The youngest dockworker, a boy named Patrice who had thought “Grosse Fesse” was just a joke, asked the old man why he had done it.
She died giving birth to a daughter who did not survive either. The midwife said it was a “twisting of the cord.” Étienne, who had been twenty-two and foolish enough to believe in happy endings, never remarried. Never touched another woman. Never spoke of Céleste above a whisper. grosse fesse
Céleste.