Philippe Guyennot leaves a very fine legacy behind him. During his speech, his son said, “My father was a devoted man, who charged for just one consultation, even when he visited several times on the same day, or had placed his stethoscope over the hearts of an entire family. He was a great doctor, who made the correct diagnosis after asking three questions and looking deep into the patient’s eyes. In a world where the world hadn’t yet invented generic drugs.”
A medallion depicting Philippe Guyennot was soldered onto the headstone. The family chose a holiday snapshot where the doctor is around fifty. He’s beaming, he’s tanned, and one can see the sea behind him. A summer when he must have got a replacement, and left behind countryside and coughing fits to close his eyes in the sun.
Before blessing the coffin, Father Cédric’s last words are, “Philippe Guyennot, as the Father has loved me, I have loved you. There is no greater love than dedicating one’s life to those one loves.”
Drinks have been organized in the function room at the town hall, in honor of the deceased. I’m always invited, but I never go. Everyone leaves, except Pierre Lucchini and me.
While the stonemasons close up the family vault, Pierre Lucchini tells me that the deceased met his wife on the day of her marriage to another man. During the first dance, she had sprained her ankle. Philippe was urgently called to attend to her. When the doctor saw his future wife in her wedding dress, ankle in ice bucket, he fell in love with her. He carried her off to get an X-ray done at the hospital, and never returned her to her new, and short-lived, husband. Smiling, Pierre adds, “It’s while fixing her ankle that he asked for her hand.”
Before closing time, Philippe’s two children return. They watch the stonemasons at work. They remove the condolence cards attached to the flowers. They give me a wave before getting in a car and heading back to Paris.
18.
The dead leaves are shoveled away,
the memories and regrets are, too.
I talk on my own. I talk to the dead, to the cats, to the lizards, to the flowers, to God (not always nicely). I talk to myself. I question myself. I shout at myself. I buck myself up.
I don’t fit into boxes. I’ve never fitted into boxes. When I do a test in a women’s magazine—“Get to know yourself,” or “Know yourself better”—there’s no clear result for me. I’m always a bit of everything.
In Brancion-en-Chalon, there are people who don’t like me, who are wary or scared of me. Perhaps because I seem to be forever dressed in mourning garb. If they knew that, underneath, there’s the summer, maybe they’d burn me at the stake. All jobs connected with death seem suspect.
And then, my husband disappeared. Just like that, from one day to the next. “You must admit, it is strange. He goes off on his bike and, snap, he’s disappeared. Never to be seen again. A handsome man, too, more’s the pity. And the police just do nothing. She’s never been investigated, never questioned. And she doesn’t seem upset about it. Dry eyed. If you ask me, she’s hiding something. Always dressed in black, and up to the nines . . . she’s sinister, that woman. There are some dodgy goings on in that cemetery, I wouldn’t trust her. The gravediggers are always round at her place. And just look at her, talking to herself. Don’t tell me it’s normal, talking to yourself.”
And then there are the others. “A good woman. Generous. Dedicated. Always smiling, discreet. Such a hard job. Nobody wants to do a job like that anymore. And all alone, too. Her husband abandoned her. She deserves credit. Always a little glass of something on hand for the most distraught. Always a kind word. And well turned out, so elegant . . . Polite, friendly, compassionate. Can’t knock her. A real hard worker. The cemetery’s shipshape. A simple woman who doesn’t rock the boat. Head’s a bit in the clouds, but having one’s head in the clouds never killed anyone.”
I’m the main cause of their civil war.
Once, the mayor received a letter requesting my dismissal from the cemetery. He politely replied that I’d never done anything wrong.
Occasionally, youngsters chuck stones at the shutters of my bedroom to scare me, or start banging on my door in the middle of the night. I can hear their giggling from my bed. When Eliane starts barking, or I ring my startlingly loud bell, they’re off as fast as their legs can carry them.
I prefer youngsters to be full of life, annoying, noisy, drunk, stupid, rather than in coffins, followed by people bowed with grief.
In the summer, adolescents do sometimes climb over the cemetery walls. They wait until midnight. They come in a group and have fun scaring themselves. They hide behind the crosses, howling, or slam the doors of the mortuary chapels. Some also hold spiritualism seances to terrify, or impress, their girlfriends. “Spirit, are you there?” During these seances, I hear girls screaming and then bolting at the slightest “supernatural manifestation.” Manifestations that are really the cats chasing moths between the graves, hedgehogs knocking over the bowls of cat food, or me, hidden behind a tomb, aiming a pistol full of red-dyed water at them.
I won’t tolerate the resting place of the dead not being respected. At first, I switch on the lights outside my house and ring my bell. If that doesn’t work, I get out my water pistol and pursue them around the avenues. There’s no light in the cemetery at night. I can move around without ever being spotted. I know it off by heart. I know my way with my eyes closed.
Leaving aside those who come to make love,
