Lullaby

by Leïla Slimani

  ‘Obviously, I thought about winter.’ The island must look very different then. These dry rocky hills, these oregano bushes, these thistles must look quite hostile in the November gloom. It must be dark, up there, when the first rains fall. But she won’t change her mind: no one will persuade her to return to France. She’ll move to a different island, perhaps, but she will never go back.

  ‘Or maybe I won’t tell them anything. I’ll just disappear, like that,’ she says, snapping her fingers.

  Wafa listens to Louise talk about her plans. She has no trouble imagining those blue horizons, those cobbled streets, those morning swims. She feels terribly homesick. Louise’s words awaken memories, the salty smell of the Atlantic in the evening from the coast road, the sunrises greeted by the whole family during Ramadan. But Louise suddenly starts laughing, shattering Wafa’s sweet daydream. She laughs like a shy little girl who hides her teeth behind her fingers and she reaches out her hand to her friend, who sits next to her on the sofa. They raise their glasses and make a toast. They look like two young girls now, two schoolmates sharing a private joke, or a secret. Like two children, lost in an adult world.

  Wafa has maternal or sisterly instincts. She thinks about getting Louise a drink of water, making her coffee, making her something to eat. Louise stretches out her legs and crosses her feet on the table. Wafa looks at Louise’s dirty sole next to her glass, and she thinks that her friend must be drunk to act like that. She has always admired Louise’s manners, her prim politeness, which could pass for that of a real bourgeois lady. Wafa puts her bare feet on the edge of the table. And in a salacious voice, she says: ‘Maybe you’ll meet someone on your island? A handsome Greek man, who’ll fall in love with you …’

  ‘Oh, no,’ replies Louise. ‘If I go there, it’s so I don’t have to look after anyone any more. So I can sleep when I want, eat whatever I like.’

  To begin with, the plan was not to do anything for Wafa’s wedding. They would just go to the town hall, sign the documents, and each month Wafa would pay Youssef what she owed him until she had her French papers. But her future husband ended up changing his mind. He suggested to his mother, who was only too willing to comply, that it would be more decent to invite a few friends. ‘I mean, it is my wedding. Anyway, you never know, it might help convince the immigration services.’

  One Friday morning they arrange to meet outside the town hall in Noisy-le-Sec. Louise, who is a witness for the first time, wears her sky-blue Peter Pan collar and a pair of earrings. She signs at the bottom of the sheet that the mayor hands her and the wedding seems almost real. The hoorays, the cries of ‘Here’s to the happy couple!’, the applause … all of it sounds sincere.

  The little group walks to the restaurant, La Gazelle d’Agadir, run by a friend of Wafa’s, and where she has sometimes worked as a waitress. Louise observes the other guests, who stand around gesticulating, laughing and slapping one another on the shoulder. Outside the restaurant, Youssef’s brothers have parked a black sedan with dozens of gold plastic ribbons attached to it.

  The restaurant owner has put music on. He’s not worried about the neighbours; on the contrary, he thinks it will be good publicity for his restaurant, that people passing in the street will look through the window at the elegantly set tables, that they will envy the guests’ happiness. Louise observes the women; she is particularly struck by their broad faces, their thick hands, their wide hips accentuated by belts tied too tight. They speak loudly, they laugh, they call across the room at one another. They surround Wafa, who is sitting at the table of honour and who, Louise gathers, is not allowed to move.

  Louise has been seated at the end of the room, far from the window that overlooks the street, next to a man whom Wafa had introduced her to this morning. ‘I told you about Hervé. He did some work in my bedsit. He works quite nearby.’ Wafa deliberately seated her next to him. He is the kind of man she deserves. A man no one wants but who Louise will take, the way she takes old clothes, second-hand magazines with pages missing, even waffles half-eaten by the children.

  She is not attracted to Hervé. She is embarrassed by Wafa’s knowing looks. She hates this sensation of being spied on, trapped. And besides, this man is so ordinary. There is so little about him to like. For a start, he is barely any taller than Louise. His legs are muscular but short and his hips are narrow. Hardly any neck. When he speaks, he sometimes pulls his head back into his shoulders, like a shy turtle. Louise keeps staring at his hands as they rest on the table: they are a working man’s hands, a poor man’s hands, a smoker’s hands. She has noticed that he has teeth missing. He is not distinguished. He smells of cucumber and wine. The first thing she thinks is that she would be ashamed to introduce him to Myriam and Paul. They would be disappointed. She is sure that they would think this man isn’t good enough for her.

  Hervé, on the other hand, stares at Louise with the eagerness of an old man for a young woman who has shown a bit of interest in him. He finds her so elegant, so delicate. He notes the slenderness of her neck, the lightness of her earrings. He observes her hands as they writhe in her lap, her little white hands with pink fingernails, her hands that look as if they have not suffered, not been worked to the bone. Louise reminds him of those porcelain dolls he’s seen sitting on shelves in the apartments of old ladies where he has gone to do a favour or do some work. Like those dolls, Louise’s features are almost motionless; sometimes her frozen expression is absolutely beautiful. She has a way of staring into space that makes Hervé want to remind her of his existence.

  He tells her about his job. He’s a delivery driver, but not full-time. He also does odd jobs, repairs things, helps people move house. Three days a week he works as a security guard in the car park of a bank, on Boulevard Haussmann. ‘It gives me time to read,’ he says. ‘Thrillers mostly, but not always.’ She doesn’t know what to say when he asks her what she reads.

  ‘What about music, then? Do you like music?’

  He is mad about it and, with his little purple fingers, he pretends to pluck the strings of a guitar. He talks about life before, in the old days, when people listened to music all the time, when singers were idols. He used to have long hair and worship Jimi Hendrix. ‘I’ll show you a photo,’ he says. Louise realises that she has never listened to music. She never got a taste for it. All she knows are nursery rhymes, simple rhyming songs passed on from mother to daughter. One evening, Myriam heard her humming a tune with the children. She told her she had a very nice voice. ‘It’s a shame, you could have been a singer.’

  Louise has not noticed that most of the guests are not drinking alcohol. In the centre of each table there is a bottle of soda and a large carafe of water. Hervé has hidden a bottle of wine on the floor, to his right, and he pours more into Louise’s glass whenever it’s empty. She drinks slowly. She ends up getting used to the deafening music, the yelling of the guests, the incomprehensible speeches of the young men who talk with their lips too close to the microphone. She even smiles as she watches Wafa and she forgets that all of this is nothing but a masquerade, a fool’s game, a hoax.

  She drinks and the discomfort of living, the shyness of breathing, all this anguish dissolves in the liquid she sips. The banality of the restaurant, and of Hervé … it is all transformed. Hervé has a soft voice and he knows when to shut up. He looks at her and he smiles, eyes lowered to the table. When he has nothing to say, he says nothing. His little lashless eyes, his sparse hair, his purplish skin, his manners no longer displease Louise so much.

  She lets Hervé walk her to the metro station. She says goodbye and walks down the steps without turning round. On the way home, Hervé thinks about her. She inhabits him like a catchy song in English, a language he doesn’t understand at all, and in which, despite all those years spent listening to music, he continues mangling his favourite choruses.

  At 7.30, as she does every morning, Louise opens the front door of the apartment. Paul and Myriam are standing in the living room. They look as if they
’ve been waiting for her. Myriam resembles a half-starved animal that has been prowling its cage all night. Paul turns on the television and, for once, lets the children watch cartoons before they go to school.

  ‘Stay here. Don’t move,’ he orders Mila and Adam, who stare hypnotised, mouths hanging open, at a group of hysterical rabbits.

  The adults lock themselves in the kitchen. Paul asks Louise to sit down.

  ‘Shall I make you a coffee?’ the nanny asks.

  ‘No, thanks, I’m fine,’ Paul replies coldly. Behind him, Myriam stares at the floor; her hand touches her lips. ‘Louise, we received a letter that has put us in a difficult position. I have to admit that we are very upset by what we learned. There are certain things that cannot be tolerated.’ He says all this in a single breath, his eyes riveted to the envelope in his hands.

  Louise stops breathing. She can’t even feel her tongue any more and has to bite her lip to prevent herself crying. She wants to act like a child would: cover her ears, scream, roll on the floor, anything to avoid having this conversation. She tries to identify the letter that Paul is holding, but she can’t make out anything: not the address, nor the contents.

  Suddenly she feels sure that the letter is from Mrs Grinberg. The old harpy was probably spying on her while Paul and Myriam were away, and now she is telling them everything. She’s written a poison-pen letter, denouncing Louise, insulting her, as a way of distracting herself from her solitude. Undoubtedly she has told them how Louise spent her holiday here. That she invited Wafa. Maybe she even sent the letter anonymously, to add to the mystery, the malice. And besides, she probably invented things, covering the paper with all her old-lady fantasies, her lewd, senile delusions. Louise won’t be able to stand it. No, she won’t be able to stand the disgusted look on her boss’s face, the idea that Myriam will believe that she slept in their bed, that she made fun of them behind their backs.

  Louise stiffens. Her fingers are tensed with hate and she hides her hands behind her knees so Paul and Myriam won’t see them shaking. Her face and throat are pale. In a rage, she puts her fingers through her hair. Paul, who was waiting for a reaction, goes on.

  ‘This letter is from the tax office, Louise. They’re asking us to take from your wages the sum that you owe them – and have apparently owed them for months. You’ve never replied to single reminder letter!’

  Paul could swear he saw relief in the nanny’s face.

  ‘I’m well aware that this is humiliating for you, but it’s not very pleasant for us either, you know.’

  Paul hands the letter to Louise, who does not move.

  ‘Look.’

  Louise takes the envelope and removes the sheet of paper from it, her hands clammy and trembling. Her vision is blurred. She pretends to read the letter, but she doesn’t take in a word of it.

  ‘If it’s got to this point, it’s their last resort, you understand? You can’t act so negligently,’ Myriam explains.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry, Myriam. I’ll take care of this, I promise.’

  ‘I can help you, if you need help. You’ll have to bring me all the documents so we can find a solution.’

  Louise rubs her cheek, palm open, eyes vacant. She knows she ought to say something. She would like to hug Myriam, to ask for her help. She would like to say that she is alone, completely alone, and that so many things have happened, so many things that she hasn’t been able to tell anyone, but that she would like to tell her. She is upset, shaky. She doesn’t know how to behave.

  In the end Louise puts a brave face on it. She claims it is all a misunderstanding. Says something about a change of address. She blames Jacques, her husband, who was so careless and so secretive. She denies it, against all reality, against all the evidence. Her speech is so confused and pathetic that Paul rolls his eyes. ‘Okay, okay. It’s your business, so deal with it. I don’t ever want to receive this type of letter again.’

  The letters had pursued her from Jacques’s house to her studio flat and, finally, here, to her domain, in this household that is held together only by her. They sent her the unpaid bills for Jacques’s treatment, the property tax and the fines for its late payment, and some other debts that she doesn’t even recognise. She had thought naively that they would just give up if she didn’t reply. That she could just play dead. She doesn’t represent anything, after all, doesn’t possess anything. What can it matter to them? Why do they need to hunt her down?

  *

  She knows where the letters are. A pile of envelopes that she has not thrown away, that she has kept under the electric meter. She wanted to burn them. In any case, she doesn’t understand any of those interminable sentences, those tables that cover entire pages, those columns of numbers with a total that keeps increasing. It was like when she used to help Stéphanie do her homework. When it came to helping her with maths questions, her daughter would laugh and taunt her: ‘What the hell do you know about it, anyway? You’re stupid.’

  *

  That evening, after putting the children in pyjamas, Louise lingers in their bedroom. Myriam stands rigid in the entrance hall, waiting for her. ‘You can go now. We’ll see you tomorrow.’ Louise wishes she could stay. She wishes she could sleep here, at the foot of Mila’s bed. She wouldn’t make any noise; she wouldn’t disturb anyone. Louise doesn’t want to go back to her studio. Every evening she gets home a little later, and when she walks in the street she keeps her eyes lowered, her chin covered by a scarf. She is afraid of bumping into her landlord, an old man with red hair and bloodshot eyes. A miser who only trusted her ‘because renting to a white in this neighbourhood is practically unheard of’. He must be regretting his decision now.

  On the train, she grits her teeth to stop herself crying. An icy, insidious rain soaks into her coat, her hair. Heavy drops fall from porches and slide down the back of her neck, making her shiver. At the corner of her street, even though it’s empty, she feels she is being watched. She turns around, but there’s no one there. Then, in the darkness, between two cars, she spots a man squatting on his haunches. She sees his two naked thighs, his huge hands resting on his knees. In one hand he holds a newspaper. He looks at her. He does not appear hostile or embarrassed. She recoils, feeling suddenly nauseous. She wants to scream, to make someone else witness the spectacle. A man is shitting in her street, under her nose. A man who apparently has no shame left and must have got used to doing his business without any modesty or dignity.

  Louise runs to the door of her building. She is trembling as she climbs the stairs. She cleans her entire apartment. She changes the sheets. She would like to wash herself, to stand under a jet of hot water for a long time, until she’s warmed up, but a few days ago the shower collapsed – the rotten floorboards under the cubicle gave way – and now it is out of order. Since then she has been washing herself in the sink, with a flannel. She shampooed her hair three days ago, sitting on the Formica chair.

  Lying on her bed, she is unable to fall asleep. She can’t stop thinking about that man in the shadows. She can’t help imagining that, soon, that will be her. That she’ll be on the street. That she will have to leave even this vile apartment and that she will shit in the street, like an animal.

  The next morning, Louise can’t get up. All night she’s been feverish, to the point that her teeth chattered. Her throat is swollen and full of ulcers. Even her own saliva seems impossible to swallow. It’s just after 7.30 when the telephone starts to ring. She doesn’t answer. And yet she sees Myriam’s name on the screen. She opens her eyes, reaches out to the phone and hangs up. She buries her face in the pillow.

  The telephone rings again.

  This time Myriam leaves a message. ‘Hello, Louise, I hope you’re well. It’s nearly eight o’clock. Mila has been ill since last night – she has a fever. I have a very important case today, as I told you, and I need to be in court. I hope everything’s all right, and that nothing has happened. Call me back when you get this message. We’re expecting yo
u.’ Louise throws the phone to the foot of the bed and rolls herself up in the bedcovers. She tries to forget that she is thirsty and desperate to urinate. She doesn’t want to move.

  She has pushed her bed against the wall, closer to the feeble warmth of the radiator. Lying like this, her nose is almost pressed up to the windowpane. Eyes turned to the skeletal trees in the street, she can find no way out. She has the strange certainty that all struggle is futile. That all she can do is let events carry her away, wash over her, overwhelm her, while she remains passive and inert. The day before, she gathered all the envelopes. She opened them and tore up the letters, one by one. She threw the pieces in the sink and turned on the tap. Once they were wet, the scraps of paper stuck together, forming a foul paste that she watched disintegrate under the trickle of hot water. The telephone rings, again and again. Louise has covered it with a cushion, but the shrill ringing stops her falling back asleep.

  *

  In the apartment, Myriam paces around in a panic, her lawyer’s robes draped on the stripy chair. ‘She’s not coming back,’ she tells Paul. ‘This won’t be the first time that a nanny has just vanished overnight. I’ve heard lots of stories like that.’ She tries calling her again, but in the face of Louise’s silence she feels completely helpless. She blames Paul. She accuses him of having been too harsh, of treating Louise like a mere employee. ‘We humiliated her,’ she says.

  Paul tries to reason with his wife. Perhaps Louise has a problem; something probably happened. She would never dare abandon them like this, without an explanation. And she’s so attached to the children, she couldn’t leave them without saying goodbye. ‘Instead of coming up with crackpot theories, you should find out her address. Look on her contract. If she doesn’t answer in the next hour, I’ll go to her apartment.’