CHAPTER EIGHT

The Easter holidays were upon us. While at St. Jean-Baptiste my schoolmates

were sharing their vacation plans – skiing in the Alps for many - at home it was a morose

time. For Lucie and me, there was nothing to look forward to. She would prepare for her

exams at her friend Suzanne's in Versailles and I would stay in Paris to work on the

program that Madame Laquaire had designed at my father's request, a project dubbed by

my mother "operation desperation."

Against such a background, my parent's surprise trip to the Riviera was welcomed

as an event of exceptional import. The Miramar hotel, one of my father's most prestigious

clients, was about to reopen after a year of renovation and he had been invited to the

festivities planned for the long Easter weekend. "With your better half of course," the

hotel manager had said.

"Three days isn't much," the half in question commented, "but it will take me out

of here."

I agreed wholeheartedly.

The next two weeks introduced me to a new mother. A permanent smile on her

face, she hummed popular tunes from morning to night, patted my head whenever we

crossed paths and even offered me one of her pralines.

 She obsessed about what "women wore in Cannes these days." Dresses, bags,

shoes, it had been such a long time since she had bought anything for herself, she

reminded everyone. One evening, she paraded and whirled in front of me, elegant in a

long, light green taffeta dress, lifting it slightly to show off her new shoes.

"If you were a man, Victor, and you saw me dressed like this, would you ask me

for a dance?"

As I nodded enthusiastically, I was also filled with pity, a rather disturbing feeling

I couldn't understand.

"You are so beautiful, Maman!"

She giggled like a little girl, covering her mouth with her hand.

"Your father is angry with me because I spent too much, but we only live once,

don't we?"

Bonne Maman was both in awe of her glamorous daughter and in shock, for she

had been named guardian of the castle. Her chin quivered frantically, a sign of deep

agitation. As for me, I was making plans with Jacky. He and I were going to spend those

three days together.

Alas! Shortly before leaving, my father laid down the rules: no guests, no outings.

He would call at unscheduled times, he warned, to verify that his orders were being

heeded.

From the balcony I waved at my parents as they stepped into a taxi. Then, as soon

as they had disappeared around the corner, I led Bonne Maman in a dance around the

living room. Short of breath, she soon collapsed on the sofa.

 "Now tell me what you have in mind, Mr. Up-to-no-good," she said, a plump hand

on her voluminous bosom.

"How do you know I’m up to something?"

"Because I know my grandson. I can see it in your eyes."

She was an easy sale. Besides, she had been horrified by Jacky's expulsion.

"Of course you can invite him over," she said.

And so it was that my friend arrived two hours later with a box of pralines, the

same brand that had Bonne Maman drool as she watched her daughter open the locked

drawer and help herself without offering one.

The first evening was peaceful. After dinner, Jacky and I invited Bonne Maman to

a game of Monopoly. I discovered then that she was a very sore loser.

"I win all the time; how come you have all the money?" she protested, angrily

sweeping the green miniature houses with the back of her hand. Then she added, "It's just

like the department stores."

"Like the department stores?"

"Of course. I know how they make money. They lose on each article, but they

make a profit by selling large quantities of them."

Dear Bonne Maman!

Later, I made a mattress of blankets and pillows next to my bed, which Jacky had

won in a coin flip. We chatted late into the night and didn't sleep much.

We were watching a movie the following afternoon when Bonne Maman

complained of a headache. She gave me the key to my mother's medicine closet.

"Go and get me some aspirin, my little Victor, will you?"

 Jacky let out a cry of amazement when I opened the closet.

"Holy smoke! Does she plan to open a pharmacy?" he asked.

The shelves were loaded from floor to ceiling with boxes, tubes, jars and bottles

of all sorts. Having grown up in this environment, I didn't share his surprise. I was used

to seeing my mother come back from her weekly trip to the pharmacy with a bagful of

drugs. "Maman suffers from everything in the medical encyclopedia except a broken

ankle," Lucie used to joke.

"And this?" Jacky asked, retrieving a half-full bottle of Gordon's gin from behind

a stack of boxes. "I suppose that's what they call over-the-counter, right?"

I was flabbergasted. "What is it doing there?" I asked.

"You need an explanation?"

"But … why hide it?"

"Tell you what," Jacky offered, "I'll make my world-famous gin-fizz. I've seen

lemons in the kitchen. Trust me, you'll like it."

"She'll find out."

"Not a chance. I'll fill up with water."

Without further ado, Jacky ran to the kitchen to prepare what he called his

"special lemonade" for my grandmother's benefit. "My mother's secret recipe," he told

Bonne Maman while offering her the first glass. "It'll cure your headache."

Indeed, it didn't take long for my grandmother to feel a lot better. "The Germans

can come back, they won't have this one," she declared, smacking her lips. She had

grown up with horrific tales of World War I.

 A second glass triggered girlish laughter I had never heard from Bonne Maman.

Her eyeglasses kept getting all fogged up, and she wiped them with the handkerchief she

kept in her sleeve. The mood grew more festive by the minute. A third glass of

"lemonade" followed. Bonne Maman, Jacky and I intoned the Marseillaise and marched

around the apartment.

All caution forgotten, I went to my father's bar – I knew where he kept the key -

and fetched a bottle of vodka. A wind of madness was blowing. The last memory I

registered was the sight of Bonne Maman waltzing with Jacky and the two of them

stumbling and collapsing on the sofa, howling with laughter. What a strange couple they

formed! Around me, the walls were spinning dangerously.

***

None of us heard the elevator, nor the opening and closing of the front door. I was

sound asleep in the toilets, my face buried in my arms over the toilet bowl, the bottle of

vodka next to me on the tiled floor, when cries of horror roused me. Next, my father's

beet-red face appeared above me. Nothing seemed real. What had happened? What day

were we? They weren't supposed to be back so soon, or were they? My father yanked me

to my feet and helped me come to with a hard slap across my face, but I still couldn't

make sense of anything.

 Haggard and stumbling, trying to protect myself with my raised elbow, I was

pushed, slapped, and shoved into the living room. From the hallway where my parents

had left their luggage, I could see Bonne Maman snoring on the sofa. Her bun was

undone, her grey hair half-covering her face, and her black dress raised up on her thighs,

revealing a pink garter at the edge of a gray woolen stocking. When my father rudely

shook her shoulder, she responded with a groan.

"For fuck's sake," my father yelled, "will someone tell me what happened here?"

He sent me flying toward his bar, whose doors were wide open. "Will you tell me

or do I have to beat the shit out of you?"

At that moment, a piercing scream was heard from my bedroom. My father froze,

his hand in the air above my head. Seconds later, my mother appeared dragging Jacky by

his ear. He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of boxer shorts, and just as bewildered as I

was, but he wasn't resisting. I felt my stomach churn and thought I was going to throw

up.

"On my new carpet, just what I need," my mother exclaimed. She needed not

worry; my stomach had been empty for hours.

My father then decided to take charge.

"You take care of … that," he told his wife, pointing his chin toward Bonne

Maman, "She's your mother after all."

Then he marched toward Jacky.

"And you … you get the hell out of here. Go back to your jungle for all I care."
 More powerless than ever, unable to think straight, I could only witness the

disaster. I didn't even worry about the impending punishment. The world was falling

apart; I was in a kind of coma.

The door had just been slammed shut behind Jacky when I heard a deep moan

behind me, like the cry of a wounded beast. I turned around. Crimson no more, white as a

ghost now, my father was pointing a finger toward the carpet near the sofa. He wanted to

talk, his lips were moving, but no words were coming out.

Then I saw the object of the commotion: my father's glass, the one nobody was

allowed to use, the crystal glass from the Ritz hotel was sitting on the floor. In it Bonne

Maman's dentures were soaking in Jacky's lemonade.

My mother's laughter gave my father back the use of his vocal cords.

"Sorry, it's nervous," she said. "You'll have to wash it."

I didn't have time to reflect on the new division of tasks. My father had already

done the ultimate damage. With a kick, he had sent his precious glass crashing against the

wall.

"You don't think that I will drink my … in my … after this disgusting shit," he

screamed.

My mother was still laughing. Lying on the carpet in the middle of the room,

Bonne Maman's teeth seemed to share her hilarity.

***
 It took me a while to understand the early return of my parents. Having been sent

to bed without dinner, I was intrigued by the angry voices coming from their bedroom

and tiptoed through the darkness of the corridor. My ear glued to their door, I listened to

the screaming match. My mother was on the attack, while my father claimed his

innocence.

"I saw you. I saw you with my own eyes," my mother yelled. "You had your hand

on her thigh, you son of a bitch."

"You're mistaken, I'm telling you. She had dropped her napkin and I picked it up

for her. Any gentleman would have done the same."

"Any gentleman. Any sex maniac, you mean. I had been watching the two of

you."

"You're crazy. She's the wife of the …

"What did you say? I dare you to repeat."

"She's the wife of the President of …"

"No, not that. I don't care whose wife that slut is. You called me crazy, didn't you?

And if I am crazy, who made me that way, I'm asking you? You know what Professeur

Marchais says? You know what he says?"

"How would I know? And who's that one? Another shrink of yours?"

"He says that if I was happy at home, I wouldn't have to take all these drugs."

My father laughed dryly. "But of course. How didn't I guess? It's my fault now if

you're losing it. As if this was new. You're forgetting where I had to go to get you."

"A hospital."
 "A nut house, that's what it was, so please don't blame me. And what am I going

to tell Monsieur Renardier now? You don't give a shit, I know. You seem to be forgetting

who's putting food on the table and a roof over your head. Does a contract for 320 TVs.

mean anything to you? Everything was going smoothly, Renardier was telling me about

another 150 TVs for Marseilles, but you had to fuck it all up, throw a glass of wine, and

force us to leave in the middle of the dinner. Fuck, fuck, fuck, do you realize what you've

done?"

"I realize that you had your hand on her thigh."

It went on and on. I didn't want to take sides and didn't care who was right or

wrong. I wanted to go back to bed and bury my head under the blanket, but some force

was keeping me there, compelling me to listen to words I didn't want to hear.

There were moments of silence during which I wondered, what are they doing

now? Is it all over? Have they made peace? And then the angry voices again. My

mother's was strident, my father's deep, hardly audible at times, with tones alternating

between indignation and conciliation.

"What do you think you're doing? You don't think you're going to sleep in my bed,

do you?" my mother shouted after one of these silences.

Soon after I saw my father, in his pajamas, throwing a sheet and a pillow on the

sofa where his mother-in-law had enjoyed such a good sleep. I was afraid he would see

me, but the corridor was dark, and he didn't even look in my direction. Instead, he turned

around and marched back to their bedroom.

"And why should I sleep on the sofa?" he screamed. "Why don't you? You're the

one who fucked up, remember?"

 "I'm not the one who had a hand on that whore's thigh."

"You're really crazy. Oh, and don't give me that look. You want to know what I

think? What I really think? I believe that I married a nutcase. You can tell your Professor

what's his name that I said that. And I'm not speaking out of anger. I've known for years

that you're crazy. Reminds me of poker: I paid to see. Lucky me!"

"If I'm crazy, who's to blame?"

"Not me, that's for sure."

"Who else? How long has it been since we've had sex?"

"What? What has sex got to do with this?"

"Professeur Marchais says it's important for the balance of …"

"Why doesn't he screw you then, if that's what you need?"

The noise of a slap followed.

"Bastard!"

Then, "Don't touch me Roland. Let me go, you're hurting me."

I was petrified. Focused on my own problems, overwhelmed by my obsessions,

busy with the enormous task of growing up, I had never measured the violence of the

conflict at the edge of which I lived. It felt as if a heavy hand was on me. I slid down to

the floor, relieved that I was being ignored for a moment, but deeply troubled.

There was a long silence punctuated only by the muffled sound of my mother's

sobbing, after which my father spoke, his voice deeper and softer now.

"Calm down," he said. "Take a deep breath. Let me give you your pills. We both

need a good night’s sleep. It's stupid. We get angry and say things. I didn't mean what I

said. We'll talk about it tomorrow."

 "Tomorrow you'll still have fondled that woman."

"But it's not true. Will you listen to me for Christ's sake? I didn't do it, I swear."

"You swear?"

"On Victor's head!"

My mother's laughter froze my heart.

"On Victor's head! That's a good one. What a bet! My husband is gambling big

tonight!"

Having thought so often over the years about that moment, I still wonder how

words I did not really understand, whose exact meaning and implications went far beyond

my ability to analyze at the time, had hurt so much.