I talk on my own. I talk to the dead, to the cats, to the lizards, to the flowers, to God (not always nicely). I talk to myself. I question myself. I shout at myself. I buck myself up.
I don’t fit into boxes. I’ve never fitted into boxes. When I do a test in a women’s magazine—“Get to know yourself,” or “Know yourself better”—there’s no clear result for me. I’m always a bit of everything.
In Brancion-en-Chalon, there are people who don’t like me, who are wary or scared of me. Perhaps because I seem to be forever dressed in mourning garb. If they knew that, underneath, there’s the summer, maybe they’d burn me at the stake. All jobs connected with death seem suspect.
And then, my husband disappeared. Just like that, from one day to the next. “You must admit, it is strange. He goes off on his bike and, snap, he’s disappeared. Never to be seen again. A handsome man, too, more’s the pity. And the police just do nothing. She’s never been investigated, never questioned. And she doesn’t seem upset about it. Dry eyed. If you ask me, she’s hiding something. Always dressed in black, and up to the nines . . . she’s sinister, that woman. There are some dodgy goings on in that cemetery, I wouldn’t trust her. The gravediggers are always round at her place. And just look at her, talking to herself. Don’t tell me it’s normal, talking to yourself.”
And then there are the others. “A good woman. Generous. Dedicated. Always smiling, discreet. Such a hard job. Nobody wants to do a job like that anymore. And all alone, too. Her husband abandoned her. She deserves credit. Always a little glass of something on hand for the most distraught. Always a kind word. And well turned out, so elegant . . . Polite, friendly, compassionate. Can’t knock her. A real hard worker. The cemetery’s shipshape. A simple woman who doesn’t rock the boat. Head’s a bit in the clouds, but having one’s head in the clouds never killed anyone.”
I’m the main cause of their civil war.
Once, the mayor received a letter requesting my dismissal from the cemetery. He politely replied that I’d never done anything wrong.
Occasionally, youngsters chuck stones at the shutters of my bedroom to scare me, or start banging on my door in the middle of the night. I can hear their giggling from my bed. When Eliane starts barking, or I ring my startlingly loud bell, they’re off as fast as their legs can carry them.
I prefer youngsters to be full of life, annoying, noisy, drunk, stupid, rather than in coffins, followed by people bowed with grief.
In the summer, adolescents do sometimes climb over the cemetery walls. They wait until midnight. They come in a group and have fun scaring themselves. They hide behind the crosses, howling, or slam the doors of the mortuary chapels. Some also hold spiritualism seances to terrify, or impress, their girlfriends. “Spirit, are you there?” During these seances, I hear girls screaming and then bolting at the slightest “supernatural manifestation.” Manifestations that are really the cats chasing moths between the graves, hedgehogs knocking over the bowls of cat food, or me, hidden behind a tomb, aiming a pistol full of red-dyed water at them.
I won’t tolerate the resting place of the dead not being respected. At first, I switch on the lights outside my house and ring my bell. If that doesn’t work, I get out my water pistol and pursue them around the avenues. There’s no light in the cemetery at night. I can move around without ever being spotted. I know it off by heart. I know my way with my eyes closed.
Leaving aside those who come to make love, one night I discovered a group who were watching a horror film, sitting on the tomb of Diane de Vigneron, the first to be interred in the cemetery. It’s her ghost that, for centuries, some inhabitants of Brancion have claimed to have seen. I crept up behind the intruders and blew a whistle as hard as I could. They bolted like rabbits. Leaving their computer behind on the tomb.
In 2007, I had serious problems with a gang of youths on holiday. People just passing through. Parisians, or suchlike. From July 1st through 30th, they came every evening, over the cemetery walls, to sleep on the tombs, under the stars. I called the police several times; Nono gave them a few kicks up the backside, explaining that the cemetery wasn’t an adventure playground, but they’d be back the following night. I could switch on all the lights outside my house, shake my bell, target them with my water pistol, impossible to make them clear off. Nothing seemed to have any effect on them.
Fortunately, on the morning of July 31st, they left. But the following year, they returned. On the evening of July 1st, there they were. I heard them at around midnight. They settled down on the tomb of Cécile Delaserbe (1956–2003). And, unlike the previous year, they were smoking and drinking a good deal, leaving their bottles all over the cemetery. Every morning, we had to collect the cigarette butts from the potted plants.
And then a miracle occurred: during the night of July 8th to 9th, they left. I’ll never forget their screams of terror. They said they had seen “something.”
The following day, Nono told me he’d found “little blue pills” near the ossuary, an overly strong drug that must have distorted the sight of a will-o’-the-wisp, in their altered minds, into some sort of specter. I don’t know whether it was the ghost of Diane de Vigneron or Reine Ducha, the white lady, that rid me of those young idiots, but I’m eternally grateful to it.