by Dan Rhodes
He sipped his unpronounceable coffee, and carried on. ‘Our work sits well together. Yours has this rare and tremendous Khmer energy that links it to the past,’ he said, ‘and as for mine, well, I work in a realm so far beyond the imagination that it can only be the future. It’s as if together we complete a circle.’ He thought for a while, then corrected himself. ‘Well, it’s not so much that we complete a circle, it’s more that we coexist amid the same parallax. So anyway, what did you think of that Machine idiot?’
She put down the spoon, and brushed her long, black hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ears. ‘Well, for a start, I wouldn’t say he’s an idiot. I wasn’t sure about him before we went; there was a good chance it could have been a load of pointless rubbish, but I don’t think what he does can ever really make sense until you experience it. I thought the sonic aspect in particular was incredible; his sound designer is a genius, there’s no question of that. It all comes together so perfectly. It’s the kind of piece that can’t be captured in words, and that’s partly what makes it so great. It just is. If you believe the press you would think it’s just some guy shitting on stage, but there’s so much more to it than that. It really moved me. It made me think about my own life, about my body, and I found myself asking, and answering, some pretty serious questions. I thought it was excellent.’
Sébastien was incredulous. ‘Didn’t you listen to a word I said?’
She nodded. ‘I did. I listened very closely.’
‘Then what are you talking about?’
She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘Did you see the papers yesterday? It looks as though he’s dating a girl from our course. She’s called Aurélie something-or-other. You’d recognise her. She’s blonde. I’ve never spoken to her, but I really like her work. Do you know her?’
Sébastien turned white, and started to tremble. He tried to cover this up by shaking a salt cellar, as if separating clumps.
His girlfriend thought of the questions she had asked herself in Life, and the conclusions she had come to. And she thought about her body, and how she had decided that she was going to keep it to herself for a long time to come. ‘Le Machine is a better artist than you’ll ever be,’ she said. ‘And if anyone’s an idiot around here, Sébastien, it’s you. You are a jealous, talentless, boring idiot.’ It felt so good to say it.
His eyes were as wide as they could be. ‘You don’t mean that.’
‘Yes, I do. Why do you think we coexist amid the same parallax, anyway? What does that even mean? You talk such shit, and I’m fed up with you.’
He stared at her, unable to speak.
‘Sébastien,’ said his girlfriend, ‘I think it’s time we had a long conversation.’
For the first time in a long while, she smiled. She couldn’t help it. She was so happy at the thought that she wouldn’t have to put up with him any more. They wouldn’t need to have the long conversation. He had got the message. She reached into her bag to get her wallet out, so she could settle the bill and leave.
As her hand began to withdraw from the bag, he held up his arms in surrender. ‘Don’t shoot,’ he said. ‘Please. Don’t shoot.’
She took out her wallet, and when he saw it he lowered his hands.
‘I was only joking,’ he said.
‘But you’ve always told me that you never joke, that joking was incompatible with the gravity of your intellect.’
‘I was just trying to lighten the mood,’ he said.
She knew he was lying. Sébastien had never tried to lighten a mood in his life.
‘I think you must be unwell,’ he said. ‘Get some rest, and we’ll talk again later.’
She left enough money to cover the bill, then stood up and checked her watch. It was ten past ten, time to go to the sculpture room at college and get back to her project. And this time it would just be her and her work, with no interruptions, no pointless buzzing in her ear. She was so glad to think that even when she had been crazy about him, even when she had thought he was talking sense when he had told her that she must never smile because to do so would be to devalue her art, she had never let him influence her work. In the days when she had thought there was a grand intelligence behind his soliloquies she had let his words wash over her, and gone in her own direction.
‘You’ll be nothing without me,’ he said, as she walked away. ‘I gave you all your best ideas. I created you.’
She stepped out into the day. It was cold, but it felt like springtime.
XXXX
It was eighteen minutes past ten, and in four minutes’ time Herbert’s mother would be an hour late. The baby was still asleep after his busy night, and Aurélie had a sickening feeling in her gut. She wanted to cry.
She felt like a child who needed a grown-up to tell her what to do, and she had decided that she was going to wait until Professor Papavoine and Liliane had finished work, and she would wait for them on their front step, and when they got in they would take her upstairs and sit her on their sofa and help her make the decision. She already knew what they were going to say. They would tell her that the only thing she could do now, for Herbert’s sake, was go to the police and show them the baby, and tell them that they had to find his family. She already knew that was the sensible and the right thing to do, even the only thing, but she needed to hear it from somebody else first, because walking into a police station would bring her whole life crashing down, and she didn’t feel strong enough to take that step alone.
The Papavoines were so nice that she knew they would go with her, and see that she was OK. The police would ask her all sorts of questions, and once the doctors had sent back the results of their examination of the boy they would ask her how he had come to have a wound on his shoulder. Whether she told the truth, or shrugged and said she didn’t know, she wouldn’t be seeing him again. They would search her apartment, which would be understandable since at that point they would be suspecting her of having snatched a baby, and they would find bullet holes, and tiny spots of Herbert’s blood. What chance would she have then of ever seeing him again, or of keeping her new boyfriend, or of not being kicked out of college, or of ever making her dad proud?
She knew so little of Herbert’s life. Maybe he had been reported missing straight away, and a police search had been going on all this time. She knew the police didn’t always immediately publicise such cases for tactical reasons, or out of sensitivity, particularly when broken families or people with mental difficulties were involved. And if Herbert didn’t have a father in his life, if they couldn’t find someone who could be relied upon to take care of him, he would be sent to a children’s home. If she had just controlled herself, if she hadn’t started playing with guns, then maybe they would have let her keep him. She wanted to keep him. She was ready. She didn’t want him to be raised by anybody who didn’t love him with all their heart.
She wished The Russian had stayed. He seemed like the kind of worldly character who would have been able to dispense wise and practical advice. Maybe he had once been left holding a baby on his travels. Ah, it reminds me of my experience in San Salvador in 1982, he would have said, before telling her exactly what she ought to do. But even he would have told her to take him to the police, to tell them everything that had happened.
She followed the clock on her phone. The minutes seemed to last forever, and none of them brought Herbert’s mother. It turned ten twenty-two, and she knew the time had come for her to give up. She was going to spend the day walking around with the baby, filling time until the Papavoines were due home.
‘Let’s go,’ she said to the sleeping child. She would start by heading up to Montmartre, to see if she could talk Sylvie’s boss into allowing her a coffee break. She had all day, so she decided to walk there. She lit a cigarette, stood up and kicked the buggy’s brake off.
She got halfway along the side of the square when, from the corner of her eye, she saw a madwoman zigzagging around, and making a kind of whimpering noise. She felt so
rry for her, but now was not the time for her to be actively compassionate towards the mentally ill, and she quickened her step, but as she did so the madwoman stopped zigzagging and started racing towards them. Aurélie sped up, but the woman was faster, and fell to her knees in front of the buggy, staring at Herbert with wild eyes through a tangle of long brown hair. Aurélie turned the buggy around, and started back the way she had come, but the madwoman scrambled to her feet, raced around and threw herself to her knees in front of them again. Again Aurélie manoeuvred the buggy away, and again she found her path blocked. Now she didn’t need a grown-up to tell her what to do. She had to get rid of her as quickly as possible.
She felt for the gun. She hadn’t sorted her bag out for a long time, and it had fallen to the bottom and was lost among days of accumulated rubble. ‘Wait,’ she said to the madwoman. ‘It’s definitely in here somewhere.’ She found it. It was still in its tea towel, and feeling a strange sense of calm, she unwrapped it and pointed it at the woman, who froze. A moment later Aurélie covered it with the tea towel again, so it wouldn’t attract the attention of passers-by, and held it close to her body. ‘Get away from us,’ she said quietly. She knew that she could never shoot such an unfortunate character, but if it came to it she would fire the gun, to scare her away. ‘Just go. Nobody needs to get hurt.’
The madwoman looked at the covered gun, and shook her head.
‘Get away from the baby,’ barked Aurélie. ‘Don’t touch him.’ She didn’t move.
Aurélie decided that she might be able to shoot her after all. She wouldn’t kill her, but as a last resort she would take her legs out. She wouldn’t care if it got her into trouble; there was no way she was going to let her get her hands on Herbert.
The madwoman returned her gaze to the sleeping baby. Even though a gun was pointed at her, she seemed relieved and happy. And she didn’t seem to be quite so insane any more. She brushed her hair away from her face.
‘Oh, Olivier,’ she whispered. ‘It is you. Olivier, you’re OK.’ A tear fell from her eye, and ran down her cheek. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’
‘What? Who’s OK?’ The woman didn’t answer, but Aurélie didn’t need her to. She had heard perfectly well. Aurélie looked closely at the woman. She looked familiar. ‘Did you used to have blonde hair?’ she asked.
The woman nodded.
‘And do you ever wear a green jacket?’
The woman looked at her, quizzically and still apparently unafraid of the gun. ‘Sometimes.’
‘A velvet one?’
‘Well, it’s not actually velvet but I suppose it could look a bit velvety from a distance. I’m not sure I like it very much.’
Aurélie looked hard at her again. It all made sense to her now. ‘Aimée?’
The woman nodded, and went back to gazing at the baby.
‘I’ve seen a photo of you,’ she said. She put the gun back in her bag, and showed the woman her empty hands. There was no need for it any more. She crouched beside her. ‘I thought the jacket looked good on you. You’ve dyed your hair. I didn’t recognise you at first. It looks nice. The blonde was natural though, wasn’t it?’
She nodded. ‘I fancied a change. I’ve been blonde all my life.’
‘Most women would kill for your hair colour. I would, for a start. It’s so fair. Look at mine – it’s mousy.’ She waited for Aimée to reassure her that her hair wasn’t mousy, that it was dirty blonde, but she said nothing. Aurélie supposed she had other things on her mind. Either that or her hair really was mousy and she had been kidding herself these last couple of years.
‘Oh, Olivier,’ said Aimée, reaching out to touch the sleeping child.
‘Ah, yes,’ said Aurélie. ‘About that. There’s been a misunderstanding: I’m afraid he’s not Olivier, he just looks a bit like him. He’s called Herbert.’
‘Air-bear?’
‘No, Herbert. Herbert.’
Aimée shook her head. She was very calm. ‘He’s Olivier. I would know my baby anywhere.’
Aurélie didn’t know what more she could say to convince poor Aimée that she was mistaken. She really didn’t want to have to get the gun out again. Maybe she could get her to call her mother, who could come and meet them and confirm that Herbert was indeed the baby she had seen in the park. She pictured the three of them laughing at the misunderstanding. ‘Shall we . . . go for coffee?’
Aimée looked at her, and nodded. ‘Maybe we should.’
Herbert chose that moment to wake up. His eyes were bleary, and he blinked a few times as the world came into focus. The women watched him. He looked up at Aurélie and smiled. Then he looked at Aimée, and Aurélie saw a look on his face that she hadn’t seen before. He had an upbeat disposition, but she had never known him to be quite so overflowing with happiness. It was an incredible sight.
‘My baby,’ said Aimée. She unclipped him from his buggy, and scooped him up and held him close, and he held on to her tighter than he had ever held on to Aurélie. They slotted together so naturally, and he was so delighted to see her that Aurélie felt no compulsion to wrestle him away from the woman. She knew she was no expert, but this looked to her like an authentic reunion between a mother and a child. She couldn’t imagine the woman she had been waiting for ever holding him this way, or Herbert looking so pleased to see her. She would have just grabbed the buggy, checked he was there, maybe said, Hello, Herbert, and walked away. She began to accept that Herbert might not be Herbert after all.
‘I’ve missed you so much,’ said Aimée, her voice breaking with emotion. The baby continued to hold Aimée tight, as if he loved her more than anybody else in the world.
Aimée cuddled the baby close, and rocked him, and when she held him in front of her so she could get a good look at him, he pressed his fingers into her face, and she said, ‘I’ll never leave you with that horrible woman ever again.’
‘Hey,’ said Aurélie, ‘I’m not that bad.’
Aimée smiled. ‘It’s OK, I wasn’t talking about you. You don’t seem too unpleasant when you’re not waving guns around.’
With the mention of guns, Aurélie relived the shooting incident. She felt ashamed that she had bothered to defend herself. She was that bad. She watched Herbert hugging this woman, and carried on trying to unravel everything that had happened.
‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ she said.
‘Then who were you expecting?’
‘Someone else. She was a bit shorter than you, and she was wearing this really nice turquoise scarf.’
‘So that’s where my scarf went. Typical! I’d only just bought it, too – from La Foularderie, as well. And you don’t even know her name?’
‘I didn’t really have time to get to know her. She just told me I had a kind face, then she handed me the baby, told me to come back here today, and went away.’
‘And when was that?’
‘A week ago.’
Aimée shook her head. ‘Unbelievable.’
‘So . . . she wasn’t Herbert’s mother?’
‘There’s no such baby as Air-bear.’
‘Herb—’ She stopped herself. She had given the last of her pronunciation tutorials. It really was looking as though he was Olivier after all. ‘It’s all a bit of a mess, isn’t it?’
Aimée nodded. ‘At least I can see how far you were prepared to go to protect Olivier from lunatic child-snatchers. You weren’t to know I was his real mother.’ She smiled. ‘I suppose that on balance you did a good job by pointing a gun at my head. So . . . thanks?’ She stopped smiling. ‘I shall throttle her when I catch up with her.’
They stood in silence, and Aurélie felt she should say something. ‘Just so you know, I wasn’t going to kill you – I was just going to fire a warning shot. At worst I’d have taken your legs out.’
‘Oh. Right.’
Aimée continued to hug Olivier, and Aurélie didn’t know quite where to put herself.
‘So,’ said Aimée, ‘we’ve got a lot to talk about. Wil
l you tell me what he’s been up to for the past week?’
Aurélie nodded.
‘We only live a few minutes away. Will you come back for coffee?’
‘OK.’
With Olivier loaded back into his buggy, they left the square.
‘Did you know he can crawl?’ asked Aurélie.
‘What?! He crawled?!’ She leaned over and looked down at him. ‘You crawled?’
Herbert was modest, and declined to confirm the report.
Aurélie answered on his behalf. ‘Yes, he’s pretty good at it. I expect he’ll show you when we get to yours.’
‘And you were the first person to see him?’
‘Well, no. I’d left him with . . .’ She didn’t want to name the Papavoines, just in case things weren’t ending as smoothly as they seemed to be. ‘. . . with some people.’
‘What people? Your family? Old friends?’ She looked genuinely worried, as if she had just started to ask herself why Aurélie had been carrying a gun in the first place, and where she had got it from. ‘Drug dealers?’
‘No, they’re not drug dealers. I didn’t know them very well, but they turned out to be really nice people.’ She laughed. ‘It’s a funny story, but at first I thought they were sex maniacs.’
‘Jesus!’ Olivier’s mother looked horrified.
‘Oh no, don’t worry. They’re not. They were fine. They were really good with him.’
They walked on. Aimée didn’t seem entirely reassured. Then she noticed something, and stopped. She turned to Aurélie. ‘Why are his shoes on the wrong feet?’
Aimée’s apartment was full of pictures of Olivier. In one of them he was being held by the woman she had seen a week ago, the one she had thought was his mother, and in another he was with the old woman she had met in the park. There was no question that the baby in the photographs was Herbert, and that Herbert was really Olivier. Now she knew who he was, she could see that the baby in the photos had je ne sais quoi after all. And his grandmother hadn’t been quite the interfering old woman she thought; all she had done was recognise her own grandson.