Lullaby - Leila Slimani Page 0,56
gradually got to know one another, almost despite themselves, as if they were co-workers sharing an open-air office. Every day after school they would see one another, in the supermarket, at the doctor’s or by the merry-go-round in the little square. Louise remembers some of their names and countries of origin. She knows the apartment buildings where they work, their bosses’ occupations. Sitting under the barely flowering rose bush, she listens to the interminable conversations that these women have on their phones as they nibble chocolate biscuits.
Around the slide and the sandpit she hears snatches of Baoulé, Dyula, Arabic and Hindi, sweet nothings whispered in Filipino or Russian. Languages from all over the world contaminate the babbling of the children, who learn odd words and repeat them to their enchanted parents. ‘He speaks Arabic, I swear! Listen to him.’ Then, with the passing years, the children forget. And as the face and the voice of the now-vanished nanny fade from memory, nobody in the house recalls how to say ‘Mama’ in Lingala or the name of the exotic dishes that the nice nanny used to make. ‘That meat stew, what did she call it again?’
Around the children – who all look alike, often wearing the same clothes bought in the same shops, with their names written on the labels by their mothers to avoid any confusion – buzzes this swarm of women. There are young women in black veils, who have to be even gentler, cleaner and more punctual than the others. There are the ones who change wigs every week. The Filipinos who beg the children, in English, not to jump in puddles. There are the old ones, who have worked in the neighbourhood for years, who are on familiar terms with the school headmistress; the ones who see teenagers in the streets who they used to look after when they were little and persuade themselves that the teenager recognised them, that he would have said hello if he wasn’t so shy. There are the new ones, who work for a few months and then vanish without saying goodbye, leaving trails of rumours and suspicions behind them.
About Louise, the nannies know very little. Even Wafa, who seems pretty close to her, has been discreet about her friend’s life. They have tried asking her questions. The white nanny intrigues them. How many times have the other parents used her as a benchmark, vaunting her qualities as a cook, her total availability, mentioning the complete trust Myriam puts in her? They wonder who she is, this fragile, perfect woman. Who did she work for before she came here? In which part of Paris? Is she married? Does she have children who she picks up in the evening, after work? Are her bosses good to her?
Louise does not respond – or hardly – and the nannies understand this silence. They all have shameful secrets. They hide awful memories of bent knees, humiliations, lies. Memories of barely audible voices on the other end of the line, of conversations cut off, of people who die and are never seen again, of money needed day after day for a sick child who no longer recognises you and who has forgotten the sound of your voice. Some of them, Louise knows, have stolen – just little things, almost nothing at all – like a tax levied on the happiness of others. Some conceal their real names. It never even crosses their minds to blame Louise for her reserve. They are wary, that’s all.
In the park, they don’t talk much about themselves, or only by allusion. They don’t want the tears to well in their eyes. Their bosses are fodder enough for animated conversations. The nannies laugh at their obsessions, their habits, their way of life. Wafa’s bosses are stingy; Alba’s are horribly suspicious. The mother of little Jules has a drinking problem. Most of them, the nannies complain, are manipulated by their children; they see very little of them and constantly give in to their demands. Rosalia, a very dark-skinned Filipino woman, chainsmokes cigarettes. ‘The boss surprised me in the street last time. I know she’s spying on me.’
While the children run around on the gravel, while they dig in the sandpit (the rats that lived there having recently been exterminated by the local authorities), the women turn the park into a cross between a recruitment office, a union headquarters, a claims centre and a classified-ads listing. Here there is talk of job offers and disputes