Satine [ONGOING]

CLÉMENTINE (I)

Clémentine had just turned six when her father died. Only a few days before he had made her a daisy chain, taken her out into the fields and down to swim in the river to celebrate his daughter on her birthday, and then he was dead, buried under a heap of rock and ice, never to be found. Clémentine always assured people she had no memory of the day it had happened, but in reality, that was far from the truth. She could still hear the shrill scream of her mother as she collapsed on the kitchen floor when she heard the news. Clémentine had been hiding right by the doorway, sensing that something was off. As one would expect, neither Clémentine nor her mother Pauline LeRouge had been quite the same since. It was safe to say that the incident at the village fete had brought all those painful memories back into the light. The sheer terror in Marie-Lise's eyes alone did it, not to mention all the commotion that followed. In the first few months of her father's now permanent absence, Pauline was not capable of much, taking care of her daughter became something she did now and then, when she remembered, when she suddenly felt the urge to care. The guilt of her incompetence. The first to notice this alarming chnage was her aunt: Marguerite Pradier. She quickly proposed for the broken family to move in with her and her husband. Clémentine's father and his brother had their differences back in their day, but in the end, Monsieur Pradier was more than happy to accommodate them on his wife's request. That is how the family recomposed itself, a few scattered puzzle pieces here and there, somehow sticking together out of sheer luck, a tiny strand of related bloo, some hard-work and determination. Clémentine's cousin Constance soon became a reason for her to get out of bed each morning, with her wild curly hair, glowing golden in the sun and her infectious laugh, it was hard not to smile in her vicinity. Constance always had a spring in her step, overflowing with energy especially when out in the mountains. She adored the mountains, she could never truly be herself unless she reached a certain altitude. Over the years, Clémentine listened to her uncle talk of his many worries regarding his daughter. She loved the mountains too much, much like his brother had before it eventually killed him. Clémentine prayed that he was wrong. She had spent her entire childhood hearing people say her father wouldn't have wanted to go any other way, if he were to die, it was bound to be up there among the slopes and glaciers, that it was the best way he could have gone, but she disagreed. She disagreed so much it made her blood boil. There was no good way for him to go. How is there ever a good way to widow your wife? To leave your young daughter without a father? She had no patience for such stupid sentiments, which unfortunately ran rampant in their community. It wasn't an uncommon cause of death. In the valley there were about five deaths a year, if not more. Whoever said these things probably thought it would make her and her mother feel better but it certainly didn't. It couldn't mend the gaping hole in their life, or their fragile relationship, it couldn't keep Clémentine from secretly hoping to find her father by the door every time someone knocked against its wooden frame. It was a foolish hope, but it rose within her every single time, no matter how often she tried to bring herself back into reality. She had a vivid imagination which she could not always put a lid on and on this morning in Mid-June after the spectacle of the night before at the village fête, it was hard not to imagine a heartfelt reunion as a heavy hand banged against the door. She tried to stop herself but she couldn't help it, at the sound she jumped up from her seat at the table.

"I'll get it!" She declared just as she let her disillusion take a hold of her. She fully expected A tall man with broad shoulders and a mop of greying hair to present himself in front of her as she threw the door open, but her breath caught in her throat when she was met with a rifle instead.

"Bonjour, mademoiselle." One of the horrifyingly many soldiers said to her in a monotone manner. He had such a heavy accent she barely understood what he had said. It took her a minute.
"Bonjour," She said in a whisper, intimated by their persistent stern gaze. They exchanged a few words in German, or Italian, or whatever language it was, Clémentine felt cold sweat drip down her back as she simply stared at the soldiers with wide eyes for an unclear amount of time.