We had no money, as Victor pointed out to me one evening as I moaned about not having a television. “Don’t hold your breath waiting for some in the near future,”..”to begin with, haven’t you noticed that we still don’t have any furniture?”
mother had bought a red plastic table, that was on sale, for the kitchen but we only had one chair. Charles had come across a flowery matress in the street that we used as a sofa on which we ate our breakfast on rainy days.***
This book, a first by this promising author, is my second read for the Prix du Roman de Rochefort 2022. Palma, a yound child at the outset is the narrator of this strange story of a family, her mother, Victor, Palma’s younger brother and Charles her older brother. Palma tells us of her earliest memories of looking out of the back window of their car at the asphalt disappearing behind them, much like their childhood. The book begins with the family leaving their house in Rue Chauvelot, Paris and moving to the Reunion Island, in a seemingly hurried manner. This first house move, if a little disorienting, arriving in the tropics, slowly reveals their precarious state of affairs, as Victor notices in the opening quote.
The children are not yet aware of the exact state of their affairs, thinking that as things haven’t worked out that they can just move back home. but of course they hadn’t just moved for a better opportunity as they grow to realise:
Charles continued:
It’s very simple. We’ll go back, mum. Your’ll look for work, Lakushka will look after us, everything will be fine….. To tell the truth, it’s a relief for me.
“And where will we live?”
“Well, Rue Chauvelot.”
My mothers eyes widened.
“We don’t have the house in Rue Chauvelot any more.”
“It’s been sold?” I asked.
I saw mum hesitate.
“It’s been seized”, she answered, her eyes lowered to her cigarette.***
As time goes on they seem to only stay in one place for a few months at a time, their mother always books them into a new school but sometimes they come home and for nearly no reason they throw everything into the car and they’re off again, as Palma later remarks:
Moving three times a year neither effaces our names nor hides our trace. As the car reached the first bare fields surrounding the village, we knew that the act of fleeing with this smell of fresh snow would cling to us. Afterwards it can’t be shaken off.****
As the book advances we learn the reasons for their lifestyle and the effects it has on them, especially on the two boys and was there a reason for their father to commit suicide? An ambitios and original first novel./span>
First Published in french as “Villa Royale” in 2022, by Gallimard
*** my translation
The quotes as read in French before translation
Nous n’avions pas d’argent, comme me l’avais fait remarquer Victor un soir où je me plaignais de ne pas avoir la télévision. “Ne t’attends pas á ce qu’on ait sitôt.”..”tu n’as pas remarqué? Premièrement, on n’a toujours pas de meubles.”
Ma mère avait acheté en solde une table en plastique rouge pour la cuisine, mais nous n’avions qu’une chaise. Charles avait dégoté dans la rue un matelas à fleurs qui faisait office de canapé sur lequel nous prenions le petit-déjeuner les jours où pleuvait.
“Ensuite, nous n’avons pas de téléphone, ce qui, tu l’as remarqué aussi, ne déplaît à personne.”
Charles à repris:
C’est très simple. On rentre, Maman. Tu chercheras du travail, Lakushka nous garderas, tout ira bien…. À vrai dire, ça me soulage.
— Et où allons-nous vivre?
— Eh bien, rue Chauvelot.
Ma mère à écarquillé les yeux.
— La maison de la rue Chauvelot, on ne l’a plus.
— Elle a été vendue?” ai-je demandé.
J’ai vu l’hésitation de ma mère.
— Elle a été saisie”, a-t-elle répondu, les yeux baissés sur sa cigarette.
Déménager trois fois par an n’éfface ni nos noms, ni notre trace.
Lorsque la voiture a atteint les premiers champs pelés qui entouraient le village, nous savions que la fuite, avec son odeur de neige fraîche, s’accrochait à nous. Ensuite impossible de s’en défaire.
South of Paris books 