A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries (33 page)

“I didn’t think it was possible, you know.” I stared right back at her. “Because nothing happened between us. Nothing like they said it was going to be.”

Aunt Susanne snorted. “And what did they say it was going to be like?”

“Different than that. I’m telling you nothing happened.”

“Well obviously
some
thing happened.”

She waited, I didn’t say anything, so she let it drop. Thank God they are not a talkative bunch in my family when it comes to these things.

Wednesday 14 July.

Bastille Day and I’m alone. Right now, let’s see—Pierre-Antoine and Phillippe are doing Germany by Eurail. Mother and Aunt Susanne are at the Comtesse de Merde’s château for a fête and Grandmother is in St. Tropez with the rest of the grandchildren. The fireworks will start soon and they’ll watch from the balcony of the villa that sits up on a hill over the bay and then maybe they’ll have a glass of champagne. Maybe they’ll drink to me, poor Véronique who’s sitting in a sanatorium by the sea with a thyroid problem that has ruined her whole body to say nothing of her life.

Thursday 15 July.

The strangest thing happened yesterday. While I was drawing in my sketchbook and listening to the drunk people out in the street the concierge’s son came up and knocked on the door.

At first I was scared, I couldn’t imagine who it could be. I opened the door a crack and looked out.

He was standing out in the hall shuffling his feet and looking guilty. There was a plate covered with wax paper in his hand and it was almost as if he couldn’t decide whether to give it to me or not, though that was why, I guess, he was here to begin with.

“I thought—since it’s the Fourteenth—well, my mother made this cake and there’s a lot left, so I thought—”

“Thank you,” I said and took the plate. I thought about closing the door on him but for some reason I stepped away and told him to come in. He looked over his shoulder for a second and then came in, dragging his feet like a kid who’s just been sent to the corner of the classroom with the idiot hat.

“Do you want something to drink? There’s juice and some Williamine my aunt left.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” he said. I can’t stand up too long without getting an ache in my lower back and in my ankles so I sat down on the bed with cushions behind me and told him to sit down on the couch.

The sky was beginning to darken and the shapes in the room were fading into the shadows. I like this time of day.

“Should I turn on the lights?” he asked me.

“No.”

“Can you go out? There are fireworks down at the beach in a little while.”

“Of course not,” I said as though he was the stupidest person in the world. “If I could go out why the hell would I be here instead of in Paris with all my friends and my family?”

“How stupid of me. I’m sorry.”

“Well don’t be sorry.”

I hate myself sometimes. Here I am being nasty to him. Why? Because I need someone to be nasty to and there’s no one else around.

“Well. My name’s Benoit.”

“Véronique.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Not under these circumstances,” I said.

He waited awhile, looking around guiltily as though he felt he really shouldn’t be prying. I didn’t say anything, just watched him with a cold expression.

“I’m sorry you have to be alone so much.”

“I don’t need you to feel sorry for me, I can do that myself.”

He got up. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“It’s all right.”

“Well, goodbye, then.”

“Listen, I’m not going anywhere. If you have time, stop by again.”

“I will.”

“Good.”

“Well then. I guess I’ll go down to the beach.”

It’s funny how you can write down exactly what two people say to each other and it doesn’t sound at all like the same thing.

Friday 16 July.

I suppose I should say something about Pierre-Antoine. I mean, if I die they should know what happened. Or didn’t happen.

He’s Aunt Susanne’s first husband’s nephew so what does that make him to me? My cousin but not by blood. A good thing that it’s not by blood, Mother said, because then you could have genetic defects. I would never have gotten to know him beyond the regular family fêtes if he hadn’t been my brother’s best friend for the past hundred years.

In the family they say Phillippe and Pierre-Antoine’s behavior is normal for boys their age and always has been. I don’t think so. It’s a mutual admiration society from which everyone else is completely excluded except me because I’m no threat, I’m a mascot. I love to watch the older girls try to get in.

When I was ten and they were fourteen they talked in front of me about how they were already
screwing
girls and what they did to them. That’s normal too, I guess. But I think they were lying. I think the truth is they’re terrified of girls.

Sometimes Pierre-Antoine said that one day he would show me everything so that I would be ready for later on. I couldn’t wait.

I learned everything I know from Pierre-Antoine and that isn’t much. He’d smile so sweetly and be so warm and tender I was completely taken. The sweetest moments of my adolescence are when he is being nice and paying attention to me.

He taught me how to kiss someone passionately with my mouth open and how to allow someone to touch my breasts and so on. That was before I had breasts. Not that they ever got very big. Except for now where they’re so swollen I feel like someone tortured me by filling them up with a tire pump.

One time as a joke my brother called me “you little slut” and I threw a coffee mug at him and broke his nose.

Sunday 18 July.

I think Pierre-Antoine and Phillippe adore each other because they’re like mirror reflections of one another. Oh aren’t I beautiful, mirror mirror on the wall! Phillippe is dark and Pierre-Antoine is fair. They both have thin, straight noses and cold blue eyes. I wonder if they ever kiss or touch each other down there and tell each other “I love you.”

When I can’t sleep I think about all the ways things could have turned out differently, how I should’ve done this and shouldn’t have done that. Now Phillippe’s nose has a sort of purplish bump on one side which makes Pierre-Antoine the better looking of the two and that drives my brother crazy. Phillippe keeps his head turned to the side while he’s talking to people so that they can’t see the bump. I’m sorry I broke his nose because it means so much to him. If it didn’t make him look queer I bet he’d ask Mother if he could have plastic surgery.

Mother stayed last night and I don’t like to write in front of her or Susanne because maybe they’ll get curious and want to know what I think.

The piano arrived yesterday afternoon. It’s a little white Yamaha from Japan.

Tuesday 20 July.

Benoit came up yesterday after work. He must work in a pastry shop because he smells like dough. He wanted me to play for him. He says he loves classical music more than anything. So I played him “Für Elise” and then the “Moonlight Sonata” and he almost fainted he was so thrilled. Then he ran back downstairs and got his record player. It’s an antique, I swear. It’s a square black thing with speakers built into the sides and a handle so you can carry it. We listened to the
Four Seasons
and I told him that the summer sounds like winter to me and the winter sounds like summer. He said not at all, the summer is hot and violent and the winter is snowy and quiet.

“
This
summer is certainly hot and violent,” I told him, and snorted angrily.

That made him nervous so we sat in silence awhile and then he asked me to play the “Moonlight Sonata” again, which I did.

“God you’re good,” he said.

“No. Madame Agathe says I’m too lazy to ever be really good.”

It was two in the morning when he left. I fell asleep and woke up this morning and wrote this down. My thought for today is this: I like him and I don’t care if he’s the concierge’s son.

Thursday 22 July.

He does work in a pastry shop. He told me so. He’s been up here every night after work. We listen to records and talk about life. He wants to know what I’m going to do after this.

I say I don’t know, go back to school, I guess. He says one of the books Mother brought is one of his all-time favorites,
Germinal
, by Zola. He says I should read it so I’m reading it. It’s about miners before there were unions of any kind. It’s horrible. Everybody has babies and they’re even younger than me.

Friday 23 July.

Benoit came by after work and I played him the “Moonlight Sonata” for the twentieth time since I got the piano. I’m teaching him scales. Do re mi fa sol la ti do backwards and forwards. He’s got good hands for the piano, long and supple, but strong, an unusual combination. He gets nervous when I touch his hands, jumps back like I burned him or something. I guess he’s not used to being touched. I told him Mother and Aunt Susanne are arriving tomorrow and he won’t be allowed to come up till they leave. He says he understands.

Sunday 25 July.

The first thing Mother and Aunt Susanne said when they arrived was “Whose record player is that?” as though someone had broken in.

I told them the concierge’s son lent it to me. They said why didn’t I ask them to bring a good one from Paris?

I said I hadn’t thought about it and I liked the way the records sound scratchy on this one. They looked at me as if I was crazy.

“Listen,” Aunt Susanne said, “don’t get too friendly with that boy. You never know. The things you tell him he could use against us later on.”

“What do you mean?”

“Blackmail,” she said.

“You’re totally ridiculous, Aunt Susanne.”

That is the first time I’ve ever said anything like that to them. We were having lunch and they sat there staring at me. I felt like saying a lot more but didn’t.

I like it so much better when they’re not here. They try to cheer me up by saying that in the fall everything will be back to normal. I’ll go back to school and see all my girlfriends and everything will be fine. Mother says she’s bought me some fabulous clothes but she’s keeping them as a surprise for when I get home. She says won’t my girlfriends be jealous! My girlfriends seem about as far away as the moon.

The only thing that seems real to me is Benoit and
Germinal
. And when it kicks. My God! I swear I saw a fist go by, just like that, under my skin that’s stretched tight like a drum. A fist! Today I’m thinking that I thought I would hate it till the end but I don’t hate it anymore. I’m afraid I’ll begin to love it and I won’t be able to stand what they’re going to do. I’m sick of thinking so much.

Monday 26 July.

Benoit said tonight that he hates priests and organized religion. That was after I told him I went to an all-girls’ lycée and that our teachers were nuns and priests. He says that Germinal made him interested in socialism so he started to read Marx and then Lenin, even. God he’s so smart. I can’t believe how smart he is considering he’s the son of the concierge. He says he still hates organized religion but he isn’t too big on socialism anymore. He says it’s because socialism forces
ethics
and
principles
on you the same way religion does. Or something like that. And no mind should be forced to think by a formula.

“My mother’s never read a book in her life but she always tells me to read everything so I can get different opinions, broaden my horizons. You know, she didn’t have all the opportunities I’m going to have.”

“What does your father do?”

“My father?” He stared at the floor and the tips of his ears turned red. “I have no idea. I’ve never met him.”

Now isn’t that something? I guess that throws my philosophy concerning boys who grow up without their fathers.

Wednesday 28 July.

Benoit asked me today, “Who did that to you?” nodding toward my belly. Who did that to you, he said, like I had nothing to do with it.

Well, neither of us did, really.

“An old friend,” I told. “My cousin by marriage.”

“Does he know?”

I shook my head. “No one knows. No one but you, your mother, my mother, and my aunt.”

He didn’t say anything.

“You’re wondering why a girl like me with every opportunity in the world didn’t go to England, right? Because I didn’t think it was possible. You know, you study biology and your older brother tells you things. I didn’t think it could happen because, excuse me for being vulgar, but I didn’t even have sex with the guy.”

“But that’s impossible.”

“That’s exactly what
I
thought. You think I’m lying to you.”

We looked at each other for a while. “No,” he said.

A miracle. He’s the first person who’s believed me. He’s also the first one who doesn’t blame Pierre-Antoine and think he’s the Devil incarnate.

Friday 30 July.

I told him the whole story. Funny, because I’ve never told it before. No one wanted to know. It’s a dirty story. You don’t talk about things like that. It didn’t seem dirty when I told Benoit. It only seemed sad and stupid. That’s what it is, sad and stupid. And that’s my thought for today.

Sunday 1 August.

Aunt Susanne brought me mail yesterday. There was a postcard from my brother and a letter from my best friend Anne.

The letter from Anne seemed so stupid to me I could cry. She sent me a sample of her new artwork. A whole bunch of pastel-colored whirls that cover a whole sheet of drawing paper. They remind me of wall decorations in a little girl’s bedroom. Clouds and butterflies and sweet thoughts to sleep by. I am so angry I could vomit like a volcano. Anne’s letter says she hopes I’ll be better soon and that she met a guy on the beach in Biarritz and he keeps trying to kiss her and she keeps pushing him away. She doesn’t think it’s right to kiss someone before you’re engaged. She says that Isabelle wrote her from Provence that Martine has been saying mean things about Anne and me. That we smoked cigarettes behind the school and cheated on the Latin exam.

I couldn’t give a shit, I swear to God, about any of their nonsense.

Phillippe writes that he’s sorry to hear I’m sick. He says he hopes I get well fast. He says it’s too bad about the cruise. He says Pierre-Antoine says hello. Write in care of the French Consulate in Berlin, he says.