‘A visitor!’ Then, disappointed: ‘It’s the baker …’
Marie summons up and recalls all the sounds, the smells, the sights of this garden, and abandons herself to them.
The maid, José, has just come up from the cellar with a basketful of vegetables; she then disappears again to tidy the bedrooms. Marie’s mother empties the vegetables on to the table and begins to scrape them. Marie finds a small kitchen knife in the drawer of the dresser and helps her. The two women do not speak: between them there is a peaceful silence inhabited only by the sound of the knives scraping the tough skin of the carrots. So as not to lose a second of her daughter’s presence, the mother has postponed the completion of her toilette: she has put on an apron over her morning dress and she is still wearing that odd little hairnet. The faces of both women are at peace.
No more knife noises; the vegetables are scraped. From time to time a drop of water falls from the tap and, without making a sound, plops on to a small dishcloth in the sink. The silence is perfect, ineffable. Leaning over to her mother Marie puts her arm round her waist, pulls her towards her and says quietly: ‘On Thursday mornings we used to go to the market together …’
‘Yes, and you always made for the spot where there were the most bits and pieces … you’d ask me to buy you a heap of old rags …’
It’s not hard to get a mother to talk about the past. As Marie’s mother talks and tells stories, she recreates in her heart the little girl that Marie used to be. Looking at this young woman now in her arms, she speaks of a Marie who was still rich in many different kinds of love, who had not yet been overtaken by a single love. Marie lets her go on: she cannot tell her mother that she no longer needs help from memories. She lets her head fall on to the maternal shoulder and rests it there, offering up that instant to her mother alone. A long, miraculous moment in which Marie gives herself back to her mother.
CHAPTER TEN
M ARIE HAS JUST LEFT her parents’ house, and the wide streets are already less cold. It’s not yet midday, but the temperature seems to improve as she approaches the centre of the city. The avenue des Ternes, Beaujon Hospital and Saint-Philippe-du-Roule are cloudy and it is still dull when she reaches the Madeleine and the Opéra. But when she leaves the boulevards and emerges from the rue Laffitte, all at once something opens over Paris and Notre-Dame-de-Lorette is bathed in sun.
It is half-past twelve; this seems like a good time. She won’t go to the post office: long-distance calls take so long to connect that she prefers to wait in the ambience of a café rather than in a public place.
Receiver at her ear, she hears the distant voice of an old woman asking whom she is calling. As she speaks his namefor the first time Marie hears her own voice sounding quite different from usual.
In a few moments, no doubt, she will have to say it again, to its owner, to confirm the identity of the person she’ll be speaking to; and she will also have to give her own name. At this thought, an inexplicable fear rises within her. But now the receiver is emitting another sound, a slight intake of breath followed by a single word that fills it with an entire presence: ‘Hello?’
‘Hello …’
The other voice enquires, confidently: ‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine … I was calling you because …’
Marie is about to babble on nervously, but the voice interrupts, saving her yet again.
‘I can come to Paris, though it’s not desperately convenient – that is unless you’d like to come here – we could have twenty-four hours together, in this town that you’ve never visited before …’
She wasn’t expecting him to suggest this alternative, and stammered out a vague reply that betrayed her fear of embarking on such an impetuous journey.
He said: ‘OK, I’ll take the first train to Paris. Come and meet me at the
Bruce Alexander
Barbara Monajem
Chris Grabenstein
Brooksley Borne
Erika Wilde
S. K. Ervin
Adele Clee
Stuart M. Kaminsky
Gerald A Browne
Writing