As his lawful wife, I authorized Françoise Pelletier to bury Philippe Toussaint in the vault of Luc Pelletier. So he would be back with the uncle I didn’t know existed. Just like I didn’t know about an entire part of Philippe Toussaint’s life.
I wait until everyone has left to go up to the tomb. I place a plaque on Léonine’s behalf: “To my father.”
65.
Just a little note to tell you we love you.
Just a little note to ask you to help us
overcome the great ordeals down here.
AUGUST 1996, GENEVIÈVE MAGNAN.
I expected him for a long time. I knew he’d end up coming. I knew it well before seeing Fontanel’s mug. Done in when he got home. Walking with crutches. Face red and blue, two teeth smashed in.
“What’ve you done now?” I asked. I thought he’d hit the bottle, got into a brawl with his fellow winos again. He’d always had violence in his blood, rage. He’d also given me some hidings on nights when he was plastered.
But he replied, “Go and ask the guy who was screwing you behind my back.”
That sentence, it hurt me much more than any of my mother’s and Fontanel’s blows. Their hidings, compared with that sentence, no big deal. Just a knife cutting meat.
He’s the one who was done in, limping, but it’s me who really copped it. So I couldn’t even move. Rooted to the spot, I was. Petrified.
I thought of the pig slaughtered the week before at the neighbor’s. How it had the jitters, how it had trembled, how it had squealed. From terror and pain. Grotesque. The men who kept at it, their laughter. Afterwards, us women, we were drafted in to make the blood sausage. The smell of death. That day, I wanted to hang myself. It wasn’t the first time, that desire to “put an end to it,” as the rich say. No, it wasn’t the first time. But then, it gripped me for a long time. Longer than usual. I even picked up the money to go and buy the rope at Bricorama. And then I put it down again, thinking of the boys. Four and nine years old. What would they do, all alone with Fontanel?
I knew that one day he would come to ask me questions, when I saw the look he gave me in the corridors of the court.
Someone knocked, I thought it was the postman. I was expecting a delivery from La Redoute. But it wasn’t the postman. It was him, he was behind the door. His eyes were tired. I saw his sadness. I saw his beauty. And then his disdain. He looked at me like I was a pile of shit.
I tried to shut the door, but he kicked it, violently. He was like a madman. I thought of calling the cops, but what would I have said to them? I’d been afraid of him since that night. He didn’t touch me, I disgusted him too much. I sensed he was full of both hatred and horror. I managed to say just one thing, “It really was an accident, I did nothing on purpose, I’d never have done any harm to kids.”
He looked hard at me, and then he did something I wasn’t expecting. He sat at my kitchen table, put his head on his arms, and started blubbering. He was sobbing like a kid who’s lost his mother in the crowd.
“D’you want to know what happened?”
He replied no.
“I swear to you it was an accident.”
He was a meter away from me. I wanted to touch him, undress him, undress myself, for him to take me, make me squeal like before, against the rock. Never has anyone despised themselves as much as I despised myself at that moment.
Him, distraught, lost in my kitchen, which I hadn’t cleaned for ages. Since I’ve been on the dole, I don’t do a damned thing. Me who’s responsible. Me the guilty one.
He got up and left without looking at me. After he’d gone, I sat in his seat. His scent remained.
After school, I’ll drop my kids off at my sister’s. She’s much nicer than me, my sister. I’ll tell them to be good. To stay put. I’ll take the money from the last time. On the way home, I’ll buy some rope at Bricorama.
66.
The death of a mother is the first
sorrow one weeps over without her.
Would you like a taste?”
“With pleasure.”
I pick a few cherry tomatoes and get Mr. Rouault to try them.
“Delicious. Are you going to stay here?”
“Where do you want me to go?”
“With your inheritance money, you could stop working.”
“Ah, no, no. I love my house, I love my cemetery, I love my work, I love my friends. And anyhow, who would look after my animals?”
“But come now, all the same, buy yourself a little property, something, somewhere.”
“No way. Then I’d forever be obliged to go there. You know, second homes put a stop to any other journeys, the ones you decide on at the last moment. And anyhow, can you imagine me with a second home, honestly?”
“What are you going to do with all that money, if it’s not indiscreet to ask?”
“What does a hundred divided by three come to?”
“33.33333 to infinity.”
“Well, I’ll give 33.33333 and infinity to Restos du Coeur, Amnesty International, and the Fondation Bardot. That will allow me to save the world a bit, from my little cemetery. Come, Mr. Rouault, let’s have a drink.”
He picks up his cane and follows me, smiling. We sit under my arbor to savor a wonderful chilled Sauterne. Mr. Rouault takes off his suit jacket and stretches out his legs, while plunging his fingers into the salted peanuts.
“Look how beautiful it is today, every day I’m intoxicated by the world’s beauty. Of course, there’s death, grief, bad weather, All Saints’ Day, but life always gets over it. There’s always a morning when the
