Winter Flowers by Angelique Villeneuve (translated by Adriana Hunter) : 5 of 2023

Winter Flowers, by Angélique Villeneuve (translated by Adriana Hunter), is a thoughtful meditation on the struggles of the families of soldiers left behind in Paris towards the end of the First World War. The book subtly depicts the pressing burden of war, not just on those who were fighting in it, but on the women left behind, fighting their own battles against hunger, poverty, illness and distress. It is a sensitively written tale on the devastating consequences of war and myriad forms of loss left in its wake. What exactly was a war? An enormous grey mass, intangible and impossible. Incomprehensible.

As the novella opens, it is late 1918 and Touissant makes a surprise return to his family - wife Jeanne and daughter Leonie in Paris after being away for years. Joy soon gives way to misgiving as Jeanne realises that her husband is now a stranger, wearing a mask on his face to hide his injuries, and keeping silent to mask his emotions. He is wounded and facially disfigured. For the last few years he has been in Val-de-Grace, Paris hospital, recovering from a shrapnel explosion. Jeanne has only heard from him once since he has returned from the War, and that was a note he sent, in which he told her not to visit him. Though his much anticipated return is welcome, everyone has been heavily changed by the war, disease and poverty. The story moves fluidly between the present where Jeanne and Toussaint must begin life anew just when peace is around the corner, and the past when rumblings of the war had just begun fuelling heightened tension and a sense of growing unreality.

At first Jeanne stays rooted to her chair, entirely consumed with watching him and avoiding him. She knows what she should see, though, where she should look, but it bounces about, slips away from her. What she does grasp is that he’s taller, and handsome in his uniform, and unfamiliar too. Although Toussaint is back safe, Jeanne immediately realizes that he is the not the man she once knew. The trauma of the war and facial injuries have rendered him shell shocked and unable to communicate. Where he once was a dynamic, jovial man, he has now been reduced to a silent wreck.

While Toussaint, was away on the frontlines, Jeanne, was managing home and hoping fervently for the safe return of her husband. However, with income dwindling and crippling rations taking their toll, Jeanne somehow make ends meet, bearing alone the responsibility of raising their daughter. With her qualifications, she finds work at a flower-making workshop, creating flowers that are ‘naturals’, an array of blooms with vivid colours that also give the novel its name. When making flowers, Jeanne metamorphoses into an incredibly self-possessed creature whose focus, skill and attention to detail enthral anyone who has the opportunity to watch her work. She can make 900 cowslip flowers in a day. Her hands produce improbable tea roses as opulent as lettuces, explosive swells of petals speckled with a shimmer of blood red or cherry red. She conjures up clusters, stalks and ears, umbels and flower heads, all more beautiful and more real than the real thing. Given that jobs for women have become scarce and unreliable during war, she is grateful to have found work to occupy her, but the hours are long and deeply tiring. The daily difficulty of Jeanne’s life is laid bare, in stark contrast to the beauty of the flowers she creates. 

This family must slowly readjust to each others' presence. The majority of the story takes place in the confined quarters of their humble abode where Jeanne spends exhaustive hours painstakingly shaping fake flowers to adorn women's attire in upscale boutiques. Toussaint introduces something new, not just within the walls of the small fourth-floor room, but also into Jeanne’s life and, to a lesser extent, into Léo’s: silence. The mother and daughter whisper around him, in the narrow spaces relinquished to them by this silence.

She doesn’t think, He’s here, she thinks, it’s here. This unknown thing that’s coming home to her. That she’s dreaded, and longed for. It’s here. It’s going to come in, it’s going to make its life with her, and with Léo too, it will come here, into this room that the two of them have shared

Their interactions are often awkward and Jeanne must guess at the thoughts of the often silent Toussaint. It's a meditative experience following this family as they readjust to each other, grapple with grief and accept what's been lost. It also presents a focused portrait of the state of a country which has been traumatised by war. With three mouths to feed, it becomes harder to make food and fuel last, and Jeanne finds herself working harder than ever to support her family. Despite her best efforts, Jeanne cannot get Touissant to open up to her, and his much longed for return seems to have made her life more difficult, not less.It's intriguing how even though Toussaint and Jeanne share a bed again there is still a mental, emotional and sexual gulf between them. Jeanne must mull over his cryptic brief remarks and is reduced to following her husband when he makes unannounced excursions. Her desperation to better understand him is palpable. It's moving how the story delicately presents this example of a couple who aren't able to share their innermost thoughts and feelings. There's also an uncertainty for the characters concerning what's happening in the country. This is presented in an innovative way in one chapter where there is a list of speculations which all begin with the line “Word is...” In this way the author shows how the community is united in their struggle to understand what's happening and how they should best prepare for the future. 

Not only is there an aching tension in the relationship between this husband and wife, but also between Jeanne and her daughter Leonie. When Jeanne lashes out against her adolescent girl at one point it's shocking, but also indicative of how they struggle to effectively communicate despite living together in such close quarters. Having shared her space all her life with her mother, Leonie has to come to terms with the sudden appearance of her father, a man she mostly never knew in flesh. She struggles to understand who this man who claims to be her father is, her whole idea of her father being encapsulated by a photo of him on the mantelpiece.  Subtle moments of joy do feature in the novel – the happy carefree days the couple enjoyed before the war, and even in the present when they find comfort in simple pleasures just when victory is in sight, a sense that things can limp back to a new kind of normalcy.

Villeneuve writes with an ease and grace and the story flows smoothly between the present, where peace is imminent and the past, when war was beginning. No one time seems to be better than the other and Jeanne is wracked with guilt about her feelings towards her husband’s return. She knows she should be happy, she knows that others have not been so lucky, but Touissant is not the man he once was and she is also a different woman. Her loss may not be a physical one, but it is a loss all the same and Villeneuve asks, with great empathy, how we measure what was lost, in terms of an ordinary life, and how do we move on from something so monumental. This is their story of how they learn to adjust, how Jeanne has to find a way of co-existing with a man who is very changed in looks and by his experience of war. Toussaint, upon his return, has to find a way to re-integrate into normal life and find a new and different role within the family and within society. And as they learn to co-exist the spread of Spanish Flu is starting to be felt. So even though the central family are lucky to still have each other there are sorrowful gulfs between them. The partners transition and discover a different kind of familiarity. Toussaint, would eventually heal, would get used to it, settle and pull himself together; at least, she could try to believe this and picture herself coming to terms with the man he’d turned into, with his injuries and his memories. But what about Sidonie?

The novel presents the continuing impact of many different kinds of loss for both this family and their neighbour Sidonie who once had a large family but is now perilously alone. In Touissant’s absence, Jeanne banded together with her female neighbours to support one another both physically and mentally, but her husband’s return means she finds it harder to help her  best friend Sidonie, whose grief is making her spin out of control. Intertwined with this main storyline is that of Sidonie’s, both women - Jeanne and Sidonie find mutual support and companionship in each other. The two women see a good deal of each other. They share what little they have, the coffee and heating, the lack of coffee and lack of heating. The silences and absences. Their meagre  meals too, occasionally. Sidonie stitches clothes for a department store and has led a hard life. Having lost two husbands and four sons in tragic circumstances, Sidonie’s sole family is her son Eugene, who writes to her regularly but these letters stop when he is reported missing. The eventual confirmation of his death unleashes a wave of unimaginable grief in Sidonie. What could Jeanne have added, with her own semi-tragedy – what placating promises, what lies?  The depiction of female friendship is a striking one, honouring the strength and resilience of the women who were left behind. A scene where Jeanne and Sidonie attend a ceremony to commemorate those who were killed in the war is a powerful and heart-rending one, reminding us that there is only so much loss a person, or a country can bear. Poor women. Those who entrusted a sheep to their country were given back a lion. Someone who’d sent out a young lad was said to have come home an old man, or mad. Many never returned. 

Given that the act of war is often instigated by powerful people with ulterior motives, patriotism is often lauded. But the suffering and psychological damage is hardly ever acknowledged, damage that can also leave a lasting impression on subsequent generations. The story really brings to life the horrific and personal consequences of war. Bereavement creates both barriers and bonds between individuals who rely on one another and the hard-won love between them. Winter Flowers is a poignant, profound meditation on grief and loss. How do we measure loss? Is death the only defining feature of a loss? What about the loss of a person’s spirit and personality, the very essence of one’s being?