The Double Mother

by Michel Bussi

  One morning, he woke up and everyone had gone. Everyone: his cousins, his parents, Lily. They had all got on the rocket and blasted off.

  Everyone except him. They had abandoned him.

  Baby Pirate began to cry. He didn’t understand. He cried for three days and three nights in a cave, before climbing up the biggest palm tree on the island, since there was now no one left to tell him he couldn’t.

  And there, at the top of the tree, he saw the words written in the sand. They were very big. He even recognized his mother’s handwriting. She had written: “Wait for us.”

  So, Baby Pirate waited. He was very brave, very patient, very well-behaved, and he stayed alone on his island for thousands of days, far from his parents, his friends and the princess he loved.

  Because, finally, he had understood.

  One morning, exactly twenty years later, the rocket came back and landed.

  Lily came out first. She had not aged a day. But Baby Pirate, having lived alone on his island for all those years, had become a pirate as big and strong as his cousins who were next out of the rocket.

  Lily and he were now exactly the same age and they were married the very next day.

  “Now you are bigger,” admitted Maman.

  And when Christmas came, Baby Pirate—although no one called him that anymore—bent down, picked up his old Papa and put him on his shoulders so that his father could fix the big star on top of the tinsel-covered tree.

  And as he did so, his Papa leaned close and whispered these words into Baby Pirate’s ear: “It’s hard to understand when we’re little, but listen carefully. When you love someone—really love them—sometimes you have to let them go far away. Or wait for them for a long time. That is the real proof of love. Perhaps the only one.”

  * * *

  The story was over. Sticking his head above the duvet, Malone was soothed by the stars projected against the walls of his bedroom. As happened every night, as soon as Gouti had gone silent and fallen asleep, the mark returned. At first it was just a blurred shadow, the kind that his hand might make if he waved it in front of a lamp. Except that both his hands were hidden under the duvet.

  It wasn’t his hand.

  Little by little, as his eyes got used to the darkness, the shape grew clearer, each finger appearing, exactly like the drawings he’d done with Clotilde when they put the palms of their hands on plates of paint - the pictures that were taped to the windows of the school.

  Once all the fingers had appeared, it was time for the color. Just one color. Red.

  Malone closed his eyes then, so he wouldn’t have to see it. So it would disappear, like the stars on the walls, like the planets and the rocket that shone above him, like the bedroom, like everything.

  And everything disappeared into the darkness, even Gouti.

  Except the red hand.

  Then everything else turned red too.

  28

  Today, Laurent told me that he didn’t love me anymore.

  Want to kill

  The whole world, except him and me.

  Convicted: 15

  Acquitted: 953

  www.want-to-kill.com

  Vasily Dragonman let the scalding water run over his naked skin. It had become a habit, an obligation, almost an obsession.

  Taking a shower after making love.

  The few times that he hadn’t, because he’d fucked outside, had a quickie, or done it in a bathroom stall, he’d felt as if the traces left by fingers, lips, and genitals on his body were printed there indelibly. As if they would never be erased, that they would penetrate his flesh, melt into him, and he would lose a part of his identity, his privacy.

  He cursed himself. Shrink. Lunatic. Him and his complexes. Not even capable of enjoying the feel of a pretty girl’s skin on his own without turning it into a theory.

  She opened the glass door of the shower.

  She’d just pulled on a pair of orange harem pants covered with an African design. She was topless, her hair tied up. She looked like a village girl from one of the Kirikou stories, only lighter-skinned. That remembrance of his first adolescent yearnings only troubled him more.

  “You got a message.”

  She handed him his mobile phone. He turned off the water.

  A text.

  With his thumb, he wiped the condensation off the screen.

  Probably stupid of me, but I want to believe you.

  Aware of urgency. I’ll do my best.

  Contact me, whenever.

  Marianne

  “Your captain again?”

  Vasily just made a sorry face, like a little boy caught in the act but denying all responsibility.

  Irresistible.

  All the same, that was no reason to let this go.

  “A text at midnight? She’s hitting on you!”

  She was aware that her jealous, angry pout was a lot less appealing than Vasily’s innocent smile.

  “I need her. I’m playing along.”

  “For the sake of your kid. The little boy who talks to his toy?”

  “Yes.”

  He left the phone on the sink, then got back in the shower. Turned the water on again. She followed him under the hot waterfall, without even taking off her trousers. In only a few seconds the cotton fabric formed a second skin clinging to her buttocks and thighs, tattooing her alabaster skin with elephants, giraffes and zebras.

  She pressed her wet mouth against his neck.

  “You’re going to see him tomorrow morning at the school?”

  “Yes. If they’ll let me.”

  “Can they stop you?”

  “Yes, of course. Any of them could. His parents, the school, the cops.”

  “He needs you. It’s all you’ve talked about for weeks now. The way you’re the only one he confides in. That you’re being cautious, taking it slowly. That if he clams up, then it’s all over.”

  She put some shower gel in her palm, rubbed her hands together, then placed them on her shoulders and ran them down over her body.

  He took a step back. Her hands moved beneath the material of her Turkish pants, between her two skins. Her thigh pressed against the mixer tap and slowly, under the pressure of her coconut-vanilla caresses, moved it a few centimeters to the left.

  The burning water turned lukewarm.

  “Unless that’s actually the best solution, Vasily. To let the kid forget whatever has traumatized him.”

  Vasily’s body was more like a rugby player’s than a psychologist’s. The slim muscles of a fly half. Her fingers followed the curves of his torso, venturing down over his abdominal muscles.

  She whispered: “If there is a ghost living in his head, wouldn’t it be better to leave it locked up in its dungeon?”

  Vasily replied quickly, before he got carried away.

  “You forgot a stage.”

  The water turned from lukewarm to ice-cold. They didn’t move.

  “What stage?”

  “Before condemning the ghost to life imprisonment, before sending it to live in one of the cells in the boy’s brain, my job is to find it, look it straight in the eyes, and tame it. To confront it, if necessary.”

  After stopping the water with one agile foot, she stood on tiptoes and whispered in his ear:

  “That’s dangerous, no?”

  They heard a succession of three electronic notes.

  “Your little policewoman again?”

  Vasily gave an annoyed smile before she could give him one of her pouts, and blindly grabbed hold of the telephone.

  His expression suddenly changed.

  “Problem?”

  He lifted the phone up so they could both see the screen.

  Number unknown.

  A photograph and a message.

  First the phot
o: a small marble tomb, its cross standing out against a red sky. They couldn’t make out any of the words or numbers engraved on the headstone.

  The grave of a stranger? A child? A family?

  Then they read the message below it.

  You or the kid. You still have a choice.

  She bit her lip, her desire suddenly extinguished.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Call the cops?”

  “Your cop?”

  He sat on the edge of the sink.

  “I don’t know. Jesus, what is all this?”

  She stood in front of him. Beautiful. Her long hair fell over her naked breasts. Over her savannah legs. As beautiful as she had been the day he first met her, at Bruno’s place. Slowly, she pulled down the elastic of her Turkish pants. There was nothing erotic about the gesture, though; it was more like a primitive ritual, an incantation.

  She lowered the fabric a few centimeters, enough to reveal the top of her pubis. Modestly, without provocation, as you do when the doctor asks you to lower your underwear before doing an examination.

  Her index finger circled her navel then moved down her smooth belly.

  “Look at me, Vasily. Look at me and listen. You see this belly? It will never carry a child. You see this uterus? No life will ever come of it. Perhaps this doesn’t seem the right moment to bring it up, and don’t worry, I’ll spare you the sordid details—you’ve had enough of those tonight, I suspect—but I just want to tell you that, contrary to what the bastard who sent you that message said, you don’t have a choice.”

  Vasily stared at her, incredulous, incapable of thinking clearly. Ten years working as a psychologist and ten years of theoretical study before that, and he still didn’t have a clue what was going on.

  “Protect that child, Vasily! Protect him. You’re the only one who can save him. Understand?”

  No, he didn’t understand. He didn’t understand anything anymore. But at least she was right about one thing: he had no choice.

  He took her in his arms and lied.

  “I understand, Angie. I understand.”

  THURSDAY

  THE DAY OF COURAGE

  29

  Little hand on the 11, big hand on the 6

  Malone, listen to me. It’s important. You have to tell me about your secret, if you want me to believe you. You have to explain to me how Gouti tells you all those stories.”

  Malone did not reply. He kept his eyes firmly planted on the school desk that separated him from the psychologist, focusing on an invisible point, as if the response had once been written there and then erased. Gouti, between his knees, was silent too, even if his pink smile and laughing eyes did not seem affected by the psychologist’s question.

  “I have to know, Malone.”

  Vasily hesitated. The bond of trust that he had built with this kid was as thin as a nylon string. If it broke, all of the kid’s memories would go flying like pearls from a snapped necklace. And yet he had to stretch it. Carefully.

  “If you want to see your mother again the one from before, I mean then you have to help me, Malone.”

  The child did not raise his head. A prisoner of his silence. He just hugged his cuddly toy as if Gouti were the only person capable of helping him; as if the toy might suddenly open its mouth just to show this psychologist how limited his imagination really was.

  But the gray and grubby cream rat remained silent.

  Vasily pulled on the string again.

  “Gouti has to talk to someone other than you, Malone, do you understand? He has to talk to a grown-up.”

  Malone looked down at his toy. Vasily had the impression that the kid was asking Gouti’s advice. Maybe they were communicating telepathically? Maybe all kids did that with their toys and only lost that magic power as they got older?

  They had been sitting face to face in Clotilde’s office for nearly an hour.

  “Take your time, Malone. Take your time.”

  He paused for a moment, and examined the headmistress’s desk, which was cluttered with exercise books, large sheets of multi-colored paper, pots of felt-tip pens and prizes for the school fete piled up in cardboard boxes.

  In the corridor behind him, Clotilde walked past without even looking at him. Three-quarters of an hour before, she had made a pot of coffee without offering him any. She had even left the coffee machine percolating behind him, like an act of defiance.

  Vasily looked up at the clock. In fifteen minutes’ time, the mothers would begin arriving and it would be too late. Would he ever get another chance to question Malone?

  The child still seemed to be begging his toy to help him. Too bad. Vasily had to speed things up, even if it went against every ethical code he knew.

  “Malone, listen to me. A cuddly toy, like a teddy bear or Gouti, they can’t talk! You know that.”

  The child bit his lip and twisted on his chair. At least Vasily had managed to push one step further: he’d provoked a shock in Malone’s brain, triggering a chain of events that would end with a reaction. He just had to wait.

  He looked down at the table. Three sheets of paper were spread out before him. He’d printed them that morning, each with two columns.

  To the left, questions, photographs, symbols.

  To the right, the answers he had scrawled over the last few weeks.

  Left column: a pirate ship, taken from an Asterix book.

  Right column: Malone’s reaction.

  No, it’s not the same as my pirate ship. It was more black and without the thing in the middle.

  The mast? So no mast, is that right? And how was it black?

  Vasily had groped around for several minutes before obtaining a precise answer.

  Black, completely black, like a warship.

  Left column: a castle—the Chateau de Pierrefonds—with its moat, its drawbridge, crenellations, towers, and keeps.

  No, the towers were thicker, and not as tall. Without all that.

  Without all what, Malone? Without the sloping roofs? Without the sculptures? Without the holes in the stone?

  Vasily had done seven drawings and each time Malone had shaken his head. Until the psychologist, having exhausted all possible architectural forms, lined up four simple circles.

  O O O O

  Malone’s eyes lit up.

  Yes, like that!

  Vasily looked up.

  Rain was hammering against the office window. Behind the glass, he could see the umbrellas gathering by the playground fence. Outside in the corridor, he could hear the children moving about, the little ones standing on tiptoes, grabbing their coats and scarves. In a few minutes, Malone would slip between his fingers.

  And yet, he was almost there.

  Malone was going to give in, Vasily could sense it. He decided to pull even harder on the invisible thread.

  “Gouti talks in your head. Is that what you mean, Malone? He doesn’t really talk to you. Gouti is a toy, he’s not alive. He can’t tell you stories every night. He just can’t . . . ”

  “Yes he can!”

  Malone did not say anything else. Arms folded. Mouth closed. Even if he was dying to prove the grown-up wrong.

  Another few minutes, that was all Vasily needed. He pretended to lose interest in the child again and looked at his notes.

  Left column: a rocket. Vasily had downloaded a photograph of Ariane 5.

  That’s it!

  You’re sure? You’ve seen this rocket? You’ve seen it fly in the sky?

  Yes. Yes, yes, yes, I’m sure. I remember. That’s it!

  The psychologist stood up to turn off the coffee machine, the slow drip-drip-drip marking the passing seconds like a noisy old clock.

  “Your Maman will be here soon, Malone. The one you call Maman-da. You’ll go home with her. If you do
n’t tell me how Gouti talks to you, then . . . ”

  For a brief instant, the macabre image of a tomb flashed in front of Vasily’s eyes—the one that someone had sent him the previous night on his mobile. He had hesitated between deleting the text and forwarding it to Captain Augresse.

  He hadn’t made a decision yet. He’d deal with it later.

  “Are you thirsty, Malone?”

  He poured a glass of water and put it in front of the child.

  Five to twelve.

  He had no choice now. There was no time. If the string broke, so be it. The psychologist took a chair and sat next to the child. He leaned down until their eyes were at the same level.

  “They won’t let me see you again, Malone. If you don’t tell me your secret now—Gouti’s secret—you will never see your Maman again.”

  Malone stared at him.

  This time, the decision was made. Without the child saying a word, Vasily knew that he had won.

  Slowly, Malone held Gouti up. His hands rummaged in the creature’s fur, as if caressing it, at the exact place where the fur changed color, between the gray of the creature’s little round belly and the grubby cream of the rest of his body.

  Then he pulled. Gently.

  Vasily couldn’t believe his eyes.

  Gouti’s belly opened.

  A simple strip of Velcro, hidden. Perfectly sewn, invisible, impossible to spot, even if you held the toy in your hands. Not that any adult ever touched Gouti anyway.

  Malone’s little fingers rummaged inside the foam innards. First they took out a set of earbuds, child-sized, with the black wires in a tangle, which he patiently unrolled. After that, he unrolled another wire, also thin and black, presumably a power cord. More groping around inside the creature’s belly, and then Malone extricated a tiny MP3 player.

  A few millimeters thick, three centimeters long, with a small backlit screen that covered nearly its entire length.