The Stone Boy

by Loubière, Sophie

  I am depending upon your swift intervention in this matter.

  Yours faithfully, with respect,

  Madame Elsa Préau

  Headmistress of Blaise Pascal School

  PS—I have CCed this letter to the Minister of Health and the Police Commissioner.

  5

  On the third floor of the hospital complex in Seine-Saint-Denis, an overweight female doctor was sitting in a narrow room behind a desk groaning with files. She was speaking to Madame Préau, and Madame Préau was listening to her as closely as she could, her hands folded and her legs crossed. She had the distinct feeling that other people were standing around her—medical personnel, nurses, orderlies with mocking expressions. The woman in the white blouse was explaining something very important. It was precisely for this reason that there were so many people in this room staring at her.

  “The battle is over, Madame Préau. What you have done for your father all these years is outstanding. You have managed to keep him in the best possible physical condition, well beyond the prognosis that we gave him after his remission.”

  What was worrying Madame Préau was her ability to take in what this pink-cheeked woman was going to tell her. These past years had been difficult, and her nerves were frayed. Martin’s departure for Canada hadn’t helped things. But she understood that her son’s studies took precedence over his mother and that he needed to be closer to his father.

  “I understand that it is difficult to hear this, but I know that you can take it. If we look at the MRI…”

  Madame Préau turned toward the window and concentrated on the view of the park. Poplars quivered in the rays of the setting sun. It would be so lovely to walk along there just now, and leave behind this sentencing.

  “Overall, his health has deteriorated. We will give him the best possible care, but you should know that he will continue to suffer.”

  Her mother would have so loved those pathways of white flowers, the foliage turning inky in the shadow of the beech trees. Madame Préau would take her father there twice a week, pushing the wheelchair to a bench where, in the shade of a honeysuckle, she would sit, the invalid by her side. She would read the paper to her father, commenting passionately about the first measures put in place by the new government—measures that would give the French people a more optimistic perspective about their future.

  “If he were to fall victim to respiratory failure, we need your authorization—do you understand?”

  The new government didn’t waste any time: raising the minimum wage, increasing the minimum rate for the old age pension and child benefits, temporarily suspending the deportation of foreigners… And then there was that astonishing festival dreamed up by the Ministry for Culture, a national day dedicated to music! Madame Préau asked suddenly:

  “What is the date today?”

  “The twenty-first of June.”

  “Yes, of course. Where is my head—”

  “Madame Préau, do you give us your consent so that we could let him go?”

  At the school today, they were celebrating the first day of summer in the playground. Madame Préau had arranged for break time to be livened up for the children with songs and dancing. A tiring day. They hadn’t heard shouts of joy like that since the last school fête. The headmistress’s heart was still swelling with happiness.

  “Madame Préau, please, we need your consent.”

  The ill man’s daughter turned to face the doctor and noticed her hostile expression. Pink and white scrubs moved back and forth behind her restlessly, sharpening their syringes.

  “Tell me, Doctor,” whispered Madame Préau, “this evening, for the music festival, couldn’t you just see your devoted orderlies singing the latest hits to the patients just before they gave them the lethal injection?”

  13 March 1997

  Audrette,

  I am sorry to have to write you this letter, but you have given me no choice.

  You cannot get away with it just because you’re my daughter-in-law. Refusing to let me see my grandson is enormously cruel. I do not see how his spending Wednesday afternoons with his granny poses such a problem for you. Bastien is a charming child, he’s very intelligent, and he’s my only grandchild. I’m also very concerned about his health; Bastien has lots of bruises. Does he have trouble with his balance? Does he fall often? If not, do you see any reason for his contusions?

  I think that you are being subjected to a bad influence at the moment, one that is altering your perception of things. I have another hypothesis about your situation, but I would rather discuss it face-to-face. And I don’t see how keeping a goat and a baboon in my garden could possibly be harmful to my grandson. To the contrary; it has been proven that contact with animals is particularly beneficial to children. Besides, Bamboo never gets out of his cage.

  I should warn you, however, that if you prevent me from seeing Bastien, I will be obliged to contact the judge at family court. I intend to exercise my visitation rights just like any other grandmother.

  Kiss Bastien and Martin for me.

  Elsa Préau

  6

  The scrawny daisies had been pulled up by the root. The dandelions, too. Parched by the heat, the earth crumbled between your fingers.

  “Are they for me, Bastien?” asked Madame Préau.

  “No, they’re for Mommy.”

  The little boy held the makeshift bouquet tightly in his left hand. He walked with his head bobbing, one palm against his granny’s, which was damp with sweat. There wasn’t a breath of wind to chase the dog days of summer away.

  “I really like Captain Cousteau.”

  “Me too, Bastien.”

  “Why did he die?”

  “Because the Good Lord needed him.”

  “It’s not fair. Who’s going to take care of the whales now?”

  “You, when you’re older.”

  “Granny Elsa?”

  “Yes, Bastien?”

  “Why did you come to school to pick me up and not Mommy?”

  “Because she had to work. She’ll come later.”

  On the path, between two verges of yellow grass that had grown up beneath the tarmac, a colony of fireflies had caught the child’s eye. He stopped for a moment to watch the insects mating happily.

  “What kind of insects are these, Granny Elsa?”

  Madame Préau raised an eyebrow.

  “Not God’s creatures, certainly.”

  “Oh?”

  “Come on, Bastien, let’s cross.”

  “But that’s not the way home.”

  “We’re not going home. We’re going to have a picnic in Courbet Park with our after-school snack.”

  “Great!”

  “I made chocolate cake.”

  The little boy’s face lit up. He readjusted one of the straps of his schoolbag and pulled at the elastic of his shorts before stepping out onto the zebra crossing.

  Twenty minutes later, Madame Préau and her grandson were picnicking on the grass in the shade of the big chestnut trees. Bastien made a face. He put what was left of his cake down on a paper napkin.

  “I don’t feel good, Granny.”

  He ran his hand through his hair.

  “Did you eat too quickly?”

  “No, I’m dizzy.”

  She put a hand to his burning forehead.

  “I told you not to stay on the swing for too long in the sun. Have some juice.”

  Bastien drank straight from the plastic bottle. Soon he was sleeping, his cheek pressed against his granny’s skirt, listening to a story about goblins.

  “… they wore hats as tall as they were wide and big belts made of wolf skin across their black woollen coats. Everyone in the village was afraid of their nasty tricks. They were the ones who would drop things in the middle of the night, or crack the floorboards in people’s houses. They could open any door. No lock could keep them out. They were so ugly that when women saw them, they would faint from fright. Even the strongest men and the bravest chil
dren would take to their heels when they crossed paths with a goblin.”

  Bastien’s grandmother brought the last piece of cake to her lips. Her arm was shaking gently, trailing crumbs across her blouse.

  “They were very nasty goblins sent by the County Council. The same ones who spoke to your lovely mommy in her sleep, all the better to manipulate her, and to make her do very nasty things to her family, and most of all to you, my little Bastien.”

  Nodding off, the grandmother closed her eyes, too.

  “But you, my dear, they’ll never have you. Your granny won’t let her grandson be part of anything wicked. No one will lay a finger on any blood of mine. Sleep, my Bastien, sleep tight. Granny Elsa is watching over you…”

  Submerged in water in a cup propped up against his schoolbag, the flowers that the little boy had picked were sinking like a forgotten promise. Rocked by the children’s shouts echoing across the park, stretched out against each other, Bastien and his grandmother looked like they were sleeping.

  Tiny stars.

  Thousands of yellow stars.

  I want to die.

  Cousin, crush me in your arms

  Make me die again.

  7

  The bed banged silently against the wall and the nightstand. The cushions that Martin had put behind the head of the metal bedframe were doing an admirable job. Only the woman persisted in making noise, alternating between plaintive groans and panting. To stifle her cries, Martin clamped a hand over her mouth, which only heightened their excitement. She bit him until he drew blood; he grew even more vigorous. Two glasses and a half-full whisky bottle clinked together on the nightstand as if toasting them, threatening to fall onto the rug. The woman’s naked body disappeared under her massive, hairy partner. Lost within the crumpled sheets, an ankle slipped out, rubbing against the fabric to the rhythm of the battering. After a while, the man straightened up, lifting up his partner’s legs and hooking them around his hips. He then penetrated her in a position that put the muscles in his arms and legs to the test. The woman had to find something other than his fist to bite.

  When they’d caught their breath, uncovered to the waist and legs spread-eagled across the bed, a mobile rang. Martin had just fallen back to sleep. He barely opened his eyes and answered the call.

  “Right, Martin. I can’t stay here, really, knowing you’re there all the time, even if you’re doing it for my own good, that’s it, it’s just beyond me. Dr. Mamnoue told me yesterday about an establishment in Hyères that would be very good for me. I’d be put up in an apartment with a balcony, a kitchenette for cooking, and even a guest bed; I could have Bastien to stay over. It seems perfect to me. Did you come back late last night? I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Good morning, Mum.”

  “Yes, good morning, son. It’s half past eight, you know. Aren’t you going to the surgery this morning?”

  “Yes, yes, I’m going.”

  The man sat on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette.

  “I thought that what you wanted most in life was getting back to your house and your garden,” he said, clearing his throat.

  “You know full well that it isn’t my house anymore, that it belongs to my son, and three years on, you’ve turned it into a slum.”

  “Mum—”

  “I can’t stand being here any longer. I have to leave. Now that Bamboo and the cherry tree are dead, I couldn’t care less about the garden. And you keep the furniture. I don’t want to take anything with me. Why did you destroy the cage? You could have used it as a rabbit hutch—”

  “Can we talk about this later?” Martin cut across her.

  She began again, more sweetly: “Ah. You’re not alone, is that it? Who is it? Is it Audrette? Will I make you some coffee?”

  Martin looked at the woman sprawled across his bed, who asked for a cigarette, two fingers to her parted lips. Her makeup had run, accentuating the wrinkles under her eyes. Her small breasts, rosy from lovemaking, gave her a youthful air, and the scar above her pubis told some of her story.

  “Mum, I can’t talk to you now. I’m going to hang up.”

  “Dr. Mamnoue said that the sun would do me a world of good, you know.”

  “Yes, yes, he’s right. We’ll talk about it on my lunch break, okay?”

  After throwing the phone in the middle of the sheets, Martin idly caressed his partner’s chest.

  “Who was that?” she asked.

  “The landlady.”

  “Pardon?”

  “My mother. She thinks I’m with my ex-wife.”

  The floorboards creaked. The woman stood and looked for her underwear in the jumble of laundry strewn about the floor and across the messy room. She was wearing the same sad expression that Martin had noticed the first time she had walked through the door of his surgery. He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, studying his toes, scratching his cheeks through his beard. His neck was sore.

  “Can I use your bathroom?”

  The man grasped the bottle of whisky and poured himself a glass to swallow two tablets he had fished out of the nightstand.

  “By all means, Valérie… There are clean towels underneath the sink.”

  Martin would see her again later for an appointment, like the others. And she wouldn’t insist on their sleeping together again. Women don’t like men who slip through life without looking for so much as a foothold.

  Two floors down, a suitcase, flung against the stairs in the entryway, was still waiting to be unpacked. An old radio set was playing in the living room. Journalists were commenting on the news of the day: Vladimir Putin had officially taken up office as President of the Russian Federation, a contentious penalty shoot-out between Nantes and Calais’s amateur team in the finals of the Coupe de France, and the depraved behavior of one Dr. Martin Préau—a complete humiliation to his mother. Standing at the window, Madame Préau drank her second cup of coffee, listening closely to water gurgling in the pipes. Someone was having a shower in her bathroom. Soap residue and the woman’s hair were undoubtedly running through the plumbing in the house. Madame Préau winced in disgust and spat her coffee into the sink.

  Seeing What You Want to See

  I shall not go to war before having tried all the arts and ways of peace.

  François Rabelais, Gargantua

  8

  The car’s back wheel hit a pothole in the road. The bouquet of flowers bounced off the passenger’s knees. Madame Préau was shunted along the backseat closer to her son, wrapping an arm over his right shoulder.

  The taxi driver was driving like a madman.

  Both were agreed on this point.

  The trip from the Gare de Lyon to Bagnolet seemed long. With the rain beating down, the car was now approaching a town in the eastern suburbs, marked out by shops with garish signs: takeaways, car accessory shops, estate agents, tool-hire places; Madame Préau could barely recognize the city center. After a dozen intersections, the taxi turned left into a driveway hedged with crape myrtle in full bloom. They passed a private secondary school with students in hoodies and young women in skinny jeans pouring out for break time. Madame Préau leaned her head against the glass, curious about this style—so unflattering for the heavyset girls. The passenger finally recognized the railway bridge and the red bricks over which the car passed. Where a pretty forest of beech and chestnut had lined the road nine years earlier, a paltry square and two medical facilities (one retirement home and an assisted-living facility for the handicapped) had sprung up brazenly, along with a supermarket, topped off with a car park and surrounded by advertising hoardings. Directly opposite, a group of semidetached houses was under construction. On the corner, an area of fifty square meters of grass clashed with a landscape dotted with bungalows; no doubt the planning handiwork of the town council, kept aside for the highest bidder.

  “It’s become so ugly,” exclaimed Madame Préau.

  A hand held on to her shoulder. Her son was trying to comfort her.

 
“We’re almost there, Mum.”

  A hundred meters to go. The road was restricted by a line of parked cars as it led toward the station.

  “Take the next left and stop at the house with the green gates.”

  Martin had taken the train with his mother early that morning. Madame Préau had nothing more for baggage than a handbag and an old carpet bag. Most of her things had been moved the week before by a hauler from Hyères les Palmiers. A slightly sharp stop sent the bouquet of flowers sliding off the old woman’s knees. Martin caught it before it could brush against her shoes. Nevertheless, neither Madame Préau nor her son passed comment on the man’s driving. They were eager to get out of the overheated vehicle and to reach the end of their journey.

  When she spotted the low wall that ran around the property, Madame Préau felt her heart rate surge. Over time, the stones had blackened, eaten away by pollution. The pillars marking out the property line were missing in a few pieces, giving their surfaces a grainy finish. Madame Préau looked up to the chestnut tree, majestic behind the iron railings atop the wall. Out of the tortured frame of its trunk shot branches trimmed with buds. One sigh followed the next. With her helmet of gray hair in a bob, and her fine, pinched lips, Madame Préau looked tiny beneath the umbrella her son held to protect her from the elements.

  “You didn’t get it cut down. Thank God for that.”