Don't Turn Out the Lights

by Bernard Minier

  Christmas. Shit. Our first Christmas Eve. His parents tonight and mine tomorrow. Will they like him? Is he going to like them? You shouldn’t get so worked up: everyone likes Gérald. His colleagues, his students, his friends, his mechanic, even your dog. That’s what you thought the first time, wasn’t it, at the reception at the Capitole? Remember? There were prettier women there, with better figures, slimmer and even, I’m sure, more intelligent – but you’re the one he went up to; even when you gave him the brush-off, he returned for another shot. And then he said, ‘Your voice sounds familiar … where have I heard it before?’ Even when you went on about your job at Radio Five a bit too long, he listened. Really listened. You wanted to be funny, witty, but in the end you weren’t, not all that much. Except where he was concerned: he seemed to think everything you said was ever so amusing and entertaining.

  Maybe everyone liked Gérald – but her parents were not everybody. Her parents were Guy and Claire Dorian. The Dorians who used to be on TV … Who knows what it would take to get yourself liked by people who had interviewed, among others, Arthur Rubinstein, Chagall, Sartre, Tino Rossi, Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin …

  That’s the thing, added the little voice she had learned to hate and obey at the same time, as the years went by. Papa will neither love him nor hate him: he won’t care. Quite simply, my father is only interested in one thing: himself. It’s not easy to have been one of television’s pioneers – a guy who spent all his time on the small screen – then to become anonymous all over again. My father is constantly marinating in nostalgia and memories, and drowns his ennui in alcohol and doesn’t even try to hide it. And besides – so what? He’s free to destroy the final days of his existence if he feels like it: I’m not going to let him destroy mine.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Gérald.

  In his voice there was a faint hint of contrition. She nodded.

  ‘You know, I understand you felt bad because of that letter.’

  She looked at him. Nodded ‘okay’. And thought, Of course you don’t, you don’t understand. They had slowed down; she looked at a huge poster inside a bus shelter: an ad for Dolce & Gabbana. Five strong young men surrounding a woman lying on the ground. Their bodies were muscular, oiled, gleaming. Handsome. Hypersexual. The men were bare-chested and one of them was pinning the woman to the ground. A cheap come-on for zombie consumers, she thought. Poster-women, trophy-women: public space was saturated with women’s bodies. Christine had invited the director of an association for victims of domestic violence onto her programme. Seven days a week she received calls from battered wives, wives who were not allowed to speak to their neighbours, let alone any men other than their husbands, wives who were terrified that the dinner might be overcooked or too salty, wives whose bones bore the traces of fractures and blows, wives who had no access to either a bank account or a doctor, wives who – when they found the courage to go to the association – had an empty, desperate look in their eyes.

  One day, when she was still just a child, she herself had witnessed a scene … That was why she felt the need to invite strong, exemplary women onto her programme, women who were bosses, activists, artists, politicians – and that was also why she would never let a man tell her how to behave.

  Are you absolutely sure?

  Gérald was no longer paying any attention to her. Staring straight ahead, he was lost in his thoughts, and she had no idea what they might be. Who was the author of the letter? She had to find out.

  2

  Score

  She dreamed about the woman. It wasn’t a pleasant dream. The woman was standing in the moonlight in the middle of a lane lined with dark yew trees, not unlike the entrance to the cemetery: further along there was a gate with two tall stone pillars, one on either side. It had snowed and the night was very cold, but the woman was wearing a light nightgown with only two thin straps over her bare shoulders. Christine wanted to continue to the cemetery, but the woman was blocking the way. ‘You did nothing,’ she said. ‘You let me down.’

  ‘I tried,’ she moaned in her dream. ‘I swear I tried. Let me go past now.’

  But just as she was walking by her, the woman’s head pivoted at an angle that made it impossible to keep looking at her, and her eyes filled with ink. A huge flock of black birds began to whirl in the sky, shrieking in the most horrible way, and the woman began to laugh – a hysterical, ugly laugh which woke Christine up. Her heart was racing like a horse.

  The letter.

  She was sorry she had left it in the car; she would have liked to read it again. To think it over. To try and guess who had written it, and to what purpose. A blue night light was glowing on the night table, vaguely illuminating the ceiling. Through the open door, the light in the corridor was shining, its glow extending along the floor. She ventured one leg outside the duvet and felt the icy air on her bare foot. It was freezing cold. Beyond the blinds it was still pitch black, but a rumble of traffic was already audible beneath her window – a web of sound made of cars, scooters and delivery vans. She looked at the clock radio. 7:41 … Shit! She’d overslept! She threw back the duvet and gazed at the empty room, which could easily have been a hotel. A place to sleep, nothing else. And yet when she’d first seen the flat a year ago she had succumbed to its charm, its high ceilings, the marble fireplace in the sitting room. And the neighbourhood that was both secretive and trendy, where she immediately felt at home, with its narrow medieval streets, its restaurants, its bistros, its health food store, launderette, wine shop and Italian deli. Naturally the price was steep. She’d be in debt for thirty years. But she had no regrets. Every time she woke up she thought it was the best decision she had made in years.

  Iggy’s little claws clicked on the floorboards and he jumped up on the duvet and crossed the bed to come and lick her with his little pink tongue. Iggy was a mongrel with a caramel and white coat, pointed ears, and big brown eyes that were round and watchful and reminded her of a famous rock star – hence his name. He tilted his head to one side to gaze at her; she ruffled his fur with a smile and got to her feet.

  She put on an old cashmere polo neck and a pair of thick woollen socks and followed him into the kitchen-sitting room.

  ‘Hold on a sec, Mr Furry,’ she said, while he was already scrabbling imperiously in his bowl as she tried to empty the tin of food.

  The room was bare, apart from an old leather sofa, an IKEA coffee table and a flat-screen television on a stand next to the fireplace. Only the kitchen area had been decorated. A solitary rowing machine had pride of place, with weights next to it. Christine liked to exercise while watching television. A breakfast show was currently playing, with the sound muted. The television had stayed on all night – like every night. There were piles of books, newspapers and magazines on the floor by the fireplace: Christine was one of the star presenters on Radio Five, a private radio station; her time slot was from nine to eleven a.m. every day except Saturday – when the programme was pre-recorded – and Sunday. Mornings with Christine was a cocktail of news, music, games and comedy – with decreasing news coverage and more and more comedy as time went by. In less than an hour she had to be at the studio for the Christmas special.

  She wondered if this would be a good opportunity to mention the letter to someone. She had a friendly rapport with Bercowitz, the psychiatrist. He took part in the programme once a week, generally on Wednesdays, though this week they had brought his feature forward a day to have it on Christmas. Because he was good. Because he sounded good on air.

  Yes, Bercowitz would tell her whether he thought the letter was authentic or not. Perhaps he might even know what to do.

  But he might also criticise her for not doing anything – for the very fact that she’d waited too long. In the end, she and Gérald had not notified the police. She hadn’t had the courage to spoil the evening any more than she already had. Gérald’s parents had clearly tried to make everything perfect. They did not seem to be upset when they arrived two hours late.
Gérald’s father was an older version of his son, a model that had improved with the following generation but whose principal characteristics were already present in the original concept: elegance, sturdiness, self-control, warm brown eyes, a direct enveloping gaze, a discreetly charming temperament. A brilliant mind, but one that could be rigid, too, with little inclination towards subtlety or lightness. And an unfortunate tendency to view women as subservient to men.

  His mother’s genes had visibly had a harder time finding their way into the boy’s DNA, but Christine wondered whether the fact that his mother never dared contradict his father, and the way she always agreed with her husband, explained why Gérald so disliked being contradicted – particularly by his future wife.

  They had showered her in presents. A tablet computer, a Bluetooth dock that enabled her to directly connect her phone to loudspeakers (she suspected these presents were her future father-in-law’s idea, because he was just as avid as his son about technology), a sweater (Gérald’s mother). And they seemed enthusiastic about everything she said. Only Gérald’s gaze (which she had caught watching her several times while she spoke) had seemed to her a touch more critical.

  It was surely because of their argument in the car … you should have been less pushy …

  Once Iggy was noisily poking in his bowl, she went over to the counter and prepared a cup of coffee, a glass of mango and passion fruit juice, and spread some low-fat butter onto pieces of Swedish crispbread. She was perched on one of the stainless steel bar stools, dipping them in her coffee, when she heard the little voice in her head again: If you actually believe your parents are going to make things easier for you, you really are kidding yourself. You will never be Madeleine, Chris. Never …

  A sudden rush of acid, a cramp in her stomach.

  Childhood: it doesn’t last long but you never get over it, the voice went on. That broken child is still there inside – isn’t that so, Christine?

  The child who is afraid when night falls … the one who saw what she should never have seen …

  Her glass of fruit juice shattered on the tiles at her feet, and she jumped off the stool to pick up the pieces of glass. A sharp pain when a tiny splinter as brilliant as a diamond lodged in her forefinger. Shit! Her finger immediately began to squirt blood. It mingled with a puddle of fruit juice like a cloud of pomegranate in a cocktail. She instantly felt her heart begin to beat faster. Her mouth went dry. Tiny drops of sweat formed on her forehead. Breathe. She couldn’t stand the sight of blood. Breathe. Bercowitz had taught her an abdominal exercise. She closed her eyes, let her diaphragm relax and her thorax open to the maximum, then she exhaled without forcing it, pulling in her stomach. She stood up straight and tore a paper towel from the roll with a trembling hand, then fashioned a bulky bandage, careful not to look at her finger. After that she grabbed the sponge and wiped the spot from the floor, also without looking.

  Then she peeked at her finger. And immediately regretted it.

  The large makeshift bandage was already soaked with red. She gulped. Good job you’re on the radio and not the television.

  The clock on the wall said 8:03. Get a move on!

  She hurried to the bathroom, pulled off her sweater and her socks. The globe light on the ceiling was blinking: the bulb was about to go out. Every tiny moment of darkness was like an infinitesimal cut with a razor on her skin, every flicker of light a splinter in her flesh. Phobias, said the exasperating little voice. Not only a phobia of blood, but also of the dark, of needles, vaccinations. Injections, pain … Nyctophobia. Algophobia. And they each had a name. And the ultimate fear: of going mad. Because of all these fears. That too had a name: dementophobia – the fear of mental illness. She had managed to control these phobias, to keep them within reasonable bounds with the help of tranquillisers and therapy, but she had never managed to banish them completely. They were there, somewhere, always ready to resurface. She clenched her teeth. She was only half pleased with what she saw in the mirror, distorted by the strobe effect: a woman in her thirties. Chestnut hair, one blonde strand falling to the side of her face, short behind the ears. Green eyes. She was pretty, there was no doubt about that. But her features had hardened over time. And there were little wrinkles, still faint, at the corner of her eyes. Her body, however, was exactly as it had been ten years earlier: narrow hips, flat chest.

  She slipped into the shower, careful to keep the bandage away from the spray. The hot water relaxed the tension in her muscles. She thought about the letter again. About the woman who had written it. Where was she? What was she doing right now? She felt a gnawing ache of apprehension in her belly. Ten minutes later, after she had gratified Iggy with one last caress, she was locking her door, her hair still wet from the shower.

  ‘Good morning, Christine,’ said Michèle, her neighbour from across the landing.

  She turned to the little woman – exceptionally slender, weighing less than fifty kilos – standing in the shadows. She had long grey hair, far too long for her age. Christine knew she was retired, and something about her bearing, her diction, and her vision of the world made Christine think she must have worked for the Ministry of Education. Since retiring, Michèle had been spending her days as an activist, campaigning for associations in support of undocumented immigrants or the right to housing, and she took part in all the demonstrations denouncing the city’s policies for being not far enough to the left.

  Christine was sure that Michèle and her friends criticised her programme behind her back, because she gave equal time to both union leaders and company bosses, or to council representatives and even the local right wing, and – and this was something she herself deplored – serious topics were becoming increasingly rare.

  ‘What is the topic of today’s programme?’ asked her neighbour, in an astonishingly loud voice.

  ‘Christmas,’ answered Christine. ‘Along with solitude, for people who dread this period. Merry Christmas, by the way.’

  She immediately regretted her effort to defend herself. Her neighbour shot her a sharp glance.

  ‘In that case, you should have broadcast from the squat on the rue du Professeur Jammes. There you would have seen what Christmas really means to families who have neither a roof nor a future in this country.’

  Fuck off, thought Christine. It occurred to her that her pint-sized neighbour might have a tiny little mouth, but far too much came out of it.

  ‘One day I’ll invite you, don’t worry,’ she called as she hurried down the stairs without waiting for the lift. ‘And you’ll have all the time you like to express your views, I promise.’

  The cold outside air did her good. It was roughly minus five degrees, and she nearly went flying on the slippery pavement. The smell of exhaust and pollution lingered in the air. There was snow on the roofs of the parked cars, on the windowsills and the dustbin lids, and yet there the homeless man was still, manning the fort on the opposite pavement. Amid his pieces of cardboard. Even in this kind of weather he preferred to sleep on the street than in a shelter. He peered out of his cocoon of rolled blankets. His beard was white on the sides and black in the middle, like the coat of an old animal. How old was he? It was hard to say. Between forty-five and sixty … He had been sleeping in the doorway of the building across the street for some months. She seemed to recall he had shown up in the spring. When she had time, she took him a hot coffee. Or some soup. But not this morning. Nevertheless she crossed the road, a coin in her hand.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘Not too warm today. Mind you don’t slip.’

  He held out his hand. His fingers and short nails were almost the same colour as the black fingerless glove he was wearing. Not twenty centimetres from his pieces of cardboard and the bulbous pile of plastic bags, the pavement was covered in snow.

  ‘Go and get yourself something hot to drink,’ she said.

  He nodded. A shrewd gleam flickered in the grey eyes beneath thick black brows; he gave a slight frown, which formed an entire network o
f sooty creases around his temples.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ he said. ‘You look preoccupied to me. It’s the weight of all those worries, isn’t it? All those responsibilities…’

  She could not help but smile. He was sleeping outside and it was minus five, he had nothing but a few meagre possessions crammed into black bin liners which he dragged around with him wherever he went like a snail with its house, with neither family nor roof over his head, and an even bleaker future, as far as she knew – and he was worried about her. That was what had surprised her, the first time she went up to him to give him some change. He had spontaneously struck up a conversation, and she had been floored by his poised, clear, quietly self-assured voice. The sort of voice you want to listen to in the middle of a hubbub of conversation. The sort of voice that indicates a certain level of education and culture. He never complained. He often smiled. He spoke about the weather and the news with her as if they were old neighbours. Thus far she had never dared ask him where he came from or how he had ended up here, what his story was. But she had promised herself she would one day, if he was still in the neighbourhood.

  ‘Are you sure you want to stay here? Isn’t there an emergency shelter somewhere?’

  He smiled at her indulgently.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever set foot in a shelter. Don’t take it the wrong way, it’s just that those places aren’t very … you know what I mean. Don’t worry about me. I’m as tough as an old coyote. And the good weather will soon be here again, it’s just a rough period to get through, my fine lady.’