At four, you were a smiling little girl, curious and full of energy. You would still shout at the drop of a hat. Margherita watched over you with tender eyes and her expansive, Mediterranean love. With her, you can easily go from laughter to tears, from shouts to songs. You and your mom, you sure make a fine pair! A permanent circus, the two of you together. I try to temper your mother’s impulses and your energy to find a happy medium, calm and smooth like the flow of a Batavian river. I almost never succeed. In those instances, all I can do is sulk. I sulk, but then two voices gang up to pull me out of that state.
When I wasn’t out of town for work or abroad, I was the one who had the privilege of taking you to school. And I was the one to bring you back from school at the end of the afternoon. I loved our time together, just you and me walking for 15 minutes to school and back. From the very start of the morning, you asked so many questions. You, little devil of a girl, you seemed to forget that I’m slow. Especially in the morning. I need time before I can rise to your level of conversation. You were four years old and liked to chatter. The noise of the city didn’t disturb our tête-à-tête. We were alone in the world. I had eyes only for you, Béa. Ears only for our conversation. A conversation you would liven up with songs and laughter, according to your personal weather.
‘Papa, is ‘médecine’ a lady doctor?’
‘Hmmm…’
‘My friend Letitia says that’s what it is, for real…’
We’d cross this little part of the 10th Arrondissement, and three streets further on, we’d reach the 9th. Almost every day, we met the same passers-by in a hurry, the same Chinese shopkeepers washing down the doorstep of their bar-tabac, the same little kids in strollers and the same teenage girls on 13scooters. Anything could become instantly magical to your eyes. The slightest thing captured your attention as soon as you were out of bed. You’d first wave cheerfully and then shout ‘Hi, soldiers!’ to the four men in battle dress on duty, machineguns in their hands, plodding heavily up and down the street leading to the neighbourhood synagogue. The soldiers would return your greetings, and by then we could feel impatience growing behind our backs. Some pedestrians frowned and others got annoyed because we were strolling along our bit of sidewalk instead of walking at their frenzied pace. Why walk faster when we had our entire life ahead of us? Glued to their cell phones, these people would push and shove everybody on the street as they did in the corridors of the Metro. Nonchalant and chatty on some mornings, we were strangely silent on others. Those moments of complicity were the most special moments of the day.
One morning, on the way to school, you asked me a question and you put the maximum attention and affection in the tone of your voice. I did not anticipate its object, but I knew that question must have a lot of importance for you. And no doubt, for me as well.
You took your time, keeping a long, suspenseful silence. I could feel a little wind of impatience inside me trying to slip out. I tried to look natural. No word was allowed to come out of my mouth as long as you kept quiet. We were very near your school. A crosswalk, then a bike pickup station, and then all we had to do was to cross, walk along the street and enter the building through its bright blue door. Once inside, parents were often surprised by the modest size of the paved schoolyard, but also by the whiteness of the walls, which gave the building an elegant look.
I was beginning to drift from impatience toward the shores of worry. After the silence, you smiled at me as if to put an end to my rising anxiety. Suddenly, you blurted out:
‘Papa, why do you dance when you walk?’
‘Umm…’ 14
I was not feigning surprise. You tried again.
‘Yes, you do.’
I didn’t have the strength to protest.
‘You dance like this when you walk, see?’
And you showed me what you meant, ostentatiously swaying in front of me. I tried to put some order into my thoughts. I was touched, I had a moist veil before my eyes. And the distinct impression that the walls of Paris were sending your words back into my ears. I felt a touch of cruelty in your words, Béa. The ancient nomads in my genealogical tree say that truth comes out of the mouths of children and there is gratitude in the eyes of the cow who has just given birth to a calf. That old adage, which I used to find foolish, never seemed so true as it did that morning. You, my little girl, you were sending me back the truth with a dose of affection tinged with gentle firmness.
Your words kept whirling around in my head.
I could no longer shy away from them.
On the last stretch on the way to your school, I nodded at a parent. You tugged at the sleeve of my jacket to signal you had recognized the parent who was in a hurry. My brain had just spun around and returned to your question. And I wondered why I’ve been dancing all these years when there was only one thing to do.
One thing,
just one.
Walk,
walk straight,
like everyone else.
When I was about to open the door of the school, you must have sensed the turmoil inside of me because you started talking again, but in a lighter tone.
‘Papa, you know how to ride a scooter?’
‘Maybe… I never tried.’
‘Papa, you know how to ride a bike? Like Mom!’
‘…’
‘I know how to ride a bike. But I never saw you on a bike.’