JESS
By Wednesday, I feel we’ve established something of a routine already. Thankfully, Michel deals with Luca when he wakes at 6.30am, while Julia showers and dashes around the flat knocking back coffee and shoving papers into her bag. She doesn’t seem to eat breakfast and I wonder if she has anything at the office. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, Maggie would say when she’d turn up in my room with scrambled eggs on a tray as though I was some kind of invalid. I suppose I was – mentally injured, if not physically.
Julia’s out the door by the time I’m showered and contemplating breakfast. Léa, Luca and I sit munching bircher muesli as Michel gets dressed and then joins us at the table. Luca’s already chattering away, wanting to know what we’re doing that day, but Michel’s taciturn before he’s poured himself a coffee. This morning his hair’s still wet from the shower and there’s a tiny spot of blood on his jawline where he nicked the skin with his razor. I want to reach out and wipe it away, but of course, I don’t. And then he’s gone too, and I’m left with the kids, cast into the role of stay-at-home mum. I feel a strange mix of happiness and anguish. I used to think I’d be one of those for real. I think I’d have loved it.
The whole day stretches out in front of us to be filled with whatever activities we so desire, and I feel like a kid too, eager for Switzerland to entertain me. We’ve been to the castle, but there’s still the zoo and the outdoor pool in Pully and the water park at Le Bouveret and the botanical gardens in Lausanne, and maybe I can even persuade the kids to go to the museum about Charlie Chaplin in Vevey. I’ve looked it all up in my guidebook and compiled a large to-do list. Not that this is about me, of course, but I’m sure there’s educational value in all these things.
But this afternoon we have a prior engagement – tennis lessons for the pair of them in Lausanne, an eight-week course arranged by Julia to give me a couple of hours off each Wednesday afternoon. I deliver the kids to the sports centre just about on time, though it’s a tricky operation involving hunting down Léa’s lost sports shorts, calming Luca out of his latest tantrum, and negotiating a traffic jam on the motorway. I could stay and watch, I suppose, but I tell myself off for even thinking about it. This break from childcare is an opportunity I should seize. Now’s the time. If I don’t start now, I never will.
My stomach flips at the prospect.
I leave the car parked in a street near Mon Repos and walk across a short road bridge. Down below are the cobbled streets and red rooftops of Lausanne’s city centre, and beyond, far down the hill, Lake Geneva and the mountains the other side, hazy in the afternoon heat. The cathedral’s up a hill to my right, but I resist taking myself on a sightseeing tour. I have a purpose and I need to stick to it. So instead I search the map on my phone and follow the directions down some stone steps into a vast square with a bizarre mix of grandiose buildings and ugly concrete apartment blocks. I wonder if Mum walked here, if she saw this, if that restaurant was here when she was. I wish with all my heart I could ask her.
I find the university library inside the most imposing building in the square. There are a couple of desks with staff serving customers, and beyond that rows and rows of bookshelves. It’s quiet, of course, apart from the turning of pages and the low words of the librarians. I hesitate in the foyer, then hear Maggie’s voice in my head. It’s destroying you. Go and find out what you need to know.
I take a breath and walk over to the desk. ‘Est-ce que vous pouvez…’ I start to say to the young woman sitting behind it, the words I looked up in the dictionary yesterday.
She looks at me, cocks her head. ‘Perhaps I can help you in English,’ she says with the merest hint of an accent. A smile flutters about her mouth.
‘Thanks. I’m looking for a book on feminism in Switzerland during the 1970s. Do you have anything?’
‘Do you know a title or author?’
‘No, I don’t know of a specific book. I’m just looking to research the topic,’ I say.
‘We have a large local history section, with some texts that may cover the subject,’ she says. She comes out from behind the desk. ‘Let me show you.’
I follow her to a sweep of shelves towards the back. I can’t remember the last time I went to a library and the thought makes me sad. I remember going with Mum to Greenwich Library as a child, choosing five books a time and wanting many more.
‘Here. But they are mostly in French or German,’ she says.
‘Right.’ Of course I’d known that, but I’d hoped there would be one or two in English at least. I don’t know what to do now. The rows of books are daunting. There’s no way I can get any information out of them without help, and I don’t have anyone to help me. I suppose I could ask someone. Julia? Michel? No. That would be weird, and could spark too many questions I don’t want to answer. Anyway, both of them seem far too busy to spend time wading through history books.
The woman – Emilie, her name badge says – gives me an apologetic smile and starts to move away, but I take the print-out of Mum’s article out of my bag and hand it out to her. ‘I’m looking for a woman mentioned in this article. I don’t suppose you know the name Evelyne Buchs?’
She takes the paper from me and scans the headline, before shaking her head slowly. ‘No, but I know this organisation was very active around here years ago.’ She points at a name in the article – Mouvement des Femmes Lausannoises. ‘Actually, I think some of their newsletters are in our archives. Do you want me to look?’
Fifteen minutes later I’m sitting at a desk with several papers laid out in front of me. My heart quickens as I read the header on each: Mouvement des Femmes Lausannoises; March 1975; August 1976; January 1977. I can’t understand anything of the text, of course, but I’m drawn to the names – and the grainy black and white pictures. I squint at one particular photo and my stomach jolts when I look at the caption and see the familiar name – it’s Evelyne, giving a speech in Vevey, which I recall driving past on the motorway to come here.
Where are you now? I want to ask the photo. Why is there no trace of you online?
Perhaps, it occurs to me, I might find something about her old friends instead. I take a notepad out of my bag and start to write down any other name mentioned in a picture caption or quote. Sonja Jeanneret, Marie Rochat, Monica Gerber, Nina Favre, Fabienne Aebischer…
When I’ve scoured all the newsletters available, I have a list of twenty names in front of me. I take out my phone and open a browser. I’ve known for quite some time that it’s pretty easy to look up an address and telephone number in Switzerland’s online phone book. It’s even in English. Of course, I tried Brigitte Mela long ago, and then Evelyne Buchs, drawing a blank both times. But when I put in the names from the newsletters, much to my shock, I actually get results. Three Sonja Jeannerets, ten Marie Rochats… I start writing them all down but then glance at the time and see that I have just fifteen minutes to get back to the sports centre. I try to quell my frustration as I put the notepad back in my bag and stand up from the desk.
Now I have a hint of a way forward, I want to keep going. It’s possible it will all lead to nothing. But it’s also possible that one of them might just know something about Evelyne Buchs, or Brigitte Mela, or anything at all that might help me decipher the mystery of my life.
Luca’s tired after tennis, so I put him down for a nap as soon as we get home. I set up Léa in the living room with some paper and coloured pencils and a book of animals to copy, getting her to draw her favourite ones and learn their names in English.
‘Jess, what is this called?’
She’s a pretty good artist, definitely advanced for her age. She’s drawing eyes and tails and snouts with a studiousness that makes me smile. ‘Guinea pig,’ I say. ‘Have you ever had one of those as a pet?’
Léa shakes her head. ‘Maman says we can’t have pets.’
I think of Bruno, the tiny kitten Dad got for me when I was about Léa’s age. A vague memory of an argument.
She doesn’t have any siblings so at least let her have a cat.
Mum snapping back: As long as I don’t have to feed it, I’ve got enough on my plate.
I was devastated when, years later, we found him dead under the buddleia in the garden. Mum consoled me, but I thought she was secretly pleased, since he had inevitably been left for her to feed most of the time.
‘Well, she must have her reasons,’ I say. Killjoy, I think.
Léa frowns and looks down at her drawing, and my heart swells with affection for her serious little face. I hope Julia likes the drawings. I hope she can get away from work early enough to see them tonight before Léa goes to bed; I can see how much it would mean to her.
It hits me in the stomach right then: a physical ache for a child of my own, a child like Léa, another being on this planet who shares my genes, who is physically connected to me. I don’t need to be a psychologist to know that what’s happened in recent years has only heightened my need for a child. Ever since the tests, I feel like I’ve been floating alone in this world, linked to nothing and no one.
Untethered.
It doesn’t have to change a thing. We can just forget about it, Dad had said.
But as much as I wish he were right, I know deep down that I can’t forget. What’s done is done and it changes everything. Even so, I long to return to Léa’s age, safe in the cocoon of family life with Dad and Mum and Bruno and nanny Erika.
Back before I knew it was all a lie.