La Famille Part 4
I know so little of my father’s history that I’m almost embarrassed. Of course, he wasn’t the most garrulous man, and whatever prompted him to leave his London-based Franco-English family when he was still young will remain a mystery. One event in particular stayed with me for decades and is unlikely to ever be solved.
I was 17 years old, returning from a party. The front door to our house was open. My mother was at the top of the stairs, my father at the bottom. Both were yelling. They fell silent when they saw me. My mother turned, went into their bedroom, and slammed the door. I was standing five feet from my father when he turned away, shaking his head. “I never should have left my first wife,” he said.
The incident was never mentioned until decades later, when he was in the hospital after a violent encounter with a tenant in the Alzheimer’s-friendly building where they both lived. My father didn’t remember what had happened and could not understand why he was hospitalized and strapped to his bed like an animal. I explained and he muttered, “C’est absurde. Ridicule…“ Then I asked, “Papa, tu étais marié avant Maman?” I saw something in his eyes, which vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Qui t’a dit ça?”
“You did. You and Maman were arguing, and you said you’d been married before…”
I unbuckled the straps at his wrists and ankles. He sat up painfully and tried to stand. I pushed him back gently. He sat on the edge of the bed. “There was no one before your mother. Or after.”
I insisted. “But you said…”
“No. I didn’t.” He yawned. “Je suis fatigué.”
He lay back down on the bed and yawned again. He closed his eyes.
At that moment, a doctor came in. She was a slight woman, with a pronounced Balkan accent. “Ah,” she said. “You are the son? He said you would come.”
We spoke for a few minutes about my father’s condition. “You can take him home tomorrow,” she said. “He’ll be much better off with you than here.”
I wanted to ask the doctor if he had mentioned a first wife, then thought better of it. If he hadn’t spoken about it for almost half a century, I had no right to question his secret.
Maman’s family was different, openly outrageous as it clung to a vestige of upper middle-class values. My great uncle Jules, my maternal grandfather’s brother, was an architect of some notoriety. He had designed various buildings in Paris, and his chef d’oeuvre was a large rectangular structure that was the headquarters of the Banque de France.
Jules and his wife—I believe her name was Sidonne—did not like each other, and as the years passed by, the dislike turned to a vociferous loathing often voiced during family gatherings. Sidonne, it appears, was not highly regarded. The Février/Bertrand clan thought Jules had married far below his station, and the union’s sole saving—and unspoken—grace was Sidone’s wealth. An only child, she had inherited a copious amount of Francs shortly after wedding Jules, and kept the purse-strings tightly knotted.
Jules devised an elegant retribution. When the Banque de France building was inaugurated, he led guests to the roof and pointed out the gargoyles sculpted by Italian artisans. There was an even dozen, distributed so that their gaping mouths spewed forth gushes of water off the roof every time it rained. There, among the horrific griffin, wyvern, and chimera, was a gargoyle sculpted as a monstrous woman’s face, a medusa with a gaping maw, a perfect if exaggerated rendition of his wife Sidonne’s head.
When Sidonne died not much later, Jules inherited her money, a tidy sum that enabled him to start keeping company with an 18-year-old chorus line dancer from the Folies Bergères. Enamored, he bought her a small candy store, as she had a sweet tooth. The girl—I was told all this by my mother—was an average dancer and could barely count to ten. While Jules was visiting Poland, she sold the bonbonière and fled Paris with a stagehand. Neither were ever seen again.
If you enjoy these blogs, be sure to read my novel, L’Amérique, available from Apprentice Press and Amazon.
I was 17 years old, returning from a party. The front door to our house was open. My mother was at the top of the stairs, my father at the bottom. Both were yelling. They fell silent when they saw me. My mother turned, went into their bedroom, and slammed the door. I was standing five feet from my father when he turned away, shaking his head. “I never should have left my first wife,” he said.
The incident was never mentioned until decades later, when he was in the hospital after a violent encounter with a tenant in the Alzheimer’s-friendly building where they both lived. My father didn’t remember what had happened and could not understand why he was hospitalized and strapped to his bed like an animal. I explained and he muttered, “C’est absurde. Ridicule…“ Then I asked, “Papa, tu étais marié avant Maman?” I saw something in his eyes, which vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Qui t’a dit ça?”
“You did. You and Maman were arguing, and you said you’d been married before…”
I unbuckled the straps at his wrists and ankles. He sat up painfully and tried to stand. I pushed him back gently. He sat on the edge of the bed. “There was no one before your mother. Or after.”
I insisted. “But you said…”
“No. I didn’t.” He yawned. “Je suis fatigué.”
He lay back down on the bed and yawned again. He closed his eyes.
At that moment, a doctor came in. She was a slight woman, with a pronounced Balkan accent. “Ah,” she said. “You are the son? He said you would come.”
We spoke for a few minutes about my father’s condition. “You can take him home tomorrow,” she said. “He’ll be much better off with you than here.”
I wanted to ask the doctor if he had mentioned a first wife, then thought better of it. If he hadn’t spoken about it for almost half a century, I had no right to question his secret.
Maman’s family was different, openly outrageous as it clung to a vestige of upper middle-class values. My great uncle Jules, my maternal grandfather’s brother, was an architect of some notoriety. He had designed various buildings in Paris, and his chef d’oeuvre was a large rectangular structure that was the headquarters of the Banque de France.
Jules and his wife—I believe her name was Sidonne—did not like each other, and as the years passed by, the dislike turned to a vociferous loathing often voiced during family gatherings. Sidonne, it appears, was not highly regarded. The Février/Bertrand clan thought Jules had married far below his station, and the union’s sole saving—and unspoken—grace was Sidone’s wealth. An only child, she had inherited a copious amount of Francs shortly after wedding Jules, and kept the purse-strings tightly knotted.
Jules devised an elegant retribution. When the Banque de France building was inaugurated, he led guests to the roof and pointed out the gargoyles sculpted by Italian artisans. There was an even dozen, distributed so that their gaping mouths spewed forth gushes of water off the roof every time it rained. There, among the horrific griffin, wyvern, and chimera, was a gargoyle sculpted as a monstrous woman’s face, a medusa with a gaping maw, a perfect if exaggerated rendition of his wife Sidonne’s head.
When Sidonne died not much later, Jules inherited her money, a tidy sum that enabled him to start keeping company with an 18-year-old chorus line dancer from the Folies Bergères. Enamored, he bought her a small candy store, as she had a sweet tooth. The girl—I was told all this by my mother—was an average dancer and could barely count to ten. While Jules was visiting Poland, she sold the bonbonière and fled Paris with a stagehand. Neither were ever seen again.
If you enjoy these blogs, be sure to read my novel, L’Amérique, available from Apprentice Press and Amazon.
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