Fresh Water for Flowers

Violette introduces herself and enjoys a glass of port while she reminisces. She was given up at birth and assumed stillborn until the warmth of a radiator brought her back to life. A midwife named her. Violette grew straight and tall; every day “disciplined” her. As an adult, she married a man named Philippe Toussaint.

In 1997, many years before the narrative present, Violette and Philippe have lost their jobs as level-crossing operators; Violette did all the work for both of them. Violette discovers an advert for a couple to watch over a cemetery in the small village of Brancion-en-Chalon and convinces Philippe to go. Upon arrival, Violette realizes she is where she belongs.

Violette describes the friends she has within the community of the graveyard: three gravediggers—Nono, Gaston, and Elvis—and three undertakers, brothers named Pierre, Paul, and Jacques. There is also the handsome village priest, Cédric Duras. Violette does not attend church, though she feels she acts as a confessional for the grievers who come to her cemetery. She considers some of the ghostly legends surrounding the old graves, as well as the town council’s practice of recycling graves that have fallen into disrepair. Violette and the gravediggers do their best to maintain them so this doesn’t happen. Philippe has long since vanished.

In 1985, Violette meets Philippe while she is working as a bartender. She is young, living at a hostel after a childhood in foster care; she has many piercings and wears dark makeup. Philippe elicits attention from all the women in the bar, but he focuses on Violette.

Violette receives an early morning visitor: Julien Seul, a man with a request from his deceased mother. She requested for her ashes to be placed at the tomb of a man named Gabriel Prudent, but Julien doesn’t know why. He and his mother live several hours away. Violette opens her written account of Gabriel’s funeral and reads it to the man. Together they go visit Gabriel’s tomb.

Violette is planting some heather around one of the tombs; Gaston and Nono are chatting nearby. Two elderly women are cleaning around the graves of their deceased husbands. One, Madame Pinto, is a Portuguese woman who brings Violette back a folk doll every time she returns home for the summer. Violette doesn’t like the dolls but doesn’t want to be insulting, so she lines them up on her stairwell.

A burial takes place, and Violette records the details. The man’s family attends, and three friends recite a poem about a bird’s funeral. The priest, Father Cédric, recites a quotation from the Bible. The man is laid to rest.

The cemetery is full of photographs of the deceased at their best moments. Violette maintains them by cleaning them once a year. While cleaning a collection of family photographs, Julien arrives and joins her. Violette feels an uncertain attraction to him. He asks for her help in writing a speech for when he brings his mother’s ashes to Gabriel’s tomb. He recalls a tragedy in that village but can’t remember the details.

Violette meets Clare, a woman who was at the recent burial and wants to plant a rosebush over Gabriel’s grave.

Violette reflects on the beginning of her life with Philippe. She sleeps with him the first night they meet and promptly falls deeply in love with him. One day, he invites her to come live with him, and she takes her belongings from the hostel and moves into Philippe’s apartment. Violette avoids talking to him, instead inviting him to bed.

Julien comes to Violette’s house for help preparing his speech. They drink port and discuss Julien’s mother, but he remembers very few details. Violette offers him a speech to study that was written for a woman named Marie Géant. Julien takes the book containing the speech, promising to return it the next morning.

This chapter relates Marie Géant’s speech, written by her granddaughter as a collection of characteristics and memories throughout the deceased woman’s life.