Marlene

by Philippe Djian

  So no more cover-ups, shadows, silences, no more of their oppressive, murderous secrecy. Gripped by an uncontrollable need, she was about to take a step into the void, spill everything, she couldn’t take it anymore. She was going to expose their relationship to the light, come what may.

  She took her sister’s hand and a deep breath. Squalls of rain were whipping against the windows, thunder rumbling in the distance, when the door burst open and Vincent sprang in like a demon out of a box.

  In the time it took them to react, he yanked Nath from her chair and, without a word, coldly determined, hustled her off under his arm and stomped back out, heedless of her complaints, her feeble kicks.

  Nath reappeared a minute later, glowering, soaked to the skin.

  Jesus, I thought he’d kidnapped you, Marlene cried, dropping her raincoat.

  He did kidnap me, what do you think it was. It just didn’t last long, that’s all. I asked him who the hell he thought he was, and if he wanted me to rip his eyes out.

  He saw I meant it.

  Marlene brought her some towels. Nath had sat back down and begun crying in silence.

  My poor baby, said Marlene, stroking her head. Look, this isn’t really the time, I know, but it’s about Dan.

  And me.

  Nath slowly raised a damp, dark eye toward her.

  Oh, please, she scowled, give me a break. Stop dreaming. You’d be better off thinking about something else.

  You’re due in six months. So cut it out. Please. I’ve heard enough for one day.

  INTRUSION

  Despite her grief, she was not entirely deaf, or unable to think. She pondered Marlene’s words about Dan and they bore their little channel through her mind.

  She watched her sister all afternoon and the exercise provoked short circuits, sparks in her skull. The rain wouldn’t let up. Fat droplets struck the steaming asphalt like shrapnel, blue oblong clouds skidded above the rooftops almost as fast as jet trails, and the wind was in especially good form.

  As she was locking up the salon, she suddenly realized that she loathed her sister. She couldn’t believe it. She froze under the shock, key still in the door. And as Marlene, behind her, asked if there was a problem, she slowly turned and gave her a furtive, distrustful look, full of resentment, that her sister didn’t notice, absorbed as she was in her own thoughts and still smarting from Nath’s unexpected rebuff a few hours earlier, which seemed to wipe out all her hopes. It was getting dark.

  The rain had ended but it was as if the wind were out looking for it.

  Richard was leaning with a lamp over the engine of his Alfa when she arrived. He looked up and followed her with his gaze until she had disappeared inside. She set her bag on the kitchen table and, unable to take another step, collapsed into a chair without bothering to remove her parka. She stared awhile into the emptiness, floored by the revelation that had suddenly come to her—but which wasn’t so incredible if you thought about it. It wasn’t that she’d suddenly started agreeing with Richard, who wouldn’t let go of his vain accusations—that wasn’t the problem. The problem came from an old well of bitterness that had risen to the surface and been gushing like blood from an open wound ever since Marlene had mentioned her interest in Dan. It came from everything this meant to Nath, everything it stirred in her that had remained buried in the depths of her being.

  There was no food in the house. As so often lately.

  Anyway, they had lost their appetites, didn’t even think about eating. Richard, who was six feet tall and weighed two hundred pounds, could subsist on a biscuit, half of which he’d leave somewhere. Still, she willed herself out of her seat and checked through the cupboards. When you stood in the kitchen, you had to avoid looking toward the hallway so as not to see the door to Mona’s bedroom. Which they had locked by mutual agreement, without any marker or sign. She found a few eggs, some bread in cellophane. Through the window, she saw Richard with his headlamp who wasn’t bothered by the falling dark and remained absorbed in the engine of his Alfa. She thought about that bitch, that cunt Marlene, while cutting an apple into slices. She lit the oven. She felt as if she was regaining part of her lost vitality.

  She might have gone through rough patches with her daughter, but she was discovering just how much she had loved her, just how much Mona’s death was destroying her. She defrosted a pie crust, after extricating it with difficulty from the block of ice in which it was embedded. She knocked on the window and signaled to Richard that it would be ready in ten minutes. Honestly, it took a hell of a nerve to show up as she’d done, with all her luggage in tow. After eighteen years. Despite what she’d thought, Marlene hadn’t settled with age. She had only gotten worse. She’d just learned to conceal it better. She changed out of her work clothes, pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and went back to the kitchen to hunt down some wine. She noticed she had a whopper of a bruise on her thigh, no doubt from when Vincent had shoved her into the front seat and she’d banged against the stick shift, and she tried to think up an excuse. She basted the crust with egg yolk, sprinkled sugar on the apples, and put the pie in. It wasn’t exactly fine cuisine, but it was the thought that counted. She decided that she’d see, improvise when the time came. She gestured to Richard that his drink was waiting for him.

  She heard the wind howl behind the front door. After letting her get out, Vincent had sped off in the middle of the downpour. It was dangerous in his condition.

  He hadn’t realized that Mona’s death signaled the end.

  As if it were so hard to understand. It was Marlene that Vincent should have carried off, once and for all. From the start, Richard had been up front about his antipathy toward her sister. He was blinded by his conviction that Marlene had led their daughter astray, but the fact was, his instincts had warned him Marlene was toxic and her rage against her sister doubled. He was the one who’d seen clearly.

  She needed to come back to him, put an end to her straying, which she now saw as a major leak that threatened to sink their old vessel. Especially since her feelings for Richard, so often manhandled by both of them, persisted come hell or high water. She looked at him again, as he looked at the Alfa with hands on his hips, satisfaction on his face, and for the first time in ages she felt a wave of tenderness for the man rush through her. An aroma of baking apples filled the air.

  Later, about to fall asleep, she nestled against him.

  That was good, he said.

  Next time I’ll make it with applesauce, she said in a sleepy voice.

  I didn’t mean that, he replied.

  It was late, but Marlene was still pacing around her studio, and the walls were starting to close in. She couldn’t understand what was going on with Nath, still less what she might have done to earn such a reaction. She felt lost and disillusioned, yet again. Her life was just an uninterrupted series of disappointments and half-assed adventures, so she shouldn’t be surprised by anything. Except that she’d believed in Dan. With alarming naïveté, no doubt, and her abominable tendency to take wishes for realities, but she’d believed. She was the right woman for him, the one he needed, even if he didn’t know it yet. True, their relationship was no longer going so smoothly since Mona’s suicide had blown it all to smithereens, but she had hung on—she was hanging on, anxious that the redemption she’d no longer dared hope for was slipping through her fingers, and that evening the building was pitching and tossing worse than ever. She was cursed. She knew she could be a better mother, a more perfect wife than any woman she knew, but it was she who would again be watching the parade pass by.

  She felt up to telling Dan she was pregnant. That kind of accident happened more often than people imagined, and she thought of Dan as the type of man who could accept it, rise to the occasion, not get caught up in the usual, alienating platitudes that only appealed to the feeble of mind, the faint of heart, and their wretched brats. She stretched out fully dressed on her b
ed. Starting over was a delusion. Giving up on it was the mark of great wisdom or total numbness. But she was neither wise nor prepared to stay in bed waiting for the end of days. She got up.

  It wasn’t very easy to get into Dan’s place without rousing his attention. He was trained to detect the slightest sound, sleep with one eye open, and that faculty, which made him such a valued member of his unit, had saved his and his buddies’ lives more than once. Someone was in the garden—he sensed it before hearing a sound.

  Ever since Mona had set his couch on fire, he’d sat on the floor, leaning against the wall and using an adjustable tray to protect his genitals from the harmful rays of his laptop. He used to enjoy lying on his couch in the dark with just the light from the screen. It was full of memories, that couch, and despite what he claimed, he missed it. So now he just sat on the floor, and had only to shut his computer quickly to plunge the room into total darkness. Someone was creeping near the wall. His reflexes immediately returned. He stood up without a sound. He was barefoot, but he didn’t have time to put on shoes. He slipped outside, quieter than an Angora cat, and skirted around the house to take his visitor from behind. He flattened into the corner, ready to trip the intruder and leap onto him, ready to break his neck, but it was Marlene, goddammit, he cried out, goddammit, Marlene, what the hell are you doing here, I could have killed you.

  Surprised, she’d jumped back. Oh my god. Oh you scared the life out of me, she said, hand to her chest. I hope I’m not disturbing you. Were you sleeping.

  No, I wasn’t sleeping. What’s going on.

  Nothing, nothing’s going on. I wanted to see you. No, strike that, I needed to see you. Hey, it’s not exactly balmy out here, can we go inside.

  He didn’t answer and headed in.

  He switched on a lamp. She said oh, what happened to your couch.

  Here, take the armchair, I’ll sit on this one.

  Yeah. Okay. It looks a little like a temp office in here, don’t you think. Could we have a drink, maybe light a few candles.

  No, no candles, there’s nothing to celebrate. I’m into rum at the moment.

  He headed to the kitchen, turned on the light, took a few steps toward the fridge and noticed that the floor tiles were sticky under his feet. He halted, felt his chest contract, his heart race, lowered his eyes, and discovered it was blood. He grimaced, turned around slowly to look behind him and found himself at the end of a large stream of blood that ran from the hem of his pants to the doorway over the cream-white tiles. A river of blood.

  He gritted his teeth to keep from screaming.

  Marlene called to him, and as he didn’t come, she joined him in the kitchen and found him squatting, huddled in a corner near the fridge, eyes wide as saucers and trembling like a leaf. There was a little blood on the floor, some minor smears leading to him.

  She rushed forward. He was shaking, hyperventilating.

  Dan. Okay, breathe, she said.

  She leaned toward him and managed to have a seizure of her own. She collapsed, sprawled at his feet, like a limp rag. He remained unresponsive, huffing like a forge, unable to come to her aid, to make the slightest movement toward her. The wind moaning outside mixed with the hiss of air pushed out by his lungs.

  She opened her eyes a few minutes later while Dan, in his corner, was just finishing counting backward by threes from five hundred.

  Everything’s fine, she stammered, raising herself on one elbow, dazed, not knowing what she was saying. He nodded slowly, his breathing still hesitant, white as a sheet, forehead clammy, arms folded over his chest where his palpitations were taking their sweet time to calm down.

  She reached out a hand to touch him, gave him the pale smile that a loving mother gives her sick child, and stood up unsteadily, tugging on her skirt that had hiked to her waist.

  Stay right there, I’ll take care of everything, she said while he closed his eyes.

  She ran him a warm bath. Inspecting his medicine cabinet, she found bandages, compresses, antiseptic, and some remaining bubble bath scented like candy that she sprinkled into the tub before returning to his side to play nurse.

  He emerged little by little. She glanced at his wound, which wasn’t very serious, and which she cleaned delicately as he watched with a kind of infantile gratitude.

  We really make quite a pair, the two of us, she joked while ripping open the bandage wrapper. The cut was hardly bleeding anymore.

  He still felt weak, nauseated, strung out. She helped him up and he let himself be led hobbling to the bathroom.

  He recoiled when he discovered the candy scent that immediately reminded him of Mona, but she was already starting to undress him, unbutton his shirt, and seeing that he wasn’t moving, that he remained frozen like a vegetable in a rest home, she made him sit on the edge of the tub to take off his pants and his underwear in the same motion. She smiled vaguely when her eyes fell on his tiny willy shriveled by the brutal events, but didn’t let herself dwell on it.

  Still in a stupor, he hadn’t yet uttered a single word, apart from grunts that might have been words, but when he sank into the hot water—often touted, and rightly so, as mankind’s finest achievement—when he lowered his entire body into it with crass enjoyment and a sigh that could have split an oak, he turned to Marlene, kneeling next to him on the electric blue nonskid bath mat, stretched out a hand on which small lemony-scented clumps of foam quivered like whipped egg whites, and said holy fuck, Marlene, we really caught it that time. I think maybe you should fix us some drinks.

  Mine’s rum, like I said. Make it a double.

  Before he could move, she stole a quick kiss on his cheek and jumped to her feet. She looked so happy it was a pleasure to behold. He heard her busying herself in the kitchen—she was quite capable of breaking a few glasses—and snorted. She was something else, that woman, he had to admit, keeping his foot out of the water. A kind of half-salty, half-sweet cocktail with just a spritz of seltzer and two or three dashes of angostura.

  He was impressed by how she’d handled the situation, her effectiveness when she wasn’t falling faint herself.

  She returned to her spot and they clinked glasses. It was good, but it was better still when she began massaging his neck and shoulders.

  Oh Jesus God, he blurted in a hoarse voice. Whatever you do, don’t stop. I swear, you must have been a geisha in a former life.

  She did nonetheless stop to go fix them another round.

  It had been some time since they’d felt this close, he mused. His run-in with the crazy woman next door had left a taste of putty in his mouth, and that might have explained part of it.

  She came back with the glasses and a radio softly diffusing background music for insomniacs, who would listen to anything.

  It’s a shame we can’t light some candles, she said. It would do you good, they’re so relaxing.

  With eyes closed, he nodded for a few seconds. Oh, all things considered, maybe you’re right, he sighed. This could get ridiculous. Do what you like, you’re right, you’ll find everything in the third left-hand drawer in the sideboard. Bring some candlesticks too, so they don’t drip all over the place.

  She went out on a cloud. He remained pensive. Since Richard had thrown cold water on him by declaring Marlene a whore and that he’d fucked her himself, Dan had slowed things way down with her—not cut ties, exactly, but the revelation had cooled him, even though in his heart of hearts he fought against being so narrow-minded, so conventional, so morally predictable, but the result was the same. Embarrassed, he playfully fingered the iridescent foam, admitting a bit late in the day that he was in no position to judge, given all the blood he had on his hands.

  I took the opportunity to wash the kitchen floor, she announced on her return.

  It was nice of you to think of it, he said.

  He watched her with growing interest as she carefully arranged t
he candles in strategic spots. He noticed he was looking at her differently. She lit them, then turned off the overheads. She seemed delighted.

  We should put in a little more hot water, he said. It’s getting lukewarm.

  Now shadows were dancing on the walls, which had turned the color of honey; you’d have to be cross-eyed not to see that she had turned that cold, ugly bathroom into a marvelous grotto, a bit sappy, perhaps, but given the late hour, it fit. He lifted his hands from the water to applaud. She leaned over him to turn the faucets, and as she did so he reached for her breasts and cupped them out of her bra. She regulated the temperature and stood up. She emptied her glass as he watched her, smiling, then performed a striptease for him. They were playing music well suited to this type of dance and she acquitted herself admirably. The candles really were a good idea. On her body, which she revealed little by little, the light made fantastic effects. He loved that little belly of hers, her firm thighs, her breasts, especially her breasts, the texture of her skin.

  He had sat up, hands crossed behind his head, and he had the urge to smoke a cigarette. Her pink panties made him feel drunk. And when she stripped them off, he groped for his lighter. And when she climbed into the bathtub with him, he exhaled a long puff of smoke at the ceiling.

  Later, when they were lying on the bed, he told her she was the only woman to ever share his bedroom.

  Get out of town, she said.

  No, really, I’ve always done it somewhere else. Maybe one time, when I was a teenager, but it was my parents’ room, not mine, so I don’t think it counts. She curled against him.

  And so what does that mean, she asked.

  I dunno. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. Mona knocked some sense into all of us.

  It’s funny how there’s always something mysterious in what you say.