Fresh Water for Flowers Read online

  FRESH WATER

  FOR FLOWERS

  Valérie Perrin

  FRESH WATER

  FOR FLOWERS

  Translated from the French

  by Hildegarde Serle

  Europa Editions

  214 West 29th Street

  New York, N.Y. 10001

  www.europaeditions.com

  [email protected]

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events,

  real people, or real locales are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © Editions Albin Michel, Paris 2018

  First Publication 2020 by Europa Editions

  Translation by Hildegarde Serle

  Original title: Changer l’eau des fleurs

  Translation copyright © 2020 by Europa Editions

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction

  in whole or in part in any form.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data is available

  ISBN 9781609455965

  Perrin, Valérie

  Fresh Water for Flowers

  Book design by Emanuele Ragnisco

  www.mekkanografici.com

  Cover photo © Carol Oriot Couraye / Cédric Kerguillec

  To my parents, Francine and Yvan Perrin.

  For Patricia Lopez “Paquita” and Sophie Daull.

  1.

  When we miss one person,

  everywhere becomes deserted.

  My closest neighbors don’t quake in their boots. They have no worries, don’t fall in love, don’t bite their nails, don’t believe in chance, make no promises, or noise, don’t have social security, don’t cry, don’t search for their keys, their glasses, the remote control, their children, happiness.

  They don’t read, don’t pay taxes, don’t go on diets, don’t have preferences, don’t change their minds, don’t make their beds, don’t smoke, don’t write lists, don’t count to ten before speaking. They have no one to stand in for them.

  They’re not ass-kissers, ambitious, grudge-bearers, dandies, petty, generous, jealous, scruffy, clean, awesome, funny, addicted, stingy, cheerful, crafty, violent, lovers, whiners, hypocrites, gentle, tough, feeble, nasty, liars, thieves, gamblers, strivers, idlers, believers, perverts, optimists.

  They’re dead.

  The only difference between them is in the wood of their coffins: oak, pine, or mahogany.

  2.

  What do you expect will become of me

  if I no longer hear your step, is it your life

  or mine that’s going, I don’t know.

  My name is Violette Toussaint. I was a level-crossing keeper, now I’m a cemetery keeper.

  I savor life, I sip at it, like jasmine tea sweetened with honey. And when evening comes, and the gates to my cemetery are closed, and the key is hanging on my bathroom door, I’m in heaven.

  Not the heaven of my closest neighbors. No.

  The heaven of the living: a mouthful of the port—1983 vintage—that José-Luis Fernandez brings back for me every September 1st. A remnant of the holidays poured into a small crystal glass, a kind of Indian summer that I uncork at around 7 P.M., come rain, or snow, or gale.

  Two thimblefuls of ruby liquid. Blood of the vines of Porto. I close my eyes. And enjoy. A single mouthful is enough to brighten my evening. Two thimblefuls because I like the intoxication, but not the alcohol.

  José-Luis Fernandez brings flowers to the grave of Maria Pinto, married name Fernandez (1956–2007), once a week, except in July—that’s when I take over. Hence, the port to thank me.

  My present life is a present from heaven. As I say to myself every morning, when I open my eyes.

  I have been very unhappy, destroyed even. Nonexistent. Drained. I was like my closest neighbors, but worse. My vital functions were functioning, but without me inside them. Without the weight of my soul, which, apparently, whether you’re fat or thin, tall or short, young or old, weighs twenty-one grams.

  But since I’ve never had a taste for unhappiness, I decided it wouldn’t last. Unhappiness has to stop someday.

  I got off to a bad start. I was given up at birth, in the Ardennes, the north of the département, that corner that consorts with Belgium, where the climate is designated “transitional continental” (heavy rainfall in autumn, frequent frosts in winter), and where I imagine Jacques Brel’s canal, in his song “Le Plat Pays,” hanged itself.

  When I was born, I didn’t even cry. So I was put aside, like a 2.67kg parcel with no stamp, no addressee, while the administrative forms were filled in, declaring my departure prior to my arrival.

  Stillborn. A child without life and without a surname.

  The midwife quickly had to come up with a first name for me, to fill in the boxes; she chose Violette.

  That’s probably the color I was from head to toe.

  When I changed color, when my skin turned pink and she had to fill in a birth certificate, she didn’t change my name.

  They’d put me on a radiator. My skin had warmed up. The belly of my mother who didn’t want me must have chilled me. The warmth brought me back to life. That’s probably why I love summer so much, never missing a chance to bask in the first ray of sunshine, like a sunflower.

  My maiden name is Trenet, like the great singer Charles. It’s probably the same midwife who, after Violette, gave me my surname. She must have liked Charles. And I ended up liking him, too. I’ve long thought of him as a distant cousin, a kind of rich uncle I’d never met. When you like a singer, forever singing their songs means you do end up sort of related to them anyhow.

  Toussaint came later. When I married Philippe Toussaint. With a name like that—the day for visiting the cemetery—I should have been wary. But there are men called Summers who batter their wives. A charming name never stopped anyone from being a bastard.

  I never missed my mother. Except when I was feverish. When I was healthy, I shot up. I grew very straight, as if having no parents had inserted a stake along my spine. I stand straight. It’s a distinguishing feature of mine. I’ve never slouched. Not even on sad days. People often ask if I did ballet. I tell them I didn’t. That it’s daily life that disciplined me, made me do barre and pointe work every day.

  3.

  Let them take me or let them take my loved ones

  since all cemeteries one day end up as parks.

  In 1997, when our level-crossing was automated, my husband and I lost our jobs. We were in the newspaper. We were seen as the last collateral victims of progress, the employees who worked the last manual level-crossing in France. To illustrate the article, the journalist took a photograph of us. Philippe Toussaint even slipped an arm around my waist as he posed. I’m smiling, but God how sad my eyes look in that photo.

  The day the article appeared, Philippe Toussaint returned from the employment agency with a sense of dread: it had just dawned on him that he was going to have to do some work. He’d got used to me doing everything for him. When it came to laziness, I’d won the lottery with him. The correct numbers and the jackpot to boot.

  To cheer him up, I handed him a piece of paper: “Cemetery keeper, a job with a future.” He looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. In 1997, he looked at me as if I’d lost my mind every day. Does a man who no longer loves a woman look at her as if she’s lost her mind?

  I explained to him that I’d come across the ad by chance. That Brancion-en-Chalon’s council was looking for a couple of keepers to look after the cemetery. And that the dead had fixed schedules and would make less noise than the trains. That I’d spoken to the mayor and he was ready to hire us immediately.

&nb
sp; My husband didn’t believe me. He told me that chance wasn’t something he believed in. That he’d rather die than go “over there” and do the work of a vulture.

  He switched on the TV and played Mario 64. The aim of the game was to find all the stars in every world. As for me, there was just one star I wanted to find: the lucky one. That’s what I thought when I saw Mario running around to save Princess Peach, abducted by Bowser.

  So, I persevered. I told him that by becoming cemetery keepers, we’d each have a salary, and a much better one than at the level-crossing, and that the dead were more profitable than trains. That we’d have very nice on-site accommodation and no expenses. That it would make a nice change from the house we’d been living in for years, a place that let in water like an old boat in winter, and was as warm as the North Pole in summer. That it would be a new start, and we needed one, that we’d hang pretty curtains at the windows so we couldn’t see the neighbors, the crucifixes, the widows, and what have you. That those curtains would be the boundary between our life and others’ grief. I could have told him the truth, told him that those curtains would be the boundary between my grief and everyone else’s. But no way. Say nothing. Make believe. Pretend. So that he gives in.

  To convince him once and for all, I promised him he’d have NOTHING to do. That three gravediggers already took care of maintenance—of the graves and the upkeep of the cemetery. That this job was just a matter of opening and closing gates. Of being present. With working hours that aren’t demanding. With holidays and weekends as long as the Valserine viaduct. And that me, I’d do the rest. All the rest.

  Super Mario stopped running. The princess tumbled down.

  Before going to bed, Philippe Toussaint reread the ad: “Cemetery keeper, a job with a future.”

  Our level-crossing was at Malgrange-sur-Nancy. During that period of my life, I wasn’t really living. “During that period of my death” would be more accurate. I got up, got dressed, worked, did the shopping, slept. With a sleeping pill. Or two. Or more. And I looked at my husband looking at me as if I’d lost my mind.

  My working hours were horrendously demanding. I lowered and raised the barrier almost 15 times a day during the week. The first train went through at 4:50 A.M., and the last at 11:04 P.M. I had that automatic barrier bell ringing in my head. I heard it even before it went off. We should have been sharing that hellish routine, taking turns. But all Philippe Toussaint took turns at was his motorbike and the bodies of his mistresses.

  Oh, how the passengers I saw travelling by made me dream. And yet the trains were only small, local ones linking Nancy to Epinal, stopping a dozen times on every journey at godforsaken villages, as a favor to the natives. And yet I envied those men and women. I imagined they were going to appointments, appointments that I would’ve liked to have, just like the travelers I saw shooting past.

  * * *

  We set off for Burgundy three weeks after the article appeared in the paper. We went from grayness to greenness. From asphalt to pasture, from the smell of railroad tar to that of the countryside.

  We arrived at the Brancion-en-Chalon cemetery on August 15th, 1997. France was on holiday. All the locals had taken off. The birds that fly from grave to grave weren’t flying anymore. The cats that stretch out between the potted plants had disappeared. It was even too warm for the ants and lizards; all the marble was burning hot. The gravediggers had the day off, as did the newly deceased. I wandered alone around the paths, reading the names of people I would never know. And yet I immediately felt good there. Where I belonged.

  4.

  Being is eternal, existence a passage,

  eternal memory will be its message.

  When teenagers haven’t stuck chewing gum in the keyhole, I’m the one who opens and shuts the heavy gates of the cemetery.

  The hours vary according to the seasons.

  8 A.M. to 7 P.M. from March 1st to October 31st.

  9 A.M. to 5 P.M. from November 2nd to February 28th.

  The jury’s still out on February 29th.

  7 A.M. to 8 P.M. on November 1st.

  I took on my husband’s work after his departure—or, more accurately, his disappearance. Philippe Toussaint comes under the heading “disappearance of concern” in the police’s national file.

  I still have several men around me. The three gravediggers, Nono, Gaston, and Elvis. The three undertakers, the Lucchini brothers, named Pierre, Paul, and Jacques. And Father Cédric Duras. All these men stop at my place several times a day. They come for a drink or a snack. They also help me in the vegetable garden, if I have sacks of compost to carry or leaks to fix. I regard them as friends, not colleagues. Even if I’m not in, they can come into my kitchen, pour themselves a coffee, rinse their cup, and set off again.

  Gravediggers do a job that prompts repulsion, disgust. And yet those in my cemetery are the gentlest, most agreeable men I know.

  Nono is the person I trust the most. He’s an upstanding man who has joie de vivre in his blood. Everything amuses him and he never says no. Apart from when there’s a child’s burial to attend to. He leaves “that” to the others. “To those who can bear it,” as he says. Nono looks like the singer Georges Brassens, and it makes him laugh because I’m the only person in the world who tells him he looks like Georges Brassens.

  As for Gaston, he invented clumsiness. His movements are uncoordinated. He always seems drunk, despite only ever drinking water. During funerals, he positions himself between Nono and Elvis just in case he loses his balance. Beneath Gaston’s feet there’s a permanent earthquake. He drops, he falls, he knocks over, he crushes. When he comes into my place, I’m always afraid he’ll break something or injure himself. And since fear doesn’t avert danger, he invariably does break a glass or injure himself.

  Elvis is known as Elvis because of Elvis Presley. He can’t read or write, but he knows all his idol’s songs by heart. His pronunciation of the lyrics is terrible—you can’t tell whether he’s singing in English or French—but his heart is in it. “Love mi tendeur, love mi trou . . . ”

  There’s barely a year between each of the Lucchini brothers: thirty-eight, thirty-nine, and forty. They’ve been in undertaking for generations, from father to son. They’re also the fortunate owners of the Brancion morgue, which adjoins their funeral parlor. Nono told me that only a partition separates the parlor from the morgue. It’s Pierre, the eldest, who receives the grieving families. Paul is an embalmer. He works in the basement. And Jacques drives the hearses. The final journey, that’s him. Nono calls them “the apostles.”

  And then there’s our priest, Cédric Duras. God has taste, even if he’s not always just. Since Father Cédric’s arrival, many women around here seem to have been struck by a divine revelation. There are ever more female believers in the pews on Sunday morning.

  As for me, I never go to church. It would be like sleeping with a colleague. And yet, I think I’m more confided in by those who pass through than Father Cédric is in his confessional. It’s in my modest home and along my cemetery’s avenues that families let their words pour out. As they arrive, as they leave, sometimes both. A bit like the dead. With them, it’s the silences, the gravestone inscriptions, the visits, the flowers, the photographs, the way visitors behave beside their graves, that tell me about their former lives. About when they were living. Moving.

  My job consists of being discreet, liking human contact, not feeling compassion. For a woman like me, not feeling compassion would be like being an astronaut, a surgeon, a volcanologist, or a geneticist. Not part of my planet, or my skill set. But I never cry in front of a visitor. That can happen to me before or after a burial, never during. My cemetery is three centuries old. The first dead person it received was a woman. Diane de Vigneron (1756–1773), who died in childbirth at the age of seventeen. If you stroke the plaque on her tomb with your fingertips, you can still make out her name carved into the dove-colored ston
e. She hasn’t been exhumed, even though my cemetery is short of space. None of the successive mayors dared to make the decision to disturb the first to be interred. Particularly since there’s an old legend surrounding Diane. According to the inhabitants of Brancion, she’s supposed to have appeared in her “raiment of light” on several occasions, in front of shopwindows in the town center and in the cemetery. When I do the garage sales around here, I sometimes find Diane depicted as a ghost on antique engravings dating from the eighteenth century, or on postcards. A false, staged Diane, disguised as a common phantom.

  There are many legends surrounding tombs. The living frequently reinvent the lives of the dead.

  Brancion has a second legend, much younger than Diane de Vigneron. She’s called Reine Ducha (1961–1982), and she’s buried in my cemetery, avenue 15, in the Cedars section. A pretty young woman, dark-haired and smiling in the photo that hangs on her headstone. She was killed in a car accident at the edge of town. Some youngsters apparently saw her, dressed all in white, at the side of the road where the accident took place.

  The myth of the “white ladies” spread far and wide. These specters of women who died accidentally are supposed to haunt the world of the living, dragging their troubled souls through castles and cemeteries.

  And just to reinforce Reine’s legend, her tomb shifted. According to Nono and the Lucchini brothers, it was due to a landslide. That often happens when too much water accumulates in a vault.

  Over twenty years, I reckon I’ve seen plenty in my cemetery. On some nights, I’ve even caught shadows making love on or between tombs, but those weren’t ghosts.

  Legends aside, nothing is eternal, not even burial plots held in perpetuity. You can purchase a concession for fifteen years, thirty years, fifty years, or eternity. Except that with eternity, you have to beware: if, after a period of thirty years, a perpetual concession has ceased to be maintained (unkempt and dilapidated appearance), and no interment has taken place for a long while, the council can reclaim it. The remains are then placed in an ossuary at the back of the cemetery.