by Michel Bussi
“You just have to be careful not to slip on the steps or you’ll fall into the water… Pass me the painting.”
The canvas passes from hand to hand.
“Look, there’s my hidey-hole, there, under the washhouse. There’s a gap that’s just big enough, as if someone had invented the place just to hide a painting!”
Fanette studies her surroundings with a conspiratorial air: the meadow stretching in front of her, the silhouette of the mill against the fading sky.
“You’re the only one who knows, Paul. The only one apart from me.”
Paul smiles; he loves this complicity, Fanette’s trust in him. Suddenly the two children give a start. Someone is walking, running nearby. In one bound, Fanette is back on the bridge. A blurred shadow comes forward.
For a moment I thought it was James.
“You idiot, you scared us!”
Neptune comes and rubs himself against her legs. The German shepherd purrs like a big cat.
“Let me correct that, Paul. Only two other people know about my hiding place. Neptune and you!”
60
Sérénac looks in astonishment at his deputy. Sylvio’s eyes gleam with exhaustion like a dog that has traversed a whole country to find its master.
“What have you discovered, for heaven’s sake?”
Sylvio slumps into an office chair and holds a sheet of paper under his boss’s nose.
“Look, it’s the numbers on the back of the photographs of Morval’s mistresses.”
Sérénac lowers his head and reads.
23-02. Fabienne Goncalves at Morval’s ophthalmology office.
15-03. Aline Malétras at Club Zed, Rue des Anglais.
21-02. Alysson Murer on the beach at Sark.
17-03. The unknown woman in the blue smock in Morval’s sitting room.
03-01. Stéphanie Dupain on the Astragale path above Giverny.
“It came to me all of a sudden when I was putting my notes in order. You remember what Stéphanie Dupain said to us just now, about Morval?”
“She said a lot of things.”
Sérénac bites his tongue. His deputy holds out a sheet of paper, on which he has no doubt copied out Stéphanie’s statement, word for word.
“Let me read exactly what she said: ‘I must have gone out walking with Jérôme Morval twice, maybe three times. We just chatted. The most daring thing he did was take my hand. I clarified the situation with him, and never saw him again on my own.’”
“So?”
“OK, Chief, so do you remember what I told you two evenings ago, when I called you from the hospital? About Aline Malétras, the girl from Boston?”
“That she was pregnant.”
“And before that?”
“That she had gone out with Morval, she was twenty-two and they had arguments, Morval was ten years older and had money…”
The eyes Sylvio Bénavides turns on Sérénac are those of a sleepwalker who has woken up with a start.
“Yes, exactly, but she also said she went out with Morval about fifteen times!”
Sérénac stares at the lines growing blurred on his desk.
15-03. Aline Malétras at Club Zed, Rue des Anglais.
03-01. Stéphanie Dupain on the Astragale path above Giverny.
“Now you’ve understood. Stéphanie Dupain, three; Aline Malétras, fifteen. It was the stupidest code you can think of; the number of times the adulterous couple met, marked on the back of each photograph. The private detective, or whoever he was, must have chosen the most representative picture of each relationship from the ones he had at his disposal.”
Laurenç Sérénac stares at his deputy with admiration.
“And I suppose you’ve come to see me because you’ve already checked out the other girls.”
“Exactly,” Bénavides replies. “You’re getting to know me. I’ve just had Fabienne Goncalves on the phone; she can’t tell me how many times she went out with her boss, but after pulling some teeth she finally gave me a ballpark figure of between twenty and thirty times.”
Sérénac whistles.
“And Alysson Murer?”
“Our good little English girl records everything in a diary, and she keeps all her little diaries from previous years in a drawer. She counted with me on the telephone because she had never asked herself the question.”
“And the final score?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Brilliant! I love meticulous people who write everything down.”
Sérénac gives his deputy a wink.
“So we’re dealing with a private detective who’s also particularly meticulous,” Sylvio continues. “Given that he kept such a detailed record of each meeting.”
“More or less. Apart from Alysson Murer, there’s nothing to say it’s the precise figure. I suppose it’s what you would ask a private detective investigating a husband’s infidelities to come up with: a ballpark figure of the number of forays outside the marital bed. In sum, Sylvio, the good news is that we’re not going to waste any more time on that code. The bad news is that it doesn’t tell us anything at all.”
“Except that we still have the second numbers: 01. 02. 03.”
Sérénac frowns.
“Do you have any idea about that?”
Bénavides assumes a modest expression.
“When you pull one thread, the rest follows. We know that the last number is not a date. It’s about the nature of the relationship between Morval and his mistresses. Information that the photographer gives to his client. Apart from the number of meetings between the lovers, what other detail might be useful?”
“Christ!” Sérénac exclaims. “Of course! The nature of that relationship. Was Morval sleeping with the girls! Sylvio, you’re a—”
Sylvio Bénavides interrupts his boss so he can have the privilege of finishing his presentation:
“Aline Malétas fell pregnant by Morval. The photograph was inscribed 15-03. So we can safely assume that 03 means that the girl in question was sleeping with Jérôme Morval.”
A big smile appears on Laurenç Sérénac’s face.
“And what did Fabienne Goncalves and Alysson Murer reply just now? Because obviously you asked them. They both have the number 02.”
Sylvio Bénavides blushes slightly.
“I did what I could, boss, asking girls stuff like that isn’t really my thing. So, our little English girl, Alysson Murer, swore to me on the head of the Queen of England that she had never slept with the handsome ophthalmologist. The poor thing must have dreamed of a wedding in Notre Dame or Canterbury Cathedral… As to Fabienne Goncalves, she nearly hung up on me, particularly because I could hear her children shouting in the background; but just to be left in peace, she ended up telling me that she, too, had always refused to sleep with him. Just a few kisses and cuddles with her boss, according to her,” Sylvio says, waving the sheet of paper back and forth in front of his nose like a fan. “So, the second figure in the code is in some way the Richter scale of Morval’s sexual relations: 03, the maximum, he sleeps with them; 02, he flirts. 01, we assume that nothing happened at all. Some gallant words may have been spoken, but however much the private detective spied with his zoom, nothing! No adultery.”
“So what we have here is someone who was given the job of spying on Morval and recording his extramarital adventures. Frequency of meetings, the nature of each relationship, photographs by way of evidence. It also seems that these numbers on the back of the photographs are not really a code designed to trap us, but just some kind of abbreviation used by a professional. But I’ll ask the question again: where does it get us?”
The sheet of paper twists between Sylvio’s fingers.
“I’ve thought about everything, Chief. For me that code—as long as we trust it, of course—gives us two important pieces of information. The first is that Stéphanie Dupain isn’t lying to us, and she wasn’t Jérôme Morval’s mistress. And whoever ordered these photographs already knew that.”
“Patricia Morval?”
“Perhaps. Or Jacques Dupain?”
“I know, Sylvio, I’ve got it, I’m starting to remember the refrain. No motive. And if Jacques Dupain has no motive, he doesn’t need an alibi.”
“Except that he does have an alibi.”
“Oh, bugger off.” Sérénac sighs. “I called the investigating magistrate two hours ago to have him freed from Évreux prison. Jacques Dupain will sleep in his own house in Giverny this evening.”
Before Sérénac can venture into the terrain of his instincts, Sylvio Bénavides hurries on:
“The code also gives us a second piece of information, Chief. According to the code, of the five girls in the photographs, only two have actually slept with Morval: Aline Malétras and the unidentified girl, the one in the blue smock in the sitting room. 17–03.”
“So, we agree,” Sérénac confirms. “Seventeen meetings, and Morval was knocking up that girl on her knees. Where are you going with this?”
“If we assume that Jérôme Morval had a child about ten years ago, well, that girl is the only one of his mistresses who could be the mother.”
61
The terrace of the restaurant l’Esquisse Normande, nestling amid valerians, campanulas, and peonies, has a pretty view of the village of Giverny. When night falls, the lamps positioned harmoniously among the flowering plants further reinforce the image of an Impressionist oasis.
Jacques hasn’t touched his starter: a carpaccio of fresh foie gras with fleur de sel. Stéphanie has ordered the same thing and is nibbling at it parsimoniously, adapting her appetite to her husband’s. Jacques arrived home about an hour ago, it must have been just after nine, with a gendarme on either side.
Jacques didn’t say anything, not one word. He simply signed their bit of paper without looking at it, took Stéphanie’s hand, and held it tightly. He hasn’t let go of it since, or hardly. Just to eat. Alone on the tablecloth, orphaned, it fiddles with the crumbs.
“It’ll all be fine,” Stéphanie had reassured him.
She had booked a table at l’Esquisse Normande; she didn’t leave the choice up to her husband. Was it a good idea? she wonders. Are there still good or bad ideas? No, nothing but the sense that this is how things need to be done right now. The sense that it would be better to do it at l’Esquisse Normande than at home. That the context would help her. They needed a kind of protocol. The hope was that on the terrace, in public, Jacques wouldn’t cause a scandal, that he wouldn’t collapse, that he would remain dignified, that he would understand.
“Have you finished, sir?”
The waiter takes away the carpaccio. Jacques hasn’t said a word. Stéphanie makes conversation for both of them. She talks about the children at school, about her class, about the Theodore Robinson competition, the paintings that have to be handed in in two days. Jacques listens to her with that mild expression, as he always does. Stéphanie feels she is understood. She has always felt that he knew her by heart. By heart is the appropriate phrase. He has always liked it when she talks about the children at school, as if it were an escape that he could bear. Jailers probably like it when prisoners talk to them about birds in the sky.
The waiter sets down two thinly sliced duck breasts with pepper sauce. Jacques breaks into a smile and tries his food. He asks some evasive questions about school. He is interested in the pupils, in their characters, their tastes. Apart from the ridiculous arrest, Stéphanie is forced to acknowledge that life is simple with Jacques. So calm. So reassuring.
But that doesn’t change anything.
Her decision has been made.
Even if Jacques understands her better than anyone, even if Jacques protects her, even if Jacques is incapable of hurting her, even if Jacques loves her beyond all measure, even if Stéphanie hasn’t doubted that love for so much as a second…
Her decision has been made.
She has to go.
Jacques serves his wife some wine and then pours himself half a glass. A Burgundy, Stéphanie thinks. She read the name on the label, a Meursault. She doesn’t know much about wine; Jacques has never drunk much either. He is almost the only one among his hunter friends to be so abstemious. Now he’s eating. Strangely, that reassures Stéphanie a little. She’s worried about her husband the way one worries about the health of a relative. Out of affection. Jacques cheers up a little and talks about a house he’s spotted in the area. It’s a good deal, he reckons. She knows that Jacques works hard, too hard even, he’s keeping his agency at arm’s length, he hasn’t had much luck lately, he hasn’t carried out any major transactions, but his luck should turn; luck has to turn one day, and Jacques is persistent. He deserves it. But she doesn’t care about any of that. Moving. Living with a richer man.
Jacques’s hand clambers along the embroidered white cotton, looking for Stéphanie’s fingers again.
The teacher hesitates. It would be so much easier to make him understand without actually saying anything, through a simple accumulation of anodyne gestures, a hand untaken, a caress ungiven, an eye averted. But Jacques wouldn’t understand. Or rather he would, he would understand, but it wouldn’t change anything. He would love her anyway. Maybe even more so.
Stéphanie’s fingers flee, lose themselves in her hair, touch a silver ribbon. The teacher’s whole body shivers. She feels ridiculous.
Why?
Why does she feel that unbearable need to leave everything behind?
Stéphanie drains her glass of wine and smiles to herself. Jacques goes on talking about the house on the banks of the Eure, the secondhand shops they would have to visit in order to furnish it… She listens distractedly. Why escape…? The answer to her question is so banal. As old as the world. The sickness of girls who dream that they’re different: that thirst for love felt by Aragon’s Bérénice. The unbearable boredom of the woman who has no criticism of the man she lives next to… No excuse, no alibi. Just boredom; the certainty that real life is going on elsewhere. That somewhere they will find the perfect bond. That yes, these whims are not just details, but their very essence… That nothing matters but being able to share the same emotion about a painting by Monet or some lines by Aragon.
The waiter whisks away their plates with professional discretion.
“No,” says Jacques, “we don’t want to order more wine. Just dessert.”
Stéphanie’s hand finally settles on the table, where it is immediately snatched up by Jacques. Girls, she thinks, always resign themselves, they always stay, and they live on happily, in all likelihood, or not; they find they are increasingly unable to tell the difference. In the end it’s easier like that. Giving in.
And yet… And yet… The feeling in Stéphanie is rising, so dogged, so insistent: what she is feeling is unique. New. Different.
Two bowls of ice cream and sorbet, decorated with mint leaves, land in front of them. Jacques, once again, has gone quiet. Stéphanie has decided she will speak to him after dessert. On reflection it wasn’t such a great idea to come for dinner at l’Esquisse Normande. The grim wait seems to stretch for an eternity, as if filmed in slow motion. Jacques must be thinking about something else, about his arrest, about jail, about Inspector Sérénac. Pondering his shame. There is plenty to think about.
Does he suspect? Yes, probably. Jacques knows her very well.
Stéphanie devours her apple and rhubarb sorbet. She needs strength. Lots of strength. Is she such a monster that she can’t wait for another evening?
Jacques has just gotten out of prison; he’s been tested, humiliated, more than ever before.
Why tell him this evening?
Falling into the crack, slipping rather shamefully onto the battlefield, among the corpses; taking advantage of the fact that the house is burning to save her skin. Is she the most sadistic of wives?
She needs strength.
Her thoughts turn toward Laurenç, of course. The perfect bond she had longed for so devotedly. Is it an illusion, that almost instant certainty that you
were fated to meet the person standing before you, that you will be happy with them and no one else, that their arms alone can protect you, that their voice alone can make you quiver, that their laughter will make you forget everything, that only they will be able to make you come like that?
Is that certainty another of life’s traps?
No.
She knows it isn’t.
She takes the plunge, into the void.
Into the unknown.
The endless fall, as in Carroll’s Alice. Close your eyes and think about Wonderland.
“Jacques, I’m going to leave you.”
DAY TWELVE
May 24, 2010
(Vernon Museum)
Insanity
62
The riches of Vernon Museum are largely underestimated, probably because of the suffocating shadow of the museum in Giverny. The opening of the Museum of Impressionisms, in 2009, did nothing to change that. As for me, given the option of the chaos of the museums on Rue Claude Monet, I prefer by far the calm of the sumptuous Norman building on the quays of the Seine at Vernon. You will tell me it’s just my age. I’m catching my breath now; I’ve struggled across the cobbled courtyard and reached the entrance, bent over my cane.
I look up. Claude Monet’s famous tondo hangs in the entrance hall. It has been put on display to coincide with Operation “Impressionist Normandy”: a Water Lilies, round, almost three feet in diameter. In its slightly old-fashioned gold circle it looks like your grandmother’s mirror. Apparently it’s one of only three Monet tondos on show in the world. It was given to Vernon Museum by Claude Monet himself, in 1925, a year before he died.
Very classy, don’t you think?
It’s the pride and joy of Vernon, which is the only museum in the Eure département to own canvases by Monet, and not just any old paintings either. Even if the gold frame of the tondo is a bit kitsch, I challenge anyone not to be attracted by its milk-pale, chalky shades, like a porthole looking out onto a pastel Eden. When I think of the tourists in the next village, falling into ecstasies as they strut about like sheep in front of reproductions…