--BBB
The
Skeletons in the Closet
The
house loomed in front of her, blocking out the sun and making Sylvie shiver.
She pulled her sweater close, anxious and sorrowful to have to begin her new
life when the pain was so fresh and new. The sour scent of the moving truck’s
exhaust filled her lungs. Sylvie wanted more than anything to go inside and
curl up on the couch, but something held her back.
Maman and Papa held her back.
“Sylvie, come!” Grand-père called gruffly from the
doorway. Sylvie was jerked out of her daze by the rough tones of his voice. She
scooped up her duffel bag and skittered into the house.
Sylvie scanned the room up and down, trying to convince
herself that it was hers now. She adored the lavender-colored wallpaper, the
big mahogany armoire and the set of glass doors leading out to the balcony. The
things from Sylvie’s past life squatted in the room like unwanted visitors.
They looked just as out of place as she felt in the musty old home, but they
gave her a sense of permanence; like she would be here for a while, not her
little cottage on Spirele. Still, she
wished her furniture blended in better with the current décor.
”Do you like it, petite
oiselle?” Grand-mère’s words washed over Sylvie, the familiar nickname
slowing her rigid breath and calming her down.
“Je l’aime beacoup,
I like it very much, Grand-mère,” Sylvie said absentmindedly, already worn out
from the day. All she wanted to do was curl up on her bed and sleep, but she
forced herself awake. “But I need to rest. We can settle the other things in
the morning, when my mind is fresh,”
Grand-mère nodded, her face full of recognition. “I understand, petite oiselle. Only time can heal the
hurt from your parents’ passing.” She
gave Sylvie a squeeze and gently tugged the door closed behind her, leaving Sylvie
alone in the dark.
Shafts of early Saturday morning sunlight shone through
Sylvie’s window, blanketing the room with light. Sylvie’s eyes eased open, but
she snapped them back shut as she was blinded temporarily. “Zut!” she grumbled, lugging her drowsy
body out of bed to her trunk.
Sylvie clambered down the wooden staircase to the
kitchen, the intoxicating aroma of croissants
baking and coffee brewing wafting into her nose. Sylvie thought about the days
that now spread out before her like an endless road, but the sour thought of
this being her home until she moved out floated across her brain, and she
scowled. It wasn’t that she couldn’t live with her grandparents, but she
doubted that she would ever get used to the idea that Maman and Papa wouldn’t
be picking her up tomorrow night to go home. They never would.
“Bonjour,
Sylvie! Good morning!” Grand-mère exclaimed as Sylvie loped into the kitchen.
It was hard to be upset when croissants
and coffee and other delicious things were being concocted under her
grandmother’s watchful eye. She made her way over to Grand-mère and gave her a
peck on the cheek.
“Breakfast smells delicious Grand-mère, merci,” Sylvie cooed, and skipped back
out to the dining room. A hot plate with some bread and jam and a steaming cup
of chocolat sat in her place, filling
the dining room with their wonderful smell. Grand-père sat across from her,
avoiding Sylvie’s gaze.
Grand-père had always been fairly cool towards Sylvie, a
melancholy, distant look always reflected in his eyes. Sylvie never took it
personally, as he was the same towards everyone, even Grand-mère, but it raised
some questions that he was never willing to answer.
“Bonjour, Grand-pére, comment
allez-vous?” Sylvie attempted to sound upbeat and friendly. Not that he
would be any warmer towards her.
“Hmph. Ça va, Sylvie,” He mumbled, going back to
slouching. Sylvie sighed. At least she had tried. And he hadn’t even bothered
to try to speak English to her like Grand-mère did. When they emigrated from
France to Sonoma a few years ago to be near Sylvie and her late parents,
Grand-mère had taken on the project of learning English with gusto, but
Grand-père hadn’t even tried to learn, at least Sylvie thought he hadn’t. She
didn’t really know. He never spoke English in front of her.
Grand-mère’s voice from the kitchen broke the awkward
silence. “Petite oiselle! Would you
be a good granddaughter and help me carry the rest of these croissants?”
Sylvie sighed in relief at the chance to get out of her
grandfather’s company. She had begun to feel just as grumpy as Grand-père
looked. “Coming, Grand-mère!” Sylvie called, and scurried out of the dining
room, eager to help and get her mind off of her grandfather’s problems.
“So, you would like to get a new nightstand and a second trunk?” Grand-mère questioned.
Her tone clearly expressed that she didn’t understand. Sylvie had only unpacked
her one suitcase, but already her trunk was stuffed and the armoire’s drawers
would barely close. Grand-mère enjoyed buying her things, to say the least, but
it still made Sylvie depressed to think of all the things she had to leave
behind when she moved. She didn’t want to get rid of her past life.
“Yes,
Grand-mère, I need more storage! My room is becoming désordonné.”
Grand-mère sighed. “Alright, Sylvie. But while I’m out, I
would like you to look up in the attic for anything that you can reuse. I know
there is an old trunk that used to belong to your grand-père in there
somewhere.”
The attic was dark and dingy, the stench of rotting wood
and dust clogging Sylvie’s nose and making her want to sneeze. It was hard
enough for her to see in the low light, but with dust and dirt coating
everything too? It was nearly impossible.
After many minutes of stumbling around in the dingy air
and cursing, Sylvie managed to make her way downstairs for a flashlight.
Grand-père had parked himself on the couch in the sitting room, an ancient
French newspaper clasped in his wrinkled, cracked hands. He didn’t even
acknowledge dust-covered Sylvie as she made her way out to the garage and
snagged herself a huge industrial flashlight from Grand-père’s working days. All
he did was sit, a sneer on his face unmistakably aimed at Sylvie.
“Ne touchez pas mon
squelette, fille,” she heard him mutter as she passed, “Don’t touch my
skeleton.”
It gave Sylvie the chills.
When Sylvie made it back up to the attic, she immediately
began searching for a trunk. She liked armoires well enough for when she had to
hang something, but she’d always had a special connection to trunks. Sylvie
used to have two, but was forced to leave one behind when she had moved in with
Grand-mère and Grand-père. The one she brought with her was a unique tone of
brown, almost tan in a sense. Papa had
gotten it for her when he had travelled to Poland once for his job. It was her
prized possession, and she wouldn’t ever be able to part with it. Sylvie
doubted that she would be able to match the trunk, but she had to try.
To her surprise, it only took Sylvie about five minutes
to find a trunk, a battered black thing with a large silver latch on the front.
The top was flat, like her own, but it was much bulkier and heavier. Even
though it was nothing like the one she already owned, Sylvie fell in love with
it immediately.
Sylvie knelt on down on the dusty wooden floorboards and
flipped the latch of the trunk up, a bit surprised to not find a padlock on it.
Why wouldn’t there be one?
Inside the trunk, there lay a grayish-tan uniform,
several wool blankets, and pictures. Lots of pictures.
“Quel est cette?”
Sylvie breathed, “What is this?”
Sylvie tenderly picked up one of the photographs, the
gold-colored frame tarnished and dull. The photograph was of a young man,
probably in his twenties, wearing the uniform that was inside the trunk. A
rifle was slung across his shoulder, and the photographer seemed to have said
something funny, because the man was laughing. Another man stood beside him,
much taller and broader, with his arm thrown around the first man. Sylvie
picked up another picture. This one showed the first man, probably a year or
two after. He had a lot more weapons and medals now, but he didn’t look happy.
He looked solemn. Tired. Worn out.
Sylvie looked at almost every picture in the trunk, each
one unique, yet same, in a sense. Some were faded to almost white, some were
vibrant and full of energy, some were in frames and some were loose, the
corners bent and frayed. But they all had something in common; those same two
men appeared in nearly every photograph together. Occasionally, Sylvie would
stumble across a serious portrait of the first man, but they were scarce. Who was he?
By the time Sylvie dug all the way to the deepest depths
of the trunk, the pictures were all over the floor in a ring around her, spread
like a collage. She had also uncovered the identities of both men from the
French names written in shaky cursive on the undersides of a few of the
photographs: Grand-père and a man name Luc. Sylvie had never heard Grand-père
say one thing about him before, but why would he? Something like that would
have never come up in one of their short, awkward conversations.
Sylvie
was just about to replace the blankets and the uniform back inside the trunk
when the rough edge of a faded yellow envelope caught her eye, the flap
sticking out from a wood panel on the bottom. Sylvie leaned into the trunk and
tugged at it gently, the smell of mothballs making her gag. The envelope came
out easily. Sylvie flipped the envelope to read the barely-legible handwriting
on the front:
Reposer en paix Luc
Belizaire 1924-1943
‘Rest
in Peace.’ Who was this man Luc?
Sylvie turned the envelope back over in her hand and
opened the flap. Out tumbled about ten more pictures, all in pristine
condition. It was amazing they looked as nice as they did, considering they had
been hidden away for what looked like about 70 years, based on the dates. She
scooped the photos up into a stack and fingered through them.
These pictures were almost nothing like all the others.
They were still in black and white, but the similarities stopped there. They
showed scenes of vast jungles, sprawling landscapes, men in uniforms with
weapons tight in their callused hands. Sylvie noticed that Luc was in a few of
them, his face expressionless and serious. He didn’t look anything like he did
in the other photographs. Eventually Sylvie made it to one photograph that
looked nothing like the others; a simple hole, deep and dark. A coffin sat next
to it ominously, as if it was waiting to bury its next victim alive. A few
simple words were carved in the lid with a knife. Luc Belizaire 1943. Sylvie nearly fell backwards at the realization
of what had happened.
Grand-père’s best friend was killed.
He must have been shot during a war, Sylvie deduced,
probably World War II, by the dates. The photographs explained more than any
person could have; why Grand-père always had seemed so grumpy and melancholy,
why he acted so cold and bitter towards the people that should have been the
closest to him. It was the after-effects of a trauma that would have made anyone
the way he was.
Sylvie battled with her conscience for quite a while
about asking Grand-père about the photographs and the trunk. One part of her
said to leave the subject closed, but her curiosity got the better of her. She
had to figure out why he had just stored this up in the attic for all these
years. Why he had locked these feelings up longer than anyone alse have.
Sylvie made her way down the rickety ladder leading to the main house,
three of the precious photographs clasped tight in her fist. She needed to
catch Grand-père before he stopped reading his newspaper so that she could ask
him before his full attention would be on Sylvie. He was just folding it in
half with a crackle as Sylvie got into the sitting room. She took a deep breath
and began talking.
“Grand-père, I was in the attic…”She
began, nerves causing her hands to sweat. She wiped them on her jeans.
“Oui?” He replied, circling his hand
in an impatient manner.
“Well, I found this trunk…” Sylvie
took a deep breath. She wouldn’t mess
this up. “I found some old pictures. Hope you don’t mind if I looked at them,
but then I found some… that I don’t think that you wanted me to look at. But I have to know why they’ve been in there
for so long.” She stared at Grand-père, and she watched with dismay as his face
turned as dark as a storm cloud.
“Quoi?”
he said. She could hear his temper
rising. “Qui est mon squelette! Rester
hors!”
Sylvie shrank back at his sudden
outburst. “Je suis très désolé!” she
wimpered, apologizing as fast as she could in French. She didn’t want to anger
him even more by speaking in anything but his native language.
Grand-père looked like he wanted to
say more, but Sylvie sprinted back upstairs to he room, tears threatening to
spill over. Even the unfamiliar setting was better than this.
A week passed, then two. Grand-père
never mentioned their dispute, and neither did Sylvie, but anyone could feel
the tension between them from the crack of dawn until the last rays of sunlight
skimmed the horizon. Sylvie hated to see her grandfather like this, even if
they didn’t get along all the time. She hated the uncomfort they had to deal
with from morning to night every single day, the conversations screeching to a
halt whenever the topic of Sylvie getting a new trunk arose, which ended up
being often, because Grand-mère kept trying to buy her a dresser when Sylvie
told her she wanted a trunk. The atmosphere in the house went from the
beginning of cheerful to uptight and formal, and Sylvie and Grand-père’s
relationship deterriorated. They never talked to each other unless they had to,
which almost never happened. Sylvie was getting sick of it; the tense silence
that followed after either of them spoke, the rudeness if one of them said
something wrong. It had to stop, or
Sylvie was going to go crazy.
“Grand-père?” Sylvie crept into the
sitting room like a mouse trying to avoid a cat: You could hide all you wanted,
but eventually something would sniff you out and eat you. Grand-père sat in his
old battered armchair at the corner of the room, not unlike that fateful day
two weeks ago when Sylvie had found the trunk. She took a deep breath and
rushed the words out. She couldn’t lose courage now. “Je suis désolé. I looked at
your private things without permission, and I understand that’s wrong. I hope
very much that you will accept my apology, and that we can maybe get along
better.”
“Non, je suis désolé, Sylvie.” Grand-père
gazed up at Sylvie, his eyes, usually filled with sadness, now overflowed with
a look of regret. “I became angered when you found the photographs because they
are such a dark piece of my history that I didn’t think you needed to know. But
come, you deserve to know the whole story now that you have found this much.”
Sylvie stared at him, awestruck. He had never spoken to her
in English, never.
He patted the arm of
his chair, gesturing for Sylvie to sit. She sat. He began his story hesitantly
with a strong accent, as if he wasn’t sure if what he was saying the right
thing. Sylvie hung on to every word, not wanting to miss a millisecond. She had
a feeling he wouldn’t repeat any of the story.
“It was one of the battles, I don’t recall which one. There
were so many. I remember this one as if it was yesterday, though. Every second.
“We were on our way to fight, through the never-ending
fields, through the thick forests. It smelled like gunpowder there. It always
smelled like gunpowder. We passed countless cities; so many I don’t know which
one’s which in my brain. All I know is when we got to one of them, there were
the enemy, right there, closer than I’d ever been before to one of those Nazi
men. They mixed in with our men. I-I got seperated. Everybody around me started
shooting. I didn’t know which way I was going; who to trust, who not to trust.
So I did the only sensible thing: I began shooting too. Only later did I
realize that I was shooting at my own comrades, killing Luc, the only person I
ever cared for over there in the war. My
officers and my fellow soldiers forgave me, but I’ll never forgive myself.
Never. C’est mon sqelette dans le
placard. It’s my skeleton.”
Sylvie watched as a crystalline teardrop slid down her
grandfather’s cheek. She suddenly threw her arms around him, overcome with
emotion.
“Why do you hug me?” He said in a shaky voice.
“You were incredibly brave, and only someone as strong as you
could have done what you have, Grand-père,” Sylvie said, her own voice
cracking, “Je t’aime.”
“Je t’aime aussi,
petite oiselle,” he replied. ‘little
bird.’ Somehow. Sylvie didn’t care if Grand-père had adopted a nickname her
grandmother had given her years ago.
She was proud to be his little bird.
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