The Confidant. Helene Gremillon

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СКАЧАТЬ her. ‘Professional secret,’ he would reply, tapping me on the head before tapping Maman on the backside. And she would smile back at him with that smile I found so embarrassing.

      As any resemblance is reciprocal, the porcelain dolls made me think of Annie. So I stole them. But once I was in the refuge of my room, I was inevitably struck by the fact that their hair was either too curly or too straight, their eyes too round or too green, and they never had Annie’s long lashes that she curled with her index finger when she was thinking. These dolls were not meant to resemble anyone in particular, but I held it against them. So I went to the lake and tied a stone to their feet, then watched without sorrow as they sank effortlessly, my thoughts already on the new doll I would take and who would bear a greater resemblance to Annie, or so I hoped.

      The lake was deep, and the spots where one could bathe without danger were rare indeed.

      That year at the centre of the world there was me, and there was Annie. All around us lots of things were happening that I couldn’t care less about. In Germany, Hitler had become chancellor of the Reich, and the Nazi party exercised single party rule. Brecht and Einstein had fled while Dachau was being built. It is the naïve pretension of childhood to think one can be sheltered from history.

      I skimmed the letter, and had to go back and reread entire sentences. Since Maman’s death I had no longer been able to concentrate on what I was reading: a manuscript I would normally have finished in one night now required several days.

      It had to be a mistake. I did not know anyone called Louis or Annie. I turned the envelope over, but it was definitely my name and address. Someone else with the same surname, in all likelihood. The man called Louis would realise soon enough that he had made a mistake. I didn’t dwell on it any longer and finished opening the other letters, which really were letters of condolence.

      Like any good concierge, Madame Merleau had not been fooled by this flood of mail, and she handed me a little note: if need be, I must not hesitate, she was there.

      I would miss Madame Merleau, more than I would miss my flat. The one I was moving into might be bigger, but I would never find a concierge as nice as she was. I didn’t want to go through with this move. Couldn’t I just stay in bed, here in this studio which scarcely a week ago I could hardly tolerate? I did not know where I would find the energy to drag all my stuff over to that place, but I no longer had the choice: I needed an extra room now. And besides, the papers had been signed and the deposit had been made; three months from now someone would be here in my place and I would be there in someone else’s place, and they in turn would be in the place of…and so on. Over the telephone the man from the removal company had assured me it was true: if you followed every link of that chain, you invariably came back to yourself. I hung up. I couldn’t care less about coming back to myself, all I wanted was to come back to my mother. Maman would have been happy to know I was moving; she had never liked this apartment, she only came here once. I never understood why, but that’s the way she was, she took things to extremes sometimes.

      Still, I had to let Madame Merleau know that I was moving out and thank her for her note.

      ‘Oh, don’t mention it, it’s the least I can do.’

      Whenever anything happens, a concierge already knows about it. She was clearly sorry for me, and she invited me to come in for a few minutes if I felt like talking. I didn’t feel like talking, but I went in for a few minutes all the same. As a rule, we had always chatted at the window, never inside her loge. If I had not already known that this was a difficult moment for Madame Merleau, her invitation alone would have sufficed to make me understand. After she had closed the curtain behind us, she switched off the television and apologised.

      ‘The moment I open that bloody window, people look inside. They can’t help it. I don’t think they’re really curious, but it’s unpleasant. Whereas when the television is on they hardly look at me. Fortunately the screen is enough to distract them. I couldn’t stand to hear it blaring in my ears all day long.’

      I felt ashamed and she realised.

      ‘Forgive me, I wasn’t saying that about you. You don’t bother me.’

      What a relief! I was off the hook – not part of the average mediocrity.

      ‘With you it’s not the same. You’re nearsighted.’

      I was startled.

      ‘How did you know?’

      ‘I know because nearsighted people have a particular way of looking. They always look at you more insistently. Because their eyes are not distracted by anything else.’

      I was stunned. It was like being handicapped, with everyone pointing at you. Was it that obvious? Madame Merleau burst out laughing: ‘I’m having you on. You told me yourself. Don’t you remember, the day I told you about my fingers, you said it was sort of the same thing with your eyes. “Life is all about being dependent on your body’s every little whim,” that’s what you said. I thought your explanation was terrifying and I remembered it, the way I remember everything I find terrifying. You have to always remember what you say and who you say it to, otherwise some day it might come back to haunt you.’

      She leaned over to pour some coffee, but just then her hand began to shake with a violent tremor and the boiling liquid spilled onto my shoulder. I blew on the burn to cool it but above all so I would not have to look at Madame Merleau. I was terribly embarrassed to have witnessed her infirmity.

      Before she became the concierge, Madame Merleau had been a tenant in the building. She arrived shortly after I did, two or three months, I think. The sound of her piano resounded throughout the building, but no one complained, her students were committed and the lessons never turned into an ordeal. On the contrary, the ongoing concert was quite pleasant. But as the weeks went by the piano was heard less and less, and I assumed that her students were getting married. Married people didn’t take lessons any longer. Then the piano stopped altogether, and one day it was Madame Merleau herself who opened the window to the loge as I went by. She had acute rheumatism in her joints. The doctors conceded that it was an early onset, and that this sometimes happened, in particular with professional musicians, as their joints tired more quickly, by virtue of being called upon to play. They did not know exactly when, but eventually she would lose both the control and the mobility of her fingers; she was not to worry, she would still be able to use her hands for everyday things – eating, washing, brushing her hair, doing the housework – but she would no longer be able to use them for her profession, or at least not in all the subtle ways she had known up to now. In a matter of weeks she would lose the precious mastery that her hands had taken so many years to acquire.

      She was completely devastated by the news. How would she live? The money from her lessons was her only source of income, she had no savings, and no one on whom she could rely, even for the time it would take to find her bearings. No parents, no children.

      Then she heard that the concierge of the building was leaving. For several weeks people told her that she was the wrong age and didn’t have the skills required for such a position. But she decided to submit her application to the owner, who agreed to give her the position. She bade farewell to her piano. She reasoned that an unfulfilled passion was too burdensome, and that one must know how to leave it behind in order to let another passion take its place. Why not astrology, for example? It would go well with her new profession as concierge, the know-all, gossipy side. And it would enable her to forestall her fits of clumsiness. If she had known she was going to spill the coffee today, she would not have offered me any. She smiled.

      ‘You cannot go to work with your jumper in such a state. Go back upstairs and fetch another one. I’ll СКАЧАТЬ