Blood Wedding

by Pierre Lemaitre

  She rips the plastic film off the carton; three packs fall to the ground. She picks them up, piles her jacket, the carton and the loose packs on top of her suitcase, all but the one she opens. She takes out a cigarette, lights it. A cloud of well-being fills her lungs. The first moment of happiness in an eternity. And then, almost immediately, it makes her head spin. She closes her eyes to gather her thoughts and a few moments later she feels better. Two or three minutes smoking a cigarette, like a calm after the storm. She keeps her eyes closed and inhales. When she has finished, she stubs out the cigarette, jams the carton into her suitcase and heads for the café that faces the platforms.

  On the mezzanine above her is Le Train Bleu with its sweeping double staircase and, behind the glass doors, the dining rooms, the dizzyingly high ceilings, the tables spread with crisp white linen, the bustle of the brasserie, the chink of silverware, the gilded mouldings and extravagant ceiling frescoes. Vincent took her here once upon a time, so long ago. All that seems so long ago.

  She notices a free table on the covered terrace. She orders a coffee, asks where the toilets are. She does not want to leave her suitcase here. But she can hardly take it with her to the ladies. She looks around. A woman is sitting to her right, another woman to her left. Women are more reliable when it comes to such things. The woman on the right is about her age, she is leafing through a magazine and smoking a cigarette. Sophie chooses the one on the left, who looks older, more settled, more confident; she nods to her suitcase, her expression unambiguous and yet she is not sure the woman has understood. But the woman’s face seems to say, “Go ahead, I’ll be right here.” A faint smile, the first in thousands of years. When it comes to smiles, too, women are better. She does not touch her coffee. She goes downstairs, resists the temptation to look at herself in the mirrors and immediately goes into a cubicle, locks the door, pulls down her jeans and her pants, sits down, her elbows on her knees, and sobs.

  *

  Coming out of the cubicle, she catches sight of her face in the mirror. Ravaged. She looks so old and worn out. She washes her hands, splashes water onto her face. She is so tired . . . She climbs back upstairs to drink her coffee, smoke a cigarette, think. No more panicking, she needs to be wary now, to think carefully. Easier said than done.

  When she comes to the terrace she instantly realises the magnitude of the disaster. Her suitcase is gone, as is the woman. “Shit!” she screams, and she bangs her fist on the table. The coffee cup falls and shatters on the ground, everyone is looking at her. She turns to the other woman, the one sitting on the right. From some imperceptible expression, from a slight, furtive glance, she knows that this woman saw what happened and did not intervene, did not say a word, did not lift a finger.

  “I don’t suppose you saw anything . . .”

  The woman is in her thirties, dressed from head to toe in grey. She has a mournful face. Sophie steps towards her, wiping tears from her face with her sleeve.

  ‘You didn’t see anything, did you, you fucking bitch!”

  And she slaps the woman. There are screams, the waiter rushes over, the woman brings a hand to her cheek and sobs wordlessly. Everyone comes running, what the hell is going on? Sophie is in the eye of the storm, people are milling about, the waiter takes hold of her arms and shouts: “Calm down right now or I’m calling the police.” She shrugs him off and runs, the waiter screams and runs after her, a group of bystanders follows them, ten metres, twenty, she has no idea which way to go, she feels the waiter’s imperious hand on her shoulder

  “You’re not leaving without paying for that coffee,” he roars.

  She turns. He is staring at her furiously. Their eyes meet in a battle of wills. He is a man and Sophie senses it is important to him to win, his face is already red. So she takes out the envelope in which she has only large notes, her cigarettes fall on the floor, she picks them up, she is surrounded by people now, she takes a deep breath, snuffles, wipes away tears with the back of her hand, takes a note and presses it into the waiter’s palm. They are in the middle of the station concourse, encircled by onlookers and commuters who have stopped to watch. The waiter dips his hand into the pocket of his apron to get her change and Sophie can feel, from the slow deliberateness of his gestures, that this is his moment of triumph. He takes his sweet time, he does not look around but concentrates, as though there were no crowd watching and this were his natural state, one of calm authority. Sophie knows her nerves are about to snap. Her hands are itching. The whole train station seems to have gathered around them. The waiter painstakingly counts out the change, setting each coin, each banknote into her trembling, outstretched hand. Sophie can see only the top of his head, the pale scalp, the beads of sweat between his thinning hair. She wants to throw up.

  She takes the change, turns and pushes through the crowd, utterly distraught.

  She keeps walking. She feels as though she is stumbling, but no, she is walking in a straight line, she is simply exhausted. A voice.

  “Can I help?”

  Hoarse, barely audible.

  She turns around. God, this is depressing. The drunk standing in front of her seems to be carrying the whole weight of the world, he is homeless with a capital “H”.

  “No, I’ll be fine, thanks . . .” she says.

  And she moves away.

  “Because it’s no problem, yeah? We’re all in the same b—”

  “Fuck off and leave me alone!”

  The man scuttles away, grunting something she pretends not to hear. Maybe you are wrong, Sophie. Maybe he is right, maybe in spite of your sense of superiority, you are in the same boat. Homeless.

  What did you have in your suitcase? Clothes, rubbish. The most important thing is money.

  She reaches into her pockets and breathes a sigh of relief: her papers are there, and her money. She has everything she needs. So, time to think again. She steps out of the station into dazzling sunshine. In front of her, a row of cafés and brasseries, there are people everywhere, taxis, cars, buses. And over there, a low wall by the taxi rank. A few people are sitting on it, a man chatting on his mobile seems engrossed, a diary open in his lap. She walks over, sits next to him, takes a cigarette, closes her eyes and smokes. Concentrates. Suddenly she remembers her own mobile. They will use it to track her. They will see that she phoned the Gervais’ apartment. She opens it up, takes out the SIM card and drops it into a drain. Then she throws the telephone into a rubbish bin.

  She came to Gare de Lyon instinctively. Why? Where was she heading? She has no idea . . . She racks her brain and then she remembers: Marseille, that’s right, she went there once with Vincent a long time ago. They laughed as they checked into an ugly hotel near the old port because they could find nothing else and they desperately wanted to snuggle under the sheets. When the man at the reception desk asked for a name, Vincent told him “Stefan Zweig”, because he was their favourite writer at the time. He had to spell the name. The man asked if they were Polish. Vincent said, “Austrian. Originally . . .” They had spent the night there, incognito, and that was why . . . She has a sudden realisation: her instinct is to go somewhere she has been before, whether it is Marseille or elsewhere does not matter, but somewhere she knows, even if only vaguely, because it is reassuring and that is what they will expect her to do. They will look for her in places she is likely to go, which is precisely why she should not go there. From now on, you have to leave behind all the familiar landmarks, Sophie, it’s crucial. You have to use your imagination. Do things you have never done, go to places no-one would expect you to go. The thought of never being able to visit her father panics her. It has been six months since she has been to see him, and now she can never go there again. They will have his house under surveillance, they will have his telephone tapped too. She sees the figure of the old man in front of her, still tall and powerful as if carved out of an oak tree, just as old and just as strong. Sophie had chosen Vincent because he was carved from the same mould: tall, calm, serene. She will miss he
r father. When everything fell apart, when all that remained after Vincent’s death were the ruins of her life, her father was the only person left, the last man standing. She can never go and see him again, can never talk to him. She is completely alone in the world, it is as though he too were dead. She cannot imagine a world in which her father is alive somewhere where she can no longer see him, no longer speak to him or hear his voice. It is though she herself is dead.

  The thought makes her dizzy, as though she is stepping into another world from which she would never be able to return, a hostile world where everything is unfamiliar, everything is dangerous, where there is no place for spontaneity: everything she does must be new to her. She will never be in a place where she can feel safe, there will never be a place where she can give her name; Sophie no longer exists, she is just a fugitive, someone scared to death, living like an animal, focused only on surviving; the antithesis of what it means to live.

  Another wave of tiredness: is it all worth it? What will her life be now? Forever moving, never staying in one place. Such a life is doomed to failure, she does not have the strength to fight. She does not have the temperament to be a fugitive, she is an ordinary criminal. She will never make it. They will catch you easily . . . She heaves a sigh of defeat: surrender, go to the police, tell them it is all true, but that she remembers nothing, that this was bound to happen some day, that there is such black bile in her, such a bitter hatred for the world. Better to end this thing now. She wants nothing to do with the life that awaits her. But what was her life like before? For a long time now she has not been herself. Now she is faced with a choice between two futile lives. She feels so tired. “I have to stop,” she thinks. And, for the first time, this seems like a concrete solution. “I’ll turn myself in,” and she is not even surprised to find herself thinking as though she is a murderer. It has taken only two years for her to go insane, a single night for her to revert to being a criminal, and barely two hours for her to become a hunted woman with all the attendant fears, the suspicions, the ploys, the thwarted plans, the rising panic, and now even the vocabulary. This is the second time in her life she has realised that a normal life can tip over into madness, into death. It is over. It has to end here. She feels overwhelming relief. Even the terror of being locked up, which prompted her to run in the first place, has faded. A psychiatric hospital no longer seems like hell, but rather an equable solution. She stubs out her cigarette and lights another. After this one, I’ll go. One last cigarette and then she will do it, she will dial 112. Is that even the right number these days? It hardly matters, she will manage to get through to the police, to explain. Anything is better than these last few hours. Anything is better than this madness.

  She blows a long plume of smoke, exhaling forcefully, and it is at that moment that she hears the woman’s voice.

  6

  “I’m so sorry . . .”

  The woman in grey is standing next to her, nervously clutching a small handbag. She gives the ghost of a smile. Sophie is not even surprised.

  She looks at her for a moment

  “It’s alright,” she says. “Forget it. We all have bad days.”

  “I’m so sorry,” the woman says again.

  “It’s not your fault. Forget it.”

  But still the woman stands there awkwardly. Sophie studies her for the first time. She is not really ugly, just sad. About thirty, a long face, fine features, keen eyes.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Get my suitcase back! That would be a start, get me my suitcase back.” Then Sophie stands up and pats the woman’s arm. “I’m just a little angry. Don’t worry about it. But now I have to go.”

  “Did you have anything valuable?”

  Sophie turns.

  “In the suitcase, I mean, did you have any valuable things?”

  “Valuable enough to want to take them with me.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Good question. Anyone else would say: I’m going to go home. But Sophie is all out of ideas, she can think of nothing to say, nowhere to go.

  “Can I buy you a coffee?”

  The young woman looks at her imploringly. It is not a suggestion, it is almost a plea. Without knowing why, Sophie says simply:

  “With the day I’m having . . .”

  A brasserie opposite the train station.

  The girl makes for the terrace, probably because it is in the sun, but Sophie wants to be inside. “Not by the window,” she says. The girl returns her smile.

  They do not know what to say to each other as they wait for their coffee.

  “Arriving or departing?”

  “Hmm? Oh, just arrived. From Lille.”

  “Into Gare de Lyon?”

  Things are off to a bad start. Sophie feels like stalking off and leaving the girl with her belated scruples and her hangdog expression.

  “I took the métro . . .” Sophie ad-libs, then immediately asks, “What about you?”

  “Me? No, I’m not travelling.” The girl hesitates about what to say next and decides to change the subject: “I live here. I’m Véronique.”

  “Me too,” Sophie says.

  “Your name is Véronique?”

  Sophie realises this is going to be more tricky than she anticipated, she has not had time to prepare for this sort of question, she has to think on her feet. Get herself in a different frame of mind.

  She gives a vague nod that could mean just about anything.

  “Weird, huh?” the girl says.

  “It happens.”

  Sophie lights a cigarette, holds out the pack. The girl accepts with a graceful gesture. It is extraordinary how this woman in her grey suit seems when seen close up.

  “What do you do?” Sophie says. “For a living.”

  “I’m a translator. You?”

  In a few short minutes of conversation, Sophie has invented a new life for herself. It is a little scary at first, but then it feels like a game – you just have to remember the rules. Unexpectedly, she can be anyone she chooses. Instead she behaves like those lottery winners who could completely transform their lives, but then buy a little suburban house like everyone else. Now she is Véronique, an art teacher at a secondary school in Lille, single, arriving in Paris for a few days to visit her parents who live in the suburbs.

  “Has the Académie de Lille broken up for the holidays?” asks Véronique.

  This is the problem: a follow-up question that could wrong-foot her . . .

  “I took a few days’ leave. My father is ill. Well, actually . . . [she smiles], between you and me, my father’s not really ill: I fancied a couple of days in Paris. I should be ashamed of myself.”

  “Where do your parents live? I can drop you off. I’ve got a car.”

  “No, I’ll be fine, honestly, but thank you.”

  “It’s no trouble.”

  “That’s very sweet of you, but it’s really not necessary.” She says this in a sharp tone and for a moment they are both silent.

  “Are they expecting you? Maybe you should give them a call.”

  “Oh, no!”

  She has answered too quickly: be calm, composed, take your time, Sophie, don’t just say anything . . .

  “The thing is, I wasn’t supposed to arrive until tomorrow.”

  “Oh,” Véronique says, stubbing out her cigarette. “Have you eaten?”

  This is the last thing on her mind.

  “No, not yet.”

  She glances at the clock on the wall: 1.40 p.m.

  “Maybe I could invite you for lunch? My way of saying sorry. For the suitcase. I only live round the corner . . . I don’t have much, but there’s bound to be something in the fridge.”

  Remember, Sophie, do things you have never done before. Go where no-one will expect to find you.

  “Why not?” she says.

  They smile. Véronique pays for the coffees. On the way, Sophie stops to buy two packs of cigarettes and catches her up.

&nbs
p; Boulevard Diderot. Elegant buildings. They have been walking side by side, making small talk. No sooner do they reach Véronique’s building than Sophie is regretting her decision. She should have said no, she should have walked away. By now she should be a long way from Paris, heading in some unexpected direction. She accepted because she was weak, because she was tired. She follows Véronique automatically, stepping into the lobby of the building, allowing herself to be led like a casual guest. Into the lift. Véronique presses the button for the fourth floor, the lift jolts, creaks and sways, but it moves steadily upward and comes to a juddering halt. Véronique smiles.

  “It’s not exactly a palace,” she says as she delves into her handbag for her keys.

  It may not be a palace, but stepping inside, it reeks of the moneyed middle class. It is a huge apartment. The living room is vast, framed by two windows. To the right, a russet leather sofa and armchair, to the left a baby grand piano, on the back wall a floor-to-ceiling bookcase.

  “Come in, please . . .”

  Sophie steps across the threshold as though into a museum. The décor, she immediately thinks, is like a variation in a minor key of the Gervais’ apartment on rue Molière, where at this very moment . . .

  Instinctively, she looks around to find out the time and sees a small ormolu clock on the mantel of the fireplace in the corner: 1.50 p.m.

  As soon as they arrived, Véronique hurried into the kitchen, suddenly animated. Sophie can hear her talking and answers distractedly as she studies the apartment. Her eyes flick back to the carriage clock. Time seems to have stood still. She takes a deep breath. Be wary in your answers, mumble the occasional “Yes, of course . . .”, try to gather your thoughts. It is as though she has woken from a night of restless sleep to find herself in a place she does not recognise. Véronique busies herself, babbling excitedly, opening cupboards, programming the microwave, slamming the door of the fridge, laying the table.

  “Can I help with anything?” Sophie says.

  “No, no.”

  The perfect hostess. In a few short minutes, the table is laid with a salad, a bottle of wine, a fresh baguette (“Actually, it’s yesterday’s”, “It’ll be fine”) which she carefully cuts with a bread knife.