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	Subject: News.. really noteworthy news! Date: Monday, October 12, 1998 00:43:25 1998 +0000 From: Jerôme To: Silvana It is late and I have to get up early tomorrow morning to catch my flight; we will not have a chance to chat until I reach Montréal. Catherine and I have just come back from the Monnoyeur country house. You may remember, the one of the photographs and slides that we saw with my mother when she came for Arianna's birth. Well, this has been the climax of a very busy weekend. The house is in a place called, ah-hem, La Croix St. Jérôme... Catherine re-established contact with Josée, Magda's daughter, and Guy - the person mom talked quite a bit about. We went to visit. Mom liked this place a lot. I recognized the bridge from the photographs from outside the property! She was happy here, and found some kind of peace here with my father... When we got there, Josee and Guy got confused somewhat. They were calling Catherine, Bernadette. And me, Paul! Catherine had warned me that I looked like him and thus this confusion was bound to happen. She has good instincts. She forgets that she resembles her mother; she got more proof of that! We walk into the house. After five minutes, I have to pinch myself. I lean over and tell Marion that this is all very, very real. Everything fits. Catherine starts chatting away with Guy, Josée, and their daughter Nathalie, as if she had been out of the room for barely an hour. It has been nearly twenty years since Catherine went off in her corner. Guy Sénéchal was Bernadette's neighbor in cité Bardoux; a dead end, made up of four houses on each side and two at the end. The Sénéchals owned the left house at the end. The Monnoyeur rented the third house to the left. The street had the same fate as some fields of Ohio: it has been replaced by some sort of shopping mall... The Monnoyeur, Joseph and Geneviève, had three daughters: Francine, Magda and Marie-Louise. Josée is one of Magda's four children. The photographs I bring are welcome. I even have one of Geneviève Monnoyeur. For Nathalie, this was the first photograph of her great grand mother she ever saw! Catherine and I believed that the other person was Joseph, but Josee and Guy do not recognize him. Too bad, it would be interesting to have the couple in the same shot. This was by no means a rich family. But one with a big heart. I found out, through Francine, that Geneviève also took care of small children. In order to make ends meet. There had been Bernadette and a boy, Michel. He is still alive and often talks of Bernadette. I wonder what mom would have thought, had she known... Better yet, Francine clarified a few points for us... Clarify is a big word. Over the phone with Catherine, she was saying how Bernadette was a maid for Pierre Monnoyeur, Joseph's brother and that she left her baby in Geneviève's care and finally abandoned her there. In fact, she was confusing Bernadette with her mother Henriette. According to Josée, Pierre was somewhat of an inventor and lived with a mixed-race woman, which was something at the time. Francine thought he was something of a crook. In any case, he seemed to have some shady dealings. Henriette would come and leave Bernadette while she went to work. But after a while, she disappeared and stopped paying the bills... Everyone knew each other well in cité Bardoux: parents chatted on the porch, kids played in the street. I had often heard this name - Guy - to understand that he was a good childhood friend of Mom's. Guy starts telling stories about their adventures, stories that wide-eyed Nathalie has never heard. A notable one was during the war; they must have been 12 or 13. The cupboards were totally bare; their parents decided to send them to the Germans' Kommandantur. Guy and Bernadette, empty bags in hand, walked in and tried to make themselves understood over the linguistic barrier. Trying to explain to the enemy, in their building, how hungry they were. Well, they had one thing in their stomach: a big ball of fear. They tried to explain that they were looking for food. The commander acknowledged something and showed them into another room: a big pat on the back... treating them as if they were friends... but who could really be sure... One by one, they were presented to different soldiers of this compound. Each contributed something: oil, coffee, butter, sugar, and so on. The kids came back home with their bags full, their hearts lighter and their chins up high, way high. Guy wishes he could have had a chance to recall this with Bernadette... Another juicy story. Genevieve Monnoyeur had her black market period. During the war, she would take the train past German control points into the countryside, empty suitcases in hand. This small stocky woman would negotiate with the farmers and come back to Paris, through the same lines, and restock her kitchen or sell the food to other families in Cité Bardoux. She was never caught. It appears she was the strong and courageous figure in the family. So Mom's stories were true. They experienced famine, poverty and hardship during the war. Yet the Monnoyeur also hide Jews in their home; Mom did not lie on this point. Guy even remembers the names of families that stayed there for extended periods, how they would only come out at night to get a bit of air. They entirely trusted the Monnoyeurs. The Sénéchals must have known, if Guy, a child, remembers their names so clearly. And if the Sénéchals knew, then the entire Cité Bardoux must have known. Since no one was ever caught, omertà reigned supreme, effectively supreme. Mom had told me that she had come across, by accident, some gold bars, but not in a pure, clean state. Geneviève had scolded her for having searched through those drawers, normally kept for sheets. That seems very strange to Guy and Josée: "Gold? When the Monnoyeur were quite poor"... This reminds me, how innocent I have been all these years. I kept saying to myself how my mother, as a four year-old child was quite alert on the facts of war... I was in fact making a ten year mistake in my calculation, never suspecting anything! The Monnoyeurs were often exasperated with Bernadette. She lied frequently, for important and unimportant things. Uh-huh, that is a person I know. Guy said how difficult it was to understand her, what she was really feeling. He could see that she was not doing well, and if he asked, she would answer: "Oh, nothing"... Uh-huh, I know this person very well. They were also quite shocked with her attitude when Joseph died. Mom's room was near Joseph's. She would walk straight by, without glancing inside, although he was on his deathbed. That bothers me a lot. I always had the distinct feeling that she was close to her father and to Magda... More surprises... The Monnoyeur family never knew anything about her wedding preparations. She just went off in her corner, got married and told them only after the fact. This explains why there was no one from the Monnoyeur family in the wedding photographs Catherine had - a fact that she realized only last month when we went through the archives. The bridges were not burned by the Monnoyeurs, but by mom. Paul was not necessarily the cause of it all, even if Magda - as an older sister or mother would do - pointed out that Bernadette's age, seven more than Paul's, could become an obstacle. Guy and Josée would not have slammed the door in her face, had she come back to France. They do not seem the type; the family history does not support such cold behavior. * * * * * * * * * After such a long day, and coming home to Catherine's place, we still find enough energy to look at some documents anew. Henriette's birth Certificate has some clues. I have a problem with the fact that her father is thirty years older than her mother, that he has an unknown address and that he is not around for the birth. Her father must be someone else. Catherine notes that the witness to the birth is the neighbor ("Check the address!"), named Henri. Henri, Henriette... For Catherine, he is our great grandfather. Catherine wants to see the photos again. The one with Geneviève and the sheet of contacts, a series of photographs my mom had had taken in 1996, so that we could keep a good souvenir of her. Catherine notes something vaguely familiar... "What do you mean vaguely? This is striking." The gentleman next to Geneviève and my mom are the same age in each photograph. They are almost identical (except for Mom's ears which were covered up by her hair): smile, eyes, forehead, nose, chin, jaw... Any morphing software would not have to work much to make the transitions! "Could that be her father?" Besides, it is someone who knows Geneviève. They are sitting and chatting informally in church; the ceremony has not started. In the foreground a white-gloved hand and the robe of a girl; a Holy Communion... The brain cells start working, even at this late hour. Father. Proximity. Knows the Family. Henriette works for the uncle. Henriette leaves Bernadette with the Monnoyeur... Pierre! Uh-huh.