The cuckoo's nest
Today promised to be such a good day... Margot and I set out with the arduous task of spending our entire first salary on new clothes to look more professional at work. We had barely started browsing the stores on the Champs Elysées when I saw that woman. Is that really Ana? She's aged a lot. Well, actually, it's been many years since I last saw her. It was the time Dad took us to Rio de Janeiro. I don't know how my mother let him take us! Imagine if he had decided to stay with us in that woman's house. He'd completely lost his mind over her.
When we arrived in Rio, everything was different from what I was used to. Chloé was dazzled, she wanted to learn the Portuguese names of everything, she tried to talk to everyone, she sat on Ana's lap all the time. Wherever we went, there was always someone stroking her head and smiling. I became a bit forgetful, I was scared to death that I would get lost in Rio and nobody would notice.
Dad and Ana were always showing each other affection. This filled me with fear, fear of losing him to her, of him never wanting to go back to my mother, fear of him wanting to stay in Rio. At that time, I still hoped that my parents would make up, even though I had never seen my father this affectionate towards my mother. Things were colder at home, my parents fought all the time. The silence in our house was unbearable. But when we arrived in Rio, there was laughter in the house all the time. My father was always in a good mood. Chloé was also always happy with all the attention she received. I was happy too at first. But over time I became desperate to get home.
I remember that in the second week, when we went to Búzios for a few days, I had a stomach ache all the time, I had rash all over my body, I just wanted to cuddle up to my dad. But they told me it was nothing, that I should stop being silly. They wanted to go for a walk, bathe in the sea. Nobody gave a damn. Until the day I ended up in hospital. The doctor said it was nothing serious, just an allergy. An emotional one. But when I got back to France, my mother made a fuss and took me to the hospital for an examination. There they said it must be some kind of tropical disease. They turned me inside out, but they never found anything.
I think that after I went to the doctor, things started to go downhill between Dad and Ana. They didn't cuddle all the time and Ana became a bit mute. I remember the day she was away for several hours, looking after her new apartment, which was under renovation. That day was heaven. Chloé and I spent the whole day playing with our father. He cooked for us, made a lot of nice things. My hunger had returned. I was happy. When Ana came back in the evening, the apartment was in chaos, the cat had disappeared and there wasn't a speck of food left for her. She went back to the street and ate alone in the shopping center. I was so happy. Things had finally settled down.
The next day my father was acting strange, I think they'd had a fight. We felt that the atmosphere in the house had changed and we spent the day playing quietly indoors, watching the rain pour down the window panes. The cat had been found locked in the closet and now just wanted to sit on Ana's lap all the time. My father decided to make lunch in style: he prepared prawns flambéed in cognac. But at lunchtime there was another stress. As all three of us were allergic to prawns, only Ana could eat them. The food made for us was different. She said she wouldn't have the shrimp then, and my father was hurt. Things were definitely getting back on track!
After that, things calmed down, but they no longer lived like two lovebirds. When the day finally came for us to go back to France, my mother called to see if we were all right. She said that she and my grandparents missed us terribly, that she cried every day, that she didn't want to eat, that being away from us was a pain, and that we would never be apart again in this life. Chloé and I burst into tears. I couldn't stand that hell any longer, I wanted to get home soon.
After our return, Dad still prepared feijoada for us a few times, but my grandparents said that it was slave food, poor people's food, that it was absurd that they had given it to us to eat. Our new clothes were thrown away because they might have ticks on them. They certainly did, and that must have been the cause of the illness I had in Rio. They said that Ana was like a cuckoo, who steals other birds' nests because she's too lazy to make her own.
Every time my father went to pick us up at weekends, there was a lot of bickering, people saying that he was now spending all his money on that woman, that he no longer paid any attention to his daughters. Over time we stopped hearing about her. But what about now? What is this wretch doing in France again? And why is she all smiles and wants to talk to me? Go cuckoo!
Voltar