I have finally found the way, or rather, this inner voice that calls me and pushes me to write about its history. Because in hers, there's a little bit of mine. At the end of this path, it's like a new encounter, of an old time, of another time, it's here and now at the same time, it was before and it will be tomorrow.
In his room, there was an old brinquebalante wardrobe that I thought had always been there. It had never been replaced by another one, a bit like this satin bedspread from another age. Not seeing them would undoubtedly have upset me a lot. There are things like that that you don't like to see change. His room was like a sanctuary, a room in which I rarely set foot. Opportunities to visit this room were rare. Yet I knew it by heart. This rug, this bedspread, these books on the shelves, on his bedside table, wherever it was possible to store them.
And this suitcase.
I don't know how my curiosity could not have been aroused earlier by that dusty old suitcase at the top of the cupboard. Undoubtedly it was so much part of the decor that we passed in front of it without our gaze lingering on it, without clinging to it. Would the fear of not knowing what it contained or what we were looking for have prevented us from paying attention to it? To immerse ourselves in this treasure chest, where we search for what we don't know?
How could most of us even ignore its mere existence, including myself? Until she told me about it.
In this dust-covered suitcase that I ended up picking up, perched on a stool, there were tons of photographs. Of all ages, of all ages, of all ages, of a whole bunch of people we've more or less heard about. To open this suitcase from another time was to search for memories that did not belong to me: my own and those of others.
As I moved it, a cloud of dust broke loose, scratching my throat and nose and arousing my curiosity. I let her fall into a deaf noise: I knew that everything in it was precious but not fragile. I dragged her to her living room. This was the place of all the confidences. I grabbed a bunch of pictures, scrolled through them quickly. Pictures, snapshots of precious moments revealing stories, his story. Life moments behind which one can imagine a family meal, holidays at sea, school days.
These old photos reminded me of how much they didn't have the same meaning as today. At the time, they passed on memories, over time, through the generations. Today, they display moments, present, ephemeral and anecdotal. What will those who look at them say to themselves in fifty years' time? They will only be able to see them when they are not really real, not material, we cannot hold them in our hands, feel the softness of the paper and its smell of humidity.
One of them caught my attention in particular and not only because it seemed to be the oldest one, yellowed by the weather and a little horny on the edges. Rather because on the back, a date was written on the pen in an applied manner, as if to mark it in time and give it importance.
"Remembrance of June 1928."
That's what it says on the back of this picture.
In this photo, three women: I will later learn that their names are Marie, Jeanne and Yvonne.
Marie is nine months old. He's a round baby. She's tough. She's dressed in a white dress. It almost looks like a christening dress. She looks surprisingly clean and razor-sharp compared to the austere clothes of the other two women. The other two are Jeanne and Yvonne. Mary is sitting on Jeanne's lap. Jeanne is twenty-seven years old; almost as old as I am today. Jeanne is the mother of little Marie. She has an emaciated face, is thin and almost disturbing. His eyes are nevertheless filled with a kind of malice. Her marked features and her anxious look give the impression that she is elsewhere, preoccupied, who knows? She sketches a forced smile, probably for the photo? A semblance of sadness finally darkens his face.
Maybe she already knows that she is going to have to leave her child soon and that she is living her last hours? May the disease gnaw away at her and she will die a few days after this photo is taken. Tuberculosis will kill her faster than she realized, as many of her family members did at the time. Yvonne, the third wife, must be about 15 years old. Yvonne is Aunt Yvonne, Jeanne's little sister, one of the only ones who will escape the epidemic.
Three fates that crossed paths, a memory that was immortalized this day of June 1928, the time of this photo.