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‘Will I be forgiven for having been loved so much?’ wonders the female narrator. Will she indeed be forgiven the twenty-first years of her life, which she spent at the « Val de Grâce »?
How could she forget the 200-square-meter classic Hausmanian flat, in the Val de Grâce street, at the very heart of Paris?
How could she forget the sensations – the smells, the textures – of a flat which every nook and corner, every single scratch she knew by heart? The accumulation of furniture and objects, the unusual deco, the silvery wall paper? How could she forget such a happy, protected childhood, where everything was allowed: sweets on demand and on the tab at the boulangerie; nanny Madame Jacqueline’s endless patience; the fairytale princess’ dreams?
At the Val de Grâce, everything was beautiful and magic. Everything seemed destined to last forever. Children did not feel the lack of money, the effect of time passing. They were not told about the family’s painful history, the Shoah and the Jewish immigrant parents. All this, however, lasted only twenty years. The mother’s death meant the end of the parties, then the Val de Grâce being sold off. Childhood, traces of the parents’ presence, happy memories started to vanish. Yet inside oneself, like a precious relic, one keeps a miniature Val de Grâce. One day, when life appears to be going all wrong, it becomes necessary to bring the Val de Grâce back to life one last time, so as to be able to close the door on the past for good.

Colombe Schneck was born in Paris in 1966. She is a journalist for i<TELE and France Inter where she specializes in media. In 2006, she published a first, very successful novella L'increvable Monsieur Schneck; her novel Sa petite chérie came out in 2007.