Satine

GABRIELLE (III)

Gabrielle was punished severely. She would not be allowed to leave the house for a week and was instructed to help her mother with anything she might need help with. They pulled her out of school for this time to let the incident cool-off as her father put it. Gabrielle knew this was also a way to keep her away from her friends and punish her as much as possible. She sulked in her room, bored in every sense of the word. Her mother didn't really speak to her unless it was to give her some sort of order, another attempt to make her feel isolated. After the third day the boredom was driving Gabrielle insane, though she was supposed to polish all the shoes by the door, she had given up after the first pair and sat defeated by the entrance when suddenly she heard a few notes played in the living room. Though it never would have made her smile any other day, this time it did. She abandoned her supplies and slithered into the living room, tiptoed all the way to the sofa that faced the opposite direction of the piano. She didn't know it, but her mother had noticed her in the reflection of the glass windows, and the faintest smile had painted itself across the woman's face. Gabrielle watched and listened to her mother play, dark hair hanging over her shoulders finally let loose from that horrid bun she always kept so neatly and tightly in. There were very few things Gabrielle thought made her mother truly happy, despite the fact she always put on a smile, but when she played the piano she was. Unless she was crying to a sad melody, she was happy. Music was her element, and it had been Satine's too. Some said it ran in the family, that Gabrielle's grand-mother had been very musical too. She had no way of knowing if this was true. The topic had always been a bit of a sensitive one to her, because unlike Satine, she had never been taught to play or sing anything. When she was younger, she would try, she would ask, but her mother always found a way to dodge the subject until she eventually gave up. Now, with her twelve years of wisdom she understood why. Not only had music been the thing that in some ways unabled Satine to leave, it was also a primary reminder of her. All she had ever wanted to do was sing and perform and her mother couldn't bear to watch her only remaining daughter turn out a carbon copy of the first that she had lost. Gabrielle also suspected and theorised that her mother wanted to preserve her memory of Satine. They had spent hours together by that piano, and maybe it felt like some sort of betrayal to teach someone else in that same way, letting her sort of fade into the background. Though that was only a theory it seemed plausible to the young girl, and though it hurt, she could accept it. After all, she still kept a heavy secret from her parents in honour of her sister after all these years, so why wouldn't she allow her mother to keep music away from her for a similar reason? It would be hypocritical of her, and there was nothing she despised more than hypocritical behaviour, which was why her parents rubbed her the wrong way more often than not.

She closed her eyes, and listened intently to the sound that echoed across the house, the light rusting of paper when her mother would turn the page of her notes, the slight slip ups and mistakes she made, the way she hummed along to the tune ever so slightly. She certainly had a good listening ear. It was comforting in many ways, it brought her back to when just a few years ago she used to sing lullabies to both Paul and her. It was a church hymn she quickly figured out, but then her eyebrows furrowed as she realised it was more of a carol until the title came back to her: Les Anges De Nos Campagnes. She had not spent her entire childhood in Sunday school and various Church events for nothing. She could pick out any hymn from their notes and prayer books anywhere. Though this was certainly odd, Christmas was six months away.
"Why are you playing a christmas carol-" She suddenly asked, before she realised her mistake. Her hands flew over her mouth. She had sat there on the sofa for so long she had forgotten she wasn't supposed to be in this room at all. She braced herself for a disappointed sigh, but instead there was a brief silence as her mother stopped playing.
"You're observant," Marie-Lise remarked softly. Gabrielle got up and smoothed her skirt with a quick brush of her hand.

"I'm sorry, maman, I'll go-" She took a quick step toward the door.
"No, it's okay." Gabrielle stopped in her tracks immediately. "It's okay," She repeated. "I saw you in the window earlier chérie."

The young girl slowly turned to face her, expecting at least a bit of stern disappointment on her face, but she was smiling softly, her eyes glimmering.

"Observant." Gabrielle said, noticing that she could in fact see her own reflection in the windows. Her mother hummed. "A family trait, perhaps." There was a brief moment of silence between them. Gabrielle was at loss for words and didn't quite know what to do. She carefully made her way back onto the cushioned sofa. Eventually she cleared her throat. "You didn't answer my question, maman." She reminded her, the older woman turned back around suddenly.

"Would you like to try?"
"Try what?" Gabrielle stared at her confused. The older woman gestured to the piano.
"To play of course,"

Gabrielle sighed deeply, of course she would change the subject. She would never answer any of her queries. It was so typical of her to dance around a subject. Though she wanted to repeat her question to force an answer, even if it might have been trivial out of her mother, the invitation was compelling. She would do anything to escape polishing those shoes. She made her way up to her.
"Right, you sit here, and I'll just stand." She said, leaving the seat behind, the young girl quickly did as she was told. Marie-lise flipped the sheet music back to the start of the carol. She looked at Gabrielle as if she expected her to start right away and the girl turned her head back toward her, bewildered. The symbols in front of her might as well have been ancient Greek or a dead mediaeval dialect. She could not have made sense of it if she tried.

"Just try," Her mother said, and somehow, fear grew in the pit of Gabrielle's stomach. She felt as if her mother's eyes were heavy on her, as if she expected a masterful sound to be made, but they both knew she could not do that. Perhaps this was just some twisted form of punishment and not the reprieve she had hoped for. After a while, Marie-lise leant over her daughter and pressed a key. "That's Do." then she pressed another and gave it a name and repeated it a few times. "Do, Ré, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si, do." in a sequence she pressed a whole bunch of them. "You've heard this many times before, I am sure you can figure it out." Despite her gentle voice Gabrielle was frozen with fear, stiff as a pole. "Forget the sheet music if it's stressing you out. I'm not very good at reading it either." Gabrielle found that hard to believe, but she said it with some form of conviction nonetheless. "Oh, and don't use your thumbs for the black keys." was the last piece of advice she gave before gabrielle pressed her first key in a sudden surge of courage. The sound of it was right, so she kept going, guessing her way through each key. She discovered she knew the song better than she had thought, and could conjure the pace of it in her head; when she was too slow, or too quick, she cringed at the way it didn't quite fit together. Her mother chuckled each time.
"Doesn't feel right does it?"
Gabrielle would shake her head each time and a smile slowly creeped up on her and before she knew it, she had made her way through the whole piece, not very long, not nearly on time, but still. She felt her mother's delicate hands on her shoulders.
"See? That was fun wasn't it?"
Gabrielle didn't quite know how to answer that question, she was still in sort of awe of herself. Perhaps all those old ladies were right, and music did run in the family.

"This was Satine's first one too, and I dare say you might have done a better job." Her mother then whispered. The young girl's eyes widened. She answered her question. She mentioned her sister. Then suddenly she saw her father walk up to the entrance of the house through the window. She shot up like an arrow.
"What is it?" her mother asked, suddenly worried.
"I didn't polish all the shoes!" She exclaimed, turning red with stress.

"Oh! No, don't worry, just put the kit back upstairs and I'll tell him you did a great job. Your father can't tell the difference for the life of him, trust me." The pair both chuckled simultaneously before Gabrielle rushed out of the door to get the polishing kit and hide the smile this afternoon had bestowed her with.