And Then Came Paulette (9 page)

Ferdinand wiped the table with a sponge before laying it. Then he went to fetch some wine from the cellar. Marceline put more wood in the stove and swept up the bits of bark that had fallen on the floor, while Guy prepared supper. It was his turn. He had decided to cook spaghetti, his great specialty. It was also Ferdinand's, so there was rivalry in the air. Inevitably they asked Marceline to decide between them. But she didn't like the fact it was becoming more and more like a competition, so she refused.

Perhaps it was because there were three of them, they each separately concluded.

In the meantime, Guy's spaghetti with garlic and dried mushrooms was sheer perfection. Ferdinand would have his work cut out.

At the end of the meal they put on their coats, scarves and hats and went outside to say good night to Cornelius. Then they sat on the bench by the wall, the one with the little awning above. It was
supposed to protect against showers, but didn't work too well. That night all was peaceful; it wasn't raining. The two old men sipped their coffee and smoked their pipes, while Marceline had a tisane. Her stomach was still feeling a bit delicate from the flu. After a while Ferdinand decided to tell them about his visit to the Lumière sisters. At first he talked calmly, but then became more and more worked up. He described their fear of opening the door, the shotgun brought down from the attic and Simone's shiftiness when he questioned her. Why the shotgun? What were they planning to do with it? Who or what were they afraid of? It was surely only natural to ask these things?

Marceline and Guy both nodded.

And then, he continued, Simone had suddenly decided to reveal all. She had explained that Hortense's nephew wanted the house, so he could sell it. He was possibly within his rights—she had left it to him in her will—but normally he would have to wait for the two of them to die. That was what had been agreed and decided with the lawyer. But now he was in a hurry. He claimed to have signed the papers for Hortense to be sectioned because of her memory problems. He had used the word Alzheimer's, to put the fear of God into them. And of course it would be just a matter of days before they came for her, so Simone was going to have to shift her ass and find somewhere to crash if she didn't want to end up on the street! That's what the little bastard had told them, in so many words.

The problem was they had believed everything the nephew had said. And it was impossible to make them change their minds.

After a long pause Ferdinand added that the sisters would rather die than be separated from each other. There was no doubt about it. And Guy agreed.

As Marceline barely knew the Lumière sisters, they explained for her benefit that they weren't really sisters at all. They only shared the same name because Hortense had married Simone's brother: she had
met him at the beginning of the war, they had fallen madly in love and managed to convince the village mayor to marry them a few days later. Unfortunately, the day after the wedding, when poor Octave had returned to his regiment, he stepped on a landmine. His parents died of a broken heart and Hortense was left alone with her sister-in-law, Simone, who was then just fifteen or sixteen years old. She herself was barely twenty-three. So that was that, they had remained inseparable ever since. They opened an electrical shop, which they called Lumière Sisters' Electrical Goods. With a name like theirs, it had to be. They specialized in bedside and night-lights as well as supplying the usual standard cables, sockets, sheathing, and switches. Simone designed the products and Hortense made them. The ones Gaby liked best were the merry-go-rounds that turned in the heat from a lightbulb. Very romantic, they were. She would visit their house sometimes, just to watch them going around. The sisters had closed their shop the previous year.

The two women had lived together for nearly seventy years. “Soon it'll be their platinum anniversary,” Marceline said, mightily impressed.

The rain started to fall, so they ran inside. Ferdinand put some logs in the stove, Guy washed up the cups in the sink, while Marceline left some dried beans to soak for the following day. Then they tried to think how they would manage if there were five of them. As they went around the house they told themselves there was still plenty of room. Really, there was not a problem.

They paused at the foot of the stairs. They needed to talk some more. Would the sisters be difficult to convince? They were older and less flexible than Guy or Marceline. Hortense was ninety-five and Simone eighty-eight? Old enough to be their mothers. Now that was a thought . . . They must be very attached to their own house, given how long they'd lived there. It would be difficult for them. Be that as it may, they couldn't leave them in that perilous situation, it would
amount to an offense under the law. Yes, it was true. But it wasn't going to be easy.

Ferdinand sensed he would spend the night racking his brains, looking for the right words, honing his arguments. Marceline and Guy had confidence in him. But then they had seen his talents in that area for themselves.

They wished each other good night. Marceline and Ferdinand each went to their rooms while Guy put on his coat. Before going out he took some embers from the stove and put them in a bucket. Berthe followed, as she did every night. On entering the workshop they both shivered. The thermometer read just thirty-nine degrees Fahrenheit. He put the embers in the brazier and pulled it as close to the workbench as possible. Berthe curled up beside him on a pile of hessian sacks and Guy set to work. He had two bikes to fix before the end of the week. Several nights' work. Just the pressure he needed.

Ferdinand lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, with little Chamalo purring in his ear. It didn't help him to get to sleep. Right now he was thinking about tomorrow.

What could he say? What words would he use? And above all how was he going begin?

The poor man had a touch of stage fright.

Ferdinand was surprised how quickly it all happened. After just a few sentences Simone stood up, grabbed Hortense by the sleeve and dragged her off to the bedroom. He heard them whispering there for less than a minute, then they came back, their eyes moist and shaking a little, and each gave him a hug. The nephew had come back the day before, after Ferdinand and the kids had left, and had completely terrorized them. What an awful night they'd had! First crying over the mysterious deaths of their two birds, found at the bottom of the cage, flat on their backs and with swollen bellies. And then planning the great, final departure, with the appropriate number of sleeping pills laid out on their bedside tables. Intent on leaving the house spotless, they had planned to spend the day doing a grand clean-up. So no one could ever accuse them of being slovenly when they were gone. Not on your life! At the end of the day they intended to write a short note for the benefit of anyone interested in knowing their reasons. And they chose the menu for dinner. Starters, main course, and dessert: pastries all around. Coffee éclairs,
polonaises
and Rum Babas. Screw
cholesterol and diabetes! Today they would have anything they liked. Only then would they go to bed—at about eight-thirty, unless there was a good movie or interesting documentary on the TV. They would say bye-bye, and something like:
with a bit of luck and if there's a screw-up in the signal box, we might even meet again in Paradise, my love
. A final giggle together and an hour later, if things went to plan, it would all be over. So when Ferdinand's proposal came it was a bit like a lifesaver, or a light at the end of a tunnel. A reprieve, in any event. They said yes.

First he took them to the farm. It was pelting down when they arrived. But their perms remained intact because Marceline and Guy were waiting outside and escorted them to the house under their umbrellas. Once settled by the stove, Hortense fell asleep. She was feeling washed out by all these changes in routine, and the emotional roller coaster of the last few days. Her head drooped into her cup of coffee. Simone shrugged, telling them to take no notice: it often happened, but wouldn't last long. And indeed, a quarter of an hour later, Hortense awoke with a start. After looking around, smiling and nodding her head with approval, she leaned over to Simone and observed in a whisper, but loud enough for everyone to hear, that she had to admit these young people were ever so charming and polite. Irritated, Simone raised her eyes to heaven and told her to stop talking such nonsense. Hortense muttered that it would be really great if one day Simone could admit she was capable of being wrong, for Christ's sake! Some youngsters are OK, you know. It's not that hard to understand.

It must have been twenty years or so since they had come to the farm to visit Ferdinand's parents, but they didn't recognize a thing.

After a tour of the house, they selected two small, adjacent rooms on the ground floor. For Hortense it was practical: she couldn't manage the stairs any longer. Her knees were so painful, some days she couldn't get out of her wheelchair. They decided to make their
bedroom in one of the rooms and use the other as a little sitting room where they could withdraw, just in case. Ferdinand, Guy and Marceline thought they were right. It was more sensible.

Now they had to get on with the move.

The sisters went ahead with Ferdinand to prepare the bags and cardboard boxes. Guy attached the trailer to the tractor and Marceline sat beside him on the mudguard. She wasn't used to it. The sound of the engine, the cold feel of the metal seats, the harsh jolting and the smell of diesel soon made her feel sick. They didn't say a single word the whole trip. He was savoring those sensations that always took him back to the past; while she was concentrating on trying not to throw up.

Choosing what to take was tricky and Hortense and Simone were too excited by all the commotion. They'd never had to move before. Not in the last seventy years, at any rate. Ferdinand offered to take several loads, but that didn't calm them, quite the opposite. They went off for a huddle in a corner and when they came back they admitted they were really worried that during their absence the nephew would come back and set fire to their things. Once again Ferdinand tried to explain that no one had the right to enter their house without their permission, that he could be restrained, but the sisters wouldn't listen. No, they were going to choose, and that was that. There were a few hours left, they were ready to take the big plunge and not take anything at all. They were grown-ups now, and grown-ups can choose! They would take the absolute minimum. He would be surprised.

“Minimum” wasn't exactly the word that came to mind to describe what they finally decided to take. After so many years—and multiplied by two—there was bound to be a lot. Ferdinand, Guy and Marceline tried not to laugh. There was enough to fill four trailers, full to the brim. They gave priority to taking everything for the bedroom and sitting room, but by the time they came back for the second run the
sisters had changed their minds and kept only a few odds and ends, a trunk of electrical goods and the wheelchair. Once these had all been loaded, Hortense, in raincoat and rubber boots, insisted they help her up on the trailer, in spite of Simone's shouts and protestations. She wanted to make the journey sitting up there, in her wheelchair; to admire the view and watch the landscape unfold, just like when she was little in her parents' cart. Simone got annoyed. But Hortense retorted that she wasn't afraid of her. She could do what she liked. End of story.

Together the three of them hoisted her up. And Simone blocked her ears muttering: “Here we go again, she's completely lost it!” as Hortense started to sing at the top of her voice:

“Aïm singué ine ze rêne, aïm singué ine ze rêne, ouate e biou tifoul fi léne, aïm api e gaine . . .”

This was a tribute to the film that she could never miss when it came on TV at Christmas. She had never really understood the story properly, nor what they were droning on about in their songs, but she liked it when people started singing and dancing in the rain, and looking happy. She thought it was wonderful. You never saw that in real life. Except with kids. And even then, not when their parents were around.

Guy started up the tractor.

And Hortense shouted: “Come on, Simone. Get in! We're taking our custom elsewhere!”

For the rest of the journey they didn't say a word. Sheltering in Ferdinand's car, Simone was concentrating on trying not to cry, as she thought of everything she had left behind; while Hortense, on the trailer, beaten by the wind and rain, was relishing this little trip back to the past, ninety years earlier, as though it were only yesterday and she was just five years old.

Ludo got up and tiptoed over to the bed where Little Lu was lying. He bent over and whispered:

“Why are you crying?”

“I want Maman.”

“She's at work.”

“Yeah, but I want to see her.”

“Tell me why you're crying.”

“I've wet the bed.”

“Do you want to see her just to tell her that?”

“My pajamas are all wet.”

“There's some more in the drawer. Put these on.”

“The sheets are all wet too.”

“Do you still need a piss?”

“No. Is piss a swear word, Ludo?”

“Yeah.”

“Ah.”

Little Lu was thrilled.

“You sure you don't want to?”

“I've done it all in the bed.”

“It's all right, you can come sleep in mine.”

They lay down together side by side. Little Lu was happy.

In the dark he smiled at the ceiling.

“Hey, Ludo, do you know why I couldn't stop myself?”

“No.”

“Because in my dream I was in the sea and the water was warm and I didn't need armbands because I could swim, with my head under water, and my eyes could see just like usual and I could swim like the big fishes and I was playing with them, they were really kind, it was like they were my best friends and then afterward I don't know why, I think I drank too much water, and I peed in the water.”

“I know. Happens to me in the swimming pool sometimes.”

A pause.

“Ludo?”

“Mm?”

“You asleep?”

“Mm almost.”

“You know, Auntie Gaby, she was in the dream too. She was swimming with me and we were both playing with the big fishes.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“And did she talk to you?”

“A bit.”

“What did she say?”

“I dunno.”

“Try to remember.”

“It was in my dream. I'm trying, but I can't remember.”

Ludo turned over abruptly, buried his head under the covers, and muttered, “That's nonsense!”

His heart in a thousand pieces.