Free Soft in the Head by Marie-Sabine Roger Page B

another book “that beautifully describes a mother’s love. You’ll see, it is terribly moving…”
    Promise at Dawn , it’s called.
    At first I didn’t really understand all the stories of gods with strange names. Totoche and I don’t know who all. A bit later, I really got into it, when the hero talks about how he found his vocation when he was thirteen, except for him it wasn’t rose windows, it was wanting to be a writer, but as jobs go, it’s no stupider than any other.
    Margueritte read a bit to me.
    I said, It’s not bad for a made-up story.
    She shook her head and said:
    “Actually, it’s autobiographical!”
    “That’s what I said.”
    “In other words, the author is writing about his own childhood, his real mother, about himself, about being a pilot during the war. He is telling the story of his life.”
    “Really?”
    “Oh yes, I assure you. He is describing what he experienced, what he felt…”
    “Even when he talks about howling like a dog over the grave?”
    “Like a dog?… I’m not sure what—ah, yes, I think I remember. Indeed, I think he may have used those very words. Just a moment, just a moment, let me check…”
    She flicked the pages with the edge of her thumb— zzzzip —like a dealer shuffling a pack of cards.
    I was thinking, she’s showing off, no one can read that fast without even opening the book the whole way. But apparently they can, because suddenly she screeched to a halt and said:
    “Ah, I’ve found it! You constantly return to howl at your mother’s grave like a lost dog . Well, well, Germain, I’m impressed, you have excellent auditory memory.”
    “Well, actually, I mostly remember things that I hear…”
    She began rereading the passage silently, selfishly. I said:
    “Couldn’t you read it out loud?”
    “I would be happy to! All the more so as it is so poignant, listen: It is not good to be so loved so young, so early. It leaves you with a fatal flaw. You believe that love is possible. You believe that it exists elsewhere, that it can be found. You stake your life on it. You watch, you hope, you wait. Through a mother’s love, life makes a promise at dawn that it can never keep… And so, to the end of your days, you are destined to be disenchanted. ”
    “So that’s where it comes from, the title?”
    “Hmm?”
    “The writer called it Promise at Dawn because life makes promises that it doesn’t keep? It’s about a mother’s love.”
    “Of course, absolutely! It’s astonishing to realize that I never noticed that crucial detail in all the times I read it!”
    “Could you keep going a little bit, just as far as the dog?”
    “As far as the end of the chapter would be even better.”
    “OK.”
    “ Thereafter, each time a woman takes you in her arms and clasps you to her breast, it is merely a condolence. You constantly return to howl at your mother’s grave like a lost dog .”
    “There: ‘like a lost dog’, see!”
    “… Never again, never again, never again. Beautiful arms twine about your neck, the softest lips speak to you of love, but already you know the score. You have drunk from the source early and slaked your thirst. When, later, you grow thirsty, though you search high and low, you will find there are no more springs, only mirages .”
    “Does he say that because he was a pilot?”
    “Say what?”
    “You did tell me he was a pilot, the guy who wrote this?”
    “Yes, yes absolutely.”
    “So, it’s because he was a pilot that he mentions Mirages in the story?”
    You’d think I was speaking Chinese.
    “I’m sorry, Germain, I’m not quite sure what you’re saying…”
    “I was saying that a Mirage is a type of fighter plane.”
    “Is it? I didn’t know that.”
    “I suppose even you can’t know everything.”
    “Very true. And it’s fortunate, for otherwise I should be terribly bored. That said, in the novel, I believe the author is using the word mirage in a different sense. Its other meaning, if you