Ethel Merman, Mother Teresa...and Me. Tony Cointreau
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Jean and Jacques from her fortune, in favor of any children they might have together. They eventually had one son, Denis, so I consider myself fortunate that the document became worthless when the General died several years before Geneviève.
The General turned out to be a great intellectual with a remarkable library that he would retreat to every afternoon. I appreciated his wry sense of humor and the fact that he did not appear to be intimidated by Maman Geneviève. At the dinner table he would often, in front of the family and guests, turn to her and exclaim as a statement of fact, “Geneviève, tu est une enmerdeuse!” Loosely translated it meant, “Geneviève, you’re a pain in the ass!” He always said it with a laugh, but I suspected that he really meant it.
Maman Geneviève got up at seven o’clock every morning, marcelled her hair with a curling iron, and pinned it up in back. She always wore one of two white summer dresses—alternating them each day. Maman Geneviève’s frugal habits were a family trait that my mother always referred to as “l’economie Cointreau.” At Château Brillant, she cut up newspapers that she doled out to be used as toilet paper (Mother, of course, brought her own from America), saved small pieces of string and paper, and kept little pieces of soap. From sunup till sunset Maman Geneviève ruled Château Brillant, as well as the surrounding farms, which she also owned, with an iron hand.
In those days French servants were often considered no more than slaves, which suited my grandmother perfectly. At 8:30 one morning, I was having breakfast in my mother’s bedroom when I heard a commotion down the hall. I saw Mathilde, one of several housemaids, running towards my grandmother. Tears streamed down Mathilde’s face as she begged Maman Geneviève to allow her to go to her mother, who was dying in a nearby town.
My grandmother coldly replied, “You may go after lunch has been served and your work finished for the day.”
Even though I was only six years old, this struck me as so blatantly cruel that I ranted and raved until she finally relented. But in the end Mathilde was so frightened of Maman Geneviève that she only dared leave later that evening after her work was done.
The next day Maman Geneviève asked me, “Why don’t you come with me this morning while I tour the property?” I was a bit wary as I followed her obediently through the gardens and past the chicken coop to the rabbit cages. There I saw about two dozen white rabbits, many of them fluffy babies. Maman Geneviève pointed to a nice plump bunny all alone in a cage set apart from the others, smiled at me, and asked, “How would you like to have this one for your very own?”
I would have preferred one of the cute little babies, but I loved animals more than anything in the world and I was not going to question my sudden good fortune.
That night, when I sat down to dinner with the family, my grandmother turned to me and said, “Jacques-Henri, you have displeased me, so your dinner will not be like everyone else’s.”
Then Maman Geneviève rang the bell and the butler entered with a large silver platter. On the platter was my bunny rabbit. My dinner had arrived.
That first summer at Château Brillant was the beginning of years of battles between my grandmother and me.
Although I found little to admire in my paternal grandmother, I never feared her. To me, the monster we called Maman Geneviève was a bully who could intimidate others who either wanted to inherit her fortune or were in no position to defend themselves. I was neither.
I believe that what infuriated her most about me was the fact that in spite of being a sensitive child, I never hesitated to stand up and defend those who could not defend themselves. Injustice was something I could not endure silently. Maman Geneviève resented me and wanted nothing more than for me to bow low and acquiesce to her power like everyone else. I may have been sensitive to a fault, but I also had courage—two things that I found can live together in harmony.
Mother was always telling me not to cry. She could not even allow herself to cry. I once saw her lie rigid on her bed at Château Brillant, her fists clenched and her face contorted, fighting tears of rage after Maman Geneviève had insulted her. If I hadn’t known better I would have thought she was having a seizure.
Earlier that afternoon, Mother had encountered Maman Geneviève in the hallway outside the bedrooms, where they discussed the lobsters they would have for dinner. At one point Maman Geneviève, with her usual charm, turned to my mother, and said, “Tu radotes,” which means, “You’re talking a load of drivel.”
Instead of confronting Maman Geneviève about her rudeness, Mother took to her bed, fighting the tears of rage that threatened to engulf her. I sat helplessly beside my mother, knowing there was little I could do to help her release the emotions she always held in check. So I went to confront Maman Geneviève myself. When I found her on the back stairs of Château Brillant, I stopped her, looked her right in the eye, and with all the venom I could muster at that young age, spat out, emphasizing each word, “You made my mother cry!”
She refused to respond to me, and just stood there silently, staring at me. She was not accustomed to being confronted by anyone, especially not by a child. Unbeknownst to me, Maria, the elderly head cook, who had been with the family for decades, had overheard me, and came up the narrow stairs behind me. She looked sadly at my grandmother, and said, “If your mother, Madame Cointreau, could see you now, she would be saddened and ashamed”—a particularly brave thing for a servant to say, especially in those days.
One day when Maman Geneviève and my brother and I were out walking, Richard shot a tiny sparrow in the wing with his .22 rifle. It fell to the ground, and Maman Geneviève reached down and picked it up. With a demonic smile on her face, she held the baby bird near my face and twisted its little neck until it was dead. Then, with the same hideous smirk still on her face, she looked me right in the eye and said, “I’ll bet you wouldn’t do that!”
I looked right back at her and answered, “No, I wouldn’t!”
I knew that the little sparrow could not survive on its own with a broken wing, but I was disgusted at her perverted joy in trying to goad an eight-year old child into submission with this act of violence.
Another time, I looked out the window at Château Brillant and saw a very large snake, at least five feet long, slithering down one of the tree-lined alleys toward the house. My grandmother was with me in the living room and immediately called for the head gardener, Auguste, to take care of the matter.
I thought nothing more of it, after he had hit it over the back of the head with a hoe and carried its limp form away.
A few minutes later Maman Geneviève asked me if I would be so kind as to throw a few pieces of paper into the furnace—something that surprised me, since I did not even know there was a furnace at Château Brillant. I knew that it was not for heating that enormous establishment, since no one but Maria and Auguste lived there in the winter. If someone wanted warmth in cold weather, each room had a large fireplace.
I easily found the room with the furnace, which was accessible from a door outside and was no bigger than a closet. Once inside I could hear a loud banging sound. When I opened the little door of the furnace, I saw the head of the large snake rising out of the flames. Its mouth and eyes were wide open and staring at me from only a couple of feet away in an agony I could only imagine. The banging sound was its thick body hitting the metal sides of the furnace as it continued to burn. It was like looking into the pit of Hell. I quickly shut the door, fearing that the agonized creature might find a way to jump out of its fiery prison and attack me. I understood immediately that my grandmother knew only too well the horror that I would find in the furnace that day when she handed me the trash to discard.
Over the years, Maman Geneviève never gave up in her attempts to break my spirit. But she never could.
I