The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau

by Graeme Macrae Burnet

  Zola’s description of his characters, trapped by temperament and lacking free will, felt like a release to Manfred. A burden was lifted from his shoulders. He too was a prisoner of the forces that had shaped him: the awkward, unsociable nature that made everyone ill at ease in his company; his dismal situation as an imposter in his grandparent’s house; his uncertainty at what path to take when he left school. He was no longer in control of his own destiny. What, after all, had lead him to meet the girl in the yellow dress? Not free will, but fate.

  She appeared on the fourth day, as Manfred knew she would.

  ‘Hello,’ she said as she stepped into the little clearing.

  ‘Hello,’ said Manfred. On the rug he had laid out a brown paper bag of cherries and the flask of apple juice he had brought in his satchel. Manfred lay on his side, his head propped on his hand, his book open in front of him. The girl sat down as she had before, her arms clasped around her knees, her back to Manfred. She was wearing the same dress as before.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ she asked.

  ‘All day,’ said Manfred.

  ‘Were you waiting for me?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. He liked the fact that the girl did not look at him when she spoke.

  ‘What if I hadn’t come?’

  ‘I’d have come back tomorrow,’ he said.

  ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘I wanted to see you again.’

  ‘I wanted to see you too,’ said the girl.

  ‘It’s strange, don’t you think that we met the way we did,’ said Manfred. ‘I mean, if I hadn’t been in this clearing at the exact moment that you came by, if you had taken a different turning, if you hadn’t been on holiday here, if I had been born somewhere else…’

  The girl did not look round, but she shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘You might as well say that whenever two people meet it’s strange. Our meeting is no stranger than any other meeting between two people who don’t know each other.’

  ‘But we didn’t plan to meet, did we?’ said Manfred.

  ‘How could two strangers plan to meet?’ said the girl. ‘If they had intended to meet, they wouldn’t be strangers.’

  Manfred was silent for a moment.

  ‘What I mean is,’ Manfred went on, feeling like he was leaping off a cliff without knowing how deep the water below was, ‘that neither of us has exerted any will of our own. And yet, because of this happenstance, something – maybe everything – has changed.’

  The girl looked over her shoulder at Manfred for the first time. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I feel it too.’

  That evening Manfred chatted merrily with his grandparents over the evening meal. He could see them exchanging bemused glances as he solicitously asked if they had had a pleasant day. The fug that normally surrounded him had lifted. Everything was light. Afterwards he helped clear away the dishes and joined his grandfather in his workshop and helped him bevel the edges of a chest of drawers he was making.

  In bed that night, the dark, gloomy world of Zola no longer held any appeal. The desperate animal lust of Thérèse Raquin and her lover no longer attracted him. He lay instead in a reverie in which the girl was the protagonist and he her unworthy suitor. Unlike the dark fantasies he entertained about other girls, he had no lustful thoughts about the girl in the yellow dress. His love (he had no reservation about using this word) for her was on an altogether more elevated plain. When they parted, she had kissed him lightly on the cheek and they had clasped each other’s fingers for a few seconds.

  The following days were the happiest of Manfred’s life. Even as he was experiencing them, he felt that it was not possible to be happier – for him or for anyone. He knew too that the girl felt the same. They had invented love. Until the moment the girl had stepped into the clearing, love had existed only as a word, an abstract concept that no other person had actually experienced.

  They met every day. Manfred brought the rug to sit on and stuffed his satchel with bread, pâté and fruit from his grandparents’ larder. They ate lunch, feeling less like teenagers than a contented aging couple. Juliette came from Troyes. Her father was a lawyer who expected her to follow him into the profession. He was a taciturn man of iron will. Her mother was a docile woman whom Juliette had never once seen stand up to her father. She was a mere extension of her husband, who spent her days lunching with other such wives, shopping or having her hair done. But she was always home in time to dress for the evening meal. Juliette despised her. She had no interest in law, but she felt unable to resist her father’s strictures. She was not blessed with a rebellious nature. These illicit meetings with Manfred were the greatest transgressions of her life. She envied Manfred’s freedom and wished her own parents dead.

  Yet despite her view of herself as meek and compliant, Manfred found Juliette quite unique and possessed of a self-confidence he envied. She was not at all like the superficial, giggling girls he observed at school, with their twin manias for clothes and the very stupidest boys. Juliette had a sense of herself that did not require the affirmation of others. She was beautiful without ever giving the impression of thinking twice about her appearance.

  Manfred encouraged her to stand up to her father, to follow her own course in life, whatever that might be. Juliette reminded Manfred of the speech he had delivered on the subject of Zola’s preface to Thérèse Raquin. If he really believed what he had said, weren’t we all like rats on a wheel scurrying in a predetermined direction, unable to change course? But Manfred was full of plans for the two of them. They would elope to Paris, or further afield, to Amsterdam, London or New York. Manfred would write a great novel, an epic series, like Zola’s Rougon-Macquart cycle, and they would be fêted among the artists and writers of Europe. Years later, Juliette’s father would appear unexpectedly at their door. He would break down, admitting that his dictatorial ways had driven his daughter from the family and that it was only now in old age that he realised this. He would be proud that his daughter had made her own way in the world. Then Manfred and his father-in-law would sit up into the small hours, drinking whisky and reflecting on the paths their lives had taken.

  Juliette smiled indulgently at Manfred’s fantasy. ‘You haven’t met my father,’ she said. ‘In any case, would I not then just be following your dream instead of my father’s?’

  On the final day of Juliette’s holiday, the lovers met in the clearing as usual. Manfred felt melancholy. The thought of not seeing his beloved for days or weeks was too much to bear. He could not, knowing now that there was an alternative, return to his old life of torpor.

  Juliette had brought two bottles of rough cider from the cellar of the cottage.

  ‘If my father finds out, he’ll kill me,’ she laughed.

  Manfred was disturbed that she could be so light-hearted on this black day, but he determined not to spoil their last hours together by reverting to his gloomy ways. They popped the stone stopper of the first bottle and passed it back and forth. They talked animatedly of how they would write to each other every day, sending their letters poste restante under outrageous pseudonyms. At weekends Manfred would travel to Troyes and sleep rough in the railway station just for the chance to snatch a few minutes with his beloved. They would smuggle notes to each other with dramatic entreaties: Do not fail me! I am forever yours! My love, I am pining for you!

  Yet Manfred was preoccupied. Thus far their relationship had been consummated by no more than goodbye kisses and holding hands. As they sat side by side now on the blanket, Juliette held Manfred’s fingers gently between her hands. But with the prospect of days or weeks without seeing one another, Manfred felt that they must mark the time they had spent together in some way. They must give their bodies to each other as a statement that they now belonged together and that their lives would from that moment be intertwined. As Manfred had contemplated this the previous evening, he had not thought of it as a sexual act (the practicalities of such a thing terrified him), but rather, although he considered
himself an atheist, as something spiritual. He could think of no other way to describe it.

  As they sat, blithely wittering about their future together, Manfred’s stomach was churning. He had no idea how to initiate such a thing. Thus, he had decided that he would trust to fate – if it happened, it was because it was meant to happen. If it didn’t, so be it. He also placed his faith in the fact that ever since he had met Juliette, their thoughts and feelings had wholly coincided. Was it not almost certain therefore that she had lain alone on her bed the previous night having entirely the same thoughts as he had? Was it, moreover, not inevitable that she had shared the same thoughts? Perhaps she had brought the cider along with the intention of easing their passage into adulthood.

  They finished the first bottle. Manfred felt it go to his head. He broke off a chunk of bread and chewed on it to alleviate the mild nausea he felt. Juliette, seemingly oblivious to the effects, flipped open the stopper of the second bottle and handed it to Manfred. A little sun filtered down to the forest floor. The soft blonde hairs on Juliette’s arm shone as she passed the bottle to him. She let out a small hiccup and covered her mouth with her free hand, giggling a little. This display of tipsiness reassured Manfred.

  The time came for Juliette to leave. Manfred was gripped by fear. It was now or never. He grasped Juliette’s wrist gently and said her name. She moved her face towards his as if she had been waiting for this invitation. Their mouths met, clumsily at first. Juliette manoeuvred her body so that her face was perpendicular to his. She pushed the tip of her tongue between Manfred’s lips. Her hand clasped his neck. Manfred’s mind soared off into the trees. He had no idea that such intensity was possible. Soon they were lying next to each other. Manfred’s left hand rested on Juliette’s hip. Did he dare to slide it down and feel the curve of her buttock under her dress? He did so, his fingertips alive to the grain of the cotton.

  Emboldened, Manfred drew his lips down to her neck. Juliette held his head tightly there, her breath quickening. Manfred ran his tongue to the junction of her neck and shoulder. With her free hand, Juliette unbuttoned the top buttons of her dress, took Manfred’s hand in hers and pressed it onto her breast. Manfred cupped the soft flesh in his palm. Her nipple was firm between his fingers.

  Manfred had not counted on such a rapid progress. He had only the sketchiest idea of what was expected of him. The thought of disappointing Juliette appalled him, but they were on the brink of something momentous. There was no choice but to go through with it. Juliette moaned softly as he caressed her breast. Her eyes were closed. Manfred manoeuvred himself on top of her and continued to kiss her on the neck. Then as quickly as it had begun, Juliette gripped his wrist and said, ‘Let’s not. Not now.’

  Manfred simultaneously felt a wave of relief and a feeling that it was too late to stop, as if he was the driver of a locomotive spotting a car on a level crossing only a few metres ahead.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he heard himself saying, but as he said it he ground his groin against her. He recalled how his mother had described her feeling of being overpowered by her father as he kissed against a tree in this same forest all these years before. He had his hands on Juliette’s neck. He could not now prevent himself from coming and as he did so he raised himself to see Juliette’s face. Her eyes were bulging. Her body convulsed beneath him, heightening his passion. Then they both went limp. Manfred felt suddenly ashamed. He rolled off and lay next to Juliette waiting for his breathing to settle, staring at the branches of the trees shimmering above them.

  He took Juliette’s hand in his.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t stop myself.’

  She didn’t reply. Manfred raised himself onto his elbow. Juliette’s head lay slackly to one side. Her mouth and eyes were open. She was not breathing.

  Manfred stared at her blankly for a few long moments. Then he nudged her arm. She didn’t react. He placed his hand on her heart. It was not beating. Manfred leapt to his feet, his hand over his mouth. He felt himself gasping for breath then he threw up, turning his head away from the rug. He retched until there was nothing more in his stomach. He sat there on his knees for a long time, or what seemed like a long time. Perhaps it was no more than a minute. What he remembered most was the horrible look of disbelief and betrayal frozen on Juliette’s face.

  Manfred got up from his knees. He surveyed the surrounding trees. Nobody had seen them and there had been nothing to hear. If Juliette had only cried out, he would have stopped. He had not been aware of what he was doing. Manfred realised that what he was about to do was dreadful, but he braced himself to go through with it. He cleared the two bottles off the rug and put them in his knapsack. Then he picked up the apple cores they had left on the ground, the end of a baguette, the wax paper wrapper of the pâté and the knife they had used to spread it. Next he grasped the corner of the rug and tugged it hard. Juliette’s body rolled slowly off it into an ungainly heap. Her face was pressed against the ground and her dress was rumpled around her waist. Manfred pulled it down over her buttocks. Tears were streaming down his face, but he surveyed the clearing for any other debris. He scuffed the thin pool of his vomit into the earth and slowly backed out, unable to take his eyes off the wreckage of Juliette’s body. Then he turned and ran through the trees.

  Nine

  THE WOMAN WAS STANDING by the bank of metal mailboxes in the foyer, leafing through her post. Manfred was leaving for work as he always did at 8.15. She was wearing a grey business suit and the blouse he had found in the laundry room. Manfred felt pleased by this, as if it was a gift he had given her and she was wearing it to please him. Manfred normally collected his mail in the evening when he returned from work, but he stopped and unlocked his box. There was never anything of interest in there and there was no wastepaper basket in the lobby to discard junk mail, which meant either stuffing it into his briefcase and disposing of it at work or carrying it in his hand to the litter bin in the street. The woman looked up from her mail and said good morning. She did not seem displeased to see him. She smiled. There were laughter lines around her eyes.

  ‘Oh, good morning,’ Manfred said, trying to appear as if he had only just noticed her.

  ‘How are you?’ she said.

  ‘Well,’ said Manfred. ‘And you?’

  The woman shrugged, widened her eyes slightly, as if the answer to Manfred’s question was self-evident. Manfred reached into his box and retrieved a handful of pamphlets. There was a pet product catalogue along with leaflets advertising offers at local supermarkets.

  ‘The usual,’ he said.

  The woman proffered her own bundle in a show of solidarity. ‘I can’t believe they think anyone actually looks at this stuff,’ she said.

  ‘Actually,’ said Manfred, ‘studies have shown that direct mailings are by far the most effective form of advertising. In comparison, television or radio commercials are rather inefficient. Mail-outs can be much more easily directed at the target market. They’re cheap and can be easily adapted to local communities.’

  The woman raised her eyebrows, rolled her eyes slightly. ‘Quite the smooth talker, aren’t you, Manfred Baumann?’ Manfred could feel his cheeks colouring. Despite the woman’s sardonic tone, he was pleased that she remembered his name.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ he said.

  ‘Actually, I owe you an apology,’ she said. ‘I was very rude when we met before and didn’t introduce myself.’ She held out her hand. ‘Alice Tarrou.’

  Manfred stuffed his mail back into his box and took her hand. ‘Manfred Baumann,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I know.’

  They moved towards the entrance of the building. Manfred held the door open for her. Alice indicated that she was walking in the opposite direction from town. Without thinking, Manfred accompanied her. It was sunny and there was the characteristic freshness in the air of the time of year. The grass verge that separated the apartment block from the main road glistened with dew. Manfred commented tha
t it was a pleasant morning and Alice agreed. They walked in silence for a few steps. The heels of Alice’s shoes clacked on the pavement. Manfred glanced up at the windows above them. Anyone who happened to see them together might assume that they were husband and wife, or at least that they had spent the night together. It was quite thrilling. He pictured them sitting at the table in his kitchen; Alice, hair dishevelled, bundled in his robe eating a croissant, a pot of coffee bubbling on the hob. Manfred stole a look at her out of the corner of his eye.

  ‘You’re wearing the blouse,’ he commented.

  ‘So I am,’ said Alice. She glanced at him.

  Manfred wondered if he should pay her a compliment. He was not in the habit of making personal comments to women.

  ‘It’s nice,’ he said.

  Alice smiled. ‘Thank you.’

  They had reached the end of the block. Alice turned left and doubled back around the building. Manfred followed her.

  ‘Is your car round here?’ Alice asked.

  ‘No,’ said Manfred. ‘I don’t drive.’ He had never seen any reason to learn.

  ‘Gosh,’ she said.

  She asked where he worked and Manfred told her. Alice looked puzzled. He was walking in the opposite direction from the bank.

  ‘I have a meeting in Strasbourg this morning,’ he said. ‘I’m taking the train.’

  Alice nodded. ‘Ah,’ she said. Manfred was pleased. The idea that he had a meeting in Strasbourg seemed to have impressed her. Then he was gripped by a fear that she would say that she too was on her way to Strasbourg and would offer him a lift. What plausible reason would there be to refuse? He would have to say that he was car-sick and preferred to take the train. That would make him appear feeble, however. Car-sickness was not the sort of thing a man who travelled to Strasbourg for business meetings would suffer from. In any case, what if Alice offered him a lift on another occasion, perhaps to drive to a country inn on Sunday afternoon? He would have to pretend that there was some medication he could take in advance in order to facilitate such a trip. It was in fact true that Manfred did not enjoy travelling by car. He suspected it brought on the migraines from which he suffered periodically.