he wondered whether you might like to do that too. Would you?”

  I jump so high, I slip and would tumble downstairs if Justine didn’t catch me. “Of course! I’d love to speak English!”

  Justine shakes her head. “What’s with you, always wanting to learn things when you don’t have to? Let’s hope you’re not disappointed. Mademoiselle Verdier doesn’t seem to be much fun, but never mind. I’ll wait for you in front of the school, and we’ll go together. Then,” she whispers in my ear as we come into the hall, “we’ll be just in time for a few turns on the avenue. I need to catch up.”

  “Catch up?” I whisper back. “You mean with boys?”

  “Exactly.”

  Mexico

  We have a visitor, a man I’ve never seen before, or heard of. His name is Marcel, and he lives in Mexico. Mexico! Last Christmas vacation when we were staying in Paris, aunt Caroline took Justine and me to the Châtelet Theater, for the operetta Le Chanteur de Mexico. The star was Luis Mariano. At the end of Act I the main character, a singer, goes to Mexico — he’s from the Basque Country and has already had some success in Paris. I can’t remember what Mexico looked like, though. Only the song, “Mexico, Mexi-ee-co-o” — we have it on a record aunt Caroline bought us after the show.