fortunate!”
At lunchtime, after Mother has blown out the candles and we’ve all eaten cake (except I discreetly give most of mine to Coralie), we get out our presents. Grandmother’s is a bottle of lavender oil, I embroidered a handkerchief, and Coralie made a clay pot for Mother’s dressing table. Mother looks her usual amiable self. Then Father gives her a flat, floppy parcel. Can’t be a handbag. It takes Mother so long to undo the ribbons, Coralie gets scissors from Grandmother’s worktable.
It’s a scarf. Light-brown silk with yellow poppies. Mother’s face collapses into a sulk and, as the gorgeous fabric unfurls in her lap, she starts breathing slowly, angrily. Leaving her presents on the table, she walks into the hall. I follow her, but when she goes on towards the kitchen I decide to stay put. I can still see her, though, at the end of the passage beyond the pantry. She says something to Loli, then puts on her garden apron and gets busy with her box hedges.
Coralie goes into the garden too, the other end of it, and for a while I watch her from the hall, through the tasting room windows. She’s making ragout in her bucket with soil from Mother’s hydrangea beds and water from the hose. She hasn’t noticed anything but the scarf’s beautiful colors. When I go back to the dining room, Loli is clearing the table and Grandmother sitting near her window with L’Indépendant . All as usual, except Father is still standing in front of the gifts with questions on his face. When he sees me, he starts and walks across the hall into his study. As he leaves the door half open, I follow him.
He’s sitting at his desk, with an open book in front of him. I stand beside him, and read, “May 10. I am no longer here. I’ve stopped existing long ago. I just occupy the place of someone other people think is me.”
The sentences, the tone, feel familiar. “Who wrote this book?” I ask.
Father closes the small white volume, and I can see the front page: André Gide, Journal 1942-1949 , Gallimard.
“So it’s a journal?” I ask. “Like Anne Frank’s?”
“Yes,” he says. “It’s a detailed account of Gide’s daily life and thoughts in Tunis then Algiers. He was there during the war, and not writing much else.”
“Because of the war?”
“Maybe. Or maybe he was just tired of fiction, and politics. Or just tired. In 1942, he was seventy-three.”
“Is he still alive?”
“He died last year.”
“Do you like his books?”
“A lot.” He smiles. “But they’re not for you. Not yet. Maybe Isabelle in a year or two.”
In Father’s opinion, practically nothing is for me. Books, films. I don’t understand this. I love the comtesse de Ségur, but I know all her books practically by heart. I’ve read all the children’s books we have here, many times, even the dreary ones about brave wolf dogs or endearing wild horses. So I have to check out the adult shelves. As Justine has to lie when she wants to go out with boys. Justine says Father is old-fashioned. Last time she was here, for Easter vacation, he told us once again how sorry he was that he won’t be able to give us dowries. “Dowries!” Justine said as soon as Father was gone. “Why would we need dowries? My mother had one, but that was ages ago. I’m pretty sure Odette didn’t.”
It does sound like a word from the past. I’ve read several novels that belonged to my grandmother Clara (she wrote her name on the title page), which take place at a time when dowries were essential. If you didn’t have one, nobody would marry you. Which meant you had to become a governess, or starve.
Father is inspecting the surface of his desk, vaguely pushing around pens, ashtrays, paperweights, a newspaper open at the crossword puzzle. His shoulders are stooped, his face confused.
“I love the scarf,” I say. “I’ve never seen one like that.”
“Maybe it’s too… different for your mother?”
“No,” I say. “I’m sure she
At lunchtime, after Mother has blown out the candles and we’ve all eaten cake (except I discreetly give most of mine to Coralie), we get out our presents. Grandmother’s is a bottle of lavender oil, I embroidered a handkerchief, and Coralie made a clay pot for Mother’s dressing table. Mother looks her usual amiable self. Then Father gives her a flat, floppy parcel. Can’t be a handbag. It takes Mother so long to undo the ribbons, Coralie gets scissors from Grandmother’s worktable.
It’s a scarf. Light-brown silk with yellow poppies. Mother’s face collapses into a sulk and, as the gorgeous fabric unfurls in her lap, she starts breathing slowly, angrily. Leaving her presents on the table, she walks into the hall. I follow her, but when she goes on towards the kitchen I decide to stay put. I can still see her, though, at the end of the passage beyond the pantry. She says something to Loli, then puts on her garden apron and gets busy with her box hedges.
Coralie goes into the garden too, the other end of it, and for a while I watch her from the hall, through the tasting room windows. She’s making ragout in her bucket with soil from Mother’s hydrangea beds and water from the hose. She hasn’t noticed anything but the scarf’s beautiful colors. When I go back to the dining room, Loli is clearing the table and Grandmother sitting near her window with L’Indépendant . All as usual, except Father is still standing in front of the gifts with questions on his face. When he sees me, he starts and walks across the hall into his study. As he leaves the door half open, I follow him.
He’s sitting at his desk, with an open book in front of him. I stand beside him, and read, “May 10. I am no longer here. I’ve stopped existing long ago. I just occupy the place of someone other people think is me.”
The sentences, the tone, feel familiar. “Who wrote this book?” I ask.
Father closes the small white volume, and I can see the front page: André Gide, Journal 1942-1949 , Gallimard.
“So it’s a journal?” I ask. “Like Anne Frank’s?”
“Yes,” he says. “It’s a detailed account of Gide’s daily life and thoughts in Tunis then Algiers. He was there during the war, and not writing much else.”
“Because of the war?”
“Maybe. Or maybe he was just tired of fiction, and politics. Or just tired. In 1942, he was seventy-three.”
“Is he still alive?”
“He died last year.”
“Do you like his books?”
“A lot.” He smiles. “But they’re not for you. Not yet. Maybe Isabelle in a year or two.”
In Father’s opinion, practically nothing is for me. Books, films. I don’t understand this. I love the comtesse de Ségur, but I know all her books practically by heart. I’ve read all the children’s books we have here, many times, even the dreary ones about brave wolf dogs or endearing wild horses. So I have to check out the adult shelves. As Justine has to lie when she wants to go out with boys. Justine says Father is old-fashioned. Last time she was here, for Easter vacation, he told us once again how sorry he was that he won’t be able to give us dowries. “Dowries!” Justine said as soon as Father was gone. “Why would we need dowries? My mother had one, but that was ages ago. I’m pretty sure Odette didn’t.”
It does sound like a word from the past. I’ve read several novels that belonged to my grandmother Clara (she wrote her name on the title page), which take place at a time when dowries were essential. If you didn’t have one, nobody would marry you. Which meant you had to become a governess, or starve.
Father is inspecting the surface of his desk, vaguely pushing around pens, ashtrays, paperweights, a newspaper open at the crossword puzzle. His shoulders are stooped, his face confused.
“I love the scarf,” I say. “I’ve never seen one like that.”
“Maybe it’s too… different for your mother?”
“No,” I say. “I’m sure she
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