“You’re far too intelligent to be a secretary anyway.”
“You already said that. So I’m intelligent enough for what, then?”
“I could use an accountant at the pharmacy.”
“What do I know about accounting?”
“You could learn. I’m sure you’d be very good.”
“And the kid?”
“I’ll see to it—I’ll explain to your mother that you can’t study accounting and look after a baby at the same time.”
Olivier went to see his mother-in-law, but he told her something completely different: her daughter was in the throes of postpartum depression, and only the prospect of work gave her the will to live. He begged her to be so kind as to look after her granddaughter. He would come and pick Diane up every evening.
“I’d be only too happy to,” said the grandmother.
Once her son-in-law had left, the old lady let out her joy: “God bless Olivier!”
“I wouldn’t have thought Marie was the depressive type,” said the grandfather.
“Depressive my foot! She is pathologically jealous of her daughter. That’s what’s poisoning her.”
“Why would she be jealous of her own little girl?”
“As if she needs a reason! You and I brought up our daughters to respect what is fair. We never gave more to one than to the other. Brigitte is the eldest, she’s not as pretty as her younger sister, she is the one who could have been jealous. But she never was, and Marie is. I thought her problem had worked itself out: she is now the most beautiful woman in town, and she has made a fine marriage. Well, no: I’ve seen it with my own eyes, she’s jealous of her daughter.”
“What does she have to be jealous about—a baby!”
“Well, she’s a lovely baby and she attracts attention: that’s enough.”
“You think she mistreats her?”
“No. Marie isn’t unkind or crazy. But she doesn’t show her any tenderness. It can’t be very nice for poor Diane.”
“How can anyone fail to love such a little angel?”
The grandparents took their granddaughter in and lavished all the more affection on her, because they knew that she was suffering from a lack of it. The baby’s daily life changed completely and utterly.
Before, there used to be two high points in Diane’s existence: morning and evening. They corresponded to the moments when her father came and took her from her cradle and covered her with kisses, changed her diaper, and gave her a bottle, showering her all the while with words of love. The stretch from one shore to the other, over the course of a day or throughout the night, lasted an eternity: during a century of light or darkness, nothing happened. Sometimes, the indifferent goddess would pick her up to change or bottle-feed her. This woman belonged so entirely to a foreign species that she managed to touch her without touching her, to look at her without seeing her. Diane opened her eyes wide in the hopes that the goddess would notice her presence, and even ventured now and again to produce a gurgle—in vain. When the goddess put her back in her cradle, the torture of hope ceased at last. Then, at least, Diane knew for certain that there was nothing to expect until morning or evening, but they would both be so far away that it was better not to think about them. She filled the void with questions: why was the smell of the goddess so familiar? Or, better still: why was that exquisite odor so heart-wrenching?
Suddenly, her life was transformed. Her father would carry her off in a Moses basket and place her in the arms of a person who was the same age as Madame Testin, but this woman smelled very sweet and Diane loved the tender sensation she aroused. With her, the void vanished. When she wasn’t holding her close to her heart, she put her in the playpen: her own space, but where she could see her Mamie. Mamie was as active and noisy as the goddess was passive and silent. Mamie prepared the food while listening to the radio, and she often spoke to it. When Mamie was eating, she would put Diane in a high chair and always gave her a taste of whatever it was she had cooked: she didn’t have to try it, but she had the right to, and sometimes it was delicious.
Above all, Mamie looked at her and spoke to her. With Mamie she didn’t only exist in the morning and the evening. She existed non-stop, and this was thrilling. Sometimes Mamie even took her out on amazing adventures. Together they would go to the market to buy vegetables, choose fruit, explore the world. There were no limits to the power Mamie had to make the world an interesting place.
In the evening her father came to collect the Moses basket, and his effusive greetings were delightful. They would go back to the goddess, who still didn’t look at her, but who was feeling better. While she gave her a last bottle and put her to bed, Diane could feel that big body bubbling with life.
Olivier was right: Marie was enthralled with accounting. She was taking an intensive course, and it revealed all her gifts: numbers, which bored her in the absolute, became fascinating the moment they represented money. Money had the aspirational value that aroused envy in others: Marie discovered that she had more money than most people in town, and she was jubilant. She immediately grasped the principle: you mustn’t show that you liked it. That way, you could enjoy it all the more.
Not only did Marie turn out to be an ideal accountant, she was also an astute businesswoman: at the pharmacy, she created a counter for beauty products, and became their standard-bearer. Customers asked her for the secret of her fresh complexion and radiant skin. She refrained from telling them she was twenty-one years old and, as if letting them in on a secret, showed them a beauty cream that came with a very high price.
Olivier was more in love than ever with his spouse, and before long she was pregnant again. This time, she did not seem to be indisposed. She did not change her routine, and she went on working as usual.
One night she had a nightmare that is quite common among women who are pregnant with their second child: she dreamt that her first child died. She woke up in a paroxysm of anxiety, and felt she must make sure it was only a dream. She rushed to the cradle and reached for her little girl. Diane emerged from sleep upon sensing a miracle. The goddess was holding her in her arms and saying, over and over, “You’re alive, you’re alive!” She was covering her with kisses. Diane opened her eyes wide to see what she could make out in the gloom: the face of the goddess was utterly transformed, resplendent with tenderness and relief. So she released herself into the incredible turmoil of that embrace. Her entire being was transfixed with the most intense pleasure. The goddess’s smell permeated all her senses, Diane was bathing in a perfume of ineffable sweetness and she came to know the headiest intoxication on earth: love. The goddess must, therefore, be her mother, since she loved her.
“Sleep well, my baby,” Marie said eventually, placing the child back in her cradle.
And she went back to bed.
Diane did not fall asleep. The revelation of love continued to flow through her. To be sure, in the arms of her father, or Mamie, or Papy, she had felt she was loved and that she loved. But what she had just experienced in her mother’s arms was of an altogether different nature: this was magical. It was a force that raised her up, transfixed her, crushed her with happiness. It was something to do with her mother’s smell, which bore her away on the most exquisite fragrance. It was something about her mother’s voice, which, when she had spoken to her that night, was the most delicious music she had ever heard. All of which was rounded out by the softness of her mother’s hair and skin, which had ultimately transformed her embrace into a long, silken caress.
It was very important not to fall asleep: for her this was the only way to be sure she hadn’t been dreaming. Diane had noticed that when you were asleep you could experience strange things. It took a certain time for your consciousness to let the unreal nature of those things sink in. But now, she noticed, it was the opposite: the longer she stayed awake, the less she doubted the truth of what had happened.
So this was it, then, the meaning, the rationale of all life: you were there, you put up with so muc
h strife, you made the effort to go on breathing, and accepted so much that was dull, so that you would know love. Diane wondered whether there were other sources, beyond the goddess, that could cause it. She didn’t think so: how many times had she seen her father snuggle in her mother’s arms with a strangely blissful expression on his face?
Another mystery occurred to her: when the goddess had embraced her, she had felt her mother’s heartbeat inside her, and she had realized that her own heart was beating in that big chest—but she had also heard another heart deep inside her mother, lower down. Did it have something to do with the unusual roundness of her beloved’s tummy? And why did this feeling evoke confused memories, a nostalgia for unworldly intimacy?
Diane managed to stay awake, awaiting the morning with burning impatience. When her father came to get her in her bed for the morning ritual, she turned her face toward her mother to see if the change was still there. Her mother did not look at her, or say anything to her: a day like any other. And Diane knew that her mother had forgotten what had happened during the night. Even if she did eventually remember, she would think it had been a dream.
The infant felt her heart contract with pain. But inside her, something strong and clear whispered: “But I do remember, I know it wasn’t a dream, I know that the goddess is my mother and I know that she loves me the way I love her, and that this love exists.”
One morning, for no particular reason, Marie, not Olivier, took the little girl to her parents. During the brief instant she was in her arms, Diane sought her beloved’s sweetness and perfume again, but her mother did not notice. Marie’s father opened the door, and he saw the child’s imploring expression and his daughter’s indifference. He squeezed his granddaughter close and cuddled her:
“Good morning my pumpkin, my little sweetheart . . .”
“It’s so ridiculous, to speak to her like that,” said the goddess frostily as she strode away.
Flabbergasted by her attitude, the grandfather understood that his wife had been right. He saw the intelligent gravity in Diane’s eyes and he decided to explain something to her:
“Your mother isn’t cruel, my treasure. She’s just jealous. She always has been, that’s the way it is, there’s nothing you can do about it. Jealous, do you understand that?”
The two-year-old said yes.
“It’ll be our secret.”
Had she already heard the word “jealous?” Whatever the case, she had the feeling she knew what it implied. And she saw it as a good sign: it was jealousy that was preventing her mother from showing her love. She had seen it on the goddess’s face so many times: when her father would exclaim, “Diane, my little darling,” when people admired someone besides her, her mother’s features would harden and a mixture of spite and anger attenuated her beauty. It would last for a short while, and during that time she seemed to have trouble breathing.
Mamie arrived with a sigh.
“I’m not sure that was the right thing to do, to tell her.”
“I knew!” declared the child.
The grandparents looked at her, astonished.
When they got back home, her father took her by the hand and led her into a room she had never seen, with a new bed.
“This is your new room, sweetie. Your mommy is going to have a baby who will sleep in your cradle. So you’ll have your own bed, like a big girl. But until the baby comes, you can stay with us.”
“Can I start sleeping here now?” she asked.
“Would you like that? Yes, you can.”
Diane was enchanted to have this place for herself, and she moved her toys in there. She heard her father say to her mother, “That’s good, the little one isn’t jealous of the baby.”
She thought: so that’s how it is, she could have been jealous, too. The problem wasn’t exclusively the goddess’s. This reassured her in her belief that it was nothing serious.
She also wondered about the new baby. Would her mother be jealous of it, that way she was jealous of her?
One day, while she was eating with her grandparents, the phone rang. Mamie let out a cry and said, “We’re on our way,” and hung up.
“You have little brother,” she announced.
In the car Diane realized she hadn’t even imagined the possibility that the baby might be a boy. Would that change anything?
Maman was holding a tiny creature in her arms and gazing at it tenderly. Papa greeted his daughter with a smile:
“Sweetheart, come and meet Nicolas.”
“Nicolas!” exclaimed Mamie. “He looks just like Diane, only he’s a boy.”
“You’re right,” said Olivier. “He’s the spitting image of his sister.”
Was that what I looked like when I was born? wondered the little girl as she gazed at the baby. She thought he was lovely, and she loved him. But what struck her was that her mother clearly adored Nicolas. She’s not jealous of him, thought Diane.
“He’s magnificent,” said Mamie.
Maman thanked her, radiant. For the moppet, this was a revelation: it seemed her mother could enjoy a compliment directed at one of her progeny after all.
She had the answer to her question: yes, this changed everything, the fact that the baby was a boy. Strangely enough, Diane did not feel hurt. She was glad there was an explanation, it reassured her. She had never lamented the fact she wasn’t a boy: what good would that do? And anyway, she was not sure she would have liked it better, being a boy.
“Can I hold him in my arms?” she asked.
Marie sat her daughter next to her in the bed so that she could hold her brother safely. Diane experienced a moment of magic: nestled against her mother, she could feel the warm, wiggly little life she had been entrusted with. Henceforth there was a new, important person here on earth.
Diane determined to give the whole matter some deep thought.
The first topic for analysis was her mother’s preference for boys. Papa was a man: quite a damning piece of evidence right there. And that wasn’t all. She had noticed that the goddess didn’t behave in the same manner when she was in male company. She stood up straighter, was both more energetic and gentler, and she said the most remarkable things.
The second element to examine was jealousy. Could she conclude that jealousy was only expressed toward women? It wasn’t that simple. Maman had already had occasion to vent her rage against Papa, rebuking him for having looked at some woman or other. One day she told him that she wasn’t as important at the pharmacy as he was. In short, jealousy was founded on an obsession with competitiveness, and it did not mean she was opposed solely to women. It was getting complicated. And it was all the more complex in that the supreme aim of jealousy consisted in being regarded with envy by men and by women: oddly enough, at that stage there was no more discrimination.
There was no possible conclusion to all these ruminations: at the very least, Maman was happy to have a son. Anything that contributed to maternal happiness was good for the happiness of the entire world.
This time, Marie was not the least bit depressed. Within three days she was on her feet. A week later she was back at work at the pharmacy, fulfilling her role as Nicolas’s devoted mother all the while. She asserted that maternity leave would not have been good for her morale. When she went to pick up the children at Mamie’s in the evening, she rushed over to the baby to kiss him.
At one point the grandmother took Marie aside and said:
“You have the right to prefer one child over the other, but don’t make it so obvious. It’s hard on the little girl.”
“I doubt that! She doesn’t notice a thing.”
“Don’t you believe it. She’s very advanced for her age, she is astonishingly precocious.”
“Honestly, when it comes to Diane, people always exaggerate,” said Marie, with that pinched expression Mamie knew only too well.
She’s still jealous, sighed the grandmother to herself.
But the little girl did not seem to suffer because of it. When Mam
ie saw her covering her little brother with kisses, she admired her: by the looks of it, Diane was not jealous of the infant.
For Marie, just being happy was never enough, she wanted to flaunt her happiness before those who seemed less fortunate. To this end, she drew closer to her older sister, and invited her and her family to lunch every Sunday. The way to hell is paved with good intentions; similarly, the meanest intention can be a source of sincere joy. Brigitte, who was a sweet, kind woman, was glad of this, and to her husband she said:
“Motherhood suits my sister. She’s lost her stuck-up side, she’s made an effort to get close again. I’m so pleased.”
“You’re absolutely right, darling. I hardly recognize her, she has blossomed, she’s charming.”
In the presence of Brigitte, Marie was radiant, and could not stop thinking, “She went and married a roofer and she has two ugly, stupid daughters: how she must envy me!” In truth, Brigitte, who loved her life, was glad her sister had done so well. Véronique and Nathalie adored Diane and Nicolas. Alain got on marvelously with Olivier. The Sunday lunches were pleasurable moments for everyone.
Diane revered her cousins, who were two years older than she was, and twins. She found them adorable, these two little girls who were identical, down to how they were plump and smiled all the time. And it was so kind of Aunt Brigitte to bring a box of chocolates every time the way she did.
One Sunday after coffee Brigitte offered a second piece of chocolate to her niece, who loved chocolate. Marie stopped her:
“Out of the question. It’s fattening.”
“Oh, honestly, Marie, your daughter is thin as a rail!” said Brigitte.
“And she has to stay that way,” said Marie.
Diane shuddered when she heard her mother’s voice. Her words were unpleasant enough, but the way she said them, so harshly, was far worse, and the meaning behind it was not lost on her: “I don’t like for my daughter to enjoy herself.” She saw that Aunt Brigitte had noticed, too, and was shocked. The little girl hated it when there were witnesses to her mother’s severity, for while she could, deep down, find a calming explanation for herself, she could not share it with others, or initiate them into her personal cosmogony, which could be expressed thus: “The goddess loves me, it’s just that she loves me in a strange way, she doesn’t like to show she loves me because I’m a girl, and her love for me is a secret.”
Strike Your Heart Page 2