Page 46 of The Strawberry Thief
During that time, I heard no sound from Mimi in the bedroom. Several times, I tried to climb up to my father’s window, but the nearest tree was too far away for me to climb in, even if Mimi had known how to open the window. As it was, I thought I saw her, just once, from a distance, her face a motionless white blur, looking out from the darkened room like a plaster death mask. I tried to attract her attention by waving to her and calling, but Mimi never moved at all, until finally I started to doubt that I had even seen her.
On the morning of the fourth day, Tante Anna opened the door, wearing a lace-edged apron over her grey cambric dress, with her black cross, as always, on a ribbon around her throat. I watched hopefully for a sign that Mimi and I were forgiven, and this time, as if in answer, she smiled and gestured at me to approach.
‘How about some breakfast?’ she said. ‘Croissants, and butter, and strawberry jam, and maybe a bowl of café-au-lait?’
I nodded, too astonished to speak, half expecting her to laugh, and close the door in my face again. But Tante Anna simply smiled again, a smile as rare as it was unsettling.
‘Come in then, Narcisse. Hurry up, before your coffee gets cold.’
I followed her inside, wondering vaguely why she hadn’t told me to go and wash my hands. Even I could see that they were in dire need of washing: a combination of strawberry juice and dust and general neglect had stained them a corpse-like purple. But Tante Anna did not remark that I looked like a dirty savage, or comment when I crammed my croissant almost whole into my mouth, and suddenly I began to feel as if something bad was happening. Tante Anna never smiled, unless she was entertaining her friends. She never offered me café-au-lait, or made croissants for breakfast. And she never passed by an opportunity to criticize my deportment, or to deplore my grubby hands, or to notice my dirty clothes. For a moment my heart gave a lurch – could our father be coming home? – then I saw that Mimi’s place had not been set, and the piece of croissant stuck in my throat as if it had been turned to stone.
‘Where’s Mimi, Tante Anna?’
Tante Anna gave that smile again, and I realized that there was nothing kind or natural about it. It was simply a meaningless flexing, just as the light in her eyes had nothing to do with whatever thoughts lay within. She might have been a life-sized doll, or a plaster statuette – and with that thought came a sudden blaze of fear and understanding.
I pushed away my coffee-bowl, spilling the dregs on the tablecloth, and stood up so violently that my chair fell backwards onto the terracotta tiles.
‘Where’s Mimi?’ I said again. ‘Why isn’t she here for breakfast, too?’
For a moment Tante Anna’s lips tightened, and I almost hoped she would slap me, or call me ungrateful, ill-mannered, rude – anything but this tolerance that filled me with apprehension. Then she sighed, the kind of sigh that she reserved for her church friends as they discussed a neighbour’s death, or the rising price of fish, or the scandal of a child born crippled or out of wedlock.
‘Your sister was never well,’ she said, and at those words a part of my mind started to rise like a balloon and drift, untethered, into a sky that was suddenly filled with shrapnel. Below me, far below, came the voice of Tante Anna, saying: ‘She had those seizures all the time. Your father knew that. So did you.’
I tried to speak, but all I could hear was a rushing of air in my ears, and the sound of the big bass drum that was my heart counting out the seconds. Baddam. Baddam. Baddam. Baddam.
Tante Anna was too far away for me to see the look in her eyes. But I could imagine it: that look of pretend sympathy, of righteous satisfaction. I said; ‘No,’ but from a great height, looking down on the scene below. I knew she was telling me Mimi was dead. But the thought just wouldn’t stay in place. It rose and rose like a hot-air balloon, leaving everything behind. Baddam. Baddam. Baddam.
‘Liar,’ I said, in a voice that seemed to come from a thousand miles away. ‘You hated Mimi. You hated her.’
‘I did not,’ said Tante Anna. ‘And I pray that God forgives you for your intemperate language. Naomi was a very sick child. God took her, in His mercy.’
Reynaud, I was only ten years old. I had no way to process my grief. And besides, it all felt so unreal; the rising hot-air balloon of my thoughts, my aunt standing like a monolith, many miles below me.
‘I want to see Mimi,’ I said at last, in a voice that was shaking.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ said Tante Anna.
I ignored her. ‘I want to see Mimi,’ I said, and then she caught hold of me, her thumbs pressing into my upper arms, and I saw the flat light in her eyes and knew that there was something beyond the horror of Mimi’s death – something as-yet undiscovered.
‘Where is she?’ I said.
‘In the cellar.’ Tante Anna’s eyes were like silver coins. ‘It’s cooler there than in the house.’
I tried to think of little Mimi, like meat on a slab, in the cellar. My eyes began to sting, but with rage, the kind of helpless, hopeless rage that only a child can really know.
‘How long has she been there?’ I said, and now my voice was closer, as if the balloon had started to drift slowly downwards. ‘How long has she been there, Tante, and why didn’t you send for the priest?’
Tanta Anna shrugged. ‘It’s cooler down there,’ she repeated, as if that were an answer. ‘Now why don’t you finish your breakfast?’ she said, as if Mimi’s death were nothing more than an interruption to our meal. ‘You can try some of my strawberry jam. And then we’ll walk up to the church and see Père Grégoire together.’
Once more I felt that helium-rush of unreality. How could she talk about strawberry jam? How could she talk about breakfast? Mimi was dead. She would never again play in the shallows of the Tannes. Never again give her brilliant smile, and her laugh like splashing water. Never learn to say my name, or any other word but ‘boat’—
Tante Anna gave an exasperated sigh. ‘For heaven’s sake, finish your coffee, Narcisse, and stop making such a drama of this. You always knew Naomi wasn’t a normal child. She had a lot of problems. She wasn’t really meant to survive. It was a mercy things happened this way. When you’re older, you’ll understand.’
I heard the words, and yet my mind didn’t seem to connect with them. Mimi would never grow older. Mimi would never understand. I looked at the breakfast-table: the jug of milk; the dish of fresh croissants; the big jar of jam with the long-handled spoon on the waxed linen tablecloth. I watched as Tante Anna took her place, her mouth as tight as a widow’s purse, and then, instead of sitting down, I turned and ran for the cellar door.
‘Narcisse!’ Tante Anna’s voice was sharp. But I was young, and she was slow, and I reached the stairs before her. There was a strip of opaque glass near the ceiling, bathing the room in cool blue light, and I could see a hock of smoked pork, and a couple of pheasants, not quite ripe, hanging from hooks in the ceiling. All along the walls, there were shelves of preserves in every colour imaginable; jams, jellies, pâtés, terrines, jellied meats and vegetables; pickled cabbage and salsify; brandied cherries and peaches and pears. And there, in the centre of the room, laid out on the granite countertop where Tante Anna used to prepare the meat, there was Mimi, in her nightdress, looking very small and grey, as if she had died some days before.
Behind me, the aunt descended the stairs, clattering and scolding. But I paid no attention to her. All my attention was on Mimi; the purple marks around her wrists, the dust on the soles of her bare feet—
