A cappella

Chapter 8: Candide or Optimism

Marion traded her usual jeans against a long skirt in brown velvet and a small beige sweater.

Her chestnut hair, held back by a velvet headband, floated lightly around her smiling face. "Happy birthday, Madame!" she said to Max's grandmother, kissing her, then handed her a bouquet of flowers.

It was the first time she had come to Max's place, or rather, his grandparents, who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary that day. 

"You can invite you're friends, Max" said his grandfather, fearing that he would be bored in the middle of the elderly guests.

"How sweet it is! How cute she is!" grinned Grandma, a little upset to have all these people on her lawn.

While she had gone early in town to buy the bread and newspaper, her children who had come for the occasion had prepared everything to surprise her, and on her return she had found the garden transformed: Several round tables with violet tablecloths and wicker seats awaited their guests, bouquets of roses adorned each table, and the beautiful proclaim dishes and crystal glasses had been taken out of the buffet where they had long slept and now sparkled at the soft sun of the autumn.

It was a beautiful garden, the most beautiful garden in the world, it seemed to him: the large lawn with the swing and small lonely statues, the ivy climbing arbor, near the old well covered with moss and wisteria, and then behind, the field with trees full of fruit and conifers, corners and nooks where generations of children had played hide and seek.

She had played there herself as a little girl with her cousins or girlfriends, she had walked there as a bride, had watched her children play, and she was now welcoming her husband and her grown up children, as well as all of the elederly guests, all witnesses of her history. 

There was something very touching about it all, and Marion's fresh and unknown face, embracing her, had brought tears to her eyes.

Little by little, all the guests arrived, greeting each other happily and settling down.

 Around Max's table had sat his new friends, Flore and Stéphane who had remained in jeans, as for Danielle, light make up and a high chignon, next to Marion, and all joked about Babacar who was handsome with a gray suit and a white shirt. 

Max, on the other hand, was dressed all in black, with a rose on the side of his suit, giving out a great effect. 

His grandfather had called on him to be introduced to the family members he hadn't met before, rather proud to show off his grandson, who had come from afar to spend some time with them.

During the meal, the old friends sang Basque chants, with grave and powerful voices that clasped hearts, especially the great uncle's baritone voice, who sang standing, glass in hands, very old but very handsome with his white hair like snow and his black eyes still lively.

At the dessert, the gifts were brought out. It was the little girls of uncle Jerome who offered them. Very soft leather boots for Grandma who loved to walk so much and for Grandpa, a shepherd's stick, an emblem of the Basque country. 

He walked over to the young people's table to show it, his Makila, of medlar wood with a handle that could be unscrewed to make way for a dreadful metal point.

"It's a weapon, more than a shepherd's stick..." he explained.

"It would come handy in driving a gazelle out of a bush," said Babakar, smiling.

"Here, it is rather used to walk up a mountain, and possibly protect oneself from snakes, or wolves. Look, they always engrave the name of the owner in the wood and then they add a motto or a proverb... read, Max, I do not have my glasses."

"Yes, there is you're name, and then... "we must cultivate our garden..." but what does it mean?"

"A piece of wisdom, Max, that's why you don't understand: it's the experience that will tell you what it means," said the grandfather both sententiously and mockingly, while moving away to another table.

""We must cultivate our garden"... you don't know that, Max? Asked Danielle, also in a mocking manner, we all studied it in high school!"

 "um...Babakar, save me, tell them you don't know it either!"

"There, my friend, you're all alone! Can't do much for you! It's the last bit of the tale of Voltaire, Candide...even I read it in my French high school in Dakar!"

"Where were you when we were forced to sit through Candide in high school?" Laughed Stéphane.

Max did not answer, uncomfortable.

Danielle, a student in letters, decided to explain:

"Candide is about a naïve young man who believes he lives in the best of worlds, he goes through a long journey and after terrible adventures, ends up understanding that it is better stay among his family and cultivate one's own garden."

"Hm, said Max, trying to look good, but feeling open and vulnerable. Not very exciting nor optimistic, this Voltaire..."

 "Cultivate our garden, not HIS garden", interrupted Marion. I think the idea of a community was important, to work for the common good.

"You think you can follow this advice directly, without travelling beforehand, and then decide like Voltaire, to live all your life surrounded by your family, cultivating your garden?" said Max, with a dubious pout.

"Maybe you have to make your own journey first to be convinced, and only then to cultivate your garden, it can be figuratively, to cultivate one's spirit, one's soul"... suggested Danielle.

"Or to take care of one's own business..." said Stéphane.

They were finally discussing a real topic and it was becoming interesting. Babakar intervened, strong in his difference:

"If we take the sentence literally, to cultivate our garden, to weed, to drill, and to get busy so as not to think, is what all the French do, it seems to me, so not to think, right?"

But Max's cell phone rang. "Excuse me" he said, rising and walking a few steps away.

Near him, in the most beautiful of worlds, his friends continued to philosophize, children were running, and the singers, at the table of the elders, sang their most beautiful chorus.

"Hello, baba?"

"Habibi, can you hear me?" Said the warm voice in Arabic, so familiar yet so far away at the same time. "Say, you hear me habibi, answer me..."

These words, exactly the same, with that affectionate and restless insistence and that impression of enormous, impassable distance, he had already heard them, on a very special occasion, which jumped at his memory with incredible force. 

The beautiful green garden of his grandparents, all in hydrangeas and plants well nourished by the ocean climate, the roses and the guests, suddenly blurred before his eyes, to the sound of that voice: instead, was a dry air, arid to breathe, a décor of the end of the world where dust and rubble covered everything, covered his body and the face of his father who leaned towards him, full of anguish, shouting "habibi, answer me". 

But his voice reached him from afar and he himself did not have the strengths to answer, while around him the walls collapsed in a terrible crash...

Max stepped back from the force of the images, forgetting where he was, catching himself falling, tried to hold himself at the table, pulling at the tablecloth and then finally falling, taking with him the vase of roses.

.....

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Im sorry if it was too philosophical XD Let me know where you stand on this debate! Oh and thank you ever so much ❤ drop me a vote or comment!