What will be left of us? | The Press

The apartment is luxurious. Each object that decorates it has been carefully chosen; the framed landscapes, the ornamental rugs, the blown glass lamp, the porcelain. The person who lived here — and who may even have died here — had good taste.

If I go by her library, she loved art. Klimt, Gauguin, Degas, Carr, Borduas… She liked to read about great creators. She was also very interested in Jewish culture, as evidenced by the many historical works and the few collections on the Holocaust. I also notice a copy ofEvery Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada. The novel was written in 1947, in 24 days. Its story isn’t funny—it’s about a middle-class couple rebelling against Hitler’s Germany—but its title makes me smile. Because while it’s true that you die alone, the apartment I’m in is full of people who have come to buy the belongings of a dead woman they didn’t know at all. You have to believe that we can still attract crowds, once the weapon has passed to the left…

This woman was cultured, then. She was also certainly flirtatious and well off. Her wardrobes are full of cashmeres, vintage hats and Italian bags.

” Pink ! Have you seen those gloves? »

I turn to Marie-Sophie. The red leather gloves that she points to me are magnificent, it’s true.

* * *

Marie-Sophie L’Heureux had a hundred lives. I don’t know what objects I would use to trace the outlines of his person. She has worked in journalism, health and public relations, among others. She rode Montreal-Gaspé by bike last summer to raise funds to fight against domestic violence. And sometimes she goes to the house of the dead to buy a couch vintage at low price.

Or nice red leather gloves.

It was she who invited me to accompany her in this liquidation of assets. She thought it might inspire me to write a column: “It’s quite fascinating to see how much people accumulate over a lifetime…”

Fascinating, the word is right.

(I allow myself a parenthesis: it’s December 2021. We don’t know, but soon, we will be restricted to our homes again, without the possibility of visiting our friends or our office. We will only be able to see our walls and objects Let’s just say that I’ll be thinking about this outing a lot, in the weeks that will follow… End of parenthesis.)

Before Marie-Sophie, I didn’t know that you could go to a deceased person’s house to shop from their cupboards. Here, everything is to be liquidated: jewelry, plates, wigs. A sticker placed on each item indicates the price. A few dozen individuals roam the rooms of the apartment, while others wait at the door. We feel a certain crowd, an eagerness to get our hands on the Hermès silk scarf.

It’s like a museum whose works you could buy.

A condo transformed into a boutique.

Or rather the gallery of a lifetime.

All these objects meant something for the one who put them here. They embodied tastes, memories, desires. Today, they become anonymous.

By dissecting the house, each article is deprived of its history. Ties that unite him to what surrounds him, like to the one he made happy. The more you buy, the more difficult it is to guess what animated the woman who lived here.

A tiny flask is placed on an imposing wooden cabinet. We wonder what it is for. Marie-Sophie opens it, she finally understands that it allows you to keep a sample of perfume with you. Probably something to drag in your bag, in case you want to quickly embalm your neck. She brings the mouthpiece to my nose: “That’s what she smelled like, the lady who lived here. »

She smelled of flowers.

* * *

After three quarters of an hour of strolling, I let myself be tempted by a serving platter and a large scarf.

I can frankly understand why the event is so popular. I just made responsible purchases. These used objects will have a second life. It is economical and ecological. It’s also strange…

So intimate.

I had never really grasped the proximity between our possessions and our person, before this visit. (No, the good old garage sales hadn’t prepared me to search the house of a deceased person to walk away with one of her scarves without feeling a little embarrassed.)

Marie-Sophie explains to me, moreover, that these visits inevitably bring her back to the same question, namely “what is left of us, literally, when we die? “.

She’s right ; taking part in such a liquidation of assets means necessarily thinking about what we will leave behind in our turn. The experience is closer to a philosophy course than a trip to a thrift store.

If you could enter my house, when I die, what would you rush into? Would there be buyers to understand how this book pushed me to break up with a former lover? How does this silkscreen embodies all my dreams of 20 years? How is this shelf, made by hand, one of the only material goods that binds me (or that bound me, rather) to my father?

Would anyone guess that the most valuable item in my house is the wooden box in which I keep every handwritten letter I’ve ever been given? The smallest piece of paper on which we took the time to put words, just for me…

In fact, I know very well that what I have most important will speak to no one else.

That’s why I’ll take care of my new serving platter as if it had fed the bravest of children. And that I will cherish my new scarf as if it had hidden a neck smelling of flowers kissed a thousand times tenderly.