Smile, you're getting old! by Évelyne Wilwerth

Author:Évelyne Wilwerth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Drama
ISBN: 9781550715866
Publisher: Guernica Editions
Published: 2011-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

5

Ginny rushes onto her balcony, which is set out as usual; she’s wearing another bikini.

Hello, spring, hello my fiftysixth springtime . . . Say, I’ve something to tell you. Are you listening, concentrating?

Mr. Loverat is dead . . . My companion with his infinite tenderness is dead . . . Look, I buried him here, in this big pot painted in green. He rests here, close to us. He died of old age, he passed away on my lap, calmly. He made an ultimate effort to roll his tail around his body, he knew I liked that, he stared at me, a long stare of anxiety and confidence, then he left moving into the unknown. And I was completely wiped out.

Strange. As if this death has brought about a new life . . . Spring, I am . . . I am a grandmother! That doesn’t make me seem any younger! And suddenly, a grandmother! Without any preparation! What a shock! Sharon who, after ten years, phones me: “Mum, come quickly! I’m about to give birth.” And me shattered, I land in Rome, go to the hospital, Sharon in the first stages of labour, Sharon who welcomes me with this kind little phrase: “How you’ve changed!” She’d also changed. Then contractions, she begged for a caesarean, afraid of suffering, they didn’t give in, my hand holding hers, it was burning, I would have given birth in her place, our hands fused together, then the baby all wrinkled like a little old man . . . A baby with Asian eyes, father absent, on a mission in the U.S.A., and suddenly the newborn in my arms, both strange and familiar . . . And I left the hospital zigzagging, banged into a mirror, it took me all of five seconds to recognize my reflection, my daughter’s words bursting out again: “How you’ve changed!” I got lost in the streets, I arrived at a big square, near a lion that spat out water, and it’s there, against that fountain that I burst into tears, so many shocks, I felt old, I felt young, uplifted by the baby, a new life bursting forth, but my reflection in the mirror and this lion that was spitting and spitting . . . All of that happening in the Piazza del Popolo. All of that in the Piazza del Popolo a fortnight ago.

And I forgot my ritual! When my balcony transforms into a garden!

Unbelievable these windows . . . They’ve gone from dark grey, like a storm cloud, an enormous planetary storm . . . A layer of two and a half millimetres, a very compact soot and no one gives a damn.

Edward doesn’t give a damn. His windows are shut, curtains closed, nets half drawn. The last time I saw him he was completely in his own little world. It’s not going to be him who notices my new bikini that I bought in Portugal . . . But more of that later. First all, my cream!

And if I start from the top? My hair .

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