By Hélène Bessette, from Lili Is Crying, which will be published next month by New Directions. Translated from the French by Kate Briggs.

It’s like this, says Lili. I left and I came back.
I went and I returned.
I tried. But I’m not made for success.
Others might have succeeded. Not me.
I’m not made for glory.
I’m made for defeat.
I’ll tell you everything.
Because you’re my cousin.
—Naturally, says the shepherd, you can tell me the whole story.
I’m thirty years old and there’s nothing I can’t be told.
And I love my mother.
We’ve found ourselves a good spot up here, in the warmth of this rusty autumn, in the long shadows of the tired tower.
—I’ve never told anyone.
I’ve never spoken of it.
Not even to Marthe.
Not even to Élise.
But I’ll tell you.
You love your mother and you’ll understand.
Your face is like a wall. The crumbling wall of this old, ruined tower. It’ll keep my confidences safe.
I can’t talk to my mother. She doesn’t understand these things.
—Talk to me, says the shepherd, you could even ask the questions and give the answers. Don’t feel embarrassed. I won’t make you feel embarrassed.
—I left, says Lili, our plan was to meet Wednesday morning on the Paris train.
I spent the night in a hotel.
I was afraid. I wasn’t feeling so good.
I wasn’t happy.
—And now—are you happy now? asks the shepherd.
—No, says Lili. Because I’m never happy. Do you know of anyone who’s actually happy? Do you?
The shepherd doesn’t reply. He’s watching over his flock.
—That night, she says, I dreamed of Maman.
I may have forgotten my childhood, but that night while I was asleep I dreamed of Maman. I can no longer remember my dream.
That morning, I couldn’t remember a single thing about it, but it left me with these feelings of anxiety and torment. And a vision of Maman lost, deformed, reformed, disappeared, reappeared in the clouds—in repressed, compressed, thinning, regathering clouds of torment. So, rather than taking the road to the station, I turned back. I came home.
I turned away.
I changed direction.
I said: no.
I lost sight of the path to happiness.
I couldn’t be happy.
I don’t even need to be happy.
When it comes to it, I am fine with Maman.
I don’t need another source of affection.
—Maman, says the shepherd.
—Still, says Lili. I did love him, he was handsome. I’ll never love anyone else. I’ll never desire anyone as I desired him. But for me the sun has set on happiness.
I came back.
Those fourteen kilometers, I walked them home.
Between five and seven am.
In the happy sun of a fresh new day.
I felt no sorrow.
When I was almost at Laudun, I sat down on a bank.
I shed a single tear.
That’s all.
I hugged my zip-up bag tightly to my chest.
Now, whenever I see a zipper, I think of that solitary tear.
I’ll never forget it.
And I feel my heart pinch.
Just the one tear, sole bearer of so many great disappointments.
I resumed everyday life with Maman.
—Everyday life is good, says the shepherd.
Who needs adventure?
—Is happiness an adventure?
People are saying that I ran away—fled, in a fugue.
—Fugue, says the shepherd.

It’s like this, cries Lili, I refuse to leave with the man I do love.
Instead, I leave with the man I don’t love.

—She left, says Marthe, but without saying a word.
She just said something about a couple of days’ rest at the seaside.
That’s what she told us.
That’s what she told her mother.
And her mother who had her sewing some summer dresses, because that’s where she thought she was going. A whole trousseau.

—For once I’d bought her some new underwear! cries the mother Charlotte.
I never buy her underwear. What’s the point?
We rewear our old things. There’s only the two of us, after all.
We don’t need pretty things. To be clean is good enough.
Faded and run-resistant. Yellowed, run-resistant, and softened by repeated use suits us fine.
Our rounded bellies and our heavy thighs in the run-resistant, outmoded styles.
That’s good enough for us.
Run-resistant, shapeless, and we’re both contented.
No, I never buy her underwear!
Superfluous.
For once, I bought her underwear.
I should have known that something was up.
Wondered.
Suspected.
I was so trusting.
I was so sure that she was mine.
Fixed on me.
Tethered to me.
I thought.
My daughter.
My own daughter.
And now she’s gone.
I do without love, I do.
I don’t need a man.
A man in my house? No thank you!
How happy we are, the women say, when the men are away.
It’s Saturday, there’ll be men in our midst.
Coming between us.
What a drag.
Never would I have taken off with a man. No and no.
But she did it. She did.
She left.
With a man.
That little idiot, she did it.
And I’d bought her underwear.
Why did I buy her underwear?
Why do all these girls need a man?
Weren’t you happy with me, shouts the mother Charlotte.
Weren’t you happy? Were we not happy?
You’d bring me milky coffee in bed each morning.
Were we not happy?
Were you not provided for, given everything you needed?
Vegetables straight from the garden. Your food right on your doorstep. You can live here.
When so many people are struggling to get by.
You could live a life in your mother’s house. Without going a-begging for your bread elsewhere.
The person in charge here, after me, is you.
And all the boarders of the boardinghouse, they also belonged to you.

We have a bathroom in the boardinghouse.
I have no idea why she left. I’ve racked my brain for a reason.
I can’t think of one.
Besides, we loved each other.
Now I’ll have to hire some help to replace her.
Pay them.
And I won’t get along with my help.
My help won’t work as hard as she did.
You and me, my girl, we worked well together.
And there’s no denying that we made a good team.
From all points of view, it made sense: financially, our standards.
I’ve lost a great deal.
And I’ve tried very hard, but I can’t make sense of your leaving.
It’s been three weeks, and I am still hoping after you.
When I go out, my heart pounds at the slightest sight of you.
I see a figure in the distance, and I think it’s you.
Naturally, it’s not you.
From afar, I watch over the streets, the crossroads, the distances, the blurred horizons.

—No, says the police officer, no, madame, there’s nothing we can do.
It’s not our concern.
A girl of twenty-six! Madame, it’s not our concern.
At that age, madame, a girl is free to live her life.
At twenty, madame, your daughter would be guilty, but not at twenty-six years old.
It’s no longer our concern.
And don’t come shouting and crying in our office, it’s very tedious and ridiculous.

If only I did love him, wails Lili.
And she sobs.
But I don’t love him, naturally.
I loved the young man from Transports.
I left because I was unhappy. But what’s the point in saying so.
I’ll not tell anyone that I was unhappy.
I’ll keep it to myself.
My whole life.
And, she cries.
I didn’t leave with the man I loved.
I went off with the man I don’t love.
I was unhappy.
I’m still unhappy.
Because it’s like this.
I’m not lucky.
Everything goes the wrong way.
I don’t know how happy people do it.
I wanted to make something happen.
I’d had enough. Enough.
And so I left.
I swapped one master for another.
I won’t tell him that I was unhappy. I agreed to go away with him.
He must believe that I did it for love.
I won’t tell my mother that I was unhappy.
She wouldn’t understand. She’d be hurt.
I won’t tell anyone that I’m unhappy still.
I won’t tell him.
I won’t admit it to her.

Weren’t you happy with me? cries the mother Charlotte.

Didn’t you have everything?
She had everything.
Which is why, as Marthe and Élise chat in the doorway of the hotel, they spot the mother Charlotte, on her way back from the police station, swaying from one side of the street to the other.
—Looks like she’s been drinking.
She’s in a staggering search for her lost daughter.
—And why shouldn’t I have been drinking?
She says this in a loud voice, out in the street with its face shuttered against the summer heat.
I was thirsty, this hot weather is enough to make anyone thirsty.
And I’m allowed to drink when I’m thirsty.
Everyone else does.
For once, I’ll do the same as everyone else.
—I’d definitely say she’s been drinking, says Marthe.
Come on, let’s go in, I don’t want to talk to her.
So the mother Charlotte keeps to her sorry path, in search of a vanished silhouette.
—At least the boarders of my boardinghouse are good. They understand my situation. They’re my friends. Thankfully, things can’t go wrong everywhere. This garment called life has more to it than just holes.

—I wanted to get on with my life, cries Lili.
I do have the right to get on with my life.
Other people get on with their lives.
For once, I’ll do the same as everyone else.
Did you not get on with your life?
Who hasn’t got on with life?
I’ll get on with my own life regardless.
Maman can get on with her life.
Let her get on with making her own life.
And making a life: it means going away with a man.
My life has been made.
She has made her own life.

—But what is she living on? cries the mother Charlotte.
Have you seen her? Either of you?
Give me any news.
If you see her, tell her about me.
And tell me about her.