I think I have always written stories because I spent all my school holidays at my aunt’s place. When normal life resumed, I was somewhere else, far away, in another city, in another place, with other friends. Throughout my childhood, I was always absent-minded. From the first day of the holidays, the children of my school stopped to visit me, and as soon as the bell announced the beginning of their freedom, the children of Guignon saw me once again.
she is coming tomorrow.
Adults called me “the holiday girl” or “Colette Septiembre’s niece.” Children of my age used to call me by my name.
People will head to Fréjus, Quiberon or Spain. To the sea, to the mountains. And I, for Gugnon. My parents rarely deviated from the rules. Even after my father’s death. Until I grew up, I got to watch matches in the shoe-repair shop, the Rue Jean-Jaurès, the Rue de la Liberté, the Place de l’Église, the footbridge, the municipal swimming pool, the Jean-Laville Stadium.
“Where are you going?”
“To Guignon. Saône-et-Loire.”
“Is he far away?”
“Not very.”
I was never very far from Colette. My friends in Guégnon can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Hervé, Adele, and Elias. Children of storekeepers, who met during the day while their parents did hard work. Hours had to be filled. We will split up for lunch. Half an hour, and we’re done. At the end of the day, we had to reach home around six o’clock. Take a shower, maybe set the table while waiting for the parents. At Colette, I just had to jump into her hip bath. Then, I would delve into his collection of Tintin books, which I loved. she will order them from there for me tobacco. i was always rereading Castafiore EmeraldBecause it is the only one that is completely set in Marlinspike Hall. Somehow I found this reassuring. I don’t know why. And when I needed to travel, when boredom and missing my parents became too much, it was tintin in tibet, blue lotusOr prisoners of the sun.
On summer evenings, Elias, Adele, Hervé and I would go out by nine o’clock. And on really hot days, we were allowed an extra hour. We’ll hang out on the banks of the Arroux, near the footbridge. We will leave the stone. We used to listen to music from the radio or my cassette recorder. We will imagine our future. Me, I wanted to be a reporter. Elias is a professional footballer and plays for France. Adele, A medicine du mondeA doctor of the world. Hervé, an explorer.
“What do you want to know, Hervé?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“Why a doctor in the world, Adele? Why not just a doctor?”
Sometimes, Mom and Dad would come and pick me up in the middle of the holidays, like pick up a plate of food, to take me away for two or three days at short notice. Otherwise, Elias and I would have spent the month of August together. His father did not close his grocery store, and my aunt did not find it possible to leave Gugnon except when the team played away.
Hervé and Adèle would head off to spend three weeks at the seaside with their parents, who would pull down the shutters and hang up an “Annual Vacation” sign. Not the same sea. The Mediterranean for Hervé, the Atlantic for Adele.
Elias used to say, “You can never run into each other while swimming.”
In August, Guignon was vacant. A dead, hot, deserted town, like in westerns, when heroes or villains enter the town and everyone hides.
*
They are there. All three of them. Monge sat in the entrance hall of the hotel. Dress lightly as it is still hot in October. Adele, Elias, Hervé. Our contact was lost. Every once in a while, a word on Facebook, a “like” on a comment about a photo, or a heart emoji touches us.
Apart from Hervé, who has broadened, whose features have thickened with age, they have not changed. Adele still has a youthful body, and Elias has a childlike beauty.
It is Adele who speaks first. Unlike when we were younger. She was the one who didn’t say anything. “We heard you were here. News travels fast in this place.” She stands up and hugs me. He smells of honeysuckle. Like before. I am completely amazed. Instead of saying hello or good evening, you’re welcome, you’re here, how are you, I suddenly say:
“The aunt who is buried is not my aunt. My aunt died two days ago.”
Both the boys stand up and look at me questioningly. They silently hug me one by one. Elias has a whiff of ambergris about him, Hervé of vetiver cologne.
“I should have realized that when I collected his stuff, it had nothing to do with his football team, FCG. And most importantly, there was no trace of his collection, which included dozens of scrapbooks. He had shredded all the newspaper articles. Had been doing this for decades. Do you think this is normal? How stupid of me… Can you believe you went to my aunt’s funeral three years ago, and it wasn’t her?”
“Impossible,” they all answer in unison.
“I just saw him in the morgue!”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure. I spent enough years with her to know her… even after she died.”
They remain silent. lost in thought.
“But then, who is it? In the cemetery?” Hervé asks.
“It’s a mystery.”
“Do you think the coffin is empty?”
“Don’t know. The captain of the Gendarmerie told me they’re going to compare Colette’s DNA to mine, and they’ll take out ‘that guy’.”
“It’s not right to disturb the dead,” Adele whispers.
“But we need to know the truth.”
Adele shrugged.
“All That Truth Can Tell Us.”
“What are you doing this evening?” Hervé asks.
“It’s your birthday,” Elias said.
“We should Some?We are not leaving you all to fend for yourself.”
“I’m in no mood to celebrate.”
“All the more reason,” Hervé says, smiling.
“I have an appointment tomorrow morning in the Rue des Fredins. The house where Colette apparently lived for the last few years…”
“Rue des Fredins? Where?”
“At number 19…”
“This is complete madness.”
“You lot, haven’t any of you ever come to him? See him again?”
“Never,” Adele replies.
“Maybe we can’t see the dead. I mean, when we think someone is dead, even if we find them somewhere, we can’t see them. Our brains aren’t prepared.”
“Should we go for a drink? We don’t need to stay here.”
“Should we book a table here for later?” Adele asks.
“No need to book, not a soul around.”
*
We are all in adolescence. That is, at the age of taking some time for yourself in the evening, even when it is not actually late. No more bath time, no more preparing dinner, no more monitoring homework. Our children know how to heat something and lock themselves in a room and pretend that they are studying.
“And with mobile phones, it’s easy, we can reach them everywhere,” murmurs Adele. “We can even track them.”
Adele has seventeen-year-old twins, who live in Dijon for their studies.
Instead of being the world’s doctor, she is a visiting nurse. “Which comes to the same thing,” she quipped. He set up his own practice. She divorced when her girls were ten, has a boyfriend, but doesn’t live with him every day.
“Everyone has their own evening,” she says with a smile.
“Good expression, everyone has their own evening.”
“Would you put this in a movie?” she asks me.
“What I have never dared to put in a movie is-“
My voice cracks.
“Why did my aunt lead people to believe she was dead. Why was she hiding? There are eight thousand people in this town? Don’t tell me no one knew! And then, on the Rue des Fredins, almost all the houses are occupied. She did not live as a recluse for goodness’ sake.”
“Old Berthiol!” Hervé yells. “He must know something. He and your aunt were as thick as thieves.”
“He’s not at home. Doesn’t answer the phone. I went to his house again this evening on my way back from the morgue, there was no one there. Everything is very strange. I feel like I’m dreaming.”
Elias says, “As for me, I attended your aunt’s funeral. There was a good crowd there. Less than usual because it was summer. A lot of football people, some players and some store owners. I saw the coffin descend into the pit. Saw it with my own eyes.”
“What a crazy story. It’s like my love life, lost one, found one, and lost another, and then found another!”
Smiles all around.
Hervey is an insurance broker. He has three children from three different women. The youngest is seven years old, but he and his mother have just separated; “It’s the potholes,” he groans. But he can’t do anything about it, he just has to date, love, cheat. Only Ilyas does not have children. “Not to my knowledge anyway,” he says, smiling, and pours himself another glass of soda. He abandoned his sporting career and went to the factory’s training center to qualify as a process operator.
“The little one,” Hervé continues, “I see every other weekend. My eldest daughter, from when you were a kid, Agnes, lives in Lyon, like you. She has a boyfriend. And my son lives with his mother, not far from here. He’s sixteen. We eat at Macado’s, stuff like that. He’s still into cars and football… Fuck, all this makes me want to go to the cemetery and find out. Who is buried there.”
“The dead should not be disturbed,” Adele says again.
“Oh, stop talking about that, when you’re dead, you’re dead. Nobody’s bothering anybody.”
“I am impatient to go into the house on the Rue des Fredins, for tomorrow.”
“Do you want us to come with you?”
“I don’t think that’s allowed,” Elias interjects. “Are you going there with the gendarmes?”
“Yes.”
“How long have you been living in Guignon?”
“I have no idea. It’ll depend on all those things. It was very unexpected. I guess that’s the word.”
“Have you seen the reporter?”
“Which journalist?”
“Nathalie Grandjean.”
“Really? He’s a journalist?”
“Yes, and you’ll get a lot of press attention. Even TV! A dead woman who isn’t dead is hardly going to get any attention! Especially the aunt of a local celebrity.”
“Shall we share a cheese board?”
“Forget the cheese board, Adele! It’s a great lady’s birthday, we’re going to stuff ourselves!”
“And otherwise, Agnes, how are you? Living a good life?”
__________________________________
From Bye By Valérie Perrin, translated by Hildegarde Searle. Used with permission of the publisher, Europa Editions. Copyright © 2026.
