Night

by Bernard Minier

  ‘And all the dead people I saw? That crowd?’

  ‘On the one hand, don’t forget there will have been side effects from the drugs you were given, not only during anaesthesia, but also in recovery. And then, think about your dreams. When you dream, you can experience incredible things: you can fly, or fall off a cliff without dying, you can be transported from one place to another, you can see people who have died or people who, in real life, don’t know one another.’

  ‘It wasn’t a dream.’

  The shrink ignored his interruption.

  ‘Have you never had the impression, in any of your dreams, that you were brighter, more intelligent?’ He gave a little wave of his hand. ‘Have you never had the feeling, sometimes, that you knew more in your dreams, and understood things that you would not normally have understood; that you were stronger, cleverer, more talented, more powerful? And when you wake up, and the memory of your dream is still very vivid, you are astonished by the force of it, and how it seemed so … so real.’

  Of course, thought Servaz. Hasn’t everyone? When he was a student and he wanted to try his hand at writing, he would dream that he was composing the most beautiful pages ever written with disconcerting ease, and when he woke up, he had the disturbing impression that those words, those magnificent phrases had truly existed in his mind, for the space of a few seconds, and he was furious that he could no longer find them.

  ‘So,’ he asked, ‘how do you explain that all the people who have experienced something like this, even the most rational types, the most hardened atheists, come out of it changed for good?’

  The psychologist crossed his slender hands above his knees.

  ‘Were they really such atheists? As far as I know, there have not been any truly serious scientific studies regarding the philosophical and religious presuppositions of those people before their near-death experience. But I will admit that the change observed in nearly all of them is irrefutable. With the exception of the usual quota of compulsive liars and eccentrics – the same lot who call police switchboards to falsely confess to crimes, I suppose; or who, perhaps, see it as an opportunity to give a few paid lectures, forgive my poor wit, we do have very some serious testimonies from eminent personalities whose sincerity cannot be doubted, regarding these … “radical changes of personality and values systems” following a coma or a near-death experience …’

  I’m the one who should be talking like this, thought Servaz. I’m the one who would have talked like this, before. What’s happening to me?

  ‘This is why we have to listen to these testimonies,’ continued the psychologist, his tone appeasing, almost purring, and he put Servaz in mind of a Cheshire cat curled up in an armchair. ‘They mustn’t be dismissed with a simple shrug of the shoulders. I can guess what you must be going through, Martin. It doesn’t matter whether there are explanations; what does matter, is what it changed inside you.’

  A pale autumnal beam came in through the window and caressed a bouquet in a Chinese vase. Servaz looked at it, fascinated. He suddenly felt like weeping at the sight of so much beauty.

  ‘You came back and everything has changed. It’s a difficult time. Have you talked about it with your family and friends?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Is there someone you can talk about it with?’

  ‘My daughter.’

  ‘Try. If need be, send her to me.’

  ‘I’m not the first or the last person to have been through this. There is nothing exceptional about it.’

  ‘But it concerns you. And that means a lot to you, since you’ve come here.’

  Servaz did not react.

  ‘You went through a great upheaval. A traumatic experience, which will produce profound changes in your personality. You feel as if you have acquired knowledge you did not go looking for, knowledge that will not be without consequences. But I can help you confront it. I know what you will have to go through: I’ve already had patients like you. You will feel more alive, more lucid, more attentive to others; you will resume your old routines, but they will seem devoid of meaning. Everything material will lose its importance. No doubt you will feel the need to tell people that you love them, but they won’t understand what is happening to you or what you’re doing. That’s often how it is … You’ll have periods of euphoria and a desire to live, but you’ll also be very fragile and subject to depression.’

  The little man tightened the knot of his Ermenegildo Zegna tie, slipped on his jacket, and got to his feet as he was buttoning it. There was nothing fragile, euphoric or depressive about him.

  ‘Whatever the case may be, here you are among us, in fine form. I suppose the doctors have prescribed rest …’

  ‘I’d like to go back to work.’

  ‘What, now? Right away? I thought your … priorities had changed.’

  ‘I believe everyone has a mission here on earth, and mine is to catch evildoers,’ said Servaz with a smile.

  He saw the shrink frown.

  ‘A mission? Are you serious?’

  Servaz flashed him his smile number 3, the one that meant, ‘Got you there’.

  ‘That’s what people expect me to say, isn’t it? If I were convinced I’d come back from the dead … Don’t worry, Doctor, I still don’t believe in UFOs.’

  The shrink gave a faint smile, but his gaze suddenly sharpened, as if he’d remembered something important.

  ‘Do you know the Tassili n’Ajjer, in the Algerian Sahara?’ he asked.

  ‘On the Séfar plateau,’ answered Servaz in the affirmative.

  ‘Yes. The Séfar. I had a chance to visit that extraordinary, unique site over thirty years ago. I was twenty-two at the time. I was able to admire the fifteen thousand rock paintings, that great and wonderful book of the desert that tells of the wars and civilisations that existed at the turn of the Neolithic era to the millennia to come – including that three-metre-high work some people have baptised the Great Martian Man, or even the Great God of Séfar. To this day I’m still not sure what I saw. And this is a scientist talking.’

  Five o’clock in the evening, and darkness had already begun to fall by the time he emerged from Xavier’s office into the streets of Saint-Martin. These streets no longer terrified him the way they had for years, in his memory. In those days, all he had to do was think about them for his heart to start racing.

  Now for him the place had once again regained its somewhat old-fashioned charm as a spa town and holiday resort, with the ski slopes perched in the nearby mountains, and the memory of past grandeur still visible in the hotels, tree-lined walks and gardens. Xavier’s words had not totally convinced him, but they had brought him back down to more earthly realities.

  He headed towards his car. The doctors had only recently given him permission to drive again, and only for short distances: he put the four-hour journey in this category. Once he was on the road, which left the narrow valley of Saint-Martin for a much wider one 20 kilometres further along and then wound through mountains that gradually diminished in height until they reached the plain between Montréjeau and Toulouse, he was filled with a childlike wonder. These hills vanishing into the blue night, their kindly presence, the tiny delicate lights of these ‘end of the world’ villages which the road skirted around without going through, the horses he glimpsed in the misty gloom, not yet brought in for the night, even the simple rest area shining with the bright windows of a fast-food place …

  An hour and a half later he headed into Toulouse via the port of l’Embouchure, along the Brienne canal and its pink brick facades, then he parked his Volvo in the Victor-Hugo car park above the market of the same name. As he typed the code to enter his building, it suddenly seemed to him that the real world resembled a dream. And that the world he had left behind in that hospital room was reality.

  Reanimation = reality? he wondered.

  He was perfectly aware that what he had seen in his coma could be attributed to the chemical substances he had absorbed, and the dysfu
nctioning of his freewheeling brain. So why did he feel such loss? Why this nostalgia for the state of bliss he had found himself in? He had read a few works on the subject since he’d regained consciousness. As Xavier had emphasised, there was no questioning the sincerity of these testimonies. And yet Servaz was not prepared to accept that what he had seen was anything other than a phantasmagoria. He was far too rational for that. And besides, dammit – a river of happy people? It was absurd.

  He went up the stairs and into his flat. Margot was wearing a brown woollen cardigan over light trousers. Her gaze had the superior sweetness of the healthy for the ill, and he felt like pointing out to her that he was perfectly healthy too, but he refrained.

  The table was set; he noticed candles. There was a smell of spices from the kitchen. Servaz immediately recognised the music on the stereo. Mahler … her thoughtfulness moved him to tears. He tried to hide them but Margot didn’t miss a thing.

  ‘What’s wrong, Dad?’

  ‘Nothing. It smells good.’

  ‘Tandoori chicken. I warn you, I’m not a gourmet chef.’

  Once again, he had to hold back his emotion: his urge to tell her how much she had always meant to him, that he was sorry for all the times when, in one way or another, he had screwed up their relationship. Easy does it, he thought.

  ‘Margot, I would like to apologise for—’

  ‘Hush. You don’t need to, Dad. I know.’

  ‘No, you don’t know.’

  ‘I don’t know what?’

  ‘What I saw there.’

  ‘What do you mean? Where?’

  ‘There … when I was in a coma …’

  ‘What are you talking about, Dad?’

  ‘I saw things there … while I was in a coma.’

  ‘I don’t need to know,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t you want to hear?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not? Aren’t you interested?’

  ‘No … yes … it’s not that, but I don’t want to know, Dad. It makes me uneasy, all that sort of stuff.’

  Suddenly he wished he could be alone. His daughter had told him she had taken unpaid leave and that she would stay as long as he needed. What did this mean? How long? Two weeks? A month? More? The first time he went into his study after he got back from hospital, he had been annoyed to see that she had tidied up without asking his permission. She’d done the same in the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom – and he’d felt equally annoyed. But not for long. That was the way it had been since he got out of hospital: there were times he felt like hugging people, taking them in his arms, talking to them endlessly – and a second later, he had only one desire: to seek refuge in silence and solitude, isolate himself. Once again, he felt a twinge in his heart when he thought of that landscape full of light, and all those people – and their unconditional love.

  He looked at the tablets in his palm. Fat capsules and tiny pills. Since he’d been taking them he’d had nausea, diarrhoea and cold sweats. Or were these the after-effects of the coma? He knew he should mention it to the doctors, but he was fed up with the lot of them, and with hospitals. For two months he’d been seeing cardiologists, dieticians, psychologists, physiotherapists, and nurses, twice a week. He had successfully completed a physical rehabilitation programme, attended respiratory physiotherapy sessions, and his second stress test had shown a marked improvement.

  He opened his hand and the pills rolled into the sink. He ran the cold water over them and watched them disappear down the plughole. He didn’t need them. He had survived a coma, had nearly gone to the other side. He wanted to be in full possession of his faculties to start work again. His chest felt perfectly fine now, and if it weren’t for the ugly scar he saw when he got undressed he might almost believe it had happened to someone else.

  He wasn’t sleepy. In a few hours he would be back at police headquarters and he knew his return would arouse considerable curiosity. Were they going to let him resume his position as team leader? Who had filled it in his absence? He hadn’t even thought about that until now. He wondered if it was really what he wanted: to go back to his former life.

  8

  Night-time Visit

  It was pitch black. The house looked empty and abandoned, no light behind the closed shutters. Up there on top of the railway embankment trains still passed just as slowly over the points, screeching and swaying, and with every train Servaz felt his hair stand on end.

  Sitting behind the wheel, he looked at the empty lot, the warehouses covered with graffiti and the tall building on its own, everything just as it had been the last time he was here.

  Nothing had changed. And yet everything had changed. As in the famous words of Heraclitus, he was no longer the man who had come here two months earlier. He wondered if his colleagues would notice these changes tomorrow.

  He opened the car door and got out.

  The sky was clear, and the moon lit up the lot. The puddles had dried and disappeared. Everything was silent, apart from the faraway rumble of the city and the passage of trains. He looked around. He was alone. The tall tree still cast its unsettling shadow over the facade of the house. He felt a rush of nerves as he walked up to the small garden at the front and pushed the little gate, which opened with a squeal. Where was the pit bull? The kennel was still there, but the chain slithered across the ground, inert, like a snake’s shed skin. The dog had probably been put to sleep.

  He went up the steps of the porch and rang the bell. He heard the shrill sound echoing through the empty rooms, but nothing moved. No answer. He put his hand on the doorknob and turned it. Locked. Where had Jensen gone? Stehlin had said something about a thermal cure at a spa. Who were they kidding? This man had committed rape and murder and now he was being pampered by gentle hands, jets of water and bubbling hot baths at a spa? Servaz looked around him. No one in sight. From his pocket he took a dozen or so keys, wrapped in a dirty rag. So-called bump keys used by burglars to pick pin locks. A ‘Mexican’: that’s what they called an illegal search. He’d already practised this kind of sport at the house of Léonard Fontaine, the astronaut, during another investigation. I’m not even back at work and I’m already performing an illegal act.

  The rusty lock gave him a hard time. Inside was the same odour of cat piss, stale tobacco and old age, and he squeezed his nostrils. The bulb in the corridor had not been replaced and he had to look for another switch to get the vaguest light in this dark cave. Nothing had changed in the old woman’s room; even the drip pouch and the mountain of pillows on the unmade bed were still in place. Although it was practically a skeleton, her emaciated body had left an imprint on the mattress.

  He shuddered.

  He walked into the living room. What was he looking for? What sort of proof did he think he might find? He began by searching the desk drawers. Nothing but papers, and some hash in aluminium foil. He looked at the computer screens set up on the big desk. Perhaps the answer was in there, but he wasn’t a specialist, let alone a geek like Vincent. And he couldn’t exactly call the Computer and Technological Tracking Services to retrieve the data from the hard drive. On the off chance, he switched on one of the computers. Which immediately asked him for a password. Bloody hell …

  The sound of an engine outside.

  A car was headed this way; he heard it stop, doors slamming. They’ve parked on the lot. The shutters were closed; there was no way he could see what was going on outside. Men’s voices. He thought he recognised one of them. A cop from the crime unit. Someone had decided to reopen the investigation.

  He switched off all the lights and rushed towards the back door in complete darkness. It was locked. Shit! He didn’t have time to pick it. He could hear footsteps coming up the path. Servaz hurried down a corridor and into a room, switched on the light, opened the window and shutters. He was about to climb out, then changed his mind. They were bound to have written down his registration number.

  He closed the window and went back into the living room. The b
ell rang. He tried to quiet his pounding heart and prepare to come out with as casual a ‘Hello, lads!’ as possible. The footsteps went back down the path and receded. Apparently they had no search warrant. He listened to the sound of the car pulling away, waiting a short while in complete darkness, his heart pounding, then went back out.

  KIRSTEN AND MARTIN

  9

  It Was Still Dark Out

  On Monday morning, he came out of the Canal-du-Midi Métro station, and it was still dark out. He walked across the esplanade and past the guards in bulletproof jackets who, since the events of 13 November 2015 in Paris, had been monitoring access to the building. He went through the glass doors and headed towards the lifts on his left. There was not yet the usual queue of victims and complainants at reception.

  Toulouse was a city that secreted delinquents the way a gland releases hormones. If the university was its brain, the Hôtel de Ville its heart, and the avenues its arteries, the police force was the liver, the lungs, the kidneys … Like those organs it maintained the equilibrium of the organism by filtering impure elements, eliminating toxic substances, and temporarily stocking certain impurities. The unsalvageable waste ended up in jail or back out on the street – in other words, in the city’s intestines. Naturally, like every organ, they occasionally failed to function properly.

  Not convinced by his analogy, Servaz came out on the second floor and headed towards the director’s corridor. Stehlin had called him the night before, asking him if he felt okay. On a Sunday. Servaz had been surprised. He felt ready to go back into the field, even if he knew that to do so he would have to hide the changes that had taken place in him, and that he mustn’t speak to anyone about what he had seen when he was in a coma. Or about his strange mood swings, which flung him from euphoria to sadness and vice versa. And still less about what the cardiologist had said: ‘It’s out of the question. Park yourself behind a desk if you feel like it, but I forbid you, do you hear? I forbid you to do anything that will make demands on your heart.’