Pina by Titaua Peu

Author:Titaua Peu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Restless Books

Hannah and Michel

THE TREES UP AND DOWN the esplanade are scraggly and bare. A few kids all bundled up are playing on a grayish stretch, with their au pair watching them. Plenty of Black girls in the mix. Hannah’s alone, like always. The greenish bench she’s sitting on is a bit wet, like it was raining earlier. The sky is just about looming: low, shot through here and there with white. It’s autumn, and a bit sad. Maybe too sad. It makes you want to give up everything. The day before, Hannah got a letter from her mother. Hannah looks at a man in a sailor outfit getting his picture taken in front of Les Invalides. He’s giving his girlfriend a big grin. She’s got to be his girlfriend, or maybe his wife. Her hair is brown and she’s wearing a huge fur hat that’s the same color. Maybe it’s fake fur, Hannah thinks. Maybe. Or maybe not. She’s had enough of that. Why does she have to spend time thinking about these animals who were killed? There are plenty of organizations she can pay to do that thinking for her.

The couple heads off down the rue de Varenne. The man looks back one last time at the gold railing. The woman’s gone and buried her face in the man’s shoulder. The wind is like ice, cutting through, wettish, and it works its way through Hannah’s dark skin. She can take it. She’s been sitting here for two hours, reading her mother’s letter over and over. A letter full of pain. All this pain, Hannah can tell, boils down to one thing: Auguste, a father made a stranger by booze. Can she even remember a single day of him sober, warm? She’s pretty sure not, but deep down, she can’t bring herself to care. Her father not being there is a simple fact that she’s never let herself think on, she’d figured there was no point in it. The letter’s badly written, of course, full of pleading in not so many words, full of love she’s not sure she believes, full of “but how are you?” over and over as if hinting that without her things weren’t all right. Scolding her, really, so her mother won’t be the only one to feel alone, even if she wouldn’t dare to say it out loud. Hannah’s learned about Auguste’s accident, and his being born again. And his new quirks on top of how distant he’d always been. The letter talks about religion. Ma says that it was good at first, this return to God, but now it’s all too much. And at that point Hannah wrinkles her brow. When has her mother ever, just once, had things under control? Not at home, that’s for sure, not while they didn’t have money. Ma says she’s trying to keep up appearances, to make everyone believe that the family is now back together, even without Hannah. The children have grown up. Pauro’s going to take the baccalaureate soon, he’s a man now, after all, a proper man.

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