The Stone Boy

by Loubière, Sophie

  A hoarse cough shook his slender body.

  The stone boy was sick and seemed shriveled like dried fruit.

  With a heavy heart, Madame Préau set down her binoculars; to stop looking at him was to deny him her support, to abandon him to his fate. He didn’t look up at her house once. It was a bad sign. She had to act fast: she had to make contact with him. The old lady went downstairs to the living room, opened the windows, and got settled at the piano, her shawl over the shoulders. Prelude, interlude, and the finale of Jack in the Box.

  She felt no satisfaction in playing, even though she was giving it the attention and energy that the interpretation required. How could Erik Satie’s Fantasies comfort a child in such distress? When she let the fingers of her left hand find the first, comforting chords of “Gnossienne,” someone rang the doorbell. Madame Préau waited for the bell to ring a second time before getting up and walking, stiff-backed, to the front door. When she appeared on the porch, she looked like a child about to be scolded for making too much noise playing her drum set.

  32

  “Hello! Sorry to bother you…”

  The man who stood at the gate added, “I’m your neighbor,” but it wasn’t necessary. Madame Préau recognized Mr. Desmoulins’s balding brush of blond hair. Adjusting her shawl, she went down the few steps to meet him. The man smiled, friendly looking behind the grille.

  “I interrupted your concert!” he apologized.

  “Not to worry. Let me open this for you.”

  Madame Préau took a key ring out of her pocket and unlocked the gate warily. She had insisted to the social worker that her name not be mentioned in the file, but you never knew what to expect from someone employed by the County Council. The man had something of the military about him despite his casual attire. Thick neck, square chin, beefy shoulders—he looked like he was built to carry bags of cement.

  “My wife insisted,” he said. “It was her idea. But I haven’t introduced myself…”

  His voice was coarse and nasal. He crushed her right hand. A slight smell of frying emanated from his clothes.

  “Philippe Desmoulins. And this is our little Laurie.”

  The girl stood hidden behind her father’s legs, clinging to his tracksuit bottoms.

  “Come on, you have not given up on your shy routine?”

  The man caught the little girl by the arm and pushed her in front of him.

  “Say hello to the lady. We’re here because of you.”

  Laurie gave Madame Préau a nasty look.

  The old lady felt as if she had run all the way from the station to the bakery. Her heart began to beat so hard that the blood rushed to her face.

  There was no doubt about it: Laurie knew.

  She had probably seen her in the window on Sunday. She had seen her brother throw stones into her garden, guessed their little game, and maybe even found a caramel behind the cedar hedge. Had she told her parents? And had they made the connection with being called in by the social worker? What if Mr. Desmoulins came to worm it out of her before settling the score? If it’s that old bitch neighbor who sold us out, she’s a dead woman!

  The man looked up to the roof, blinking. His blond eyelashes were almost transparent.

  “You have a very beautiful house, madam. What year was it built?”

  Madame Préau squeezed the key ring against her chest. She had not thought of this. She had not imagined that she would find herself in this situation. A soft autumn light washed over the garden plants, the leaves took on amber glints, and the hydrangeas shook their brocaded petals once again.

  It was a perfect day to meet a bad end. Prepared for the worst, Madame Préau leaned down to the child.

  “Nineteen oh eight. Hello, Laurie.”

  33

  They had not come about the stone boy. They were there about the piano. Madame Desmoulins had heard at the pharmacy near the station that there was a lady living on Rue des Lilas who had once given musical theory lessons. She had decided that it could only be Madame Préau, whose little Sunday afternoon concerts were so appreciated. So, she had given her husband the job of asking if Laurie could be one of her students.

  Madame Préau nearly died. She composed herself. She apologized for her slightly chilly welcome, justifying herself by explaining that she instinctively distrusted anyone she didn’t know ringing the doorbell. She said that she did indeed know the Pommier’s pharmacist where she was occasionally a customer—appreciating as she did their range of compression stockings and socks. She hesitated before inviting Mr. Desmoulins and his daughter into her home, but she had no choice: entering into their game was the only logical option.

  “I would like to evaluate Laurie’s level before giving my answer.”

  While the girl perched on the piano stool playing the first notes of some nursery rhymes, Madame Préau served her father a coffee, which he knocked back—black, no sugar. They talked about the neighborhood and the building site, about how not all the houses on the street were connected to the sewage mains, the problems caused by the alternate parking system, and the lack of double glazing on Madame Préau’s windows.

  “I can get you a good price if you’re interested. I work at Lapeyre. I do the installations.”

  “What are the chances,” the old lady replied sarcastically.

  “It would be less noisy, and warmer in the winter, that’s for sure.”

  “Maybe I will do it one day. A little more coffee?”

  They agreed on a price for the lessons that Madame Préau would give to Laurie each Wednesday morning, with payment due monthly on the first of the month. As she was leaving, the girl gave a hint of a smile without dropping her sullen demeanor. In fifteen minutes on the piano stool, she hadn’t stopped sighing and fidgeting, scratching the top of her thigh or sniffing the sleeve of her blouse. She certainly had no desire to learn the piano. It was already a lost cause. But if Madame Préau engineered things carefully, Laurie might agree to hand over some horrible family secrets.

  Of this she was quite certain.

  No child had ever resisted her baking.

  Notes: Tuesday 13 October

  (Day of the Desmoulins’ meeting at the social welfare office)

  2:50 a.m.—Awakened in the night by the sound of a coat hanger falling on the floor of my room. Found hanger 30 centimeters from the bed. Impossible to explain how it could get there when it was hanging on a fixed hook behind the door almost two meters away. Great trouble getting back to sleep before dawn. The hissing noise above my head at night is still there. Not a single mouse down.

  Talked to my pharmacist about my health concerns. The floating sensation and muscle weakness I’ve been having for several weeks are related to mixing Risperdal and Stilnox. I do not want to stop taking the sleeping tablets. My little anxieties are related to lack of sleep, nothing else. I decided to stop the Risperdal as I don’t see the need for it at the moment.

  Finally solved the problem of the housekeeper: she decided herself not to go up to the second floor any longer. She said it stinks because of the toilets and bad smells that are coming up from the septic tank and also because I keep the windows and shutters closed on the upper floors. No need to open my house to the crane operator who spends his time looking into my garden and spying on what I get up to.

  Hugged my ABCs of rhythm and notation with glee when I found it in a cardboard box of sheet music in the attic. Stuck the red cover back on with tape.

  6 p.m.—Chocolate Swiss roll finally finished. Perfect icing. Must think to wet the tea towel more thoroughly next time for the unmolding stage.

  TO DO:

  Start emptying Martin’s room. Take his books down and put them in the library in the living room.

  Buy a metronome.

  34

  Madame Préau had been wrong. The girl put her heart into it. Her desire to learn the piano was not an act. Held with a fuchsia band, her ponytail swung from one shoulder to the other. Her palms kept time slightly off the beat. Th
ough weak, she played well. Sitting to the left of her teacher, the little blonde girl followed the notes along the stave cut out of cardboard that Madame Préau moved gently from one line to another, replacing the Fs with Gs. She kept patting the little girl on the back so that she would sit up straight and stop swinging her nervous little feet before they bashed into the piano.

  “Yes, Laurie. Bravo. You know your notes already.”

  Madame Préau was getting back into the swing of things. She had not had a student for many years. She had put on a striped purple-and-white shirt, a cashmere pencil skirt, and patent-leather ankle boots. Every summer when Bastien was a baby, she would organize a recital at her house and invite her pupils and their parents. They would blithely push the furniture out of the way and put up garden chairs. In their Sunday best, their hands clammy from fright, pianists would play their favorite works, and a snack would be served in the garden under the plum trees laden with fruit. Madame Préau served orange juice, lemonade, and cakes she had made the night before for her students—vanilla or lemon flavor, or stuffed with pieces of dark chocolate. Everyone left with a bag of sweets and rolled-up sheet music clutched to their chests.

  “Good. That’s enough work. Are you hungry?”

  Ten o’clock was the ideal time to lay a trap for a little girl. Madame Préau led her into the kitchen and sat her down in front of a fat slice of chocolate Swiss roll.

  “Enjoy, Laurie.”

  Her first spoonful was immediately followed by a second.

  “Are you thirsty?”

  The girl nodded. While Madame Préau prepared a soft drink for her, she looked up from her plate.

  “Mum never makes cake.”

  “Oh? That’s a shame.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you want, you can take home a piece for your brother Kévin.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And for your imaginary friend, too.”

  Laurie grabbed the glass her teacher had filled with both hands.

  “I don’t have an imaginary friend.”

  Standing next to the table, Madame Préau put the water jug back down, coughing.

  “Really? I was sure you did.”

  “No way,” said the little girl with a chocolaty smile. “I’m not a baby anymore! It’s little babies who have imaginary friends.”

  “So it’s your brother’s.”

  “What?”

  “It’s your brother Kévin who has an imaginary friend.”

  “Kévin doesn’t have an imaginary friend. He just has a blanky that smells horrid.”

  Madame Préau sat next to the child. Something about Laurie was touching. Her surly, outspoken side revealed an interesting personality. Like a valve on a pressure cooker, she must exhaust her authority over her little brother—the steam vent—and thus obscure the tragedy of the elder brother. Her dreams must be on a par with Madame Préau’s nightmares.

  “Would you like to hear a little story?”

  Crossing her legs under her skirt, the former teacher began her tale of an old lady whose parents had long since gone up to heaven, and she was unhappy as could be, for she had neither a child nor a husband, nor brother or sister.

  “She had no one with whom to share her sorrows and joys. Then, she invented an imaginary friend, made out of salt, water, and breadcrumbs, whom she could always count on, like a husband or a big brother.”

  “Big brothers are no good,” Laurie interjected.

  “Why?”

  “They make everyone unhappy.”

  “Really? What a funny idea. Why?”

  Her little feet bounced under her chair. The girl carefully wiped her mouth.

  “Because they’re naughty.”

  “Naughty? What do you mean, naughty?”

  Laurie grabbed her ponytail and twisted it around her fingers.

  “Um, naughty is when you make Dad angry all the time. I’d like to go home now.”

  The child was visibly uncomfortable. Madame Préau cleared away her plate.

  “Of course, Laurie. I’ll walk you home.”

  35

  Madame Préau helped the little girl into a horrible pink coat and threw a shawl over her shoulders. At the gate, the child noticed droppings on the ground, looked up at the ash for something that would pass for a nest, and wondered how birds produced so much poo.

  “Your garden is beautiful,” she added.

  “Thank you, Laurie, but you know, it’s a lot of work.”

  “Our garden isn’t beautiful. There’re no flowers.”

  “Of course there are, Laurie. You.”

  The girl seemed to appreciate the metaphor, and took Madame Préau’s hand to cross the street. It was a bit sticky and warm, a feeling that reminded the old lady of her little walks hand in hand with Bastien on Wednesdays and Saturday afternoons. She wanted to squeeze the little girl’s fingers, but held herself back.

  “I’ll tell you a secret, Laurie: a long time ago, I was teacher in your school.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s true. And I have seen plenty of students, believe me. Small brothers and big brothers. Nice ones, and not-so-nice ones, too. But never naughty.”

  “I know loads of naughty ones at school.”

  They were standing in front of the lattice concrete wall where Madame Préau had slipped the caramels. Laurie ran her fingers along it, exactly where caramels were stuck ten days before.

  “There were sweets here once,” she said.

  Madame Préau started: could it be that Laurie ate the caramels intended for her brother? How awful. There was a grinding noise. Madame Desmoulins was standing at the gate of her house with an icy smile. Rather thin, with her hair gathered in a turban, she wore trousers and a cardigan pulled around a sky-blue turtleneck that matched her eyes. Laurie dropped her teacher’s hand to sidle up behind her mother and cling to her legs. She took a step back.

  “Hello. So how did my daughter get on?” she asked, worried.

  “Yes, very well.”

  “Oh, so much the better!” she said, already about to close the door.

  “Laurie has a real musical sensibility.”

  “Oh! Well! Wow…”

  Madame Préau longed to know whether the Desmoulins had gone to the meeting with the social worker yesterday. She could not help glancing up toward the house. There, behind a door, under a staircase or even in a cupboard, the stone boy was being kept, under strict orders not to make any noise. Behind the house, the crane from the building site stood, imperious. With all the racket, it was unlikely that anyone would hear a call for help. The scaffolding was now higher than the Desmoulins’ roof.

  “That blasted building site,” said Madame Préau.

  “Oh! It’s hellish.” Madame Desmoulins smiled. “Fortunately, we had all the windows double-glazed.”

  The double glazing again. Suddenly, the crack in her neighbor’s icy smile turned to a grimace. Madame Préau shuddered: she had seen it before, in between two blows of the hammer.

  “Did you hear that?” she said.

  “Hear what?”

  “It was like a child’s cry.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, like a stifled moan.”

  “Sorry, no…”

  Laurie chanced a peek at her piano teacher from behind her mother’s legs. She had taken on a sullen, almost hostile attitude. Madame Préau was not going to be let past the gate.

  “Ah. It must be coming from the site, so,” said the old lady.

  “Yes, I think so. Excuse me, I—I’m right in the middle of tidying up… Thank you very much for Laurie. Good-bye, madam.”

  “Have a good day.”

  Crossing the street to go home, Madame Préau suddenly felt very cold. A strong breeze had picked up and the ash branches whipped the air.

  That night, a storm went through Seine-Saint-Denis. Billboards were blown off the edge of the bypass, the blue tits’ nest fell out of th
e tree, and Martin had to go urgently to his mother’s bedside.

  36

  The diagnosis left little room for doubt. Madame Préau had all the symptoms of influenza A. Martin gave his mother Paracetamol to bring down the fever. He decided to spend the night by her side, sitting in the armchair, having a conversation with Audrette by text.

  Madame Préau had been refusing all vaccines for years. Even though her son shared her doubts about routine immunization—which did nothing if not keep the pharmaceutical companies happy—he regretted that this year, given the threat of the H1N1 virus, his mother had not given in. He feared that he would soon pay a serious price.

  With joint and muscle pain and headaches, Madame Préau was soon too weak to get up and eat anything other than vegetable soup. Martin visited her several times a day, making the round trip in between house calls. He dreaded the onset of a cough and sore throat, signs that it was worsening, which would require antivirals.

  “I don’t want to go to the hospital, Martin,” Madame Préau murmured in her son’s ear whenever he leaned over her to straighten her pillow.

  “I know, Mum, I know.”

  “You know they’ll kill me in the hospital. They have instructions. They killed your grandfather, Martin. They gassed him, like my mother.”

  “Calm down. Nobody is going to die. And you’re not going anywhere for the moment.”

  At night, at the height of fever, Madame Préau was talking in her sleep, waking up her son—meaningless sentences punctuated by exclamations. Leave me alone and Oh no, shit on a constant loop. Martin fell in and out of sleep in the armchair. Sleeping sitting up was bad for his back, but watching over his mother’s health was his duty. He intended to take up his burden, his torments, whatever the sacrifice.