Virginie Déruelle
I heard Édith Piaf howling while I was still on the stairs. I don’t know how the other residents tolerate so many decibels. Personally, I don’t care one bit for those voices of wretchedness and those rolled, throaty r’s. It’s like I’m being attacked. My grand-aunt lives in an old folks’ home. To be more precise, in a room in an old folks’ home, because she almost never leaves it, and if I were her I’d do the same. She makes crocheted patchwork items — quilts, pillowcases, or just squares of no particular use. In fact, nothing my aunt makes is of any particular use, because her productions are ghastly dust traps and old-fashioned to boot. You accept them and pretend to be happy with them, but as soon as you get home you put them way in the back of a closet. Out of superstition, nobody dares throw them away, and you can’t find anyone to unload them on. Recently, she was given a CD player that’s easy for her to operate. She loves Tino Rossi. But she also listens to Édith Piaf and certain Yves Montand songs. When I enter her room, my grand-aunt’s trying to water a cactus and wetting the whole shelf while Piaf bellows, “I’d go to the end of the world, / I’d have my hair curled, / If you asked me to …” I immediately turn down the sound and say, Marie-Paule, the cactus doesn’t need very much water. This one’s different, my grand-aunt says, this one loves water, was it you who just turned off “Hymne à l’amour”? —I didn’t turn it off, I lowered the volume. — How are you, darling? Oh my, don’t break your neck wearing those shoes, you’re way up there, my goodness. — It’s you that’s shrinking, Marie-Paule. — Lucky for me I’m shrinking, you see where I live. “My country I’d deny, / I’d tell my friends good-bye, / If you asked me to …” I turn off the music. I say, she gets on my nerves. Who? asks my aunt, Cora Vaucaire? — It’s not Cora Vaucaire, Marie-Paule, it’s Édith Piaf. — No indeed not, it’s Cora Vaucaire. “Hymne à l’amour” is Cora Vaucaire, I still have my wits about me, says my aunt. If you say so, I say, but it’s the song that gets on my nerves, I’m against love songs. The more famous they are, the stupider they are. If I were queen of the world, I’d ban them. My aunt shrugs. Who knows what you like, you young people these days? says my aunt. Do you want some orange juice, Virginie? She shows me a bottle that’s been open for about a thousand years. I decline it and say, young people these days adore love songs, all the singers sing love songs, it’s only me who can’t stand them. You’ll change your mind the day you meet a boy you like, says my aunt. She’s managed to irritate me in thirty seconds. As fast as my mother. It must be a distinguishing trait of the women in my family. On her night table there’s a framed photograph of her husband smoking a pipe. One day she showed me the drawer in her dresser that’s entirely dedicated to him. She’s kept all his letters, his notes, his little gifts. I don’t have a clear memory of my granduncle, I was too little when he died. I sit down. I let myself drop into the big, soft armchair that takes up too much space. It’s sad, this room. It’s got too many things in it, too much furniture. I take the balls of cotton yarn she ordered out of my purse. She hastens to arrange them in a basket at the foot of her bed. Then she sits in the other armchair and says, all right, good, tell me what’s going on. When she has all her wits about her, it’s hard to understand what she’s doing here, alone in this penal colony, far from everything. From time to time, when I call her on the telephone, I have the impression she’s just been crying. But ever since the episode of the exploding rice dish, I know my aunt’s brain is working less and less, to use her expression. The last time my parents and I were at her house, she’d placed a big glass dish filled with rice left over from the previous evening on a hot griddle two hours before dinner. This warming method left the rice at the top cold. My aunt went into her kitchen to stir the rice with a spatula, that is, to project a lot of it onto her work surface. It was impossible to give her advice or even to enter the room. We caught a glimpse of her through the partly open door, up to her elbows in rice, mixing it with her hands as if she was shampooing a mangy dog. At eight o’clock the dish exploded, strewing the kitchen with grains of rice and shards of glass. After that incident, my parents decided to put her in a home. I say, did you like it when Raymond smoked his pipe? — He smoked a pipe? — In that photo, he’s smoking a pipe. — Oh, he gave himself airs from time to time, and besides, I couldn’t control everything, you know. When are you going to get married, sweetie? I say, I’m twenty-five, Marie-Paule, I’ve got a lot of time. She says, do you want some orange juice? — No, thanks. I ask her, were you faithful to each other? She laughs. She raises her eyes to the ceiling and says, a leather goods salesman, what do you think, I couldn’t have cared less, you know! With some people, you can’t see their youthful face anymore, the years have erased it. With others it’s the opposite, when their faces light up they look like kids. I see that at the clinic, even with people who are gravely ill. And my little Marie-Paule is like that too. — Was Raymond talkative? She considers the question and then says, no, not so much, a man doesn’t need to be talkative. Right you are, I say. She twists a strand of wool around her fingers and says, my brain’s still working, you know. — I know your brain’s still working, and that’s why I want you to advise me on an important matter. All right, she says. Do you want some orange juice? No, thanks, I say. So here’s the thing. Do you remember that I’m a medical secretary? — Yes yes yes, you’re a medical secretary. — I work in a clinic with two oncologists. — Yes yes yes. — Well, one of Doctor Chemla’s patients, a woman about your age, always comes in accompanied by her son. He must be nice, says my aunt. — He’s very nice. Especially since his mother’s a pain in the ass. He’s old, imagine, he may even be forty. But I like older men. Boys of my age bore me. One day I found myself having a cigarette with him outside. To tell you the truth, I’d noticed him some time before. I’ll describe him to you: he’s dark-haired, not very tall, he looks like a slightly less handsome version of the actor Joaquin Phoenix, you know who I mean? A Spaniard, says my aunt. — Yes, but … it doesn’t matter. Anyway, we’re standing under the awning and smoking. I smile at him. He smiles back at me. There we are, smoking and smiling at each other. I try to make my cigarette last, but I finish it before he finishes his. I’m still at work, I’ve got my white coat on, so there’s no reason for me to linger. I say to him, see you soon, and I go back to my basement floor. Time passes, he brings his mother in for several visits, I exchange a few words with him. I make their appointments, I find addresses for his mother’s supplementary care. One day she gives me some chocolates and says, Vincent chose them, and another time I see him waiting for an elevator that doesn’t come and I show him where the staff elevator is, you get the picture, that sort of thing. On the days when the name Zawada, their name, is written in the appointment book, I’m happy, I apply my makeup with special care. Do you want a glass of orange juice? my aunt asks. — No, thanks. His name is Vincent Zawada. A lovely name, don’t you think? Oh yes, says my aunt. — I’m in heaven at the moment, they show up every week because she’s having a course of radiation therapy. So last Monday, there we were again, he and I, smoking under the awning outside. This time he was there first. He’s like Raymond. Not at all talkative. My aunt nods. She’s listening to me quietly with her hands in her lap, one on top of the other. Every now and then she looks outside. Right in front of the window, two poplars partly block the view of the opposite buildings. I say, so I muster up all my nerve and dare to ask him what he does. It’s a little odd, you understand, a man who’s always free during the day. My aunt says, true, true. She opens her night-blue eyes very wide. She can thread a little needle without wearing glasses. I say, he’s a musician. He tells me he’s a pianist and also a composer. Not long after that, he finishes his cigarette. And then, instead of going back to his mother in the waiting room, and without any reason, because neither one of us is talking just then, he stays. He waits for me. He has no reason to remain outside, don’t you agree? My aunt shakes her head. It was cold and nasty besides, I say. We stayed outside, both of us, just like the first time, standing there and smiling at each other. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Generally I’m pretty fearless, but around that man I feel shy. When I finish my cigarette, he pushes the glass door open to let me go in ahead of him (which proves that he was waiting for me), and he says, let’s take your elevator. Each of us could have taken a different elevator, or he could have said nothing, right? Let’s take your elevator, that’s a way of connecting us, don’t you think? I ask. My aunt says, yes, I do. The elevator’s very deep, I say, it has to accommodate gurneys, but he stands next to me as if we were in a tiny cabin. I can’t say he glued himself to me, I tell my aunt, but I swear to you, Marie-Paule, considering the size of the elevator, he really stood very close. Unfortunately, it’s a quick trip from the ground floor to the second level down. After we got out, we walked a few steps together, then he went back to the waiting room and I returned to the secretary’s office. Almost nothing happened, that is, nothing specific, but when we separated at the intersection of the corridors, I felt like we were parting on a train platform after a secret trip. Do you think I’m in love, Marie-Paule? Oh yes, my aunt says, you do seem to be. — You know, I’ve never been in love. Or if I was, it was only for two hours. Two hours, that’s not much, says my aunt. — And now what should I do? If I just depend on seeing him at the clinic, things won’t move forward at all. Between the patients, the telephone, and the medical consultation reports, I’m simply not free when I’m at the clinic. No, says my aunt. — Do you think he likes me? He likes me, isn’t that obvious? Oh, he surely likes you, says my aunt, is he Spanish? Don’t trust Spaniards. — But he’s not Spanish! — Ah, well, so much the better. My aunt gets up and goes to the window. The two trees outside are moving in the wind. They sway together, and the branches and leaves all do their frenzied dances in the same direction. My aunt says, look at my poplars, look at how much fun they’re having. You see where I’ve been put. Fortunately, I have my two big boys there. They cover my windowsill with their seeds, you know, their little caterpillars, and that makes the birds come. Don’t you want some orange juice? No, thanks, Marie-Paule, I say, I have to go. My aunt gets up and starts digging around in her wool basket. She says, can you bring me a ball of Diana-Noel yarn, green, like this one? Of course I can, I say. I give her a big hug. She’s minuscule, my Marie-Paule. It breaks my heart to leave her there all alone. On my way down the stairs, I hear Édith Piaf again. She’s singing a catchy tune, and it sounds like someone’s singing with her. I go back up a few steps, and then I can make out my aunt’s thin voice: “It’s strange, what a change, / I’m yours in word and deed. / You’re the man, you’re the man, you’re the man that I need.”