There are five women: the grandmother, the mother, the eldest daughter, the second daughter and the youngest daughter. Five women who waited. Days. Months. Years. Sitting in the back kitchen watching from behind the window, the slightest noise, a letter deposited, the trace of a return, the banging of a car door. Going over and over again the causes of the departure, the argument which preceded it, the distress which followed it, memories of dances and village fairs. Inventing for themselves the travels, the adventures, the destinies from where he - the young brother - would return one day, covered in all the triumphs, having overcome all the pitfalls and the paternal curse. Today, he is here, the young brother, returned from his wars, exhausted, ill, on the verge of dying in the bedroom of the child he used to be. Today, he is here, and his approaching death releases the racket of resentment and repressed words, fears, and the settling of scores: cries, whispers, laughs, tears, abuse, confessions, sentences, lies and secrets. Here they are, these five women, speaking as if liberated from the weight of the silence in which they had taken refuge. Today, he is here, the young brother … Really? It's not so certain, all things considered. What if this return is only yet another fabrication? A necessary ritual for speech to come at last, to end the solitude of their existence? "I thought I heard a noise," says the mother. These are her last words, and the last words of the play. What noise is it?

Philippe Sireuil