“But how did you wind up here, at this cemetery?”
“After my release from hospital, I was a social misfit. The mayor here has known me forever and he employed me as a roadman. The fellow in blue overalls talking to himself while sweeping around the municipal trash cans, that was me. When I had regained some strength, I applied for the post of cemetery keeper, as it was vacant. My place was among the dead. The dead of others.”
Sasha took my arm. We passed a man and a woman, who asked him where a particular tomb was. While he was giving directions, which avenues to take, I watched him. As he had spoken to me of his lost family, he had gradually become a little stooped. I thought how we were two survivors who were still standing. Two shipwrecked people that an ocean of adversity hadn’t managed to drown entirely.
Once the man and woman had thanked him, I put my hand in his and we carried on walking.
“At first, the mayor hesitated. But my loved ones had been dead a long time, there was a statute of limitations. You don’t need me to tell you that between death and time, there’s always a statute of limitations . . . Look, the weather’s splendid. Today I’m going to teach you the art of taking rosebush cuttings. Do you know what ‘August branches’ are?”
“No.”
“They’re branches that start producing new wood in August. Brown spots appear on the green, the same spots you can see on my hands. They’re signs of old age. They’re known as ‘August branches.’ Well, believe it or not, it’s with these old branches that you’re going to create young shoots. Isn’t that incredible? What do you feel like eating this evening? What if I made you avocados with lemon? It’s good for you, packed with vitamins and fatty acids.”
On the fourth day, he drove me to Mâcon station in his old Peugeot. He had slipped some jars of tomatoes and beans into my suitcase. It was so heavy, I struggled to lug it all the way to Malgrange.
On the way, between the cemetery and the station car park, he told me that he wanted to retire. That he was tired, that it was time for him to hand over to someone else, and that someone could only be me.
68.
Of their love that’s bluer than the sky around them.
You won’t put your teenage years behind you.
You won’t celebrate being twenty-five and still unmarried by St. Catherine’s Day.
You won’t dance any slow dances.
You won’t have a handbag or painful periods.
You won’t have braces on your teeth.
I won’t see you growing taller, getting fatter, suffering, divorcing, dieting, giving birth, breastfeeding, loving.
You won’t get acne or an IUD.
I won’t hear you lying. I won’t have to cover up for you, or stick up for you.
You won’t nick coins from my purse. I won’t open a savings account for you in case of a rainy day.
You won’t be on the Pill.
I won’t see your wrinkles and liver spots appearing, or your cellulite and stretch marks.
I won’t detect cigarette smoke on your clothes, I won’t see you smoking, and then quitting smoking.
I’ll never see you drunk or high.
You won’t study for your baccalauréat while watching Roland-Garros; you won’t have it in for Madame Bovary, “that pathetic female”; or for Marguerite Duras; or for your teachers.
You won’t have a scooter or a broken heart.
You won’t French-kiss anyone, you won’t climax.
We won’t celebrate you passing your bac.
We’ll never clink glasses together.
You won’t use deodorant, you won’t get appendicitis.
I won’t fret about you getting into a stranger’s car. That you’ve already done.
You won’t have toothache.
We won’t go to the ER in the middle of the night.
You won’t sign on at the employment office.
You won’t have a bank account, or a student card, or a young person’s discount card, or a social security number, or loyalty cards.
I’ll never know your tastes, what appeals to you. Which clothes, which literature, which music, which perfume.
I won’t see you sulking, slamming doors, running away, waiting for someone, taking a plane.
You won’t leave home. You won’t change address.
I’ll never know whether you bite your nails, wear nail polish, eye shadow, mascara.
Or whether you have a gift for foreign languages.
You’ll never change the color of your hair.
You’ll keep Alexandre, your primary-school crush, forever in your heart.
You’ll marry no one.
You’ll always be Léonine Toussaint. Mademoiselle.
You’ll only ever like eating French toast, omelettes, fries, pasta shells, pancakes, breaded fish, floating islands, and Chantilly cream.
You will grow up differently, in the love I will always have for you. You will grow up elsewhere, among the murmurs of the world, in the Mediterranean, in Sasha’s garden, in the flight of a bird, at daybreak, at nightfall, through a young girl I will meet by chance, in the foliage of a tree, in the prayer of a woman, in the tears of a man, in the light of a candle, you will be reborn later, one day, in the form of a flower or a little boy, to another mother, you will be everywhere my eyes come to rest. Wherever my heart resides, yours will continue to beat.
69.
Nothing can wilt it, nothing wither it,
this charming flower is called memory.
Hello, madame.”
“Hello, young man.”
An adorable little boy is sucking on his straw to capture the last drops of apple juice in his bottle. He’s sitting at my kitchen table, alone.
“Where are your parents?”
He indicates the cemetery to me with a nod of the head.
“My father told me to wait for him here because it’s raining.”
“What’s your name?”
“Nathan.”
“Would you like a slice of chocolate cake, Nathan?”
His eyes widen in anticipation.
“Yes, thank you. Is this your house?”
“Yes.”
“Do you work here?”
“Yes.”
He blinks. He has long, dark eyelashes.
“Is this where you sleep as well?”
“Yes.”
He looks at me as if I were his favorite cartoon.
“Aren’t you scared at night?”
“No, why would I be scared?”
“Because of the zombies.”
“What are zombies?”
He swallows a large piece of chocolate
