One, two, three, red light, green light . . .
61.
We know that you would be with us today if heaven weren’t so far away.
When we moved to the cemetery in August of 1997, Sasha had already left the house. As usual, the door was open. He had left a note and the keys for us on the table. He welcomed us, explained where to find the hot-water tank, electricity meter, water mains, lightbulbs, and spare fuses.
The tea caddies were gone. The house was clean. Without him, it was sad, it had lost its soul. Like a girl forsaken by her first love. I went upstairs for the first time, saw the empty bedroom.
The vegetable garden had been watered the previous day.
The head of the municipal technical department came to see us in the evening to check we’d settled in alright.
At first, people came to the house to get treatment for their tendinitis and their chronic pains, not knowing that Sasha had left. He had said goodbye to no one.
* * *
The church bells are ringing. Never a funeral on Sunday, just Mass, to call the living to order.
Usually, at midday on Sunday, it’s Elvis who comes to have lunch with me. He brings me vanilla cream puffs, and I make him penne with mushrooms. I add a little fresh parsley on top. Delicious. According to the season, I pick what there is in the vegetable garden, and we have tomatoes, radishes, or a green-bean salad.
Elvis says very little. It doesn’t bother me, with him there’s no need to make conversation. Elvis is like me, he has no parents. He stayed at a Mâcon hostel until he was twelve, and then was sent to be a farmhand in Brancion-en-Chalon. The farm, just outside the village, is now in ruins.
All the members of that family have been dead and buried in my cemetery for a long time. Elvis never goes near their vault. He’s scared of the father, Emilien Fourrier (1909–1983), a brute who hit everything that moved. Around their vault, the paths aren’t raked. He has always told me that he doesn’t want to be buried with them. He made me promise to see to it. For that I would have to die after him. So, I made him take out a funeral contract with the Lucchini brothers. That way, he would have his own tomb, just for him, with a photo of Elvis Presley soldered on top, and the words Always on my mind in golden lettering. Although Elvis looks like a child, as boys who’ve never known a mother’s caresses often do, he’ll soon be retiring.
It’s Nono and I who do his accounts and fill in his admin papers. His real name is Eric Delpierre, but I’ve never heard anyone call him that. I think all the Brancion locals are unaware of his true identity. He’s always gone by his stage name. He fell in love with Elvis Presley when he was eight. Some people enter religious orders, he entered Elvis, or maybe Elvis entered him. Elvis’s songs touched him and stayed with him, like prayers. Father Cédric recites the “Our Father,” and Elvis, “Love me Tender.” I’ve never known him to have a girlfriend, and neither has Nono.
While looking for dried bay leaves in my condiments cupboard, I come across a letter from Sasha, slipped between the olive oil and the balsamic vinegar. I scatter Sasha’s letters around the house in order to forget them and then finally come across them by chance. This one dates back to March 1997.
“Dear Violette,
My garden has become sadder than my cemetery. As the days go by, they feel like little funerals.
What can I do to see you again? Do you want me to organize your abduction, over there, where the trains are?
Two Sundays a month, it was hardly excessive. No big deal.
But why do you actually obey him? Are you aware that, sometimes, one must be a rebel? And anyhow, who’s going to look after my new tomato plants?
Yesterday, Madame Gordon came for me to heal her shingles. She left smiling. When she asked me, “What can I do to thank you?” I almost replied, “Go and get Violette for me.”
I’m in the middle of doing my carrot seedlings. I put the seeds in pottery cups. I’ve spread my seedlings around my sitting room, beside the tea caddies, just behind the windows. That way, when the sun hits, it’s directly on them. When it’s hot, they grow well. Nothing works like the heat. The ideal would be to put them in front of a fireplace, but my little house doesn’t have one. That’s why Father Christmas never visits me. Next, when they have grown well, I’ll put them under glass. Onions, shallots, and beans you can put straight into the soil. But not carrots. Never forget the ice saints, on May 11th, 12th, and 13th every year. That’s when it’s make or break, that’s when you have to prick them out. In theory. If you want to protect your young shoots, place pots over them at night, or some light clingwrap.
Come back soon. Don’t be like Father Christmas.
With all my best wishes,
Sasha.”
Elvis knocks on the door and comes in with his vanilla cream puffs wrapped in white paper. I fold up Sasha’s letter and put it back in its place, to forget it, and come across it another time, by chance.
“Everything O.K., Elvis?”
“Violette, someone’s looking for you. She said, ‘I’m looking for Philippe Toussaint’s wife.’”
My blood freezes. A shadow follows Elvis. She comes in. She stares at me without saying a word. Next, her eyes sweep around the inside of the house, and then return to me. I can see that she’s cried a lot—I’m used to seeing people who have cried a lot, even if it was several days before.
Elvis calls Eliane by slapping both thighs, and takes her outside, as if wanting to protect her. The dog cheerfully
