There would be a lot of talk about the melancholy of dominant species, their vague sense of threat which never actually manifests itself, insomnia linked to guilt. We would inevitably end up envying the fate of our victims. The prey. Our gentle prey which makes the best of life until the day when, without any warning, it is decapitated with the snap of a jaw.
I try to imagine the satisfactions of a bullfinch: Yum! I’ve found a maggot, phew! I got away from the cat. What a good day!
Would it be possible, in the context of extreme destitution, for a man to end up identifying with a bullfinch? Imagine famine hand in hand with guerrilla war: Yum! says bullfinch-man, I’ve found a worm; phew! he then cries as the machete or the bullet narrowly misses him. What a great day! But it doesn’t work. Man’s happiness has nothing to do with his survival. It lies somewhere else. Because of our awareness, because of hope, because of the infinite possibilities.
At certain points in my life I have been a bullfinch-woman. Surviving. It was a miracle waking up alive each day, so insistent was the temptation to end it all. Sometimes, seeing dazzling March sunlight throwing a golden glow over the white stone façades along the banks of the Seine, I tried to remember: How do you do that again? How do you find this beautiful? How do you enjoy it? I remembered the pleasure of looking at something, the luxury that came for free, and I could see that I needed to construct some sort of framework for it, that the joyous sense of beauty could only reign if it were enthroned like a pasha on top of other feelings, that it would never be the first. Why ask for more? I thought indignantly. Isn’t it an insult to life to insist on happiness? Be a good bullfinch and make do with being alive.
I’ve got my strength back, I’m on my feet again with my feathers puffed up. Staying alive isn’t enough any more. My eagerness and appetite are awakened now and, as a result, my agitated heart is flooded with fear. I got something wrong earlier, one important detail escaped my vigilance: true, we don’t participate in the great cycle of killing, but within our own caste we have a very satisfying system for devouring each other. I’m thinking of the young girl Ben told me about, the pretty one, who wants my picture and who, some day soon, will come to kill me. I can’t imagine she means me any good. She is my exterminating angel, I recognized the beat of her wings. In her hand, a sword. In her eyes, daggers. I feel old. Old and grotesque with my bucolic escapades.
With an apron round my hips I slice and chop half-heartedly. I struggle to put menus together. I’m bored with food. I fall back on my classics and no one notices the difference. But I myself know that the intoxicating pleasure of invention has deserted me. Now that the first battle is won, it doesn’t bother me whether I win the war. I’ve opened a restaurant. My business makes a profit. I raise my employees’ salaries, hand out bonuses, invest in a new food-processor. As soon as a pan starts sticking, I give it to a charity shop and buy a new one. Ali has stopped delivering. He sends a solemn, sullen and excruciatingly punctual boy.
I think of the tiny firmament that we carved, my lover and I, in space, of the canopy beneath which we exchanged our silent vows. I know it exists somewhere but I can’t shelter beneath it.
I haven’t answered the telephone. I haven’t opened the letters. I’ve behaved like an idiot. I don’t know if he’s crying, if he misses me, if he regrets me. I don’t know what love is any more, what it consists of. All that I have left is desire. Once the physical amazement is over, there’s nothing more. At night I bang my head against the wall, clench my jaws and wring my hands. In the morning I wake with an empty mind, and go over the things I will have to do through the day, the words I will have to say. I stock up in advance on the smiles I will have to give out. I’m rather like one of those mechanical pianos you feed perforated scores into. I churn out the notes soullessly a minute at a time. Reciting them. The days are getting longer and they seem to go by unbearably slowly. As soon as dawn breaks I set my eye on nightfall and the solitary rest it brings, the truth of those hours of insomnia during which, released from my role as a fulfilled restaurant owner, I can wander aimlessly with drooping eyelids and down-turned mouth.
One morning Ben arrives an hour early. I haven’t had time to put on my armour or practise my lines for the day.
‘Something’s wrong,’ he says.
I say nothing, my eyes on the floor.
‘Something’s wrong,’ he says again.
My teeth start chattering.
‘Are you ill?’ he asks. ‘Would you like me to call the doctor?’
I put my hands over my cheeks and squeeze. I’d like my teeth to stop their performance. Ben comes over, touches my shoulder shyly. I let him. He comes closer and takes me in his arms.
‘It’s nothing,’ he says. ‘It’s nothing.’
He rocks me gently, swaying from one foot to the other, like inexperienced teenagers risking their first slow dance.
‘You’re tired,’ he explains. ‘That’s why. It’s hardly surprising. You haven’t stopped. You work the whole time. It’s too much. There. That’s what it is. You’ve done too much. But everything’s fine. Barbara and I can manage on our own. You should get some rest. You should go away to the country.’
I burst into sobs.
‘Have I said the wrong thing?’ Ben asks.
I don’t answer. He stands still and hugs me very tightly.
‘Tell me what I can do. I can do anything. I’ve written down the recipes, I’ve watched you do them. I’ve practised at home.’
It’s so unfair, I tell myself. This boy’s goodness is so unfair. He’ll do anything for me and I deserve nothing. Can’t he see the mark on my forehead, the stigmata of a cold-hearted woman?
‘You’re the first person who’s made me want to do something. The first person who’s taught me anything.’
‘So you agree then?’ I ask hoarsely.
‘Agree to what?’ he asks, pulling back slightly.
‘To taking over the restaurant. I want to give it to you. It’s your work as much as mine. I can’t deal with it any more. I’ll find out about health and safety standards and we’ll do whatever alterations need doing. You won’t have to worry about anything. We’re going to sort the whole place out.’
I grind to a halt, hesitating to go on.
‘I want it to be a present, Ben. I don’t want it to be a burden.’
I can see the glint of protest in his eye and start talking again before he can put his case together.
‘You’ve worked for months without pay. You don’t owe me anything. I’m the one who owes you everything. So I’m giving you what I’ve got. We’re going to go to the solicitor and put the lease in your name.’
He shakes his head.
‘Not that,’ he says. ‘Not that.’
‘Take it, please.’
He thinks for a long time.
‘I’m very happy to take care of the business,’ he says, ‘but you mustn’t give it to me.’
There is so much authority in his voice. How does he know? How can he have guessed that I have no right to make him my heir? By what stroke of luck has he saved me from this ultimate betrayal?
‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘I’ll appoint you as manager of Chez moi.’
‘What are you going to do?’ he asks. ‘Where are you going to go?’
I haven’t thought about that.
‘You don’t have a home,’ he reminds me.
‘That’s true.’
‘Do you have any savings?’
I shake my head.
‘But I don’t need anything to live,’ I tell him. ‘Hardly anything.’
Monday passes like a day of mourning, like coming back from a funeral. We’re sad, Ben and I, each knowing our sadness is the same as we comfort each other. The air is mild and the sun, which has finally succeeded in warming up our short wide street, is modestly announcing that we can assume spring is here at last. Barbara is wearing a dress dotted with little flowers. Her large, dancing body is a meadow. I tell her about our plans, afraid she
will refuse to be Ben’s employee because he is a few years younger than her.
‘That’s perfect,’ she reassures me. ‘My favourite role is being the governess, the underling who runs everything from behind the scenes. I’ve got a weakness for clandestine arrangements.’
She’s so clever, I think to myself, and enjoy watching her waltzing from one table to another, noting down orders in her big legible handwriting. She laughs with customers, crouches down to talk to the under-fours, doesn’t let the whingers, fussers and downright pains walk all over her. She has a fearsome understanding of time and space. With her here, it’s as if the dining-room is carved up into a grid, every scrap of information, every request has its own X and Y co-ordinates. No hold-ups in the kitchen, no customers kept waiting, no mistakes serving out plates. It’s a privilege watching her work.
At five o’clock, when Vincent drops in for a cup of tea to talk to Barbara about the shrubs she would like round the edge of the terrace, a silhouette appears in the doorway. I don’t notice it straight away because I’m leaning over a file trying to find the measurements allocated to us by the local authorities and therefore the area of pavement we are allowed. Our terrace must not exceed two metres by six, all told. I hand the document to Vincent who has brought a pile of plant catalogues. I notice that he’s turned his head towards the door, and follow his gaze.
A tall young woman with high cheek-bones is standing on the doorstep. She has plaits coiled on top of her head, which immediately reminds me of the portrait of Vassilissa Primoudra, the very wise Vassilissa, heroine of the Russian fables of my childhood. I can’t make out her eyes, and her expression is difficult to read because of the blinding sunlight behind her. She is standing absolutely still. It’s disquieting. We all fall silent, petrified, waiting for her to move.
Ben murmurs, ‘It’s her’.
I gather up the scattered documents on the table and hand them over to Vincent. ‘Could you three go to your place?’ I ask.
Without a word, Barbara, Vincent and Ben get up and head for the door. The young woman steps aside to let them past. As she makes way, a ray of sunlight that she was blocking streams into my eyes, faster than any arrow, blinding me. When I open my eyes she has disappeared. I think I am alone, then hear someone gently clearing their throat behind me. She has sat down at the table we were using a few moments earlier.
‘Are you Myriam?’ she asks.
I sit down facing her and put out my hand. She shakes it, my fingers against her soft warm palm. Her eyes are black and her hair the colour of ripe wheat. Her lips are pale, pale pink and her neck long and white. She is wearing a black velvet jacket over a white lace blouse. You could be forgiven for thinking she has stepped out of a nineteenth-century painting. I think she looks odd. Not at all what I expected of a health inspector.
‘My name is Tania,’ she says.
We look at each other and I have no idea what sort of protocol we are supposed to observe. She lowers her eyes and smiles.
‘I’m Hugo’s girlfriend.’
I beg the ground to break open and suck me deep inside it. My hands shake on the table. I hide them and ram them under my thighs.
‘We saw your picture in the paper,’ she explains.
I’m struck by the clarity of her voice, no affectation or shyness.
‘We were in the Métro, heading for lectures…’
What lectures? I want to ask her. Which university? Where’s my son? Where had you set off from? Where had he spent the night?
‘… and I took the free paper because I like reading the restaurant reviews. I like my food. I said to Hugo, “Look, that’s a nice idea, a restaurant called Chez moi,” and I showed him the article. He didn’t say anything. He brought the paper right up to his face. He said, “That’s my mother, the woman, there, she’s my mother.” He recognized you. I thought he was joking at first. Because he talks about you all the time and it winds me up.’
What does he say about me? I want to ask. Does he hate me? But I’m muzzled by my shame. By my relief, too.
‘I gathered very early on that you were… separated. He told me everything. As soon as we started going out. Because he couldn’t sleep at night, so I asked him what he thought about for all those hours he spent walking up and down the room.’
What room? Do you live together? How long have you known him? Is he sleeping better?
But the muzzle won’t slacken.
‘He was angry. He cried when he told me that. I’d never seen a boy my age cry. I thought it was very weird. I thought it was very moving too. He told me he sometimes saw the bloke - what was his name again? Auguste? No, Octave. He said when he saw him he wanted to kill him. That frightened me. I thought it was stupid. “But this is all so childish”, I told him and he went berserk.’
She roars with laughter.
‘He was furious. He told me I was the stupid one, I wouldn’t understand. That he’d been traumatized. And, well, I just can’t put up with that sort of thing, do you see what I mean? People who’ve been traumatized. Everyone’s traumatized these days, don’t you think? Am I being too blunt?’
I can’t answer. I think she is right. I would love to talk to her about the excesses of trauma. I would also like to thank her, to tell her how beautiful I think she is. To ask her how come she is so mature for her age. To find out about her origins.
‘Everyone says so, that I’m too blunt. It’s because of my origins.’
This echo surprises me. Reading the curiosity I cannot disguise in my eyes, she explains what she means: ‘I’m not from here. I was born in Smolensk. I came to Paris when I was twelve. I couldn’t speak French.’
She laughs again.
‘There’s just one word I still can’t pronounce without an accent. It’s not really a word, it’s the name of a shop. Monoprix. Can you hear it? I don’t say the "O”s properly.’
I smile.
‘Well, I told Hugo. A woman is like a man. Women have bodies too. Do you find that shocking? Am I being crude? But it’s true, isn’t it? Boys are hopelessly uptight in reality. They’re the ones who invented the concept of the Madonna. The Virgin and Child turns them on. But it makes me sick. Still, I understand him too. It’s true. He was little and when it’s your mother it’s not the same. No one wants to know about their parents’ love lives. You want that packed away in a box. Nothing odd about that. But I told him it had gone on long enough now. I don’t want to live with some bloke who keeps on about his mother the whole time. It’s very simple. No need for a shrink. I told him that if he missed you he just had to find you, it wasn’t complicated. You’ve got parents, relations, you won’t have evaporated, you’re not dead. But he told me he didn’t know how to go about it, that he didn’t want to mention you to the others, Gizèle and André, your parents. He found it embarrassing. And I understand. It’s true, it is embarrassing. So I said “What then? What are you waiting for? What are you going to do? Because traumatized orphans aren’t really my thing.” He said he was waiting for a sign. When he saw the photo I gave him a dig in the ribs. “There’s your sign.” We haven’t talked about it but I know he’s counting on me. You know what it’s like. All men want is for you to relieve them of decision making. You just have to take responsibility for it. Well, I accept the responsibility. I can’t see what’s wrong with that. If you go wrong, you go wrong. It’s not the end of the world.’
‘Myriam?’
Someone’s calling me. It’s coming from the big dining-room. I can’t seem to move.
‘Myriam?’
‘Go on,’ says Tania. ‘You see to your customers. I’ll wait.’
I turn very slowly and get up, unsteady on my feet. Denis and Nico, two trainees from the dental prosthetics lab opposite, are waiting for their coffee.
‘Have you got any dessert?’ asks Nico.
’There’s some chocolate fondant left,’ I say like an automaton.
I serve them in slow motion. I haven’t got the will to cut up the leftover puddi
ng and arrange it on little plates: I take the whole mould to their table.
‘You clean that up, my boys,’ I tell them. ‘It’s on the house.’
I tear up the till receipt. I don’t intend to be interrupted a second time, afraid I won’t have the strength to take their money and give them their change.
I sit back down opposite Tania. She has stopped talking. She takes a deep breath and opens her eyes wide. She looks just like a clown and I wonder what’s happening to her. Why’s she not saying anything? Has the chatterbox ground to a halt? But what else could she add? It’s my turn. I must not cry. I’m afraid that she will judge me. That she will laugh at me, furiously young and healthy as she is, that she won’t tolerate my sorrow, my terror, my anxiety. I try to formulate something, in my mind. I assemble some words, but no sentences emerge. I have a huge problem with syntax. Syntax and pronunciation. I feel as if the words will come out of my mouth deformed by the appalling wail I’m trying to repress.
An idea saves me. Tania likes her food. I’m going to feed her. That will keep her waiting. She’ll wait until I can manage speech again. Without getting up, I reach over to the work surface and put a slice of carrot and walnut cake in front of her.
Her face lights up.
‘Can I have a cup of tea with it?’ she asks.
My Hirschmüller percolator gleams in the light of the setting sun. I boil the water and put a spoonful of Russian tea in the teapot. A cloud of steam goes up and the deafening hiss of the spout spitting scalding water reminds me of the funnel on an old steam engine, the mournful whistle as it leaves, the moaning goodbyes and reunions.
Chez Moi Page 20