Three Women in a Mirror (2 page)

There were times when boys had such incomprehensible reactions. What had she said that was so scandalous? Why was he frowning when he looked at her?

After a pause he smiled, relieved to see that there was nothing evil lurking in Anne's proposition. He continued, “I would like to marry you.”

“Why?”

“Every man needs a wife.”

“Why me?”

“Because I like you.”

“Why?”

“You are the prettiest and—”

“And?”

“You are the prettiest!”

“So?”

“You are the prettiest!”

As she had been probing his thoughts without any flirtatiousness, the compliment did not engender any vanity in her. Once she was back at her aunt's home that evening all she could think was,
Is it enough to be pretty? He is handsome, I am pretty
.

The next day, she asked him to clarify his thoughts.

“Why you and me?”

“With our looks, you and I will make magnificent children!”

Alas, Philippe was confirming what she dreaded. He spoke like a horse breeder, the farmer mating his finest stock so that they would multiply. Was this love, then, among humans? Was there nothing more? If only she had a mother to talk to.

Reproduction? This is what the women around her spoke of so impatiently. Even the untamable Ida.

Pensive, Anne did not reply to his proposal of marriage. The overzealous Philippe took her placidity for consent.

Intoxicated, he began to announce their union, sharing his good fortune with anyone who would hear it.

In the street, Anne was congratulated; she was surprised but did not deny it. Her cousins congratulated her, including Ida, who was glad that her alluring cousin would thus be off the market. Finally, Aunt Godeliève clapped her hands, jubilant, her eyes brimming with tears, relieved to have fulfilled her duty to send the daughter of her much-regretted sister to the altar. Anne was trapped: bound to silence, unable to disappoint Godeliève's kind soul.

Thus, because she had not denied it, the misunderstanding took on the colors of truth: Anne was going to marry Philippe.

With each passing day she found it more and more ridiculous that her family was displaying so much enthusiasm. Convinced that some essential element had escaped her, she allowed Philippe to grow bolder, to hold her and kiss her.

“You will love me, and me alone!”

“That's impossible, Philippe. There are already others whom I love.”

“Pardon?”

“My aunt, my cousins, Grandmother Franciska.”

“Any boys?”

“No. But I do not know many, I haven't had the opportunity.”

When she shared these details with him, he glowered at her, mistrustful and incredulous; then, because she held his gaze without flinching, he finally burst out laughing. “You tease me, and I believe you. Oh you are naughty, to frighten me so . . . so clever! You know how to act with a man, to make him persist, to make him even more infatuated, so that he thinks of no one but you.”

As she did not fully understand his reasoning, she did not insist, particularly when he was upset and clung to her, his eyes shining, his lips trembling; and she enjoyed letting herself go in his arms, she liked his skin, his smell, the firmness of his feverish body; she pressed against him, giddily, and chased away his doubts.

A shadow fell across the attic. The density of the room suddenly changed.

Anne started: Ida had just broken the beam of light.

The future bride felt a pain in her belly, as if her cousin had opened her womb with her fist. She shouted, reproachfully, “No, Ida, no!”

Her cousin stopped, surprised, defensive, ready to scratch, completely unaware that her skirts were blocking the ray of sunlight.

“What? What have I done?”

Anne sighed, fearful that she would never manage to explain to her that she had just destroyed a precious treasure, a pure masterpiece the sun had been forging in the room since dawn. Pathetic Ida! Rustic, pig-headed Ida who, with her wide, obscene hips, had destroyed a monument of beauty without even realizing it.

Anne decided to lie: “Ida, why don't you take this opportunity to look into the two mirrors? Stand here in my place.”

Then, turning to her aunt and grandmother, “I would be overjoyed if my three cousins could also share this gift.”

Initially Ida was startled; she stood next to Anne and pleaded with the two women. They made a face and then, touched by Anne's cordial simplicity, they nodded.

Hadewijch, the youngest, rushed over to the stool.

“My turn!”

Ida made an acrimonious gesture to prevent her sister from going ahead, then stopped, aware she must maintain her composure as the elder sister. In a fit of pique she went over to the window.

Anne was disgusted: Ida went on blocking the ray of light without even noticing that it was falling upon her chest and face. She did not even feel it. What a brute!

On seeing Philippe in the street below, Ida smiled. A moment later, she was frowning.

“He's disappointed. He's looking for you, not me.”

Her features twisted, her gaze empty, Ida swallowed, hurt. Anne leaned toward her, seeing how pained she was, and reached out her hand to her cousin and said, “I would have gladly left him to you.”

“Pardon?”

Ida jumped, certain she had misunderstood.

“I would gladly leave him to you. Philippe.”

“Oh?”

“If he were not in love with me.”

Anne thought she had said something kind.

There was the sound of a slap.

“Hussy!” hissed Ida.

Anne, because she felt a sudden warmth on her cheek, realized that she was the one who had been slapped; Ida had struck her.

All conversation fell silent, and the women turned to look.

“You snotty-nosed trollop, what makes you so sure that no man will ever desire me? I'll prove you wrong! I'll show you! You'll see, there will be dozens of men after me! Hundreds!”

“One would suffice,” corrected Anne gently.

A second slap resounded.

“Confound it! You do go on! You are convinced I won't have even one! What a pest! You are wicked!”

Aunt Godeliève intervened. “Ida, do calm down.”

“Anne is driving me to the edge, Maman. She insists I am ugly and repulsive.”

“Not at all. Anne has merely said what I think: one man will suffice, you do not need to charm ten, let alone a hundred.”

Ida glared defiantly at her mother, as if to say, “Say what you like, we shall see.” Godeliève raised her head and said, “Apologize to Anne.”

“Never!”

“Ida!”

In response, her eldest daughter, red with spite, the veins in her neck bulging, screamed, “I'd sooner die!”

Godeliève handed the mirror she was holding to the surveyor's widow and rushed over to her daughter. Ida stepped aside; she crossed the room fearlessly, pushed her sister off the stool, and ordered the women: “Now it's my turn.”

Godeliève refrained from embarking on a struggle she knew she might lose, and signaled to her friends to obey the irascible girl. Then she went over to her niece.

“I suppose she is jealous of you, Anne. She was hoping to be the first to marry.”

“I know. I forgive her.”

Her aunt kissed her.

“Oh, if only my Ida had your good nature . . . ”

“She will be better when she gets what she wants. Some day she will let go of her anger.”

“Pray God you are right!” said Godeliève, caressing her niece's temple. “In any case, I am sad and happy for you. Sad because I will see you less often. Happy because you have found a good man.”

When she heard her aunt Godeliève's tranquil voice mapping out her fate, Anne took heart and stopped wondering. Calm once again, she turned her face to the cool air.

A butterfly came to land on the edge of the roof. Its wings, lemon yellow on the inside, green on the outside, fluttered, like a breath. The insect had come to preen itself, thinking it was alone, unaware it was being watched; it rubbed its proboscis with its forelegs. Anne was dazzled; it seemed to her that the insect had caught all the light in the sky with its gilded scales, the light concentrating on him, imprisoning him. The butterfly was resplendent, and everything around it turned to gray.

“He's lovely,” said Godeliève with a shiver.

“Isn't he?” murmured Anne, delighted to share her emotion with her aunt.

“Wonderful,” confirmed Godeliève.

“Yes, I could stay like this for hours, just watching him.”

Godeliève shrugged.

“Anne, that is what you shall do from now on. You will have the right to do so—the duty, even.”

Anne swung round to face her aunt, surprised. Godeliève persisted: “You will belong to him, but he will also belong to you.”

Anne smiled. What? She would belong to a butterfly . . . that would belong to her? What sort of extraordinary trick was her aunt suggesting? This was definitely the best news of the day. Her aunt was speaking like the good fairy from a children's tale. Filled with anticipation, her whole being illuminated.

Godeliève, in a flush of tenderness, placed her palms on her niece's cheeks.

“Ah, you do love him!” she exclaimed.

Turning back to the window, she pointed down into the distance.

“You must admit that hat suits him.”

Confused, Anne turned to where Godeliève had pointed and realized she was staring at Philippe down in the street; he wore a felt cap with a feather. She shuddered.

I'm not normal
, she thought. And she was getting worse! Through a window that made it possible to see two things, Philippe and a butterfly, the fiancée's gaze lingered on the butterfly, and her aunt's on the fiancé.

A sudden scream rang out in the room. “What is that? What is that spot?”

Sitting on the stool, Ida was pointing at the mirror, pale with anger.

Afraid she might go into a fit of rage, grandmother Franciska withdrew the rear mirror.

“It's nothing. You're imagining things. There's nothing there.”

“Then do not remove the mirror.”

Trembling, the old woman held up the mirror again.

Ida stared at the violet splash on her neck, familiar to everyone except Ida herself.

“Oh! It's repulsive! Horrible!”

Ida leapt up from her seat, foaming and furious.

Startled, Grandmother Franciska dropped what she was holding.

It went crashing to the floor.

Glass shattered.

A concerned silence greeted the sound.

The mirror was broken. While the silver frame remained intact, within it there were only jagged shards, reflecting scattered corners of the room willy-nilly, as if in fright.

Franciska moaned.

Godeliève hurried over.

“Dear Lord, what will the countess say?”

The women gathered around the pieces of mirror as if watching over a corpse. Ida bit her lips, hesitant, uncertain which catastrophe she must bewail, the birthmark on her neck or the shattered mirror.

In hushed tones they debated what to do, their voices hollow, their breathing labored, convinced the aristocrat could already hear them.

“We must find someone to repair it.”

“But where? Here in Saint-André no one—”

“I have an idea. In Bruges, there is a painter—”

“Don't be stupid: first of all I must tell the truth.”

“Whether you tell the truth or hide it, you must still buy a new mirror.”

“My God, how?”

“I will pay,” asserted Franciska, “this is my home and I'm the one who dropped it.”

“Because Ida pushed you—”

“I will pay,” repeated the old woman.

“No, I will,” said Ida.

“And with what money?” grumbled Godeliève.

When they had listed all the possible solutions, the stout village church bell began to toll, reminding them that Anne must soon be married.

Godeliève looked up.

“Anne?”

The young woman did not answer. Godeliève trembled.

“Anne, come back and join us!”

All the women looked for her, in the closet, elsewhere on the upper floor; the fiancée was no longer there.

“She's gone to see her admirer,” concluded Grandmother Franciska.

Godeliève picked up a pair of shoes.

“Without her clogs?”

The surveyor's widow pointed to the gift by the footstool.

“And without the embroidered stockings I lent her?”

Ida hurried over to the window.

“Philippe is still downstairs waiting for her.”

“Then where is she?”

Anne's name echoed through the grandmother's house while the women searched the rooms.

When Godeliève opened the back door on the ground floor that gave out onto the fields, she discovered faint traces of bare feet in the damp earth, vanishing into the meadow grass that extended to the woods beyond.

“What! She's run away?”

The footprints were spaced well apart, showing only the toes, proof that Anne had used the episode with the mirror to sneak out the door and run lightly through the countryside toward the woods, where she had disappeared.

Lake Maggiore, April 20, 1904

 

Dear Gretchen,
No, my dear, you are not mistaken, this is your cousin Hanna writing to you. If you look at the portraits I have enclosed, next to the radiant young man posing like a prince and beneath the extravagant multitiered hat you will see a dumpy woman with an embarrassed smile: me again. Yes, you are allowed to laugh. Oh, you already are? You're quite right, I look stupid. What do you expect? Franz has two shortcomings, which he hid from me when we were engaged: a passion for millinery, and a mania for collecting memories. What does this mean? Whenever we visit a hat shop he transforms me into a bird cage, a fruit basket, a flower vase, a rake with a harvest of ribbons, or a peacock's tail; after, delighted, he drags me off to the photographer's in order to immortalize my ridiculous self.