Blood Wedding

by Pierre Lemaitre

  “What would you like to drink?”

  “I don’t know – a coffee? What about you?”

  “Same. A coffee.”

  They spend a while like this, smiling uncomfortably at each other.

  “I’m really glad you called. Do you always tremble like that?”

  “I’m just nervous.”

  “I suppose that’s normal. I am too, well, I don’t want to talk about me . . . It’s really hard to know what to say, isn’t it?”

  “Perhaps we’ve got nothing to say to each other.”

  She regrets this immediately.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “That’s a negative! I . . .”

  “Please, I’m begging you, don’t say ‘negative’ and ‘affirmative’ all the time, it’s really irritating.”

  She has been brutal.

  “It’s just, I feel like I’m talking to a computer,” she says by way of apology.

  “You’re right. Force of habit. It comes with the job. I suppose in your job you must pick up strange habits, no?”

  “I work as a cleaner, so my habits are much the same as anyone else’s. Well, anyone who does their own cleaning, that is.”

  “It’s weird, I didn’t mention it last time, but I’d never guess you were a cleaner. You seem really educated.”

  “Well, yes . . . I did study, but that kind of thing doesn’t appeal to me anymore. Let’s talk about it some other time, if you don’t mind?”

  “No, no, I don’t mind. Nothing much bothers me, I’m pretty easy-going.”

  And this declaration, uttered with disarming sincerity, makes Sophie think that there is nothing more annoying in life than people who are easy-going.

  “Right,” Sophie says, “let’s start again from square one, shall we?”

  “I’m not sure we ever got past square one!”

  He is not as dumb as he seems.

  Why not? Sophie hears a small voice in her head. But first, she needs to know; right now, the fact that he could be posted abroad is his one attractive quality. This is what she needs to confirm.

  *

  Sophie decided they should meet in the late afternoon. They have been here for an hour. The soldier weighs his every syllable so as not to say anything that might scupper the flimsy raft on which he is afloat.

  “Why don’t we get something to eat?” Sophie says.

  “If you like.”

  From the moment they met, this has been the pattern: the man is weak, he is needy, he wants whatever she wants. She feels a little ashamed of what she is planning to do to him, but she knows what she will have to give him in exchange. As she sees it, he is hardly losing out. He is looking for a wife. Any woman would fit the bill. A wife. Even Sophie would do.

  As they leave the café, she is the one who decides to turn right. He does not question her decision, he carries on chattering as he walks beside her, harmless. He is content to have Sophie lead him by the nose. It feels a little pathetic.

  “Where do you fancy going?” she says.

  “I don’t know . . . How about Le Relais?”

  Sophie is convinced that he has had that line prepared since the night before.

  “What kind of place is it?”

  “A restaurant. A brasserie . . . I mean, I’ve only ever been there once, but it’s not bad. Well, I’m not sure you’d like it.”

  Sophie manages to smile.

  “Let’s find out, shall we?”

  *

  And in the end, it is indeed not bad. Sophie was afraid it might be a restaurant full of squaddies, but did not dare ask.

  “It’s really nice,” she says.

  “To tell you the truth, I picked it out beforehand. I even walked past this morning to do a quick recce. I couldn’t really remember where it was.”

  “You haven’t actually been here before, have you?”

  “That’s a neg. I get the feeling it’s not going to be easy to lie to you.” The soldier smiles.

  As she watches him choose from the menu (waiting to see whether he lingers over the prices), she wonders how a man like him will come through this unscathed. But he has to fend for himself. And since he will want to know the pleasures of the flesh, he has to accept that sooner or later she will exact a pound of his. It will be a true marriage, the two will be one flesh.

  “Do you tend to lie to women?” Sophie picks up the thread of the conversation.

  “No more than most men, I reckon. Less, actually, I think. Let’s say I’m probably somewhere in the middle.”

  “So, on our first date, what did you lie about?”

  Sophie lights a cigarette, then remembers he does not smoke. She does not care. As long as he leaves her be.

  “I don’t know. We didn’t talk for long, did we?”

  “When it comes to lying, some men don’t take much time.”

  He stares at her.

  “I can’t compete.”

  “Sorry?”

  “In conversation, I can’t compete with you. I’m not much of a talker, you know that. Of course you know that. It’s probably the reason you picked me. Well, I say ‘picked’ . . .”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, I know what I mean.”

  “The conversation might be easier if we both knew.”

  The waiter appears. Mentally, Sophie makes a bet.

  “What are you having?” he says.

  “Rib-eye steak and a side salad. What about you?”

  “Let’s see . . .” He scans the menu one last time. “I’ll have the same, steak and salad.”

  “How would you like it cooked?” the waiter says.

  “Rare. Both rare,” Sophie says, stubbing out her cigarette.

  Jesus, what a stupid thing to say.

  “You were saying?”

  “Me? Nothing, why?”

  “That’s why I picked you . . .? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, don’t mind me. I’m a born bumbler. I can’t help it. My mother always used to say if I was walking through a field and there was a single cow pat (’scuse my language), I’d be the one to step in it.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Not much to follow, I’m not particularly complicated.”

  “It seems that way. Sorry, I meant . . .”

  “Don’t keep apologising or we’ll be here all night.”

  The waiter brings the two identical steaks. In silence they begin to eat. Sophie feels she should say something nice about the steak, finds she cannot think of another word. The vast desert separating them has just grown wider, like a pool spreading, spreading . . .

  “It’s not bad, in fact.”

  “Yeah, it’s good. Really good.”

  But there is nothing to be done, Sophie does not have the energy to revive the conversation, it is too much effort. She has to eat her steak and hang in there. For the first time, she studies him closely. A metre seventy-five, maybe a metre eighty. A decent body, probably, broad shoulders – soldiers tend to be pretty fit – large hands, impeccable nails. And the face: like a spaniel puppy. His hair probably stuck up before he had it cropped, his nose is a little flat, his eyes a little vacant. But he is well built. Strange that the first time they met, she thought he was small. Probably just the way he carries himself, as though he has not quite grown up. There is an innocence to him. For an instant Sophie envies him. For the first time she genuinely envies his simplicity. She realises that, until now, she has seen him as an object, that she has been sneering without even knowing him. She reacted like a man.

  “We made a bit of a hash, didn’t we?” she says.

  “A hash?”

  “Of the conversation . . . It sort of petered out.”

  “Well, it’s not easy,” he says. “When you find something to talk about, it’s easy, you just keep going, but sometimes it leads nowhere. We started off well, it’s a pity the waiter didn’t come at that point.”

  Sophie cannot help but smile.

 
What she is feeling now is not boredom, it is not contempt. What is it? A hollowness. An emptiness. Perhaps it comes from him.

  “So, what was it you said you do, exactly?”

  “I’m in the Signals Corps.”

  “Well, that helps.”

  “Sorry?”

  “What does that mean, the Signals Corps? Tell me.”

  The soldier launches into an explanation. Now that he is in his element, he is quite talkative. She is not listening. Discreetly she glances at the clock. But could it really have been any different? What did she expect? Another Vincent? She sees herself in their house just after they moved in. The day she started painting the living room. Vincent came up behind her and simply laid his hand on the back of her neck and Sophie felt his strength flow into her.

  “You’re not really interested in the Signals Corps, are you?”

  “No, no, I am.”

  “So you find the whole thing fascinating?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go as far as that.”

  “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. You’re thinking ‘Nice enough guy, with his stories about the Signals Corps, but boring as fuck.’ Excuse my language. You’re checking the time, your mind is elsewhere. I should probably tell you right now, I feel the same. You make me uncomfortable, you’re trying to be nice because, well, what choice do you have? So here we are, talking away. But we haven’t got much to talk about. I can’t help wonder . . .”

  “I’m really sorry, you’re right, my mind was elsewhere. It’s just that it’s very technical, what you do.”

  “It’s not just because it’s technical. It’s mostly that you don’t fancy me. I wonder . . .”

  “What?”

  “I can’t help wondering why you called me back. What is it that you really want? What’s your story?”

  “Oh, It’s a lo-o-ong story – it could take a year or two, maybe three. Most people never get the chance. My ex-boyfriend doesn’t know how damn lucky he was.”

  They both laugh. At the end of the meal, she no longer knows where she stands. They walk along the river bank. A biting cold. A hundred metres on, she slips her arm through his. A moment of complicity has brought them closer together. In the end, he manoeuvred skilfully: he gave up trying to impress. He said simple things: “The way I see it, you might as well just be yourself. Because sooner or later, people will find out who you really are. You might as well let them know from the start.”

  “You were talking about postings to overseas territories.”

  “Not just French départements! You can get yourself posted to foreign countries too. Though I have to admit, that’s pretty rare.”

  Sophie is working out a timeline. Meet, marry, move abroad, work, divorce. Perhaps it is an illusion, this thought that she will be safer thousands of kilometres from here. But intuitively she knows she will be better able to hide. While she is thinking, the soldier lists friends who have been posted abroad, those who put in for transfers, those who are still hopeful. God, but the man is so tedious, so trite.

  20

  I am afraid. The dead are surfacing. In the darkness. I can count them one by one. In the darkness, I see them sitting at a table, side by side. In the darkness. At the head of the table is Léo with a bootlace around his throat. He looks at me reproachfully. He says: “Are you mad, Sophie? Why did you strangle me? Is it really true that you’re mad?”; his eyes are probing, piercing. I recognise that puzzled expression, his head tilted to one side as though he is thinking. “It’s true, but it’s nothing new, she was always mad,” Vincent’s mother says. She is trying to be reassuring. I recognise that grim expression, the shrill voice, the eyes like a hyena’s. “She was crazy long before she started killing people and destroying everything around her, I said as much to Vincent, I said, ‘That girl is crazy . . .’ ” She says this solemnly, she closes her eyes for so long when she speaks you wonder if she will ever open them, she spends most of her time with her eyelids closed, gazing deep within herself. “You hate me, Sophie, you always hated me, but now that you’ve killed me . . .” Vincent says nothing more. He shakes his fleshless head as though pleading for mercy. Now they are all staring at me. They say nothing.

  I wake with a jolt. When this happens, I can’t get back to sleep. I go to the window and I stand there for hours, smoking and sobbing.

  I even killed my own baby.

  21

  They have been seeing each other for about two weeks. It took Sophie only a few hours to work out what makes the soldier tick. Now, she is simply honing her skills to match his interests, but she remains vigilant.

  He allows her to drag him to see “24 Heures de la vie d’une femme” and pretends to enjoy it.

  “In the novel it was different, there were only two generations of women,” Sophie explains, lighting a cigarette.

  “I haven’t read it, but I’m sure it’s pretty good.”

  “Yes,” Sophie says, “the book is pretty good.”

  *

  She has had to reconstruct a whole biography based on her new birth certificate: who her parents were, where she studied, it is a story she shrouds in mystery for fear of saying too much. The soldier is tactful. As a precaution, she encourages him to talk most of the time. In the evening, when she gets home, she makes notes, she has a jotter that contains everything she knows about him. There is nothing convoluted about his past. Nothing interesting, either. Born October 13, 1973 in Aubervilliers, just outside Paris. Unremarkable primary and secondary schools, technical college, qualification in electromechanical engineering, enlisted in the army, assigned to the Signals Corps, certificate in telecommunications, sergent-chef, possible promotion to adjudant.

  “So, squid, huh?”

  “They’re sometimes called calamari . . .”

  He smiles.

  “D’you know, I think I’ll go for the steak.”

  It is Sophie’s turn to smile.

  “You make me laugh.”

  “Usually when women say that, it’s not a good sign.”

  *

  The advantage of soldiers is their directness, that what you see is what you get. He turns out to be very much as Sophie supposed on their first few dates. She has discovered that he is unexpectedly sensitive, the man is not an idiot, he is simple and down to earth. He wants to marry, to have children, he is kind, and even caring. And Sophie has no time to lose. She had little trouble seducing him: he was already seduced, and Sophie was as good a catch as any other woman. In fact she was rather better because she is quite pretty. Since they started dating, she has gone back to buying make-up, she pays a little more attention to what she wears but is careful not to overdress. From time to time, it is clear that the soldier fantasises about certain things. It has been years since any man looked at her with such passionate longing – it feels strange.

  *

  “Where exactly are we heading?”

  “I thought we said we were going to see ‘Alien’.”

  “No, I mean us. Where do we stand?”

  Sophie knows exactly where they stand. She has barely two months to carry out her plan. Less the time required to publish the banns. She cannot change her mind now. There’s no time. With any other guy, she would have to start again from scratch. There is no time. She looks at him. She has become accustomed to his face. Or perhaps she just needs him. The result is the same.

  “Do you know where you stand?”

  “Me? Yes, I think so. But you already know that. What I don’t understand is why you changed your mind, why you called me back.”

  “I didn’t change my mind, I just took time to think.”

  “No. You changed your mind. On our first date, you’d already made a decision, and it was ‘No’. I don’t understand what made you change your mind. Or why.”

  Sophie lights another cigarette. They are in a brasserie. The evening has not been as dull as she had expected. She has only to look at him to know that this man has falle
n in love with her. Has she been canny enough to be convincing?

  “You’re right. The first time we met, I wasn’t blown away . . . I . . .”

  “You met other guys. And they were worse, so you thought to yourself . . .”

  Sophie looks him in the eye.

  “Well, didn’t you?”

  “Marianne, I get the feeling that you’re a terrible liar. No, actually, what I mean is you’re a very good liar, and you’ve lied to me a lot.”

  “About what?”

  “How would I know? Maybe about everything.”

  Sometimes, she sees such anxiety in his face that she feels a pang of guilt.

  “I suppose you have your reasons,” he says. “I’ve got my own ideas on the subject, but maybe I’m better off not prying.”

  “Why?”

  “When you decide to tell me, you’ll tell me.”

  “So what are your ideas on the subject?”

  “There are things in your past that you can’t bring yourself to talk about. But I don’t mind.”

  He looks at her, hesitates. He pays the bill. Finally, he takes the plunge.

  “I think maybe – I don’t know . . . maybe you were in prison or something like that.”

  He looks at her again, a sidelong glance. Sophie thinks rapidly. “Let’s say something like that. Nothing terribly serious, but I don’t like to talk about it.”

  He nods sympathetically.

  “But what is it exactly that you want?”

  “I want to be an ordinary woman, with a husband and kids. That’s all.”

  “I have to say, you don’t exactly seem the type.”

  Sophie feels a cold chill down her back. She tries to smile. They have left the restaurant, the night is ink black, the cold wind whips their faces. She has slipped her arm through his as she always does now. She turns to face him.

  “I was thinking of asking you to come home with me. But maybe you’re not the type.”