Father Toussaint, a cowed man who was born submissive, started to talk to me as if we were in a catechism lesson. I can remember the words “irresponsible” and “thoughtless.” I think he even spoke of Jesus Christ. I wondered what on earth Jesus would be doing here, in this studio. What he would say if he saw the Toussaint parents wrapped in all their contempt and finery, and me, stark naked, wrapped in a blanket with skyscrapers and “New York City” emblazoned in red.
When Philippe Toussaint emerged from the bathroom, with a towel around his waist, he didn’t look at me. Carried on as if I didn’t exist. As if only his mother was in the room. Eyes just for her. I felt even more wretched. The runt of a stray. The nothing. Like Father Toussaint. The mother and son started talking about me as if I couldn’t hear them. The mother in particular.
“But are you the father? Are you quite sure of that? You were tricked, weren’t you? Where did you meet that girl? Do you want us dead? Is that it? Abortion wasn’t just invented for dogs! Where’s your head gone, my poor boy!”
As for the father, he continued to spread the good word:
“Everything is possible, nothing is impossible, one can change, one just needs to believe it, never give up. . .”
Wrapped in my skyscrapers, I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. I felt as if I were in an Italian farce, but without the beauty of the Italians. With the social workers and caseworkers, I was used to people talking about me, about my life, about my future as though it didn’t concern me. As though I were absent from my story, from my existence. As though I were a problem to be solved, not a person.
The Toussaint parents were coiffed and shod as though going to a wedding. Occasionally, the mother would glance at me for a second; any longer and she’d have tainted her cornea.
When they left without saying goodbye to me, Philip Toussaint started shouting, “Shit! They make me sick!” while kicking wildly at the walls. He asked me to leave while he calmed himself down. Otherwise, those kicks, they’d end up landing on me. He looked traumatized, when it’s me who should have been. I was no stranger to violence. I’d grown up close to it, without it ever physically touching me. I’d always come through without a scratch.
I went out into the street, it was cold. I walked fast to warm myself up. Our daily life was totally carefree; it had taken Father and Mother Toussaint opening our door to shatter everything. I returned to the studio an hour later. Philippe Toussaint had fallen asleep. I didn’t wake him.
The following day, I was eighteen years old. By way of a birthday present, Philippe Toussaint announced to me that his father had found work for both of us. We were going to become level-crossing keepers. We’d have to wait for the position to become vacant, soon, close to Nancy.
15.
Sweet butterfly, spread your lovely wings
and go to his tomb to tell him I love him.
Once again, Gaston has tumbled into a grave. I can’t count the number of times it’s happened now. Two years ago, during an exhumation, he fell into the coffin on all fours and found himself facedown on the bones. How many times, during funerals, has he tripped on imaginary ropes?
Nono had turned his back on him for a few minutes to push a wheelbarrow of soil some forty meters away. Gaston was talking to Countess de Darrieux, and when Nono returned, Gaston had disappeared. The soil had slipped and Gaston was swimming in the grave and screaming, “Fetch Violette!” To which Nono responded, “Violette isn’t a lifeguard!” And yet Nono had warned him, the soil is crumbly during this season. While he helped Gaston out of his predicament, Elvis sang: Facedown on the street, in the ghetto, in the ghetto . . . Sometimes, I feel as if I’m living with the Marx Brothers. But reality catches up with me every day.
Tomorrow, there’s a burial. Dr. Guyennot. Even doctors end up dying. A natural death at ninety-one, in his bed. He cared for all of Brancion-en-Chalon, and its vicinity, for fifty years. Should be a good turnout for his funeral.
Countess de Darrieux is recovering from her shock by sipping a little plum brandy, given to me by Mademoiselle Brulier, whose parents are buried in the Cedars section. The countess got a real fright when she saw Gaston diving into the grave. She says to me, with a mischievous smile, “I thought I was back watching the world swimming championships.” I adore this woman. She’s one of those visitors who do me good.
Both her husband and her lover are laid to rest in my cemetery. From spring to autumn, Countess de Darrieux maintains plants and flowers on the two graves. Succulents for her husband and a bunch of sunflowers in a vase for her lover, whom she calls her “true love.” Trouble is, her true love was married. And when the widow of this true love finds the countess’s sunflowers in their vase, she throws them into the bin.
I’ve tried before to save these poor flowers, to put them on another grave, but it’s impossible because the widow tears off all the petals. And she definitely isn’t murmuring, “He loves me, he loves me not,” while she strips the countess’s sunflowers.
In twenty years, I’ve seen plenty of widows weeping on the day of their husband’s funeral, never to set foot in the cemetery again. I’ve also encountered many widowers who remarried while their wife’s body was still warm. At first, they slip a few cents
