"Good evening. I'd like to speak to Madam Curty, please."
"Good evening. Who's speaking?"
"I'm Lee Sah."
"Oh! It isn't true. Where are you now, Lee Sah?"
"Hi, Madam Curty, how are you? I'm back to France for a holiday. I'm sorry I didn't write to you during the past few years because I had lost your address. But I always thought of you."
"Me too. I missed you a lot! My children and grandchildren sometimes asked me about your news but I had no idea. I'm very glad to hear from you again."
"Madam Curty, I'm currently staying with my friends Toitot in the Haute-Saône. When I go to Besançon next week, I'd like to pay you a visit."
"Sure! Come and have lunch with me. I'm still staying in my apartment in Plainoise."
"Okay, Madam Curty. I'll contact you again. And I'd like to wish you a happy Mother's day..."
"That's very nice of you. I hope to see you soon, Lee Sah..."
After a few days, I changed my plan. I called Madam Curty again to invite her for lunch together with the Toitot couple in the Saint Claire convent on the following Thursday.
When I stepped into the dining room, Madam Curty, who had not aged during the past six years, was already there. I excitedly gave her a big hug, whom I owed so much.
"You have the regards from my children and grandchildren. When my son Fabien called me on the same Sunday, I told him that you were the first one to wish me a happy Mother's day!"
I had come across Madam Curty's notice in the Applied Linguistics centre. She was offering a room in her apartment to a female student in exchange for a simple service: to look after her elderly mother on Wednesday evenings so that she could go to the cinema without worry.
The "job description" sounded very interesting to me, who had not even done any babysitting before. Apparently I was the first one to call her up, and I was immediately given the offer after I had met my future landladies in their three-room apartment.
Even though I had known the Toitot family much earlier, I had never lived with them. It was a new experience to live under the same roof with two French ladies and a cat Minette. Soon later, I got to know Madam Curty's other lovely family members who visited her from time to time.
Unfortunately, Madam Curty's mother accidentally fell and broke her thighbone in a fatal Wednesday evening, when I was alone with her. She had to undergo a surgery which was successful, but her heart succombed to anaesthesia. She passed away one week later. No one in the family had ever put any blame on me...
After the funeral, Madam Curty decided to move to a single-room apartment with her Minette. While waiting for the approval from the housing office, she still kept me as company. She also brought me along when she visited her brother in the same region and when she travelled to her son's house in Puy-en-Velay, in South-Eastern France.
Meanwhile, I was looking for another lodging. God again solved it for me very fast: A Chinese friend was going to leave Besançon for Paris and she asked me if I was interested to take over her room in the Sainte Claire convent.
As I had talked to Ernest and Nicole so much about Madam Curty, I arranged a lunch in the convent to introduce them to each other. This was the second time that I gathered them in the same dining room. The atmosphere was as lively as six years ago with full of exchange of ideas.
Madam Curty, who had a sweet tooth, had bought for me sweets packed like a bouquet of flowers. And she said to Ernest and Nicole,
"My mom used to call Lee Sah her ray of sunshine for her smile..."
To me, these three important people were the ones who had brought warm lights into my student life in Besançon. They made my smile shine with gratitude.
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