Leggera come una Piuma

By Magali Dubreuil Bourguet

A story rich with poetry, emotion and humour, approaching the topic of Alzheimer's disease in a kind and quirky way.

The meeting between two extraordinary women, separated by three generations, unites them into one, single, universal, artistic entity. This personal adventure, rich in poetry and emotion, makes us laugh and makes us cry. Alice and Piuma waltz through life to the melody of the passage of time. 

"She can play the piano at home but Alice wants to be listened to. She wants to create emotion and share it with people, make them feel it too. In their apartment, the rooms are too small, the walls are too close together so the notes cannot soar. They hit the walls and are suffocated. Notes need space to fly, spread out, escape and speak. They are chatty: they have lots of things to say or to share, for there must be at least two of them."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Magali Dubreuil Bourguet
• Release date: May 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667401621

Book preview

Leggera come una piuma

(Light as a feather)

In accordance with the law dated 11th March 1957, it is forbidden to either fully or partially reproduce this work, in ant medium, without the permission of the writer, publisher or the Centre français d’exploitation du droit de copie, 20, rue des Grands-Augustins, 75006 Paris.

Magali Dubreuil-Bourguet

(Mag. B.)

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Leggera come una piuma

(Light as a feather)

A novel

ISBN 9791034363247

I dedicate this novel to everyone, from near or far, who shares the daily life linked with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia which are less well known but are all just as trying for those around them as for the parents, relatives or friends affected.

Of course, I dedicate this novel to my brother Daniel who passed away too soon, at the age of forty, from frontotemporal dementia, and to my dad, who passed away from Lewy body dementia. Unfortunately, I could still list a lot of other members of my family and my friends, affected in their own way by a degenerative neurological disease.

I also have a lot of compassion for young people lacking roots, family, stability and parental love.

Finally, I also dedicate this novel to Patrice Pineau who I met again after thirty years for a project about book covers, of course, and to his daughter Sylviane, who today dances among the angels.

In all humility, I hope this story will lighten hearts that have grown too heavy while being faced by their trials and that you will find the hope that I wanted to convey through my own life path. Remember to let go of what is too heavy.

Mag. B.

Preface

This novel is undoubtedly the one I wrote the fastest. Everything came to me in an afternoon: the inspiration, the entire story, the film played out in my head.

Then, I had to find names for my characters and, obviously, as a nod to the little feather mentioned in my very first novel (dedicated to my grandmother), I named my heroine Piuma.

Frantic hours followed. For entire days without a break, I typed on my keyboard then the all-nighters came.

I was never able to leave pages blank for more than three hours when I still had more to write. I had to stay with them. Alice and Piuma wanted to exist quickly, very quickly. They wanted their story to go in every direction.

Two whole weeks for almost two hundred hours of writing. At a rate of two hours a day, I could have taken four months to write it, like for my three other novels, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I wrote this novel with the same appetite that some people devour them with, like a writing ogress.

Magali Dubreuil-Bourguet.

Piuma

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This is Piuma. A young woman, only eighteen years old, her parents are unknown. When the Italian-born midwife took her in her arms to carry her, she cried out, Oh, mio Dio, questo bambino è leggero come una piuma. (Oh, my God, this baby is as light as a feather.)

Luckily, she did not find her as heavy as an anvil or as thin as a cuckoo.

I do not know whether or not the names we are given have any influence whatsoever on our future or on our personality but you would think it was the case.

She likes the name that suits her so well: Piuma, the street’s principal dancer. She flies, twirls, whirls, on her toes and on the tips of them. She skims the tarmac and never really lands. She is elusive: everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Her stage is different all the time. Dance is her life but, one day, you will see, she will have her own company. She will create her own contemporary ballet and it will be poignant. Moving. Both light-hearted and profound! She will take you from your seats and will drag you out of your lives for a few hours. She will appear weightless; each jump will take your breath away and your heartbeats will be on the end of her ballet shoes. 

Tonight, at the Capitole de Toulouse, the Piuma Villardi company.

In fact, her surname is Villard but she prefers Villardi. It sounds better with her first name.

Like a feather, she flew from house to house, from family to family, always in mid-air.

Today, she is free and choreographs her own life, as she likes to claim. In truth, she is always homeless and is dependent on herself. There were many times when she could have taken the wrong path but dance has provided for her and guided her since her very first steps. Besides, she walked on her tiptoes for several years before managing to put down her heels as if she had always been on the starting-blocks.

She went to classical dance classes at the conservatoire for four years while with one of her first foster families. Then, she carried on by watching videos, tutorials and everything she could find about dance: classical, jazz or contemporary.

She created herself. She was born from all these dances. All these trends and techniques mixed with her passion for feathers gave birth to her unique style of movement and occupying space. A day did not pass without her observing a feather. Her favourites are the small, white, downy ones.

As soon as she finds one on her road, she can’t help but pick it up. She lies it delicately on the end of her fingers then she waits for the wind to sweep it away or she blows on it. And, sometimes, she starts to imitate them by gliding and whirls, changing direction and she is light: light like a feather.

She always wears long, floaty dresses with layers of sheer fabrics in pastel tones so that when she starts to dance, you could think she has no feed, that she is gliding or that she is flying. I have never seen such grace. She embodies all the beauty of her name.

As she does every day, Piuma walks into the city centre and waits for the right moment. For her, everything is a sign or a message and she leaves nothing to chance. Every day she says she goes to her meeting her she ignores all the details. Yes, the little bits of information like the place, the time and the people but she knows they will all be there at the right time and in the right place. You could think she’s a bit naïve, careless perhaps? 

However, I can guarantee you that despite her age, she has risen to challenges, wiped away tears and taken things on the chin. She has got it into her head that these bad experiences are only training. She has to learn to sharpen her intuition to decode the messages, the signs which are clues either to reassure her or to warn her.

In the end, to her, life consists of going in search of those opportunities where ignorance of the details can make things obvious.

So, every day, her goal is to look for the best spot for performing. Once she gets the right feeling, she puts down her mobile speaker, lays a pretty, nest-shaped, lucky scarf on the ground, slides in several coins, in advance, and turns on the music. But, as she always does before she starts, Piuma closes her eyes and whispers a few words like a motto,

This is my time, I am in the right place, at the right moment and with the right audience. Let the magic happen.

Having seen her often, I can confirm that the magic happens every time. Piuma is poetry itself, a dream, so ethereal that she is almost unreal, a fairy perhaps.

When she starts to dance, time stops: the passers-by no longer pass, the hands of the clocks no longer turn either. Seconds, minutes, hours are held captive. And, even if the cars still roll, the world becomes deaf, our ears see only her, for the time of her dance, for the time of her melody, she keeps life in suspense. It's a bit like if the play button of her speaker presses the pause button on the world at the same time and everything freezes, except her.

She has already been living alone for two months. For the moment, she always finds somewhere to sleep, at friends’ houses or sometimes at a hotel. She has been able to eat properly every day. People leave her enough money at her performances. It has to be said that it’s the right season. We are in June and let’s hope she finds a solution before the winter. What seems pleasant in this season will be much less so in the rain, the cold and the clouds.

Piuma doesn’t worry. She wishes to save up enough money so she can spend July in Avignon and take part in the festival which is one of the most important international events for contemporary performing arts. She is meeting someone there. Of course, she does not know exactly where or who yet but she will improvise, as usual.

The dance is finished. She greets all the people who have the taste of her softness in their eyes, as though they still have not completely come out of their waking dream: they are almost shocked that she is human, earthly. They have smiles which thank her for snatching them so delicately from their hurried steps, they would even have forgotten where they were going. Children have sparkling eyes. Little girls yearn to wear ballet shoes, as if there was something magical about them. Piuma exchanges a few smiles and humbly folds up her lucky scarf.

She tells herself that she deserves to go to the shopping centre to buy a little bit of something to eat.

It is Saturday and there are a lot of people there. Piuma goes to