said that she didn’t know how to touch the keys, because she had nothing more to give.
That she felt as though the notes would crash into the walls and the ceiling, then fall to the ground.
Achilles was calm and quietly told her that all they had to do was open the windows.
Claudia loved him and cried a little. But she never played the piano again.
The piano still sits enthroned in the middle of the living room. It gathers dust and that annoys her.
One night, you saw her clean it. She rubbed it furiously with a rag. As if it were one big stain.
On Saturdays, you used to go with your mother to the hairdresser’s. It was your outing. While she was having her hair curled, lightening up in a way she rarely did, you would line up for the telex. A small, seemingly ordinary machine, but one that helped the poor get rich. People would read stock prices, current up to the minute. The small machine sitting between two permed ladies was wired to Wall Street.
That impressed you.
Your father speculated like everyone else. After carefully noting the numbers on the palm of your hand, you called home and gave them to him.
Often, a few days later, a new oven, fridge, or set of dishes, bought on credit, would find their way into the house.
You deserved to be rich. Like everyone else.
Before, you had your bedroom, which you shared with your sisters. You had your rituals, your secrets, your lair.
You liked to sleep naked, your body in the form of a star, arms and legs open wide on the bed, while on the other side of the wall, the boys fought and snored.
Before, every new year, your father would buy you a pair of new shoes. You would spend a week looking down at them, your neck bent, eyes glued to your shiny new feet.
Then, the crisis.
Your mother went to the hairdresser’s once or twice more. But she wouldn’t let you check the telex. The stock market didn’t seem to interest anyone anymore, and the impatient line had suddenly dispersed.
You had nothing more to do at the salon; you didn’t have a mission anymore, and your mother’s reflection in the mirror, under the hairdresser’s hands, had gone dark.
You had to drag your mattress into the boys’ room.
Now you slept crammed together, no more secrets, odours intermingling.
A stranger moved into your room, ‘the lodger.’ It was by order of the government: a room had to be freed up to make a place for the indigent. The lodger had lost his home. He was soaking up your space, your light, your memories. You didn’t like him. He was poor, and he had taken your place.
And then you didn’t get new shoes. At the beginning of the year, your mother cleaned a pair that had belonged to your older sister. And they were handed down to you.
That’s when you lifted your head. That’s when you started to look to the horizon.
Claudia is finishing up ironing your skirt. Sitting in your underwear on a chair, you are focused on the rumbling in your stomach. The hunger comes in waves. Nothing, and then an empty tunnel that opens up between your belly button and your throat.
‘Put this on. Let’s go.’
You grab your blue skirt. Your mother ironed the pleats, made it look like a fan. It’s pretty. You put it on and twirl. You are the wind.
Tables have been set up in the parish hall.
The neighbourhood families are seated, waiting patiently for their soup.
You feel like you’re at a restaurant. You try to sit up straight, to be worthy of your outfit.
You can’t wait. You like to eat.
You recognize almost all the families around you. They all look dressed up. More than usual. Not to hide their hunger. No, to greet it with dignity. To put it on notice that they aren’t afraid of it.
And yet the sound of hungry bodies finally being fed betrays the precariousness of the moment. Under their pristine fabrics, they are all hanging by a thread.
There are no jobs. The stores are deserted; the banks are closed.
The park benches and the libraries are filled. They are the two hotspots for the newly unemployed.
While getting an encyclopedia for a school project, you walk by some twenty men taking refuge in their reading. Your eyes linger on one of them. His five-o’clock shadow, his blue eyes glued to the page. Nothing can come between him and what he is reading. He seizes the words like a wolf seizes its prey. They are practically bleeding. They are no longer a refuge; they are a lifebuoy.
Your eyes move down the man’s long legs, which lead to his feet, which are bare, wrapped in newspaper. You’re sure he read it with the same intensity before using it as protection. He knows the words he is walking in.
We believe that the main causes of the crisis are moral and that we will cure them through a return to the Christian spirit.
Introduction to the Programme de restauration sociale (1933)
Father Bisson has one eyebrow, and you have always wanted to touch it. It looks soft.
It’s so hot in the church that his eyebrow is beaded with drops that would make a pretty necklace.
You look at your mother’s dry neck, and you imagine her wearing it. The two fine bones of her clavicle as a coat rack. Her neck stiff from being bent. From looking at what has to be washed rather than what is taking to the skies.
You squirm on the bench, which creaks. Up front, the priest is addressing the crowd with conviction.
‘Our economic recovery must bring jobs to all of our labourers and the unemployed. If the fervour of prayer, patience with the heat and fatigue, could bring about change, our wishes would come true, but we also need to change our lives so that they are more consistently generous and so that mortal sin, often repeated and rarely regretted, does not destroy most of the kind acts of a given day.’
You are seven years old. According to canon law, you have reached the age of reason, and you have to confess at least once a year.
It’s dark in the box. It smells like damp wood. It’s comfortable. You sit down. For years you have watched the long queue for the confessional, the bodies lined up, looking stiff.
You always thought that the bodies told a different story while they were waiting. As if they were already being scrutinized, spied on.
You try to think of something to talk about. It’s your first time. It’s important that he remember you. That he look forward to seeing you again.
You go into the box. You close your eyes, gulp down the warm air around you. You gulp down the vices of those who have been here before you. A fix of weakness.
It’s your turn. There are small openings in front of you through
