Sisters - Brigitte Lozerec'h French Literature

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though not too high above, the slow, twisting riverbed of the Seine downstream from Poissy. It was set on the nearly flat portion of the meander, on the bank facing the limestone hill where the river came up against it to flow back in a curve. The meadow gently curved inward to the embankment below the terrace. We each had our own room and we’d always find the same atmosphere of reassuring habits there when we returned, which dated back to when Grandmother was herself a child. For decade upon decade the house filled, spring and fall, with every sort of preserves; as soon as the weather was nice the linens were spread out on the meadow on the other side of the hedge, while herds of cows used to be led, morning and the evening, by their herder down the sunken lane behind the outbuildings to be milked in the stable. All this permanence gave me a sense that existence was coherent after all, and that I had a real connection to it.

      When we were there, I spent my time drawing and painting. Soon now I’d be joined by my little sister, since that’s what she’d said she wanted. Our departure was planned for mid-June.

      Nonetheless, I found that being surrounded by the people I loved was wonderfully exhilarating.

      We all arrived, mother, grandmother, lady’s companion, and children, just as the cherries and strawberries came in season. Eugénie and I picked basketfuls of them to make into preserves; one of us would perch on a ladder and reach for all the mouthwatering “earrings,” while the other crouched down, lifting the leaves in order to get at the berries. Deducting our tithe, we sampled the red fruit until we felt sick, bursting with laughter and joy as if we were the same age. We picked, while the cook, meanwhile, brought great copper basins of the fruit to a boil, then filled the scalded jars lined up on a clean dishtowel with the steaming, unctuous puree. All summer long the house was filled with the fragrance of strawberries, cherries, raspberries, apricots, plums, and blackberries, and finally apples . . .

      I’d never expected we’d be so lighthearted and gay.

      As the days went by, Grandmother’s friends and cousins came from Orgeval or Bazemont to pay neighborly visits. Then it was our grandmother’s turn to ask that the carriage be hitched so we could go as a family to return the compliment. Sainte-Colombe rejuvenated her and she ruled supreme, even more than in Paris.

      Given the profusion of blooms, I started an album of pressed flowers to carry the colors of the meadows and garden back with me to my room in Paris. Eugénie too began to dry leaves and flowers in the large books in Grandmother’s library. Seeing Eugénie take pleasure in creating her own collection made my pleasure all the greater. She was finally taking pains to achieve something concrete. As I became deeply absorbed in contemplating each flower, I enjoyed again a sense of wonder very like the feeling I’d had long ago examining the illuminations. Ten years later I still have my albums with their notes on a shelf in the studio, but the colors have faded with time. All I have to do is to reinvent them in my paintings. As if I were dipping my brushes in skies, gardens, flowerbeds, and distant landscapes, their colors softened by an invisible mist, the seasons returning all at once.

      Eugénie was part of everything I did that summer, and it plunged me back into my oldest habits of always sharing things with an accomplice: first my brother and then with blonde Alice, with whom I’d long corresponded. From birth I’ve only been whole when there were two of us.

      Until William came at the end of July we moved around inside our exclusively feminine world, the only representative of the stronger sex being little François, if you didn’t count the caretaker, who was also the gardener, the driver, and the cook’s husband.

      When we were around the infant, under the watchful eyes of our mother and grandmother, my sister and I were very careful to keep things quiet. Throughout his first months I felt once again the fascination I’d had for Eugénie, and was surprised to see that, unlike my little sister, who had a completely round head barely covered with reddish down, and a chubby-cheeked face pale as bisque porcelain, this baby had a skull shaped like an egg set on an angle, and his features were almost triangular, like Grandmother’s. The arch of his eyebrows was clearly marked and there was something indefinable about his cheekbones and his dark eyes that was enough to indicate that, even sound asleep, this baby was no little girl. I didn’t understand why, but visitors always commented on this. His tanned skin next to the white sheets made one think he’d been exposed to the sun ever since he was born. What did he have in common with those of us whose skin was light?

      When his carriage was put in the shade of the big linden tree, he’d suddenly launch into happy, high-pitched babbling; maybe it was the movement of the mosquito netting or how a branch waved in the breeze that set it off—or maybe just seeing his hands flying above him like birds was enough, not knowing they belonged to him. My sister and I would come running as soon as he was awake and our interpretations of how he used his mouth, his little noises as he stretched his tiny hands out to us, sent us into gales of laughter. I watched how his face changed from one day to the next, and listened with delight to the little crablike chirps that came out of his mouth along with the clear dribble drawn out by his fist, which he liked to chew on. His almond-shaped eyes stared at us so intensely that the mysteries deep down in their fathomless depths, of life and death and who knows what else, made me dizzy. In a fraction of a second his gaze could change from solemnity to amusement. You’d have thought he was trying to begin some intelligent conversation with us, so it always seemed surprising to me that he still couldn’t talk. Sometimes his face would briefly resemble that of a toothless old man. I kept having thoughts like this, ones I’d never had when I looked in Eugénie’s cradle. I even thought I might have caught a glimpse of God in the depths of his pupils. But then it occurred to me that Bluebeard, Attila, and Jack the Ripper had all been babies too, in the arms of a mother or a nurse, and they had made the same little enchanted sounds to welcome the life that they were just beginning to experience. It came to me that such a sweet, vulnerable being could become either the best or the worst, and I felt a sort of animal fear rising inside, fear of this infant, this stranger. To get rid of this feeling I lifted my eyes to look at the landscape with all its copses, its wheat fields and prairies dotted with poppies and cornflowers, the peaceful villages on the hill across the river. I calmed down right away, left only with surprise that I’d ever had any such thoughts. But I could never completely erase them. Like the memory of some mortal shock.

      I’d never dared dream of having our mother and her two little ones all to myself, so I took full advantage. I considered Grandmother a person to be obeyed, but not one with whom I could share things; she was in charge of running the household, that’s all. Our getting along so well brought an air of celebration to our lives. We probably had M. Versoix to thank for our happiness, because he must have gone, as he often did, to his preserve in Divonne-les-Bains. For two generations now, the family lands and forests, looking down on the spa resort that was becoming increasingly developed, had been growing more and more valuable. He used to go there regularly, but of course I had no idea what he did or how much the two branches of the Versoix family were involved with the expanding town and the company that ran the spa. Really, the only benefit of it that I could see, that I could enjoy, was that this second husband had given my mother back the lifestyle to which she had been accustomed—her panache and her happiness, as I’ve mentioned. After the exhibit at Willon I’d started calling him “Godfather,” as Eugénie did, and in return, his attitude toward me had softened somewhat—his smile, anyway: the way he looked at me.

      Our mother often rested in the shade on a chaise longue with baby François beside her and a book in her hand. Then I’d take out my drawing box, my pencils and pad, and Eugénie did the same. But I didn’t sketch my mother—I devoured her with the point of my pencil, whole or in bits and pieces: the curve of her neck with the little strands of hair escaping from her hat, the way her stole draped over her shoulder, her ringed fingers preparing to turn the page of a book, doing minutely detailed openwork on a piece of delicate lawn; or even, when there were visitors to serve as bridge partners, plucking a card from her hand, which was fanned out before her, organized by suits. She’d glance at me from time to time, laughter in her face, as if to say, “I know what you’re doing. I have eyes in the back of my head!” I could tell she was flattered. I wanted to see

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