He leaned toward me. “Hang on, Francis, hang on, let’s be clear. I put Alice before everything else. I’m sorry. The police wanted to work in the greatest secrecy. I put Alice first. I told them: ‘OK, go ahead, I’ve thought about it, I think you’re right,’ and I let them get on with it. I’m sorry.”
I gazed at him for a moment. “But what are you on about?” I said to him. “How can you be so naïve . . . They bungled it, is that it? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
Some seagulls were squabbling over my waffle—specks of white cream were flying around. In the shock of the moment, my hands were trembling.
Next morning, after an appalling night—Judith and I had made love dreadfully badly, following Roger’s staggering revelation, and it had left me virtually impotent, something that was never good for our relationship the following day, or even in the days that followed, although she denied this—I was making my way toward the coffee machine when my son-in-law suddenly emerged to my right. It was seven o’clock in the morning, a time when it was unusual to see him up and about.
“The journalists are here,” he said.
“What journalists?”
“You know very well, Francis. Don’t play all innocent.”
I suggested postponing the interview until the following day, but he immediately started to moan and weep, accusing me of ruining everything, of behaving like the worst and most selfish of people. “They’ve come specially from Paris. Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I tell you how I’ve busted my ass getting them?”
The dawn was rising. I switched on the machine and made myself a Livanto, wondering what it was one needed to do in order to maintain the same sexual level, at my age, when you were going through what I was experiencing.
I stared at him. “You simply had to gather together the money, you simply had to follow their instructions, you simply had to bring them the dosh, that’s all you had to do. Not try anything else. It simply needed a minimum of brains, Roger. You didn’t have to play the smart guy, it wasn’t complicated.”
He deserved to suffer agonies for having put my daughter’s fate in the hands of the police. Were I not convinced of the genuineness of his feelings for Alice, I think I could have hurled myself upon him. I could just hear him, the crazy idiot. Talking to other blithering idiots. Launching an operation with them. With this band of ghastly cowboys. This miserable band of ghastly cowboys who were incapable of paying a ransom without making a mess of everything. “If I didn’t feel so awful, I’d burst out laughing,” I told him. “So much stupidity leaves one bewildered. Honestly, Roger.”
He was hopping from one foot to the other, his head lowered, groaning quietly to himself, in a hurry that we should move on. Above the sea, the sky was cloudless and bright. Young men were on their way down to the beach from the parking lots, walking a little stiffly, with their boards under their arms. In the town, the café owners were setting up their tables, and at the delicatessen they were putting out their hams. The market was about to open. The first plane for Paris had taken off and was flying in a steep curve over the bay.
“We’re at a deadlock,” he said to me plaintively.
I said nothing, I had understood him. “A complete deadlock,” he muttered.
According to him, my taking part in the interview was crucial. The trembling in my hands had not completely gone away. I called A.-M. I had spoken to her the day before and informed her that she had been right, that it had been a kidnapping. “But we didn’t speak about the press,” I said to her. “And right now, I’ve got Roger with me, who’s talking to me about a meeting with some journalists, about an interview arranged with them . . . yes, I’ve told him . . . that he should stop now, I’ve told him . . . He’s nodding to say yes, he’s understood . . . no further initiatives, yes, I think he’s understood, he’s nodding that he has.”
Had I, for my part, actually taken in that the interview was to be filmed? He had a knack for annoying me. He swore that he had told me, but I had no memory of it. He maintained that it was too late to cancel the meeting. He had not been running, but he suddenly seemed out of breath. I ought to ponder, according to him. I ought to ponder long and hard. Never stop thinking about my daughter. Do everything. Put aside all misplaced pride. Swallow all pride. Ride roughshod over all pride if necessary. Be on the eight o’clock news.
That was the last straw. Roger was perspiring, but he wouldn’t budge. Paris-Match had offered to publish the interview in the next issue and Voici was rummaging around in its archives again—after the telephone calls Roger had made to them.
According to him, I should open my eyes. I should observe what was going on. If you began with the principle that it was better to be famous than to be anonymous, I had no right to hesitate. I should go out in front of the cameras and beg the kidnappers to let her live, make them another offer. I should tell them what a wonderful girl she was, what an exceptional mother she was, what a delightful creature they were holding—not to mention the César award she had carried off six years ago, the promise of her young career, her campaign against AIDS, etc. “Do I have the right to dissolve into tears?” I asked.
He sent Judith to explain to me that we had to make the most of the ransom demand in order to sustain people’s feelings about Alice. Because I had sold a few hundred thousand books, I was not entirely unknown, and he was only too well aware of the impact my moaning would have on the small screen. “I’m aware of it too, Roger. It’s extremely embarrassing. I don’t think it will help our cause.”
So had I made up my mind to wait until they sent me one of her ears through the post? Or did these things only happen to other people, by my reckoning?
They set up the lighting in the drawing room. They thought that I had a problem with my eyes—which was suddenly blown up out of all proportion. A girl made us stand up. They put the microphones on us.
My insides froze.
“We’re ready when you are, sir. Are you cold?”
One of us, at least, appeared satisfied. At one point in the evening, Roger put his hand on my shoulder and said that Alice had the father she deserved. I had been perfect.
A moment earlier, I had caught Judith in the middle of a telephone conversation she was having, speaking in a low voice, in Spanish; I don’t speak Spanish. I had stepped back into the shadows in silence; it seemed to me that she had been speaking lovingly in the half light.
I had not been an ideal husband for Johanna, and I was not a better one for Judith, it appeared. There were probably lessons to have been drawn that I had failed to draw.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Roger said to me. I looked up at him. “But it was necessary,” he went on. “Trust me, for once.”
I turned around. Judith had come into the room for a moment to tell us that she had to go back to the office—it was eleven o’clock at night. I did no more than nod my head and gaze after her. I found it almost insulting that she had not found a better excuse. That she had not taken the trouble. Going back to the office at eleven o’clock at night. It was so implausible.
I wondered whether I should not go and talk about it with A.-M., whether I should not arrange to have her followed so that I could know the truth.
“I’d prefer us not to complicate matters,” she said to me. “I’m in the middle of examining this ransom business. I’d like to concentrate on that.”
“Very well,” I replied. “Very well, I won’t dwell on it.”
“If we want to stay on good terms, Francis. Believe me. Consult someone else about your wife.”
Without reflecting on the matter, I immediately thought of Jérémie. I dangled a few banknotes at him to carry out an easy job: I simply wanted to know how Judith spent her time, to know where she went, whom she saw. “Five hundred now, and five hundred at the end of the week. I’ll pay for the cost of sandwiches and gas. Is it yes? Then you’re on, old friend. But there’s no point telling your mother about our arrangement. I don’t want any problems with her.”
Judith came home at about one o’clock in the morning. I got up to look through the keyhole. I watched her undress. I noticed her calm and collected manner.
The following morning, Roger shoved half a dozen newspapers in front of me and declared that we had done good work. He showed me the picture of Alice on the Yahoo! home page and some bits of the video in which I had found the means to shed a tear, which they had zoomed in on.
A.-M. had gone up to Paris in order to discover more about the failed ransom operation. “She may surprise us,” I said. “She’s a tough one. I get on well with her. And the advantage she has, the enormous advantage she has, is her availability. She’s not trying to look after fifty thousand things at the same time. Unlike the police. With A.-M. everything will be gone through with a fine-tooth comb. She’s a meticulous woman. I trust her. Good God, Roger, discovering fresh hope is an amazing thing. I had lost it completely, of course, but . . . and here I am breathing more easily. You can’t imagine. At least I know that she’s not lying at the bottom of a lake. At least I know that she’s not at the bottom of a crevice. Of course I’m still worried. Naturally. You and I know that there are crazy people everywhere. I’m dead frightened. I’m dead frightened. Why are they taking so long to get in touch with us? Why are they spinning things out? What’s the point? But I prefer that, Roger, I prefer that to deafening silence. Which was destroying me. As you must have been only too aware. All that time without any news, Roger. I spent all that time without any news.”
Yet I did not mean to give him too hard a time. I could see that he was giving his all—even if I was not sure whether his strategy was the right one or whether it had little point, or whether it was even appropriate. In a certain way, he was now part of the family. And this family was so decimated that it would have seemed very unwise to get rid of the least member of it, to chop off the slightest head. Even if it belonged to an ex-junkie turned banker.
I had known Roger for ten years or more now, and although he had caused me a few serious worries during the early months of their marriage—every month had to be reckoned with, every month brought its share of problems and anxieties, every month hung in the balance—I was obliged to admit, yet again, that he had displayed a certain strength of character in pulling through. He really did. In fact, Roger was the perfect example of the type who had kicked the habit with a flourish. From the day Alice became pregnant. He had sworn that he would give up hard drugs and throw them all down the lavatory. I could testify to the fact. He wanted me to be present at the scene. To be there to hear his pledge.
When I recalled that time, my jaw clenched.
“The mechanism was triggered too early,” he eventually explained to me. “I don’t know how it is operated, but when the suitcase is opened, why, the thing works somehow or other, and it sends a good spray of indelible ink all over the banknotes, as well as the guy’s head, and it functions perfectly, most of the time.”
“My grandfather died at Verdun because his rifle, his 1886 Lebel, jammed during the attack.”
“The inspector saw the suitcase explode on his lap. Wham! For no reason. In the great hall of the Gare de Lyon. He was ten minutes early for the meeting. There’s still a blue stain on the ground.”
In my case, feeling hopeful again made me feel strangely nauseous. And so I walked to the sea while Roger gave his daughters something to eat. And just as well I did, because a spasm made me bend double just as I was setting foot in the water.
Vomiting in the sea provides a few benefits. For a moment I was reeling like a drunkard, then I moved a few feet away and bent forward to wash my face. Fortunately, it was no longer the height of summer, with all the crowds, and the nearest passersby looked like matchsticks. The dog that was with them came bounding toward me at full speed, plunged into the water in a single leap, and began to feed eagerly on the floating matter; in the meantime his master trotted up, yelling: “Rex! Rex!”
I didn’t have the stamina of the old days, and I was growing more fragile. More sentimental, let us say the word. Alice’s absence brought back the ghosts of her mother and her sister, and I didn’t need that. And now, hope.
An absurd hope, one that depended on nothing very tangible, that gave you a pain in the guts, that sent threads of mucus flying into the breeze.
The image of the car ablaze came back to me—my Saab 900 convertible, with its leather interior, which I never left outside at night. That unbelievable sight. The roaring of the flames. Alice’s face buried in my chest. Her cries, her shuddering. While I watched the two women burn like torches, their arms like the branches of a chandelier. Johanna, their mother. Olga, the elder of our two daughters.
I didn’t need any further ordeal.
Neither did I need Judith and me to be more or less involved in a process of breaking up. At the same time.
Where does that feeling one sometimes gets that life is mocking you come from?
My books were selling fairly well at the time and, on the day of the accident, we were on our way to Pamplona, all four of us. I had just sold a story (for a high price) to the German edition of Playboy, but Johanna and I had had one hell of an argument the previous day and nobody had uttered a word since we left the house.
I was waiting for the moment when the blows would come raining down on my head. I kept my eyes glued to the road and held the steering wheel with both hands. It seemed to me that certain things had a surface, of course, but no depth, and so they ought not to be given more importance than they deserved; Johanna, and it was unfortunate, did not share this sort of opinion.
It was to do with a fairly ordinary literary festival in the Swiss canton of Grisons. The readings followed on from one another until daybreak and you could drink as much as you wanted. In Grisons. On the edge of the inhabited world, in other words. Marlène and I had laughed on the day of our arrival when we discovered they had booked us into a double room. Outside, you could hear the sound of cattle, of bells, the clatter of wooden shoes. It was almost an hour’s journey from the station on the post office bus, along a tiny road that ran along precipices. As soon as it grew dark, large quantities of absinthe began to be passed around and each reading session generated such powerful surges of adrenaline that it was hard to restrain oneself. Lost in the depths of Grisons, a stone’s throw from Sils-Maria, where Nietzsche liked to roam. Lord Jesus. But none of this managed to engage Johanna’s clemency.
I was very keen on Hemingway at that time and the idea of a trip to Pamplona delighted me. But even though the morning was bright and clear, the air soft, and the motorway empty, my illusions were quickly shattered.
I had grabbed my phone and changed publishers straightaway, but that was not enough. Johanna felt hurt. The crisis lasted for two days. Didn’t sleep the first night; in fits and starts the following one. I reckoned that the holidays and a few gory bullfights would change our ideas. They had to. The atmosphere was dreadful.
I turned off on an exit ramp and parked alongside the cafeteria, in a bit of shade. I looked questioningly at Johanna. Not obtaining any response, I got out. I was wondering what expression Ernesto would have used had he been me. Then Alice got out, too. I was wondering what expression the girls would make should Johanna explain to them why she loathed my guts. I was frightened that their powers of judgment might not be fully developed yet and that they might blame me a little too readily. Having said that, I did not delude myself about the reprieve I was being given. I knew that Johanna would eventually give in. She had told me so. She made no secret of it.
Alice caught up with me outside the shop. I waited for her as I gazed at the blue sky above the forests that surrounded us. As he crossed the Pyrenees, Hemingway had filled his lungs with the air of these verdant, mossy mountains. The saintly man.
After this, Alice and I would live together for two years. Two terrible years. In a three-room apartment. When it should have been twice the size. Or even three times.
I was in no mood to read to the girls. I to
ld Roger that I hoped he would understand. To appear more convincing, I pretended that I needed to think about a possible future novel and I left him to look after his offspring while I withdrew to the bottom of the garden adopting a look of inspiration.
Jérémie appeared as soon as Roger had gone inside. I noticed he had a notebook in his hand.
“I think you’re mistaken,” he said to me. “She spent the day taking people to houses. I have the list.”
“I’d like to be mistaken. Let me see this list, hmm? But tell me. Do you know anyone who enjoys throwing his money away? Do you take me for an idiot? . . . Continue to watch her. Do as I tell you. Keep your eyes peeled. She’s an intelligent woman, you know.”
Of course he took me for an idiot—I was personally convinced that she was pulling the wool over his eyes. I pointed to the fridge, in case he should want anything. He shook his head. He did not understand that it was possible to let a woman like that slip through your hands, were you lucky enough to have one.
“Go and get yourself a nice goat’s-milk ice cream,” I persisted. “Don’t be shy.”
One could be shy and hold up a service station with a hunting rifle simultaneously. Here was the proof.
Roger, who had come across him once or twice, found him disturbing, and his mother had been begging him to find a job quickly ever since he had come out of prison, reckoning that idleness was the worst state of mind in which to find oneself.
I gazed after him as he walked away, his dog at his heels. “When are you going to decide to give him a name?” I called out.
When Judith returned from the agency, she asked me why I looked so pale. Very indicative of the amount of interest she took in me, I reckoned.
Same thing the following day. She had quietly sold her houses. And the same thing the day after. “Listen, I don’t think I’m going to be able to do that much longer,” he told me.
“Do what, Jérémie? You’re not going to be able to do what much longer?”
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