The second time, both theories, dream and madness alike, were shattered. Someone was definitely singing in my room and not in my head. I turned on the light and got up. Trembling, I looked for whoever had woken me. It was a melancholy tune. The voice was soft and sad, and also muffled. The words remained incomprehensible to me.
I'd given up on a bed to leave my books as much room as possible. All I had instead was a sleeping bag on a sofa between my desk and a French window I opened just a crack, once a year, to air the room out. I'd made my way round my desk when I found myself facing the spot the voice was coming from. It was welling up from the mummy. Her features were hidden by her mask, a simple piece of wood sculpted and painted in a summary but not tasteless fashion. It evoked the face it covered with greater precision than might a mass-produced mask slapped on a factory mummy. And that song issued from beneath this mask, through lips supposedly sealed forever.
I reached out my hand. I'd done so often, my heart pounding at first, and then with less emotion as time passed. Now my hand trembled and my heart pounded anew.
The singing didn't stop when the mask fell away. Had she noticed a difference? Could she even do so? Nothing led me to believe she could. Her expression hadn't changed, her gaze was fixed as ever, mysterious as I'd always known it to be. It was just that her thin lips were moving, rounding or flattening to form words that didn't make any sense to me. What breath, from what oblivion, lent her life? But did I myself even know why I was here in this world? I hadn't the slightest, but did my best to accept my condition. In her way, this creature shared that condition of being alive. None of the rest was any of my business.
Little by little, her voice faded away, like that of someone dying. What was I to do? Call the police, or an ambulance? Alert the press? To do so felt like informing on an infinitely innocent and vulnerable being. I made do with replacing the wooden mask as gently as possible, and then I went back to bed.
On other nights, which followed at ever closer intervals, I was awakened by the mummy singing the same melancholy song. I soon knew it by heart without understanding the words. It sounded Breton to me. One day, while delivering a manuscript to an editor, I ran into Paol Keruzore. He was known to be neither patient nor polite, but we'd met before. With his surly permission, I sang him the lament I'd learned phonetically.
"You should be ashamed, slaughtering a charming song like that!" he finally said.
"It's because I don't understand a word of it. What does it mean?"
"It means-let's see… `Too early in the season falls the apple, no hand will polish it upon a sleeve to make it shine… No mouth will bite into the apple fallen still green, hard as a rock, without sweetness or sap… Pity the fallen apple, fear the wind that blows through the orchards, the wicked wind that spared me not…' Where did you dig that up, anyway?"
I told him the first lie that came to mind. My nursemaid had sung it to me as a boy,
"A pity you didn't learn to speak Breton at her teat," Paol spat.
Then, with an uncharacteristically civil wave, he walked off, humming a Breton air.
I always took the mummy's mask off when she was singing. At first, for as long as it lasted, I sat on a chair I'd pulled up beside her. Later, I fell into the habit of going back to work. One night, a little while after my encounter with heruzore, she stopped and turned her head toward me. Up till then, I'd thought she was only singing for herself. To tell the truth, I wasn't sure she knew I was there. I was proved wrong that night. I saw a pale, thin smile cross her lips. The contrast was striking between the deep, fixed brilliance of her eves and the hesitant expression on the rest of her face.
I thought she was about to speak, but it wasn't time yet. I was witness to an awakening that could only happen slowly. I suspected that the slightest thing would be enough to hinder, delay, or even ruin it forever.
That was all for now. No doubt that hint of a smile remained on her face after I'd replaced the mask. Three nights later, the mummy, spoke her first words.
I'd gotten a Breton dictionary in anticipation, but there was no need. When she spoke, she spoke French. A few disjointed phrases, none of which had anything to do with the situation at hand: something about a younger brother, a house by the sea, a cat. The reminiscing must have exhausted her, for she soon fell silent once more. A bit later that same night, she spoke up again, mostly repeating herself. After that, the situation developed with lightning speed.
When I say "lightning," bear in mind that whatever their nature, manifestations of the vital spark animating the mummy remained limited and intermittent. She lived the way a lamp flickers. She was rather more like a battery, in fact, a depleted battery sporadically calling on its last reserves. From now on, let's use her first name: Gaud. Her parents probably got it from An Iceland Fisherman. Gaud had no organs left, and therefore no anatomy. She had no way of replenishing what she'd spent. Of course, her expenditures were negligible. A few words, a few slow and awkward gestures… At her request, I undid the bandages wrapped tightly around her body. She reminded me of a newborn fawn, not yet able to balance on her frail legs, tottering with every step. But the fawn would soon grow stronger and bolder, prancing gaily about the clearing where it was born, whereas the unlucky Gaud would never prance about.
Still, she made undeniable progress. It was impossible to speak of a "normal" life for her. She neither ate nor drank, and her attention span lasted no more than ten minutes, after which she grew still, her face frozen. Eyes wide open, she sank into sleep, or a kind of sleep, for an unspecified length of time.
Once I'd removed her bandages, the question of clothes came up. I gave her a blanket, and bought her an outfit the next day. Picture a mummy in jeans and a sweater: that was how Gaud looked from then on. I'd also bought her sneakers and a baseball cap; her shaved head bothered me. Docilely, she assumed the appearance of a modern-day teenager.
She'd come in a Styrofoam sarcophagus, but she didn't like it there. I offered to lay her on a folding cot like I said, there isn't much room in my place, and she was so slight. She categorically refused my offer, and instead chose to dwell in my double-bass case. Whenever seized by one of her unassailable languors, she'd curl up in this cavity, this womb, with a sigh of pleasure. With a weary wave, she'd ask me to shut the lid, and I obeyed. I was afraid she'd suffocate at first. I feared in vain. She was as likely to suffocate as she was to catch a cold.
She suffered a great deal. Not physically. She was racked by anguish all the more deep-seated since she never managed to give it a name. Everything in her was unsettled, shifting. She sought for words at length to say the least thing. I don't know if you could call what she had amnesia, but the events of her own life seemed distant and uncertain. Sometimes she seemed completely detached from them. The next moment, she was overcome with immeasurable nostalgia as she recalled a possibly invented memory. A moment later, and she'd forgotten everything.
I was used to her, of course. Wasn't she pitiable, and in distress? Wasn't I available? Besides, through the simple act of "owning" this object which was also a being, I'd taken on certain responsibilities. But I'd taken them too lightly. A few scraps to clothe her, a few words to comfort her when she woke chilled through by a cold not of this world… What loved one wouldn't ask more of us? If I'd continued to perform these tasks with my undivided attention, she'd probably have reached the end of her path in peace. Little by little, consuming what energy was left to her, she'd have slowly faded away.