| Zero
Storm |
One
Common Drama |
Two
for One |
Three
Pivotal Years |
Four
Generations |
Five
Ring Circus |
| Subject: | I'll be back tomorrow |
| Date: | Wednesday, February 18, 1998 22:06:33 -0500 |
| From: | Jérôme |
| To: | Silvana |
I will land the day after tomorrow. Most things are under control here; also, the apartment must be paid for a few months. And it has been a month I have been here...
Wandering aimlessly, I am keeping busy with the basic tasks at hand. I open a trunk. Interesting objects. A doll I have never seen. Children's shoes I have never worn.
That reminds me... There are no toys for the outdoors here. I wonder if it was the same for Catherine... My mother would not let me play outside, or only on that rare occasion (well, it *was* the city...). The kids on the block? I knew but one of my age: he was a diabetic. I sort of came to the conclusion my mother felt something for this child.
What is diabetes?It is an illness. He cannot eat sugar, or he will be very sick.That means no deserts?No. You cannot give him candy either. No ifs, ands or buts...Well, it's not like I have tons of candy lying around.To make things worse, he must inject himself every day.Every day? Always?Yes. In fact, if you are playing with him and you see he is not well, go straight to see his mother or father. If he has to go home for his shot, let him go. Don't you ever drag him elsewhere or in some game... and don't let anyone else drag him away either...
This trunk, the documents... all organized the way they are. This all leads me to believe that my mother knew I was going to discover this story. Unless I blindly threw everything away; not my style really...
I have been toying around with that thought for three days now. I am now convinced this material was planted at some point in time. Over the last few years, my mother could not have discarded these things; she did not have the material strength to do so.
When we moved from Boston, she packed everything: she wanted these things to follow her. Then, from one apartment to the next, they came along - most often on my shoulders! I am also finding proof that some documents were rearranged after the early eighties; she used envelopes from my place of work. Finally, in this apartment, ten years ago, they were organized and stacked according to her opaque logic. What she really wanted towards the end will stay a mystery; though ten years ago she wanted me to find out.
The only real surprise I found was this letter from the fifties. About some job which she eventually landed. The document was signed by a Mr. R. Higonnet. I went to grade school with a boy called Philippe. He was the only friend I had at the time: he made it through mom's filter. He just lived too far to keep good contact. A parent's list confirmed what I knew - his father was called Patrick Higonnet. Coincidences? No way. Just life's threads meshing together.
Otherwise, I am mainly making assumptions, observing... trying to analyze.
Magda, short for Madeleine, must be her sister... The stories stayed the same for so long, she could not have invented them:
"I will always remember. My father slapped me only once. But real good. He was irate that I had gone out late with my friends. Even though I did not go out often. Poor fellow: he had gotten it wrong. I had been in front of the house, talking a long, long time... and he hadn't noticed""We were a big family. I had three sisters. I was the youngest. There was a big age difference between each of us. There were uncles and nieces, nephews and aunts, everything and all ages... I even had a niece that was my age! My sister was twenty years older than I. She practically brought me up..."
"You know, it's not nice to whimper. You ought to realize what you have. There are so many people that don't have what you have. For example, during the war, there was nothing to eat. We had to settle for rutabegas... Imagine that! When I got to America and saw that they sold rutabegas in supermarkets, stuff normally reserved for pigs!"
Who can maintain such lies coherent for more than thirty years?
Hey, more brain cells are getting their act together. Those ten years she hid from me: maybe it was because she wanted to cancel Armand, and its consequence, Catherine, two stories that did not have any happy ending...
I sense that I am burning out a bit here. It will feel good to come home.
Jérôme