A Good Life, page 7
I preferred it when I was younger, I had fewer nagging questions in my head. And I preferred elementary school, too. I had my friends. Céline is in one sixth-grade class and I’m in another. We see each other at recess, but the rest of the time I’m all alone. It’s nice of her to stick with me all the same, despite the others giving me a hard time. They could lay into her, too. I don’t know why they’re like that to me. It’s mainly Noémie and Julia, two fifth-grade girls. They decided I’d looked at them the wrong way, and ever since, they steal my afternoon snack and mock me in the schoolyard, because of my big nose.
Céline advised me to tell my mother about it, but it’ll worry her, so I’d rather not.
This morning, it was back to school after the All Saints’ Day break, and I didn’t feel like going at all. I made out I had a stomachache, which I get every month since my periods came, but Mommy didn’t want to hear about it, and I had to take the bus. It was okay in the end, the girls just cut off a strand of my hair. Could’ve been worse.
Emma is waiting for me outside the school gate. My heart immediately starts racing. It’s not normal, something must have happened. She pecks me on the cheek and tells me to point out Noémie and Julia to her. I ask her how she knows, and just then Céline turns up. I have no choice, I point out the two girls as they’re leaving, my sister heads off in their direction, and I’m just left there, scared it’s going to end badly. I don’t hear what she says to them, she seems calm, Noémie buries her nose in her scarf, Julia nods her head, and that’s it, off they go and Emma returns to me and tells me that it’s all sorted, that they’ll never trouble me again.
YESTERDAY
DECEMBER 1996
EMMA—16 YEARS OLD
I hate my sister. I wish she’d never been born. My whole life is dedicated to looking out for her. I played with Barbie until I was fifteen just to keep her occupied, I spend my nights reassuring her, I stick her in front of a cartoon show so she doesn’t see Mom’s meltdowns, I help her with her homework, and despite all that, she manages to ruin my life.
She didn’t do it on purpose, but still. Without her, it wouldn’t have happened.
It all started when I slept with Arnaud. I’d intended to wait, to be sure he was the right one, but he told me he didn’t want a girl, he needed a real woman, and if I didn’t want to, he was leaving me. It was really painful, I bit the inside of my cheeks so as not to cry out. After a month, he told me I must go on the Pill because he can’t stand condoms. I told him I didn’t really agree to it, because of AIDS, and all that, but apparently he’s had a test and he hasn’t got it. Obviously, there’s no way I can talk to Mom about this, so I went to the family planning center. Margaux came with me, we’ve been talking again for a while now. The lady was nice, and explained everything to me clearly, but I had to lie to her, because she insisted we use condoms all the same. She prescribed me a pill, I went to collect it at the pharmacy, and I hid the box in my koala backpack, on top of the wardrobe in my room. No one’s touched it for years, so little chance of that happening. I wrote a “P” in felt pen on the light switch in my room, so I remember to take it every evening when going to bed.
After school, I hung out in the park with Stéphanie, we’d brought along some magazines, we read them. In Star Club, there were two pages on G-Squad, and I love them, especially Gérald, but I don’t tell anyone, it’s cooler to listen to Nirvana. Cindy Crawford was on the cover of Jeune et Jolie, she’s beautiful, I’d like to look like her. Life must be easier when you’re beautiful.
My mother was in the kitchen, making supper, when I got home. She said hello normally, I wasn’t expecting what was to come. On the coffee table in the sitting room, I saw my koala bag, open, and my started pack of pills sticking out of it. I felt the blood rush straight to my head. I went to my room to do my homework, dreading my mother turning up at any moment, but nothing. At supper she seemed normal, even laughed several times. It was weird. I knew I had to talk to her about it, so I waited until dessert. I’d been preparing my speech in my head the whole evening, but all I managed to say was, “Why did you poke around in my things?”.
It was the biggest hiding of my life. She grabbed me by the hair and kept hitting me, for several minutes. Agathe was crying, with her hands over her ears.
Later, Mom came to my room to talk to me, to tell me that she didn’t like having to do that, but it was for my own good. She kissed me on the cheek, where a bruise was coming up. Agathe checked she’d turned in before coming to slide into my bed. She said sorry, it was her who’d found my pills, she’d wanted to play with my bag. She thought it was medicine, that I was sick, she was scared, so she told Mom about it. I threw her out. I hate her. The day I’m eighteen, I’ll be off.
TODAY
AUGUST 7
EMMA
5:54 P.M.
“It’s a stargazing night,” Agathe said to me.
“I’ll go get the telescope,” I replied.
We packed a bag, had a bite to eat, and hit the road, having plastered a few “missing” posters for Robert Redford around the neighborhood, and rang the doorbell of the neighbor at no. 14, in vain.
It’s a tradition. Mima would take us every year. At the beginning of August, over several nights, there are showers of shooting stars. To see them most clearly, it’s best to be far from the light pollution of towns. Our little spot is in Itxassou, the village our grandmother grew up in. When I was little, I dreamed of the city and its hustle and bustle. I always wanted to see lots of people, to move, feel like I was making something of life, rather than the opposite. And yet here, from the very first time, surrounded by green hills, with the mountains as our horizon, in this village stuck right in the middle of the Basque hinterland, I felt the greatest serenity. As if nothing could happen to me here.
Mima was passionate about astronomy. She initiated us both very early on. On the table in the sitting room, covered with its indestructible yellow waxed cloth, she’d open big illustrated books, their pages giving off that familiar old-paper smell. And then she could talk to us for hours about planets, constellations, galaxies, and for hours, we hung on her every word. She had a gift for making any subject fascinating. I’m pretty sure I’d have been hooked on the history of cloves in interwar France if she’d told it to me. Regularly, when a night was favorable for observation, she’d drag her old telescope into the garden and point it up at the sky, make a few adjustments, and invite us to press our expectant peepers to the eyepiece. And then we’d discover Saturn, the Moon, Venus, Jupiter, oohing and aahing all the while.
We drive into the village. Since setting off, we’ve been listening to the soundtrack of our past, and the playlist is all over the place: we move shamelessly from Ophélie Winter to No Doubt, from Ménélik to Britney Spears, from The Offspring to Lara Fabian.
“You can park in the lot before the Pas de Roland,” Agathe tells me, lowering the volume.
“Okay.”
The road leads us past the house Mima grew up in. She’d become all nostalgic every time she saw it. She’d point out any changes, the recently repainted wall, the new swing, the oak having been pruned. In this garden, insignificant to passers-by, her memories would dance.
She’d skip from one to another, we’d listen distractedly, not realizing their importance. For us, they were words, abstract images; for her, they were a part of her life still attached to the present. I understand it now. When you recount a memory you see it, hear it, even feel it. You relive it, entirely. But the person listening can just try to visualize it, and even then, only if they’re empathetic or the subject interests them. Otherwise, they wait patiently for the end of the anecdote to tell one of their own or move on to another subject.
Mima would tell of her father who’d take her to the farm, her mother who taught her to knit beside the fire, her grandmother who spoke only Italian, and, especially, her beloved little brother. He featured in all her memories. Until the day she died, he remained her dearest friend. He had left to live outside of Marseille, but ritually, every Sunday evening, to ward off the blues, they’d phone each other.
At the last moment, impulsively, I leave the road leading to the Pas de Roland and drive towards the village. From the corner of my eye, I see Agathe smiling.
6:06 P.M.
It’s not the first time I’ve climbed over the low stone wall of the Itxassou cemetery. Mima’s parents are buried here, she brought us several times. She would clean up the grave and replace the sole pot plant, its only ornamentation. The fragile, vulnerable Mima only ever appeared in this isolated little cemetery, as if the place took her on a journey into the past, and she returned, momentarily, to being the young orphan she’d once been.
Papi was buried here, too. Mima now lies beside him. It’s at Itxassou that their story had begun, at Itxassou that they’d decided it should end.
“Take your time!” Agathe calls out, stopping at the entrance.
“You’re not coming?”
“You’ve got things to talk about, together.”
The grave is covered in bouquets of mostly wilted flowers. I throw them into the trash can and clean the plaques. I feel nothing. I try my hardest to make tears come, I summon up happy memories, I read the name of my adored grandmother on the stone, I even find myself grimacing to get the lacrimal glands going—they say that appetite comes with eating, so maybe grief comes with crying—but nothing works.
For several long minutes, I stare, impassively, at my grandmother’s tomb. Agathe ends up joining me. She puts her arm around my waist and rests her head on my shoulder.
“We’re lucky to have each other.”
I tilt my head and rest it gently on hers.
I don’t know how I’d have got through all this without my sister. I realize how lucky I am not to be alone in bearing my sorrows. How lucky not to be alone in seeing, hearing and sensing my lost ones. How lucky to have a head on which to rest my own.
We stay there for a while; the heat is oppressive. Aside from the odd hum of a motor, silence reigns over Itxassou. Shutters are closed, they’ll be reopened later, when it’s cooler.
“Shall we go?” Agathe asks.
“I can’t manage to cry.”
She looks at me, her cheeks streaming with tears.
“It doesn’t matter. You’ve always cried internally.”
We leave the cemetery, but not before I turn one last time towards the grave. Then I take my sister’s hand and we go on our way.
7:14 P.M.
The Pas de Roland is situated in a gorge created by the river Nive. It’s a rock with a passageway carved through it, and every year, Mima would tell us the legend surrounding it. Roland, the son of Charlemagne, was being pursued by enemy troops and a rock barred his way, so, without further ado, he cut through it with his sword. We walk along the river to reach it, loaded with two full knapsacks and the telescope. We pass through it to get to the little beach a few meters beyond and sit down in the shade. It’s the route Mima always made us take. We discovered much later that we could get there by car. But the magic’s not the same when the journey is not brimming with the past.
“Shall we have a dip?” Agathe suggests.
The fresh water tumbles onto the rocks, and I don’t need to dip a toe in to know it’s freezing cold.
“Out of the question.”
“Well, I’m going in!” she cries, jumping up.
She takes off her sandals and dress, and is left in her underwear. I check that no one can see us. A legacy from my mother. Not drawing attention to yourself, ensuring you don’t bother anyone. If invisibility could be bought in a store, she’d have gifted it to us at birth. But it can’t, so Agathe runs to the river, swearing at the pebbles hurting her feet along the way.
YESTERDAY
OCTOBER 1997
AGATHE—12 YEARS OLD
I really didn’t want to go to London with my class, didn’t want to go so far away from my mother and sister, but in the end, it’s great. Mélanie and I got a nice family, except they eat this jelly that’s gross, and even more gross, vinegar-flavored chips. And Mélanie and I had never spoken before—the whole class makes fun of her, a bit like they do me, but with her, it’s because she stutters. Personally, it doesn’t bother me, and anyhow, even if she does speak to me strangely, at least she speaks to me, which isn’t true of everyone.
I was sure that, being far from home, I’d have anxiety attacks, but, apart from on the ferry when I thought we were going to sink, everything’s fine.
We watched the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace (boring), visited the Museum of London (boring), walked around Westminster (not bad), and best of all, we had free time to go shopping (brilliant). Mom gave me a little pocket money, Mima sent me some, and my sister cracked open her piggy bank to give me a banknote. I don’t really get the prices, not being in francs, but everything seems mega expensive. I’ve still got enough money to bring presents back for everyone. For my Mom, I got a pen with a red double-decker bus that moves inside it; for Mima, a notebook with Queen Elizabeth on the cover; and best of all, for Emma, I got a file full of postcards of the Spice Girls. She’s going to be pleased, she loves them!
It’s our last evening. I’m starting to miss my family and can’t wait to go home tomorrow. We play hide-and-seek with the English family’s two little boys. They’re funny, they look at us as if we’re from another planet and ask us loads of questions. The older one asked me if we had electricity in France. I explained that we didn’t, and no water, either, so we washed in the river with the fish.
After that we chatted a bit with the parents, but I don’t understand everything because me and English don’t get on, so I say “yes” to everything, nodding my head and smiling, like those dogs at the back of cars. And that’s how I ended up with a second helping of that gross jelly.
When we go off to bed, Mélanie opens the room’s small window and takes out a pack of cigarettes. She offers me one, but I tell her that we’re not allowed to, that they’ll smell it, that we’ll get into trouble. She doesn’t care, just sits on the windowsill and coolly smokes. The mother arrives, and calmly asks her to put it out. I don’t know where to put myself, just want to disappear, and my heart is pounding in my ears. Mélanie stubs out the cigarette and shuts the window.
Tomorrow, the teachers will punish us, for sure. They’ll tell Mom about it. She’ll be disappointed in me. Everything gets all mixed up in my tummy. I don’t know if I’m sad, angry, or anxious. I go out of the room and lock myself in the bathroom. I know what to do to calm myself down. I’ve done it for a while now, it works well. I grab the compass in my pocket, pull my trousers down, and scratch the skin of my thigh with the sharp point.
YESTERDAY
DECEMBER 1997
EMMA—17 YEARS OLD
We were supposed to spend Christmas at Mima’s and Papi’s, but Uncle J-Y spoilt everything. He took them to Spain for the holidays, without us.
I counted the days for nothing.
I hate the lot of them.
TODAY
AUGUST 7
AGATHE
11:43 P.M.
It’s magnificent. Sublime. Extraordinary. There aren’t enough words.
When I was little, I’d wait for stargazing night with almost unbearable impatience. I used to wait for nearly everything with unbearable impatience. Everything seemed better to me than the present. The present was only good for waiting, regretting, it was a kind of bridge between yesterday and tomorrow, between the past and the future, between nostalgia and impatience. Before I’d even reached the moment so longed for, before I’d even lived it, I was already overcome with irrepressible melancholy. I tried to remedy this, throwing myself into meditation, plowing through books on personal growth, but although I learned to see the waiting as a prologue to the much-anticipated moment, the day that follows still gives me a hangover.
Every summer, then, I’d wait impatiently for stargazing night. It was the promise of hours shared with Mima, but also of a dazzling spectacle: the ballet of those shooting stars. Mima would bring us here, first to the Pas de Roland to cool down and have a bite to eat, then to the top of one of Itxassou’s hills, far from the light pollution, where she’d set up her telescope. We’d peer at planets, nebulae, and galaxies, before stretching out on the ground. I’d always make the same wish when a star tore through the sky. In my head, so it wouldn’t lose its power: “I wish for my sister, grandmother, and mother to be happy all their lives.”
Later, at the age when lucidity starts to darken the sky of childhood, anxiety crept into proceedings. I’d picture myself, minuscule, insignificant, beneath all this vastness. These stars, most having disappeared long before, would just remind me of our transience. In my mid-teens, I gave up the tradition, and, despite myself, ended my grandmother’s pleasure in passing her passion on to us. Three or four years ago, I went to Mima’s one August evening and took her to Itxassou. She didn’t seem surprised, as if she was expecting me. Once there, despite her trying to be discreet, I found her in tears.
