Ladivine by Marie NDiaye Read Free Book Online

deep hole of clinging, entangling emotions, of limp devotion and degrading resentment, with her mother looking on from the edge, untouched, superior, and pure in her unwavering love.
    A hint of a heartfelt smile creased the servant’s lips. Was there not, Clarisse thought in disbelief, a kind of triumph in that smile?
    Nausea washed over her, so powerless, so mediocre, did she feel.
    And she knew what her mother was about to say before the words reached her ear. Living so far away, she thought herself out of range of the servant’s limitless feelings, but now they were coming back at her, and a shadowy fear that had been vaguely blighting her happiness for months was beginning to come true.
    “I have a little room of my own,” her mother said serenely, still smiling that heartfelt smile, a smile not of triumph, Clarisse realized, but of perhaps childish pride.
    “What room? Where?” She groaned in dismay, her dismay having already understood and anticipated the answer.
    Her mother took a step away from her, no longer afraid or intimidated but suddenly exultant at this evocation of her boldness and ingenuity.
    She gestured broadly toward the window.
    “Over that way, by the docks. I had all our things brought down. The old house is empty, but I gave them notice, I won’t pay for nothing.”
    “What about your job?” Clarisse almost shrieked.
    “I’m not worried. I’ll find something here.”
    The servant looked at Clarisse, and now there was no trace of a smile or sign of delight on her face, only an air of sad understanding and, just beneath it, a sort of passionate resolve, a broader stubbornness that, for a moment, wasn’t even about Malinka, or love, or the miseries of absence. Caught off guard, Clarisse felt her agitation fade a little.
    Painfully aware of her weakness and unworthiness, she nonetheless stammered:
    “You always said you’d never leave, because he…because my father might come looking for you.”
    Her mother winced as if lashed by a blow mysteriously landing in a place she thought she could no longer feel. Distant and ethereal, her old smile came to her rescue.
    “I’d rather be close to you,” she said simply, with no great ardor, merely acknowledging a fact.
    Digging into her bag, she took out a piece of paper with her address written on it and laid it on a corner of the bed.
    When the time came for Clarisse to head back to work, the servant walked her to the brasserie’s door, then gave her a quick kiss and strode off with her sprightly step, the step, thought Clarisse, sour and annoyed, of a person who would never want to intrude on anyone’s life.
    —
    The decision that showed Clarisse she could be just as fanatically obstinate as her mother first took the form of a slight coldness, little different from the coldness that filled the air when they lived together, two lowly flowers.
    Then, with that decision carefully weighed and resolved, it struck Clarisse that there was no need for coldness, any more than distance or feigned dislike, that what was needed was in fact devotion and tenderness, as if to make up for the heartlessness of the decision.
    This was a liberation for her, and a sincere relief, because she had no wish to be cruel.
    Here, then, began a happy time for the servant.
    Every two or three days Clarisse came for dinner in the little apartment her mother had rented on an alley not far from the port, and she was cheerful and chatty as she’d never been before.
    She talked about the brasserie—which she would soon leave, without telling the servant—and inflated the customers’ fussiness to enliven her anecdotes. And that she never spoke of herself, that she never told of her existence away from the brasserie, never mentioned a name, an address, very likely her mother didn’t notice right away.
    Only when a dubious feeling drove her to ask a few unobtrusive questions did she realize she would never get an answer, and that, in any case, Clarisse’s vague, trivial