Amandine (15 page)
Authors: Marlena de Blasi
Tags: #Birthmothers, #Historical, #Historical - General, #Guardian and ward, #Poland, #Governesses, #Girls, #World War; 1939-1945 - France, #General, #Romance, #Convents, #Historical Fiction, #World War; 1939-1945, #Nobility - Poland, #Fiction, #Illegitimate Children, #Nobility, #Fiction - Historical
She is searching the depths of her midnight blue pouch, picking out coins, laying them one at a time on the counter in front of the newsagent and, in between, running the back of her hand across her tears. He begins to explain that one doesn’t buy only a magazine cover but quickly enters into Amandine’s mode of reasoning.
“Well, for just the cover, it will be forty sous. More than enough here.”
He hands back two of the coins to her. Pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, offers it to her, but she shakes her head. One more wipe with the back of her hand as she smiles her triumph smile at the newsagent.
“Will that be all?”
“Oh yes. All.”
“Here, I’ll just wrap that for you.”
He carefully rolls a half sheet of newspaper around the cover, tucks in the ends, all the while looking at Amandine. He hands it to her.
“Thank you, sir. She’s my mother.”
“For your mother. I see. Well, I hope she’ll—”
“No sir. It
is
my mother. The lady in the photo is my mother.”
Back in the dormitory, Amandine asks Sister Geneviève for two pins. She tells her the reason and, that evening after prayers, Geneviève comes to Amandine’s bed with a pincushion. Together they mount the Hedy Lamarr cover above Amandine’s bed. They stand back to admire their handiwork, and some of the nearby girls come to look at it, too.
“It’s my mother. Isn’t she beautiful?”
Two of the littler girls gasp in admiration, but one of the elder ones begins to laugh. Calls to her mates to come see the photo of Amandine’s “mother.” Soon all the girls clamor about the bed, pointing at the photo, arranging themselves in divalike poses, pouting their lips, googling their eyes, laughing and screaming at the good joke. Still laughing, one picks up Amandine under her arms, swings her about, shouts, “You don’t have a mother, and if you did she’d never look like that. She’d be short like an elf and have hair like a wild man—”
“And big, sad eyes—”
“And she’d walk like this—”
“And talk like this—”
In a circle now around her, they taunt. Over Geneviève’s warnings, her hands clapping, her feet stamping, they chant a long, sniggering song, each one taking a turn to sharply pat her on the back of her head, the nape of her neck until Amandine, barefoot in her white flannel nightdress, pushes through their line, leaps onto her bed, tears the photo from the wall, runs to the door, into the hall, down the stairs.
Out into the courtyard, down the loggia, her feet barely touching down on the frozen stone of the pavement, she holds the photo to her chest, her breath coming roughly, a strange pain piercing her arms and shoulders.
Anger must be worse than running is for my heart. Surely anger is worse. Better that I run away. I know it’s better that I run
. She slows only when she mounts the convent stairs to the sisters’ cells. To her rooms. To Solange.
“What? What are you doing? Get in here, bare feet, you’re all flushed and sweating—”
Solange takes Amandine in her arms, pulls a blanket from the bed, wraps it around Amandine, sits down then on the sofa before the fire and rocks her, kisses her forehead, her cheeks, rubs her icy feet until they’re pink again. “Sssssh. First stop crying and understand that you’re safe now. And when you’re ready, you can tell me everything. Here then, what’s this?”
She takes the magazine cover still clutched in Amandine’s left hand.
“It’s my mother. They don’t believe it’s my mother and they—”
“I understand. It’s okay.”
Solange places the cover on the table near the sofa, looks at Amandine. “Why do you think that she is your mother?”
“Because I went to the newsstand and I looked at all the magazines and I couldn’t find her in any of them, but then when I saw this photo, I began to cry. I didn’t cry when I saw any of the others. Only when I saw this one. So it must be her. It must be her, Solange.”
“I see.”
Solange holds Amandine to her once again, and both stay quiet.
“You don’t believe me either, do you?” Amandine says without raising her head from Solange’s breast. “You don’t believe that she’s my mother.”
“No. I don’t believe she is. And neither do you. Your inventions, I, I should have tried to stop them long ago, but I believed them
innocent
. I knew that
you
knew they were inventions. That you’d understood the difference between make-believe and, and what’s
real
. It’s perfectly fine to invent and imagine, but you must come back from those thoughts. You must come back, Amandine, come back from your daydreaming and your night dreaming. You must leave the door open—”
“Leave what door open? The door to where? I make believe because there is nothing real. Nothing real that I want.”
“Not to be with me?”
“Not in the way we used to be. That wasn’t real either. That was also make-believe.”
“That’s not true. The way we used to be was
real
. The way we are
right now is
real
. The way we’ll always be together is
real. I am so sorry that I am not her, but I am me
. I’m real, and I love you.”
As though she hasn’t heard Solange, Amandine says, “Will you please get me some writing paper? Pretty paper with flowers in the corners. Violets or roses. Violets. And envelopes, too.”
“Yes. Violets. Of course, I’ll get some tomorrow.”
“I have to go back now.”
“No you don’t. I’ll go to tell Paul what has happened, though I’m certain that Geneviève has told her already. Let’s get you into your bed now and …”
But Amandine is taking her raincoat from the armoire, slipping it on, rummaging through the shoe chest for her boots.
“I know the way back. I’m not afraid. Not of the dark or of them.”
She opens the door, and Solange does nothing to stop her. She walks out, closes the door. Opens it again.
“I love you, too.”
Cher Maman
,
You don’t know me. I mean we haven’t met. Actually we did meet, but it was when I was very little and I think you were very little, too. I just thought that you might be missing me, wanting to know about me. I didn’t want you to worry, and so I thought I would write to you to tell you that I’m fine. I’m well. My name is Amandine. I’m your daughter
.
I’m almost eight, and I have dark hair, curly and long and mostly all the time woven into plaits by Sister Geneviève. Solange used to make my plaits when I was little, but now that I live in the dormitory, Sister Geneviève does. Solange is like a big sister and an aunt and a teacher, but mostly she is my best friend. After you and Jesus, I love Solange best. And Philippe, too. I shall tell you of Philippe when I see you. His grandmother had blue hair
.
I can never quite tell the color of my eyes, which seems to change. It’s something like gray but very dark and almost
blue, like the sky looks at night. But not exactly. Solange says they’re the color of the inside of an iris, the color deep inside. But not exactly that, either. I’m not big and I’m not small for eight. Well, maybe I am a bit small
.
I can read with the sixth elementary students and know my multiplication tables, and I love to write stories and read about princesses and saints but mostly about princesses. I love to listen to Solange when she tells me stories. She says they’re the same stories that her mother told her. She has a mother, too. And a father and a grandmother and sisters. I think she has eighteen cousins. Do you have cousins? I mean, if you have cousins, then they are my cousins, too. Would you tell me someday about my cousins? I imagine that their names are Susie and Jeannette and Christine and Diane. I don’t know too many boys’ names, so I only think about girl cousins. Do I have a grandmother? I hope she’s well, not growing too old before I can get to her to tell her how much I love her. Tell her please that I say prayers for her and that I will come to help her when she’s old. Tell her not to worry because as soon as I find her, I won’t ever leave her again. Actually, I don’t know why I went away. I can’t remember. Can you remember, Maman?
Maman, what’s your name? In my mind, I sometimes call you Sophie, though I don’t know why. Sophie. Sophie. I whisper it. It sounds like a whisper, don’t you think? I feel sad that I don’t know your name, but it must be a beautiful name, and you must be beautiful, too. I know you are and I know that you’re good and sweet and I think you love flowers and the wind when the sun shines, yes, a cold wind under a hot sun is the best, especially a wind that makes you lose your breath and you have to walk backward with your arms outstretched and just let it carry you wherever it will. I always think that if I like something, you must like it, too. When I like something very much, I want you to see it or hear it or touch it. I want to know if it pleases you. Do you like
raspberries? I’ve only tasted raspberries a few times, but I think there must be nothing better. Not even peas with lettuce, which I also like. And red is my favorite color. Do you wear your hair in plaits? Do you look like Hedy Lamarr? That’s how you look in my dreams, exactly like Hedy Lamarr, only your name is Sophie. Do you think that I will look like you when I’m big? Will I look like Hedy Lamarr, too? I don’t look much like her now, but I wonder
.
Jean-Baptiste is the doctor who takes care of us. He says I’m strong as an ox, but even so he comes to check my heart on the first Friday of the month, places a cold metal cup on my chest and looks into my eyes while he listens through tubes in his ears that are attached to the metal cup. He always smiles then and shakes his head and tells me I’m a walking miracle, though I don’t really know why. And then he reaches into his big leather bag and pulls out a bar of
chocolat,
says it’s all the medicine I need. He always reminds me, though, not to run too fast, to climb the stairs slowly, to tell Mater Paul or Solange if I have a sore throat. But I never do. I mean I never, almost never have a sore throat. Do you get sore throats, Maman?
I can’t remember all the things I wanted to tell you, and so I’ll write to you again tomorrow. But I did want you to know that Sister Suzette is teaching me to play the piano. Actually, she has been giving me lessons since I was three, but now I can reach the pedals much better and I’m playing “Für Elise” all the way through without any errors. But something is troubling me. Since I don’t know your name and I don’t know where you live, I don’t know how to get my letter to you. I think I’ll leave my letter in the chapel, under the vase in front of Our Lady. She’ll know what to do. She’s a mother, too. I’m sure she’ll get the letter to you. Really what I wanted to do is to tell you not to worry. I’m not lost, and I hope that you’re not lost, either. I’m right here waiting for you
.
Your
Amandine
Filling page after page of the notepaper with the violets in her achingly precise convent girl’s calligraphy, Amandine sits cross-legged on a stone bench in the loggia during recreation, her schoolmates’ jubilance unnoticed. She folds the thick packet of pages and urges them somewhat distortedly into an envelope. She licks the seal, presses down hard on it with both palms, tries to straighten the lopsided results by sitting on the envelope for a bit. The address is uncomplicated:
Pour Maman
. Having asked permission of Sister Geneviève to say a prayer in the chapel, she goes directly there.
Amandine has never before been alone in the chapel, has never thought it so grand as it seems now, painted in the thin yellow light of a February afternoon. She genuflects, blesses herself with water from the stoup, walks slowly, assuredly to the statue of
la Vierge
. She curtsies, smiles up at her.
“Bonjour, Notre Dame.”
Quickly she tries to slide the letter under the feet of the Virgin but finds it much too thick. Running her hand along the rough pedestal, she wonders if it might be just as good to leave it
beside
the Virgin’s feet. No, it must be hidden. She steps up then upon the base of the pedestal, cantilevers her knees on either side of it, reaches up and takes hold of the Virgin by her stone-draped calves, tries to tip the statue backward, all the while, the letter held between her teeth. Won’t budge. Stepping down, she stumbles, hits her chin on the tessellated marbles of the floor. The letter has suffered more than she, ornamented now as it is with tiny teeth marks and drips of saliva. She stands up straight, steps back a bit from the statue.
“Notre Dame
, will you please see that my mother gets this letter? I would be so grateful to you. I’ll just put it right there behind you so no one will see it. Please don’t forget. She’s been waiting for ages to hear from me. Probably a lot like it was for you when Jesus went wandering. I must go now. I’ll come to say hello at vespers.”
She curtsies, walks to the back of the statue, reaches up, places the letter. Gives a small caress to the back of
la Vierge’s
legs. Walks down the aisle and out into the loggia.
Each day she finds some excuse to enter the chapel, to walk to the statue, to check upon the status of her letter. It’s always just where she left it. On the fourth day, when Sister Jacqueline is dusting the chapel,
she finds the letter, thinks it can be no one’s work but Amandine’s, places it in her apron pocket to give to Solange.
