The Circle

by Bernard Minier

  Next to a rusty letterbox and the creamy cloud of a flowering bush, a second sign indicated he should leave the little road for an even bumpier track. The last hundred metres took him through a veritable tunnel of vegetation. It was getting ever darker and he was increasingly jittery. Another sign, a big one this time, informed him:

  ROTTWEILERS, DOBERMANS, ALSATIANS, AMSTAFFS,

  DOGOS ARGENTINOS, BORDEAUX MASTIFFS.

  If the sign wasn’t clear enough as it was, there was a rough drawing of a dog. Elvis had painted it himself. On his right, a terrifying commotion of barking and yapping greeted him in the silence. He smiled on hearing the chain-link clang as his beloved doggies hurled themselves furiously against the fence. The huge dogs seemed to excite each other to the point of barking until their throats bled – then they tired of it, and the noise abated.

  No doubt they too felt the effects of the heat. Nothing was moving, not even the air, which was as inert as lead; the only sign of life came from the buzzing of flies and the clicking of the engine as it cooled down. He took a pack of cigarettes from his jeans pocket and stuck one between his lips. He inhaled the dogs’ smell – wild and dangerous, deeply satisfying. Then he lit his cigarette and started walking towards the house. His torso was still wrapped in a dirty bandage covering a whole row of stitches, and in this heat it was incredibly itchy. Still, he was happy to have left hospital, and to be at home again with his precious hounds.

  And his weapon.

  A superposed Rizzini rifle, 20 calibre, for hunting big game.

  Only a few more metres and he’d be in a safe place. He walked across the clearing, went up the steps to the veranda, and put the key in the lock. Living deep in the woods had been an advantage until today. An advantage for his little business, which required calm and discretion. But not today. Today he would rather have been in town, to lose himself in the crowd. The only thing was that he couldn’t leave the mutts alone for too long. They must be famished after his stay in hospital. Tonight, however, he had neither the strength nor the courage to venture over to the cages. It was much too dark. He’d feed them tomorrow, as soon as he got up.

  He went through the door, closed it behind him, and went to get his rifle and ammunition.

  Go ahead, you’ll see what you see. Don’t go fucking with Elvis, he’ll fuck you right back.

  28

  Lost Hearts

  Margot couldn’t stand the heat in the room any more. She splashed her face at the tap in the little sink. She reached for her towel and began to open the door to head to the showers, and then she heard them.

  ‘What do you want?’ Sarah was saying, two doors further down.

  ‘You have to come. It’s David.’

  ‘Look, Virginie—’

  ‘Move it!’

  Margot peered through the doorframe. Virginie and Sarah were facing each other, one in the corridor, the other in the doorway to her room. Second-year students were entitled to private rooms. Sarah nodded and followed her friend towards the stairs.

  Shit!

  Margot wondered what she ought to do. You could hear the urgency and stress in Virginie’s voice. She had mentioned David. Margot took a split second to decide, then put her bare feet into her Converse trainers and hurried out. The corridor was empty. She moved stealthily towards the stairway.

  She could hear them going down.

  She followed down the monumental staircase, her hand running along the balustrade. Through the big stained-glass window on the landing she could see the sun setting behind buildings huddled in the red dusk. When she emerged, the air seemed as solid as a pane of glass, but the evening was gradually bringing a soothing balm to the burning day.

  Where were they?

  She saw them at the last minute: two figures merging into the black mass of forest all the way at the end of the tennis courts.

  She began running in that direction, as silently as possible, through shadows and clouds of midges. But as soon as she reached the end of the path, the shadows grew darker and denser, melting into each other to create an ominous twilight – and she hesitated, no longer sure she wanted to continue.

  Where had they gone? A cracking sound in the forest. Then Sarah’s voice, from its depths: ‘David!’ Straight ahead of her there was a path. She could hardly see it in the murky undergrowth. She turned round to go back to the dormitory – no way was she going in there. Then curiosity, a need to know, got the upper hand and she spun round, back to the forest.

  What the hell …?

  She made her way through the branches and thickets. Spiders’ webs between the leaves brushed against her face; dozens of insects buzzed around her. She was treading cautiously but the girls ahead of her were making too much noise to notice her presence. The fading daylight left large patches of dusty light between the trees above her, but down by the ground it was darker and cooler.

  ‘David, fuck, what the hell are you doing?’

  Voices over there: they had found him. Margot’s mouth went dry with fear; she stepped on a twig that snapped like a firecracker and for a moment she was afraid the noise might attract their attention, but they were far too preoccupied.

  ‘My God, David, what have you done?’

  Sarah’s voice echoed in the forest, near panic. And panic was bloody contagious: Margot herself was on the verge of freaking out. She moved cautiously between the branches of the fir trees and found a clearing bathed in a twilight glow.

  What the fuck was going on?

  David was standing bare-chested on the far side of the clearing, his back against a grey tree trunk, his arms widespread. He was clinging to two thick branches that were almost perfectly horizontal, in a strange position that evoked a crucifixion. His head was down, his chin on his chest, as if he had lost consciousness. She could not see his face. Only his blond hair. And his beard. A blond Christ. Suddenly he lifted his head and she nearly leapt backwards when she saw his pale, mad gaze.

  It was as if an electric current were flashing along her arms when she saw the red marks on David’s chest. Very recent gashes. Then she saw the knife, in his right hand. The blade was red, too.

  ‘Hey, girls.’

  ‘Fuck, David, what’s your problem?’ said Virginie. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  Her voice echoed in the silence. David gave a little laugh as he looked down at his bloody chest.

  ‘I really fucked up, didn’t I? How do you do it? How do you manage to stay cool with everything that’s going on?’

  Was he on drugs? He looked completely out of it. He was trembling from head to toe, laughing and crying at the same time – or at least it looked like laughter, or a snigger … There were four gashes on his chest and the blood was still forming on each of them. It looked like smeared paint. Margot saw an enormous scar further down, directly across his abdomen, just above his navel.

  ‘I can’t take any more of this shit … it has to stop, we can’t go on like this …’

  Silence.

  ‘Really, I’m serious, what’s the point? What the fuck are we doing? How far will we go?’

  ‘Get a hold of yourself.’

  Virginie’s voice. Yet again.

  ‘And Hugo? Have you thought about Hugo?’

  From her hiding place behind a bush, Margot saw David roll his head from side to side and look at the sky.

  ‘What can I do about Hugo being in jail?’

  ‘Fuck, he’s your best friend, David! You know how much he cares for you; you know how much he cares for us. He needs us. He needs you. We have to get him out of there.’

  ‘Oh yeah? And just how do we go about that? You see, that’s the difference between him and me … If I were in his place, no one would give a damn. Hugo has always had people around him, he’s always had his admirers … They’re there for the taking … All he has to do is snap his fingers for Sarah to open her legs. Even you, Virginie; you’d never admit it, ever, but basically there’s only one thing you dream of: that he’ll give you one. Whe
reas I—’

  ‘Shut up!’

  Birds left the trees in a great rustling of wings, frightened by her shout.

  ‘I can’t take it any more … I can’t take it any more.’

  Now he was sobbing. Sarah rushed across the clearing to put her arms around him. Virginie seized the moment to take the knife from him. They sat David down in the grass at the foot of the tree. It was like watching a descent from the cross, thought Margot. Sarah was caressing his cheeks, his forehead; she kissed him delicately and tenderly.

  ‘My baby,’ she murmured, ‘my poor baby …’

  Margot wondered if they’d all gone stark raving mad. At the same time there was something about their madness – and David’s pain – which made her heart bleed. Only Virginie seemed lucid.

  ‘You have to deal with this,’ she said firmly. ‘You have to see a shrink, David, for Christ’s sake! This can’t go on!’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ said Sarah. ‘Not now. Can’t you see the state he’s in?’

  She stroked his blond hair, held him tight, maternally; shaking with sobs, he placed his head on her shoulder, even though she was a good ten centimetres shorter than him.

  ‘You have to think about Hugo,’ said Virginie again, lowering her voice. ‘He needs us. Are you listening? Hugo would give his life for you! For every one of us! And you were behaving like … like … What the fuck, we have no right to abandon him. We have to get him out of there. And we can’t do it without you.’

  Frozen as if hypnotised by the scene, Margot could not move. A solitary bird let out a long, shrill cry that startled her, breaking the spell.

  You have to get out of here. If they find you here, who knows what they might do? And the way they’re behaving. Why do I think it’s downright … unhealthy? It’s as if something is binding them to each other. An indestructible bond. What would Elias make of it? And her father?

  She wanted to get out of there – she was being eaten alive by insects on top of everything else – but she was too close. At the slightest movement, they would hear her. And that thought alone was enough to turn her stomach. She had no choice but to stay there, and she was finding it harder and harder to breathe, her palms damp on her thighs, her knees aching.

  David nodded slowly. Virginie crouched down in front of him and lifted his chin.

  ‘Get a grip, please. The Circle will be meeting soon. You’re right – maybe it’s time to put an end to it all. This business has gone on long enough. But we still have a job to finish.’

  The Circle . . . This was the second time she had heard the word. Something oppressive, deeply sinister, was in the air. The buzzing of crickets and insects, nightfall: Margot could feel it in her nerves, her veins. She wished she could leave. Suddenly, they stood up.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Virginie, handing David the T-shirt he had tossed into the grass. ‘Put this on. You’ll come with us, right? No one must see you in that state.’

  It was getting darker and darker in the clearing. David nodded silently. Margot saw him pull his T-shirt on over his thin torso and the four wounds, now more black than red in the fading light. She watched as Sarah and Virginie led him away from the clearing towards the path to the lycée and she withdrew deeper still into the shadow, her blood pounding in her temples. She waited for a long time among the bushes, until there was nothing left but the silence of the forest, a silence disturbed by various noises she could not identify.

  She had the vague and paranoid impression that she was not alone. That someone was there … She trembled. The moon had risen above the trees. But the night was deceiving.

  How long did she stay there without moving? She had no idea.

  There was something enchanted – in the malevolent sense of the word – about the scene she had just witnessed. A strange atmosphere she could not define. What she had seen had upset her deeply. She sensed that they were beyond all salvation. She had a confused understanding that they had crossed a line, a boundary, and that they could no longer go back. Suddenly, she didn’t feel like digging any more. She wanted to move on to something else. She would tell Elias to manage on his own.

  She waited a little longer, then she began to move. And froze immediately.

  A branch had just cracked, right nearby. As if someone had stepped on it. She stood stock still and listened carefully, but all she could hear was the pounding of her heart in her ears and the rustling of foliage overhead.

  What was it? Like an animal on the alert, she swung her head from left to right. But the forest was getting darker and darker. Only the sky above was still a lighter grey. What was it?

  She took another step towards the path, when she was brutally shoved forward and thrown to the ground. She felt an enormous weight come down on her back. She landed hard. She could smell marijuana on someone’s breath, a warm exhalation against her chin, while a hand crushed her head into the earth and leaves.

  ‘You were spying on us, bitch, weren’t you?’

  She wriggled, but David was crushing her. His cheek against hers. His coarse beard scratching her skin.

  ‘You know I’ve always fancied you, Margot. I’ve always had a thing about your piercings and your tattoos, I’ve always wanted your tight arse. But of course you only had eyes for Hugo – like all of you sluts!’

  ‘David, let me go!’

  With horror she felt a warm, damp hand groping its way under her T-shirt, fingers reaching for one of her breasts.

  ‘What are you doing, for Christ’s sake? Stop it! Shit, stop it!’

  ‘You know what we do to girls like you? Seriously, do you know what we do?’

  His voice like a murmur in her ear. Suddenly his fingers twisted her nipple, and she cried out in pain. Another hand was already sliding into her shorts from behind. ‘What’s your problem? Doesn’t the idea of a nice little quickie turn you on? Don’t tell me you’d rather do it with that idiot?’

  He was going to rape her. The prospect was so inconceivable, so unreal, that her brain would not allow it. Here, only a few dozen metres from the lycée … She was overwhelmed by a blinding terror. She struggled with all her might and he had to remove his hands to grab her wrists and pin her to the ground. He was strong. Too strong for her.

  ‘Granted, granted, I am a scoundrel, but she is a woman of a noble heart, full of sentiments, refined by education. And yet … oh, if only she felt for me!’

  His hand returned to its assault on her shorts, this time at the front, beneath her belly, while he was reciting. Inquisitive fingers in the space between her clothes and her skin. She gasped again. She felt David press up against her buttocks. He was hard.

  ‘But Katerina Ivanovna, though she is magnanimous, she is unjust …’

  ‘Tolstoy!’ she guessed, to distract his attention, still wriggling vigorously.

  ‘Ah-hah, nice try! Wrong! It’s Dostoyevsky: Crime and Punishment. What a pity that idiot Van Acker isn’t here. Especially as he’s got a soft spot for you.’

  A finger had found its way into her pants.

  ‘Stop! Let me go! David, don’t do this! Don’t do this!’

  ‘Shut up,’ he murmured in her ear. ‘Shut your mouth right now.’

  Words uttered in a quiet voice. Quiet, but changed. Heavy with threat. He was no longer acting. He was elsewhere; he had become someone else.

  He had slapped his other hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming, and Margot tried to bite him. In vain. With absolute horror, she felt David’s finger slide deeper into her pants. Incapable of reacting, her mind detached itself from her body. This was not her, either, it was someone else.

  What was happening did not concern her.

  He was going to take off her shorts, then he would rape her, there, on the ground …

  It doesn’t concern you …

  Suddenly, David’s hand withdrew from her pants and she heard him swear. There was a blow, then he gave a cry of pain, and before she could even get to her feet, she saw his face crushed on the ground ne
xt to hers.

  ‘You’re hurting me!’

  ‘Shut up, fucking shitface!’

  She recognised that voice. She rolled over and found herself looking at her father’s assistant – the one with the strange face, but super-cool clothes – and she was putting handcuffs on David, her knee on his back.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Samira Cheung, looking at her.

  She nodded, and wiped the earth and blades of grass from her knees.

  ‘I wasn’t going to do it,’ moaned David, his cheek against the ground. ‘I swear to you, fuck, I wasn’t going to do it! It was just for fun!’

  ‘What weren’t you going to do?’ Samira’s voice was as sharp and threatening as a razor blade. ‘Rape her, right? You already did, you wanker. What you did is called rape, you stupid fuck.’

  She saw David’s shoulders shake with a sob.

  ‘Leave him alone,’ said Margot.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Leave him … he just wanted to frighten me. He didn’t mean to rape me, it’s true.’

  ‘Oh, really? And how do you know that?’

  ‘Let him go.’

  ‘Margot …’

  ‘I won’t file a complaint, anyway. You can’t make me.’

  ‘Margot, it’s because of this sort of—’

  ‘Leave him alone! Let him go!’

  She met David’s gaze. There was a mixture of incomprehension and gratitude in his golden eyes.

  ‘Whatever you say – but you can be sure I’ll tell your father.’

  She nodded, shameful, as the woman gave her a furious gaze. There was the clicking sound of the handcuffs being removed. Margot saw Samira pull David to his feet and stick her face not two inches from his, her eyes as black as tar.

  ‘Are you scared? Because you should be. You were that close to messing up your entire life, and hers, and I’ll have my eye on you from now on. Do me a favour: do something stupid. Just one thing. Anything. And I’ll be there.’