CHAPTER 39
I walked into the school once more, that September, and it felt right, true. This was where I belonged, what the Lord had made me for. I was so like my mother, for she had found her own place in the world, her own purpose and joy in her kitchens, and I had my children.

That was how it felt, for while my brother and sister would have their own, I had mine to greet each day and send home tired in the afternoon. Pascale was awaiting me in the little place of calm and safety, with a coffee ready.

“Your holiday, it went well?”

“Very! And…well, it went better now that I, you know…”

I waved my hands at that general area of my body, and Pascale embraced me.

“New year, new woman, no? Now, let us look at the lists of children”

Once more I was immersed in the world of bright eyes and large hopes, of being an adult to the children even though I still saw myself as a child, and as the days shortened and the weather became cooler I reflected each day on how very fortunate I truly was. Just like Maman, indeed.

Elle and Matty had produced a small bundle of feminine delight (in their eyes), or a smelly and noisy creature in my own, and we held a christening and naming ceremony, where of course I wept, as the child became Françoise Sophie, and I pledged myself to be her mother before God, as Elle herself declared me an aunt and intimate part of her, their, family.

Christmas once more, and I left out my shoes, and they were still those old ones, my first formalities, my first shoes for a woman and not a child. I stood in the kitchen at one instant, and the tears came, as I thought of how many years I had discarded in my shame and despair, years I could never recover. The future, then, that lay ahead, a future with love at least of the family, and perhaps…perhaps there might be another for me, perhaps a Benny who did not run.

And so, once more, in the big house, there was fat liver, and sheep droppings, and a nice Auvergne blue that I prefer to the Roquefort, and Papa making the announcement.

“My children! Your mother and I must speak. We have a date, and a place to rest for a while, but the Noon is calling to us, and we cannot deny it any longer. It is just those small details we are required to attend to, such as the houses, our children, small matters of no importance. Sophie…what will you do? Is it for you to keep the other house? It will be more than you can afford, but your mother, myself, we are happy to pay for it until you gain your full qualifications”

That was indeed a deep question. My sunflower house, our house, the garden; they were the first places I had ever felt free, the space to allow Sophie to emerge from her disguise and enter the world. Perhaps it would be better to take a smaller apartment closer to my calling, but to give up our garden, that was perhaps a step too far for me.

“When do you leave, Papa?”

“We will go in early June, my sweet. That gives us more than five months to prepare, and leaves us time for your Maman to impose her authority upon her new empire”

“I would stay here, if I may, just for now, and to consider. I have looked at a little motor scooter, perhaps to release me from the bus and the tram”

Rollo muttered something, and Maggie laughed. “He says, you may become a Hell’s Angel, but you will still be his angel”

A kiss to his cheek, and that smile of love and delight that never seemed to be far from her face. I had to make my own joke.

“So, we shall have the time-share thing, then. As I shall no longer have to worry about paying for my Summer holiday, I shall be able to afford my scooter!”

Man leant closer to Papa. “My beloved, did we not make a mistake in our planning? I thought we had intended to leave no address, that we might slip away as the night thief and be free of them at last!”

But Maman, she cannot keep her face serious for long, so there was more laughter, and almost too much wine and calva, and once more it seemed that there could not be much that had been held from us to bring joy.

And so to Spring, and then the edge of Summer as I rode my little blue scooter to my children and the large van took my parents to the sun, and an English phrase shone in my mind. I was living the dream, as they put it. It was more, for while I was in this dream I had woken from nightmares, one after the other, monsters evaporating in morning sunlight. It felt strange, just at first, without the constant presence of my mother to see me awake in the morning and asleep at night, but she had found, rediscovered, her true love and they had a life to live and their own dreams to live. I could not begrudge them anything, for had not this particular dream come from her love for me?

And so I continued as Mlle Laplace, and the true Summer came, and with it those days in the cobwebs and string, or in the courtyard as the cigalles chanted and we laughed over some meal or other, my sister and I, and truly, there was so little left of the Lord’s bounty that I could truly hope for.

And another September, and another embrace on that first day from my dear friend. That was clear: she had taken me as a student, transformed me into a teacher, and then adopted me as a confidante and woman.

“Ah, Sophie, as brown as you always are the first day. It will wash out too quickly, I fear. This year we have no extra days of sun. Now, we have more new faces, naturally, and we must prepare our hearts for the fray. Coffee?”

I took the youngest class that day, and they were a mixture. Some spoke the French quite badly, and I wondered if they were truly ready for the English. Never mind, Sophie, Mlle Laplace, that is your job, your profession. I opened the register of names to call out, and one leapt to my eyes.

Forgeron. Tiffanie Forgeron, written in that way, and I wondered how such a name could have been accepted. The surname, that was a common one, and perhaps…no. They were children. You, Sophie, are their teacher.

I spoke the first phrase in English. “Good morning, children! I am Mlle Laplace, and I shall be teaching you the first little bit of the English that you will not hear from a bad film or a good song. We will be having fun, but there will be some work, alas. Now…”

I began the ritual, writing ‘my name is’ and ‘I am X years old’ on the big board, and taking the children through the words in turn, before turning it around and making them questions. Then the alphabet.

“Yes…Georges?”

“Mlle Laplace, why do they say ‘G’ and ‘J’ the wrong way round?”

“They do a lot of things the wrong way round. They put their adjectives---describing words---before their nouns, for example. It is because they are foreign, after all, but they are not as bad as the Germans”

I left that one to hang in the air, just for an instant, and before the wars could be mentioned I explained.

“The Germans, children, when they speak of anything other than the right now, they keep their verbs, their doing words, until the very end of the sentence, so that one must wait, in suspense, to find out what someone is actually doing. It makes conversation a little like a story, where you have to wait for the ending. The roast beefs, they do not do that, so be thankful!”

And the lesson went on, and I told them of their ancestors, how they had tamed the English, and how the animals the English tended remained English whilst their flesh became French, and I knew all along, as I did every day, that this was what I was formed for. Giving knowledge, with a smile, and games, and laughter, but all the time helping the small faces to learn, to grow. As I did so, I looked at little Tiffanie, and yes, the limns were there, the turn of jaw, the shape of the nose. Her father would have been very young at her birth, but that fitted so well with what I remembered. Girls, they were for his use and disposal. If he were her father, would he still be in her life?

New days, Sophie, new world. Move forward with it, and in it..