As is usually the case, the funeral is set for ten o’clock in
the morning. This way you’ll be able to keep vigil over
the departed. One last thing : it seems your mother
often expressed to her friends her desire for a religious
burial. I’ve taken the liberty of making the necessary
arrangements. But I wanted to let you know.” I thanked
him. While not an atheist, Maman had never in her life
given a thought to religion.
I went in. It was a very bright, whitewashed room
with a skylight for a roof. The furniture consisted of
some chairs and some cross-shaped sawhorses. Two of
them, in the middle of the room, were supporting a
closed casket. All you could see were some shiny screws,
not screwed down all the way, standing out against the
walnut-stained planks. Near the casket was an Arab
nurse in a white smock, with a brightly colored scarf on
her head.
Just then the caretaker came in behind me. He must
have been running. He stuttered a little. “We put the
cover on, but I’m supposed to unscrew the casket so you
can see her.” He was moving toward the casket when I
stopped him. He said, “You don’t want to?” I answered,
“No.” He was quiet, and I was embarrassed because I
felt I shouldn’t have said that. He looked at me and then
asked, “Why not?” but without criticizing, as if he just
wanted to know. I said, “I don’t know.” He started twirling his moustache, and then without looking at me, again
he said, “I understand.” He had nice pale blue eyes and
a reddish complexion. He offered me a chair and then sat down right behind me. The nurse stood up and went
toward the door. At that point the caretaker said to me,
“She’s got an abscess.” I didn’t understand, so I looked
over at the nurse and saw that she had a bandage
wrapped around her head just below the eyes. Where
her nose should have been, the bandage was Bat. All
you could see of her face was the whiteness of the bandage.
When she’d gone, the caretaker said, ”I’ll leave you
alone.” I don’t know what kind of gesture I made, but
he stayed where he was, behind me. Having this presence
breathing down my neck was starting to annoy me. The
room was filled with beautiful late-afternoon sunlight.
Two hornets were buzzing against the glass roof. I
could feel myself getting sleepy. Without turning around,
I said to the caretaker, “Have you been here long?”
Right away he answered, “Five years”-as if he’d been
waiting all along for me to ask.
After that he did a lot of talking. He would have been
very surprised if anyone had told him he would end up
caretaker at the Marengo home. He was sixty-four and
came from Paris. At that point I interrupted him. “Oh,
you’re not from around here?” Then I remembered that
before taking me to the director’s office, he had talked
to me about Maman. He’d told me that they had to
bury her quickly, because it gets hot in the plains, especially in this part of the country. That was when he told
me he had lived in Paris and that he had found it hard
to forget it. In Paris they keep vigil over the body for three, sometimes four days. But here you barely have
time to get used to the idea before you have to start
running after the hearse. Then his wife had said to him,
“Hush now, that’s not the sort of thing to be telling the
gentleman.” The old man had blushed and apologized.
I’d stepped in and said, “No, not at all.” I thought what
he’d been saying was interesting and made sense.
In the little mortuary he told me that he’d come to
the horne because he was destitute. He was in good
health, so he’d offered to take on the job of caretaker. I
pointed out that even so he was still a resident. He said
no, he wasn’t. I’d already been struck by the way he
had of saying “they” or “the others” and, less often, “the
old people,” talking about the patients, when some of
them weren’t any older than he was. But of course it
wasn’t the same. He was the caretaker, and to a certain
extent he had authority over them.
Just then the nurse carne in. Night had fallen suddenly. Darkness had gathered, quickly, above the skylight. The caretaker turned the switch and I was blinded
by the sudden Bash of light. He suggested I go to the
dining hall for dinner. But I wasn’t hungry. Then he
offered to bring me a cup of coffee with milk. I like milk
in my coffee, so I said yes, and he carne back a few
minutes later with a tray. I drank the coffee. Then I felt
like having a smoke. But I hesitated, because I didn’t
know if I could do it with Marnan right there. I thought
about it; it didn’t matter. I offered the caretaker a cigarette and we smoked.