Blood Wedding

by Pierre Lemaitre

  The boxes are extremely heavy. Each is sealed with a length of packing tape. Frantz turns over the one he is interested in. The bottom is simply glued together. The blade of a Stanley knife carefully inserted is enough to unstick the four corrugated cardboard flaps. This done, he finds himself faced with a pile of folders. He picks one at random: Gravetier. The name is written in block capitals in blue marker. He puts it back in the box. He takes out a sheaf of files and he can feel his salvation fast approaching: Baland, Baruk, Benard, Belais, Berg! An orange file, the name inscribed in the same handwriting. It is very thin. Frantz opens it nervously. It contains only three documents. The first is a “Clinical Assessment” concerning Berg, Sarah. The second is a simple note containing official and administrative details, the third, a hand-written, largely illegible prescription detailing a regimen of medications. He takes out the clinical assessment, folds it and tucks it into his tracksuit. He puts the file back in the box, applies a few spots of extra-strong glue to the flaps, turns it over and leaves everything as he found it. Less than fifteen minutes later he is driving back along the autoroute, taking care to observe the speed limit.

  *

  The moment she stepped through the door, Sophie was shaken to the core. She has come to know Frantz well, but seeing what is in the cellar . . . it is like tumbling into his subconscious mind. The walls are plastered with photographs. She feels tears spring to her eyes. She feels devastated as she catches sight of the huge, close-up photographs of Vincent, his sad, handsome face. Four years of her life are here. Her walking (where is that?), enlargements of the snapshots taken in Greece that forced her to leave Percy’s in such painfully humiliating circumstances. Her coming out of a supermarket – the photograph would have been taken in 2001. There is the house in the Oise. Sophie bites her lip. She would like to scream, would like to blow up this cellar, this building, the whole world. Once more she feels violated. In another photograph, Sophie is being manhandled by a supermarket security guard. Here she is entering the police station. There are several close-ups from a time when she was still pretty. In this one, she looks ugly. It was taken in the Oise, she is in the garden, walking arm in arm with Valérie. Already she looks sad. Here she is holding little Léo by the hand. Sophie begins to weep, she cannot help it, she cannot think, all she can do is sob, her head shaking as she stares at this panoramic collage of the catastrophe that is her life. She begins to whimper, ragged sobs rise in her throat, her tears wash away the images, the cellar, her whole life. Sophie sinks to her knees, she looks up and sees a photograph of Vincent, naked, lying on top of her. It can only have been taken through the window of their apartment – how was this possible? There are close-ups of her belongings, her wallet, her bag, her contraceptive pills. Here she is with Laure Dufresne. She wails, presses her forehead to the ground and continues to weep; Frantz could turn up at any minute, but it does not matter anymore, she is ready to die.

  But Sophie does not die. Eventually, she lifts her head. A fierce anger drives out her grief. She gets to her feet, roughly wipes away her tears, her black fury undiminished. Frantz could turn up at any minute, but it does not matter anymore, she is ready to kill him.

  Sophie is plastered all over the walls, except for the wall on the right which has only three images. Ten, twenty, thirty prints of the same three images, framed, colour, black and white, sepia, retouched, three pictures of the same woman. Sarah Berg. This is the first time Sophie has seen her. The resemblance to Frantz is staggering: the eyes, the mouth . . . In two of the pictures, she is young – thirty or thereabouts. Pretty. Beautiful, in fact. In the third picture she is sitting on a bench beside a lawn, a weeping willow in the background. Her eyes are vacant, her expression lifeless.

  Sophie blows her nose, sits down at the desk, opens the laptop and presses the power button. A few seconds later, the password prompt appears. Sophie checks the time, gives herself forty-five minutes and starts with the most obvious: sophie, sarah, Maman, jonas, auverney, catherine . . .

  Forty-five minutes later, she is forced to give up.

  She closes the laptop and begins to rifle through the desk drawers. She finds various objects that belong to her, including many of those in the photographs on the wall. There are still a few minutes remaining of the time she has allowed herself. Just before she leaves, she opens a ruled notepad and begins to read:

  May 3, 2000

  I’ve just seen her for the first time. Her name is Sophie. She was coming out of her apartment block. I barely caught a glimpse. She’s obviously a woman in a hurry. She got into a car and sped off so fast I had difficulty keeping up on my motorbike.

  CONFIDENTIAL

  Dr Catherine Auverney

  Clinique Armand Brussières

  Attn:

  Dr Sylvain Lesgle

  Clinical Director

  Clinique Armand Brussières

  Clinical Assessment

  Patient: Sarah Berg, née Weiss

  Address: (see attached)

  Born: July 22, 1944 in Paris (XI)

  Profession: none

  Died: June 4, 1989 in Meudon (dép. 92)

  *

  Mme Sarah Berg was first admitted to a psychiatric unit in September 1982 (Hôpital Pasteur). Her case notes for the period have not been forwarded. From what we have gathered, the admission was made on the instructions of her attending physician at the insistence of her husband, Jonas Berg, although with the consent of the patient. She does not appear to have been held beyond the period of the emergency section order.

  Mme Sarah Berg was admitted for a second time in 1985 by Doctor Roudier (Clinique du Parc). The patient was suffering from chronic clinical depression, an ongoing condition, symptoms of which first became apparent in the 1960s. The compulsory committal, resulting from a suicide attempt in which the patient swallowed barbiturates, lasted from March 11 until October 26.

  I personally treated Sarah Berg in June 1987, when she was hospitalised for the third time (she was discharged on February 24, 1988). I would later discover that the suicide attempt, the basis for this committal, had been preceded by two earlier attempts in 1985 and 1987. The approach to treating the previous attempts – essentially through medication – were, at the time, considered effective. The state of the patient upon admission required intensive treatment as the only efficacious preventive. As a result of the aforesaid treatment, it was not until July 1987 that it became possible to engage directly with the patient.

  When we did so, we determined that Sarah Berg, then forty-three years old, was a woman of keen intelligence, with a rich, complex vocabulary and an unquestionable talent for hyperbole. Her life had been severely marked by the deportation and the subsequent death of her parents in Dachau soon after she was born. The first symptoms of depressive disorder, with attendant delirium, doubtless appeared at an early age and suggest a strong sense of guilt – not uncommon in such circumstances – and serious narcissistic haemorrhagia. During our sessions, Sarah talked about her parents and frequently raised the issue of historical validation (viz. why them?). This issue clearly masks more primordial psychological issues stemming from the loss of parental love and the loss of self-esteem. It should be emphasised that Sarah is a profoundly compassionate individual, often disarming – and sometimes excessive – in her willingness to question herself. Her account of the loss of her parents is profoundly moving, and her refusal to mourn – she diverts her pain through displacement activity, obsessively researching holocaust survivors – reveals Sarah to be a woman of painful sensitivity who is at once lucid and naïve. The key psychological factor influencing her childhood was survivor guilt and the feeling of unworthiness common to orphans who unconsciously construe the “departure” of their parents to be grounds for their low self-worth.

  It is impossible to dismiss the possibility that genetic factors – which fall beyond the purview of this assessment – may have contributed to Sarah Berg’s illness. As a result I would strongly recommend that any offspring of the pat
ient be monitored closely for symptoms of marked depression, morbid fixation and obsessional behaviour [. . .]

  *

  Frantz came home in the middle of the night. Sophie woke up when she heard the door, but she at once feigned a deep sleep. From the sound of his brisk footsteps in the apartment and the way he closed the fridge door, she could tell he was excited, he who is usually so calm. She sensed his presence in the doorway. Then he came to the bed, knelt down and stroked her hair. Despite the fact that it was late, he did not come to bed. He went back to the living room and into the kitchen. She thought she could hear the sound of rustling paper, as though he were opening an envelope. Then, silence. He did not come to bed at all that night. In the morning she found him sitting at the kitchen table, staring into space. He looked so much like the photograph of Sarah, though more forlorn. As though he had aged ten years overnight. He said nothing but simply lifted his head and looked straight through her.

  “Are you not well?” Sophie said.

  She put on her dressing gown. Frantz did not answer. They stayed frozen like that for a long moment. Strangely, Sophie found herself thinking that this sudden, unexpected silence was the first time they had properly communicated since they first met. She could not have explained why. Sunlight streamed through the kitchen window, splashing Frantz’s feet.

  “Were you out?” Sophie asked.

  He looked down at his mud-spattered shoes as though they did not belong to him.

  “Yes . . . I mean, no.”

  Clearly something was wrong. Sophie moved closer and stroked the back of his neck. She found the simple act of touching him repellent, but she held firm.

  She put the kettle on.

  “Would you like some tea?”

  “No. I mean, yes.”

  A curious atmosphere. As though she were emerging from the night just as he was entering it.

  *

  His face is pale. All he can say is “I feel a bit off colour.” For two days he has scarcely eaten. She suggests dairy products to settle his stomach: he eats the three pots of yoghurt she brings him, drinks some tea. The rest of the time he sits at the kitchen table and broods. She finds it frightening, this sombre air. He sits for a long time, lost in thought. Then he begins to cry. Just that. There is no sign of sadness in his face, the tears trickle down and fall onto the oilcloth. For two days.

  Awkwardly he wipes away his tears, then says, “I’m sick.” His voice is tremulous, weak.

  “Maybe it’s flu?” Sophie says.

  A foolish thing to say, his tears would hardly be a symptom of flu. But it is so extraordinary for him to cry.

  “Have a lie-down,” she says, “I’ll make you a hot drink.”

  He murmurs something like, “O.K., that’s good,” but she cannot be sure. The atmosphere is strange and unsettling. He gets up, turns, walks into the bedroom and lies down, fully clothed. She makes him his tea. This is the perfect opportunity. She glances back to make sure he is still lying there, then opens the rubbish chute.

  She does not smile, but feels an intense relief. The tables have been turned. Luck has been on her side, but that is the least she could expect of it. She had planned to take control at the first sign of weakness. Now, she vows to herself, she will not let go. Till death do them part.

  When she goes into the bedroom he looks at her curiously, as though she were someone he was not expecting, as though he is about to say something. But no. He says nothing. He props himself up on one elbow.

  “You really should get undressed,” she says, bustling about.

  She plumps the pillows, smoothes the sheets. Frantz gets up and slowly undresses. He seems completely worn out. She smiles: “You look dead on your feet.” Before he lies down, he takes the tea she has made for him. “It will help you sleep.” Frantz begins to drink and says, “I know.”

  *

  [. . .] In 1964, Sarah Weiss married Jonas Berg (born 1933), eleven years her senior. Her choice confirms that she has been searching for a symbolic father figure who might – as far as possible – compensate for the absence of her biological parents. Jonas Berg is an outgoing, imaginative man, a diligent worker with an excellent instinct for business. In 1959, making the most of the opportunities afforded by the post-war boom, Jonas Berg had set up the first chain of mini-markets in France. Fifteen years later the franchise had expanded to more than four hundred outlets, accumulating for the Berg family a substantial fortune which the prudent M. Berg managed to safeguard throughout the crisis of the 1970s and indeed increase by the acquisition of real estate, principally residential properties. He died in 1999.

  Jonas Berg’s steadfast strength and his unconditional love would become the bedrock of his wife’s security. The first years of the marriage seem to have been marked by the gradual, initially unobtrusive, escalation of Sarah Berg’s symptoms which were progressively to deteriorate and become clinical depression.

  In February 1973, Sarah falls pregnant for the first time. The young couple are delighted at the news. If Jonas Berg secretly longs for a son and heir, Sarah is hoping for a daughter (destined, evidently, to become the “ideal object of atonement” and the palliative which might stem the original narcissistic flaw). This hypothesis is confirmed by the happiness of the couple during the early months of the pregnancy, and the marked alleviation of Sarah’s depressive symptoms.

  The second pivotal event in Sarah’s life (following the death of her parents) occurred in June 1973 when she gave birth, prematurely, to a stillborn daughter. The reopening of that initial gaping wound was to cause profound and lasting damage which her second pregnancy would make irreparable. [. . .]

  *

  When she is certain that he is asleep, Sophie goes down to the cellar and fetches the notepad containing his diary. She lights a cigarette, sets the book on the kitchen table and begins to read. From the first words, everything is there, almost exactly as she imagined it. Page after page, she feels her hatred swelling to become a tight knot in her stomach. The words in Frantz’s diary corroborate the photographs on the walls of the cellar. After the portraits come the names: first Vincent and Valérie . . . From time to time, Sophie glances towards the window, stubs out a cigarette and lights another. Her hatred is such that, were Frantz to enter the room right now, she could plunge a knife into his belly without a qualm. She could stab him in his sleep, it would be so easy. But it is because she hates him that she does not do it. She has various solutions. She has yet to decide on one.

  *

  Sophie takes a blanket from the wardrobe and sleeps on the sofa.

  Frantz comes into the living room having slept for twelve hours straight, although even now he does not seem awake. His movements are sluggish, his face is pale. He looks at the sofa where Sophie has left the blanket. He does not say anything. He simply looks at her.

  “Would you like something to eat?” she says. “Do you want me to call a doctor?”

  He shakes his head but she is not sure whether this refers to eating or to the doctor. Possibly both.

  “If it’s the flu, it will sort itself out,” he says, his voice toneless.

  He slumps rather than sits opposite her. He lays his hands on the table in front of him, like objects.

  “You really should eat something,” Sophie says.

  Frantz shrugs. To signal he does not care.

  He says, “Whatever you want . . .”

  She gets up, goes into the kitchen, puts a frozen meal into the microwave and lights another cigarette while she waits for the timer. Frantz does not smoke, usually he finds the smell irritating, but he is so weak he does not even seem to notice that she is stubbing out cigarettes in the breakfast bowls. Usually he is extremely fastidious.

  Frantz turns away from the kitchen. When the meal is ready, she spoons half of it onto a plate, checks that Frantz has not moved and then stirs the sleeping tablet into the tomato sauce.

  Frantz tastes it, looks up at her. The silence makes her uncomfortable.

  �
�It’s nice,” he says, eventually.

  He eats the pasta, pauses for a second, then tastes the sauce.

  “Is there any bread?” he says.

  She gets up again and brings him a plastic bag containing a couple of slices. He starts to mop up the sauce. He eats the bread without savouring it, mechanically, conscientiously, until it is all gone.

  “What exactly is wrong?” Sophie says. “Have you got a pain somewhere?”

  He gestures vaguely towards his chest. His eyes are puffy.

  “A hot drink will do you good.”

  She goes to the kitchen and makes the tea. When she comes back she can see that he is tearful again. He sips the tea, but after a while he gives up, sets down the cup and struggles to his feet. He goes to the bathroom, then back to bed. Leaning against the doorframe, Sophie watches him. It is 3.00 p.m.

  “I’m just going to do some shopping,” she says.

  He has never allowed her to go out alone. But this time, Frantz opens his eyes, looks at her, his whole body seems overcome by fatigue. By the time Sophie has put her coat on, he is asleep.

  *

  [. . .] By February 1974, Sarah is pregnant again. Given the profound depression she suffered during this period, the pregnancy seems fraught with symbolism since this second child is conceived exactly a year after the first. Sarah is plagued by baseless fears born of magical thinking (“This child has killed my daughter to take her place”), bouts of self-recrimination (she killed her daughter just as she killed her mother), and feelings of worthlessness (she considers herself an “unfit mother” and incapable of giving birth to a healthy child).