A Good Life, page 4
It goes on for ages, it’s cold, you have to stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down, and the priest only talks about Jesus when it’s Daddy who’s died.
Mommy cries a lot, maybe she still loved him, in fact.
Martine is at the back of the church with David. I didn’t dare say hello to her, Mommy’s unhappy enough as it is.
There’s one minute to think about Daddy, and all that comes to me is last Sunday. We were watching Baywatch, and at one stage Mitch Buchannon said he’d found some bullet holes in a boat. Daddy started laughing, I didn’t understand why, so he explained that it also meant assholes, and we laughed together. Agathe wanted to be told, too, but Daddy didn’t want to because she’s too young. He asked me not to tell Mommy about it, I promised, but I told her all the same, and she said it wasn’t very smart of him.
We come out of the church and some men arrive to collect the coffin. We walk to the cemetery, it’s just nearby. The sky is orange, the sun is setting, and for the first time I find it sad. My right hand is frozen. In my left one, since Daddy died, I’ve been holding the hand of my little sister.
TODAY
AUGUST 6
AGATHE
9:00 A.M.
I sleep too much. Keeps happening, lately. Sleep drags me away from dark thoughts; to escape them, I have to go back to sleep. It’s the only place I get any relief from the anxiety and gloom.
My phone alarm gives me a start. I half-open one eye to press the right key, the one that lets me snooze again for nine minutes.
9:09 A.M.
I must get up.
I’m so cozy in bed.
Go on, just a bit longer.
9:18 A.M.
Nine minutes is no big deal.
9:27 A.M.
One last time.
Promise.
9:36 A.M.
One very last time.
Very last time, very, very last time, very, very last time.
Shit, it’s stuck in my head.
9:45 A.M.
A bit of willpower, Agathe.
A.
Bit.
Of.
9:54 A.M.
Emma bursts into my room and opens the shutters.
“Time to get up in here! It’s almost 10 o’clock and we’ve got a packed schedule!”
I pull the sheet over my face, groaning.
“What schedule?”
“We’re going to the Rhune.”
I suddenly sit up:
“By train?”
“Absolutely not. We’ve talked long enough about doing it on foot, now’s the time.”
I lie back down.
“Good night, Emma.”
She leaves the room, laughing:
“Come on, get ready, and wear suitable shoes. I’m waiting for you downstairs!”
The Rhune is a Pyrenean mountain you can see from Anglet. Mima took us up several times aboard the legendary 1920s rack-railway train. From the summit, the view over the Basque Country and the coast is extraordinary, but being about as sporty as a slug, my reaching it on a stretcher can’t be ruled out.
11:52 A.M.
I don’t know where she gets this power from. She always manages to win me over. It was decided, it was out of the question that I go up the Rhune on foot. And here I am, in my most comfortable sneakers, flask in hand, tackling the hiking path.
“You okay?” she asks me.
“Marvelous. Best day of my life.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll go at your pace.”
“That would make getting there unlikely, my pace is in neutral.”
She laughs. She’s always been the most sporty. She started gymnastics in first grade and did one meet after another until high school. As for me, I tried judo, dance, athletics, handball and swimming, and the findings of this exhaustive research are conclusive: sport doesn’t want me.
11:58 A.M.
Still alive. STOP.
12:11 P.M.
It’s quite enjoyable, in the end. We walk slowly, so we can admire the surroundings. We stopped a minute to stroke some Pottok ponies. It’s me who had to get us walking again, or we’d still be there.
12:18 P.M.
Something weird is going on. My watch says we’ve been walking for twenty-six minutes, but my legs are screaming that we’ve been walking for twenty-six hours. One of the two is lying, I’m inclined to trust my body.
12:22 P.M.
My sister’s watch says the same as mine. Either there’s a solidarity between watches, or they’re telling the truth.
12:30 P.M.
The more one wants time to pass quickly, the more it drags. It’s contrary. I’m sure it’s a Scorpio.
12:31 P.M.
We’ve just been overtaken by a group of retirees equipped with poles. They greeted us, I refrained from turning them into brochettes.
12:32 P.M.
Emma suggests I take a break. I deduce from that I look like I’m dying, but I haven’t the strength to take offence. We sit on a rock away from the path.
“If you like, we’ll take the train to go back down,” she suggests, generously.
“It’s that or the emergency services, your choice.”
“I admit I wasn’t expecting it to be this exhausting.”
I lay my hand on her shoulder:
“It’s true, it must be tough at your age.”
She pretends to be offended:
“Watch out, you’ll soon be joining me as a fortysomething!”
“Don’t remind me. I’m counting on you to support me. I’ll need someone to help me choose my diapers and gruel.”
She bursts out laughing:
“Bitch!”
“See, you’re already going gaga.”
12:45 P.M.
The old girl’s taking her revenge, she’s quickened the pace.
1:00 P.M.
“Want another break?” Emma asks. “I made some sandwiches.”
We settle down in the shade of a fir tree, and I must admit, the panorama is nicer than the view from my kitchen. The Basque Country rolls out all its variations of green, clouds bob here and there, and some not-that-wild cows graze just meters away from us. Most striking of all is the silence. Apart from the steps of hikers and the bells around the cows’ necks, there’s not a sound. It’s when you can’t hear the noise anymore that you notice that’s it’s always there. Even the din in my head is on hold.
Emma hands me a sandwich:
“Cured ham,” she announces.
“I’m still a vegetarian.”
“Just kidding! I made you one with Roquefort and walnuts.”
I loathe Roquefort. I loathe all strong cheeses in general, but Roquefort even more than the rest. Just knowing it’s the mold that gives it that taste can make me sick. She must have forgotten that. And yet, touched by her gesture, I bite into the sandwich (making sure to eat mainly bread) and pretend I’m loving it.
1:23 P.M.
I’ve tried to find the motivation to set off again, since finishing the only mouthful of sandwich I managed to swallow. Emma thought I didn’t like it, I claimed that the chocolatine I ate just before leaving had cut my appetite. She closes her bag and slings it on her back:
“Know what Mima would say?”
“That you have crap ideas.”
“Stop it, I’m sure you’re forcing yourself to be negative when you’re actually loving this climb.”
“You’ve seen right through me,” I reply, gloomily. “So, what would Mima say?”
“That one mustn’t do anything strenuous while digesting.”
I look at her, not daring to understand; she confirms it:
“And also, it’s too hot for all this nonsense.”
I almost throw my arms around her, but guilt holds me back.
“Emma, I’m finding it tough, but you know me: I always exaggerate. I don’t want you depriving yourself for my sake.”
She assures me it’s fine, I assure her I’ll keep going, she insists she can totally skip it, I insist I can totally manage it, and after an unlikely turnaround in the situation, where I’m almost begging her to scale this goddam mountain, it’s she who wins yet again, and we head back down.
YESTERDAY
APRIL 1992
AGATHE—7 YEARS OLD
I’m seven today. I got an envelope from Mima, like every year. Inside there was a pearl, which I put away with the others, and a poem written on a postcard with horses on it.
Mommy said I’d reached the age of reason, but that didn’t mean I was always right.
I was allowed to invite five friends to the house: Caroline, Olivia, Aziza, Marjorie, and Céline, but afterwards I uninvited Céline because she got a higher grade than me in dictation.
Marjorie gave me some Polly Pocket dolls—she’s my new best friend.
We haven’t got a garden anymore. Apparently, Mommy couldn’t pay for the house any longer, so now we live in an apartment on the third floor. Maybe that’s why she didn’t want to take Snoopy when Daddy died, and she let him go back to the shelter.
My friends wanted to go and play on the parking lot down below, but Mommy didn’t want us to, she said we mustn’t hang around outside because of the grown-ups who harm children.
She let us use the mini music system and lent us all her scarves and high-heel shoes; she even put lipstick on us. We dressed up and danced, and Emma played her favorite music (“Rhythm Is a Dancer” by Snap!) and showed us all the moves, and it was good fun.
Mommy had forgotten to buy the cake, I was sad, I cried, so she told me off and said that I wasn’t being nice, that she was allowed to make mistakes, that I was never happy. It’s not true, I’m even very happy sometimes. After, she came and gave me a kiss, and made some pancakes. I’d never eaten such delicious ones and she said it was thanks to her secret ingredient (I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s what she always drinks from her bottle).
It really was a great birthday, except that Daddy wasn’t there.
YESTERDAY
NOVEMBER 1992
EMMA—12 YEARS OLD
I can hear Agathe crying. At first I thought it was the neighbor’s cat, it’s forever meowing at night, but I’m sure it’s her. I don’t know if I should go to her, I’ve got a Bio test tomorrow and I must get a good grade. Last time I got zero because I didn’t manage to dissect the frog. Instead, I puked on Madame Rabot’s shoes, which she wasn’t thrilled about. Mommy said that if my report for the second term isn’t good, I won’t go to Mima and Papi’s this summer, and that is just out of the question.
She is crying a lot, though.
I get up on tiptoes, Mommy’s watching Ciel, mon mardi!, she mustn’t hear me. I make my way thanks to the light from the streetlamps outside. For a while now, I haven’t been closing the shutters.
Agathe is hugging her firefly and the head is lit up (the firefly’s, not Agathe’s).
“What’s up?” I whisper to her.
“I can’t sleep.”
“That’s no big deal! You mustn’t get worked up about that.”
I start to leave, but she tells me she’s scared.
“Scared of what?”
“Of earthquakes.”
I laugh a bit, but she cries even more. I sit on her bed and explain that there are no earthquakes in Angoulême.
“What about volcanoes?”
“No volcanoes, either, Gagathe.”
She tells me that her teacher told them the story of the people in a village who all died under lava, because of a volcano that erupted over just one night.
“I don’t want to die, Emma, I’m too little!”
“Don’t move, I’ll be back.”
I tiptoe back to my room and return with my atlas. There’s a page on volcanoes, I read it out loud, she’s a bit reassured. I continue with the page on earthquakes, and by the end she’s stopped crying altogether. I stay with her a bit longer, then go back to my bed, because tomorrow I’ve got the Bio test.
TODAY
AUGUST 6
AGATHE
4:49 P.M.
“I’d really like to know where the cat’s gone.”
Emma, engrossed in reading the poems in Mima’s notebook, just shrugs. She never knew Robert Redford, our grandmother adopted him three or four years ago.
She was on her way to the Quintaou market when she found him, lying on the pavement. He’d clearly been run over by someone who hadn’t bothered to stop. He was in a bad way. She settled him in her basket and took him to the local vet, who told her the cat was neither microchipped nor tattooed, and in the absence of official owners, she’d have to pay for the consultation and treatment. Mima hesitated: her love for other people’s pets was limited by her bank account, which was in a more pitiful state than the cat. But the look in the creature’s eyes won her over. She never got to the market in the end. The cat had an X-ray and a blood test, which showed nothing serious, but part of his tail had to be removed, and his paw pads and head stitched up. Despite the vet letting her pay in three instalments, she had to dip into her teacher’s pension. The cat convalesced at home with her, she put notices up at all the surrounding businesses, and, after a few days without hearing from anyone claiming ownership, she decided to call the cat Robert Redford: “He cost me a fortune, but being able to say I’m Robert Redford’s mistress is a small consolation.”
“When did he disappear?” Emma asks.
“When Mima went to hospital. I’d come to feed him every day and spend some time with him—he’d show up when he heard my scooter—and then one day he stopped coming.”
“Did you look for him?”
“A bit, in the neighborhood, but then Mima died and that was all I could think about. I’d like to find him, I’d keep him at my place. I can’t bear the thought of him being abandoned. She loved him a lot, looked after him like a kid.”
“I can imagine, I saw he had a basket in every room and a giant cat tree!” goes my sister.
“That’s not the worst of it.”
I tell her about the lengths our grandmother went to so Robert Redford wouldn’t go outside at night, her anxiety when she heard cats fighting, the grooming brush she’d massage him with every evening, and the nights when she’d refrain from going to the bathroom because monsieur was sleeping peacefully on her stomach.
“We have to find him!” she decides.
5:30 P.M.
We called all the shelters in the area, the pound, and the town hall. They all seemed surprised that we were looking for a cat that had been missing for more than three months, and none came up with one matching our description. He’s easy to recognize: all black, except the lower legs, as if wearing socks.
Emma suggests we ask Madame Garcia, the neighbor. I can’t stand her, I’d rather have a semi-trailer in place of my ass than speak to her, but my sister insists: she doesn’t dare go there alone. I understand her—I’m the sort who gets lost rather than ask the way, who practices what I need to say before making a call, who doesn’t enter a boutique if I’m the only customer. A shrink informed me that this is social anxiety disorder. Which didn’t surprise me that much. Even when I was little, I’d sometimes wet myself while reciting a poem from the blackboard. No one suspects this about me, I put them off the scent, most people think I’m always totally at ease. In reality, behind my armor, I just want to disappear as soon as the focus is on me. Emma’s the same. In quite a few respects, we’re totally unalike. She thinks ahead and is organized, whereas I’m laid-back and chaotic, but a few character traits leave no doubt as to our shared childhood and blood.
Madame Garcia doesn’t immediately recognize us.
“I don’t need anything, thank you!” she goes, before closing the door.
We persevere and, upon hearing our name, she comes to open the gate to us. Madame Garcia has been Mima’s neighbor forever, if forever means as far back as I can remember. She’s younger than Mima, closer to our mother’s age.
“Well fancy that! I wouldn’t have recognized you! Well, the little one, I do see her from time to time, from a distance.”
The little one, that’s me. I muster a smile that’s as convincing as my hatred for her allows. I find it regrettable that there’s not a facial expression or gesture to indicate to someone that one doesn’t like them. Apart from a headbutt, I mean.
Madame Garcia hasn’t seen Robert Redford.
“And I’m delighted about that,” she feels obliged to add. “That cat used to scratch about in my flowerbeds, it destroyed everything. Anyhow, do come in, have a cool drink!”
“That’s kind, but we have to get going,” Emma replies.
Furthermore, we don’t want to. But I refrain from thinking that too loud, just in case it can be heard.
“Go on, just for five minutes!” the leech insists. “Joachim is here, he’ll be pleased to see you.”
One more reason to cut and run. Joachim is the last person I feel like seeing, but Emma has never been good at resisting polite insistence, and we end up following the neighbor through her lush garden. In the sitting room, Monsieur Garcia has dozed off in front of the TV.
“Jojo!” Madame Garcia calls out to her son, with no consideration for her husband, who wakes with a start. “The little neighbors are here!”
Emma sits down, I prefer to remain standing. Joachim turns up and greets us as if he really were pleased to see us. I’m surprised to see him with gray hair and lines around his eyes. In the end, where we most notice ourselves ageing is on other people’s bodies.
