Toward evening as she came in from a walk with her aunt—well, great aunt—and Jamie, Marianne was gleeful as she stooped to pick up the two bunches of lilies of the valley that had been left in front of Tante Céleste’s door.
“Oh, I just love the smell of muguet,” she gushed. “Don’t you, Tante Céleste?”
“Ahh, mais oui,” said Tante Céleste, as she did her very best to keep her eyes from rolling up. Still, she couldn’t restrain the sly smile.
“How could he have known?” asked a quite-impressed Marianne.
Tante Céleste so wished that Marianne would say Doug’s name instead of referring to him with an omnipresent pronoun. The less obvious it was that they were carrying on the way they were, while Marianne was still supposed to be engaged to Jamie, the better. But perhaps it was only obvious to her, because she was the aunt and she lived downstairs from Marianne. Perhaps Jamie hadn’t a clue, or he really couldn’t care less. She let slip a giggle at the thought of all the moaning and bed squeaking she had to endure.
“What’s so funny, Tante Céleste?” asked Marianne.
“Oh, here it is,” said Tante Céleste, digging in her purse. “Sometimes this key is right under my nose and I still don’t see it.” As she opened her door she asked, “How could who have known, Marianne?”
“Doug, of course.”
Tante Céleste giggled again, thinking about the way Jamie had snapped to attention when Marianne said Doug’s name. The three of them were returning from a May Day demonstration. The large parade had moved down Sainte Catherine Street like a mass of human lava. There had been a contingent of students who had taken part in the May 1968 demonstrations at the Sorbonne in Paris. Tante Céleste wondered if Prez had managed to converse with them and learn that on May Day in France, bunches of lilies of the valley, or muguets, are sold on the streets and given as presents. Les muguets represent good luck.
“You mean about the symbolism of les muguets?” asked Tante Céleste. As if she didn’t know what Marianne was talking about. “He must be having a positive effect on you, dear. I haven’t seen you with a cigarette for a while.”
After some of Tante Céleste’s excellent quiche and café au lait, Jamie left. Marianne was about to depart to her flat with her bunch of muguets when Tante Céleste said, “You know Marianne, at the convent orphanage the most beautiful babies were always the mulatto ones.” Marianne’s steps faltered.
“Oh, what an interesting observation.” Marianne felt her face flush and didn’t want Tante Céleste to notice. “Salut, Tante Céleste,” said Marianne as she reached for the doorknob.
“Wait a minute, Marianne. What’s the rush? We haven’t had a good chat lately.”
Marianne let go of the doorknob, dropped her head, and began to sob uncontrollably.
Tante Céleste was greatly alarmed. She didn’t even know Marianne had such a cry in her, much less a reason for one.
“Oh my god, child, what’s wrong?”
Marianne turned, bent herself way over so that her face was buried in her little Tante Céleste’s shoulder, and wept. She wept until she soaked Tante Céleste’s blouse. She wept until she had cramps in her stomach that made her clutch at her midsection and double over. She wept until there were no more tears to weep and she just whimpered and gasped for air. And little Tante Céleste feared her bones would collapse under all the sobbing weight. But she held her grandniece up until a voice from somewhere said, “I’m pregnant.”
“Oh, my dear, sweet Marianne. Can you ever forgive me? I had no idea. What I said about the orphans . . .”
“I know, Tante Céleste. The last thing anyone would think would be that I would get pregnant accidentally. Me, the great control freak.” More tears gushed down her face.
Afterward, sitting in Tante Céleste’s kitchen, Marianne’s eyes were bloodshot from crying and her nostrils inflamed from blowing her nose so much.
“Your baby’s father, he will make a good father, no?”
“Dead men don’t make good fathers,” replied a very weary Marianne. “War resisters like Jamie came here to avoid going to war. Doug was already in a war. He’s told me stories. He wants to go back to it. But America will kill him.”