Читать книгу Fresh Water for Flowers - Valérie Perrin - Страница 19

During the first months of our life together in Charleville-Mézières, I wrote, in red felt-tip, on each day: MADLY IN LOVE. And that was right up to December 31st, 1985. My shadow was still wrapped in Philippe Toussaint’s. Apart from when I was working. He inhaled me. Drank me. Enveloped me. He was wildly sensual. He made me melt in his mouth like a caramel, like icing sugar. I was on a perpetual high. When I think of that period of my life, I’m at a fun fair.

He always knew where to place his hands, his mouth, his kisses. He never got lost. He had a roadmap of my body, routes that he knew by heart and I didn’t even know existed.

When we’d finished making love, our legs and our lips trembled in unison. We inhabited each other’s burning desire. Philippe Toussaint always said, “Violette, bloody hell, bloody fucking hell, Violette, I’ve never known anything like it! You’re a sorceress, I’m sure you’re a sorceress!”

I think he was already cheating on me that first year. I think he always cheated on me. Lied. That he drove off to others as soon as my back was turned.

Philippe Toussaint was like one of those swans that are so handsome on water and yet hobble on land. He turned our bed into a paradise, was considerate and sensual when making love, but as soon as he got up, was vertical, left our horizontal love behind, he lost a good deal of color. He had nothing to say, and was interested only in his motorbike and video games.

He didn’t want me to be a bartender at the Tibourin anymore because he was too jealous of the men who approached me. I’d had to hand in my notice straight after we met. From then on, I worked as a waitress in a brasserie. I started at 10 A.M., to prepare for the lunch service, and finished at 6 P.M.

When I left our studio in the morning, Philippe Toussaint was still asleep. I found it a wrench to leave our cozy nest for the cold streets. He told me that during the day, he went for rides on his motorbike. When I got back in the evening, he was stretched out in front of the television. I pushed the door shut and stretched out on top of him. Just as if, after work, I dived into a vast, warm swimming pool, bathed in sunlight. I’d wanted to inject some blue into my life, so this hit the spot.

I would have done absolutely anything for him to touch me. Just that. Touch me. I felt like I belonged to him, body and soul, and I adored it, belonging to him body and soul. I was seventeen and, in my head, had a lot of overdue happiness to catch up on. If he’d left me, my body surely couldn’t have withstood the shock of a second separation, after that from my mother.

Philippe Toussaint only worked occasionally. When his parents got mad. His father always found a friend to take him on. And he did it all. House painter, mechanic, deliveryman, night watchman, maintenance man. Philippe Toussaint would show up on time the first day, but usually didn’t finish out the week. He always had some excuse for not going back. We lived on my salary, which I had transferred into his account—since I was underage, it was easier. I just kept the tips for myself.

Sometimes, his parents would turn up during the day, without warning. They had copies of the keys to the studio. They came to lecture their unemployed, twenty-seven-year-old only son, and fill up his fridge.

I never saw them because I was working. But on one day off, they suddenly appeared. We’d just been making love. I was naked, lying on the sofa. Philippe Toussaint was taking a shower. I didn’t hear them come in. I was singing a Lio song at the top of my lungs, “And you, tell me you love me! Even if it’s a lie! Since I know you lie! Life is so sad! Tell me you love me! Every day’s the same! I need romaaaance!” When I did see them, I thought: Philippe Toussaint doesn’t look at all like his parents.

I’ll never forget the look Mother Toussaint gave me, her grimace. I’ll never forget the disdain in her eyes. Even I, who could barely read, who stumbled on words, could interpret it. As if a malicious mirror were reflecting back at me the image of a degraded, diminished, valueless young woman. A piece of trash, a slut, a bad seed, a girl from the gutter.

Her hair was auburn. It was pulled and gripped so tightly in her chignon, you could see the veins of her temples under her thin skin. Her mouth was a line of disapproval. Her eyelids, always covered in green shadow over her blue eyes, were a lapse of taste she took everywhere with her. Like an evil spell. She had a nose like the beak of some endangered bird and skin so white it had surely never been kissed by the sun. When she lowered her shadow-caked eyes and saw my little rounded belly, she had to grab a kitchen chair to sit down on.

Father Toussaint, a cowed man who was born submissive, started to talk to me as if we were in a catechism lesson. I can remember the words “irresponsible” and “thoughtless.” I think he even spoke of Jesus Christ. I wondered what on earth Jesus would be doing here, in this studio. What he would say if he saw the Toussaint parents wrapped in all their contempt and finery, and me, stark naked, wrapped in a blanket with skyscrapers and “New York City” emblazoned in red.

When Philippe Toussaint emerged from the bathroom, with a towel around his waist, he didn’t look at me. Carried on as if I didn’t exist. As if only his mother was in the room. Eyes just for her. I felt even more wretched. The runt of a stray. The nothing. Like Father Toussaint. The mother and son started talking about me as if I couldn’t hear them. The mother in particular.

“But are you the father? Are you quite sure of that? You were tricked, weren’t you? Where did you meet that girl? Do you want us dead? Is that it? Abortion wasn’t just invented for dogs! Where’s your head gone, my poor boy!”

As for the father, he continued to spread the good word:

“Everything is possible, nothing is impossible, one can change, one just needs to believe it, never give up. . .”

Wrapped in my skyscrapers, I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. I felt as if I were in an Italian farce, but without the beauty of the Italians. With the social workers and caseworkers, I was used to people talking about me, about my life, about my future as though it didn’t concern me. As though I were absent from my story, from my existence. As though I were a problem to be solved, not a person.

The Toussaint parents were coiffed and shod as though going to a wedding. Occasionally, the mother would glance at me for a second; any longer and she’d have tainted her cornea.

When they left without saying goodbye to me, Philip Toussaint started shouting, “Shit! They make me sick!” while kicking wildly at the walls. He asked me to leave while he calmed himself down. Otherwise, those kicks, they’d end up landing on me. He looked traumatized, when it’s me who should have been. I was no stranger to violence. I’d grown up close to it, without it ever physically touching me. I’d always come through without a scratch.

I went out into the street, it was cold. I walked fast to warm myself up. Our daily life was totally carefree; it had taken Father and Mother Toussaint opening our door to shatter everything. I returned to the studio an hour later. Philippe Toussaint had fallen asleep. I didn’t wake him.

The following day, I was eighteen years old. By way of a birthday present, Philippe Toussaint announced to me that his father had found work for both of us. We were going to become level-crossing keepers. We’d have to wait for the position to become vacant, soon, close to Nancy.