The Double Mother

by Michel Bussi

  “I’ve never talked to anyone about this, Marianne.”

  “I’m not forcing you to . . . ”

  Angie drained her glass. Too quickly. A few ruby-colored drops tricked down her chin.

  “I was twenty-one. I was with a guy named Ludovic. A good-looking boy, the same age as me. Loud-mouthed. The type I went for back then. The type I still probably go for now, in fact. We’d been together for seven months when I got pregnant. I wasn’t surprised by his reaction when I told him—I wasn’t that dumb. Obviously, he didn’t want me to keep it, the poor little thing. The loud-mouth’s bravado suddenly went out of the window. He gave me the whole shebang: the hug, the puppy-dog eyes, the address book and the chequebook, an uncle who was a doctor, his parents who would pay for the abortion. I whispered into his ear: ‘I want to keep it.’ It was like an electric shock! I kept talking, turning up the voltage. ‘It’s my child. I want to keep it. I’m not asking you for anything: you don’t have to pay me a penny, you don’t even have to acknowledge the child. I’ll take care of it on my own. But I want to keep it.’”

  Marianne was holding her friend’s hand now. In the distance, a crowd of people were emerging from the Volcan and dispersing through the Espace Oscar Niemeyer. The captain had never set foot in Le Havre’s legendary theater.

  “Obviously I didn’t understand men at all at the time. Or Ludo. He looked at me as if I was crazy. He went to get himself a whisky, came back, and calmly told me that it didn’t work like that. That even if he didn’t acknowledge this kid, he would still know it existed. He got another whisky. He said he’d be bound to think about it every day; the fact that a little brat that looked like him was living somewhere—another whisky—and that, even if he forgot about it, one day he might end up face to face with a teenager he’d never seen before who was his spitting image. And that no, he didn’t want to grow old with the feeling that he’d left part of himself, a younger part, to grow up elsewhere.”

  Marianne stroked Angie’s hand, but didn’t interrupt her. The vanilla ice cream melted, cracking the shell of salted caramel.

  “Ludo lectured me for an hour. The bottle of whisky disappeared, but he could handle it—he was used to it. I replied to every point he made. It was the most banal argument since Adam and Eve. I said it was my body, my womb, and that no one but me had the right to decide to put a scalpel to it. He said it was his sperm, and that no one had the right to make clones of him without his agreement. I didn’t give in. I didn’t care anyway: he could say whatever he wanted, I would still go through with it. Whether he chose to help me bring it up or not, I was keeping that child. It was my right, and I knew it. In the end, Ludo seemed to understand that and calmed down. We even made love, then around midnight he said: ‘Shall I take you home?’ I lived in an apartment in Graville back then.”

  Her glossy lips twisted into a sad clown’s face.

  “There are about a dozen bends on the way to Graville. Coming out of the fourth one, Ludo’s 205 GTI went straight on. He didn’t move the steering wheel, didn’t touch the brake. We went straight into the wall. We must have been going fifty kilometers per hour, sixty at the most. We were both wearing our seat belts. We escaped with only grazes.”

  Marianne held tightly to her hand. Angie’s voice had grown very weak.

  “But the child died instantly. That’s what the doctors told me. Ludovic had 1.2 grams of alcohol in his blood. He admitted all the undeniable things: he was drunk, he was disoriented, he’d just found out I was pregnant. But to imagine, your honor, that I would deliberately drive into a wall to cause Angie to have a miscarriage . . . ”

  The vanilla ice cream had turned into a beige liquid and the umbrella had been swept away by a thick, salty landslide. An empty tram went past without stopping, and the lights in the Volcan went out, leaving Place Oscar-Niemeyer in darkness. The last shadows of the night.

  “I’ve thought about it so much since then. I’ve put myself in Ludovic’s place. He was right, really. I couldn’t have raised that kid on my own. Not behind his back. Not against his wishes. I paid dearly for my naivety. He was more cunning than me, that bastard. After a few examinations, the doctors at the Monod hospital confirmed that the damage to my fallopian tubes was irreversible and I would never be able to have a child. Ludovic still lives in Graville. I see him occasionally on the tram. He has three kids. He seems like a good father.”

  The words froze in Marianne’s throat.

  “It’s no big deal,” said Angie. “It’s my life. What can you do. There are people worse off than me.”

  She got to her feet, put on her old leather jacket, wrapped a frayed scarf around her neck, over the fake pearl necklace she wore. Marianne paid for the meal. Angie’s gaze was lost in the iron grille that covered the window of the clothes shop across the street.

  She gave one last smile.

  “If I find your Timo Soler for you, will you get me some of the robbers’ haul? With a Hermès dress, a Gucci jacket and some Dior shoes, I’m sure I’d look beautiful.”

  “You’re the most beautiful person there is, Angie. The most beautiful of all. Even without all that.”

  17

  Little hand on the 11, big hand on the 3

  The curtains twitched like a whirlwind of birds taking off a few seconds before the storm broke.

  Then the window suddenly opened.

  The glass shattered, as if an invisible monster had burst through it to get into the room. A thousand shards of glass rained down on the bed.

  Malone only just managed to shield his face with both hands. Between his index and his middle finger, he saw Gouti holding out his paw before he too was carried away by the gale.

  It was impossible for Malone to take his hands away from his face. Impossible to help his toy.

  Gouti disappeared. Two other hands reached out, but he still couldn’t reach them. Maman’s hands. They were red.

  Then she flew away too, spinning around faster and faster as she was sucked up by the void.

  Malone screamed.

  He wanted to move too. To join Gouti and Maman in the darkness. Beyond the wind.

  Two arms held him back.

  “It’s OK, sweetie. It’s over. Maman is here.”

  Malone was drenched with sweat. He crouched on his bed and let Maman-da rock him, gently, for a long time, until he finally lay down again.

  “It was just a nightmare, sweetie. Go back to sleep. Just a bad dream.”

  Already, Malone’s eyelids were growing heavy.

  WEDNESDAY

  THE DAY OF THE JOURNEY

  18

  Little hand on the 8, big hand on the 4

  Pa-di’s yelling woke Malone. Still in his pajamas, he walked out of his room and stood at the top of the stairs.

  The yelling was coming from downstairs. From the kitchen. This time, there was no need to leave Gouti in a corner so he could listen to their secrets and tell him afterwards; Pa-di was shouting so loud that Malone could hear everything.

  “Seven-thirty in the morning! Can you believe it? Max sent me a text at half past fucking seven this morning!”

  Sounds of water in the sink, cups, the fridge door opening and closing. Maman-da must be getting breakfast ready while Pa-di drank his coffee.

  “You know who Max is, right? The lad who works for the parks department. His kid, Dylan, plays as a goalkeeper for the under-7s. He was chatting with Mrs. Amarouche, the crossing guard at the school. She overheard the shrink talking to the teacher. She’s certain: that Romanian isn’t going to leave us alone.”

  Malone went down three steps. All he could see of the kitchen was the three top shelves, the ones where the sharp objects were kept. Pa-di and Maman-da, still deep in their discussion, were not even aware that he’d woken up. Which gave him an idea. He went down another three steps, barefoot, careful not to make a sound.

  Pa-di’s v
oice sounded even louder.

  “According to Mrs. Amarouche, the shrink wants to see Malone again tomorrow morning. He’s going to turn up at the school. The headmistress is OK, but she’s not standing up to him. He’s just a shit-stirrer.”

  Silence. He must have been taking a sip of his coffee.

  “The answer’s simple, Amanda. We won’t send Malone to school tomorrow.”

  Tinkling sounds. Glasses and plates being piled up. Maman-da emptying the dishwasher.

  “That’s not a solution, Dimitri. He’ll have to go back to school at some point, whether it’s the day after tomorrow or next week.”

  Malone stood in the hallway. He quietly pulled up the little wooden chair that he sat on when he was playing, coloring or putting on his shoes. He placed it in front of the door.

  “So what do you suggest? That he changes school?”

  “I’m going to see Teixeira. He’s the deputy mayor. He’s grateful that I’m letting his son play center-forward even though he hasn’t scored since the start of the season. I’ll ask him to speak to the mayor. We need to put some fucking pressure on this guy!”

  The sound of a machine gun, and three rifle shots. Forks and knives being put away in a drawer, cupboard doors banging.

  “What’s the point of that, Dimitri? The mayor can’t get mixed up in the school’s affairs, any more than the cops can. A school is like a church. The teachers can do whatever they want. You just have to listen to them, and that’s it.”

  Malone had climbed onto the chair, still soundlessly. He turned the handle until the door opened, then got down, pushed the chair away and pulled the door almost closed behind him, leaving just enough light so that he could see beneath the stairs.

  “You might be right about the cops, Amanda, but parents have a right to get involved in school stuff. So I’m going to put pressure on him. And I’ll do some digging too. Even though we signed that paper agreeing to let the kid see the shrink, maybe we can still stop it. Or choose another shrink.”

  Pa-di was really yelling now. Next to his ogre-like voice, Maman-da sounded like a whispering fairy.

  “It won’t make any difference, Dimitri. I’ll speak to him.”

  “Speak to who?”

  “Malone. I’ll explain to him that he’s hurting us by telling these stories. He’s a big boy now. He’ll understand. He . . . ”

  As he moved under the stairs, Malone could hardly hear Maman-da’s voice. He’d already been in the big cupboard the day before, but he couldn’t help looking again at the board with his name on it.

  M A L O N E

  Couldn’t help observing the dead ants again, stuck there to make the shapes of the letters. It felt as if there were thousands of other ants, alive, crawling up his back. Quickly, Malone turned away. It was the other boxes that interested him now—the ones piled on top of each other, with little transparent boxes inside, the kind you put pearls or pencils or colored stickers in.

  He got on his knees and started rummaging through the first one, which was almost as big as him. He couldn’t hear what Maman-da was saying anymore, but Pa-di’s voice continued to rumble through the cupboard door, like a bear that had just returned to its cave.

  “All right, we’ll do that then. You can try the softly-softly approach with the kid. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll try my style of softly-softly approach with the shrink, man to man.”

  He laughed.

  The smash of cymbals. A dustbin, being closed with a pedal. Maman-da’s voice became audible again.

  “He has everything, though. Toys. Books. Everything. Us. What more does he want?”

  Malone had picked up a little plastic crate, the size of a shoebox. A shoebox for grown-ups. It was held shut by elastic bands. Through the transparent lid, he could see small black shapes.

  Sweets? Liquorice? Toy figures?

  The box felt light, but the elastic bands were so tight; he found it hard to get his fingers underneath them so he could take them off.

  “What more does he want? Maybe something other than your softly-softly approach! All you have to do is take that damn cuddly toy off him. He spends too much time with that thing. How do you expect him to move on if his only friend is a rat he’s been sucking since he was born.”

  “Dimitri, it’s normal for his age. All the kids have a cuddly toy . . . ”

  The sudden din drowned out the rest of her sentence. Amanda rushed out of the kitchen and shot a panicked look up the stairs.

  “Malone?”

  Nothing.

  The door of the cupboard under the stairs was half-open.

  The cries of a child, deep inside.

  “Malone!”

  The door flew open. Light rushed in.

  Malone was on his knees, Gouti at his feet. A Tupperware box had fallen next to him. It was open. Amanda spotted Malone just before Dmitri’s figure in the hallway blocked the light from the ceiling, plunging the cupboard into darkness again.

  A few seconds of horror.

  Her little boy had spilled the contents of the plastic box all over himself.

  He was choking, reaching out in panic so that Maman-da would pull him out of there, out of that hell, out of that bottomless pit.

  In the dark, he screamed even louder.

  He was covered in insects.

  Dead insects.

  Hundreds of flies, beetles, ladybugs, stinkbugs, woodlice, bees. In his hair, on his pajamas, on his bare feet, in Gouti’s fur.

  19

  Today, he said I love you, you know. But having a child, bringing it up, me, you know . . .

  Want to kill

  I’ll have the kid anyway. Behind his back. And I’ll call him Oedipus.

  Convicted: 323

  Acquitted: 95

  www.want-to-kill.com

  Vasily Dragonman stood up and looked out through the window at the marina. From the twelfth floor of the Résidence de France, the motorboats, yachts and catamarans looked practically identical, like vehicles parked in a vast dealership. Almost all of them white. Almost all the same modest size. No luxury yachts to disturb the peace of the little boats; no high masts towering over the others. It was a marina for ordinary people who loved the sea.

  Vasily moved even closer to the window, more than forty meters above the port. None of the rare passers-by on the Boulevard Clemenceau or on either of the port’s sea walls could possibly see him.

  Even standing there so immodestly.

  After climbing out of his rumpled bed, Vasily had not bothered getting dressed. He now offered a three-quarter view of his naked buttocks, his hairy chest and his dangling penis to the pretty girl who remained under the sheets.

  She got up and walked over to him, then pressed her bare breasts to his back, wrapping her arms around his waist and playing with the hair on his lower abdomen.

  “I should go.”

  “It’s Wednesday,” the girl pouted. “The schools are closed today, aren’t they?”

  “I’ve got a meeting with that female cop.”

  “Your captain? That Augresse woman? I could be jealous.”

  Vasily turned around and gave his lover a long kiss, then pulled himself free before his desire grew too intense. She stepped back and held her body against the pane, like a child’s toy suckered to the glass.

  Slightly upset. And then, a moment later, slightly amused by Vasily’s clumsiness as he sat on the bed and struggled to pull his skin-tight jeans over his erection.

  His gray woollen jumper was tight too, and his hair disheveled. She thought he looked good.

  “Where are you meeting her?”

  Vasily hesitated before answering. He wrapped a cream scarf around his neck. A dark linen jacket that matched his eyes. No time to shave—unless he preferred not to in order to look even sexier.

  “At the pol
ice station. I’m sure her deputies will be there too, probably half the brigade.”

  “I hope so!”

  He put his hand on the door handle.

  “I feel as if it’s beginning to get to you, this story about the kid. You shouldn’t let it get in between . . . ”

  She didn’t finish her sentence. Her skin, still stuck to the windowpane, now had goosebumps.

  “In between what?”

  At that moment, a shy ray of sunlight peeked between two clouds, projecting its spotlight into the apartment and turning her naked skin a beautiful shade of gold. She turned around and squashed her breasts against the burning glass.

  “In between us,” she whispered.

  He left.

  20

  Lieutenant Jean-Baptiste Lechevalier and Lieutenant Pierrick Pasdeloup had been waiting for nearly an hour in the VW Touran parked outside the Hoc pharmacy. They’d been there since eight that morning; Marianne Augresse had insisted that they be there well before the shops opened.

  It was the only pharmacy in the Neiges quarter. If Timo Soler had someone helping him, it wasn’t difficult to imagine a scenario in which his accomplice might go to the nearest pharmacy to buy whatever he needed to ease the pain. They had established with Larochelle the list of products likely to be used to treat the robber’s wound, those recommended by any medical website: Povidone-iodine, cetrimide, chlorhexidine gluconate, lidocaine, tetanus toxoid, metronidazole . . .

  The woman at the pharmacy was in on the plan. If any of her customers asked for one or more of these medicines, she would take off her white coat as soon as the person was out of the door and hang it on the coat rack behind her. This was their code. All the police would have to do then was discreetly follow the suspect.