Lili Is Crying

Abstract

Lili Is Crying Hélène Bessette Translated by Kate Briggs (bio) An extract from a translation-in-progress; the underlinings indicate places to revisit and think on, notes to myself to think on or go back to alternative possibilities—in other words, markers of doubt. hell damnation, cruelty, lies, deceit, betrayal, tears, severances,assassination, calumny, perfidy, misery and death.Says the shepherd.Driving sheep ahead of him down the narrow stony track past thegarden, beneath the ruined fort on the empty hill, arid dry andwhite in the Provençal sun.Hell damnation, cruelty, lies, deceit, betrayal, tears, severances,assassination, calumny, perfidy, misery and death.The mistral is up.Pale blades of wheat swaying alongside the dusty trackwhere packed sheep are pressing forward and, behind them,the shepherd.Invisible rain, warm and soft, sinking into the dust.And the mistral to lift it away. [End Page 58] The fort in silhouette against a low cloud running through it fromone opening to the other.A flurry of wind. A block of stone crumbles. Lili, Lilicalls the mother, Charlotte.She's wearing a straw hat with a wide black ribbon.She's coming in from the garden.The dark outline of the cypress grown to the height of the heavycloud of the overbearing fort which dominates us.She has cut red roses in the fat and bumping rain.Lili, Lili, where are you Lili? My Lili.From a window enribboned with plants Lili leans out andlooks around.Here I am, Maman.Her faded face, her forty-year-old face, in the frame of thegaudy window.My Lili, says the mother, Charlotte. I was so frightened.I thought you were outdoors.It's going to storm.A lightning flash.Go in, Lili, go in.Don't stay there in the frame of that decorated window.You were calling me, Maman?That's enough little girl, go in now. And I'm coming in too.The crash of thunder. The gate slammed against the wild mistral,the garlanded window now shut.And the rain sweeping against the windows, against thelowered blinds.Lili fetch me a vase I can put these red roses in.No Lili, not that one, the other one on the living room cabinet.No Lili, not that one, you're not there yet.That's the one, you found it. Would you know how to put theflowers in the vase, Lili?My Lili I'll leave it to you to put the flowers in this vase. [End Page 59] The rumble of thunder.The simultaneous lightning flash.The driving wind.The rain, franticloud, wild, panicked, thrilled, folded back on itself, returned.Don't put the light on, Lili, you'll attract the lightning, don't putthe light on.Yes, Maman.The falling face of this forty-year-old Lili, her face of shadowagainst the white screen of the windows zebra-ed with rain,against the whiteness of the long starched curtains.Yes, Maman.Come, Lili, come to me,whispers the mother, Charlotte. (She is whispering because she isafraid of the storm.)She sits down in the rustic armchair, its seat softened withcushions.And Lili at her feet.My daughter, my Lili.Pressed up against each other.Thunder, lightning flashes, the rumblings, the crashings, the clappings,the distancings, the mistral unleashed, the mistral shocked,choked, stopped, lurking in the corner of banked clouds. The skydisfigured.Water tromping.The fig tree in the garden bent double.Thank goodness, my Lili, that you and me, you the daughter andme the mother we love each other in life, and we are shelteringtogether in this sweet and good Provençal house.The quiet hour striking within the house while, outside, thestorm rumbles.But Lili, you're crying! Why are you crying?Lili is crying.And outside the storm farther away, [End Page 60] the wind beating back,the rain retreating,the fig tree righted again. All the while: Lili crying. [End Page 61] Kate Briggs kate briggs is the author of This Little Art. She is also the translator of two volumes of Roland Barthes's lecture...