Title: Tears Before Bedtime

Author: NADINE RIBAULT

In: Sport 31: Spring 2003

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, November 2003

Part of: Sport

Keywords: Prose Literature

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Sport 31: Spring 2003

NADINE RIBAULT — Tears Before Bedtime

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NADINE RIBAULT

Tears Before Bedtime

They were up in the trees but not moving any more. Occasionally a branch swayed and the sky appeared between the leaves which moved a few centimetres apart, forming minuscule geometric figures in the spaces—hexagonal, triangular, square, circular or octagonal—as if a clever seamstress had taken her scissors and cut up the sky then tacked little pieces of thick muslin onto a length of blue linen, speckling it with candle wax so it wouldn't fray, and these minuscule white or yellow shapes danced, danced before their exasperated gaze, stood still, danced, stood still, danced, a wave of innumerable coloured lights which dazzled them completely—a real fireworks display—and made their hearts ache.

Everything suddenly blurred, became diaphanous and enormously vague, then, at last, the leaves closed together again, the branches stopped moving, the air stilled, things found their shape again, and the shadows returned.

The females were still watching the males because for just a moment the light had brought out startling iridescent reflections on their plumage, like violet-eyed peacock feathers, the colour of iodine vapour or bouquets of irises.

They had paired up on the highest branches of the oak trees and now and again they fluffed out their downy feathers to twice their normal size. Their gaze, sweeping down, picked up the image of pines studded with prickles or of a long table over which a white tablecloth had been thrown, like a bridal veil draped over the wooden surface, a sure sign announcing great festivities.

They were silent.

They had already sung a great deal since the dawn and they would doubtless sing a great deal more after this brief respite soon to end, because, very quickly, the table cloth had been covered with plates, with knives, forks and glasses, the table had been surrounded by chairs page 201 and the chairs filled with people, and because the air would soon be bringing them something other than simple, inoffensive signs: wilder waves and colder silences.

And that is what happened, suddenly, when there rose towards them—a harsh, sharp sound—a cry …

‘Oh!’

Above the garden, perched on the branches, in the shade of the oak trees, higher than the pines which edged the terrace, they didn't burst into song again, they waited, heads cocked to one side, and watched down below that speck of sand shivering in the wind—a jellyfish, a sea urchin, a starfish?—a woman laughing so hard she was almost choking …

‘… I feel sick … so sick …’

… sitting at the long white table, wearing a lemon-yellow sleeveless dress, its neckline sweeping low to reveal her blue-veined skin.

They took fright: had the sun perhaps fallen to earth, was that not the sun, there, on the verge of dying, sitting at the table, on the marble-paved terrace, after eating and drinking too much … then because the warmth of her rays was not as steady, because her eyes were as blue as the sea, because her pulse resounded in their ears and it did indeed seem to them that she was upside down, sitting there below them like that, the seeds of doubt were sown. But in that doubt which spoiled the harmony of the bright beginning of a summer afternoon, which saw the men rolling up their shirt sleeves and the women bringing out two or three fans, so delicate they were like wisps of fog, in that doubt which descended from the tall trees to rise up in the hearts of all the people gathered around the table—the guests—who had been invited to spend a day in the countryside, in that doubt a shadow had entwined itself, in the heat of the moment, amongst all the plates covering the table, still showing traces of the remains of the meal, surrounded by breadcrumbs—while they all waited, hanging on her expression, waited for her to catch her breath again in the centre of all the white skin of her lovely, happy face, there was a pebble, sliding in her throat, slipping down with a gurgle as if over a riverbed, past the rocks, the shingle, the rushes, along the sandbanks—and the birds, up above, had been eyeing all the breadcrumbs for a long time, the last traces of a noisy meal …

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‘Yes I do, I'm absolutely convinced of it, you know! It would be better to have the Left in power again.’

‘Oh, how can you say such a thing! What about business? And major public works? You saw where all the money went, didn't you? And all those strikes, too … And all the malcontents, all those penniless people who were promised the earth. You really don't know what you're talking about.’

… oh! for the birds, those breadcrumbs were just so many intoxicating temptations in the midst of all that talking, a sight which, much more certainly, enthralled them, disturbed them, distracted them from previous questions, to the point of riveting their gaze on the whiteness of the table cloth, and the soul of their desires beneath the blue border edging the plates. Motionless. Hidden. And the birds were waiting for the end of this endless meal, everyone, even the women and children, were waiting for it to be over so they could get up, stretch their legs, go for a little walk, kick a ball around, have a game of tennis, play with their dolls or on the computer …

‘Grandma Blanche? … Grandma Blanche, may I leave the table?’

‘In a minute, my darling, we're nearly finished, just be a little bit patient!’

‘But … Grandma, you know my dollies are hungry!’

‘Yes, yes, I know … but dollies’ tummies are different from ours, you know, they can wait a bit longer!’

… you had to be patient, wait a few more minutes—even if Grandma Blanche was lying, and you knew she was, but you mustn't upset her, especially since she was waiting too, after all, like her five grandchildren, waiting for it to be finished, her right hand tucked behind her, between the cushion that had been placed against the back of the chair for her, and her spine, because she had such a bad back!—you had to wait because there was a burst of laughter, a great wave of enthusiasm, running around the table, and above the laughter, meaningful looks were being exchanged, glances meeting, eyes looking away, looking back again, pupils dilated, eyelashes stiff with expectancy, eyes speaking with passion and warmth just like mouths, pairing up for the dance, then letting go, paralysed, before abruptly meeting again to travel together in the same direction, towards the end of the table …

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‘Oh, I feel sick … I feel so sick!’

… where Léa sliced through the air with her gestures and her interminable laughter.

To hear her talk, you would think laughing was painful for her, and each time she laughed, Léa called on the Lord, saying her ribs were aching—which Béa couldn't stand, what a drama queen, and all the men, Philippe, Léa's husband, was the worst, gaping after her like that, oh, she would stay free! She would stay free from everything, because she hated men, genuinely, that's to say without ever having said as much to anyone, she found them unwholesome, lacking in imagination and hard-hearted, they held back their inventiveness and denied their dreams, yes, she could feel the ties breaking and soon she would sail off alone, she would never use those seductive mannerisms, she would never play that game again, no, not her, never!—yes, Léa was saying that her stomach, her cheeks, her jaws were aching, when her laughter was dying in her throat and she wasn't making a sound, there was just the brilliance of her white teeth, neat and pretty against her pink lipstick, her shiny lip gloss.

She raised her hand to her throat.

They had warned her to be careful, it was too hot that afternoon …

‘Now, Léa … you'll make yourself sick!’

… but who was it, she had forgotten already, perhaps her father-in-law, who was so attentive, fawning over her, that with a single bat of the long eyelashes framing her pale eyes, she could have got him to do whatever she wanted, an advantage she doubtless knew how to exploit.

A sandpiper ran along the coastline, a tickling set her off again after each pause, each calming of her laughter, each lessening of intensity, of rhythm so to speak, as if the sea had gone too far out in the great ebb tides and had got lost out there, a long way out, in the silence of the night, vanished from sight, unheard, everything would have been lost, even the sound of the waves until it came rushing back, even bigger, louder, more cruel—oh, so much more dangerous than before—it was irresistible, and so poignant besides that Lise sent a black look down the table to Léa at the other end, a look which struck her full in page 204 the face, a shock which wounded her at first but which then—strangely—comforted her, accelerated her formidable laughter, and the laugh, suddenly, became a cry which, for the second time, struck at the birds in their trees.

‘Léa, for heaven's sake, do be careful! … you'll get yourself in such a state …’

Lise! She was so sad that day, of course, and Léa had very nearly forgotten that: she had found out yesterday that she had failed her exam and would have to repeat her year, Lise had explained it to her in the kitchen, while she was making the almond biscuits, the apple turnovers, and the sugar tart, Lise wouldn't be seeing Benjamin any more, he was going off to university and that was a big concern for her now, she knew their relationship would not survive, it was ending before its time … Crossing her arms over the big man's shirt she was wearing, she had maintained that it was all over, nothing more to be said, but even so Léa had sensed how sad it made her.

And now Léa was laughing—how dared she?—and Lise, who had seen how quick her moods were, anger, rage, vexation, the feeling that nothing mattered any more, that everything was spoiled, that not one word had mattered of what she'd said, confided, that morning, that she'd never, absolutely never been understood, let alone listened to—Lise got up and left the table.

Her cane chair fell back onto the terrace paving stones … and stayed there. Just like that. No one thought to lean down and right it, so that after the meal—after everyone had cleared the table, after Lise had gone back to her bedroom that evening, and after Léa had gone to bed without being able to speak to her—the chair was still lying on the ground because when it fell almost everyone had been looking at Léa.

Their mother looked across to where Lise had been sitting a few seconds earlier, but as if to verify that, goodness, Lise had left the table, once again, it was a habit of hers, a little too passionate and jealous, a little too emotional. She must have gone off back to her newspaper or to walk in the woods, perhaps even both at once, that was no trouble to her! She took life too seriously, that child, that was all to obvious. Botheration! Please God she would never leave the country the way page 205 she talked about so endlessly. Oh, she would have been so much better off with teaching than all that nonsense she'd got into her head. She disturbed her mother's peace of mind. She'd disturbed this wonderful meal too, even though she had every reason to be happy and there were plenty of people far worse off than she was … How did the saying go? That's right: little children, little troubles, big children, big troubles! And ever since she'd turned thirteen or fourteen, Lise had become unbearable. You couldn't do a thing with her any more. What was her grandfather going to think of such behaviour? And it would be she, Emilie, who would be on the receiving end of the lecture:

‘I'm telling you, my girl, you'll have to nail her feet to the floor, that little scatterbrain of yours!’

In point of fact, only Blanche's eye lingered on the empty space where Lise had been sitting. With all due respect to her husband, she really loved her granddaughter's enthusiastic spirit and spontaneity. Sadly, in the time it would take her to get up from the table, to move just a few centimetres, Lise would be halfway across the country, energetic, swift and light. In the past, it would have been worth the effort, because she herself was more alert and Lise would have found a pretext for loitering near the house, waiting to be consoled … but now, totally self-reliant, expecting nothing from anyone else, Lise roamed the earthen pathways, the lawns and the sand-covered walkways. She was probably running away from herself, and the thought of this made Blanche shiver, concerned, looking at the empty space at the far end of the table—Léa, yet again, had had the marvellous idea of seating her in the middle, she would put her neck out from having to turn her head right and left … and her back, dear Lord, was so painful!—Lise was one of those children, anyway, who wanted to push back the sky, the earth, and the rivers, needing air and to run until she was out of breath, and not to be belittled like this by the unbearably capricious behaviour of her sister. Blanche noticed it every time … Emilie had really spoiled her elder daughter dreadfully. Everything had been for her benefit, and woe betide anyone who might venture to comment on it, of course … even Blanche, her own mother, had never dared. And yet she was very worried about Lise, feeling she was capable of anything, like moving far away … oh, no, no, no, so long as she page 206 didn't go away … it was a good thing she had failed her exam. Over time, she would think things through. She would learn to float above the world so it couldn't touch her.

Then she looked down the table, her gaze moving with astonishing rapidity to the other end, looking all the way down, passing over the little silvery teaspoons, moving round the bordeaux bottles and the bread crusts, the white napkin-covered baskets, sidestepping the remains of the brie, dodging the champagne glasses, so translucid they were almost invisible, before diving down under the fluted edge of the dish where the sugar tart was waiting, so as to avoid the fragility lurking there like a danger, finding minuscule grains of brown dust, probably powdered chocolate which had fallen off the truffles Léa had brought out to serve with the coffee—what a dreadful habit, serving the coffee, the dessert and the chocolates all at once, everyone knew that at Léa's you drank your coffee cold!—finally her gaze reached her other granddaughter and wrapped itself around Léa so intimately that it divined her thoughts, touching them lightly, instinctively, feeling the vibration of disturbing disillusionment.

Lise is such an idiot! Léa thought, dividing up the tart and putting small slices onto the plates that Jacques was passing to her.

Oh, blast! There was only just enough to go round. She always had this problem of working out the quantities when she was preparing a meal. And afterwards in private, her brother would tell her he was still hungry and steal a block of chocolate from the cupboards.

No, Lise hadn't a clue. She was so young and so sentimental. But she would learn to be calmer, to control her movements and her moods and if she still wanted to become a botanist and go to Australia ‘to study the impact of large-scale deforestation on certain species’, as she put it, the issues which would come up as a result of being so far away would make her wiser in the end and Léa hoped she would achieve that.

Love … whatever was she thinking?

Oh, the tart was succulent … better than the last one.

‘Just delicious, my love!’ said Emilie, her eyes as round as her mouth.

‘Thank you, mother.’

But not overly generous portions, thought Jacques.

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No, thought Léa, love is not what makes a woman complete, and it's a good thing Lise and Benjamin hadn't thought of marrying! She was exasperated by all those young people getting married too soon. It was a good idea to live together. She would have liked to live like that, it would probably have allowed her to feel freer, to live more wildly, to believe she was being swept away by a typhoon … probably … but sadly, sadly, typhoons only happen far away in Asia, we don't have them here … we've never had one …

‘I've got the lucky charm!’ she exclaimed.*

On top of everything else, she gets the lucky charm! Béa thought. Really, what should one make of all this? of this family? or of those friendships which had become really quite important in her life?

Léa put on one of the two crowns the children had made before the meal—lolly pink with yellow triangles and green circles—and the second one, she got up, walked around the table to the opposite side, and put it on Philippe's head.

Well, there it is, thought Béa, the picture of perfect happiness! Trust Léa to come up with this fake celebration of Epiphany with a sugar tart—on the pretext that this year, for the first time, the family hadn't been able to get together for the proper celebration—and trust Léa to ask Jacques’ children to play along and to laugh about it now. The children had spent the morning with Grandma Blanche, who had tried to explain to them why they would be looking for a lucky charm in a sugar tart … and in summer, to boot!

‘Well’ Jacques was saying to Philippe, ‘last year at Bray-Dunes his old lady really got on his nerves, made no end of fuss and bother, because he was paying too much attention to passing miniskirts—know what I mean?—so one day he up and chucked her in the drink!’ And Léa's laugh rang out again at her brother's joke—Jacques is such a character, she thought, but he's a bit much sometimes, thought Philippe—and then at the same moment—strange coincidence— page 208 everyone noticed that all the birds had stopped singing, a few seconds ago … Nature had fallen silent, but when, when exactly, no one at the table knew—neither her parents-in-law, yawning from the effects of the wine, nor her grandmother who was straightening Mimi's chair beside her, nor her mother who was pushing breadcrumbs under the edge of her plate, nor her father who was studying the labels on the bordeaux bottles for probably the tenth time, he must know them by heart, nor her cousin Béa, the Parisian, who was fiddling with her fork—nervously, how surprising—nor Willi, nor her grandfather, nor even Alice who persisted in studying her nails every five minutes ever since she had given up biting them—no one, absolutely no one, could have said exactly.

The children had left the table, heading for the tennis court, the bedrooms, the computer or the television, they had barely managed to wait until the end. Mimi and Lou, as usual, must have walked to the pond to fish for tadpoles and Blanche would not be long in joining them to take them off to hunt for birds’ nests in the shrubbery. Léa's charming ways, she knew them by heart, it was just one big pretence, and always had been … she usually preferred to show her great-grandchildren the dotted crimson lines on the linnets’ eggs or go searching for a wagtail's nest occupied by murderous little cuckoo babies, naked and blind.

And yet, that day, Blanche didn't move away, she too was waiting for what was clearly to come, the sky was clouding over out to sea in Léa's big eyes and the wind was springing up deep within her, near the coast, the fences, the embankments, the jetties, the sea walls, the slabs of concrete she had set up there to hold back the high waves of the equinoctial tides, suddenly unable to resist any more, yes, she could tell from the way the gulls were struggling against the wind, the way the electricity poles were swaying dangerously on the slopes of the embankments, from the way the dunes were shifting, from the violet light coming from the depths of the horizon, and especially from the way the fog was rising around the mole at the end of the jetty at the base of the lighthouse, and the lighthouse was growing visibly paler and paler …

I am spilling over, thought Léa. Oh, no, I mustn't. I don't speak. I page 209 laugh. I am here to laugh. To make them joyful. Carefree. Didn't I bring them together?

The birds in the trees took fright once more when Léa's knife fell on to the terrace paving stones. The metallic sound echoed brutally, bouncing up to them and making their wings tremble.

Léa's heart swelled like glass expanded by the breath of the glassblower, whereas she would have preferred it to be pierced by a sharp instrument to ease it out, dilate it, stretch it out in its molten heat so it would ring with a lighter note. But it was just wishful thinking … She knew that already when she looked up at the single cloud passing in the sky, up above the trees, before she took the crown off and disappeared abruptly beneath the table to pick up the knife—that was something anyway, five seconds’ grace—and put it back on the table beside her plate, on the right as always.

Oh, I'm doing acrobatics, she thought, moved to see them all there, watching her re-emerge from under the table. I will have to talk to Lise about it, explain to her, to my little Lise, yes, I must find the time to tell her all this before she leaves.

With the movement of Léa's body, the strap of her dress had slipped on her shoulder and the beauty mark Philippe knew so well had come into view. ‘We won't have any children,’ she had said that morning, in bed, when he touched her, ‘we won't have any children!’ and he had focused on that beauty mark while she was speaking, so as not to see her eyes, which were probably full of self-assurance, defiance and mockery, and because he had thought he understood her reasons—or that he needed to pretend to understand them—he had said nothing, added nothing, asked nothing.

A black and yellow butterfly passed close to Léa's shoulder, probably attracted by her gentian perfume—unless it was violet, talcum, or else eau de cologne, it was surprising every day how different she was every day—at the moment when Philippe was telling himself it was best to be patient, to wait a little while longer, she would change her mind. In the end, before the butterfly's coloured wings caressed the curve of her shoulder, he no longer had the slightest doubt; he had opted for patience and gentleness, while Béa was thinking that there was no one more crass than Jacques, and that his stories were the page 210 height of vulgarity, that he really hadn't a clue and that if she kept on spending time with them it would be the end of her. Her mouth tightened at the flood of bitter thoughts, and, catching the understanding glance of her grandmother, she indicated, her dark eyes expressive, that she was praying the meal would soon be over, that these obligations to get together—to share what?—no longer interested her and that she was in a hurry to join her girlfriends so they could go and see The Wings of Desire or Pina Bausch or Maguy Marin or Shakespeare or anything at all, Grandma Blanche, anything at all rather than Léa's posturing, look at that, a permanent performance … a real merry-go-round in the Luxembourg gardens. And Philippe over there, drooling over her, taking off his crown and looking like such a ninny … had he no sense of the ridiculous?

To which Blanche replied, with a slight nod of her head, not that she agreed, but that she did at least understand.

Finally, as happened at the end of every afternoon practically like clockwork, the top of Médéric Grattepanche's head, moving along above the top of the garden hedge, indicated to them that it was now nearly seven and that they would soon have to think about making a move because there were so many traffic jams in the evenings, with everyone going back at the end of the weekend. Philippe sat up straighter to get a better view of this half-bald head, just as it disappeared past the corner of the garden. Léa had shivered—he was sure of it—because she was so afraid of this crazy guy who came every month to trim the garden hedges: Médéric Grattepanche had rampaged through his mother's house after she died, and although he told Léa many times that oh, he had smashed up everything at his mother's and the Social Services had had to put plastic in the windows, but oh, no, he never broke anything at anyone else's place—and Léa had to make a superhuman effort to understand what he was saying because he had only one tooth left, which barred his mouth like a knife—all the same he had burned the shutters and the doors, broken the floor tiles, torn down the door and window frames, smashed in the electricity meters, cut off the water, taken to all the furniture with a chainsaw to slice it into firewood, and was living there, his bed a filthy sleeping bag near the fireplace—he loved fire—cooking on a camping stove in an page 211 aluminium pot, well then! Médéric Grattepanche might tell her all that, but she was scared stiff of him when he came into the garden and it was enough for her just to see the top of his bald head passing along the hedges to make her shudder. Several times already, she had wanted him to stop coming—following the example of their neighbours who had hired someone else from the village, ‘hedge stealers’, Médéric Grattepanche howled ever since each time he went past these peoples’ houses—but Philippe had never given in to her. He continued to employ Médéric Grattepanche despite his wife's reluctance.

That day, however, it didn't stop her from laughing, and although she obviously tried to hide it, Philippe noticed that there was something wrong, she was angry, embarrassed or troubled, when she called to him: ‘Next time, Philippe, tell Médéric Grattepanche to cut them higher, all these hedges, then we won't see him going by any more!’

And she burst out laughing even more loudly.

Bitch! thought Béa, who didn't like her … at all. And Grandma Blanche might continue to lecture her and try to persuade her to be patient, she wouldn't come again, this was the last time … oh yes, today was the last time.

Léa was laughing, showing all her white teeth in a wide smile, her shining eyes fixed on her husband when suddenly—why? she never knew—the plaintive melody of the Song of the Earth came into her mind and that made her sad, sad to the point where she couldn't keep up the struggle any more and it was then, then, at that precise moment, that they saw what they had all sensed was going to happen—except Béa, who, for her part, had not foreseen anything at all—thousands of tears pearled at the corners of her eyes, rolled down her cheeks and fell to the corners of her mouth, where they joined her laughter, so clear that a sea urchin was swimming in it, and flowed into her tears, for one second there was no sound—was she choking? the terrified birds wondered, and what a pity for a woman to give herself away like that, thought Béa—and the laughter ceased, and the meal ceased, and everyone stood up to—before going home or to their bedrooms—clear, tidy, wash the dishes or shake out the tablecloth like Béa did, in a great and final sweeping gesture.

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All the breadcrumbs flew up then fell back down onto the grass.

Léa went to her room to look for a handkerchief into which she poured the tears which were still in her like the last drops of water at the bottom of a leaky vase. Through the French doors opened onto the garden, she listened without moving to the song of the birds which had just begun again, before the start of the wild ballet of the nightjars in the twilight, and before the moon, dressed in a leafy robe, replaced the sun, its reflection glittering on the tadpole pond near which the children had played. A star moved through the water, as the wind blew it, and on the walls of Léa's room—she was now lying between the sheets, not asleep, because she so loved to dream away the evenings, to think about the day gone by without speaking—night's shadows drew their designs: she was a sea urchin on the sand, far away, diverted from her path, a grain of sand over which the sea urchin moved, its body palpitating, its eyes closed, or a drop of sea water moistening the grain of sand on the beach chosen by the sea urchin to stop its race—a moment of repose—in the midst of the village houses, the gardens, courtyards, garages, orchards, woods and, in her heart, appeared the prickliness of a sea urchin, trembling with memories … but which memory, precisely, which memory, in all those beds, in those sheets, those rough blankets and those false silences, amongst those needles of steel, under those stacked-up chairs and those broken-down cars, those fires of anger, those torn-out windows, all those burned door and window frames, those nauseating odours of plastic, those torn-out meters … which was hers?

All at once, her consciousness dissolved beneath the sheets, in the blackness of the bed, thrown there by the boiling of the amazed blood circulating through her veins, at an almost unbearable speed, and this swarming became a trembling, stirring her lips and making her legs twitch, an interminable circling of heat and emotions mixed, a poem being born in her body, illuminating her life, a poem whose words burst into flame as soon as they took shape, and it was a marvel that in this upheaval she could still move so that her hand, beneath the sheets, sought out another hand and pressed it to her. Then she turned over. The brightly coloured cardboard crown, which the children had made in the morning, fell of the bed where she had put it and rolled on the page 213 floor before coming to a stop, dented, at the foot of the dresser.

The tart was delicious …

Her cheek pressed into the pillow in the embrace of her long arms, Léa yawned and let herself be taken by the silence which had collapsed onto her, broken from time to time by the call of a brown owl, far away on the edge of the forest.

The room was bathed in moonlight.

I forgot to pick up Lise's chair, she thought. I'll do it tomorrow. Luckily, Lise isn't leaving until tomorrow. I'll be able to talk to her.

Suddenly, on the walls, there was a shoreline where sea urchins tried to return to the sea, where birds prevented them from passing, attacking them with their monstrous bodies. She leaped from the boat and sank in the waves, she called, she called for a long time, and no one came. The seaweed no longer existed, it turned into blackberry bushes catching at her dress and scratching at her body. The night was a gigantic object floating above her and pushing her down little by little, minute by minute, second by second, under the water. The sea turned as brown as coffee, rocks were reflected in it and there were gulls, perched on the rocks, looking down at her torn body.

Then quickly the night, the sun, the sea, the waves, the beaches and the shorelines were nothing more than the same solitary child who laughed in her dreams.

‘Really …?’ she murmured in her sleep. ‘We shall have no children?’ Outside, at the foot of the trees, not a single breadcrumb was left.

Translated by Jean Anderson

* Translator's note: the Feast of the Epiphany (Fête des rois) is traditionally celebrated in France on 6 January. A cake (galette des rois) containing a lucky charm (fève) is served and whoever finds it is King or Queen and must choose a partner to wear the second crown.