Black Water Lilies

by Michel Bussi

  M… for Morval.

  He takes a step back. Now the Morval case is just another file among several hundred others that have never been solved. In spite of himself, he can’t help thinking about Sylvio’s last remark.

  A child whose life is in danger.

  One child dying. Another being born.

  Sylvio will forget.

  In a corner of the room Laurenç Sérénac notices, almost with amusement, some boots that the owners never came to collect, probably because they were too old or too worn. Above them, on a table, the plaster print of the boot is still on display. Quite clearly, this investigation didn’t make sense from the start, he thinks with a certain degree of irony. His next thoughts fly toward Stéphanie, and toward Neptune’s body.

  Yes, he made the right decision. There were enough bodies already.

  Otherwise, Stéphanie’s water-lily gaze, her porcelain skin, her chalky lips and those silver ribbons in her hair…

  He will forget too.

  At least that’s what he hopes.

  79

  “Give me that painting,” Vincent says again.

  The painter’s knife that the boy is holding gives him a new confidence, as if he were a few years older, with the age and experience of a teenage street fighter. Paul presses Fanette’s painting even more firmly against his waist.

  Furious.

  “Where did you get that knife, Vincent?”

  “I found it! Who cares? Give me the painting. You know I’m right. If you really care about Fanette…”

  Vincent’s pupils dilate and the corners of his eyes appear red—like the eyes of a crazy person. Paul has never seen him like that before.

  “You haven’t answered my question. Where did you find that knife? And why is there blood on it?”

  Vincent’s arm is shaking slightly now.

  “Mind your own business!”

  To Paul, it’s as if his friend is metamorphosing in front of his eyes, turning into a hysterical lunatic who could be capable of anything. He rests his hand on the corner of the washhouse.

  “It’s… surely it wasn’t you?”

  “Hurry up, Paul. Just get rid of that painting. We’re on the same side. If you really care about Fanette…”

  He waves the painter’s knife around chaotically in the air. Paul takes a step back.

  “Christ… Were you the one who killed that American painter, James? He was stabbed through the heart, Fanette told me. Could it really have been you?”

  “Shut up! What do you care about some American painter? Fanette’s the one who matters, isn’t she? Choose your side, I’m telling you! Either you chuck that painting in the water or… I’m giving you one last chance!”

  Vincent’s arm stiffens as if he has a sword in his hand and is about to launch an assault.

  “One last chance, I told you…”

  Paul smiles faintly and bends down to put the package on the pavement along the edge of the washhouse.

  “OK, Vincent. Just calm down a bit.”

  Then all of a sudden Paul straightens up and springs toward him. Vincent is taken by surprise and doesn’t move. Paul’s hand closes on his wrist and squeezes it hard, twisting the boy’s forearm until Vincent is forced to kneel. He manages to croak some insults, but that only makes Paul tighten his grip.

  Vincent has no choice. His red eyes are wet with tears. Pain. Humiliation. His hand opens and the knife falls to the ground. Paul swiftly kicks it away into the grass under the willow. He twists Vincent’s arm up behind his back, then lifts his wrist. The boy yelps.

  “Shit! My shoulder, you’re going to pull my arm out…”

  Paul continues to twist Vincent’s arm up. He is stronger. He always has been.

  “You’re sick. You’re a loony. They’re going to put you away in the loony bin. I’m going to tell your parents, the police, everyone. I always thought you weren’t quite right, but I didn’t think you were so far gone…”

  Vincent screams out loud. Paul has sometimes had fights in the playground, at break time, but he’s never gone as far as this. How long will he go on crushing this boy’s wrist? How high can he twist that arm before Vincent’s shoulder is torn out of the socket? He thinks he can hear cartilage breaking.

  Vincent isn’t shouting any longer. Now he’s crying, and his body no longer resists, as if all of his muscles have started to relax. At last Paul opens his hand and pushes the boy away. Vincent rolls off like a ball of rags.

  Inert. Defeated.

  “I’m watching you,” Paul says threateningly.

  He glances round to check that the painter’s knife is still too far away for the boy to be able to pick it up. Vincent is lying prostrate in the fetal position. Keeping his eye on him, Paul leans down by the edge of the washhouse to pick up the painting. His hand touches the brown paper.

  Maybe he turns away for half a second to check that he’s holding the painting securely.

  Barely that.

  It is too much.

  Vincent leaps to his feet and runs straight at him, elbows in front of him. Paul moves to the side, toward the washhouse. Once again he is too quick for Vincent; Vincent’s elbows glance off his torso, almost without touching him.

  He’s sick!

  But suddenly Paul can’t think about anything else, because the soil beneath his feet is slipping and he is losing his balance on the soft riverbank. His hand reaches out to find something, anything to hold on to—the roof of the washhouse, one of the supporting pillars, a branch…

  Too late.

  He falls backward. And although he curls up instinctively, his back strikes the brick corner of the washhouse as he goes down. The pain is brutal and intense. Paul is still tumbling but not for long. His temple strikes the edge of one of the wooden beams. His eyes open toward the sky. A huge flash, like lightning.

  He is still sliding, he can see everything, he’s conscious, it’s just his body that has stopped responding, is refusing to obey.

  Cold water touches his hair. Paul works out that he’s rolling into the stream. His eyes see only the cloudless sky above him, and some willow branches, like scratches on a blue screen.

  The cold water swallows his ear, his neck, the back of his head.

  He goes under.

  Vincent’s face appears against the blue screen.

  Paul holds out his hand, at least that’s what he thinks he does, it’s what he’d like to do, but he doesn’t know if his hand has moved at all—he can’t feel it, he doesn’t see it in the blue painting. Vincent smiles at him. Paul wonders what this smile means. Was it all one big joke? A laugh? Will Vincent pull him out and clap him on the shoulder?

  Or is Vincent really mad…

  Vincent leans over him.

  Paul knows the answer, now. It isn’t a smile that is distorting Vincent’s mouth, it’s a sadistic grin. Paul sees a hand, then two, emerging into the blue screen. They disappear, but he feels them settling on his shoulders.

  Pushing down.

  Paul wants to struggle, kick out, turn over, send this maniac flying. He’s stronger than him. A lot stronger.

  Yet he finds he can’t make the slightest movement. He’s paralyzed.

  The two hands push him again.

  Icy water consumes his mouth, his nostrils, his eyes.

  The last image that Paul is aware of is pink shapes floating above him, by the surface, just beneath the flowing water.

  They remind him of Fanette’s painting.

  It’s his last thought.

  80

  I struggle on along the path that leads to Nettles Island. Richard Paternoster, the farmer, has finally let me go, although not before dishing out a litany of advice. “At your age, my dear woman, isn’t a stroll all the way to the Epte a bit too much? Especially with the sun beating down on you like that… What are you going to do there anyway? Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you? You must be careful—even on the track you get people driving along too quickly. Tourists who have got themselv
es lost, or Monet fans looking for the famous Nettles Island. Did you see the speed of that motorbike a moment ago, as it crossed the meadow? And now, there, look at that car…”

  A cloud of ochre earth has risen from the track.

  The blue Ford has passed in front of the farm.

  The Ford that belongs to the Dupains. In the halo of dust I just had time to glimpse the passengers.

  Jacques Dupain, at the wheel, his eyes betraying no emotion.

  Stéphanie Dupain, beside him, in tears.

  Are you weeping, my darling?

  Weep, weep, my lovely. Trust me, this is only the beginning.

  This damned track seems interminable. I continue at my own rhythm, attempting to anticipate the ruts with my cane; there are only a few hundred yards to go before I reach Nettles Island. I would love to be able to speed up. I can’t wait to see Neptune; I haven’t seen him since I left the mill. I know that idiot dog likes to run around all day with the village children and passersby, or chase the rabbits in the meadow.

  But here…

  A stupid anxiety rises up in my throat.

  “Neptune?”

  At last I reach Nettles Island.

  This place, wedged between two rivers, has always felt very remote. Not an island, let’s not exaggerate, but a peninsula perhaps. The wind stirs the leaves of the poplars as if it were blowing in from some great expanse of water; as if this ridiculous little stream, the Epte, a ditch barely six feet wide, were some vast, impassable ocean. As if this banal field of nettles actually stretched to the edge of the world and only Monet had understood.

  “Neptune!”

  I often spend quite a while here, looking from the other side of the water. I like this place. I will miss it.

  “Neptune!”

  I shout louder now. The dog still hasn’t appeared. My anxiety is starting to turn into fear. Where could that dog have got to? I whistle this time. I can still whistle. Neptune always comes when I whistle.

  I wait.

  Alone.

  Not a sound. Not a sign. There is no trace of Neptune.

  I reason with myself. I know that my fears are ridiculous. I’m imagining things, because of this place. It’s been a long time since I believed in curses, in history repeating itself and that kind of nonsense. There is no such thing as fate… not exactly…

  My God. There is no sign of that dog.

  “Neptune!”

  I shout until I make myself hoarse.

  I call out, again and again.

  “Neptune. Neptune.”

  The poplars seem mute for all eternity.

  “Neptune…”

  Ah!

  Here comes my dog, emerging out of nowhere, parting the thicket on my right; he comes and presses himself against my dress. His cheeky eyes sparkle with mischief, as if he’s asking me to pardon him for having run away for so long.

  “Come on, Neptune, let’s go home.”

  PICTURE TWO

  Exhibition

  DAY THIRTEEN

  May 25, 2010

  (Meadow, Giverny)

  Renunciation

  81

  I’m returning from Nettles Island. This time, as I head past Richard Paternoster’s farm, rather than going back toward the Moulin des Chennevières, I turn right toward the three parking lots that are arranged like petals. The cars and buses are starting to leave. Several times, some idiot who is backing up without looking in the mirror almost knocks me over. Each time, I take my cane and whack their bumper, or the bottom of the bodywork. They don’t dare say anything to an old woman like me. They even apologize.

  Forgive me; we take our enjoyment where we can.

  “Come on, Neptune.”

  Those fools could even run over my dog.

  At last I reach the Chemin du Roy. I walk on a little way, as far as Monet’s gardens. Between the roses and the water lilies, they’re in full bloom. I must say, it’s a beautiful spring day. There’s just an hour before the garden closes. The tourists resent the journey ahead of them, and wait patiently in single file on the paths. It’s Giverny at five o’clock in the evening. Everyone’s heading toward the railway station.

  My gaze loses itself in the crowd. Suddenly she’s all I can see.

  Fanette.

  She has her back to me. She is sitting by the lily pond, in front of her canvas, which rests on some wisteria. I can tell she’s crying.

  “Why do you want to speak to her?”

  Fat Camille is standing on the other side of the lily pond, on the little green bridge with the weeping willow branches cascading down over it. He looks a bit stupid. He is twisting a card in his hands.

  “Why do you want to speak to Fanette?” Vincent asks again.

  Camille stammers, embarrassed:

  “I… just to console her… I thought… I have a card for her eleventh birthday.”

  Vincent tears the card from Camille’s hands and studies it briefly. It’s a simple postcard, a reproduction of the Water Lilies in mauve. All it says on the back is “ELEVEN YEARS OLD. HAPPY BIRTHDAY.”

  “OK. I’ll give it to her. Now leave her alone. Fanette needs to be left in peace.”

  From the other side of the pond the two boys watch the little girl bent over her canvas, her brushes moving in a chaotic frenzy.

  “How is she?” Camille asks.

  “How do you think?” Vincent replies. “Like the rest of us. Stunned… Paul drowning. That funeral, the rain. But we’ll get over it. Accidents happen. That’s how it is.”

  Camille bursts into tears. Vincent doesn’t even bother trying to comfort him. Already stalking off around the pond, he adds simply: “Don’t worry, I’ll give her your card.”

  The path around the pond turns left and disappears in a jungle of wisteria. As soon as he’s out of sight, Vincent takes the birthday card from his pocket. He walks toward the Japanese bridge, using the back of his hand to push away the irises that lean too far over the path.

  Fanette is there, with her back to him, sniffing. She dips her brush, the widest one, almost like a decorator’s brush, into a palette on which she has mixed the darkest colors possible.

  Intense brown. Charcoal gray. Deep purple.

  Black.

  Fanette covers the rainbow canvas with anarchic brushstrokes, reproducing the torment in her mind. As if, within a few minutes, darkness had fallen on the pond, on the running water, on all the light of her painting. She spares only a few of the water lilies, illuminating them with a bright yellow dot using a finer brush.

  Stars scattered in the night.

  Vincent speaks in a gentle voice.

  “Camille wanted to come over, but I told him you wanted to be left in peace. He says he wishes you a happy birthday.”

  The boy’s hand rests on his pocket but he doesn’t take out the card that he’s put there. Fanette doesn’t reply. She empties a new tube of ebony paint onto her palette.

  “Why are you doing that, Fanette? It’s…”

  Finally Fanette turns round. Her eyes are red with tears. She’s hastily wiped her cheeks, probably with the same rag that she uses for her painting. They’re black.

  “It’s all over, Vincent. I’m done with color. I’m done with painting.”

  Vincent says nothing.

  Fanette cries out, “It’s over, Vincent! Don’t you understand? Paul died because of me. He slipped on the step of the washhouse when he went to look for the damned painting. I was the one who sent him there, I was the one who told him to hurry. I… I was the one who killed him…”

  Vincent rests his hand on the girl’s shoulder.

  “No, Fanette, it was an accident, you know that. Paul slipped, he drowned in the stream; no one can do anything about that.”

  Fanette sniffs.

  “You’re very kind, Vincent.”

  She sets her brush down on the palette and leans against the boy’s shoulder. Her eyes fill with tears.

  “Everyone told me I was the most gifted one. That I had to be selfis
h. That painting would give me everything. They lied to me, Vincent, they all lied. They’re all dead. James. Now Paul.”

  “Not all of them, Fanette. Not me. And besides, Paul—”

  “Shh.”

  Vincent understands that Fanette is calling for silence. He doesn’t dare say a word. Instead, he waits. Only the sound of the girl’s tears breaks the frightening calm of the pond, as well as the occasional faint splash as willow leaves or wisteria petals fall into it. At last Fanette’s trembling voice speaks once more.

  “I’m done with this whole game too. All those nicknames I gave you, of Impressionist painters, to make myself more interesting. The fake first names. It’s all so pointless now…”

  “If you want, Fanette.”

  Vincent’s arm is now around the girl’s shoulders, pressing her to him. She could go to sleep there.

  “I’m here,” Vincent murmurs. “I’ll always be here, Fanette…”

  “That too. I’m not called Fanette anymore. No one must call me Fanette ever again. Not you, not anyone. The girl that everyone called Fanette, that little girl with such a talent for painting, a genius in the making, she’s dead too. She died at the washhouse, beside the wheat field. There is no more Fanette.”

  The boy hesitates. His hand softly strokes the top of her arm.

  “I understand. I’m the only one who understands you, you know. I’ll always be here for you, Fanet—”

  Vincent coughs.

  “I’ll always be here, Stéphanie.”

  The bracelet on the boy’s wrist slides along her arm. He can’t help lowering his eyes toward the jewel. He has understood that from now on, Stéphanie will never again call him by the painter’s first name that she had chosen for him: Vincent.

  She will use his real first name.

  The one he was christened with, the one from his baptism, the one engraved in silver on his bracelet.

  Jacques.

  Water runs over Stéphanie’s naked body. She rubs herself frantically under the jet of boiling hot water. Her straw-colored dress, stained with red marks, lies in a ball nearby. The water has been cascading over her for many long minutes, but still she can feel Neptune’s blood on her skin. The terrible smell. The stain.