Hunting and Gathering (40 page)

Better than a real family, even, because this was something they had chosen, desired and fought for, and this family asked nothing of them in return other than to be happy together. Not even happy, actually, they weren't that demanding. Just to be together, that was everything. And even that they couldn't have imagined.

67

AFTER the bathroom episode, Paulette was a changed woman. She found her bearings and blended into the ambient, amiable chaos with astonishing ease. Perhaps it was precisely what she needed, some kind of proof. Proof that they had been waiting for her and that she was welcome in this immense empty apartment where the shutters closed from inside and where no one had disturbed the dust since the Restoration. If they were putting in a shower just for her, well, then . . . She had almost lost her bearings just because there were a few little things she had missed, and Camille often thought back on that scene. How people could come undone, often just because of some trivial thing, and how everything could have gone downhill just like that had there not been a tall patient man who asked, “Was there anything else?” while holding an imaginary notepad. What, in the end, did it all hinge on? A wrong magazine, a magnifying glass, two or three bottles of this and that. It was mind-boggling. A little flea-market philosophy which enchanted her, and which turned out to be all the more complex when they found themselves in the toothpaste department of Franprix, reading the descriptions of the various Steradents, Polidents, Fixadents and other miracle glues.

“Paulette, what exactly do you mean by . . . sanitary items?”

“You're not going to make me wear a diaper like the ones they gave us out there on the pretext that it was cheaper!” she said huffily.

“Oh! That kind of sanitary item!” said Camille, relieved. “Okay . . . I didn't follow you at all back there.”

 
As for Franprix, they knew the place inside and out, and it had even begun to seem downright dowdy. So now it was at Monoprix that they minced around with their grocery cart and the list Franck had drawn up the evening before.

Oh, that Monoprix.

Their whole lives . . .

 
Paulette was always first to wake up, and she would wait for one of the boys to bring her breakfast in bed. When Philibert was in charge, he brought it to her on a tray with sugar tongs, an embroidered napkin, and a little cream jug. He would help her to sit up, plump up her pillows and pull back the curtains while delivering a little commentary on the weather. No man had ever been so considerate, and what was bound to happen did happen: she began to adore him too. When it was Franck's turn it was, well, more rustic. He placed her bowl of chicory coffee on the night table, and brushed his lips against her cheek while complaining that he was already late.

“Don't you want to have a piss, now?”

“I'm waiting for Camille.”

“Grandma, that's enough. Leave her alone a while. Maybe she wants to sleep for another hour. You can't hold it in all that time.”

Imperturbable, she said again: “I'll wait for Camille.”

Franck went off, muttering grumpily.

Well, then wait for her, go ahead, wait. It's sickening, how no one pays attention to anyone but you now. Shit, I'm waiting for her too! What do I have to do? Break both legs so she'll give me a little smile too? Makes you want to puke, her little Mary Poppins act; makes you want to puke.

 
Camille came out of her room at that very moment, stretching: “What are you grumbling about this time?”

“Nothing. I live with Prince Charles and Mother Teresa and I'm just having one hell of a time. Out of the way, I'm late. Oh, just one thing.”

“What?”

“Give me your arm a second . . . Hey, this is great!” he said, more cheerfully now, as he squeezed her flesh. “Better watch out, fat lady. You might end up in the cauldron one of these days.”

“In your dreams, kitchen boy, in your dreams.”

“Okay, then, my little chick, whatever you say.”

One thing was sure. They were much more cheerful.

 
Franck came back with his jacket under his arm: “Next Wednesday—”

“What about next Wednesday?”

“It's the day after Mardi Gras, but I have too much work that day, so Wednesday, wait for me to have dinner.”

“At midnight?”

“I'll try to get back earlier and I'll make you some crêpes, the likes of which you've never had in your entire life.”

“Oh, you scared me! I thought that was the day you'd chosen to screw me.”

“I'll make the crêpes and then I'll screw you.”

“Perfect.”

Perfect? What a jerk . . . What was he going to do until Wednesday? Bump into every lamppost, botch all his sauces and buy new underwear? Fuck, he couldn't believe it! One way or the other she would eventually have his hide, that one. Fucking agony. Provided this was for real . . . He decided to buy a new pair of underwear just to be on the safe side.

Well, there'll be plenty of Grand Marnier, plenty of the stuff. And what I don't use to flambé, I'll drink.

 
Camille went to join Paulette with her mug of tea. She sat on the bed and pulled over the comforter, and they waited until the guys had gone out before switching on the shopping channel. They watched in rapture; they giggled and scoffed at the outfits of the airhead models, and Paulette, who still hadn't grasped the transition from francs to euros, was astonished that life was so cheap in Paris. Time had ceased to exist, stretching lazily from the kettle to Monoprix and from Monoprix to the newsstand.

It was like being on vacation. The first one in years for Camille, and the first ever for the old lady. They got along well, finished each other's sentences, and both were growing younger as the days grew longer.

 
Camille had become what the social services called a “care provider.” The two words suited her and she made up for her geriatric ignorance by adopting a direct tone and very basic words which stripped them both of any inhibitions.

“Go on, Paulette, love, go on. I'll wash your bum with the spray.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course!”

“You're not disgusted?”

“No.”

It had turned out to be too complicated to install a shower, so Franck had devised a nonskid step to enable his grandmother to climb into the bathtub. Then he had sawn the feet off of an old chair, on which Camille placed a towel before helping her protégée to sit down.

“Oh,” moaned Paulette, “this bothers me. You have no idea how uncomfortable it makes me to impose this on you.”

“Come, now . . .”

“You're not disgusted by my old body? Are you sure?”

“You know, I—I think I have a different approach than you do. I—I took classes in anatomy, I've drawn nudes who were at least as old as you and I don't have a problem with modesty. Well, I do, but not that one. I don't quite know how to explain. But when I look at old people I don't think, ugh, wrinkles, droopy breasts, soft belly, white hairs, flaccid dick or bony knees . . . No, not at all. Maybe you won't like this but your body interests me independently of you. I think work, I think technique, light, contour, flesh to be dealt with. I think of certain paintings—Goya's old madwomen, the allegories of Death, Rembrandt's mother or his prophetess Anne. Sorry, Paulette, that sounds terrible but, honestly, I look at you very clinically!”

“As if I were some strange beast?”

“There's a bit of that . . . More like a curiosity.”

“And then?”

“Then nothing.”

“Are you going to draw me too?”

“Yes.”

Silence.

“Yes, if you let me. I'd like to draw you until I know you by heart. Until you can't take it anymore, having me around all the time.”

“I'll let you, but now, really I . . . you're not even my daughter or anything and I . . . Oh, I'm so confused.”

 
Camille finally got undressed and knelt down beside her on the gray enamel: “Wash me.”

“What?”

“Take the soap and the washcloth and wash me, Paulette.”

She did as she was told and, beginning to shiver on her aquatic prayer stool, she stretched her arm out to the young girl's back.

“Come on! Harder than that!”

“My God, you're so young. To think I was like you once upon a time. Of course I was not as slim, but still . . .”

“You mean skinny?” Camille interrupted, holding on to the faucet.

“No, no, I really meant ‘slim.' When Franck told me about you for the first time, I remember, that was all he said, ‘Oh, Grandma, she's so skinny. If you could see how skinny she is,' but now that I see you how you really are, I don't agree with him. You're not skinny, you're slender. You remind me of that young woman in the book
Le Grand Meaulnes.
You know the one? Oh, what was her name already? Help me . . .”

“I haven't read it.”

“She had an aristocratic name, too, she did . . . Oh, isn't this silly.”

“We'll go check it out at the library. Come on! Lower down too. There's no reason why not! There. You see? We're in the same boat, old girl! Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I—it's your scar, there.”

“That? It's nothing.”

“No, it's not nothing. When did this happen?”

“It's nothing, I said.”

And after that day there was no more talk of skin between them.

 
Camille helped her to sit on the toilet seat, then under the shower spray, soaping her, talking about other things. Hair washing turned out to be the trickiest thing. Every time the old lady closed her eyes she would lose her balance and slip backwards. After a few catastrophic attempts, they decided to buy a series of sessions at a hairdresser's. Not in their neighborhood, where they were all way overpriced (“Who the hell is Myriam, anyway?” asked that cretin Franck. “I don't know any Myriams”), but right at the end of one of the bus lines. Camille studied her map, traced the itinerary of the various metropolitan buses with her finger, aimed for exoticism, leafed through the Yellow Pages, asked how much it would cost for a weekly shampoo and set and they decided on a little salon on the rue des Pyrénées, the farthest fare zone of the number 69 bus.

In truth, the difference in price didn't really warrant such a long expedition, but it was such a nice ride . . .

 
So every Friday, at dawn, as soon as it began to get light, Camille would settle a rumpled little Paulette next to the window and create her own running commentary on
Paris by Day
: with sketchbook in hand, and at the whim of traffic jams, she would catch a couple of poodles in Burberry coats on the Pont Royal, and the sort of sausage-shaped carvings which decorated the walls of the Louvre; the cages and boxwoods of the quai de la Mégisserie; the pedestal of the genius on the Bastille or the upper vaults of Père Lachaise cemetery. Then she would read the stories of pregnant princesses or abandoned singers while her friend beamed with satisfaction underneath the hair dryer. They had lunch in a café on the Place Gambetta. Not at the Le Gambetta café—it was too trendy for their taste—but at the Bar du Métro, which smelled of stale tobacco, losing lottery tickets, and its irritable waiter.

 
Paulette, who still remembered her catechism, invariably chose trout with almonds, and Camille, who had no such qualms, sank her teeth into a
croque-monsieur
with ham, her eyes closed. They shared a carafe of wine, of course they did, and raised their glasses heartily. To us! On the way back, Camille sat across from Paulette and drew exactly the same things but through the eyes of a trim little old lady brittle with hair spray, who did not dare lean against the window for fear of crumpling her superb mauve curls. (Johanna, the hairdresser, had persuaded her to change her hair color: “So, do you want to try it? I'll give you ash opaline, okay? Look, it's number thirty-four, see, there?” Paulette wanted to look at Camille for approval, but Camille was immersed in the story of a botched liposuction. “Won't it look too sad?” she worried. “Sad? Of course not! Just the opposite, it's really cheerful!”)

Indeed, that was the word. It really was cheerful, and that day they got off on the corner of the quai Voltaire to buy, among other things, a half pot of watercolor paint from Sennelier's.

Paulette's hair had changed from a very diluted Golden Rose to Windsor Violet.

Ah! The effect was immediate. It looked much more chic.

 
The other days were for Monoprix. They would spend over an hour covering a mere two hundred meters, tasting the latest packaged dessert, answering idiotic surveys, trying on lipsticks or awful chiffon scarves. They took their time, babbled, stopped on the way, commented on the style of the high-society ladies from the 7th arrondissement, or the ebullience of adolescent girls: their irrepressible giggling, their unbelievable stories, the constant jangle of their cell phones, and their backpacks clinking and clanking with trinkets. Camille and Paulette were having a grand adventure, sighing and teasing each other, and feeling out their way as they went. They had time, they had their lives ahead of them . . .

68

WHEN Franck was not available to take care of feeding his grandmother, Camille took over. After a few dishes of soggy pasta, half-cooked frozen dinners and burned omelets, Paulette decided to inculcate her with a few simple principles of cooking. She sat by the kitchen stove and taught her phrases as basic as bouquet garni, cast-iron pot, hot frying pan and stock. She couldn't see well, but guided by her sense of smell she instructed Camille how to proceed: You've got the onions, the tiny pieces of bacon, slices of meat and all that, so you're all set. Now pour in your stock . . . Go ahead, I'll tell you . . . Fine!