‘Now look, I think we should all try to keep our heads. It’s only nine o’clock, this isn’t a boarding school. Léa can come and go as she pleases, whatever time of the day or night. As for these gypsies … We went straight past them and nothing happened to us. I didn’t even notice them.’
‘That’s the point! You obviously don’t know much about gypsies. They’re masters of disguise. You don’t see them, you think everything’s peachy and then, bam! You end up with a knife in your back.’
‘That’s a bit over the top, Maxime.’
‘Not at all, Odette! I served in the war; I know a thing or two about ambush …’
‘You fought against the gypsies, did you?’
‘No, of course not! But they’re all the same …’
‘Who’s all the same?’
‘Other people! The ones who are out to get us and take our things! Oh for Christ’s sake, forget it. If you’d rather shut your eyes to it and let them cut your throat while you sleep, that’s your problem.’
Marlène grabbed the bottle and moved it out of reach.
‘That’s enough, Maxime, pull yourself together! I’m sorry, Odette, it’s his nerves.’
‘It’s fine, I understand. Look, we’re in the safest place imaginable: we’ve got CCTV cameras, an electric fence … and Monsieur Flesh! You saw what he does to cats, so I think we can all sleep soundly. As for Léa, I’ll say it again, she’s a free agent. If she’s still not back in … a while, then perhaps we should think about raising the alarm. Don’t you think, Martial?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Marlène?’
‘I … I don’t know. Maybe. Either way, I really must do my shopping tomorrow.’
‘We can go together, don’t worry. Maxime, I think you should put that gun away.’
‘You do what you think best, Odette, but I’m keeping my eyes open, and if I were you, Martial, I’d do the same, whatever your wife might have to say about it.’
Odette shrugged, waving her hand in front of her nose. Did this fly never sleep?
Martial watched the war coverage late into the night. There was nothing else on. Odette had been asleep for ages. He turned off when they announced the cease-fire. Nothing much was happening by then.
‘… the rumble of shelling died away and silence fell … The only sound was a bird singing, the wind in the trees … It’s … overwhelming. Back to the studio.’
He had sat watching the same old pictures of war-torn buildings standing white as bone under a blue sky, windows blown out, riddled with black holes; diggers sifting the debris; people covered in dust wandering, crying, bleeding and beating their chests, their faces streaming with tears and sweat. Others were chanting unfamiliar words, war talk, and making ‘V’ for victory signs. Both sides did the same, as though everyone had won. They wore filthy jeans and ripped T-shirts, scarves around their heads, and bearded faces all blending into one.
This new breed of war always seemed to take place in perpetual sunshine. Following the example of OAPs, war had decided to retire to warm countries. Never Norway or Finland. He had seen a man lifting up the body of a newborn baby. A day-old child … twenty-four hours … What must he have made of his short time on Earth? … Twenty-four hours, with bombs raining down … He wasn’t bleeding; he was like the porcelain figurines hidden inside galettes des rois. War was not scary when you watched it on TV. You could tell yourself the world was under construction. They were building bridges. All the time building bridges, linking up roads to nowhere, roads that dwindled into the desert. You were never quite sure where all this was happening. Somewhere far away. Martial preferred the night footage, when fluorescent green fireworks exploded across the screen.
But for now, they had stopped fighting. Worn out, they had called it a day: to be continued. Shame, he didn’t feel like going to bed. He poured himself a glass of ice-cold milk with orgeat syrup and took it outside to drink under the stars. It would be hot again tomorrow, even hotter than today. They were calling it a heat wave on the news and warning the elderly to drink plenty of water and keep to cool rooms. The sky had rarely seemed so vast to him, nor so full of stars. There was hardly any black left. One great big moth-eaten curtain, a lacework of lies. If only you could press your eye against the cloth and see what lay beyond. There might be nothing there but light – who could tell? The 24-hour baby probably, but given the circumstances, he had decided not to stick around to let us know. Why did it have to be such a big mystery? We’d all spend a lot less time agonising over it if we only knew for sure. There’s nothing beyond. Why couldn’t they just tell us that, rather than filling our heads with their terrifying tales …
A satellite was trying to forge a path through the sizzling stars. It looked so pathetic, a struggling starlet … He almost wanted to wave his handkerchief at it …
Martial had never gone to war, though he had served his time at the Naval Ministry in Paris. The position was not without risks; he might easily have died of boredom. But he had never fired a gun, never killed anybody. He was proud of the fact, but at the same time would have liked to know what it felt like. He had never raped anybody either … There seemed to be a lot of fornication in times of war. Everyone was so afraid, they clung to what they had, with fear in their bellies. And of course it was dark, everyone was hiding in cellars and they had to find something to do to kill time … By having sex, they could push death away, resist it, and make 24-hour children ….
It was almost a full moon. Maxime could have played golf on it, there were just as many holes and bunkers … Maxime must have killed people, raped them too no doubt … He would have to ask him how that felt … The bullet that had whistled past his ear had left behind the echo of a secret, the whisper of a revelation. What if it wasn’t as bad as all that? … If it was OK to …
‘Martial? You’re still up?’
‘Yes. Too hot.’
Odette, crumpled with tiredness, Odette with lined cheeks, Odette just the way he loved her, laid bare, his constant other self. It was a good thing she had woken up because this concave sky, graffitied with untranslatable hieroglyphics, was starting to scare him.
‘What are you drinking?’
‘Milk and orgeat.’
‘That sounds nice. Fancy another?’
‘Please.’
The satellite had disappeared to the other side of the world, while the stars carried on calmly grazing on nothingness. The other lounger creaked as Odette lay down on it.
‘It’s twenty-eight degrees in the kitchen. Who knows what it’ll get to tomorrow … Martial, what are you thinking about?’
‘Nothing. Lots of things, it’s hard to say … I’m happy we’re together, here, you and me, and not dead yet.’
‘Is this because of the bullet?’
‘Could be … Have you seen the sky? It’s amazing, isn’t it? It’s like the big top at a circus …’
They held hands. They weren’t scared of anything any more, felt like crying a little, or laughing.
‘What happened to the fly?’
‘Shut up, it’s asleep … Oh look, there’s Léa coming back … She’s absolutely fine …’
Armed with a long-handled net, Monsieur Flesh was clearing the swimming pool of the insects that had come to drown there during the night. Without interrupting his slow circuit of the water’s edge, he nodded at Léa and immediately turned away. He was wearing nothing but khaki-coloured shorts and a pair of flip-flops. His body gave off an unsettling aura of brute force. Everything about him was hard: the expression on his face, his close-shaven hair, his muscles and his refusal to talk. Solid as a block. Léa set down her canvas bag and laid her towel over a deckchair, took off her sunglasses and made her way to the steps leading into the pool. It was barely nine o’clock and the water was already lukewarm. Léa let go of the rails and flung herself backwards. It was like putting on a second skin: cool, supple and soft. She lay floating on her back with her eyes closed, lulled by the gentle lapping of the
waves that rippled around her body at the slightest movement. She was revelling in the sensation of dissolving into the water, when something floppy brushed against her shoulder. The contact with her skin stunned her like an electric shock. She felt her whole being recoil. Thrusting her hips to pull herself upright, she took in a mouthful of water and spluttered. She threw her head back, flicking the hair from her face. Through the water streaming over her eyes, she saw Monsieur Flesh looming above her, silhouetted against the dazzling sunlight, holding his net up like a trident.
‘My apologies.’
He stood absolutely still, like a bronze statue staring blankly at her, eyes devoid of all expression. Again, he muttered, ‘My apologies’, before pulling the net towards him and carrying it away over his shoulder.
Léa got out and grabbed her towel. No matter how hard she scrubbed, she could not shake off the unpleasant sensation of the mesh brushing against her skin.
‘He did it on purpose …’
She suddenly felt very lonely. It was as though the world had ended, and she was the last to know. She lay down on the lounger and closed her eyes. The Sudres should be here by now … As keenly as she had wanted to avoid her neighbours yesterday, she now desperately missed them. The episode with Nadine when her mind had ‘gone blank’ had really shaken her up. She had opened her eyes to find the younger woman sitting beside her, a look of deep concern on her face. Of course, Léa could not remember what had happened; she never could. She had tried her best to reassure Nadine that she would be OK. It was just something that came over her now and then, a funny turn, nothing serious. All she had to do was take her tablet and she would sleep like a baby. Nadine could go home; there was nothing to worry about. It was so kind of her to have stayed and looked after her, thank you, thank you … Left alone, she had sat outside waiting for the first light of dawn, her mind still full of the nothingness that had all but engulfed her.
She had headed into town first thing and, after wandering aimlessly for a while, had come across a brass doorplate which read: Dr F. Glaive, GP. No, she didn’t have an appointment. Yes, she could wait. Three others were already sitting in the waiting room: a young woman with a little boy of six or seven, and a shrunken old man, squashed into the chair like a stubbed-out cigarette. Léa took her place among them, whispering a soundless ‘Hello’ which met with a similarly low-volume murmur in reply. Apart from the child swinging his legs under the chair, everyone was stock-still, like ornaments on display. The dark wooden panelling, the smell of beeswax and the stuffy, silent atmosphere made it feel like being shut inside grandma’s dresser. The mother gave her son’s leg a sharp slap.
‘Will you stop jiggling about!’
A regular rattling sound rose from the old man’s chest, fading into a high-pitched whistle as it passed between his cracked lips. You could hear the dust falling, and see it dancing in the ray of sunlight filtering through the frosted window panes. The cannibal minutes fed on the silence. Léa felt a growing urge to cry out, to release some kind of primal scream. She stood up abruptly, left the waiting room, made her way down the long corridor, mumbled a few words of apology to the receptionist and tore down three flights of stairs. Leaning back against the heavy carriage door, she breathed the street air deep into her lungs; despite the whiff of sewage and petrol fumes, it seemed miraculously pure.
She wanted to eat something, drink something, laugh out loud. At a nearby tea room, she ordered a cup of coffee and a madeleine. Yes, a madeleine, that was just what the doctor ordered!
Afterwards, she treated herself to an expensive pair of shoes, along with a sackload of useless trinkets that seemed essential. She lived the whole day in the moment, or rather, in a series of moments, each fading away as another took shape: exchanging a few niceties with a German woman in a restaurant; flicking through a newspaper on the beach; watching a seagull flying in a corner of the sky; looking at the film posters outside a cinema; hearing them say on the radio, ‘There are 50,000 roundabouts worldwide, with 25,000 of them in France alone’; the smile of the supermarket checkout girl, the feet, so many feet pounding the pavements, a face in the crowd, a bell ringing … Putting all of that together, lined up end to end, made a full day, a day like any other, nothing to mark it out, the kind of day she must have experienced thousands of times before, passing without a trace, and yet this time, she wanted to soak up every tiny detail. She carried on late into the night, threading the moments together like a string of pearls. When she arrived home, she was surprised to see the lights still on at the Sudres’ house.
The sound of a car pulling up roused Léa from her dozing. The Sudres parked outside the Nodes’ house. Marlène was with them. They waved hello and began unloading a large number of tins, packets and bottles, along with a folded wheelchair. While Martial helped Marlène carry in her provisions, Odette crossed the road to join Léa beside the pool. She plonked herself onto a chair with a sigh. In her red polka-dot sundress, she looked rather like a deflating beach ball. She swung round to face Léa.
‘Are you OK, Léa?’
‘Um, fine, yes.’
‘Are you sure? Nothing’s happened?’
‘No, nothing at all. Why? What’s the matter? You seem a bit on edge …’
‘It’s the gypsies.’
‘What gypsies?’
‘Haven’t you seen them? They’re camped out next to the main road.’
‘No … so, what about them?’
‘At least nothing happened to you. That’s the main thing. I’ll tell you, there’s been a lot going on here over the last twenty-four hours!’
Odette launched into a blow-by-blow account of the previous day’s events, which had so nearly ended in tragedy: Monsieur Flesh’s warning, the gypsies, the berry tart, the gunshot … The whole thing was so barmy Léa could not help but let out a snigger.
‘Sorry, Odette, it’s just so … absurd!’
‘That may be, but Martial’s still at sixes and sevens about it.’
‘I’m not surprised! Maxime must be out of his mind … It’s ridiculous, I’ve been past there twice, during the day and at night, and nothing at all has happened. I didn’t even see any gypsies. And besides, what do we have to be scared of? Why on earth would they want to attack us? It’s ludicrous! We live in the safest place in the whole area … Don’t you agree, Odette?’
The fly must have landed on the end of Odette’s nose because she was staring at it cross-eyed, screwing up her face.
‘Of course, Léa, my thoughts entirely. It’s nonsense … Although, when we went out shopping this morning, there were ten caravans, when there were only five yesterday, and on the way back I counted fifteen … fifteen caravans!’
‘And?’
‘And nothing … it’s just becoming rather a lot of them.’
‘Come on, Odette, it wouldn’t make any difference if there were a hundred of them. Why would they wish us any harm? And I’ll say it again: the security here’s enough to rival the Bank of France.’
‘But that’s just it! The yobs will come running if they think we’ve got safes to crack.’
‘Not you as well, Odette, please! Maxime may have lost it, but we’ve got to stay calm.’
‘But what about Monsieur Flesh? He knows the area …’
‘Listen, to tell the truth, I’d be more likely to trust the gypsies than him. I don’t like that man, there’s something sly about him.’
‘I’m not too fond of him either … But sometimes you need men like him around. I don’t know what to think any more … In any case, you should take care, Léa. I respect your wish to be independent, but as the saying goes, there’s no smoke without fire.’
She swiped the end of her nose and brought her closed fist up to her ear. She slowly loosened her fingers. There was no fly in her palm.
While Marlène piled up tins of food and bags of pasta, rice, flour and sugar on the shelves in the cellar, Maxime practised going from room to room in his wheelchair. The house’s clever design meant h
e could get around just as easily indoors as out. The chair handled beautifully; with a bit of practice, he’d be able to get it doing some pretty nifty moves. It reminded him of his first tricycle, a red one. He had soon learnt to hurtle through the flat at breakneck speed, frantically ringing his bell. The wheel had always seemed to him to be man’s greatest invention. He had racked up a few tricycles in his time, then bicycles, mopeds, motorbikes and cars … A few accidents too, along the way … one of them serious – for the driver he hit head-on, at least. On a road he knew like the back of his hand, ten miles from home! … What the hell was the silly bugger doing there? … Yes, he was going a bit fast and yes, he had had a bit to drink … But damn it, there was never usually anyone else around! … They had had to cut the body out of the Renault 5. Not a pretty sight, by all accounts … He was young, the chap … At times like that, it helps to know people in the right places. He got off with a six-month suspension and a 10,000-franc fine. His Saab had hardly a scratch on it. Bloody good motors, Saabs … He had spotted one in Autosport: a smashing, top-of-the-range 4 × 4, a real tank of a car, with bull bars and tinted windows. A car like that could take on anything, which was exactly what he needed, living out here in the country … Especially now these gypsies had turned up! … And if they stuck around, then what? Yes, let’s talk about the gypsies, shall we? The other three had taken the mickey out of him the night before, but they had certainly changed their tune this morning, coming back from the shops! They had seen with their own eyes the speed at which those gypsies were multiplying, so who was having the last laugh now?
Marlène managed to squeeze one last packet of turkey escalopes into the jam-packed freezer. There, now they were ready to face a siege. As she stood back to survey the overloaded shelves, she sang to herself: ‘Et maintenant, que vais-je faire, de tout ce temps que sera ma vie?’ Go for a swim and then make lunch, that was what. It was so hot she wished she could strip off her skin. She went to the bedroom to get changed, but wasn’t happy with any of the swimming costumes she tried on. It was one of those days when nothing looked right. She ran her hand over her legs. How was she going to get a wax if she couldn’t go out? Those damned gypsies! … They were awfully good-looking though, the men, women and children … Not dirty or scruffy. The kids ran around laughing, the women hung out multicoloured laundry, the men sat chatting … They seemed at home in the sunshine. The caravans looked roomy and well-kept, just like the Mercedes that towed them. They couldn’t have paid for all that by selling baskets, that was for sure … Maybe Maxime was right after all … They didn’t seem to mind not having walls, brazenly going about their business for all to see, as if they had nothing to hide. That was a sure sign they weren’t like the rest of us; how could you feel at home wherever you went? No, they weren’t normal. Yet both times she had passed them, she had stared hungrily at them with a mixture of apprehension and attraction, the same way she had felt as a little girl being taken to the zoo. Even in their cages, the animals had seemed freer than she was; they could roar, roll about, shit, piss, mate or masturbate in front of the visitors without a trace of shame. Unlike humans, the look in their eyes was clear, direct and unsullied. At the time, she had wanted to be a vet. She had started out as a petit rat, a young ballerina at the Paris Opéra. She liked dancing. Sometimes, when performing a leap or a twirl, she felt as graceful as a deer or a cat, sharing the same innate understanding of her body. The space belonged to her, there were no walls holding her back … It was a feeling in her stomach, yes, around her navel, vibrating like the needle of a compass … Like … when Régis was born … And never again since.
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