And don’t use my bad mood as an excuse to leave me in the dark. Own your indiscretion and at least keep me updated on your discoveries!
Sylvestre
P.S. I’ll wait until July to burn my pages. That way I will not be able to attribute this decision to the bad influence of this cursed month. For a few days now, the heavy heat making its way from Paris to here only reinforces my irritation and the uninspired journalists bring out their usual refrains on the heat wave, as if this eight-letter phrase were their secret password to getting on the 20 Heures news show. Is the weather the same in Belgium?
from Nahima to Anne-Lise
RUE MAURICE-THOREZ, JUNE 27, 2016
Hello Anne-Lise,
I’ve been waiting to answer you. I needed a little while to sort out my life and to try to find time for writing letters again. When I wrote to you, a month ago, I had just seen my child. That possessive is an exaggeration because I abandoned this child at birth. I was barely sixteen years old, but that’s not an excuse; this fact doesn’t change the gravity of my action.
I told my family a story about a high school boyfriend and a birthday party. I was so ashamed. Who could I tell that I had agreed to meet with my rapist? And anyway, I had forgotten everything. When I think about the assault now, it’s as though it happened to someone else, or that someone told the story to me, or that I saw it on a reality TV show. I feel such detachment when faced with the horror of that moment that no one would have believed me if I had recounted the graffiti obscuring the gray of the walls, the color of the sky visible through the skylight, the stench of the trash and the odors of rotting fish that wafted through the half-open door. And how to superimpose on this vulgar scene the joyous soundtrack of the cries of carefree children playing in the town park? Even the blade of the knife that gashed my throat didn’t leave any memory of pain. Just a small, bright red triangle under my jaw that I hid with a bit of foundation for a few days.
At fifteen years old, I repressed my rape so well that I saw none of the signs that should have alerted me. By the time I accepted the reality, it was too late. My parents were there, they supported me despite the disappointment they must have felt. They offered to help me raise my child. I refused.
The birth happened. And life went on. That’s what I wanted. For everything to go back to how it was before. Live the same life as the other girls in the neighborhood again. Go out as a group. Avoid the town basements and confidently mock those girls who give in and refuse to wear skirts to high school. Assume the courage that only teenagers have, get back to the shores of unconsciousness …
But I hadn’t understood that, in the meantime, I had become a mother. A child-mother, a mother without a child, call it what you will.
It all began with little things, a jump hearing a cry on the stairs, a violent pain in my stomach seeing advertisements featuring babies. I would cry more and more often, and my parents ended up calling the adoption service. Once again, it was too late. The child had been placed in a family, there was nothing to do. I started to analyze the faces of all the babies I saw. I became obsessed, to the extent that I paid someone to get the name of the adoptive family. He did. When my parents found out, they sent me to the therapist I had seen after the birth. He was the only one who knew the real circumstances of my pregnancy. He forbade me from going to see my child and advised me to put distance between us. I left to go to my aunt’s, near Paris, thinking that a change of scenery would allow me to forget. It didn’t work. For eight years, I dragged around that guilt and that “sentimental uncertainty.” That’s how my shrink referred to my unhappiness. But he was wrong, it wasn’t a matter of sentimentality; I had left a part of me in a county hospital and I was moving forward, incomplete.
When I picked up that manuscript in Roscoff, I was on leave for depression and I was temporarily back living in my parents’ house. Of course, the story in the book has nothing to do with mine, but it showed me to what extent our existence is insignificant. You might say it’s a strange way to reawaken a lust for life! But it’s not all that strange, because the more our passage on Earth is trivial and fleeting, the more the decisions we make become unimportant, almost forgivable …
In this state of mind, I reached out to my son. He’s named Romain, he lives with a wonderful family and has two little sisters who adore him. His parents told him about his adoption and they allowed me to meet him on April 14. I saw him. And I finally discovered who I was. Perhaps it’s obvious for you if you have children … but for me, that day changed everything. An unexpected, animal violence. From deep inside me, the force that can turn a mother into a saint or a criminal. I understood that, for the being standing in front of me, unaware of the love he provoked, I could now kill, or erase myself. I could remain in the shadows if I knew that that would allow him to be happy. And wait. For the smallest sign on his part.
I know now that his life will continue far from me, but they will let me see him each time he expresses the desire, his mother promised me that.
After that meeting in Brest, I remained in Finistère for a few days, in that hotel where I decided to reintegrate into the world of the living and give my life another chance. And that’s why I placed those words that had sustained me for two months in room 128, where you found them.
That’s the whole story. If you’re now in contact with the people who wrote this novel, I would be happy to have their information. I believe they deserve to know the influence they’ve had on my life.
Affectionately,
Nahima
P.S. You said that we have both “read an intimate and delicate work that was not meant for us.” Do you still believe that? I know that it was waiting for me and that it wound up on the beach that day so that I could regain my path and advance a bit further. Sometimes there is a clear connection between a book and a reader; it can’t just be a coincidence.
from Maggy to Anne-Lise
VINCENT SQUARE, LONDON, JUNE 28, 2016
Hello Lisou!
I’ve arrived! You were right, London is magnificent! Yesterday, I walked until eleven P.M. on the banks of the Thames, I breathed in the sea air which caressed my face as if it had accompanied me here from home. Indifferent to the humid chill that enveloped us, there were dozens of us daydreaming on the shore of the gray, tormented water and I imagine that stroll has inspired more novels than all my coastal trails combined.
Despite my incapacity to understand what is being said around me (or more likely because of it), I feel at home here. Did you feel the same during your trips? It’s a delicious and troubling sensation to feel like you belong in a place where you’ve never set foot …
This morning, I drifted along with the wind, which glides from one intersection to another as if to spread the fragrance of the river. I wandered down streets and smiled, capturing a few unknown words, which I had fun guessing the meaning of according to the speakers’ facial expressions. Then, a ray of sun pierced the heart of the clouds. I settled in its light, on the edge of a terrace, and I observed the people passing by. I discovered England, my eyes amazed by the senseless outfit pairings, my sense of smell titillated by the pungent “fish and chips,” and my hearing captivated by the unexpected sounds.
When it was time to eat, I contacted your Mr. Grant, who fortunately speaks French as well as I do (I promise to work on my English again as soon as I get back). He couldn’t meet today, but suggested places to visit when he found out this was my first time in London. We agreed to meet for lunch tomorrow in a bistro.