I called Catherine as I was filling up with gas at a service station. I told her I was bringing Léonard back. My mother had woken and had even taken a few steps in the corridor. According to Dr. Vandrecken, she was perfectly lucid. She wanted to have a good meal and had given instructions about it to Catherine, calling her her “daughter- in-law.” A leg of lamb was waiting for us, with sautéed potatoes: the favorite dish of Gabrielle Barteau, née Lemoine. As for us, our mission was to bring back some cakes, including a real mille-feuille for my mother.
On the way, Léonard asked me for news of the team. I told him about the defeat by Valenciennes. I didn’t insist on Favelic’s performance. Rather, we talked about tactics, the danger of defending too deep and in too large numbers, which meant cutting the team in two and isolating the strikers.
“Fear makes people lose,” Léonard said.
I agreed. He was concerned to know when the championship was starting and, when he discovered there was only a week to go, I could sense he was weighing up his chances of getting his place back. But I didn’t want to talk about that, I didn’t want to build castles in the air, it depended on so many things. I thought about my sister in her hotel room, with the hot plate on the table and the toilet on the landing. I remembered the name of the character on her keyring. It was Calimero. The black chicken that wore an eggshell instead of a hat and was always getting into trouble.
We scoured all the pastry shops in Sedan searching for a decent mille-feuille. We found lots of imitations, but none really convinced us, until we got lost in the maze of streets and came across a simple bakery that had only two kinds of cakes, rum babas and mille-feuilles. Léonard asked to taste the custard, in that slightly irritating voice of his, and I thought we were going to be thrown out, but against all expectation, the baker’s wife took us into the backroom where her husband made the cakes, and this scary-looking man who must have been about seven feet tall took a bowl filled with custard from a cold cabinet. Obviously, it was the right kind, and we walked off with what was left in the window.
The house had never smelled like that before. The smell of grilled meat, potatoes simmering, a family Sunday. Catherine Vandrecken really was a surprising person. Now she was a housewife with a cloth over her shoulder, cutting fresh garlic into thin slices.
“You should buy some good knives.”
“It smells amazing.”
“I hope so.”
Léonard sat down on the edge of the bed and placed his hand on his grandmother’s. She opened her eyes, as if she’d been waiting for that signal. What happened at that moment seemed to me to defy understanding. Better than morphine, better than anything, Léonard’s presence gave my mother sufficient strength to get up. She wanted to go into the garden. She wanted to eat outside, to take advantage of the sun. I began by telling her she had to be sensible, but she forced me to go out and see what the weather was like, and I had to admit it was one of those fall days that are like spring.
I didn’t have to negotiate with Catherine, who’d heard my mother’s request from a distance and was already holding one side of the kitchen table. I took the other, and we put it out on the terrace behind the house. Then Léonard laid it. It was the middle of the afternoon, but nobody bothered about that. We were hungry.
We sat down at the table, Léonard next to his grandmother, Catherine and I facing each other. I cut the leg of lamb, and we ate it without speaking. My mother wanted to taste the wine. A Côte-Rôtie the same age as Léonard. She spilled a little on her blouse and laughed like a little girl. The sun was on her back. She was feeling fine. She congratulated Catherine on the food, and told me I was lucky. I tried to tell her we weren’t married, but it was no use. Suddenly, her expression changed and she asked why Madeleine wasn’t there. I told her she had a new job, which was very time-consuming, but she would come as soon as she could. My mother appeared to think this over, then changed the subject and told Léonard how, at the age of five, he had regularly beat her at checkers. He pretended not to remember. I cleared the table with Catherine, and we did the dishes together. I washed, she wiped.
“Thank you,” I said.
“That shirt really suits you.”
I’d grabbed that white shirt from my closet just before the meal. I’d never worn it before and it still had the fold marks. We got the dessert plates ready, and put the cakes on a dish. A choice of mille-feuille or rum baba.
When we went back out on the terrace, my mother was standing up. It struck me as unreal, but it was true. Léonard was next to her. She was gazing out at that little garden as if it was the Pacific Ocean.
“I’d like to walk with you a little,” she said to me. She could sense my reluctance, but clutched my arm. “To the bottom of the garden, and no further. Please.”
We walked across the carpet of dead leaves that had fallen from the surrounding trees. We reached the end of the lawn, almost easily. My mother weighed nothing, but her steps were sure. She wanted to carry on, along the fence, as far as a cherry tree under which there was a worm-eaten wooden bench with rusty legs that was currently in the sun. She sat down, without giving me any choice. From there, she could see the yard and hear Catherine and Léonard teasing each other as they put the dessert plates on the table.
“When I was little,” my mother said, “I had a doll house and a collection of rag dolls. I used to play with them. I called them the Rapon family. I loved that house. But when we moved, the house broke and I never found the dolls. I looked for them for years . . . I wanted . . . a family, you know. I hadn’t been brought up by my parents. I was ready to do anything to keep that family . . . ”
“We don’t need to talk about that.”
“But I want to talk about it.”
Her mouth was trembling and her fists were clenched. I sensed that I mustn’t stop her.
“I could see your father was losing his mind. But I thought I could keep my house,
that it would work out. I sent Madeleine away. That was why she was a boarder. You, I thought . . . you were so strong, even when you were small. I thought, he’ll leave anyway, he doesn’t need anybody . . . ”
“Did you really think that?”
“Yes.”
The sun disappeared. All at once, it started to feel cooler under the bare tree.
“We have to go back to the table, Ma.”
“Wait a while longer. I have one regret. I never held you in my arms, and now it’s too late.”
We were on that bench, the two of us. I put my arms around her.
“You’re doing it for me.”
“Yes. It’s my turn.”
We stayed like that, motionless, under the cherry tree, then a shiver went through her.
“Does it hurt?”
“No.”
“Come and eat your mille-feuille.”
There was still a ray of sunshine lighting the terrace. My mother cut her cake. She was an expert on mille-feuilles. She tipped it onto its side so that the custard didn’t all come out when the knife went through.
“It’s the real thing,” she said.
I stood up to make coffee. I put in the filter and filled the beaker with water. I heard a muffled cry and rushed out. My mother had fallen off her chair without warning, and Catherine was trying to lift her, but her body was limp and her eyes glazed over. I carried her to her bed, while Catherine called her friend, Dr. Mérieux. Barely a quarter of an hour later, he was there. He spent quite a while in the bedroom, then came out to give us his diagnosis. She wouldn’t regain consciousness. It was the end.
“How long?”
“A few hours, maybe tonight.”
“Is she in pain?”
“No. Not anymore.”