Adèle

by Leïla Slimani

In the office, no one is working. The journalists doze behind their screens. Small groups talk at the back of the room. Bertrand teases a young intern who is imprudently dressed like a 1950s starlet. Champagne bottles are cooling on window ledges. Everyone is waiting until it’s late enough to get drunk, far from their families and real friends. The newspaper’s Christmas party is an institution: a moment of planned debauchery, where the aim is to go as wild as possible, to reveal your true self to colleagues with whom your relations will, the next day, become purely professional again.

  None of her colleagues know this, but last year’s Christmas party was a momentous one for Adèle. In a single night she fulfilled a fantasy and lost all professional ambition. In the editorial boardroom she slept with Cyril on the long black lacquered-wood table. They drank a lot that night, and she spent the evening close to him, laughing at his jokes and shooting him shy, sweet looks at every opportunity. She pretended to be both terribly impressed by and terribly attracted to him. He told her what he’d thought of her the first time he saw her.

  “You looked so fragile, so shy and polite . . .”

  “A bit uptight, you mean?”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  She licked her lips, very quickly, like a lizard. He was stunned. The newsroom emptied and, while the others picked up the plastic cups and cigarette stubs scattered over the floor, the two of them went upstairs to the boardroom. They threw themselves at each other. Adèle unbuttoned Cyril’s shirt. She thought it looked so good on him when he was simply her boss and, in a sense, forbidden fruit. But now, on the black lacquered table, he was revealed as potbellied and clumsy. “Too much to drink,” he said, to excuse his underwhelming erection. He leaned against the table, ran his fingers through Adèle’s hair and pushed her head down between his thighs. With his dick touching the back of her throat, she repressed the urge to vomit and bite down.

  And yet she had wanted him, before. She would wake early each morning to do her makeup, to choose a new dress, in the hope that Cyril would notice and perhaps even pay her a discreet compliment. She finished her articles well before deadline, suggested stories from all over the world, always arrived in his office with solutions and never problems, all of this with the sole intention of making him like her.

  What was the point of working now that she’d had him?

  * * *

  *

  Tonight Adèle keeps her distance from Cyril. She is sure that he’s thinking about that night, but since then their relationship has grown very cold. She couldn’t stand the ridiculous texts he sent her over the days that followed. When he shyly suggested one night that they go out to dinner, she just shrugged and said: “Why bother? I’m married and so are you. It would only cause us pain, don’t you think?”

  Tonight Adèle has no intention of hitting the wrong target. She jokes around with Bertrand, who bores her with yet another description of his collection of Japanese manga. His eyes are red. He’s probably just smoked a joint, and his breath is even more foul than usual. Adèle puts on a brave face. She pretends to enjoy the company of the obese female archivist, whose mouth—generally a source of grumbles and sighs—is shaped into a smile tonight. Adèle is starting to warm up. The champagne is flowing—a gift from a politician to whom Cyril recently devoted a flattering front-page story. She’s getting restless. She feels beautiful and she hates the idea that her beauty will be wasted, that her good mood will be for nothing.

  “You’re not going home, are you? Let’s go out! Come on . . .” she begs Laurent, who is chatting with three other journalists. Her eyes are shining and her voice is so full of enthusiasm that it would be cruel to refuse her anything.

  “What do you think, guys?” Laurent asks his colleagues.

  In the half-light, the window open on a view of pink clouds, Adèle observes the naked man. Face buried in a pillow, he is sleeping like a sated animal. He might just as easily be dead, like those insects that are killed by coitus.

  Adèle gets out of bed, hands crossed over her bare breasts. She lifts the sheet from the man’s sleeping body, which curls up to keep warm. She didn’t ask him how old he was. His smooth skin, his plump flesh, and this attic room where he lives suggest that he is younger than he led her to believe. He has short legs and a woman’s bottom.

  The cold rays of dawn illuminate the disorderly room. Adèle gets dressed. She shouldn’t have come here with him. At the very moment when they first kissed, his soft lips sticking to hers, she knew that she’d got the wrong man. He wouldn’t be able to fill her. She should have fled then. Found an excuse not to go up to this studio apartment. She should have said: “Well, we had fun, didn’t we?” She should have left the bar without a word, pushing away those soft hands, that glassy gaze, that boozy breath.

  She was too cowardly.

  They staggered up the stairs. With each step the magic faded, her drunken joy giving way to nausea. He started to strip. She felt her heart shrink, faced with the banality of a zipper, the prosaic vulgarity of a pair of socks, the clumsiness of a drunk young man. She wished she could have said: “Stop, not another word. I don’t want this anymore.” But she felt cornered.

  Lying beneath his hairless torso, all she could do was try to make it go quickly, simulating pleasure, overdoing the orgasmic moans so he would finish up, shut up, get it over with. Did he even notice that she had her eyes closed? She shut them in a rage, as if seeing him disgusted her, as if she was already thinking about the next men, the real men, the good ones, somewhere else, the ones who would finally know how to control her body.

  She quietly opens the door of the apartment. In the building’s inner courtyard she lights a cigarette. Three drags and then she calls her husband.

  “I’m not waking you, am I?”

  She tells him she spent the night at her friend Lauren’s house, a few blocks from the newspaper office. She asks about her son. “Yeah, it was a good night,” she says. Staring at the spotted mirror in the building’s lobby, she smooths the lines around her eyes and watches herself lie.

  In the empty street she hears her own footsteps. A man shoves past her as he runs to catch a slowing bus and she lets out a cry of alarm. To kill time she decides to walk home. She wants to be sure that she’ll return to an empty apartment, where no one will question her. She listens to music and vanishes into the frozen city.

  Richard has cleared away the breakfast things. The dirty cups are piled in the sink. There’s a slice of toast stuck to one of the plates. Without taking off her coat, Adèle sits down on the leather sofa. She presses her handbag to her body. She doesn’t move. The day will not start until she’s taken her shower. Until she’s washed the stale tobacco smell off her blouse. Until she’s hidden the bags under her eyes with concealer. For now, she remains in her filth, suspended between two worlds, the mistress of the present tense. The danger is over. There is nothing more to fear.

  Adèle arrives at the office, face drawn and mouth dry. She hasn’t eaten since the previous night. She needs something in her stomach to soak up the dolor and the nausea. She bought a dry, cold pain au chocolat at the worst bakery in the neighborhood. She takes a bite of it but she can barely chew. She wants to roll up in a ball in the bathroom and go to sleep. She is exhausted and ashamed.

  “Well, Adèle? Not too tired?”

  Bertrand leans across his desk and winks at her, but she doesn’t react. She tosses the pain au chocolat in the bin. She’s thirsty.

  “You were in top form last night! Not too hungover, are you?”

  “I’m fine, thanks. I just need a coffee.”

  “You’re like another person when you’ve had a few drinks, aren’t you? Everyone sees you as this butter-wouldn’t-melt little princess, but in fact you’re a bit of a party animal!”

  “Stop it.”

  “You gave us all a good laugh. And what a dancer!”

  “Listen, Bertrand, I have work to do .
. .”

  “Me too, I’ve got loads of stuff to do. I barely slept at all. I’m exhausted.”

  “Well, good luck.”

  “I didn’t notice you leaving last night. Did you go home with that guy? Did you get his name or was it just a one-nighter?”

  “What about you—do you get the names of the whores you fuck when you’re in Kinshasa?”

  “Oh, calm down! I’m just messing with you. So your husband doesn’t say anything when you get home at four in the morning, completely plastered? My wife gives me the bloody Spanish Inquisition . . .”

  “Shut up!” Adèle cuts in. Breathing hard, cheeks bright red, she moves her face close to Bertrand’s. “Never talk about my husband again, do you hear me?”

  Bertrand draws back, both palms in the air.

  * * *

  *

  Adèle is angry with herself for having been so reckless. She should never have danced, should never have been so open and approachable. She should never have sat on Laurent’s lap and told him, voice quivering, completely wasted, a sad story from her childhood. They saw her making out with that boy behind the bar. They saw her and they don’t judge her for it, but somehow that makes it worse. Now they’re going to think that she’s available, that it’s okay to be familiar with her. They’re going to want to have a laugh with her. The men are going to think that she’s up for it, easy, a slut. The women will treat her as a predator; the kinder ones might say that she’s emotionally fragile. They will all be wrong.

  On Friday night Richard suggests a trip to the beach. “We can leave early tomorrow. Lucien can sleep in the car.” Adèle wakes at dawn so as not to upset her husband, who wants to avoid the traffic. She packs their bags, dresses her son. It’s a cold, bright morning, the kind of day that clears the cobwebs from your head. Adèle is in a happy mood. In the car, perked up by the proud winter sun, she even makes conversation.

  They arrive in time for lunch. The Parisians have colonized the heated terraces, but Richard was smart enough to make a reservation. Dr. Robinson leaves nothing to chance. He doesn’t bother reading the menu: he knows what he wants. He orders white wine, oysters, whelks. And three sole meunières.

  “We should do this every week! The sea air for Lucien, a romantic dinner for us . . . It’s perfect, isn’t it? This feels so good, especially after the week I’ve had at the hospital. I didn’t tell you this, but Jean-Pierre, the department head, asked me if I’d like to present a paper on the Meunier case. I said yes, of course. He owed me that. Anyway, I’m going to leave the hospital soon. I feel like I never get to see you and Lucien at the moment. The clinic at Lisieux has been back in touch—they’re just waiting to get the green light. I’ve arranged to visit the house in Vimoutiers. We can see it while we’re staying at my parents’ place. Mom went to see it, and she says it’s perfect.”

  Adèle has had too much to drink. Her eyelids are drooping. She smiles at Richard. She bites her cheeks to stop herself interrupting him and changing the subject. Lucien is fidgety—he’s starting to get bored. He swings back on his chair, grabs a knife that Richard calmly takes from him, then he unscrews the top of the salt shaker and throws it across the table. “Lucien, that’s enough!” Adèle scolds.

  The child shoves his hand into his bowl and crushes a boiled carrot between his fingers. He laughs.

  Adèle wipes her son’s hand on a napkin. “Shall we get the bill? This isn’t fun anymore.”

  Richard pours himself another glass.

  “So you didn’t tell me what you thought about the house? I can’t do another year at the hospital. Paris just isn’t my scene. And you said yourself that you’re bored out of your brains at the newspaper.”

  Adèle’s eyes are fixed on Lucien, who fills his mouth with mint-flavored water and spits it out on the table.

  “Richard, say something!” Adèle yells.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Richard says, stunned. “Calm down! Everyone’s staring at us.”

  “Sorry. I’m just tired.”

  “Can’t you just enjoy the moment? Why do you have to spoil everything?”

  “I’m sorry,” Adèle repeats. She starts mopping up the paper tablecloth. “But Lucien’s bored. He just needs to run around. If only he had a little brother or sister, and a big garden where he could play . . .”

  Richard gives a conciliatory smile.

  “What did you think of the ad? You liked that house, didn’t you? As soon as I saw it I thought of you. I want us to change our life. I want us to have a life, you know what I mean?”

  Richard puts his son in his lap and strokes his hair. Lucien looks like his father. The same fine blond hair, the same calisson-shaped mouth. They both laugh a lot. Richard is crazy about his son. Sometimes Adèle wonders if they even need a wife and mother. Perhaps the two of them could live perfectly happily without her.

  She looks at them and realizes that her life will always be the same now. She will look after her children, worry about what they’re eating. She will go on holidays to places that they like, try to find ways of entertaining them every weekend. Like bourgeois mothers the world over, she will drive them to their guitar classes, to the theater, to school, constantly seeking activities to “elevate their minds.” Adèle hopes that her children will not be like her.

  * * *

  *

  They go to the hotel and check in to their room, which is narrow and shaped like a boat cabin. Adèle doesn’t like it. She has the feeling that the walls are slowly moving closer together, that they will crush her while she sleeps. But she does want to sleep. She closes the shutters on this beautiful day, puts Lucien down for his nap, and goes to bed. Barely has she closed her eyes when she hears her son calling her. She doesn’t move. She is more patient than he is—he’ll give up in the end. She hears small hands banging on a door and guesses that he’s gone into the bathroom. He turns on the tap. “Take him out to play. We’re only here for one day, poor kid. And I’ve just come off two days on duty.”

  Adèle gets up, dresses Lucien, and takes him to a little playground at the end of the beach. He climbs the brightly colored frames. He slides down the slide without ever getting bored. Adèle is afraid that he’ll fall off the high platform where the children are jostling one another and she stands close to catch him if he does.

  “Shall we go back to the hotel, Lucien?”

  “No, Mommy, not yet,” her son decides.

  The playground is tiny. Lucien steals a toy car from a little boy, who starts crying. “Give that back to him. Come on, that’s enough, let’s go back to see Daddy,” she begs, pulling at his arm. “No!” her son shouts. He runs toward the swings and almost smashes his jaw. Adèle sits on a bench then gets up again. “Why don’t we go to the beach?” she suggests. He can’t hurt himself on the sand.

  Adèle sits on the cold beach. She puts Lucien between her legs and starts digging a hole. “We’re going to dig a hole so deep that we’ll find water. Watch!”

  “I want the water!” Lucien cries out excitedly. After a few minutes he escapes and starts running toward the large puddles left by the retreating tide. The boy falls down, gets up again, and jumps into the muddy sand. “Lucien, come back!” Adèle shrieks. The boy turns around to look at her and laughs. He sits down in the puddle and plunges his arms into the water. Adèle does not get up. She is furious. It’s December and he’s going to be soaked. He’ll catch a cold and then she’ll have to look after him even more than she already does. She is angry with him for being so stupid, so thoughtless, so selfish. She thinks about getting up and dragging him back to the hotel, where she will demand that Richard give him a hot bath. But she doesn’t budge. She has no desire to carry him, this boy who has grown so heavy and whose muscular legs kick her violently when he struggles. “Lucien, come here right now!” she yells. An old lady stares at her in shock.

  A blond woman with a bad hair
cut, wearing shorts despite the cold, takes Lucien by the hand and leads him over to his mother. His jeans have ridden up over his chubby knees. He’s smiling and embarrassed. Adèle is still sitting as the woman says in a strong English accent: “I think this little one would like a bath.”

  “Thank you,” Adèle replies, humiliated and anxious. She wishes she could lie flat on the sand, cover her face with her coat, and just give up. She doesn’t even have the strength to shout at her son, who stands there shivering and smiling at her.

  Lucien is a burden, a constraint that she struggles to get used to. Adèle isn’t sure where her love for her son fits in among all her other jumbled feelings: panic when she has to leave him with someone else; annoyance at having to dress him; exhaustion from pushing his recalcitrant stroller up a hill. The love is there somewhere, she has no doubt about that. A rough, misshapen love, dented and bruised by everyday life. A love that has no time for itself.

  Adèle had a child for the same reason that she got married: to belong to the world and to protect herself from other people. As a wife and mother, she is haloed with a respectability that no one can take away from her. She has built herself a refuge for her nights of anguish and a comfortable retreat for her days of debauchery.

  * * *

  *

  She liked being pregnant.

  Apart from the insomnia and the heavy legs, apart from the backache and the bleeding gums, Adèle had a perfect pregnancy. She quit smoking and drank only one glass of wine per month, and that healthy lifestyle was enough to fill her. For the first time in her life she had the impression that she was happy. Her swollen belly made her back arch gracefully. Her skin was radiant and she even let her hair grow, brushing it to one side.

  By her thirty-seventh week it had become very uncomfortable to lie down. One night she told Richard to go out without her. “I can’t drink. It’s hot. I just don’t see what I would do at that party. Go and have fun. Don’t worry about me.”