Unforgivable

by Philippe Djian

  I didn’t see her again for two days. On two successive mornings, I went straight to the window when I woke up to see whether she had returned, whether her car was parked behind mine—which was not the case—then I looked out at the sort of hanging, inert rain that is characteristic of these parts, and I could see beyond it the dark mountains beneath a motionless, lowering sky, their outlines looming above the blanket of mist that hung over Labourd; I would have sighed with joy in other circumstances, but it annoyed me that she hadn’t slammed the door for two days.

  With the return of the sunshine—which, rather absurdly, had not shone during her absence—she reappeared in the garden. “Don’t say a thing!” she uttered straightaway, raising her hand toward my mouth. “Whatever you do, don’t say a thing!”

  “Not even ‘good morning’?” I asked.

  It was probably nothing more than a minor tiff, a fairly mild starter compared to a complete separation of persons and assets, but the sample had left me with an unpleasant feeling.

  The quality of my relationship with my daughter prompted me to act more prudently as far as my wife was concerned if I did not want to be left high and dry. That seemed quite clear to me. But there was further news concerning Alice, which she confided to me without further ado.

  “She would like to spend some time at home. She’s thinking of having her baby in Bayonne.”

  In the end I made it clear to her that I had no objection to that. She opened her mouth, but I put a finger to her lips. “Don’t say a thing,” I said. “Please. Don’t say a thing.”

  I left it to her to inform Alice that I was happy for her to come—I even insisted that she did—and this new attitude on my part—conciliatory and affable—brought me some comfort, on the matrimonial front, over the following days.

  “Do I have to keep an eye on your wife even when she is having dinner with you?” Jérémie smirked.

  Five or six dinners in a row with me certainly seemed barely credible today. She would have to have a serious need of people around her, things going on, pregnant women, children, etc., to devote so much attention to me.

  A man could easily lose both his wives and both his daughters. There was no doubt in my mind about this; it wasn’t something I even wanted to discuss. I reckoned it was possible for a bombshell to fall in the exact same place as another, even if the probability was nil.

  A few days before her death, the expression on A.-M.’s face altered. I suddenly became aware of it. I wanted to go and warn Jérémie, then I changed my mind.

  It was almost like losing a girlfriend. No doubt we had met each other again far too late, and in difficult circumstances, but those three months spent together, those problems that we had delved into, those scars uncovered over time, those meals consumed on the run, those friendly visits, those favors done, the relationship we may have had in the past, etc., all this, and still more, had mattered a good deal. I had eventually forgotten that she had been involved in a relationship with a woman when I had gone to look her up in order to make inquiries about Alice’s disappearance. Every life was like some terrifying journey, some mad race.

  I was deeply moved and affected by her death. I had suggested to Jérémie that he take a few days off—I did my best to get him to find out whether this would pose any problem—but he did not think it was necessary to do so and merely performed his minimal duties in the evening, which he carried out wearing his appalling silicone gloves in my embarrassed presence, as I looked on in disbelief.

  “Morphine helps a lot,” she announced readily, although I was not able to determine whether she was referring to her own pain or the grief her son was causing her.

  It was starting to get hot when she decided not to get up anymore. I rushed off to Castorama to buy her an electric fan before they sold out. On the last day, she was no longer really conscious, but on the previous day, when I switched on the fan for the first time, she let out a long sigh.

  On the last day, I switched it off quickly, for she suddenly hunched up her body and complained about feeling very cold. It was as if she had shrunk, as if the skin on her face was nothing more than the translucent frame of a rather dull chrysalis, as if her eyes had become dark and were receding.

  Glancing up, I saw that he was standing in the doorway and was observing the scene. From afar.

  I motioned to him to come closer, trying to make him understand that if he wanted to catch his mother’s last breath, he should not delay much longer. His eyes met mine for a moment, and then he walked away.

  Flabbergasted, I leaped to my feet, knocked over my chair noisily, and took a few steps to stride across the living room and then the entrance hall, but the idiot was already far away, tearing off like a rocket with his dog into the pine forests and the heather. I went back and sat down. “I’m here,” I said, stroking her shoulder, but she was dead.

  I went outside again, in the scorching afternoon light. I shut the mosquito screen behind me.

  I heard the first crickets of the summer at the cemetery, as the priest was adding a few words to a passage from the Gospel that he had read out in the warm air. I had taken charge of everything. The official papers. The undertakers. The church. I had been forced to forsake my novel for two entire days—which will seem of little consequence to the uninitiated, but the seriousness of this will be all too obvious to anyone who practices this trade. And the whole thing had killed me. It had inevitably reminded me of gloomy times. Having to deal with this burial from A to Z.

  It was impossible to lay hands on Jérémie. I had had to choose the coffin myself, choose the clothes from her drawers, choose the flowers, choose the tombstone, etc., because her son could not be found. Staggering.

  I could not comprehend such indifference. I thought that if he had married Alice, they would have made quite a couple—had my life mattered any more as far as Alice was concerned? Certainly not. Not an ounce more.

  The photograph had been taken just after 1968. I had long hair and wore bell-bottom trousers. I came across it in a drawer in her wardrobe as I was choosing the blouse and the few items of jewelry she would take with her into the hereafter. I did not know of the existence of this photo, whose colors had faded. For a moment I wondered how a photo of me came into her possession.

  I never stopped glancing around furtively. The coffin was being lowered. I was beginning to give up hope. I moved forward to throw in my fistful of earth, then I stepped back. At that moment I caught sight of him, in the shade of a yew tree.

  I immediately bent down low and wandered away so I could take him from the rear. I collared him. I raised my arm and hit him with the palm of my hand. An avalanche of resounding blows rained down on him—on his head, on his arms, on his back—which he protected himself against with difficulty, and some of them made him reel, such as the one that struck him on the ear and must have left him deaf on one side, for a while at least. Without my saying anything to him. Without my making the slightest comment. Without respite. I swooped on him like a windmill.

  In the end, they overpowered me, they pinned me to the ground—they trained hard in this part of the world. I saw blue sky, distant, innocent clouds pinned to the firmament, and then Judith’s face bent over me. She stroked my cheek and offered me her bottle of Evian.

  This entire story—this tragic and scarcely credible, absolutely horrible sequence of events—resurfaced a year later, during a meal at the house of some friends, one of whom had heard tell that Jérémie was back in town.

  Was it possible? Did he hope to start afresh with my wife? Was he going to try to kill himself again if he didn’t get what he wanted? I noticed that everyone was staring at me.

  “Does Judith know this?” I asked.

  Apparently she didn’t. The same person had come across Judith the previous day, leaving her house—we no longer lived under the same roof and we hardly ever spoke to one another—and there was nothing he had noticed in her behavior to suggest that she knew. “She’ll find out eventually, one way
or another,” he said. “I believe he has decided to put his house up for sale.” News carried so quickly in this town that there was always a slight buzz in the air.

  Back at my house, I stayed sitting on my bed, in the darkness. Then the baby began crying and I lay down.

  When I woke up the following day, he was crying again—I hoped that he had slept in the meantime. I went out to pick up the newspaper, in the dazzling June light.

  “Jérémie is back,” I announced as I walked into the kitchen.

  Alice was sitting with her son in her arms and things did not seem to be going quite as either of them wished: the row with the babysitter, who had stormed out at the beginning of the weekend, had suddenly catapulted the mother and the child into a gloomy relationship.

  She looked up at me. I didn’t know whether I felt like eating eggs. Nor even whether I felt hungry.

  “Do you want any eggs?” I asked her.

  “Now there’s someone who certainly knows what he wants,” she giggled.

  I shook my head and broke a few eggs into a pan. “I’m thinking of Judith. I tell myself that she hasn’t deserved all this.”

  “She has a little, all the same.”

  “The boy’s half crazy, she could have seen that, couldn’t she? It’s quite obvious. Do you think I was surprised? Do you think I was surprised by what he did? Do you think that a guy who holds up a service station with a fully loaded shotgun has got all his wits about him?”

  “Listen. He didn’t threaten her.”

  “Totally agreed. He didn’t force her. I totally agree. The fact remains, he’s half crazy. Did you see what he did? Pity he bungled it.”

  I went upstairs to my study and shut the door. I remained seated in front of the telephone—an old model with an ebonite cord, which I used in order to protect me from brain cancer, which I feared like the plague.

  Eventually, I rang Judith. While the phone was ringing at the other end, I held my breath and turned to look out of the window where the sky was indistinguishable from the sea, which was indistinguishable from the dunes where long grasses grew in the shape of feathers waving in the wind.

  I was not expecting her to say anything and there was no lack of silence when I informed her of the reason for my call.

  “Are you still there?”

  “It’s kind of you to warn me, Francis.”

  “If there’s anything I can do, don’t hesitate.”

  “It’s all right. Don’t worry about me.”

  “How’s business? Are things going well?”

  “Moderately. Congratulations on your book.”

  “Yes. I can’t tell you how much good it’s done me. It came at just the right time, of course, as you can imagine.”

  “I know, Francis. I can well imagine. I apologize. I’m deeply sorry.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense. Listen. Look after yourself. That’s all I ask. I want you to call me if anything goes wrong.”

  My hand was sweaty and my ear was burning when I hung up—and I stared at the handset with mixed feelings.

  In the evening, after a particularly difficult working session due to events that had upset me, I bumped into Alice, freed of her baby but looking distraught, and clearly lost in her thoughts and various anxieties—unless, being an actress, she was meditating upon sorrow.

  I went to the fridge. I suggested cooking some eggs. Dusk was falling, transforming the horizon into a blazing glow. In my case, I had been able to see the ray of green on various occasions—the last time at the very moment that I was putting the final period to my novel, which I reckoned meant that everything augured well.

  “Or else, let’s order a pizza,” I said, “that’s the easiest thing.”

  Then I sat down in an armchair with the books section and very soon began to boil inwardly, then to curse inwardly: this process was triggered weekly, each page being a source of anger, incredulity, despondency; each page fully deserving of being chucked into the wastepaper basket, were it not for a few authors, here and there, who, miraculously, really were worthy of interest; powerful, innovative, and uncompromising writers, who alone were worth the effort.

  Since it was growing dark, I switched on a few lights. She returned, after having made endless telephone calls. She froze, for a brief second, listening in mild alarm, but the baby was not crying; it must have been the screech of a hawk or an owl hooting in the distance that was the cause of her anxiety.

  “Listen. I’ve a problem getting a babysitter,” she said, adopting a sullen expression.

  “Yes, I know, I’m aware,” I replied as I scanned the bestseller list.

  “I need to go out for an hour. Is it all right if I’m away for an hour?”

  I glanced at her, frowning.

  “That’s not part of our agreement.”

  “I haven’t asked you for a single thing yet. Ever since I’ve been here.”

  “That’s what we decided. It’s one of the rules we introduced.”

  She lit a cigarette nervously. I perused the front page of the newspaper, which showed a column of tanks advancing in a cloud of dust. “Céline was wrong,” I said. “It’s not the Chinese who are going to invade us.”

  Jérémie’s house had been empty for only a year, but it had a deserted look. This impression was mainly due to the garden, overrun by deadwood, debris, and branches brought down by the violent winds that had swept the coast over recent months, and by the hail, the thunderstorms, the lightning, or else by the frost that had ruined the bougainvillea I had planted when we moved in.

  In front of the porch, the hydrangea bushes had grown enormously but had lost their color. The paint on the shutters had now flaked off completely and one could see the ash-colored wood underneath.

  The placard advertising that it was for sale gave the name and telephone number of Judith’s agency.

  I switched on the ignition again and drove off.

  Being without Roger’s and Judith’s help in these difficult times—not to even mention the chaotic and depressing forces that orchestrated the drunken course of the world—looking after the twins, once it was required of us again, turned into a virtual nightmare. I had begun a new book, which demanded firm discipline on my part, long periods of working in silence, calm, concentration, solitude, etc., which was precisely the opposite of what the girls had in store for me.

  The problem was largely due to the babysitters who would let us down without warning to go and join their boyfriends or commit some misdeed or other that required their immediate dismissal—such as the latest one, who had managed to scald the baby the shade of a lobster.

  All of a sudden, I had to do the shopping, take the girls to the supermarket, find things to interest them, read books such as Bridget Jones’s Diary to them—“Why bother?” I asked myself—or dash off to Bayonne to buy them DVDs and Petit Bateau T-shirts.

  One way or another, my days were disrupted. This was not what I had agreed with Alice. She could move into the house. Period. Nothing else. Move into the house, period. As long as she left me in peace. Nothing else.

  “Very well, I know that. And what do you expect me to do? They’re your granddaughters, you know. It’s not two arms I need, it’s four.”

  The baby was wriggling about on her lap, ready to start crying again. His two sisters were breathing down my neck, waiting to drag me around the shops in town to look for a swimming costume.

  I leaned down to whisper into her ear: “Call Roger. Explain the situation to him. Ask him to come down and take them away on this occasion.”

  “Listen. Don’t involve yourself with that. Let Judith sort it out. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’m not in the mood to run a day nursery at the moment. Isn’t that obvious?”

  I ended the day in the Nouvelles Galeries—they had forgotten their shampoo and wanted to choose a suntan lotion.

  Dusk was falling. Judith was shutting up the agency—her knees bent, holding the door handle with one hand, and turning the key in a lock at
the bottom of the door with the other.

  The girls jumped up to clasp her round the neck. As for me, I took advantage of their hugging to take a close look at her. She had a worried expression.

  “You shouldn’t be doing this,” I said.

  “Selling houses is my job. That’s how I earn my living.”

  We walked down toward the casino and strolled beside the sea, coming across a few surfers—among the hardiest ones probably—who were getting ready to spend the night in their tiny minivan, equipped with a bed, a portable gas stove, and a rack for surfboards.

  Judith was walking with her head down, like a robot. I wanted to tell her that her decision had infuriated me; that no serious reflection could result in the conclusion that she had any reason to see Jérémie again, or speak to him, after the gruesome trick he had played on her.

  She was unsure. They had simply spoken on the telephone.

  “You’re unsure? Have I understood correctly? Do you think there’s anything to be unsure about? Have I heard correctly? You’re unsure? Listen, it’s quite simple. See him again and I wash my hands of what happens. See him again and you’ll regret it. And don’t say I didn’t tell you so.”

  We stopped in front of the ice-cream parlor. I missed not living with her anymore. When I thought about it, I figured that she had done to me what I had done to Johanna and that a sort of natural justice was thereby established, one that might enable us to start again at the beginning, but this was not the case. The two things were not comparable. I wouldn’t have been able to explain why, but the two things were not comparable.

  I turned my gaze in the direction of the Avenue de l’Impératrice. “I should like to know the reason why the dome of St. Alexander Nevsky has been changed from blue to gray,” I remarked, to change the conversation. “Hasn’t anyone made a fuss?”

  Less than a fortnight later, the house had not been sold, but she was sleeping with Jérémie again. The last thing I could have imagined.

  Two or three voices were raised, criticizing me for having created the circumstances for their meeting by paying Jérémie to follow her. But of course they were. Naturally.