MOTHER DISCOVERS that it is difficult to move. The fire has gone cold. The floor is unswept. The soft insides of pears have left sticky trails on her windows, and flies have come to congregate. But when she tries to rise from her seat, she cannot. She has only strength enough to turn her head slowly from side to side, observing the disrepair, how swiftly it has overtaken her house. Since when did crumbs litter the floor of her larder? Since when did that smell of spoilt milk fill the air?
It seems that she also has strength enough to clap. Children! she cries, clapping her hands. She hears a scuffling overhead; then a silence.
Children! she cries again, and finds that she is able to stamp her foot against the floor.
One by one they descend down the ladder, her scuffling children, her shamefaced children, who appear to have as much difficulty raising their heads as she does lifting herself from her chair.
Beatrice, she says. The fire.
Jean-Luc, she says. Help your father.
Lucie, she says. Wash the windows.
Claude, she says, to the child who is shuffling his feet the most miserably. Sweep the larder.
And to the youngest, to Mimi, she says, Bring me apples and pears.
But Maman, cries Mimi, before anyone can stop her: Nobody buys your preserves anymore.
It is true, a fact so plain that it must not be spoken. The children watch their mother in consternation. She is closing her eyes; she is nodding her head; she is accepting the truth of the remark. Collectively, the brothers and sisters wish for fury. But rather than inflaming her, the statement exhausts her, and she sinks, face slackening, back into her chair.
Silently, Mimi vows: I will fill a hundred baskets for her.