I had a look in the fridge to see what was left. I hadn’t been shopping for several days, and it was starting to become obvious. All the same, I found some boiled potatoes, a little lettuce, a piece of cheese, and some eggs. I could make an omelet. Behind my back, I could feel my sister watching me.
“What is this training course exactly?”
“It’s about computer tools. If you don’t follow the latest changes in hardware, you have no chance. People are already fighting over the smallest jobs.”
“I thought you had a great job in that mail-order company. Weren’t you supposed to be getting a promotion?”
Hearing the chair squeak, I knew what she was doing. Whenever she started telling a story, she couldn’t stop fidgeting, as if she was looking for a position she couldn’t find.
“God, that place was hell! I even had to work weekends. I was going crazy. I was supposed to be made head of department. I didn’t make that up! But one Monday morning, when we opened, the cops showed up. I called the boss on all his phones. Vanished into thin air. He’d been cheating for years, fake invoices, check kiting, the whole thing . . . ”
Madeleine’s stories all had something in common. They started out with lucrative prospects, then things got confused, and it all ended up down the drain.
“And that was when you went back to Paris.”
“Yes. A girlfriend suggested I share her job part-time. Her guy had just walked out so she could put me up, too. She wanted to go into something else, but without giving up her job. Except it didn’t work out and she went back to working full-time. I’m still living at her place. The Renault is her car.”
“So now you don’t have anything.”
“I have unemployment benefits, but not for much longer. I can’t mess up this course.”
I threw the eggs over the potatoes and the omelet came together. I put the bread, cheese, and lettuce on the table. I sat down opposite my sister and started eating.
“Are you sure you don’t want anything?”
“Now that I see you, I’m hungry.”
“Then grab a plate.”
I divided my omelet in half and slid part of it onto her plate.
“I wouldn’t like to deprive you of it.”
“You should have told me that before.”
“You see—”
“Eat.”
Madeleine threw herself on the food. There she was, in flesh and blood, in my kitchen. I had to stay wide awake and think ahead about the possible effects of this intrusion. Whenever my sister had come back into my life, there had been consequences. Usually disastrous ones.
“You make them like Ma. A little runny.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She used to make omelets just like—”
“That’s enough, let’s talk about something else, all right?”
She made an effort to chew without opening her mouth.
There was no more sound in the house. There we were, the two of us, facing each other across the round table. The garbage truck passed on the street. That was all you could hear.
“She’s sick, you know. Her cancer’s come back. Chemotherapy and everything.”
“If you talk about her further, I’ll throw you out.”
Madeleine stopped her fork in mid-air. She’d thought I’d give her a bit more leeway, but she’d been wrong.
“You have to understand one thing. You’ll never be able to make me feel sorry for her. And her illness doesn’t change a thing. She brought her cancer on herself. It’s what she did that’s eating away at her, or rather what she didn’t do.”
“You can’t say that.”
“Yes, I can. I’m not asking you to think like me. I haven’t come looking for you. You’ve lived your life, and I’ve lived mine. That’s all. We have nothing to say to each other, nothing to share, not on that side anyway. Haven’t you understood that in all this time?”
“No. I must be stupid.”
Her mouth started quivering. All at once she was a little girl again. That was all I needed.
“What’s the other side?”
“Huh?”
“The side we can share.”
“If you stop always making the past sound better than it was, there may be one.”
I saw she was tempted to answer me, but then had second thoughts. She really didn’t have the strength. She ate a last mouthful, more slowly, grimacing as if she found it hard to swallow. I noticed something unusual. She’d always been well-groomed, but now her nails were dirty. She must have had to tinker with the Renault to get all the way here.
“You should have some cheese.”
“No, I’m fine. I’m really grateful. I think I’ll go to bed.”
“If you aren’t warm enough with one blanket, there are others in the closet. If you want to take a shower, you have to let the water run for a while until it gets hot.”
She stood up. She hesitated about whether to come around the table and kiss me. She preferred not to take the risk. She must have thought I was going to bite.
“Good night, then. And thanks.”
“For what?”
“Not leaving us outside.”
“What do you take me for?”