Book of My Mother

VI

WE KNEW NO ONE in Marseilles. Poor but proud, we associated with no one. Or rather no one associated with us. But we did not admit it to ourselves, or perhaps we did not realize it. We were so naïve, so lost in the Western world, and so artless that when my parents lit a fire they did not use logs but thin sticks, which were immediately reduced to ashes. And, to crown it all, they took care to leave the protecting metal cover down till the end of the process, because they thought that was more hygienic. These two fugitives from the Orient, where it was always springtime and fireplaces were unknown, genuinely believed that flames left unscreened in that mysterious thing called a fireplace would emit deadly fumes. Was it not some such devilish contraption that had suffocated the man my mother used to call “the great Zola”? Of course she had read none of his books, but she knew he had defended Captain Dreyfus. (“Whatever gave that Dreyfus the idea of joining the army with a great big knife in his belt?” she would say. “Such jobs are not for us.”) Anyway, to come back to our heating system, we froze in front of a roaring chimney and lowered metal cover. We warmed ourselves in front of an icy noise.

We were social nobodies, completely isolated, cut off from the world outside. So in winter my mother and I would go to the theater together on Sundays, staunch friends, two shy, gentle creatures vaguely seeking in those three hours at the theater a substitute for the social life which we were denied. That misfortune shared and never before confessed is such a strong bond between my mother and me.

We had our Sunday outings in the summer too, when I was a small boy. We were not rich, but the tram ride round the cliff road overlooking the sea cost only fifteen centimes. Those one-hour rides were our summer holidays, our social life, and our hunting expeditions. There we were, my mother and I, fragile, well dressed and loving enough to outdo God. I well remember one of those Sunday outings. It must have been about the time of President Fallières, hulking, red faced, and common looking, who had made me shiver with respect when he had come to visit our school. “The leader of France!” I kept saying to myself, goose-pimply with admiration.

On the Sunday I have in mind, my mother and I were absurdly well dressed, and I look back with pity on those two naïve creatures of long ago, so pointlessly dressed to the nines, for no one was with them and no one paid attention to them. They were all dressed up for no one. I wore the incongruous costume of a little prince, and with my girlish face I looked angelic and ecstatic enough to invite stoning. She was the Queen of Sheba in middle-class clothes, corseted, excited and slightly bewildered by her finery. I can still see her long black-lace gloves, her frilly bodice with its pleats, puffs, and tucks, her little veil, her feather boa, her fan, her long wasp-waisted skirt with flounces which she held up with her hand, revealing little boots which had mother-of-pearl buttons with a tiny metal ring in the middle. In short, for that Sunday outing we were dressed like singers at an exclusive afternoon garden party, and all we needed to complete the picture was to hold a scroll of music.

When we reached the stop marked “The Beach,” which was opposite a casino rotting with damp, we alighted and, feeling excited and awkward, solemnly installed ourselves on iron chairs at a green table. From the waiter of the little refreshment kiosk, which bore the sign “Sea-lect Snax,” we timidly ordered a bottle of beer, plates, forks, and, to win him over, green olives. When the waiter had gone — that is to say when the danger had passed — we exchanged contented smiles, my mother and I slightly embarrassed. Then she unwrapped the provisions she had brought, and, somewhat uncomfortable if other customers were watching, served up all kinds of Eastern wonders: spinach balls, cheese puffs, botargo, currant rissoles, and other sublime delicacies. She handed me a lightly starched napkin at the thought, while she ironed and hummed a tune from Lucia di Lammermoor, that tomorrow she would be off to the seaside with her son. She is dead now.

We started to eat politely, gazing self-consciously at the sea, so dependent on one another. It was the grandest moment of the week, when my mother’s dream came true, her passionate desire was fulfilled: she was dining by the sea with her son. In a whisper, because she had an elephant-sized inferiority complex, poor darling, she told me to take deep breaths of sea air, to stock up on fresh air to last a week. I obeyed, for I was just as simple as she was. The other customers stared at the little imbecile who conscientiously opened his mouth and gulped down the Mediterranean air. We were foolish, yes, but we loved each other. And we talked all the time, making remarks about other customers, in whispers, very discreet and well bred; we kept on talking, happy, though less so than when preparing for our outing at home, happy but with an unspoken sadness due to perhaps a vague sense that each was the other’s sole company. Why were we so isolated? Because we were poor, proud, and foreigners, and above all because we were naïve creatures who knew nothing about social niceties and had not the minimum of guile needed to make acquaintances. In fact, I believe our awkward haste to show affection, our too obvious vulnerability, and our shyness had put off potential friends.

Seated at the green table, we watched the other customers and tried to hear what they were saying, not out of vulgar curiosity but because we were thirsting for human company and wanted to be just a little bit their friends, albeit at a distance. We so wanted to belong. We made up for things as best we could by listening. You do not think that nice? I beg to differ. What is not nice is that on this earth it is not enough to be kind and uncomplicated to be welcomed with open arms.

Seated at that green table, we talked on and on to take our minds off things. Our eternal subjects of conversation were the two of us, my father, and a few relatives in other towns, but never other, stimulating people, people really other than ourselves. We talked on and on to disguise the fact that we were a little bored and not quite sufficient company for each other. How I would like now, far from the Very Important People I mix with when I feel so inclined, to have Maman back again and be a little bored in her company.

On the Sunday I am thinking of now, I suddenly imagined, poor little chap, that I was all at once magically endowed with the ability to jump twenty meters into the air and that just with a flick of the heel I would rise and soar over the trams and even over the dome of the casino, and the customers would give the little prodigy a round of applause and above all love him. I imagined that when, breathing hard but not too hard, I went back to my proud, avenged mother that the other customers would come and congratulate Maman on having produced such a superb acrobat, shake hands with her, and ask us to sit at their table. They would all smile at us and invite us to lunch at their homes the following Sunday. I got up and tried my flick of the heel, but the magic gift was withheld and I sat down again, gazing at Maman, to whom I could not give the fine present I had imagined.

At nine in the evening my mother packed up and we went to wait for the tram by the public urinal, malodorously melancholic, while, dazed and half hypnotized, we watched happy, laughing, well-to-do revelers as they arrived by car to play roulette at the casino. My mother and I waited silently for the tram, humbly participating. To dispel the gloom of our joint solitude, my mother sought for something to say. “When we get home, I’ll cover your schoolbooks with pretty pink paper.” Without knowing why, I felt like crying and I squeezed my mother’s hand very hard. We led the grand life, as you can see, my mother and I. But we loved each other.