A boat passes by out there upon the dark sea. With winking lights it moves toward the line of the horizon. Maybe people on this boat are gazing at the land, leaning on the rail, their eyes fixed on the lights that trace the contours of the city. Where are they bound for, what are they thinking about, what are they saying, what are they hiding? Can they sense the presence of two women sitting on the beach, their silhouettes like two motionless rocks?
“Do you miss our country, Adèle?”
“No. Do you?”
“Yes, sometimes. But I can never figure out exactly what it is I miss. It’s strange. It’s like thinking about people you knew long ago. You can no longer picture their faces but you remember things they did, things they said. The odd phrase, the odd gesture.”
Then Adèle thinks about her son. She no longer remembers his face but she can still smell his warm, sweet breath in the morning, when he was a baby, she can picture his favorite toy, a bright red wooden car, she can hear him babbling, she pictures the white Fiat driving away and her son’s arm waving goodbye to her. But she can no longer picture his face.
In the car Anita offers Adèle a throw for her legs. On the backseat there are coloring books, a child’s seat, rubber boots. Anita apologizes. “It’s an old car,” she says. “Don’t look at all that mess,” she says again. Then, before starting the engine, she asks: “Would you mind if we drove around a little before I drop you off?”
Adèle is surprised and appreciative of being spoken to like this, close at hand, as if she were a normal woman, a person who might be offended by disorder, or have cold legs, an ordinary woman with an ordinary life who might be in a hurry to get home.
Anita’s car slips slowly through the night, drives along streets lined with ancient trees, passes through the center of the city, drives around the big park where during the day one can sometimes see the long necks of giraffes among the trees. The night air, so deep and soothing, fills the car. There is nothing to be said, except, perhaps, thank you.
The car passes back along the avenue that runs beside the sea, then finally heads off toward the bypass, the industrial zones, land left fallow, wasteland. She stops just beside the bus stop where Adèle had been standing that morning. Where is that snake now? Can one’s life change in a day? Does a single day like that suffice for one to say “enough” and for one to end up, at last, by turning the page?
The world as Laura sees it
LAURA IS SIX. Her father makes wooden horses for her, which they paint together in all colors, also a dream catcher made of little pinecones and feathers that hovers gently in the window, and a white desk, a cradle for her dolls, a fruit and vegetable seller’s market stall, a little cabin in the garden. When he takes her out for a walk in the forest she carries a little basket for pinecones, twigs, leaves. She likes gathering pinecones with a perfect V. Sometimes, if they find a dead bird, they make a bed of supple branches for it and cover it with ferns. Laura likes it when her father lets her stay in his studio for a little while, as he is putting things away or reading. He clears one end of the table, gives her sheets of paper and pencils, and she would like this moment (inextricably associated with the smell of turpentine and the color yellow) to last forever, and forever is a word she loves a lot. He tells her to be careful of the paint, because it leaves a mark, and of the brushes, which are heavy to hold, and he teaches her the different shades of color. Carmine, chocolate, magenta, mustard, purple. He always studies her drawings closely before smiling at her and asking her precise questions to which, inexplicably, she finds the answer. He does not hang up her drawings, unlike her mother, but stores them in an orange folder, and, later on, a green folder. In the car he sometimes takes her on his knee and lets her hold the wheel. He tells her tales of things that happened right here, in this forest, under this very sky, to this wooden toy. When he carries her on his shoulders he holds onto her calves and she can wrap her hands around his face. Laura likes to view the world from up there, with people looking up and smiling at her, and she is proud, strong, and light.
Laura is six. Her mother wakes her up every morning by saying, bonjour, ma petite chérie, and blowing on her fingers, along her arms, her neck, behind her ear; she reads her stories every evening, she sings and dances, she makes marvelous afternoon snacks with chocolate cookies, syrups, peeled and cut up fruits, and sandwiches of white, sliced bread cut into geometric shapes, with white napkins, all carefully stored away in airtight boxes, as if they were treasure. Her mother tells her stories involving sand, the sea, trees that are good for climbing and hiding in, stories in which the sun is so hot it can cook an egg and make the roadway melt. She says one day we’ll go there. She says I must teach you the creole language. She cleans Laura’s toes with a little brush shaped like a crocodile, she tells her the names of plants, she stops the car for them to pick bunches of wildflowers, or just to look at a meadow. She is very patient about getting her to eat, cutting things into little pieces, inventing songs and little tricks.
