by John Brooke
Men? “Desperate for what?” Vivi’s father had taken off before she knew what he looked like. She has always reckoned it was because her mother is so out of her mind.
“To get free of themselves,” says Flossie. “They need to. You’ll feel it. They ache for diversion, to get out of the routine. It’s almost as if they’re trying to break free of time itself... And that’s where we live — us, here in Mari Morgan’s. To them you’re a strange woman in another world. When a man comes to you and believes he loves you — and it will happen, count on it — he might, but it’s beyond his life. Resist it, Vivi, or you won’t survive. But if you feel love, make it like a mirror. See yourself when you’re working. That’s what you have to do. Always see yourself, so you don’t lose yourself in what you’re doing. It’s an art, but it’s only that. We use it for something better.”
“For the goddess?”
“...for ourselves.”
Uh-huh? ...It’s confusing. Still, you had to listen. Flossie’s so certain and love’s something Vivi isn’t sure of. Thinking back through her boyfriends, Hervé, François — it’s true, they can seem desperate. They make such a lot of noise, it seems like they’re going to hit you... And Jerôme, another one who was trying real hard just before she left, singing songs off the radio, insisting that he loved her. Cute, but it never stopped... And Colette’s boyfriends: there was nothing in her mother’s neverending trail of doted-upon lovers, soon to become despised men who weren’t worth anything, to ever let Vivi know for sure about love. With Colette, she had stopped listening. But Vivi listens to Flossie.
They start her off with a man wearing glasses; he has a hairy belly and a zigonnette that reminds her of François’ — round and fat at the tip. He doesn’t say much, only that it was worth spending the extra money to get off the streets, and, when she’s naked, that she’s lovely. It’s quick and nothing special. Louise says that’s for the better. “Nothing special about it, nothing to remember, not even your first.”
Then she has a man who says he knows the mayor and a lot of other important people.
And a man with poodles on his boxers who doesn’t say a word.
And a man who comes as soon as she takes her clothes off — and leaves.
A Swiss who stands her on her shoulders and strokes the soles of her feet.
Apart from him, it’s zizis and bellies. Not sure what else to think about when it comes to clients. Nothing, mostly... Vivi tidies her room. She feels a bit of a guest with those chintzy dresses still hanging in the closet. Is she supposed to wear them? She hopes not. Three times too big in the bum. Then she reads the verse yet once more: I am the knot in every weave / I am the glow on every ridge... She repeats and repeats it, trying to fix it in her memory. Like school, and to be honest she doesn’t have a clue. But Ondine will be expecting some progress and she likes Ondine, so she’ll try. She will, she’ll try. Ondine’s old. Strange. Sad. Yet Vivi feels something she needs. What is it? Ondine touches a place that Flossie misses. Sad, strange...honest? Vivi trusts her, that’s what it is. Ondine’s a comfort.
Because please don’t think Vivi Namur is a stupid girl or, worse, some kind of natural-born slut. It’s just that growing up with Colette, on the run and getting nowhere, she has a sense of place — the HLMs, and a corresponding sense of options. I mean, doing it for money? Physically it’s no big deal. Easier than grinding away for hours and hours with Hervé; not like having to sit there talking about having babies with François when all you want to do is sleep; these men just do it and go away. As for “right” — how old are you Vivi? — well, it’s just not a very useful question. Started when I was fourteen. That may not be right but it’s pretty normal, at least where I come from...
And because Colette has been calling, worried as usual — she can never rest with her decisions — babbling about the murder and that inspector and maybe Vivi should come back home.
No way!
Flossie says she’ll go and talk to Colette. Flossie says Colette will be fine.
...Now Vivi lays the old red book aside and goes back to her closet; takes the silvery one off its hanger and holds it against her body. Perhaps Ondine could alter it. It’s cool under the light...might be sort of fun. Then Vivi checks her clock. And her appointment book. An American at eight. Flossie says Americans will love her, the way they always loved Manon. But Louise has told her Americans never spend as much money as it seemed they would.
Taking care of them: it really is a job.
2.
Next day Vivi’s back in Ondine’s workroom with the seamstress all over her, gangly arms, bony fingers, fetid breath, and pins and pins and pins. Vivi holds still, eyes fixed on the mirror. The lamé dress is being transformed, becoming hers. It would fit loosely, perfectly...it would flow. The effect is magical and she loves it already. “Ow!” Squeaked out as a pin pricks the back of her thigh.
“Hold still,” mumbles Ondine. Three more pins are placed. “There,” standing, stepping back. “It’s going to be lovely.”
“Like Manon?”
“No...” Suddenly vague; and Vivi watches the old woman disappear behind green eyes gone milky from too much needlework, hiding too far inside to even guess at. “Never like Manon.”
“But she was lovely,” says Vivi, smoothing the watery sheath, feeling a thrill as it shimmers and moves. Her American, Jimmy, saw it hanging there and he said, Oh yeah my Vivi, you have to wear that one next time please. “...Always laughing. At least that’s what they tell me.”
Ondine repeats it: “No.” Vivi waits, gazing out at the lonely apple tree in Ondine’s unkempt yard. Ondine asks, “How can you always be laughing? Manon was trapped and she was deeply ashamed because she walked right into it herself, laughing, as you say. Whatever you do in your time there, be realistic about it. Be careful with yourself. Don’t lose track like poor Manon.”
Or like Colette, sitting with her burning twigs and her booze, lost and so ashamed of herself as well. It’s this thing about shame... “Did Manon never come to see you, to talk about it?”
“She did.”
“Did you help her?”
“I...I tried...I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, does it? It’s too late.”
“But would he kill her for that? For being ashamed?” What a strange word.
“No!” Making a face, a crooked smile for a dense girl. “He wouldn’t have known what she meant.”
Vivi’s not so thick — it’s all these words these women heap upon her. But she senses it in Ondine now too. Shame sewn into regret. Because Vivi recognizes that same sense of ownership in Ondine’s voice: Ondine’s Manon, Colette’s problem, my mother. Everyone had something they held close, even if it only hurt them...
She changes back into her jeans. They try the verse a few more times.
I am a roebuck displaying seven tines
I am a floodwater covering the fields
I am a wind over a deep lake
I am the tears of the Sun.
I am a falcon circling the ledge
I am a bramble hooked in the skin
I am the perfection in every garden
I am an enchanter — who else
will set the whispering voice to song?
I am a battle-waging spear
I am a fish turning ‘neath the surface
I am a call beckoning from paradise
I am a path where poets wander.
I am a charging boar
I am a gathering wave
I am the current inside the tide
I am a child — who else
sees through the unshaped sacred stone?
I am the knot in every weave.
I am the glow on every ridge.
I am the queen of every hive.
I am armour for every heart.
I am the tomb of every hope.
Vivi tries... But Vivi stumbles. It’s just too far away.
Ondine tells her, “See the words!”
“It’s not real.
.. I don’t know how.”
“It’s real. When you find the right person you’ll know it’s more real than anything else there is.”
“But who’s the right person?”
Does Ondine even hear a whining girl as she stares at the verse as if it were a door?...into it as if into the only face that mattered? “I don’t know... Knowing these words will help you know. Learn them and be ready.”
“Then how did you learn it, Ondine? Please...” Again Vivi waits as Ondine sorts grimly through the things in her mind. The waiting is the hardest part of these mornings with Ondine.
“My mother. My mother read it to me. She made me see it... She told me how she and a man were in love — she was about your age, Vivienne, maybe a little older...and they went to a beach along the coast where she grew up. It was in May, the month of the willow, a tree which loves water and is loved by poets. So they lay in a grove of willows and read it together. That was normal then, that both of them should know this verse. It was part of their lives, it was something they shared. And it was love that let her see it...”
What did she see, Ondine? Vivi waits, in the silent room in the silent morning.
“How the wind over a deep lake will speak of the depth, the myriad intonations in the face of the beloved...how life is as intricate as a billion ripples. How when a tear from the sun lands, it magnifies the heart crystal clear. How a bramble in the skin is a dark thought that won’t leave you. How currents in the tide are the implacable strength of time, drawing people away from each other, changing the shape of faces and the sound of voices...”
Vivi is looking. Seeing? Well, maybe.
“Just a love story, really,” muses Ondine, coming out of it, “but it’s all there. Everything in the details of a life.”
“How do you know? I mean truly know?” You have to tell me this, Ondine!
“Because when she read it to me and talked about it...about her lover, and love, she was happy. I was just a child but I could feel it. Go on...try again.”
So, collecting herself, concentrating on the small tree in the yard because Ondine has told her apples stand for wisdom...when Colette would say that it sounded ridiculous; but now, with Ondine watching with those eyes...now starting to recite, each phrase coming with slow, deliberate care:
“I am a roebuck displaying seven tines
I am a floodwater covering the fields
I am a wind over a deep lake
I am the tears of the Sun.”
“Good...”
“I am a falcon...um...” peeking around for some help, embarrassed.
“...circling the ledge,” prompts the elder. “Go on...” Yet Ondine seems pleased enough.
“I am a bramble hooked in the skin...” Yes, maybe it’s coming. Not just saying lines any more; Vivi’s beginning to see what they’re describing, the colour and the strength in some, the pain and the terror in others. But: “...I am the tomb of every hope? I don’t know how to see that one. I can’t. It...it makes me afraid.”
“Fear is part of life,” says Ondine, “and fear is part of love. But that’s the secret. You have to imagine the beauty of everything. Even the beauty of dying. It’s how the goddess shapes the world.”
“Does that mean Manon was happy to die?”
“Of course not!...Don’t be morbid.”
“Then what?...please.” The beauty of dying makes no sense. More dark words lost in the larger darkness of the one who spoke them; the sound of a person — Ondine — and not of themselves.
“It means death is a natural step in a larger existence... It means the fear that always lives with hope is only here, in this life and in the death that goes with it. That’s the wheel. We’re bound to leave it. We live to transcend it. Whatever else, Manon believed that...I’m sure she did.”
I hope she did, thinks Vivi. Because the lesson’s over for today. She gathers up the red book and a bag full of repaired things to take back to Mari Morgan’s. “What was his name,” she asks, “...the man with your mother on the beach?”
“Yvon.”
“Was Yvon your father?”
“Yvon was killed in the war.” At Chemin des Dames, in May of 1918, keeping the Germans out of Paris. “He might’ve been, except for that godforsaken war. But then I wouldn’t have been me, would I? No, my father was a completely opposite kind of man...” Ondine smiles bizarrely at this long-gone twist of fate. It’s something that touches Vivi’s heart — part fear, part sympathy. Right now she can only shrug by way of reply; full to the brim, time to get out of here...
The bell tinkles. That gentle bell. “See the words, Vivienne. À demain.”
3.
Mmm, full to the brim, alone in the street, a tote bag full of repaired lingerie slung over her shoulder, the book held tight in her hand safe inside the pocket of her coat...
What is it, this thing called belief? What is that anyway? And how would I know?
Now Colette comes into it: Her battered face, her angry voice, all the speeches and complaints.
...Coming from your mouth it was all just names and words for so many years. Nothing in your life prepared me to understand...I know nothing of belief, Maman!...nothing.
Look at all the churches. See them pointing to the sky...Vivi’s never been in a church in her life.
You spat on churches. You blamed churches. “Fucking patriarchal bullshit!”
(A stranger turns and stares at the muttering girl.)
And look at these other women, putes scattered on these corners, the ones who are gross, the ones who are dying. But that’s not me...that’s not what this is. They’re alone. You see it in their eyes.
But Vivi is not. She can feel it, the way she’s beginning to feel the words... See them.
Yes, she would learn that verse.
And I can cope with these men, their precious zizis and their horrid pot-bellies...
And I can watch over myself and keep an eye out for love.
Vivi Namur walks faster, stronger, moving clear of it — her first worry: the looks and thoughts of strangers. They don’t matter. It’s the verse. It’s becoming part of Mari Morgan’s. Turning the corner into the alley, she passes the sweet scents emanating from Erly’s bakery and goes in the kitchen door. She’s home...yes, and she wonders what Dorise has made for lunch. When they tell her that her mother, Colette, had been found dead in her bath that morning, Vivi’s busy mind goes blank.
9
That Provisional Feeling
St. Peter, monitoring the gates of Paradise on behalf of the god of the Church of Rome, does not accept suicides. Point final. Mari Morgan is more lenient; although you should probably expect to be sent back to try your life a few more times in various reincarnations before being welcomed. The goddess wants you to get it right, but in your own good time. However, before trying their luck at either entrance to eternity, suicides, falling into the death-by-violence category, must first go to the police morgue. It’s usually no more than a formality and rarely the concern of the Police Judiciaire. And a razor to the wrists is not very original — like the woman herself. But Aliette Nouvelle had recognized an opportunity as she’d looked down at Colette Namur stretched out on the stainless steel bed.
Raphaele Petrucci says he found wine, “and not much else at all, actually,” in her stomach.
“No beer?”
“Yes, she probably had a beer too.”
“No ergot remedy?” Just a guess.
“No.”
“Milk?”
“Sorry.”
“Mmm, didn’t think there would be...” This is neutral shop talk in the back of a cab heading to the depressing circle on the northern edge of town; it wouldn’t do to continue the more personal discussion leading to his presence on her hastily assembled team. The inspector, the pathologist, Jean-Marc and Charles from IJ. The latter are along willingly; Charles Léger is in fact eager to smell that smell again if there (as she has insisted it will be). Raphaele was bribed:
�
��Charles will come. Jean-Marc will back his partner’s judgement. You have to come, too!”
Raphaele had reiterated his basic position. “But I didn’t smell it.”
“You might have!”
“People hear about these sorts of impulsive adventures, Inspector...I don’t need people saying I’m incompetent.”
“No one’s impulsive. Like you say, it’s a subjective thing. As a professional team we agree it’s a possibility and we need to have a second look.” ...A second sniff.
He’d turned the knob and steamed a cup of milk. She’d accepted a cappuccino and told him it was good...she needed him onside in this.
He’d said, “I’ll come with you if you come with me.”
“Where?”
“My place, Saturday night — pasta with a three-cheese sauce you’ll never forget.”
“But that’s extortion. That’ll do you in before incompetence.”
“No, it’s an invitation.”
“It’s not fair!” Feeling heat spread through her ears; hearing that other voice: Whoa! Why so angry, Aliette?... you losing something here?
No matter; it fell off him like water. He’d asked, no blush at all, “Really, Inspector, how long are we supposed to ignore this thing?”
“Which thing!”
“Us.”
Incorrigible. Improper... And those unavoidable Latin eyes. Such is the give and take of the modern workplace. What are you going to do about it — file a grievance? What he can’t know is she’s hedging her bets; that she has that plane ticket west for Saturday noon, but will cancel if this plays out the way she thinks it will... Yes? Yes, of course. Well, it’s another example of the give and take of the modern something, no? Mmm. For now, she has him...them. And having made an “urgent” call to the Palais, she’s sure there’ll be at least one more.