Free Tita by Marie Houzelle Page B
Authors: Marie Houzelle
existentialism, her shoulders and her feet contract for a second or two. In her place, I’d ask a question, or at least try to pick up some information from the conversation. She doesn’t. And she doesn’t completely withdraw either, as she does when they reminisce about sailing adventures. She tries to saunter through the problem, brushing it aside as if she knew all about the topic but it didn’t deserve her full attention. She pulls it off mostly, but it can’t be easy.
This afternoon she takes us to what is no longer our park, and she sits with Noëlle’s mother, drinking tea and knitting in our old deckchairs in front of the chalet. The younger children are playing hide and seek, but Noëlle wants to draw the artichokes that border the wide path, all the way from the chalet to the front gate. She says they are extraordinary, all in bloom. She gives me paper and crayons, and I’m about to say that I can’t draw, but I change my mind. I don’t feel like hide and seek, or anything else. And artichokes are one of the few foods I like. Coralie loves them too. When we were small, people said we must have been born, instead of in cabbages, in artichokes.
We sit cross-legged on the dry earth, and as Noëlle concentrates on her artwork I vaguely listen to our mothers, who are talking on the other side of the lilac bushes. About headaches. Mother says hers can last for days; but sometimes they go away when she smokes a cigarette. Noëlle’s mother never gets any, thank God and touch wood. Noëlle shows me her first drawing, which I sincerely admire. She hasn’t gone into details, but her purple flowers inside the spiked leaves look so alive. I have nothing to show; as usual the lines on my piece of paper don’t make any sense. Noëlle says she’ll get some watercolors from the chalet. Meanwhile, the women have gone on to another topic.
Noëlle’s mother is laughing. “I was already five months pregnant with Noëlle when we got married,” she says. “We’d been thinking about it for a while, but our families were far away, we had to decide where it would take place, organize it... We were both busy at the time, with our final exams. Then of course we could no longer wait. My mother was upset. She couldn’t believe I really liked René. She thought I was marrying him because I had to!”
“You won’t believe it,” Mother reciprocates, “but I didn’t get married until Tita was more than a year old. When I met my husband, he was getting a divorce. Then his wife heard about me, and suddenly she no longer wanted the divorce. She set impossible conditions: she claimed everything he had. This took for ever to sort out and meanwhile, I got pregnant.”
This is all news to me, and probably “not for children”. But the lilac bushes are thick.
“It must have been hard,” Noëlle’s mother says.
“It was all right. And something really funny happened. When Tita was born, I didn’t give my name at the clinic. The doctor told me there was a new law: the mother doesn’t have to register if she doesn’t want to. So I didn’t.”
“Why?” Noëlle’s mother asks.
“Because Tita’s father wasn’t divorced yet, so he couldn’t recognize Tita legally. If I didn’t give my name, when we got married she’d have her father’s name right away. There’d be no trace of her being born out of wedlock.”
Wedlock? Noëlle’s mother doesn’t react in words. Noëlle is back, with new implements. She offers me some, I choose haphazardly, and she settles down with her easel further up the walk.
“I forgot about this,” Mother goes on, “until one day my mother, who was taking care of Tita, said that a social worker had called and wanted to see me. Two women visited us at home. They said, ‘We have good news for you: we’ve found a very nice family to adopt your daughter.’ I couldn’t believe my ears. Then they explained that when a child was born to unknown parents, it was automatically put up for
This afternoon she takes us to what is no longer our park, and she sits with Noëlle’s mother, drinking tea and knitting in our old deckchairs in front of the chalet. The younger children are playing hide and seek, but Noëlle wants to draw the artichokes that border the wide path, all the way from the chalet to the front gate. She says they are extraordinary, all in bloom. She gives me paper and crayons, and I’m about to say that I can’t draw, but I change my mind. I don’t feel like hide and seek, or anything else. And artichokes are one of the few foods I like. Coralie loves them too. When we were small, people said we must have been born, instead of in cabbages, in artichokes.
We sit cross-legged on the dry earth, and as Noëlle concentrates on her artwork I vaguely listen to our mothers, who are talking on the other side of the lilac bushes. About headaches. Mother says hers can last for days; but sometimes they go away when she smokes a cigarette. Noëlle’s mother never gets any, thank God and touch wood. Noëlle shows me her first drawing, which I sincerely admire. She hasn’t gone into details, but her purple flowers inside the spiked leaves look so alive. I have nothing to show; as usual the lines on my piece of paper don’t make any sense. Noëlle says she’ll get some watercolors from the chalet. Meanwhile, the women have gone on to another topic.
Noëlle’s mother is laughing. “I was already five months pregnant with Noëlle when we got married,” she says. “We’d been thinking about it for a while, but our families were far away, we had to decide where it would take place, organize it... We were both busy at the time, with our final exams. Then of course we could no longer wait. My mother was upset. She couldn’t believe I really liked René. She thought I was marrying him because I had to!”
“You won’t believe it,” Mother reciprocates, “but I didn’t get married until Tita was more than a year old. When I met my husband, he was getting a divorce. Then his wife heard about me, and suddenly she no longer wanted the divorce. She set impossible conditions: she claimed everything he had. This took for ever to sort out and meanwhile, I got pregnant.”
This is all news to me, and probably “not for children”. But the lilac bushes are thick.
“It must have been hard,” Noëlle’s mother says.
“It was all right. And something really funny happened. When Tita was born, I didn’t give my name at the clinic. The doctor told me there was a new law: the mother doesn’t have to register if she doesn’t want to. So I didn’t.”
“Why?” Noëlle’s mother asks.
“Because Tita’s father wasn’t divorced yet, so he couldn’t recognize Tita legally. If I didn’t give my name, when we got married she’d have her father’s name right away. There’d be no trace of her being born out of wedlock.”
Wedlock? Noëlle’s mother doesn’t react in words. Noëlle is back, with new implements. She offers me some, I choose haphazardly, and she settles down with her easel further up the walk.
“I forgot about this,” Mother goes on, “until one day my mother, who was taking care of Tita, said that a social worker had called and wanted to see me. Two women visited us at home. They said, ‘We have good news for you: we’ve found a very nice family to adopt your daughter.’ I couldn’t believe my ears. Then they explained that when a child was born to unknown parents, it was automatically put up for