Marie-Claude

A Photographic Tale 

I meet Marie-Claude in a dead end of a countryside road in the Monts d'Arrée of Brittany, France, in April 2014. « Do you want to see my dolls ? » she offers, waving to help me find my way back. In her home filled with mountains of junk I discover a world I will never leave. It haunts me and fills me with joy at the same time. This 75 year-old lady, woodcutter, ficherwoman and seamstress, is endearing and scaring at the same time. She is touching me, waking parts of me. She looks a little bit like my mother sometimes and a lot like me.

At 18 years old, she marries Albert, 17 years older than her. She moves to Kerberou, 2 kilometers away, in his house, with his mother. He beats her, keeps her inside, deprives her from any contact with the world, including her family, for 30 years. When he dies, in 1999, she finds herself alone with a very tiny 600 euros retirement pay, in a little house with no friends and no family. Marie-Claude keeps some traumas of this life. She accumulates things, compulsively, feels a lot lonely, looses her mind, her memory and has a very strong temper. No children, no family, no travels, no car. She loses her memory,  and dementia took a large part of her head but she is fascinating. She never takes a shower, does not have bathrooms and hates watching the television. For two years now, I have been spending hours of days and nights at her place. Taking pictures. It is sometimes disgusting and almost all the time freezing and smelly, but also very interesting. At first, she agreed to my presence. Now she never remembers me, but always opens her door, kisses me, calls me « ma chérie ». She has the same way to speak with me, and is a little bit more confident and open every time as if something was still happening behind the curtains of memory. Every time I bring pictures of her I made, I write notes to her that I dispose everywhere in her home. Despite the fact that she always forgets to read, or reads and just then forgets, sometimes, when I come, and I wrote I would come, somewhere, on white paper, the door is open when I arrive, and she is ready.

I feared she would not be here anymore. That she left us. Maybe she has not lost her mind as much as she would like me to believe. Maybe she simply wants to tell me about another life. The one she would have had. All she has dreamt of. She talks about it, every day. Her story changes, all the time. Every time. Between the truth, what she would have wanted to live, her stories are changing, evolving, mutating. All that matters is that these stories are hers, her. Whether they are true is not the point. Should you dream it ? Should you create it ? Should you forget it ? These beautiful stories, where she would take her bath in her little fishing boat. Where she dyed her hair alone in a bucket. Where the cat had his own bottle to drink milk. Should you wait for it ? 
What is she bloody doing all day ? I have seen her walk, look for tree roots, get lost, in the trees ... Pee in the coffee during the night, eat pancakes in the middle of the afternoon.... Hermit, witch, old crazy woman, gnome or just a grandma. Here she is. 

During two years I saw her grow old, loose more and more the immediate memory, forget to heat, wash, eat...  

Marie-Claude is about this slice of old age, a single woman's fight against solitude and dementia, eating her, slowly. A fight between shaddows and light until the end, before darkness takes it all... 

More stories from Melanie Wenger