13, Rue Therese - Elena Mauli Shapiro [29]
Fortunately she does not think of the gloves primarily in this context since they are such quotidian objects, yet the dim possibil-ity remains that her reluctance to go to church and wear those gloves has something to do with her brother’s funeral—
he who lived through the war
he who suffered through such long and absurd butchery only to be taken by disease—by what they call Nature—
an act of God
and what a neglectful and thoughtless act it must be for Him
like it is for us to inadvertently drop small change out of our pockets
trivial coinery
stray cash—
He, the blessed Father, doesn’t even turn His head to glance at the tiny sound we make
against the hard ground as we fall.
Where are we now? We’ve returned to this fragmented place where our line breaks.
Let us gaze then upon sweeter things. Let us gaze upon a virginal and happy past. Let us see the hands of Louise Brunet when she was still a child, before she was plagued by so much as her first menses:
*
[NB: Can you see my ghostly handprints on the scanning bed? I attempted to remove them, but they would not budge. But perhaps my hands cannot be seen. Pay no attention.]
THESE ARE THE GLOVES Louise wore to her First Communion, these and a frothy white dress with a crinkly half veil that tickled her sweaty forehead. She felt lovely in her lacy clothes, all aglow and about to enter the next stage of her life—like a bride.
Her grown-up self remembers the physical details well, the slow shuffle up the center aisle with the other white-gowned girls. She remembers a vague anxiety about not receiving the wafer correctly. Somehow she pictured her tongue fumbling the Body of Christ and the sacrament falling to the ground, defiled. She cannot remember faith, though; she cannot remember if she had this feeling of faith back then. She is not sure that the comfort of this benevolent God ever existed now, though certainly it must have. What reason would she have had not to believe? The lack of a mother?
Her brother was there that day. He was twelve years old, just beginning to show an adolescent gawkiness. His voice had not begun to crack. He watched her from the pew, and when she looked back at him standing there, with his hands together as if in quiet reflection, he puffed out his cheeks and crossed his eyes in an attempt to make her lose her composure in this most holy of moments.
As fast as his funny face came, it was gone; he was swift in order not to be caught by their father standing next to him. The speed of this flash of levity was the funniest thing about it, and Louise cracked a smile. She somehow managed not to laugh.
After they returned home, Louise struck her brother on the side of the arm with the small white Bible the priest had given her after her first confession. “You’re not supposed to make people laugh in church!” she shouted.
“Maybe so, but now you have a sin ready to confess for next week.”
“What’s that?”
“Striking your own brother in anger with the Word of God. That’s not very Christian.”
Louise looked at the book still in her hand and felt like a very naughty girl, though she was pleased with herself too. The two of them, still in their church clothes, giggled as quietly as they could so as not to arouse the curiosity of their father in the next room.
IN THE RECORD WE find a picture of a young man in uniform, fading from the edges in. He is dashing but not identified. There is no way for us today to know who he is, now that everyone is dead. He bears a family resemblance to the father, so this could indeed be the son, Louise’s brother.21 Who knows: a lot of the men pictured in the record look like kin. The young man could also be Louise’s cousin Camille, the one who became her beloved. He might have sent her this photograph of himself from the front lines as a token of his romantic love, like the flowery lacy