How’s it going today, Monsieur Girardot?”
“My wife has died.”
“That was a long time ago, now.”
“You know, when you’ve lost the person you loved most in the world, you lose her every day.”
“How’s it going today, Monsieur Duclos?”
“Shut it, stupid bitch.”
“Well, I say, you’re going strong this morning.”
“How the hell d’you think it’s going?”
“Like a late summer.”
“Stupid bitch.”
“I can be. Come on, time to get up.”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“You need to have a wash, Monsieur Duclos.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say no.”
“Asshole.”
“OK, I’ll see if that’s possible.”
“How’s it going today, Madame Bertrand?”
“Annie has just died.”
“Ah. Who is Annie?”
“She was my friend. When she’d arrive at mine, she’d say, ‘A small beer would do nicely.’ D’you think there’s a bar up at God’s place?”
“If there’s a heaven, there’s bound to be a bar.”
“How’s it going today, Mademoiselle Adèle?”
“Fine. My granddaughter’s bringing me donuts.”
“You’re lucky to have a granddaughter who comes to see you nearly every day.”
“I know.”
“How’s it going today, Monsieur Mouron?”
“The pain in my legs . . . Didn’t sleep a wink all night.”
“I’ll ask the doctor to come by this morning, OK?”
“If you like.”
“Shall I switch the TV on?”
“No. It’s just women’s stuff in the morning.”
“How’s it going today, Madame Minger?”
“Someone’s stolen my glasses.”
“Really? Have you looked everywhere?”
“Everywhere. I’m sure it’s old Houdenot who’s at it again.”
“Madame Houdenot? Why would she have stolen your glasses?”
“To annoy me, of course.”
“How’s it going today, Monsieur Teurquetil?”
“Where am I?”
“In your room.”
“Oh no. This isn’t my room.”
“Yes, it is your room. We’re going to freshen you up and, if you like, we’ll take you for a stroll downstairs.”
“You’re sure this is my room?”
“Yes. Look at the photos on the walls, there. Those are your children and grandchildren.”
“And Mommy, where’s Mommy?”
“She’s resting.”
“Is my father with her?”
“Yes. He’s resting with her.”
“Are they coming to see me this afternoon?”
“Perhaps, but if they’re too tired, they’ll come tomorrow.”
“Good morning, Madame Saban. I’m just removing the cheese and ham you hid in your cupboard. You could get food poisoning, and it stinks.”
“It’s because of the Germans: they requisition everything.”
“Don’t you worry, Madame Saban, the Germans went back home long ago.”
“Are you sure? Because I actually saw them yesterday evening.”
“Oh really, where was that?”
“In the bathroom.”
“Morning, Madame Hesme, any good news?”
“Oh no, my poor dear, I so wish I could take the place of those children.”
“Which children?”
“It’s not right that old folk like us are still around when there are children dying every month in the Journal de Saône-et-Loire.”
“That’s life, that’s how it is.”
“The good Lord ought to be here, taking his pick of us old folk. We’re no use anymore.”
“How’s it going, my beautiful Hélène?”
“When Lucien saw me praying in the church, on Angèle’s wedding day, he asked me why I was begging candles to teach me to read. He looked like a kid. I took him for an altar boy. He was handsome. Much taller than me. I had to look up to see him. At first, he didn’t look me in the eye; he talked to my hands. When he finally did look into my eyes, I saw the Prussian blue of one of my sewing threads. A blue I almost never used. He looked at me the way one looks at a liar, or a lunatic. So I picked up a missal left on a bench, opened it at random, and began to read a passage so he’d hear what I was seeing. I should have read: ‘For this is the will of God.’ But I read: Thiforsisthwieoflldog.
“He closed the missal and said to me: ‘I’m not the good Lord, but I can teach you to read with your fingers.’ He spoke to me as if we already knew each other. I thought of my ‘nimble fingers,’ as Angèle had just called them. In the space of an hour, two people were talking to me about my fingers. It had been ages since I’d spoken with someone of my age. I mean, someone talking to me about something other than lining fabric or trimmings. In losing school, I had also lost the other pupils’ youth.
“The two of us sat on a bench facing the altar. He opened the book he was holding. There was no title on its cover, but he said it was Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. He handed it to me, and it wasn’t like the books I’d been given at school. I could look at it without panicking: its pages were blank.
“Lucien took my hand and made me stroke the pages. They felt like baby’s skin but covered in tiny, hard pimples. Next, he took my index finger and placed it on a specific bump. He said: ‘Can you feel the “a”?’ Then he placed it on an ‘m.’ I felt three bumps under the pad of my finger. He made me touch an ‘o.’ Then a ‘u.’ He turned several pages before making me touch the ‘r.’ And then he went over it again. And my fingers didn’t jumble up the letters. For the first time in my life, I understood what I was reading. I’d finally got my miracle.
“Three days later, Lucien came to my parents’ atelier. He was standing in front of the swing mirror. His eyes had turned sky-blue, and he’d put brilliantine on his dark hair. A stray lock fell across his forehead. Like a comma between his eyebrows. When he saw me, he smiled at me, and I smiled back at him. He had the charm of shy people who pretend not to be so.
“His thick lips ordered a flannel suit from me. Normally, I didn’t make men’s suits; my father took care of them. But I insisted. And my mother needed no persuading. She understood that this handsome young man was there because of me. Her illiterate, messy-haired daughter being courted was unhoped-for.
“My father asked him for a deposit, all the same, because Lucien really did look like a kid. He pulled three crumpled banknotes out of his pocket.
“I showed him the various suit styles in a brochure of designs. As he felt the different fabrics, he whispered to me that, if I agreed to sleep with him, he’d never be afflicted with blindness: losing his sight would become impossible. He told me that, since Sunday, he’d thought only of me. And I replied that, since Sunday, I’d thought only of Hugo’s Les Misérables. And had been to see my old schoolmaster, Monsieur Tribout, to ask him if such a book really existed.
“Lucien picked a navy-blue flannel.
“I asked him if he was going to marry me, and he replied that, no, in his family, getting married brought bad luck. I said, ‘I agree to sleep with you if, in exchange, you teach me to read with my fingers.’
“Girls who slept with boys outside of marriage were called sluts, but being a slut didn’t bother me if I knew how to read. The facts of life, in 1933, weren’t spoken about. Our periods would arrive, and we thought they came from the hole we peed through; we saw women getting married, their bellies swelling, but we didn’t know what went on in our parents’ bedroom. At school, there was always an older girl to tell the younger ones how to kiss a boy with tongues, but I wasn’t at school anymore. When I met Lucien, I was convinced I’d end up an ‘old maid.’ That’s what ladies in Clermain who’d never married were called. I was convinced that the ‘old maids’ were like me, that they couldn’t read.
“I made him take his shoes off and then put him against a wall so he’d stand up straight. I grabbed my tape to take his measurements. I started with his wrist circumference, then the length of his arms, the width of his shoulders, his back, his nape, his armhole depth, his waist-to-knee height, waist-to-ground height, from the base of the neck to the tips of the shoulders, hip measurement, length of legs, crotch, thigh and calf circumference. It took ages. I even invented measurements I’d never need to make his suit, so scared was I that he’d change his mind and wouldn’t teach me to read. I was perched on a small stool. He closed his eyes. He didn’t want me to know what color they were right then. I could feel him trembling under my hands. I’d taken measurements all my life, and yet I felt, on that Wednesday, as if I were doing it for the first time. 181, 40, 80, 97, 81, 36, 13; I remember him like a poem.
“Years later, he confessed to me that, on that day, measurement day, he’d felt as if he’d lost his virginity to my measuring tape.
“I didn’t dare ask him ‘which side he dressed on.’ That’s the question all tailors ask men, to adjust the seam at the crotch. I imagined he ‘dressed’ to the left.
“The following Sunday, I joined him again in Clermain’s church. He’d said to meet at four, when there’d be no one around. With an organist as father, Lucien knew all the region’s churches and their different schedules. He was right: when I pushed open the door, there was no one there but him.
“He’d been waiting for me for hours on the same bench as the previous time. The one we’d sat on to read from the missal. His hands were frozen. He took my hands and gave me the alphabet in Braille on a piece of wood. I immediately recognized the ‘a.’ The most wonderful present I’ve ever been given. I kissed him. I’d never kissed a boy. He said to me, ‘I want to touch you. I beg you, let me touch you.’ I unfastened my dress. Yes, I unfastened it. It was a white dress that had belonged to my mother and that I’d taken in at the waist. He gazed at me for a long time. Gazed at me as if I were an amazing view. The chill, in the church, made me stiffen. But I know he still found me soft. I took his hand and placed it on me. Then guided it all over, gently, for a long time, right up to my mouth.”
“How’s it going today, Madame Lopez?”