Simone slowly interpreted the information, wondering if she should deduce from it that the willow had been taken down as a reprisal. A whole slice of her life here suddenly took on an unsuspected meaning. She again saw the teenager slouched for an entire afternoon in their deck chair; the strange threat of his unexplained presence in their garden was still with her. It was starting to grow warm. Nora shook her hair loose, letting it fall down her back. A drop of sweat trickled down the lines of her neck into the veiny hollow of her bare armpit. Simone realized, suddenly shaken out of her anger, that Nora must, in fact, be older than she was. A misgiving was gradually gaining ground, undermining her, rekindling old traumas; it seemed to her quite possible that the young man who had been killed two days earlier had also been expelled from the club by Claude. She asked Nora, but she gaped in wide-eyed perplexity. What should I know about it? she said, tying her hair back up. The question seemed to go on niggling at her, eliciting her incredulity, because she added with a ghost of a smile, I really don’t think Claude was directly involved in what’s happening. Simone took a step back, as though Nora’s condescension had brushed up against her. Then what were you blaming him for just now? Nora took a moment before retorting with a dreadful shrug of her shoulders and saying she was annoyed, not for the first time, that he had sided with the cops. Her voice was curt again, assertive. Simone hated her for being wrong about Claude’s intransigence with such conviction. He’s dying after a short, demanding life, and all he managed to do was come unstuck, she thought calmly. Nora was probably interpreting the bitterness her face betrayed, because she declared ironically that they should just call her if they needed her. Simone followed her into the hallway. The slow sway of Nora’s prominent shoulder blades under the light linen kindled an almost physical rage in her. Claude must have left the bedroom door open; the sick, cloying smell was gradually contaminating the corridor. Simone wished Nora would stay and see what this silent end nobody knew about was really like.
It took her several minutes to dispel the disturbing sensation of the visit and return to her anxiety. The morning was wearing on and with it the heat, made palpable by the buzzing of insects infesting the bushes. Simone went back to the fence to take another look at the remains of crushed plums being coveted by a swarm of wasps. The few snapped-off branches were wilting in the plastic-coated wire mesh. Simone was suddenly no longer sure she should see it as an act of rebellion. Malika was spying on her from behind the large waxy leaves of a bush that shaded a hammock. Her colorful silhouette came and went for a few seconds, then vanished in a flutter of scarf. Simone went back inside, wondering how she would pull herself together to get through the day. She had begun to straighten the sofa cushions when Yolande called, anxious that they had not yet arrived. She drove over in less than half an hour.
Simone saw her come through the garden gate and gaze around with an almost childish expression of empathy. Aude was dozing against her neck in a heavy white bundle. I told Cédric, she said as she kissed Simone. Her insistent smile seemed to inquire about the state she would find Claude in. Discovering that he had gone off in the car gave Yolande a shock, for which she apologized, but she accepted the information without judgment. She had not come back here since the cancer was announced, and Simone could see she felt guilty.
Aude woke up, blinking her eyes, her face tangled in the flyaway hair of her mother’s chignon. A mosquito bite held one of her eyelids closed. Simone noticed but did not say anything. She was completely incapable of displays of affection, but Yolande seemed neither surprised nor shocked by this. She put the child on the ground, sent her off gently into the sitting room, and stood up, pushing back the hair from her forehead with a graceful gesture. Simone waited until Aude had disappeared, then crushed a feeble cry between her hands. Yolande gathered her in her bare arms. They were the arms of a very young woman and offered an awkward, intimidating refuge. Simone discovered that Yolande had a daughter’s solicitude, which she did not know how to receive. She smells of lime blossom, she thought, freeing herself to wipe her nose and offer Yolande something to drink.
Yolande proved helpful, serene, and controlled. Her extreme thoughtfulness disarmed Simone’s defenses, and also her ability to react. Like Nora earlier, she asked if Gaël had taken any money. The question was pragmatic, with no hidden agenda. Simone was surprised to find that Yolande did not share Cédric’s suspicions and opinions, although she was such a conventional, loyal wife. She was touched by her sexiness; she had a lithe, no-nonsense body, one that must be disturbing in climax. It was odd to imagine how someone as dreary and hidebound as Cédric had managed, at twenty-two, to win himself such happiness. Simone had never managed to get over her prejudice against the couple. She was annoyed with herself for having missed out on a potential friendship during all these years.
Claude came home just as Yolande was about to feed the little girl. She froze, as though scared by his ravaged head and obvious displeasure at finding her there. Her delicate skin grew mottled, and she made as if to gather up her daughter, a brisk reaction that Claude paid no attention to. I didn’t find Gaël, but I left his description here and there, he declared, as though to preempt their rebukes. It was said with the same abruptness Simone had put up with back when he was heading, shut off and hurried, toward his death. She realized how much the treatment had subdued him in recent weeks, and, above all, how much it must have smothered his panic. Claude backed into the corridor and beckoned to her. I was sick in the car. I cleaned it up as best I could. I’ve got to go and change. The words were uttered with enormous self-disgust. He did not say (and probably did not want to admit) that he had not been in a fit state to look for Gaël properly. Simone watched him as he went upstairs, hauling himself up by the handrail, his back protruding through his shirt. She wondered what could be worse for him than being incapacitated in these circumstances.
Aude had tripped and banged her head against the window and she had begun to yell by the time he came downstairs. He sat down out of the way and glared at Simone, as though to fathom why she was inflicting their presence on him. He was back in his old jogging pants, which gaped over a triangle of pale skin as translucent as plastic. In the bluish light coming through the fabric of the lowered blinds, Simone did not recognize him. His eyebrows had fallen out completely, she realized after a time, and now his skull bulged under the papery skin and his dull, lashless eyes stared out at her. Like a mummy’s head, she thought, smiling sadly at him. A dry patch was stuck to the side of his chin where there was no feeling, the side where his features were gradually growing numb. Simone hoped calmly that this meant the paralysis was finally taking a turn for the worse.
Claude leaned forward to turn on the television and the sound exploded into the room. He turned down the volume and flicked through the channels until he found what he was looking for: the same crazy, seething images of demonic flames and bodies, but reflected now in the glistening asphalt from the previous day’s rain, and they had moved closer to home, so far as Simone could judge from the places she recognized. She thought back on her secret night beside the dark depths of the garden, and she felt as though she had been caught off guard by these fresh, unsuspected assaults in the community. I won’t stay in the area, there’s nothing I can solve and put right here, and there’s nothing I want to do that hasn’t been done for me, she promised herself, huddling into the sofa, and pressing her fingers into her burning eyes.
On a note of reproach and as though speaking to Yolande, Claude described how he had found most of the streets blocked off and empty of parked cars. He had not even managed to get close to the apartment buildings, where the inhabitants had taken up their positions in little groups and were angrily eyeing one another. He would not stop switching channels, then coming back to the night’s stories, as though he might have spotted Gaël. Simone eventually opened her eyes to look at what was happening and then was sorry not to have remained ignorant. Dozens of youths were lunging forward, taking turns hurling fireb
alls at lines of cars and men barricaded behind Plexiglas. Claude had fallen silent. The scene satisfied an old pessimism that he could not forgive himself for having ceased to obey. Finding that Yolande had gone out into the garden to shield her daughter from it, he felt moved to make a pointlessly hurtful remark. Simone felt like screaming. She asked him to switch it off, but he did not hear and turned to her with that guilty look that exasperated her and made her feel depressingly powerless.
The afternoon dragged on interminably, slowed down even more by Aude’s nap, which added silence to the hiatus. Simone could not settle her sense of panic. She couldn’t imagine where Gaël could have gotten to, to go unnoticed for so long, and she was still upset at the thought that he was angry with them. Claude made a point of sitting with them, constantly at the mercy of rising vomit, which he held back by pinching his lips together. At last, he went upstairs when he heard that Cédric was about to join them. Simone had not dared to offend him by checking whether he had really looked everywhere and alerted everyone. She could not help thinking that they were becoming unforgivable.
Cédric arrived from out of town. It had been hot in the car and his shirt had lost its freshness and had ridden up out of his pants; he did not stop putting his hand up to his straggling hair over the beginnings of his bald patch. He smiled joylessly, wearily when he heard that Claude had gone upstairs without waiting for him. On his way over, he had stopped off at the accident and emergency unit, the police station, and the shopping mall. Simone was amazed he said nothing about the empty streets and loitering police vans. She sensed that he was annoyed and suspicious but unsympathetic, and she thought she noticed a kind of masculine aloofness because he knew he was beyond reproach. He had been with them nearly an hour when Jovana telephoned. Simone did not immediately understand why she was calling. Surprise left her speechless and crushed by guilt; it took a few seconds to concentrate on what she was hearing.
Gaël had gotten into a subway train, thinking he could find the apartment of one of Jovana’s former boyfriends whom they often used to visit at one time, and he had lost his way. The security people at the station had contacted her because Gaël had not known Claude’s number. Jovana dictated the details of the person to call to say when and where to pick him up. Simone was perturbed to find that Jovana was more put out than they were; she did not know what explanations to give Jovana or how to apologize for not having thought to warn her. As her fear subsided, she continued to tremble. Yolande listened to her replies, walking up and down with Aude waving frantically in her arms. Simone could not bear her look of relief; she felt suddenly swamped by her kindness and wished she would understand that they should leave.
I’m calling from Belgrade, Jovana explained, as though in desperate entreaty to them not to make her return home. Simone found it hard to discourage this irresponsible hope. The ceiling overhead creaked under Claude’s footsteps. It had taken him all this time to force himself out of his nausea; those were the facts they had to obey. Simone explained to Jovana that he had barely gotten out of bed since the previous day, less to elicit sympathy than to convince herself again that they could not keep Gaël. Jovana replied that she understood and she would call back when she had her ticket.
Claude came down the stairs one at a time, as though his slippers would no longer stay on his feet. Simone told him that Gaël had been picked up at G. and Jovana was trying to find a flight for the next day—the tone of bitter irony she had noticed in Jovana’s voice as she hung up gradually struck her as legitimate but terribly cruel. Claude nodded but did not try to protest; then he went to sit down in an armchair. Simone saw him take hold of the remote control and immediately put it down again. He sat bundled in his chair, clasping the armrests with both hands and staring out into the garden, where darkening shadows were sinking into the early evening warmth. His pain at having to let Jovana down for good was too much to watch.
He had not noticed that his son was there, or at least he had not said hello. Cédric reacted warily. He stared at him intensely, tapping his sweaty upper lip, more amused that annoyed to see Claude looking the other way, and probably intrigued, too, at the unrecognizable wide-eyed expression of dismay on his face. They must have had a real fight the other day, Simone realized, seeing Yolande put her hand over Cédric’s in a gesture of restraint to forestall his anger (or his desire to smoke). The sleeping weight of Aude in her arms was becoming more and more unbalanced. Claude finally put on the television, and that was what persuaded them to leave. Cédric ran his hand through his hair, put his mobile phone away and announced, Right, we’re going as he tucked his shirt into his pants.
Claude half-rose to say good-bye. His lazy left leg seemed to flex momentarily under his weight. Cédric gave a start, a shiver, when he noticed how weak Claude was. He must have thought that you can’t get angry with a man in that condition, because he took a step forward and grasped his shoulder. Then, without waiting for anything in return, he turned to Yolande and took Aude from her, motioning to the door with his chin. Simone went out to the car with them. It was pleasant outside, with a slight breeze and a few last russet glimmers over the rooftops. It is an evening for taking a stroll, she thought with a pang. Cédric settled the child in the backseat and stood up to kiss her; Simone could not get over seeing tears in his eyes. His leg won’t take his weight at all, he said in an oddly shocked voice. It’s like he’s suddenly gone downhill in two days. Simone did not know what to say in reply; she had too often thought in vain that the worst had come.
Simone had gone upstairs to freshen up when Gaël was brought back to them. She opened the skylight in the roof to overhear the brief exchange on the front step. Evening was falling, dark blue and curiously free of any hint of the riots; indeed, she did not even know if there had been any more. Two people had turned up, a man and a woman whose round accents seemed designed to allay the fathers’ severity. Gaël mumbled a barely audible Thank you; then the footsteps and voices faded rapidly out to the car parked seemingly a long way off in the dark. Claude put the outdoor light on and gently closed the door. Simone heard him call Gaël into the study, where they stayed a brief ten minutes. He must have been insisting on his principles, although they would never restore good sense or peace as he hoped.
Simone slumped onto the edge of the bath, her arms resting limply on her thighs. The anguish of the day was morphing into a weariness from which she felt she would never recover. She was roused from her reverie by Gaël’s sniveling protestations, followed by a great racket as he stomped, snuffling, up to his room. Simone stood up and paused for a moment to study her reflection in the mirror with the lucid, knowing intimacy that had helped her watch herself growing old. She was surprised to find the landing almost in darkness when she emerged. The air down the stairs was cooler now, and there was the gentle sound of sprinklers. Simone pressed her ear to Gaël’s door. She thought she could hear him grumpily packing his bag, then jumping up and down on his bed, thumping on the wall. She knocked, waited a second, then opened the door a crack.
Gaël was leaning out the window; he swung around sharply, but his anger subsided when he saw her. He was arched against the wall, with the sill sticking into his back. A thin trickle of tears ran down from his puffy eyes. He must have been scared witless to have been lost for so long. Simone did not know how to apologize for their thoughtlessness. I was going to call you when I got there, but I got on the wrong train, he explained, as though inviting her to come in. Little bubbles of saliva glistened at the corners of his mouth. Simone wondered what he had eaten apart from the yogurt that morning. The streetlights had just come on outside and the leaves on the silver birch were lit up like snowflakes in front of the window. Gaël stood up, hearing the hiss of tires vanishing into the night. I didn’t even know things had flared up again last night, he said, falling backward onto his heels. There was something sweet and almost reasonable about his despondency. He switched the bedside light on and off, and, for the space of an instant, Simone caught a
glimpse of Claude in his expression. Your mother called a while ago. She’s flying back very early tomorrow morning and she’ll be here in the early afternoon. Simone saw him bravely register the disappointment of having so much time to wait. She put her hand out mechanically to take his knee, but her hand remained hanging over the edge of the mattress; she had nothing in reserve to cope with the time, either.
Claude had just come upstairs. It was dark on the landing and they heard him cough, then announce that he wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t want any dinner. His voice was toneless, his strength depleted or gone. Gaël hardly seemed bothered. Anyway, I don’t have to love him, he said in a final rush of bravado when Claude had gone into his room. Simone smiled at him, trying to dispel his sulky mood, and suggested they go and buy kebabs at the gas station. Contrary to expectation, Gaël made an effort to cheer up. He flung himself on his belly on the bed to grab one of the clean T-shirts already stowed in the bag. Simone was amazed to see him change in front of her, and she noticed a faint scar all the way across his chest, extending between his ribs. My lungs were all shriveled when I was born, he explained in answer to her surprise. He hugged himself, faking the pain he had presumably felt. Simone drew her hands together on her lap; she was unprepared for the thought of Jovana at twenty having to deal with the agony of seeing her son subjected to such a serious operation while still a baby.
Gaël had preceded her into the garage, but he stopped pursing his lips in confusion, arrested by the smell. The window was down and smears from Claude’s efforts to wipe up the mess on either side of the car door were drying out. Simone apologized and suggested they go on foot instead, but Gaël was not put off by the idea of helping to clean up. Simone went to fetch a bucket and found him some outsize gloves, in which he clumsily but conscientiously set about sponging off the door. This silent activity gradually restored his affectionate mood.
The Child Page 9