Mme Proust and the Kosher Kitchen (2 page)

As she spotted the Faure monument, Sophie also noticed a rough patch of clear ground beyond it, where there was space for some future grave. She approached and started kicking through dried leaves and half-dead grass with the toe of her shoe. Soon she found what she was looking for, a round pebble about double the size of a one-franc coin. By dint of more kicking, she amassed half a dozen such stones, putting them in her pockets, before moving up the hill towards the top of the cemetery.

As she arrived at her own graves, Sophie realized why she was talking to her daughter. She should have brought the child here before she left. The thought had not occurred to Sophie then, there had been so little time, only a day to pack a bag small enough that a little girl might carry it by herself, to make promises, to cherish her for a moment, a moment cut short when a lady and a gentleman arrived to pick her up ten minutes before the appointed hour. Well, Sophie would make up for it now, and she continued the guided tour in her head.

This is my family, she would say as she turned to the black marble monument inscribed with the name
WEIL.
Originally, they came from Metz, in Lorraine. We went there once, when you were little, well, you won’t remember, you were very small. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, we have all lived here in Paris for years and years. The men in my family were always business people. My great-grandfather made his fortune in buttons. Well, dear, everybody needs buttons, you know, and somebody has to make them. He had a whole factory where all they did was make buttons.

And my father, your
grand-père
, was a soldier, my dear, fought in the war. Not this war, the Great War, 1914. They
awarded him the Croix de Guerre, a medal, for being brave at Verdun. He lived too, survived the trenches, but when he came home he caught the influenza. It killed many people in those days. Now they have all kinds of medicines, but back then it was different. You just got sick and died. I was only a little girl, I barely knew my own papa, but your grandfather was a hero, my dear. Don’t forget that in the new place. Tell them your grandfather fought for France.

And there’s
Grand-mère
. The summer before last, remember? Better that way, she was old, best that she should not have seen… well, better that way.

Sophie turned her head from her mother’s name and looked down the path towards the grey stone that marked the grave of her in-laws.
BENSIMON
.

This is your father’s family. They are unique, the only Bensimons in Paris. They were merchants once in Tangier and Amsterdam, but they have lived in France since the Revolution. They are grand Parisians now, and lawyers each and every one of them. Just like Papa.

Our people belong here, my dear. Oh yes, the Rothschilds, they were Napoleon’s bankers, and Sarah Bernhardt, the most wonderful actress France has ever produced. She is over there somewhere, to your right. Henri Bergson is here, a philosopher, an old man. He died last year. It was his lungs, I think. And Marcel Proust, the famous writer, just over here. He too. Jewish. On his mother’s side. She was a distant cousin of my father’s, in fact. Yes, we are buried right alongside all the high and the mighty.

We belong here, my dear, in Paris. And here in Père Lachaise, all Paris is at our feet.

Sophie took some stones from her pocket, and balanced them carefully on the flat top of the Bensimon monument,
before walking back to her own family’s grave. Here, the upright grave marker was arched at the top, so she could find no safe place for her stones except on the ground. She dug them in a bit, calculating they would stay put longer that away. As she arranged them, it occurred to her that it would have been easier if she practised her neighbours’ religion. She wouldn’t have had to go grubbing for stones. The florists’ shops had been all but empty that winter, but with summer their stock had improved and there were still pretty bouquets to be bought on the boulevards, little clusters of chrysanthemums one could bring to a grave. But if she practised her neighbours’ religion… She brushed the thought away, stood back, and surveyed the effect. This was her remembrance, with stones, as was the tradition. The task was complete. Perhaps the knock would come that very night. Sophie was ready now for the next chapter.

The doctor is furiously angry with the English. He received a letter this morning from the ineffectual Dr. Thompson, filled with doubts and excuses, and citing all sorts of medical reasons why the plan cannot go ahead, which is all nonsense, of course. Just the British playing politics as usual. He got quite incensed about it at dinner yesterday, and when I asked how Dr. Thompson could possibly make any medical objections to the
cordon sanitaire
, Adrien exploded at me: “Of course, he cannot, he is just inventing them to satisfy some petty-minded officials at Whitehall.” He was so violent about it that I permitted myself a gentle remonstrance. It is not my fault if the English are determined to thwart him and he really should keep his temper in front of the servants.

He calmed down enough to explain it has all got mixed up with Egypt—apparently the English are suspicious of our imperial ambitions in that direction! It would be risible if it were not sad. Adrien concluded by saying he did not give a damn who owned Egypt, he just wanted to save all Europeans from cholera, and I felt quite sorry for him. He truly means that and cares so much for the project, it has turned his head quite white in the last few years.

And he has put on several kilos already this autumn, yet we are almost two months from New Year’s Day. All those holiday meals to get through. I have suggested to Félicie that we always have fruit or a jelly for dessert rather than a pâtisserie, although it does not seem fair to Dick to deprive him of his sweets just because his father does tend to overeat. At any rate,
Félicie and I agreed we can try to keep our menus frugal at home, but neither of us can do anything about all the dinners. Even if I were to accompany Adrien more often, I could not stop those menus. There were both lobster and salmon before the beef and the veal when we dined at the Faures’ last week, and five different cakes for dessert! The table did look beautiful and Madame was so soliticious, but I found the whole outing a strain.

Just eight more days.

I put on grey this morning for the first time. I suppose I could have done so a month ago, but I have become accustomed to the colours of my grief. Adrien, who just stuck his head in the door before going into his office to see a patient, was very sweet about it, and said how well I looked. I imagine Marie-Marguerite will have something stronger to say when she arrives for tea this afternoon. While she is utterly sympathetic and kind, acknowledging fully the depth of my grief over the loss of Maman, she is always frank about death and feels we make too much of a show of mourning. She has already advised me several times that I must start receiving again as soon as the year is up. She says it is odd that just when we need our friends most, to comfort us in our bereavement, we invent rules to keep them apart from us. Not that I was ever one to be holding a salon. My day at home was never more than a few ladies enjoying a cup of tea and a little gossip. But I will venture out to others’ houses more in the new year. I must remember
to tell Marie-Marguerite I did attend the Faure dinner, even if I found it an intimidating debut.

I spent yesterday evening with Dick going over his philosophy essay very carefully, so there would be no repetition of last month’s little tragedy. It is well written enough, and makes a strong argument for the triumph of the sciences (his father would be in complete agreement!), but we had to work very hard to eliminate all awkward constructions, which was what let him down last time. He certainly does not have his brother’s fine style.

Seven days, only a week.

We had a congenial family evening with a good rabbit stew. Marie-Marguerite was very tactful about the grey at tea time, so after she had left and I was changing for dinner, I tried a violet collar in place of my usual black and Georges paid me a compliment. He was in fine form last night. It is not that he misses Maman less than I do, but he manages to forget his loss once he is in good company or has launched into an amusing tale from the courts. Dick was delighted with a story his uncle says has been going around his colleagues about a judge who is notorious for retreating to his chambers to nap. The courtroom lawyers all claim they can hear his snoring out in the halls.

Georges was teasing Dick about medicine, telling him he would make a fine doctor, just like his father, and asking him about the science exam, calling him Robert all the time. (He says Dick is no name for a
grown man and we must drop our pet name lest Robert be thought a baby when he gets to medical school.)

The men then had a great debate about pasteurization. They are all in favour, naturally, but Adrien says it cannot be used effectively until people understand its purpose. To illustrate his point, he had Jean fetch Félicie in from the kitchen to ask her opinion. She played her role admirably, saying she has never heard of such a thing and that it would ruin the taste of the milk, much to Adrien’s amusement.

Six days.

Sometimes one’s griefs get confused. I was just leaving my room after lunch yesterday afternoon, preparing to go out for my walk, when I caught sight of that photograph of Marcel taken a few years ago, just before he went up to the lycée. I found myself overcome with pain at the sight of those deep, dark eyes, and, alone in the room, started to weep. I retreated to the little sofa, struggling to keep my tears under control—I know how Adrien tires of such demonstrations and argues that much prolonged they can be only bad for the health—when I came to wonder at myself and ask why I was crying. Marcel, for all that his constitution worries me, is alive and well, and ready to return to us in five short days.

I think I was crying for Maman, or perhaps just the march of time, the children growing up, but mainly for Maman, I believe. Yet, sometimes, despite her death, it is Marcel I miss the most, feeling his absence throughout
the apartment. My yearning for him is not a reasoned thing, retreating into the distance steadily as his return approaches, but rather varies wildly from one day to the next. One time it is a faint tinge one can easily ignore to get on with the day’s business, another it is a great broad boulevard of pain that there is no avoiding. So, it all gets muddled.

“There is not a nook or corner in this house which does not wound me to the heart. Your room kills me.” So wrote our dear de Sévigné after her daughter’s departure.

Adrien says there is increasing doubt about whether this tuberculosis vaccine the Germans have invented is actually efficacious against the disease. He goes this afternoon to a meeting of the Permanent Commission at the Ministry and says de Fleury will tell him more, but he is afraid false hopes have been raised. I do admire the breadth of his concerns. Some of his colleagues become quite obsessed with their particular speciality and just reserve a little corner to themselves, never venturing out beyond it. Adrien would never ask why there is not a standing commission for the defence against cholera, rather he hurries over to help with tuberculosis. He still has such energy. Dick inherits that. I only wish Marcel did. I had hoped the year away from us would strengthen him, teach him some measure of control, but often I fear the reverse will be true and he will return to us with his digestion ruined and his temperament yet more prone to extravagance.

I went to Marie-Marguerite’s yesterday afternoon and enjoyed a really fruitful tête-à-tête, one of those conversations that remind you why you are such great friends. Not that you need reminding—my affection for Marie-Marguerite never wavers—but sometimes you have these flashes of insight into a friendship. I was discussing how muddled I feel at times, and unable to distinguish between grief for Maman and missing Marcel, and she understood perfectly.

She was recalling an episode from the weeks before her wedding, on a day when she was supposed to see the dentist. Her mother decided that this was the time to impart to her some discreet details about what she might expect in the marriage bed. She said that in the carriage that afternoon, she had to keep reminding herself she was going to have a tooth examined—a nerve-racking experience in itself—not preparing for her wedding night. “Not that I wish to denigrate your tender feelings for Marcel and your late mother by comparing them to either toothache or nuptial bliss, but you know what I mean,” she concluded, and we both had quite a good laugh over the odd mélange of life’s trials we had somehow brought together in one conversation.

I received a letter from Marcel this morning. It will be his last, of course, and annoyingly it had crossed with the one I had posted last week. As Mme de Sévigné aptly noted: “The trouble with corresponding over long distances is that all the answers deal with the wrong cards.”

If I recall correctly, however, she continued by saying that one must accept the gap as natural, for the stifling of one’s thoughts would be altogether too constraining. Unfortunately, I wish I had stifled my thoughts about Marcel’s diet, for now he reports that his bowels are loose again—if anything, tending too much that way—and I fear it would have been wiser to counsel him to eat a great deal of bread rather than avoid milk. My hope is that his return to Paris will enable us to control his diet more effectively and ensure that he gets enough sleep, so that he can conquer his tendency to infirmity once and for all. The poor boy has had a hard year of it, despite the visits home now and again. The idea of making a soldier of him is, in the end, a little bizarre. Never mind, the waiting is almost over and on Saturday he will be with me.