Home > They Say Sarah

They Say Sarah
Author: Pauline Delabroy-Allard

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1

   It’s all about Sarah, her unique brand of beauty, her sharp, rare bird’s beak of a nose, the unusual color of her eyes, stone-like, green, but not really, not green, her absinthe, malachite, faded gray-green eyes, her snake eyes with their drooping lids. It’s all about the spring when she came into my life as if stepping onto a stage, with gusto, triumphant. Victorious.

 

 

2


        It’s a spring like any other, a spring to depress the best of us. There are magnolias in bloom in squares all over Paris, and I have this idea that they chafe the hearts of people who notice them. They certainly chafe my heart, those magnolia flowers in the squares. I look at them every evening on my way home from the school and, every evening, their large pale petals sting my eyes slightly. It’s a spring like any other, with impromptu showers, the smell of wet tarmac, a sort of lightness in the air, a breath of happiness that sings softly about the fragility of it all.

   This particular spring I walk around like a ghost. I’m living a life I never thought I’d live, a life alone with a child whose father vanished without any warning. One day, or rather one evening, he left the apartment and then. And then nothing. So this is possible: overnight, and I mean literally overnight, between two people who’ve loved each other for years, there can suddenly be no eye contact, no words, no conversation, no ranting, no anger, no understanding, no tenderness, no love. This lunacy, this aberration is what constitutes me from one day to the next. I think life will stop right here. I don’t hope for anything or anyone. There’s a new boy in my life, a Bulgarian boy. When I mention him I say my partner. He’s my partner in crime, yes, that’s it, he’s my partner in the crime of this desolate life. I’m waiting. There’s a word going round and round obsessively in my head, the word latency. I keep thinking I must look it up in the dictionary. I know I’m experiencing a period of latency. I don’t know how long it will go on, and what event will bring it to an end. In the meantime every day is much the same, what with my responsibilities as a young mother, my responsibilities as a young teacher, my responsibilities as a daughter, a friend and the girlfriend of the Bulgarian boy. I’m making a point of living life. Not really living it. But I’m a good girl. I stick out my tongue with concentration. I’m well dressed, polite and charming. I bicycle around the streets of the Fifteenth Arrondissement with my child in a seat behind me. We go to museums, to the cinema, to the botanical gardens. I think I’m pretty, people say I’m kind and attentive to others. I don’t make any waves. I’m mother to a perfect child, teacher to remarkable students, daughter to wonderful parents. Life could have gone on like this for ages. A long tunnel with no surprises and no mystery to it.

 

 

3


   A shrill blast of the doorbell, like a whip crack, in the middle of this apartment with its endemic starchy atmosphere. We’re done up to the nines for New Year’s Eve, three couples eyeing each other surreptitiously, surprised to be here and terribly overdressed. It’s all so forced, the way the apartment is decorated, the topics of conversation, the guests’ outfits. All so studied. Serious. Rigid. The doorbell seems to make the furniture jump – it’s obviously not used to the intrusion. Mutterings. Oh, it’s Sarah, someone says delightedly. I don’t know who Sarah is. Yes you do, I’m told, you’ve already met. I’m told when and where. No recollection whatsoever. The lady of the house goes to open the door. Yes, it’s Sarah. I don’t recognize her.

   She’s late, out of breath, laughing. An unexpected tornado. She talks loudly, fast, hauling from her bag a bottle of wine, things to eat, a profusion of stuff. She takes off her scarf, her coat, her gloves and hat. She dumps everything on the floor, on the cream carpeting. She apologizes, jokes, turns circles. She talks all wrong, using coarse words that seem to hang in the air long after they’ve been spoken. She makes too much noise. There was nothing, silence, the occasional affected laugh, punctilious facial expressions, and all at once she’s the only thing here. It’s annoying. The lady of the house frowns, in her evening dress. Sarah doesn’t notice, and energetically kisses everyone hello. She leans toward me, she smells of crisp late-December air. She has the rosy cheeks of someone who’s hurried. She’s wearing far too much makeup. She’s not very well dressed, she isn’t wearing her best outfit, she’s not elegant, she hasn’t put her hair in a sophisticated updo. She talks a lot, jumps at a glass of wine that’s handed to her, roars with laughter at a quip. She’s animated, enthused, impassioned.

   It’s like a slow-motion sequence. The glass slips from my hand, my partner gasps Oh no!, the glass spins through the air, everyone watches, no one can do a thing, it’s already too late, the glass crashes without a sound onto the cream carpet, its entire contents spilling and creating an abstract shape, red wine on the cream carpet, a beautiful minimalist painting, I go white and then red with embarrassment, the lady of the house bridles, in her evening dress, it’s a catastrophe, a disaster, this red form on the cream carpet, something unforeseen, an accident. A breach.

   Later we sit down for dinner. We go into ecstasies over the gorgeous tablecloth, the gorgeous place settings, the gorgeous menu. There’s a seating plan. There are seven of us. The lady of the house announces who’s sitting where, in her evening dress. Sarah is seated next to me. On my right.

 

 

4


        She’s a violinist. She smokes cigarettes. She’s wearing too much makeup, it’s even worse up close. She talks loudly, laughs a lot, is funny in her own way. She uses words I don’t know. She has her own personal slang. She plays with language, inventing expressions, making rhymes for the fun of it. She talks about amusing things, stories full of twists and turns. She complies good-naturedly with my requests for more details. She’s alive. Over the course of the conversation, I find out that she really likes board games, hiking up mountains and singing with the people she loves. She’s been having therapy for several years now. She lies down on the couch. She thinks it strange, talking about oneself in frosty silence. But she keeps going back, she thinks it’s important. Twice a week. Sometimes three times.

 

 

5


   When we leave the building in the early hours we all walk to the nearest Métro station together. Farewell hugs on the pavement, with that peculiar feeling of being in the first day of a new year. We’re already talking about the spilled glass of wine as a memorable anecdote, going over the scene, adding details, describing the lady of the house and her frown, and her evening dress.

   My partner, referring to Sarah: “And what about her? What a weird girl!”

 

 

6


        She writes to me over the next few days, the first days of the new year. It’s January but yet again the miracle happens. Yet again winter admits defeat, drags its heels a little longer and tries one final flourish, but it’s too late, it’s over, the spring has won. When I emerge from the school building, the sky seems to go on for ever, blueish, a slightly washed-out blue, like dyed fabric. Nonchalant clouds scud on the wind. The moon, a discreet presence in a corner, is there too, and the fact that day and night rub shoulders amicably makes me shiver a little. Shadows grow shorter by the day on the tarmac, and I walk home in a gilded glow like no other light. The streets of limestone houses are full of birdsong, uninterrupted chattering, and you can almost hear the buds appearing on branches, green, delicate, fragile. I look at the light tingeing the tops of buildings pink. How many more times will I be granted the huge privilege of witnessing all this? How many more times will I be able to watch this performance? Once? Fifteen times? Sixty-three? Is this the last time, I wonder, is this the last time I’ll feel the quivering of a new season in my body? She writes to me in the first days of the new year. A few words, at first, to which I reply politely. Then more and more. She says it would be good to meet up. She suggests going to a concert at the Philharmonic Society. She suggests going to the cinema, the theater. We meet once, twice, more and more. The winter gradually creeps away, without a sound.

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