“I don’t get it, Émilie, what is it that you want?”
“I’ve told my . . . I’ve told Jérôme I’m leaving him. I didn’t tell him the whole story, I don’t want him to think badly of us, but it’s done.”
“What do you want?”
She knit her immaculate blonde eyebrows, surprised that Antoine could ask such a stupid question.
“I want my baby to live. That’s not too much to ask, is it? I want him to have every opportunity in life.”
He squeezed his eyes shut.
“We have to get married, Antoine, my parents . . .”
Antoine leapt from his chair, incandescent, and roared.
“It’s not going to happen!”
He had scared her, she shrank back in her chair. He desperately needed to convince her that the idea was absurd. He tried to calm her, he went to where she was sitting, crouched down and took her hands in his.
“It’s impossible, Émilie, I don’t love you, I can’t marry you.”
He needed to come up with reasons she would understand.
“I could never make you happy, don’t you understand?”
This argument left Émilie doubtful. She did not really understand what he was trying to say. The fact was, for two months she had been living with the idea that Antoine would “make things official”, she had never considered any other possibility.
“You can still have a termination,” Antoine insisted. “I’ll pay for everything, don’t worry. I’ll get the money somewhere, I’ll look for a good clinic, I’ll take care of everything, but you’ve got to get rid of this baby because I’m not going to marry you.”
“You’re asking me to commit a crime!”
Émilie brought a tremulous hand to her breast.
There was a long silence.
Antoine had begun to despise her.
“Did you do it on purpose?” he said coldly.
“Why would I do that? And besides, how could I possibly . . .”
Émilie was struggling with this simple idea, she did not quite know how to explain it, but she sounded sincere.
Antoine was devastated: it had been an accident. Émilie would have preferred to marry her sergent-chef, but in the meantime there had been “their night together” and, as disastrous as it had been, the results were here before him, Émilie was going to have a baby and Antoine was the father.
He was in denial. He got to his feet.
“I’m sorry, Émilie, but no. I don’t want anything to do with this baby. I don’t want you, I don’t want any of this. I’ll find the money, but I don’t want a child, not now, not ever, I just can’t do it, I don’t expect you to understand.”
By now the young woman was on the brink of tears. He had an image of Émilie going home with the news. It was hard to imagine her coming here without extensively preparing for the discussion with her parents, with her saintly mother. He could picture them from here, the whole Mouchotte tribe, the father, stiff and upright as an Easter candle, the mother wrapped in her mohair shawl . . . How could they have imagined that Antoine would give in, would marry their daughter? It was incredible.
Things were not going as Émilie had anticipated. Now it was her turn to get to her feet and come closer to Antoine.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and, before he had time to react, pressed her lips to his, snaked her tongue into his mouth and waited for Antoine to respond (even she must have questioned the purpose of this ritual, and if she did not feel anything, she did it with conviction, indeed with passion, but with no thought, no plan, no skill).
Antoine turned his face to one side, loosened her arms and slowly backed away.
Stung by this rejection, Émilie dissolved into tears. The weeping girl was terrifyingly beautiful, and for a moment Antoine faltered. But mentally he had lashed himself to the mast so he could resist the Sirens’ song, it took only a moment of envisaging the life that she was planning for him to summon a strength that was impervious to everything. He gently laid a hand on her shoulder.
A few minutes earlier, he had hated her, now he felt sorry for her.
A fleeting thought occurred to him – who knew about this besides the Mouchottes? He was not thinking about himself, because he had no intention of ever going back to Beauval, he was thinking about his mother. It was all so sad.
“You’re forsaking us?” Émilie said.
She had a real knack for coming out with melodramatic clichés, where did she find them? She blew her nose loudly.
“I can’t do what you want, Émilie, I’m sorry. I’ll take care of everything: I’ll find a good clinic, I’ll pay whatever it costs, no-one need ever know, I promise. You’re young, I’m sure you’ll have lots of babies with Jérôme, you can have a family with him, but not with me. But you have to make up your mind fast, Émilie . . . otherwise I won’t be able to help you.”
Émilie nodded. She had come here with a plan and it had failed. She had said the words she had prepared, she did not see what more she could do. Forlornly, she got to her feet.
For an instant, it occurred to Antoine that she took a certain pleasure in this situation that allowed her to play a role: she was heartbroken, a tragedy was being played out, she was the heroine – it was just like television.
She left a manila envelope on the table. The photographs of the class. My God, she had brought them with her . . .
Had she imagined that they would snuggle together on the bed, laughing as they leafed through them. That Antoine – captivated, enthralled, enamoured – would lay a hand on her swelling belly and ask if the baby was kicking yet? He was stunned by her naivety.
After she left, he sat for a long moment and considered the consequences. He felt a glimmer of hope: until now, almost miraculously, he had made it unscathed through every crisis, through every trap that life had put in his path. When he was certain Rémi’s body would be found, no-one had found it, he had slipped through the net; despite the fact that she was pregnant, Émilie had gone away empty-handed . . . He began to believe that his luck might continue. He thought about luck for the first time in an age. He felt a great weight lift from him.
He waited for Laura with unexpected calm.
She came back a very different woman to the one who had left.
“You could have opened the windows, it stinks like a tart’s boudoir in here!”
That said, she grabbed her backpack and began stuffing things into it at random.
Antoine smiled; never had he felt more sure of himself. He took her by the shoulders and, smiling, forced her to turn around.
“O.K., fine, once – once – I slept with an old classmate who means nothing to me. She came here to try and stir things up, I threw her out. I love you.”
Antoine was convincing because everything he was saying was true, he had told no lies, except perhaps by omission, and that, in this moment, did not matter.
He felt suddenly invincible, he radiated such power that even Laura was startled. Still smiling, Antoine forced her to drop the clothes she was holding.
Deftly, firmly, he peeled off her sweater, and swept along by a wave of desire they fell back onto the bed, rolled onto the floor, and rolled over and over until they hit the leg of the table. Antoine was already inside her, Laura was not quite sure how he had managed it, her whole body began to tremble, a delicious shudder that came in waves, coursing from the soles of her feet, lifting her off the floor, arching her back, and she cried out. Twice.
And fell into a swoon.
17
Émilie wrote letters. Two, three times a week. Laura would set them on the table with a weary sigh. Antoine read them, at least at first. Crudely cobbled together, they were sprawling, barely intelligible screeds, but the broad message was always the same: “Don’t desert me and our baby”. Emilie’s handwriting was childlike (she dotted her i’s with little circles), she strung together melodramatic clichés intended to show the depths of despair to which Antoine had reduced her. Phrases like “surely
you can’t abandon your own flesh and blood” were followed by references to the “fire you have kindled in me”, to the “waves of desire” that “engulfed” her, references to “that night” that had left her “shattered with pleasure”. The mediocrity of her writing was almost painful, it was clear what kind of woman she was.
But though the letters were fatuous, her despair was entirely genuine. Unable to have a termination because of her parents’ religious beliefs (and perhaps her own), she was destined to become what in Beauval they still called an “unmarried mother”, forced to raise her child alone. He tried to imagine what her life would be like. His imaginings were not exactly noble: beautiful as she was, he thought, even with a kid she would manage to bag herself a husband. As for her parents, they would be thrilled to have this cross to bear, they would carry it with martyred dignity and everyone would be happy.
*
In early November, as rain set in all over France, Antoine slipped in the road as he was running for a tram, and narrowly managed to stop himself falling.
A few days later, his mother was not so fortunate. While crossing the main street in Beauval, she was hit by a car. With a muffled thud, Madame Courtin was lifted off the ground and landed heavily on the pavement. She was rushed to hospital from where the staff contacted her son.
Antoine and Laura were in bed (for the past month, they had spent most of their time here – almost breaking up can work wonders in a relationship . . .). Antoine picked up the telephone and froze. Laura held her breath. The nurse would not be pressed on details, but insisted that it would be best if he came as soon as possible.
Shaken by the news, Antoine took the first possible train to Saint-Hilaire, arriving late that evening. Even if visiting hours were over, the nurse had said, they would let him in to see her. He took a taxi. At the hospital he was greeted with such delicacy that he had to interrupt to say, “It’s O.K., I’m a doctor.”
The on-call doctor was not taken in: he was dealing with a patient’s relative, nothing more or less.
“Your mother has sustained a serious head injury. Clinical examinations have revealed no fracture and the C.T. scan looks positive, but she is in a coma . . . I can’t tell you much more at this point.”
He did not allow Antoine to study the scans, and offered only essential information. He behaved exactly as Antoine would have done in his position.
Madame Courtin looked as though she were asleep. Antoine sat next to the bed, took his mother’s hand in his and began to sob.
Laura, meanwhile, had booked a room for him in Saint-Hilaire.
L’Hôtel du Centre.
He arrived in the early hours. The lobby reeked of wax polish, something he had not smelled since his childhood, as though it were a characteristic scent of the region. Flock wallpaper, floral drapes, candlewick bedspread . . . Laura had chosen well: the room was just like his mother.
He lay down fully dressed and fell asleep. At some point he thought he woke, he did not know what time it was, and his mother was there, sitting on the edge of his bed.
“Antoine, is something wrong?” she was asking. “Sleeping there fully clothed, with your shoes on and everything . . . It’s not like you . . . If you’re not feeling well, why don’t you just tell me?”
He shook himself awake, then took a shower, the pipes shuddered and rumbled and probably woke everyone in the hotel.
He called Laura, waking her, and her first words were I love you, her voice thick with sleep, I love you, I’m here, and Antoine looked around him, all he wanted was to curl up next to her, to breathe in her love, feel her warmth, melt into her, disappear, I love you, she said, her voice deep, distant and yet present and Antoine began to cry and soon after went back to sleep. But at first light he was up and out, walking through the streets, heading towards the hospital.
He wondered whether he should get in touch with his father. It made no sense, his parents had been divorced for so long. His father would either feel obliged to come in order to prove that he was close to his son, which would be a sham, or he would refuse because for more than twenty years this woman had meant nothing to him. There was no-one Antoine could call except Laura. It was strange how there were so few people in his life.
Madame Courtin’s condition had not changed since the previous night.
Antoine read the patient notes, studied the graphs, instinctively checked the settings on the life-support machines. Then, having exhausted all possible distractions, he sat down next to his mother’s bed once more.
One worry had superseded another. It was only now, in the silence of this hospital room, in his enforced idleness, that he realised he was only a few kilometres from Beauval.
It was impossible to know how things would turn out. Would his mother die? Would Rémi’s body finally be discovered? And if so, would it happen before or after she passed away?
What Antoine found exhausting was not the guilt, nor the fear of being caught, it was the waiting. The uncertainty. The feeling that until he got as far from here as possible, anything might happen, his life could be ruined in an instant. It was only a matter of months now. Like a long-distance runner, it was those last few kilometres that seemed impossible.
In the early afternoon, Docteur Dieulafoy made a discreet, unobtrusive appearance. He always looked as though he had got the wrong room, as though he would turn and leave when he realised his mistake. This was probably what he intended to do when he saw Antoine in the room. Swiftly he masked his embarrassment, but only after that flicker of hesitation that so often betrays people who find themselves in unexpected situations.
Antoine had not seen the man in years. He looked much older, but his face, now deeply furrowed, was as impassive, as inscrutable as ever. Did he still live the same friendless, mysterious life, still spend every Sunday in a baggy tracksuit cleaning his surgery?
The two men shook hands and sat next to one another, silently watching Madame Courtin, then realised that their silence resembled post-mortem reverence.
“Where are you up to in your studies?” the doctor asked.
“Final year.”
“Already?”
Docteur Dieulafoy’s voice transported Antoine back to that curious moment half a lifetime ago: “If I’d admitted you to hospital . . . things would have been very different, you realise . . .”
It was true. If Antoine had been hospitalised after his attempted suicide, there would have been an investigation, he would have been questioned, he would have confessed to killing Rémi, his life would have been over, this was the fate the doctor had saved him from.
What exactly did he know? Nothing concrete. But a few hours after the disappearance of a neighbour’s child, with the whole town agonising over the tragedy, a twelve-year-old boy’s attempt to end his own life took on a terrible significance and presented him with a real moral dilemma.
“I mean, if something happens,” the doctor had said, “you can come to me, you can call me . . .”
That day had never come. It was curious that the doctor should reappear now, when Antoine felt closer than he ever had to the abyss.
That “something” was about to happen, though Docteur Dieulafoy did not yet know it: the body of Rémi Desmedt was about to be discovered.
Antoine looked at his mother’s ashen face.
She, too, had known there was “something”, but she had chosen not to find out what it was. Intuitively, she had realised that her son was probably involved in the tragedy, she had done everything possible to protect him from some nameless but insistent threat, and this web of lies, half-truths and silence had held firm for almost twelve years.
Now Antoine found himself in a hospital room with the only two witnesses to his involvement, two people who, in their own ways, had chosen to remain silent.
The wheel was coming full circle.
At this very moment, flatbed trucks were carrying cranes up the hill towards the woods at Saint-Eustache, bulldozers were clearing away the fallen trees. The
remains of Rémi Desmedt would not be scattered, nor buried beneath the heavy caterpillar treads of machines, they would rise up, like the statue of the Commendatore to demand that justice be done and that Antoine Courtin be apprehended, arrested, tried and sentenced.
Madame Courtin began to mutter something unintelligible.
From opposite sides of the bed, the two men looked at her, listened to the gurgling noises and struggled in vain to find some meaning in them.
“What are you planning to do afterwards?” the doctor asked.
What was he talking about? Antoine frantically racked his brain, then remembered their interrupted conversation.
“Oh . . . humanitarian aid. I passed the interviews . . . Well, that’s the plan, at least.”
Docteur Dieulafoy was thoughtful for a moment.
“I see, you want to get away.”
He looked up and stared at Antoine, as though struck by a sudden revelation.
“It’s very parochial here, isn’t it?”
Antoine tried to protest.
“Oh, but it is,” the doctor interrupted him. “It’s a small town. I do understand, you know. What I mean is . . .”
He trailed off into a long pensive silence and then got to his feet and left as he had come, like a cat, quiet and anonymous, taking his leave of Antoine with a curt nod and a surprising and enigmatic remark:
“I’m very fond of you, Antoine.”
Antoine’s fantasy of never again setting foot in Beauval did not even last the day: in the late afternoon, the hospital administration requested Madame Courtin’s papers and effects, Antoine would have to go and fetch them, there was no-one else.
The prospect of returning to Beauval was overwhelming. His mother lived next door to the Mouchottes, and he had no trouble imagining the mortifying scene he would face if Émilie noticed his presence.
He played for time, found all manner of excuses, he would wait until after his mother had been bathed, he would leave after the consultant’s visit . . .
Without thinking, he flicked on the television to watch the evening news.
Three Days and a Life Page 15