Unforgivable

by Philippe Djian

  I had not been granted permission to return to the marital bed before death took her, I had not had this good fortune, and the wound was taking a long time to heal. I despaired of seeing it heal. Twelve years later, the scar still seemed just as fresh. The recovery was making no progress.

  I dozed. A.-M. called to say that she needed to speak to me. I put it off until later. I went downstairs. My eyelids were still too heavy for me to be able to join in any discussion. I did manage, however, to drag myself over to the door that separated my wife’s bedroom from mine. I put my ear to the panel. I heard nothing. Feeling irritated, I peered through the keyhole. Her bed was empty. My heart leaped. Then I realized that, contrary to what I had thought, she hadn’t stayed out all night. For it was not morning, but midafternoon. I climbed back into my dismal sheets.

  Dusk was falling when I decided to get up. I bumped into Roger, who was going upstairs to put his daughters to bed. Lucie-Anne was perched on his shoulders, Anne-Lucie was holding his hand. He was in the midst of telling them something funny.

  The guy had exceptional talent. You had to be strong-minded to stand up the way he was doing now to the misfortune that had hit us, to have such a fresh complexion, such bright eyes, such a thoughtless tone of voice. I had buttonholed Judith on this matter a few days earlier, and she said that she could see no point in wallowing in grief.

  So, was I wallowing in grief? Was finding it hard to smile wallowing in grief? Was a lack of energy wallowing in grief?

  I sometimes wondered about what the aftereffects could be on a mind that Roger had put to the test in the past. More than once I had found him semiconscious—and I was truly shocked that my daughter had fallen into the clutches of such a person—once, on the tiled floor of the bathroom, on another occasion wrapped up in the living room carpet, and yet another time halfway down the stairs that led to the cellar where I kept a few bottles of wine, foaming at the mouth, and with one hand stretched out toward my dry whites, which he had been unable to reach.

  Marriage had revived him. It wasn’t my opinion, of course, but I very soon had to admit that the boy was resourceful and that he had reembarked, if not on the right track, at least on one that was expected of a relatively responsible family man. For months, while I was living my great romance with Judith, I waited in anxious expectation to be told of a disaster concerning them, but there was no call from either the hospital or the police. Did that mean that Roger had emerged unscathed from his excesses at that time? From the numerous substances with which he had dosed himself? I asked myself this whenever he put on a show of cheerfulness or explained to me what we might expect with the price of a barrel of oil costing over two hundred dollars. I asked myself whether he was all right when I saw him stop in front of a shop selling surfboards or the window of a well-known chocolate maker. I wondered whether he was in his right mind since, personally, there was nothing I wanted.

  I found Judith downstairs. I didn’t understand Spanish, but I understood that she was talking about a property that Karl Lagerfeld had sold, on the outskirts of the town. Some figures were being exchanged.

  I had married a businesswoman. I had not been aware of this to begin with, for I was her first customer, but the evidence was there. She now earned far more money than I did and the slight influence I had had over her to begin with, as a cult writer whose books were published by the best houses, had now vanished into thin air. I no longer impressed her.

  To such an extent that my books were piled up on her bedside table, within easy reach, ready to be read, caressed, devoured. I told her I couldn’t care less. That the days were too short. That I wasn’t angry with her in the slightest. But she insisted on keeping them near her because she was going to get down to reading them at the first opportunity.

  I didn’t claim to be a man who was very easy to live with; no sane-minded woman can be particularly thrilled to share a writer’s life for very long. I did not claim to be able to give her everything a woman had a right to expect. Very well. But did that exonerate her from a minimum of consideration toward me? Had she decided to spare me nothing? Was it a matter of revenge, of a desire to make me suffer?

  Dusk was falling. I walked over to the coffee machine. Glancing up at Judith, I had the impression she was ending her conversation with a murmur.

  “Everything fine?” I asked.

  “Everything’s fine,” she said.

  The evening breeze was getting up, the moon was shining. As far as I was concerned, her expression had become impenetrable. She didn’t hesitate now to look me up and down. She enjoyed using her faultless Spanish in my presence. So as to taunt me?

  However much I might thoroughly deserve it, it wasn’t very kind of her to treat me so unceremoniously, to foist her view of the facts on me without the slightest precaution, without any serious explanation for her going out, her absences, etc.—not to mention that studio apartment she had rented in San Sebastián.

  When I thought about it, I had to admit that we knew nothing about other people’s suffering, that there was nothing we could measure it by, that we could be surprised, amazed, stunned by the damage we caused others. It was like killing someone with a punch in a street fight. Basically, I knew nothing about the harm I had done her. I didn’t know whether she was repaying me a hundredfold or whether I still had a long way to go.

  “Have you any recent news?” she asked.

  “No, I was asleep.”

  “Poor woman.”

  “Absolutely. He really lays it on. With him, she gets to see every shade of color. Did I tell you how he had sprayed the bathroom walls with blood?”

  “Yes.”

  “The ceiling reminded me of a Jackson Pollock.”

  “You’ve already told me that. Don’t go on, I can see the scene all too clearly.”

  She made a gesture indicating that she had to listen to her messages. She now settled the majority of our bills. She claimed that it didn’t matter at all to her. And that it would be out of pure and foolish pride that I would take offense. But I could see very well the pleasure she took in being in charge, in paying the suppliers, in slipping a check in an envelope without showing the slightest reaction, in giving the numbers on her card in a steady voice. With a wave of her hand, she could have the roof redone or change the garden furniture without having to ask me about our financial situation. I wondered whether I had not begun to lose her from that very moment, if I had not fallen from grace the day she caught me unawares choking on my sales figures.

  With the telephone glued to her ear, she made a few notes in her monstrous diary—swollen as a cow’s belly. Did it occur to her to think of Alice occasionally? I didn’t want to make anyone feel guilty, but was I not justified in asking myself the question? Judith thrived. Quite simply. I had to grit my teeth not to let slip a slightly hurtful comment on the subject. Or was it I who was going mad?

  A.-M. leaped to her feet when she saw me arrive. “It’s dreadful. I was about to doze off,” she said.

  “How is he?”

  This time, the waiting room was empty. This part of the hospital appeared to be deserted—apart from the two girls on duty in reception and a dark-skinned man who was rhythmically sweeping the corridor.

  Jérémie had woken up in the late afternoon and then fallen asleep after a few minutes, but everything was fine, given the circumstances. In a weak voice, he had asked his mother to bring him his CD player on her next visit. I, too, considered this a good sign. Having said that, I didn’t particularly want to see him.

  “Let’s not disturb him,” I said.

  She shook her head. We were obliged to walk, heads lowered, hugging the walls of the corridors, as far as the room. “Follow me,” she said. Mothers are ever thus.

  But I stayed at the foot of the bed, in the background, watching A.-M.’s face fall and harden like an old lump of fat over the pale mask of her sleeping son. There was a strong medicinal smell in the room. I stood there stiffly and silently, my head slightly bowed, wonderi
ng what it was she wanted to talk to me about.

  If she didn’t understand the reason why her son had been hanging around the local gays, I didn’t really know what I could do for her. What exactly did she expect from me? That I should interfere in their affairs? That I should get involved in all that? Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the sickle moon hovering in the distance, above the dark, glistening pine trees of Chiberta. Reflecting that this wretched woman and I went back a long way, had spent time together, sitting on school benches. Reflecting on those years. And on this shriveled shadow, today. They were not a happy sight, the two of them. Both of them seemed to have come straight out of a crypt.

  “Francis, I think your daughter is in hiding,” she announced, without beating about the bush, as we were sitting in the waiting room, neither seen nor attended to. Since I did not react, she continued: “I believe Alice is alive and that she is in hiding. Unfortunately, I don’t know where.”

  Due to the events that had taken place here and that had required her to come back urgently, A.-M. had not had time to pursue her inquiry further. She had at least been able to resume her research in light of this ransom demand that neither Roger nor the police had disclosed, and she had reached the conclusion that this entire story did not exactly hold water.

  “I shall spare you the loose ends, the unanswered questions, the inconsistencies I’ve come across,” she sighed with a shrug of her shoulders. “None of that rings true, Francis. I don’t believe anyone has abducted her. Do you want to see my notes?” I didn’t want to see her notes. I wanted to listen to her. I wanted to continue staring at that mouth that was uttering such marvels. Such ripples, such eddies, such currents. I nodded. I allowed her to finish. Then I stood up without a word and went for a walk along the shore. Completely deserted, at this time, even though it was still very warm and the wind had died down.

  It was vital that I go back. I was in a vile mood. I was convinced that Judith was going to take advantage of my absence. Nothing was going to stop her. Jérémie would not be up to much for several days and A.-M. had categorically refused to tail her—something that had given rise to a rather lively exchange between us, but she hadn’t given in.

  The sky was dull and overcast. I didn’t know what to wear. More precisely, I was incapable of concentrating on the choice provided by a wardrobe that was appropriate to the climate of the Ile-de-France region, one that was far less pleasant and far sadder. Just as I was standing there with my arm reaching out at a handful of ties, Judith entered my bedroom and examined them before selecting some. I glanced at her to see whether I could detect a sparkle in her expression; I wanted to see whether my departure lightened up her manner in some way or other, but she played her cards very close to her chest.

  “Once again, I hope you know what you are doing,” she said quietly.

  I replied with a look of impatience. We had discussed the matter at length the previous evening, until she had begun to yawn. We had thrashed it out. Given the brilliance of their previous investigations, I could obviously no longer have any confidence in Roger or the police. The question did not arise. I reckoned it was pointless to go back over it, and yet a part of me was holding back, a part of me refused to leave this house, things being as they were.

  Looking at her watch, she decided to go with me to the airport. I packed my suitcase.

  “I suppose there’s nothing that can make you change your mind . . . ,” she said to me as we waited for the plane in the evening light.

  I took a room at the Hyatt—the bathrooms there were superb and very soothing, particularly since I planned to put the bill down to my general expenses. I ordered a club sandwich and some sparkling water.

  Their apartment was close by. To kill time—A.-M. had advised me against doing anything before midnight—I was watching, in the semidarkness, after my hot bath, a TV channel that showed nothing but fashion shows. Occasionally, the camera drifted over to a party in which one came across some well-known faces, and over which a muted hysteria hovered, with bad music and certain substances that did not always turn out to be of the best quality, but which circulated in sufficient quantity.

  Those who did not get caught up in that world deserved credit; and those who escaped from it, even more so. In that respect, Alice and Roger had worked a miracle. All of a sudden they had acquired a sense of responsibility. Working in a bank—even though it was a family business—and working as an actress required one to observe a certain number of rules: managing to get up in the morning, for example, not disappearing in the middle of a shoot, being worth your fee, etc.

  But even though I had felt anxious about it all for a time, when they had just started, it was probably because I had forgotten that Alice had her feet on the ground. I didn’t know anybody who was so profoundly pragmatic. However much I had gone on about it.

  I missed her. I hoped I would discover something quickly. I hoped that something, at least, had begun to happen. That nothing could stop. That my path would lead me to my daughter, directly to her, without further delay. I hoped for it with all my heart because, should the opposite occur, I could expect to spend a particularly grueling winter. If I discovered nothing, if I returned empty-handed, if I did not come across a clue, if I searched this apartment in vain, then I could expect a complete breakdown.

  Why was she in hiding, to begin with? No doubt it was better for her to be in hiding than dead—she could go into hiding a thousand times over—but that didn’t answer the question. I knew her marriage was in a bad way—like father, like daughter—and that she was rumored to be having a few affairs on location. Was this the direction to pursue? Was she frightened of something? Of someone? Was she locked in a cellar? In an attic? Was she hiding deep in the forest? In this city? In this country?

  The list of questions I managed to ask myself seemed endless.

  One bright, crystal-clear winter morning, my telephone rang. Lake Geneva was sparkling like an electric field. Johanna and Olga were in town. Alice was about fourteen and it was her school calling. It’s never good when the school calls.

  I thought that she had broken a leg or twisted her neck because she had left on a skiing trip, but this wasn’t the case at all. The school was calling for me to come and collect her at once. “Your little pest!” said the headmistress when she saw me. “Take her away immediately.” A woman six feet three inches tall, with gray hair cut in a Joan of Arc style.

  The class had arrived at the hotel in the late evening and the giantess was sending Alice home the very next morning. An awfully short stay.

  “My wife and I dressed her from head to toe,” I protested. “For the occasion. Tights, ski suit, après-ski wear, etc. Specially for this vacation.”

  “My dear man, I realize that.”

  “Listen, I’m not sure you do.”

  “I run a school, sir. Not a boarding house for wild animals.”

  “I’ll pay for all the repairs.”

  “You will pay for them, believe me. And we are suspending her from school for a month. And if this happens again, she will be expelled for good.”

  Outside her office window, snow-covered trees rose up toward the blue sky while others ran down toward the lake in neat processions.

  “I should like to know,” I said, “I should like to know how my daughter was able to purchase two bottles of vodka. I should like you to enlighten me on this point. I think it may be necessary to warn other parents, because if Alice was able to do so . . .”

  “Oh well, I know that she’s very crafty. And that she’s ready to do anything to get what she wants.”

  “Don’t start beating about the bush. Please. Don’t try to avoid the issue. Okay? Now answer me. Are you not supposed to protect our children? Are you not supposed to erect a barrier between them and the sale of alcohol? Would you not say that it’s the minimum that we, as parents, might expect from you? Today it’s vodka, but tomorrow it’ll be drugs. It’s you who should be punished. What’s more, it’s very simple,
I shall talk to my lawyer about this. Enough pleasantries between us. I shall ask him to look after our problem as a matter of urgency. To be incisive.”

  Spaghetti was her favorite food, and it was what she mainly ate. I could easily imagine her preparing a tomato-sauce recipe along with a few of her chums in their bedroom. Smoking cigarettes. Telling each other their adventures. Being excited. Talking loudly.

  “Have you ever been plastered during your life, dear lady?” I asked as I glimpsed Alice crossing the courtyard, dragging her heavy suitcase.

  “That is not the question, sir.”

  I turned around and walked away.

  I did not really understand Olga, my elder girl, who was four years older and who clung fiercely to her mother from a very early age. On the other hand, I got on much better with Alice. “Let’s spare your mother the details,” I told her. “You see, I think they’re going to have to repaint everything. The ceiling, too. I shall have to write a short story just to cover that. In any case, I won’t get away with a poem, you can be sure of that.”

  At midnight, I got out of the bath and dressed. More than two months after she had disappeared, people were still talking about her, about this young actress of whom nothing had been heard for seventy-eight days. Her photograph had appeared on the screen before I had had time to press the remote-control button. Looking puzzled, the announcer described several murders and kidnappings of young women that had occurred recently.

  My daughter had married a young banker. She lived in an enormous duplex apartment, on the top floor of a building for which I knew the entry code. I spent the night with them from time to time, when I was in town. I had a key. I don’t say they had put a key at my disposal. Let’s not exaggerate. This was a key to the service entrance. Which I was not meant to take away with me, but to keep for when they needed it, in a drawer in my study, should anything whatsoever happen.