He stood next to her, the docile manservant. The dishes were done. He was Émilienne’s employee again. He started for the small door that opened onto the back of the yard, where Émilienne tossed vegetable peelings and eggshells, but she stopped him, asking, her voice quivering:
“Do you think he came back for her?”
The farmhand wanted to touch Émilienne’s arm reassuringly, but he didn’t feel like he could do it. He looked closely at her face. She had aged. Her eyes were vanishing into the mass of wrinkles that was engulfing them like an insatiable, ever-rising river. The green of those time-swallowed eyes, so hard, so beautiful, was fading to gray, the gray of earth, of a mare’s coat, a gray that tarnished everything, amplifying small fears, trivial worries.
“He won’t be nasty,” he whispered, backing up a step, toward the door. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Émilienne draped the wet dishtowel over the edge of the sink and murmured:
“That won’t change anything. She loves him.”
STRIKING
Louis spent the rest of the day lost in thought. He felt as if he were at the center of a maze whose pathways were constantly being redrawn. He had followed the same route so many times, skipped from one event to another, exhausted himself trying to understand, focusing his memory, his passion for Blanche, coming up with strategies to get rid of Alexandre, to drive him away. Then he remembered that Alexandre, too, had been born here; that his parents lived here, just a few kilometers away, and that no one had the right to control this young man’s life. And so, there was nothing he could say, nothing he could do, nothing except keep an eye on Blanche. He would never reach out a hand to her or ask her to touch him.
Alexandre was back.
For twelve years, Louis had endeavored to be the man of Paradise, reduced to his discretion and his duties, defined by his usefulness. Louis had a room of his own now; he didn’t have to be careful about the light or the noise anymore or lock the door when he pleasured himself with his right hand. He didn’t have to wait hours for the bathroom anymore while Gabriel spent a ridiculous amount of time soaking in the tub, completely still, Louis had always noticed, even as he hammered on the door. Gabriel had never even touched himself back then; his mind was on other things that Louis couldn’t comprehend. Now the bathroom was almost always free, the hallway almost always empty, and the bedroom enormous. At the other end of the house, in the big bed where Louis dreamed of joining her, Blanche was thinking of the Bas-Champs. He was sure of it; for twelve years it was all she’d ever talked about, the land; Sombre-Étang; the little ring of dark forest, and the “chemins des dames,” or ladies’ paths, as Émilienne called the little dried-up streambeds that connected the neighboring farms to one another. Blanche was always calculating the price per hectare of land in ten years’ time, or reading up, she said, on new machines for milking, harvesting, managing livestock. They had to prepare themselves already for competition, for unparalleled cruelty, modern, consuming, indifferent; competition was signaling its presence in rural areas, and there was talk about the distress of country farmers, of suicides, unpaid bills, dreadful isolation. Émilienne, in her armchair, murmured, “I won’t be here to see it, but you . . . ” and it weighed on Blanche’s mind. She had opened another bank account, where she squirreled away what she could, enough to borrow on in a few years’ time. She had plans to renovate some of the outbuildings next to the barn, to enlarge the pigpen. Louis never offered his opinion, and no one asked him for it.
Since Alexandre’s return, Blanche spoke even less. Still dreaming, maybe. Louis sensed the heaviness weighing on her, but saying Alexandre’s name would have made him present. The wound was open, throbbing in Blanche’s memory, and it would be her decision alone to close it once and for all. Louis could only be there, a sentry in the shadows.
One late afternoon, exhausted by his own ruminations, he went to Le Marché on foot. Aurore was waiting tables. He waved discreetly in greeting and she came over, touching his shoulder lightly in a friendly gesture, and showed him to a table. The leather of the bench seat cradled him comfortably, and he had to fight not to fall asleep. Without his even asking, Aurore brought him a pint of beer. He drank half of it down thirstily, its bitter savor giving him new energy. Again, he imagined what Blanche must be going through, wondered how she managed to sleep at night. Did she cry every day? Did she, too, touch herself to help bring sleep? Louis hunched over the table like a child at the back of a class, rested his head on his folded arms, and closed his eyes. From a distance, it looked as if he were weeping, but he was simply retreating into himself, looking for Blanche.
A conversation among three men at the bar brought him out of his reverie. Two of them were talking very loudly. The workday was over; they were feeling good, and they wanted everyone to know it. They ordered beers—“lots of beers”—added the oldest of the three—and the quietest one murmured, “These are on me.” A king buying a round. His curiosity piqued, Louis glanced over at the intruders and recognized Alexandre.
Louis shifted slightly to the left, pressing himself against the wall. The men didn’t see him. He scrutinized the trio. They were standing at the bar. The man who had ordered was thanking Alexandre, thumping him on the back, and Louis saw the young man shrug. A beer or two, or even three, was nothing to him. He earned good money; he could afford to play the lord with his modest shrugs.
The other two were cuffing him playfully on the back of the neck, roaring, “Back in the fold, eh, little Alexandre?” and Alexandre replied, “I’m not so little anymore, and I’ve got ideas.” Now they were howling with laugher, repeating, “Ideas, always ideas!” Alexandre ordered another round of drinks without waiting for them to finish the ones they had, and Louis, from his booth, watched him do it. After a moment, the first man knocked on the bar three times and shook his companions’ hands, claiming that “Madame was waiting at home.” When he had gone, Alexandre pulled up a stool and rested a hip against it without sitting down fully. A silence fell between the remaining two men, and then the one who had laughed so hard a few minutes ago spat:
“Goddamned women, eh?”
Louis pricked up his ears.
Alexandre was gazing at the rows of bottles behind the bar as if he were alone and his companion had already left. Louis chose that moment to rise, squeezing between two tables. Surprised, the two men turned. When he recognized him, Alexandre showed so little surprise that Louis was almost disappointed. He continued toward the bathroom, and Alexandre nodded slightly in greeting.
Louis splashed his hands and face with water that smelled of cheap soap and emerged from the bathroom slightly less pale, passing the last two customers left in the bar to toss a bill on his table. Just as he was about to step outside into the fresh air, he heard Alexandre say very distinctly:
“It’s better when they’re submissive.”
Aurore hadn’t even had time to call out a farewell. Louis turned back on the threshold of the heavy glass door flanked by posters and advertisements. His body was quivering.
“Repeat what you just said.”
Alexandre’s face took on that apologetic air that Louis hated, the same look he’d had that last evening in Paradise.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Next to him, his companion smirked drunkenly. He opened his mouth to speak but managed only a sonorous belch. Alexandre wanted to laugh but didn’t get the chance. Suddenly, Louis was very close to him. Alexandre could smell his breath, the scent of beer filling his nostrils.
“Louis, I swear, I don’t know what you’re talk—”
The impact sent him sprawling against bar. The farmhand had struck him at the corner of the eye, where it hurts, where it makes your vision and your mind go blurry. Alexandre doubled over, covering his head with his hand to protect himself. Louis grabbed him by the back of the neck and smashed a fist into his nose, bringing forth a gush of brig
ht red blood. Alexandre cried out and his companion scuttled to the far end of the bar, stammering unintelligibly, while Aurore waited behind the bar for the scuffle to end, a bored expression on her face.
Alexandre was on his knees, both hands pressed to his nose. His shirt, spotted with pink snot and sweat, stuck to his ribs and his torso. Louis stood over him, shifting from foot to foot like a boxer, hissing, “Get up, come on, get up.” But Alexandre didn’t move, and when Louis gave him a heavy kick in the stomach, he crumpled, defeated, and lost consciousness.
HELPING
Alexandre could barely walk. He could feel his face throbbing. He moved slowly down the upstairs hallway, Blanche’s arm around his neck. Beneath the acrid odor of sweat, she could smell his fragrance, the scent of his skin. Aurore supported him from the other side, gripping his hand, his arm over her shoulders. The young man groaned. Pain lanced through him, as if an army were shooting him with long, tiny arrows.
Aurore opened the bedroom door and the two women helped Alexandre sit down. His mouth twisted when Blanche inspected his wounds. Louis had hit him hard. Nothing could be seen of the boyish face but an enormously swollen nose, two puffy eyelids impossible to lift, and a pair of tear-filled eyes in which Blanche could read all of Alexandre’s surprise, all of his recognition. The young woman ran to the bathroom and rummaged in the small cupboard beneath the sink, extracting compresses, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and a spray bottle she filled with ice water. When she came back, he was drowsing, held upright in Aurore’s arms, half-conscious. Blanche sprayed his face with cold water three times and pressed the compress to his nose. He let out a gasp.
“You’re as much of a sissy as you always were,” she murmured, tossing aside his makeshift dressing.
Alexandre tried to smile, but moving his lips only intensified the pain. Blanche spritzed his face with cold water again.
“You’re going to be quite a sight for the next ten days or so,” she said, proudly.
Aurore stifled a laugh. He let himself fall back on the mattress, curling himself into the fetal position. Blanche studied his face closely, and when he tried to untuck the sheets to slide between them, Aurore hurried to help him, unbuttoning his shirt while he sank into the pillows—still the same ones as on butchering day, thought Blanche. Before closing the door softly behind her, she paused for a moment, seized with the desire to look at him, one more time, in the bed they had once shared.
“What’s he doing here?” growled Louis, from the bottom of the staircase.
Aurore went past him and vanished into the kitchen. Blanche descended the stairs, her face impassive, and when she tried to leave, Louis got between her and the door. Anger distorted his features, his nostrils flaring. Blanche looked him straight in the eye.
“Would you rather we took him home to his parents’ house in this condition? Or put him to bed in your room?”
“Anywhere else!”
“You should have thought of that before,” she said, her voice firm.
Émilienne’s voice. Blanche was so much like her. He sat down on the bottom step.
“It was for you,” he whispered.
“Stop.”
He looked up and saw Blanche standing over him, her lips pressed into a thin line.
“He said something horrible.”
“I don’t want to know,” she said, turning away toward the door and seizing the knob.
“He said he preferred submissive women, that it’s easier with them.”
Blanche let out a hiccup of surprise. Aurore came out of the dining room and saw Louis sitting in front of the open door. She opened her mouth to say something, but he gestured for her to go.
When she had disappeared in her turn, he hesitated for a few seconds and then left the house. He went quickly across the yard, calling after Aurore.
“I’ll come and sleep at Gabriel’s.”
They set off together, silently, into the night.
AGING
Alexandre was at the table with yesterday’s newspaper. It had been a long night. Blanche’s face, drawn with fatigue, sweating with fury at Louis. The wounds on Alexandre’s battered face had stopped seeping. He sat lopsidedly, his left eye forced open with difficulty, leafing through the paper, his body twisted, a steaming cup of hot coffee in front of him atop a dishtowel folded in quarters.
“I made coffee.”
Another full cup was waiting for Blanche, covered with a saucer.
“To keep it warm,” he explained.
Blanche let out a breath. She was desperate for the coffee, but not coffee made by Alexandre here, in her home, in the place where they had parted ways.
“Where is Louis?”
Blanche’s voice was hoarse.
“He didn’t sleep here.”
She shrugged.
“Is Émilienne out with the chickens?” she asked, going to the window.
The yard rustled in the morning breeze. It was going to be a beautiful day.
“I haven’t seen her,” said Alexandre.
Blanche whipped around.
“What?”
“I haven’t seen her this morning. She must still be sleeping.”
She glanced at the clock above the sink. Eight-fifteen. Émilienne was always up by seven.
She ran for the front hall, took the stairs four at a time, and flung Émilienne’s door open frantically. Her grandmother sat at the foot of the bed, one hand pressed to her stomach, the other clenched, dripping, on the sheets. Her lips, eyes, cheeks were horribly pale.
“Can you stand up?”
Émilienne nodded, very slowly.
“Your stomach?”
Another nod.
“Don’t move. I’ll call a doctor.”
She turned and nearly collided with Alexandre.
“We have to take her,” he whispered. “We have to take her straight to the hospital, right now.”
Blanche hesitated.
“Look at her; if you wait for the doctor on call, he’ll tell you the same thing. We’ll have wasted time. Do you have a car?”
“It’s parked a little way off.”
“I know someone at the hospital in the city. They’ll treat her as a priority, you have my word.”
Blanche couldn’t make a decision. Émilienne would suffer martyrdom before she uttered a single complaint.
“Who’ll look after the animals?”
Alexandre rolled his eyes.
“Louis will come back. He can be here by himself for a day.”
Blanche heard her grandmother gasp for breath. She gestured for Alexandre to help her, and the two of them lifted the old woman and maneuvered her down the stairs. The journey from her bedroom to the front hall seemed to take hours. When they were finally at the door, Blanche sped off to get her car and pulled it around to the bottom of the porch steps. They put Émilienne in the back seat, leaning against the passenger-side door, legs stretched out.
“I’ll drive,” said Alexandre.
“You can only see out of one eye.”
“That’s plenty. I know where I’m going; it’ll save time.”
Alexandre drove quickly, but carefully. Blanche, in the passenger seat, kept casting frequent, anxious glances at her grandmother. Émilienne clutched her stomach with both hands, her face drawn, lips pressed tightly together. She’s suffering, thought Blanche. She’s suffering, and I can’t do anything to stop it.
“Faster!”
The engine roared.
They reached the emergency entrance thirty minutes later. Alexandre got out first; he disappeared between the sliding doors, and Blanche heard him shouting, “We need help!” He reemerged with two orderlies beside him, tall and sturdy. They took Émilienne inside. Alexandre walked behind Blanche down the hall, where other sick patients were waiting. A nurse asked them if they wanted to
wait, but Alexandre asked to see Doctor Neyrie. Raising her eyebrows slightly at the sound of the name, she ushered Blanche and Alexandre into a small adjoining room, where Blanche crumpled into a chair.
“She’ll be all right,” said Alexandre, very gently.
“Of course she will.”
He came closer to Blanche. She flinched.
“I know Doctor Neyrie. My company sold his house when he divorced his wife; I’m the one who took care of everything.”
“Including his wife?”
Alexandre paled. He moved away into a corner of the room. She didn’t look at him, uninterested in his presence.
After a long moment, a man came into the room. Blanche leapt to her feet. Alexandre, in his corner, stepped forward cautiously.
“Mademoiselle Émard?”
Blanche nodded wordlessly.
“It’s a bowel obstruction. You did well to get her here so quickly. We’ll need to keep her here for a few days.”
He turned, and a wide smile lit up his face, which had been so serious when giving his diagnosis.
“Alexandre! How good to see you! How are you? What on earth’s happened to your face?!”
They shook hands warmly.
“Fine, I’m fine,” Alexandre stammered. “Don’t worry about me.”
The doctor clapped him on the shoulder. “You did the right thing.”
He turned to Blanche. “She needs to rest. We’ll keep her at least for this week. But it’ll take some time. At her age, you know how these things can be.”
He left the small room with a last wave to Alexandre. Things began to blur together in Blanche’s head: Émilienne’s face, her silence, Alexandre at the wheel of the car, so sure of himself, so anxious, too, and this doctor who spoke to him as if he were his own son. Blanche felt as if she’d shifted into another dimension, symbols and images and warnings swirling around her, overwhelming her exhausted brain.
“Get some rest, Blanche.”
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