A House Like Any Other

Recto

It was a simple house. One storey, plus an attic. Like most of the houses along Charles Vénuat Road, in the La Grave district of Vallon-en-Sully. Nothing special from the outside, unless you knew.

In the cellar, crates of potatoes laid on old sheets of La Montagne, the local paper. Shelves, uneven and makeshift, lined the walls — jars of green beans, peas, cherries soaked in liquor, syrupy prunes. It smelled faintly of damp earth and vinegar. It wasn’t used often, but everyone knew what was there.

Upstairs, the attic held what no one dared to throw away. A trunk of letters with no names. A biscuit tin filled with faces no one could place. The dust had settled over generations. There were hats in round boxes, gloves in pairs or alone, scarves too thin to be useful. It was all left as it was. Maybe another time.

Charles Brunet lived on the ground floor. Eighty-five. Retired schoolteacher. Former town clerk. He said things like that, as if they mattered. He walked to the village each morning to buy his paper, no matter the weather. Back home, he did his crossword. He said it gave structure to the day.

Above him lived a family. The father sold asphalt for a roofing company. The mother sewed from home. Two children — seven and four — had picked up the local accent. “It’s better that way,” she’d said once, “they fit in better.”

Nothing changed much. That was part of its comfort.

verso

We were coming back from Saint-Bonnet. Lunch in Hérisson, cheap, nothing special. I pointed to the house as we drove past.

“Stop,” my wife said. I hadn’t meant to. I slowed down, but I hadn’t meant to stop. I pulled over.

From the outside, it was the same house. But something had gone. The ivy was gone from the bricks. The row of apple trees behind — gone. Even the old cherry tree had been cut down. Everything looked new. Clean. Too clean.

I crossed the road alone. I didn’t want to stay. “Wait,” my wife said.

A woman arrived by bicycle. She looked at us. Not rude. Just cautious. She opened the gate.

My wife spoke. “Are you the owner ?” “Yes,” the woman said. Her voice was sharper now.

“My husband grew up in this house.”

That made it worse.

She spoke of the purchase. “Your father was an unpleasant man,” she said.

I wanted to leave. I didn’t want to know why. I already knew, I suppose. Or feared I did. I felt ashamed. Of him, and then, quickly, of myself.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Another man appeared. Moped. Blue. The kind we used to call les bleues. The woman’s voice hardened. “We have nothing to say to you.”

We left. I haven’t been back since.

français