Robert Toscano
All of a sudden, as we’re leaving the hospital morgue (known as the Amphitheater) on Rue Bruant, at the moment when the men are shoving Ernest’s coffin into the back of the funeral coach, my mother-in-law Jeannette, seized by some incomprehensible terror, refuses to get into the vehicle. She’s supposed to sit in the front with Marguerite and the funeral director — today called the master of ceremonies — and Odile, my mother, and I are supposed to follow them in the Volkswagen to the crematorium in Père-Lachaise Cemetery. Wearing high-heeled shoes never before seen on her feet, my mother-in-law retreats (nearly falling down as she does) to the wall, like an animal about to be led to the slaughterhouse. With her back pressed against the stone in the dazzling sunlight, she enjoins the driver of the coach, a big Mercedes station wagon, to go on without her, all the while making frenetic, sweeping gestures before the alarmed eyes of Ernest’s sister Marguerite, who’s already installed in the backseat. Maman, Maman, Odile says, if you don’t want to ride with Papa, I’ll go instead. She gently takes Jeannette’s arm to guide her to the Volkswagen, where my mother, wilting in the heat (summer has arrived all at once), is sitting in the front seat, waiting. The director hastens to open the rear door, but Jeannette babbles something that turns out to be, I want to sit in front. Odile whispers, Maman, please, that’s not important. — I want to follow Ernest. That’s my husband in there! If you want me to stay with you, Maman, Marguerite can ride with the coffin by herself, Odile says, giving me a look that means, get your mother to change places. No doubt I fail to react properly, because Odile thrusts her head into the car and says, Zozo, would you be kind enough to sit in the backseat? The idea of getting into the funeral coach is making Maman anxious. My mother looks at me with the expression of a person who believes that she has now seen everything. Without a word, slowly, she unfastens her seat belt, collects her purse, and extracts herself from the front seat, emphasizing the arthritic discomfort of the movements. Thanks, Zozo, Odile says, that’s very generous of you. Still unspeaking, and with the same heaviness in her body language, my mother ensconces herself in the backseat. Jeannette sits in the front without any acknowledgment, and in any case she looks like someone who has no more place in this world. Odile gets into the Mercedes with her aunt and the funeral director. I take the wheel of the Volkswagen and proceed to follow them to Père-Lachaise. After a moment, Jeannette, her face to the windshield and her eyes riveted on the black hatch of the Mercedes, says, was your husband cremated, Zozo? Cremated? my mother repeats. I say incinerate. No, says Jeannette, you use incinerate for household garbage. The things I learn, my mother says. My father’s buried in Bagneux cemetery, I say, intervening. Jeannette seems to ponder this information, and then she turns around and asks my mother, will you have yourself buried with him? Good question, says my mother. If it was up to me, not in this life. I hate that Bagneux. Nobody ever comes to see you. It’s completely in the sticks. In front of us, the Mercedes crawls along at an exasperatingly slow pace. Is that part of the ceremony? We stop at a red light. A vague silence has set in. I’m hot. My tie’s strangling me. The suit I’m wearing is too heavy. Jeannette’s looking for something in her purse. I can’t stand the semimuffled noises, the clinking and the leather-creaking that accompany her rummaging around. All the more so as she’s sighing, and I can’t stand people who sigh either. After a moment, I ask, what are you looking for, Jeannette? — The obituary in