Grandmere Adele-Marie (standard:drama, 2263 words)
Author: GXD	Added: Aug 08 2007	Views/Reads: 3424/2215	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Three extraordinary women in Orleans (France) face the challenges of age with grace.

GRANDMERE ADELE-MARIE 

It was in Orleans ... no, let me see, it might have been Durville -- or
was it when I was no longer a girl but a woman -- we lived in Nimes ... 
but then, it doesn't very much matter, does it! We all lived, that is, 
my mother and I, since poor Papa was already dead from shortly after 
the war ... I mean we shared the second floor apartment above Gilberte 
and her mother and her grandmother, who ... I must tell you, she was 
very old, that woman. 

Gilberte, you know, was quite grown up by that time and was ... how
shall I say ... very much a woman of the world -- no, that is not quite 
right. Well, she was at least twenty when I was born and that goes back 
so many years, oh my!  At any rate, she was not a strong woman, that 
one, but very kind. As neighbors, she often came with her mother 
Héloise, to visit us. Héloise, poor creature, suf- fered from dreadful 
fits of asthma.  It was indeed most pitiful, how she would roll up her 
eyes and start gesticulating frantically for someone to bring her 
medicine, while poor Gilberte stood transfixed, clutching her weak 
heart.  Can I not remember with the clarity of this morning's break- 
fast how she stood helpless, Héloise, gasping like a fresh-caught 
mullet, while Maman thrust off her beaded shawl and beat upon the 
hunched up shoulder blades with the palms of her hands until Heloise 
was breathing again? 

But it was Grandmere Adele-Marie Voisin de Blois who was most healthy of
the three, if I may say so, even with her one-hundred-and-two years. 

This one had not changed in any way for all the years I had known her,
and I tell you, it was something to see, the way she would manage her 
way downstairs, with one crutch and one cane.  She left her wheelchair 
at the bottom when she came up.  Upstairs, we heard, Maman and I, each 
time she went out for her ride in the park.  In her shrill voice she 
would curse, adding, "Don't touch me.  I can make it on my own." And 
she always did. 

Actually, you know, this woman was really remarkable, Grandmere
Adele-Marie, when you consider.  Not so much because she was blind from 
the Franco-Prussian war, when she ran off from her family to fight 
beside her husband ... she must have been a fury, that one.  You must 
realize, of course, the disrespect and prejudice she had to contend 
with from the officers and hungry soldiers in the regiment and -- oh, 
my!  What a scene that time she spat on the Colonel and scratched his 
cheek so that she spent three days chained to a stone in a wine cellar, 
while her husband appealed to the General. 

She could shoot, of course, and I am sure, I think, that Grandmere's
brother ... yes, my great- uncle Maurice ... told Maman of that time 
when he was fighting in that same regiment.  He remembered it was in a 
great forest and everyone was hiding behind a tree, trying to find a 
way out, while the Germans ran across the fields from every direc- 
tion, surrounding them.  It was at that moment Adele-Marie stepped out 
from the brambles and spread her petticoats, lifting them high above 
her head and began to dance among the flowers. I can- not say who was 
more astonished, her husband or the enemy, For an instant, all shooting 
stopped. 

The Germans were stunned and went under as we attacked.  We wounded a
great many.  But you can imagine how she was captured at once and 
carried off to be violated and tortured.  The story of this outrage 
fired the spirit of every Frenchman hiding in the wood -- how shall I 
say, the difference between la morale et les morals.  At once, the 
attack turned in vengeance on the remaining Germans and they scattered, 
running every which-way, leaving Adele Marie behind, bleeding in a 
barn.  She was barely alive when her husband found her, quite weak and 
shaken, but with a smile on her face.  Only the Bosch had put out her 
eyes, poor woman.  Later, of course, in another battle her husband was 
shot.  Héloise was born around that time. 

Here, now, I am getting ahead of my story. 

So it was Gilberte with her palpitations and Héloise with her wheezing
who lived in the apartment below with Grandmere Adele-Marie, who was 
blind and infirm.  Somehow, they managed to keep each other alive.  How 
often the doctor came to visit!  Still, it was twice a week at least, 


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