Unforgivable

by Philippe Djian

  As a general rule, I did not abuse their hospitality. Not that they made me feel unwelcome—there was an adjoining studio apartment that provided a certain independence—but I frequently found myself spending the evening in the company of the babysitter and the children. Not that I wanted, at all costs, anyone to bother about me. Not that I did not understand that a young couple had better things to do than spend the evening with me. Nevertheless, I sometimes felt like asking the babysitter whether there was something odd about my hair or whether I was dressed oddly or if my remarks were becoming incoherent—but the poor girl already had an anxious expression on her face at the idea of being shut away with a man whose hair was going dangerously gray.

  I took with me a flashlight, a camera, and a hard disk. Nothing else. I crossed the street. I walked round the square. At the corner, a man was building a cardboard hut beneath a bus shelter—his shopping cart was parked by the doorway. Our eyes met, then I made my way into the building. The entrance hall was deserted. After glancing around, I walked over toward the service staircase. I went up.

  I entered the apartment through a sort of storage room in which brooms and shopping trolleys were kept—as well as the shoe-cleaning box. I shone my flashlight and made my way along the dark corridor.

  I had no wish to be caught rummaging around my daughter’s apartment. This absurd fear—for the situation demanded that I compromise my principles—guided my steps toward the curtains, which I drew.

  I switched on the household computer and began to copy everything. This stirred some very bad memories in me, but A.-M. was convinced that the key to this business was to be found in this apartment. She had drilled this into me for two days and I had to trust her instinct. She had been in this job for some thirty years. Thirty years in which her instinct had become sharpened, to the extent that she had attained a second sight that enabled her to assert—insofar as the business in hand was concerned—that the key to the mystery was to be found inside this duplex apartment that I was obliged to go through with a fine-tooth comb. I gazed at her questioningly each time, but eventually she prevailed, persuading me that she had acquired this gift, this flair that only the most perfect detectives possessed.

  I went upstairs and inspected the bedrooms, which I photographed methodically; A.-M. reckoned that I might miss certain details. Going through Alice’s wardrobe proved to be a depressing and demanding task, however; her scent hung heavily and a number of the outfits took me back to very precise moments, to places where we had stayed; as I touched the material, I noticed, incidentally, that she had kept some clothes that had belonged to her mother and her sister, though I had never seen her wear any of them, at least not in my presence.

  There was total silence—not a sound came from the street, due to the double glazing. I felt very nervous. In the old days, it would have taken rather more to affect me, but the tragedy that had unfolded before my eyes—and that was forever etched in my memory—had shaken me, made me more fragile. Certain particularly moving photographs of her previous life, which she kept in a drawer in her bedside table, quivered in my hand.

  I noticed that their bed was soft, for I had had to sit down. I was literally shivering at the thought that fate, having removed half of my family, might now be depriving me of all of it. Was there no limit to human suffering? It was a king-size bed. I stroked the space where my daughter’s shoulders fitted; her neck, often so tense. This acting profession was a loathsome one. I’ve always said so. But the girls went crazy before they realized it—and I was frightened that Alice might not be one of those destined to escape from it. She was a little too involved, in my view. But what did that matter now? I would not have made a fuss if she had been returned to me alive. I would have kissed the Lord’s feet, without a moment’s hesitation.

  I considered lying down for a second. But I stood up and went downstairs.

  I picked up cushions, opened drawers, had a close look at the bookshelves, rummaged in the wastepaper basket, looked to see whether anything had been concealed under the desk or in some dark corner, reached to the tops of cupboards, lifted up the rugs, photographed every square foot with a watchmaker’s precision, etc.

  I found nothing. Nothing gleamed at me in the darkness. On the other hand, I hoped to be able to gather together enough material to present to A.-M. and allow her to spot what I had not seen, what had been staring me in the face—I really did want her to do this. I set about in a methodical fashion. As the dark night wore on, at an hour when virtually everyone was asleep, I took the opportunity of a visit to the fridge to pour myself a large glass of pulp-filled orange juice.

  Until the moment I heard a creaking sound. I froze. Switched off my flashlight. My brain began to work at great speed.

  The door of the studio apartment opened onto a silhouette, a shadow play—the darkness prevented me from seeing more—that started to walk down the flight of steps that led to the living room. I squatted down behind an armchair. I regretted not having brought a weapon with me, even if it had only been a knife. Coming across a screwball was not unusual these days, indeed it was all too frequent; people have always said of me that I was a pessimistic writer, but I only had to read the newspapers, to look around me, listen to the radio; there were countless opportunities to meet a serial killer, the place was crawling with them, and I’m really not exaggerating.

  The shadow passed in front of me. I immediately stood up, holding my breath. “Alice?” I mumbled.

  Six months later, I had still not spoken to her. There was a strong probability, furthermore, that I might never exchange a single word with her. Nevertheless, I passed the handset to Judith, who, contrary to my wishes, had not broken off relations entirely with my daughter and Roger, and I left without waiting any longer.

  The first spring days were sunny. The hydrangeas were in bloom. Since Jérémie was now employed doing maintenance work at the golf course, I no longer had him at my disposal to follow my wife and catch her in the act. So I was casting around in total darkness as far as that was concerned.

  I was disillusioned. The feelings I had felt for both of them had grown numb, and this sense of emptiness was so intense that it deadened me. I had spent the winter giving lectures in different European countries to recover my breath, but I had expended a great deal of rather pointless energy; in Stockholm, the president of the PEN club had taken me on a round of the bars, from which I did not recover until the following evening . . . in Copenhagen, my editor clicked his heels as he raised his glass and looked me full in the eyes . . . in Vienna I knew some theater people, and God knows where they dragged me off to after my readings, making the most of my stressed, weakened state and the cold euphoria in which they immersed me. Reading made one thirsty. Reading properly made one very thirsty. I saw all too clearly the shining path of the alcoholic writer opening up before me; I saw how everything could become straightforward and within easy reach—to begin with at least. I had come back in time, too late no doubt to prevent Judith from making some important decisions on my behalf, but in time not to contract a liver complaint, possibly jaundice, during my tour.

  “The girls send you a hug,” she announced. I stiffened slightly. “Me too,” I replied. “Tell them that I send both of them a hug.”

  With my jaws clenched, I stared at the horizon. I didn’t intend blaming Judith for having kept in touch with Alice and her banker, regardless of how I felt about them. One had to think about the little girls—with those two raging lunatics looking after them. The twins represented the one compelling reason not to end our relationship with the two screwballs who were bringing them up—and Judith performed perfectly well in the role that consisted of behaving as though nothing had happened, as though one should automatically turn the other cheek, whereas I personally was incapable of that, I was too closely involved, and it was a hard thing to admit to. At the age of sixty-one, it was becoming painful to recognize that one was unable to take a sufficiently dispassionate view, to display detachment, distan
ce. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do about it.

  For the time being, I was returning from a tour in the former East Germany, feeling particularly calm and levelheaded; I had traveled the length and breadth of the country by train, from one city to another, and I had spent the majority of my time sleeping in first-class seats, closing my eyes, and opening them again five hundred kilometers farther on. I removed my shoes. The train is an excellent restorative. In certain cases, the train proved to be a real blessing. Piling up the mileage, keeping on the move.

  I continued unpacking my bag and putting my things away while she talked about the fact that she was going away shortly. Whom did she think she was fooling by claiming it was a coincidence? Well, let it pass. Be that as it may—and there we have the proof, the perfect illustration that crime pays—Alice was leaving for two weeks in Australia, on location, and nothing would comfort her so much as to entrust Lucie-Anne and Anne-Lucie to their grandmother.

  My daughter had no shame. I had sniggered when Judith had told me about it. Then I had replied that I had nothing against it so long as I was not involved—so long as none of this concerned me.

  Alice ought to know that there was nothing more she could ask me from then on. I had thrown the things she had left here into a suitcase, jumbled together, and once I had gotten a grip on myself, I had them sent to her. I no longer wanted to see anything that belonged to her in this house. I had asked Judith not to discuss my decision. I had begged her not to. I wasn’t joking. She had shaken her head. She had sighed. She knew very well what a blow it had been to me. She took it upon herself—without my even mentioning it—to put the DVDs, the magazines, the photographs, out of my sight. I was comforted, at least, to have married a woman who did not instinctively seek confrontations—Alice was more than enough.

  I was sorry that she was going away so soon. I had hoped that on my return we might spend a few days together despite the wretched path our relationship was taking—had taken. I was too optimistic. She had told Roger she would arrive the following day. Not that I would have had any specific suggestion to make about how to deal with our breakdown; I reckoned that the ordeal we were experiencing was insurmountable and that I was the first to have been wounded, but I wanted to preserve what was left, I was determined to do so. As long as it was still possible, I mean.

  “Do they wonder whether we have a life?” I grumbled. “Does it occur to them, those two good-for-nothings?” I walked over to the doorway that separated our bedrooms. In hers, which was better situated, you could see the sun piercing the curtains and dappling its walls. I should have liked to have been able to tell her just how desolate I felt, but in the face of so much absurdity only a stream of air came from my lips. With time, I had come to understand that our actions were irreversible. One did not rewind.

  I went with her to the market. “Do you have anything to say to me?” I asked her as she was examining a lettuce. She gave a look of astonishment. I came to her rescue: “Have you met someone?”

  I could hear myself speaking, but it wasn’t me. She shook her head and laughed. “But what on earth are you talking about? What on earth has come over you?”

  I asked the boy the price of his lettuce and I paid him.

  “Forget what I’ve just said to you,” I told her as I walked up the central aisle. “My mind isn’t very clear yet. I’m saying just anything.”

  She stopped and stared at me suspiciously.

  I was not so naïve as to think that it was enough just to ask her the question. I didn’t expect to see the truth come bursting forth like a spring in the midst of a bed of roses. Any more than I attached the slightest value to the disdainful silence with which she countered my pitiful assumptions.

  “Forgive me,” I told her. “But it’s because of them. Ever since then, I see evil everywhere.”

  She looked around her before transferring her attention to me. “How can you still be dwelling on it?” she sighed. “Even today. After six months . . .”

  “Time’s got nothing to do with it.”

  “Of course it has. Francis, of course it has. Or else you’re not normal.”

  I gritted my teeth. “She knew I wouldn’t be able to bear it.”

  She continued to look at me for a moment, then she turned away and started to choose a melon. I was sorry I hadn’t stayed an extra day in Leipzig so as to get dead drunk and come back home to find the house empty on my return.

  Jérémie passed by on the other side of the street, sitting astride his lawn mower, and we waved at one another. Large numbers of seagulls were drifting in the sky. He parked his machine behind the hedge after he had loaded a packet of magazines I had kept specially for him onto the vehicle. “You’ve just lost your job,” I told him. “She’s gone away for a couple of weeks.” He greeted the news with a satisfied smile.

  “You’re wasting your time with this,” he said. “I’ve already told you. I’ve never discovered a thing. You’re on the wrong track.”

  “Never mind. I’m not annoyed with you. She’s a terribly cunning woman.”

  Glancing down, my eyes fell on his grazed fists.

  “I’ll tell you how it’s going to end up,” I said. “I’ll tell you. When they get fed up with having you on their backs—and I’m sure that day’s not far off—they’ll grab hold of you. You can bet they will. That’s how it’s going to end up. With all the gays of the neighborhood after you. Precisely. Jérémie, I come across them every morning in the gym and I would not like those guys to corner me in the changing rooms with arms like theirs.”

  He could not care a damn. He was not afraid of being beaten up, he said.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Your mother’s tired at the moment. Why not look after her a bit?”

  “She’s not tired. She’s been dumped.”

  “She doesn’t need any further shocks, I imagine. Be a little charitable. She worries about you.”

  Our children gave us plenty of problems, one had to admit. It was not simply a coincidence. The families that were spared were few. It was not surprising that A.-M. should have vacillated after he had slit his veins open. Not many mothers could have coped with it. Not many mothers who had recently been dumped could have coped.

  She was not so old. But within a few months, her face looked stricken, her complexion had turned gray. Every surveillance job grew more difficult, she told me. Standing on her feet for hours killed her. Her ankles swelled up. I had advised her to go on a course of high-dosage vitamin C and magnesium. To no effect, apparently.

  He cooked her steaks, which she only nibbled at. Otherwise, he didn’t pay much attention to her. The trials and tribulations of his mother’s love life made him feel ill, he claimed. If there was one thing that made him totally ashamed, it was his mother and her warped tastes. “And I’m meant to feel sorry for her? I’m meant to comfort her? What she does disgusts me.”

  It seemed quite clear that he couldn’t cope with his mother’s homosexuality, it wasn’t necessary to hark back to it; I could understand him.

  Three days later the doctors informed A.-M. that she was suffering from cancer. Of a serious form. The X-rays were dreadful. “That’s all I needed,” she sighed.

  She swore me to silence. She didn’t want Jérémie to know. Then her gaze became lost in space and she shook her head for a long moment.

  Johanna’s mother died from one of those lightning attacks of cancer that made you feel like a straw in the wind and that then tore you apart.

  Olga and Alice, then aged twelve and eight respectively, were not very keen on going to kiss the remains of their grandmother, in her coffin, and on that day it made them feel downright frightened. The atmosphere was very strained.

  The atmosphere was very strained as far as my in-laws were concerned, and for them the behavior of my daughters provided edifying and pitiful confirmation that I was not the type of man they had hoped for Johanna. Reading certain of my novels had not improved matters. And so, just as we were making light
of the family incident at the back of the room, I heard voices taking offense at my lack of authority and condemning my obvious failure in terms of education.

  Seeing Johanna’s expression, I eventually leaned over toward the girls. “Sorry, but your mother doesn’t know where to put herself. I’ll come with you, if you like. Be brave.”

  Gloomy eyes were staring at us—assholes for the most part. But Johanna did not want to quarrel with them, nor endure their opprobrium, and since it was not for me to give my opinion on the matter, without any qualms I behaved in the way that she had advised me to from the very beginning, which consisted in avoiding confrontation and not annoying them. I had understood the importance these things represented for Johanna. I also knew what an ordeal this would be for the two little girls; I knew the magnitude of the effort that was being asked of them. The air seemed to be vibrating around us. Olga lowered her head. As for Alice, she suddenly stepped forward decisively.

  We stood in front of the coffin. Holding their hands in mine, I gave each of them a quick glance. “I’m proud of you,” I mumbled. “Well done. There’s just one last thing we have to do. You’ll be fine, girls. Be brave.”

  Alice was the smallest. I carried her. Their poor grandmother’s face looked like a rotten lemon; she had fallen on the stairs while she was in a terminal stage, and she had smashed her jaw. Even I winced.

  Olga appeared petrified. As for Alice, she leaned over without any hesitation and placed her lips on the old powdered cheek. Alice was already Alice.

  “I did it for you, too,” she confided to me a little while later.

  “You amazed me. Your sister and I, I want you to believe me, looked at one another in silence. Mouths agog. You astounded us. I’m telling you. If you hadn’t done that, I don’t know whether I would have done so myself. Brrr! I’ve still got goose pimples, haven’t you?”