The Secret of the Blue Trunk (2 page)

Most of the time, though, we were happy together. We liked good food and were eager for new discoveries, which she always initiated. We went to Expo every weekend, for example. We didn’t have much money, but by bus or metro we were able to visit Montreal from east to west, north to south.

On Sundays we sometimes went to the Central Station, just to savour the atmosphere and watch the travellers. She was passionately fond of travelling, but we couldn’t afford to take the train. So we would go to the station to dream.

Having a deep love for French culture, she introduced me to French cinema. I got to know all the great actors and actresses. Sometimes I stayed away from school, with her consent, of course, and she would take me to department stores like Eaton’s, Morgan’s, and Dupuis Frères. She taught me how to be elegant and put outfits together, always with good taste. She also taught me to tell a high-quality perfume from an inferior one. To her, having no money did not mean looking shabby. It was always possible, even necessary, to dress properly and look smart. That’s how she taught me good manners. My mother had class. She loved chic, stylish clothes, jewellery, and fine-leather shoes, but since she couldn’t afford them, she made do with visits to stores. She had no compunction about fingering lovely fabrics on dummies, and would closely examine the cut and seams of a piece that appealed to her so that she could draw the pattern and make the garment herself at home. She also stressed that clothes should last a long time.

Shoes were another aesthetic preoccupation of hers. When she tried on a pair she liked, she would parade back and forth in front of the saleswoman with an undecided look on her face. Only my mother and I knew that those shoes were yet another daydream. She would come home delighted by what she’d seen and quickly forget about all the things she’d hankered after, and be happy with what she had.

Toward the end of her life, when we visited a store, she occasionally stole a few small things without my knowledge. She only showed them to me once we were outside. In this way she stole sunglasses, a Barbie doll for my daughter, and tools she had absolutely no use for. At one time she filched a screwdriver just for its beautiful blue plastic handle. I didn’t know what to do with an eighty-year-old shoplifter. No doubt I should have gone back to the store and asked to speak to the manager, and then make her hand over her haul. But I really didn’t want to be ashamed of my mother. I much preferred being her accomplice.

In her kitchen, there were lots of Chinese dishes to pack up. That’s understandable. We often went to the Chinese quarter for a meal. My mother thought nothing could top that. One of her friends, who was better off than she was, took her out for a meal at a restaurant once in a while. Armande invariably chose Chinatown. It would be a memorable occasion, and we’d put on our Sunday best. When I taste Chinese food, I can’t help thinking of her.

Once the kitchen was empty, I went back to the bedroom. Sobbing, I stripped her bed and breathed in the smell of her sheets one last time.

Now all that remained to be emptied out were the contents of the big blue trunk. The mysterious, unfathomable, untouchable blue trunk, which intrigued me throughout my childhood because it was always locked. Opening it was forbidden under penalty of severe punishment. As a little girl, I didn’t even dare imagine the kind of sanctions she might have inflicted on me.

Timidly I approached the trunk, with the key I’d found at the bottom of her handbag, in a small velvet pouch that also contained a statuette of the Virgin Mary.

I was afraid I’d hear her tell me off. Slowly I lifted the big lid. The silence was oppressive, but no reprimand broke it. The smell of naphthalene wafted up. That was probably the best remedy against moths turning my christening gown into Gruyère.

There were boxes containing my childhood mementoes, several photographs, some of my father at a military camp. I didn’t know he had done his military service. And there were pictures of my mother taken by my father. In one, she stands near a boat. In another, she sits on the fuselage of a plane, and yet another shows her leaning on a car, smoking a cigarette. These pictures expressed the tremendous love he felt for my mother and were further proof of the deep bond between them, especially when she looked straight at the camera.

There were also a few mementoes of my stay at the orphanage. One photo showed me in the company of a nurse who had a loving look in her eyes. I was smiling at her. These photos must have been taken on the day Armande and Maurice came to get me. My mother kept my official adoption papers in that trunk, as well. I had never seen them before. They gave the date of my departure from the Crèche d’Youville, April 1956, seven months after my birth. I knew I had been adopted, but I didn’t think I had spent so much time in that institution.

At the bottom of the trunk was a medium-sized black box. Inside it were several holy pictures, a velvet case containing a black rosary, quite worn out by the hands that had used it, a dog-eared missal of the same colour, medals of various saints, St. Joseph and St. Christopher among them, and a great many pictures and statuettes of the Virgin Mary.

At the bottom of the box I discovered a photograph of my mother with her brother Rosaire. She wore a nun’s habit! I couldn’t believe my eyes. Yet it definitely was my mother: I recognized her in spite of her young age! There it was, no doubt, her great secret … but there were other secrets the box would soon surrender to me. Papers, written in German, stated she was under arrest. I was totally baffled and could barely concentrate as I struggled to decipher the writing on all those yellowed papers. One of them commanded my mother to obey orders under penalty of death.

I had plunged into another universe, that of the Second World War. Many questions rushed into my mind. I couldn’t find suitable answers to them for the moment. How could my mother have been involved in that conflict? I had always thought that her life had on the whole been rather quiet.

Like everyone else, I had heard about that inhuman war. I knew about the atrocities committed, but the thought that my own mother might have been caught up in the insanity shattered me. Could it be that my mother was a victim of the Second World War? The papers definitely referred to Armande Martel, my adoptive mother. They furnished evidence of her arrest by the Germans at Rennes, in Brittany …

I immediately asked myself: Was my mother Jewish? And what was she doing in Brittany? According to her certificate of baptism, she was born in Chicoutimi, on April 6, 1912. Fortunately, there were other documents in the box. They might provide answers to my questions about her being in Europe.

Now my mother transformed into a real heroine, a central figure in the conflict. I pictured her as a defiant prisoner who had somehow turned into a Resistance fighter. I knew she had the backbone to come out of the war alive.

At the bottom of the trunk I discovered something else: a bulky envelope containing five hardback notebooks tied together with a white ribbon yellowed with time. On all five notebooks my mother had written the same title:
So that I will always remember
.

She had enclosed a letter with the notebooks, which was addressed to me.

My dearest Lise,

If this letter is in your hands, it’s because I am no longer here, since, while I was alive, you weren’t allowed to touch the blue trunk. You must have opened the box I put on top of the envelope containing the notebooks, and found the two passports without pictures. I tore those pictures out myself, to prevent you from discovering certain things.

I concealed part of my life from your father, particularly my years in the religious life. I wanted to keep those secret. When he died, I decided to tell you my story through these notebooks so you would know after my death what my life was like. I am leaving you my secrets, which, I hope, will help you to understand the way I acted now and then.

I wonder where I found the strength to go through all that I tell you in these pages …

I want you to know that I love you and wish you’ll be able to manage in this life, which can be so harsh. Seize every chance to be happy! That’s what I wish most of all.

Please don’t weep for my past when you read my story, I already have. I will always watch over you, dearest Lise.

Mom

I was stunned and knew even before I began reading these notebooks that my mother had left me an exceptional story.

Finding them gave me the necessary energy and inner peace to finish the task I had set for myself: to distribute all her possessions. At last I could inscribe the words “The End” on her life. As for her other life, the one filled with secrets, I took it with me, in that blue trunk. It was a priceless inheritance, a treasure I was eager to discover.

I moved the big, blue, metallic trunk with the brass corners to my home and put it in my bedroom. It looked impressive at the foot of my bed. I knew I would never part with it because it held the essence of my mother’s life, which had just begun to reveal itself to me.

I started to read that very evening. I unplugged everything that might ring, closed the curtains, and bolted the doors. I couldn’t wait to begin and didn’t even bother to create an atmosphere conducive to reading. I stayed cut off from the outside world for two days.

When I opened the trunk, I had a sudden dizzy spell at the thought of what I was about to find out. As I lifted the veil from my mother’s hidden life, I prepared myself for an unforgettable experience.

I always looked upon my mother as an ordinary working woman who lived modestly. She had to come home at night, tired out from her day. I thought she was caught up in a boring routine. More than once I quizzed her about her past, but she always found a thousand and one ways to evade my questions. Now I knew she had things to hide …

Since she asked me to, I want to make this incredible story public.

Armande will be our guide, thanks to her notebooks. I hope you will find them interesting!

We’ll meet up again later.