by Inès Bayard
Back at home, Marie stands in the corridor watching the heartwarming sight of her husband and son playing together on the carpet. She takes off her coat and comes over to Laurent, smiling. He turns around: “You finished late today…but don’t worry, I made you some dinner. It’s duck breast and dauphinois potatoes this evening.” There’s a fake, toxic happiness to it all, like something from a fascist propaganda poster about the miraculous joy afforded by time spent with loved ones. And this fakery so readily disguises unhappiness.
* * *
—
When they’ve eaten, Laurent puts Thomas to bed in his room. As she does every evening, Marie pretends to kiss her son good night before he goes to sleep. She stays leaning over the cot, stares at the child for a while, listens to him whimper as he reaches up his little arms helplessly, then she turns away without a word and goes to join her husband in the living room.
Laurent has put two glasses of Marie’s favorite drink—white wine with black currant liqueur—on the coffee table. He wants to tell her how much he loves her and how grateful he is for everything that she does from day to day for the sake of their family. Marie smiles. She knows. He’s going to touch her again. The signal has been given, just like every time he suggests a drink after dinner. She understands that her husband is frustrated. He doesn’t want to cheat on her by having an affair with his coworker Julia. Too complicated, too risky when they’ve just had their first child. So he compensates by touching Marie’s ass and breasts and pussy. She feels herself fingered, fumbled, lets him have his way as usual. She thinks of Mathilde, of how she was raped by the CEO. He must have used the same process of intimidation, the same moves. Laurent’s hands are prying gently inside her panties. His penis stiffens, seeking out its route, sniffing the smell of her moist cavities like a dog. Young Mathilde will become an alcoholic. Laurent pushes her onto the sofa, stuffs his fingers into her mouth, pins her down lightly by the shoulders. Mathilde is only twenty-two. He penetrates her, thrusts powerfully deep inside her. He moans. She thinks. Her thighs rub against the fabric, chafing her skin. Mathilde is lost. He withdraws from her, directs his penis toward her mouth. She could have told Mathilde about her experience. The to-and-fro of his shaft in her mouth accelerates. She sucks, presses, swallows, covers the tip of his swollen glans with little licks, gathers saliva and precum in the same place. He doesn’t want to come yet, holds back so he can keep going. With long deliberate movements he licks her wet pussy, getting the long pubic hairs that she refuses to shave in his mouth and drawing them out with his fingers. Mathilde absolutely must take the morning-after pill so she doesn’t get pregnant. She rubs his penis hard, violently, burying her face in the crook of his neck so that he doesn’t see her, so that he finally stops fucking her. She could help her with what she needs to do, be her friend, her confidante, her guide. A long cry of relief and he discharges, empties himself onto her, just the way he likes to. The viscous white fluid spreads over Marie’s breasts, trickles onto her stomach like the last spurt of a blocked tube. Laurent relaxes. Marie starts breathing again, she holds her breath every time her husband touches her. She stays still while he puffs and pants reaching the pleasure he always achieves.
Women are just a hole. A huge vacuum of soft flesh. A guilty moist desert, and right in the middle of it the man plies his way, like a god.
The child-care worker eyes her suspiciously. But Marie is in fact on time for once. She finishes strapping Thomas into his buggy and leaves to the whispering of other mothers. Laurent is completely absorbed by his work and has virtually no time to help her. He comes home late at night, leaves early in the morning, and brings files home on the weekend. Marie thinks he must be spending more time with Julia than with his family. Thomas is crying in his buggy. He lost his Binky along the way. Everyone in the street turns to look as they pass, wondering what sort of mother lets her child scream without doing a thing. Marie hands him her cell phone to play with so that he’ll shut up at last. The baby toys with the luminous object, fascinated, but after a few seconds he throws it to the ground. It shatters into several parts on the concrete. Intense anger spreads through Marie’s stomach. She picks up the plastic pieces and puts them in her bag. She lowers herself till she’s on a level with her son and takes hold of him gently so no one will notice. Her nails dig into the fleecy blanket that’s always wrapped around Thomas. She squeezes his hands till his face contorts in pain. Still crouching in front of the buggy with her head leaning inside it, she brings her hands up to his neck to squeeze even tighter. She’s going to strangle him now. No passerby could notice a baby killed by strangulation in his buggy, they’ll think he’s sound asleep. Thomas gasps, struggles helplessly, waving his little hands. With one hand his mother squeezes his throat tighter. His eyes are starting to go red with the early effects of asphyxia. Marie doesn’t stop. The child’s chubby neck burrows deep into the cushion. His feet pummel the buggy’s footrest. Marie puts a finger down his throat and he immediately throws up.
Marie gradually releases her hold. Thomas breathes, coughs, has trouble swallowing. She can’t, not like this. It’s too difficult. Her blouse is soaked with sweat and tears. She collapses, falls apart right there in front of her son who now seems to be smiling at her again. No one walks past. She looks at her child. He’s happy to be alive. Only his mother wants him gone. She hauls herself to her feet, her every move heavy, awkward, requiring a great effort of will. She brushes down her coat quickly with the back of her hand and dead leaves flitter away. She watches them all the way up into the sky. Her head tips back, she loses her balance, her feet are no longer on the ground. She can’t go on, her legs keep giving way under the pressure and the sadness. She manages to get over to a bench. One of those green benches with slats of dry wood that split and catch on clothing. One of those ubiquitous Parisian seats that no one notices anymore. There’s one opposite Marie’s apartment. Every morning she watches a woman who sits alone, crossed-legged on that bench. And then, at about eight thirty, she gets up and leaves. Now Marie’s the one consoling her loneliness on a public bench. It’s genuinely miserable, allows you to gauge just how powerless you are. Her reality has been completely destroyed, crushed, prostrated by sadness. Everything is beyond her and she has nothing to cling to. The shadow of a man looms before her, dark and imposing, frightening. Man in general, the male sex. Her bottom lip bleeds onto her white blouse. Thomas scratched her during the struggle, he defended himself to stop his mother going all the way. There are children playing in a small square nearby. And at this moment, here in this nonsilence interrupted by laughter and crying, Marie understands what she has set in motion. From where she’s sitting on the bench, she turns to look at her son and, her face overwhelmed with distress, she grants him a few moments’ peace. “I’m so sorry.”
* * *
—
Thomas is asleep in his room, far from danger, sheltered from his mother. Marie has watched very little television in the last several years, she’s hardly listened to the radio and read very few newspapers, except perhaps when she feels sorry for those people who stand outside the Métro station in the rain handing out great piles of free papers. She is totally isolated from current affairs. She just listens to her clients telling her the latest news of this ailing world. They’re careful to mention only the bad news, no one ever wants to put her in a good mood.
Lying on the sofa in the living room, leaning against her small woolen cushion, she flicks through a magazine and casts an eye at the TV news headlines. Her husband’s face appears on-screen. Marie jumps up, throws herself onto the floor to grab the remote. She turns up the volume. Laurent is on the steps of the Paris law courts surrounded by about fifty TV cameras. Hounded up against one of the building’s large columns, his arms laden with different-colored files, he appears measured, confident, and unruffled as he answers journalists’ questions. He always tells his wife that to be a good lawyer the main thing is to think of justice as a huge theater in
which everyone is playing a part. He must always play the same one: the conqueror.
“In this divorce case, which is essentially about a fair distribution of Monsieur Ponce’s assets, my client does not have to answer to the additional accusations that have been disseminated in the media over the last few days for purely provocative purposes and, furthermore, that are totally unfounded. It’s strange that these accusations have only emerged now, and some people would want them to be upheld to benefit Madame Ponce.” Laurent does not use the word “rape” or even “assault.” Marie stays at the foot of the sofa to watch. The piece finishes abruptly after her husband’s contribution, and is followed by another item about the disturbing rise in autumnal temperatures this year. She goes to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine. She leans on the counter for a long time, thinking about how Laurent is also hiding the facts and about how the women at the day nursery and even some of her clients judged her today.
Half an hour later she hears her husband come home. He’s exhausted. Breathing heavily, he hangs his coat in the hall, laboriously takes off his shoes, and then stops for a moment. Standing motionless in the corridor he fires himself up again like a worn-out machine, and goes to join Marie in the kitchen. “I’m dead beat. Today went on forever…Journalists really are a pain in the neck, like a swarm of flies. They won’t give up!” He grabs the bottle of wine from the countertop, takes a glass from the sink, and fills it to the brim.
Marie watches him steadily. “But is it true?”
Laurent puts down his glass and frowns as if her question is as stupid as it’s incomprehensible. He doesn’t understand.
“Did he really rape that girl? This friend of his daughter’s? Did he assault her?” Silence, again and as usual. Laurent looks away, tells his wife he’s tired, that he’d like to come home to some peace and not be hounded by more questions. He’s getting angry. Marie remains stoic in the face of his fury, asks the same question again several times. Laurent is exasperated, he explodes, flushes red. He doesn’t understand why she’s so insistent. Marie tells him that she’s humiliated, that everyone’s judging her because her husband’s defending a rapist; she can feel it at the nursery and at the bank, and she wants a definitive, honest answer.
“Do you really want to know? Yes, he did it. He raped the girl when she came to his place for a vacation with his daughter. Are you happy? Satisfied?”
Marie is petrified by Laurent’s answer. He knows he went too far. He’s at the end of his rope too. He drops his voice: “He admitted it to me yesterday evening. I haven’t spoken with the lawyer who’s dealing with that yet. But you do understand I’m just defending him for his divorce case, not for accusations of rape. I shouldn’t even be talking to you about it, I’m bound by professional confidentiality. But I don’t know, this case seems to mean so much to you that…”
Marie is still like a slab of marble. She interrupts him and asks him coldly to repeat what his client admitted.
Laurent is uncomfortable but agrees to reveal a few details: “Well, he told me he was a little drunk that afternoon. That the girl had been giving him the eye right from the start of the vacation. And then…he doesn’t really know how…Well, he lost control and he had sexual relations with her. He told me that at first she consented, but she started struggling after a few minutes.” Laurent stops talking. Marie waits to hear more, staring at him, holding her breath, suffocating. “He just couldn’t stop…He forced her and ended up raping her. Several times.”
Laurent is ashamed, he lowers his head. Marie’s eyes fill with tears. Her husband puts a hand on her arm. She pushes him back violently against the counter. A glass breaks. Shards fly in every direction. He apologizes. He wasn’t aware of his client’s actions before he accepted the divorce case, or he would never have taken him on. He’s stuck now. Marie tries to contain her hysteria but it’s just too strong. She picks up the porcelain vase on the windowsill and flings it at her husband, who ducks to avoid it. She hurls insults at him, calls him a bastard, a savage primitive prick, defending a child rapist, the devil’s own lawyer. She can’t stop herself now, throwing anything she can get her hands on at his face. He dodges and ducks and eventually throws himself on top of her to restrain her. He yells at her, asks her to calm down, squeezes her arms, rams his thighs against hers to keep her on the floor. His shouting intensifies. Marie fights with all her strength, spits in his face, tries to knee him in the groin. In the end he slaps her violently. Terrified by what he’s done, he relaxes his hold on his wife’s body. He backs away in silence, apologizes. He should never have hit her. It’s the first time. The madness of it is raw. Marie is still on the floor. Thomas has woken, his wails reverberating in the corridor. The baby monitor vibrates on the dining table. Marie sighs: “Go deal with your son, honey. Seeing as you’re so fond of rapists.”
Marie’s psychotic expression and her little smile terrify Laurent. Whatever the circumstances, even in future moments of happiness, he’ll never be able to forget that smile. The slap, his wife’s battered face as she lies on the floor, and those enigmatic words that he doesn’t even have the courage to ask her to explain for fear of triggering more anger. Tough, he’ll have to live with the doubt. He gets up, wipes Marie’s spit from the corners of his mouth with his sleeve, and goes off to see his son. She knows the end is near. She couldn’t say exactly how she can tell but something has changed this evening.
This Tuesday morning Mathilde came back to work. Nearly three months after she left. Marie hasn’t called her and hasn’t tried to get any news of her since she came across her at that bar on the boulevard Magenta. She’s afraid to see her again. Her not very empathetic reaction to the girl’s rape must have aroused some suspicions in her. Marie is careful not to meet her over the course of the day. She knows she’ll have to work with her on their shared files but would rather Mathilde came to her.
Marie can no longer bear to feel her cell vibrate in her pocket. It’s the fifth time in two days that Roxane has called to see how she is. She always asks the same questions, asks whether everything’s okay, how little Thomas is doing, whether Laurent’s highly publicized case is going well. But she refuses to talk about what happened with their mother. “I’m not judging you. People do just get depressed sometimes.” It’s not depression. Marie, just like Mathilde, isn’t depressive. They haven’t fallen into drug use, alcoholism, or prostitution. They haven’t left Paris or the bank for which their rapist still works. They’ve just carried on living without talking about it, hiding their misery in the comforting routines of their tidy, privileged, day-to-day lives. It’s the framework within which they circulate that causes their downfall.
Marie is cooped up in what people generally call a “happy marriage.” It’s what she’d always hoped for: a genuine love match with a man she cherished and admired. Laurent was that man and is now her husband. And she wanted children too. Thomas came along. Should she regret the fact that she wanted to preserve a happiness that not many people ever experience, simply for the sake of honesty? She would have ruined three lives.
In Mathilde’s case, the effect on her relationship is a little different. She had confided in Marie that she’d had a boyfriend for a few months but in the meantime had met another student at college and had fallen in love with him straightaway. She’s planning to leave her boyfriend and start a new relationship. She takes, loves, dumps. Then starts again, loves all over again, dumps all over again. Girls of Mathilde’s generation often find themselves stuck between two very different concepts of loving relationships. On the one hand they can make the most of sexual relations outside married life, changing partners whenever an interesting opportunity arises and enjoying their freedom. But this availability can also give rise to a longing for the opposite: to protect themselves from a freedom that ends up being frightening or abusive. Some devote their efforts to finding the one love, coveting the enduring performance of a successful marriage and faithfulness. It’s
rather reminiscent of the banking packages that Marie sometimes sells to her clients. Depending on the formula, they are sent a bank card, a checkbook, insurance, and occasionally even a teddy bear to mark the beginning of a wonderful, strong relationship with the bank. Mathilde has admitted to her that she’d like to get married and have children one day. Perhaps she already has one growing inside her?
The bank is closed. It’s perfectly silent. Some of the lights are out. Everything has lost its shiny brightness. The room where the printers are is always lit up by harsh neon tubes. Marie often has a migraine for the rest of the day after being in here. Today she’s printing out contracts that need signing for her meetings tomorrow, and she won’t finish till about six thirty. As she concentrates on the printer-copier, she becomes aware of a presence behind her. Her heart tears her chest in two. She can hear breathing, notices the shadow growing in the doorway, sliding over the white walls. Marie keeps taking out the pages and piling them on one side of the bulky machine, pretends to sort through them to play for time. Her hands are shaking. A loud noise paralyzes the air. A thick ream of paper has fallen to the floor. Without moving her head, she glances down to the right and starts looking for something sharp or heavy. There’s nothing obvious. She thinks her heart might give out, her breathing might stop, fear might overwhelm her. The dark shadow comes closer to the printer. A hand picks up the paper to put it back on the shelf. It’s a woman’s hand. Marie turns around.