Tita Read Online Free Page B

he concentrates on his task. Next to playing ballerinas, taking photos of lilac blossoms must be the most stupid occupation in the whole universe.
    Maxime got a state-of-the-art camera for his twenty-first birthday in February, and he’s been obsessed ever since. He used to take lots of photos before, but normal ones: of the family, friends, some neighbor’s new car, his rugby team, the cats. Now, with this new equipment, he’s become an artist, so he’s no longer interested in the kinds of photos anybody could take. If you see a human being in a photo of his, it’ll only be their wrist. Or a bit of their ankle. An earhole, a strand of hair. That’s what artists do; he’s explained it all to me.
    “Please, Maxime,” I say. “When you’re done with this, could you please take a photo of me with the parents.” I have a very clear idea in mind: me in the middle, with a parent on each side. A Jesus-in-the-crib configuration. 
    “No, I can’t,” he says, pressing buttons and turning knobs as he peers into his camera. “I’m not even sure I’ll have enough film for what I want to do.”
    “Maxime!” I wail. I sound like a baby. “This is my private communion, there should be a photo of it, don’t you think?”
    He’s still busy with his focus and his flowers. Can’t even spare me a glance. “There must have been a photographer at the church door, when you came out,” he says.
    “It will be everybody coming out of the church, a jumble of people. What I’d like is a photo of just the parents and me. Please.”
    I want this very much all of a sudden. I don’t know why, but I can’t do without it. Who needs all these lilacs? I hate him. I decide to look for Father. Perhaps he could ask Maxime in a way that would make him do it.
    But when I finally find Father, Maxime says he’s used up his roll of film, there’s nothing left, sorry. Father is here, I can hear Mother nearby, and this dolt had to take thirty-six shots of lilac blossoms. I want to kill him. Instead, I start crying, which makes me angrier still.
     
    A few days later, in the family album, there’s a square black-and-white photo of a skinny girl in a longish white dress and a rosebud crown. She’s stamping her foot, her face distorted with rage, tears flowing down her cheeks, her arms raised toward the torpid skies. Maxime wrote the caption: “Tita on the day of her private communion.”

 
     
Names
    Tita is what most people call me. Nobody but mademoiselle Pélican, the nuns and the priest use Euphémie, my baptismal name — I had to get a new name when I was baptized because my legal name, the one on my passport, wasn’t a saint’s name. Last week Justine asked me, “When you are my age, and you meet a boy, if he wants to know what your name is, what will you say?”
    This was not an idle question; it was a test question. “Tita,” I said. To keep her happy, and even though Euphémie might sound better when I stop being a child.
    “Right. Tita is so much sweeter, isn’t it? You should always be called Tita, even when you’re older. Even as a married woman. It’s so charming. It’s you .”
    Well, I thought, there’s at least someone in the world who thinks she knows what “me” is. I wasn’t at all convinced, though. Justine is extremely interesting to watch and listen to; but I don’t think she has all the answers.
     
    In the music room Ginette, our cleaning lady, is dusting the window frames. I sit on the piano stool with my back to the instrument and look at the portrait, high on the wall, of a girl who must be about my age: my aunt Marta. There are portraits of great-uncles and forefathers all over the house, most of them in military uniform, but aunt Marta is the only female who rates one. Is it because she died in boarding school (Father says “convent”) when she was twelve? In the painting, she wears a thin white animal around her neck, with the head and tail clearly visible, and a white pillbox hat. She is