“She liked the snow and roses.”
And that’s it. He has nothing else to say about her. He seems both ashamed and helpless. It’s as if he’s just admitted to me that he’s afflicted with some obscure ailment. Not knowing how to speak about a loved one.
I get up and go over to my register cupboard. I take out the one for 2015 and open it at the first page.
“This is a speech that was written on January 1st, 2015, for Marie Géant. Her granddaughter was unable to attend the burial because she was abroad for work. She sent it to me and asked me to read it at the funeral. I think it will help you. Take the register, read the speech, write notes, and you can return it to me tomorrow morning.”
He immediately got up, tucking the register under his arm. It’s the first time a register has ever left my house.
“Thank you, thank you for everything.”
“Are you sleeping at Madame Béant’s?”
“Yes.”
“Have you had supper?”
“She prepared something for me.”
“You’re setting off for Marseilles tomorrow?”
“At the crack of dawn. I’ll bring you the register before I go.”
“Leave it on the ledge, behind the blue window box.”
12.
Sleep, Nana, sleep, but may you
still hear our childish laughter
up there in highest Heaven.
SPEECH FOR MARIE GÉANT
She didn’t know how to walk, she ran. She couldn’t keep still. “Jamboter” is the verb for what she did, an expression from eastern France. Say to someone, “Arrête de jamboter,” and it means: “Sit yourself down, once and for all.” Well, it’s done now, she’s sat herself down, once and for all.
She went to bed early and got up at five in the morning. She was first to arrive at the shops so she wouldn’t have to wait in line. She had an almighty horror of waiting in line. By 9 A.M., she’d already got all her groceries for the day in her string bag.
She died during the night between December 31st and January 1st, a public holiday, she who had slaved away her entire life. I hope she didn’t have to wait too long in line at the gates of Heaven with all those revelers and road-accident victims.
For the holidays, at my request, she would get two knitting needles and a ball of wool ready for me. I never got further than ten rows. Put the years end to end, and I must have finally made an imaginary scarf, which she’ll wrap around my neck when I’ll join her in Heaven. If Heaven’s what I deserve.
When she phoned, she’d say, with a chuckle, “It’s the old dear here.”
She sent letters to her children every week. Her children who had moved far away from her home. She wrote just like she thought.
She sent parcels and checks for every birthday, name day, Christmas, Easter, for the “poppets.” For her, all children were “poppets.”
She liked beer and wine.
She did the sign of the Cross over bread before slicing it.
She said, “Jesus and Mary.” Frequently. It was a form of punctuation. A kind of period she put at the end of her sentences.
On the sideboard, there was always a large wireless that stayed on all morning. Since she’d been widowed very early on, I often thought that the radio announcers’ masculine voices kept her company.
From midday, the TV took over. To kill the silence. All the inane game shows would be on, until she dozed off in front of The Flames of Love. She commented on what every character said, as if they existed in real life.
Two or three years before she tripped and was obliged to leave her flat for the retirement home, someone stole her Christmas garlands and ornaments from her cellar. She phoned me in tears, as if her lifetime of Christmases had been stolen.
She often sang. Very often. Even at the end of her life, she said, “I feel like singing.” She also said, “I feel like dying.”
She went to Mass every Sunday.
She threw nothing away. Especially not leftovers. She reheated them and ate them. Sometimes, she made herself sick from eating the same thing, again and again, until it was all gone. But she’d rather vomit than chuck a crust of bread in the bin. An old leftover itself from the war, in her stomach.
She bought mustard in cartoon-covered glasses, which she saved for her grandchildren—her poppets—when they came to stay with her during the holidays.
There was always something tasty simmering in a cast-iron pot on her gas stove. Chicken with rice did her for the week. And she saved the chicken stock for her evening meals. In her kitchen, there were also two or three onions sweating in a pan, or a sauce, that made your mouth water.
She was always a tenant. Never an owner. The only place that ever belonged to her was her family vault.
When she knew we were coming for the holidays she would wait for us at her kitchen window. She looked out for cars parking in the little lot down below. We could see her white hair through the window. No sooner had we arrived at hers than she would say, “When will you be coming back to see the old dear?” As if she wanted us to leave again.
These last years, she no longer waited for us. If we made the mistake of being five minutes late at the retirement home to take her out for lunch, we’d find her in the dining room with the other old folk.
She slept wearing a hairnet to preserve her perm.
She drank the juice of a lemon in warm water every morning.
Her bedcover was red.
During the war, she was the soldier’s pen pal of my grandfather, Lucien. When he returned from Buchenwald, she couldn’t recognize him. There was a photo of Lucien on her bedside table. Then the photo was moved, along with her, to the retirement home.
I used to love wearing her nylon slips. Because she bought everything by mail order, she received lots of gifts,
