Don't Turn Out the Lights

by Bernard Minier

  Christine hurriedly paid, dipped her lips in the chocolate and felt her empty stomach contract, but the girl was already weaving her way between the tables towards the door.

  Christine took two more quick sips, burning her tongue, and followed Cordélia back to the Métro station. There was only one line, she thought: that limited the possibilities. Both clocks on the square indicated 15:26.

  That was when she felt it. The change taking place in her, beneath the dark hood of her parka. She had changed from prey to hunter … This reversal of perspective filled her with a burst of energy; her blood was seething with impatience; questions came hurtling one after the other. Was Cordélia the person harassing her? If so, why? Christine had always treated her well; at least she thought she had: the programme director’s outburst had made her understand that she was not as well liked at the radio station as she had thought, that some people actually detested her, and this revelation had upset her deeply. But if Cordélia was her tormentor, then who was the man on the telephone? Her boyfriend? Christine figured that she was sure of at least one thing: Cordélia was lying. That was something she knew for a fact. And if Cordélia was lying, that meant that at the very least she was also an accomplice – unlike Ilan, who had understood the truth regarding the emails.

  Another certainty immediately struck her, like an unexpected thunderclap. Even if it was not her, Cordélia must know who was harassing her. Through Cordélia, Christine had the means to trace that person.

  She was electrified at the thought.

  She went along the corridor as far as the stairway leading down to the platform and, as before, she waited at the top of the steps until the train pulled into the station. Direction Basso-Cambo, once again. Once she was in the Métro, she observed Cordélia discreetly from the protective shadow of her hood. The intern was again frenetically tapping away on her phone. This time, the journey lasted a bit longer. Eight stations, to be precise. After Mirail-Université, the young woman began to move. Christine looked up at the display. She immediately felt vaguely apprehensive, as if an unusual alarm signal had flashed up on a car dashboard: Métro Reynerie. She had never set foot in this neighbourhood, but she knew it by reputation: gangs, violence, trafficking, assaults. It was often mentioned in the local news.

  She stepped out onto the platform, behind Cordélia and several other passengers – women, which reassured her somewhat. But once everyone had emerged onto the immense deserted esplanade, swept by an icy wind, and she saw the choppy black water of the little pond and the huge soot-coloured clouds drifting above the rows of faded tower blocks, her excitement for the ‘hunt’ evaporated all of a sudden.

  Christine saw Cordélia make her way up the snowy pavement with a hurried step, then veer off to follow a footpath where the snow was well trampled in the direction of the rows of concrete dwellings. The wind was blowing hard and the temperature had dropped even lower. In a few seconds the passengers from the Métro had vanished into the twilight and Christine was alone. She left the pavement to take the footpath. As she climbed a little hill she could not help but count the number of figures lounging at the foot of the concrete block: eight. She was grateful for the hood pulled over her head, because she thought it made her look like someone who would live in this neighbourhood. Then she remembered what she had in her satchel: invoices, receipts, credit card slips, chequebooks – and she went pale.

  Cordélia had made her way past a row of cars parked at the foot of the central building, and Christine looked in her direction just in time to see her disappear through a glass door. What if she needed a code? She could hardly see herself asking one of the shadowy figures hanging around outside, or waiting for someone to show up and let her in.

  A few solitary flurries drifted down through the gloom and, looking up, she saw that the sky was growing darker and darker, swelling with clouds above the bare branches.

  She could hear dogs barking somewhere further away, and a voice calling, ‘Booba, come here!’ Hip-hop from one of the cars with an open sunroof, and youthful laughter and voices calling and echoing like tennis balls being batted back and forth in the dusk:

  ‘Hey, man, it’s bloody freezing out here, forget your fucking car.’

  ‘I don’t give a fuck. Go on, step on it.’

  ‘Hey, man! Whatta fuck you doin’? That’s not the way, man!’

  ‘That’s not the way? Not the way? Whatta fuck d’you know?’

  ‘Ey! I been working in a garage, after all!’

  ‘Fuck, hear that? Bro’s been workin’ in a garage. Two weeks and they got rid of you! Fine job! I woulda been pissed off. Fuck it man, I woulda fixed him, that fat bastard. But you went home to Mummy with your tail between your legs, boo hoo hoo … Know what? They been pissing on you, bro … That’s what they done.’

  ‘Hey, don’t you go talking to my little brother like that, you hear? For starters, he’s the one who left that shit garage – he packed it in, you got it?’

  ‘Got it, bro. Easy.’

  ‘No, it in’t easy. It’s anything but easy, even. If I hear you telling any more lies and talking shit like that to my little brother, I’ll bust your face and put it on YouTube.’

  * * *

  The snow reflected the lights of the buildings, but the trees, even with their bare branches, retained the darkness. Christine drew level with the cars and made her way past. Her instinct told her that she was being watched, so she hurried across the trampled snow. The voices around the car had fallen silent. Her pulse began to beat erratically. She was relieved to see that the door had stayed open and she hurried into the hallway, panicked at the thought that the kids outside might follow her, or that there might be others inside. But it wasn’t kids waiting for her in the entrance. It was the old codgers. Sitting on folding chairs, despite the lack of space. Half a dozen of them. They stopped talking the moment she crossed the threshold.

  ‘Uh … Good evening,’ she said, surprised.

  There was a murmur of voices and a few smiles when they saw she was not a dealer. They immediately lost interest in her.

  Their conversation resumed and she went discreetly over to the mailboxes. She leaned closer and quickly read the names.

  Shit … no Cordélia!

  She looked again, increasingly nervous. One name caught her eye. Corinne Délia. Fourth floor: 19B. She hurried to the lift and glanced over at the little committee of observers, but they were no longer paying attention to her. In the lift she forced herself to breathe calmly. Every fibre in her body told her she ought to get out of there as quickly as she could.

  The long corridor was empty. She pressed the timer for the light and began walking past the doors. She could hear the sounds of television and dishes, electro music, a baby crying, children shouting, their cries echoing down the endless corridor … She turned a corner. Then another. Graffiti on the wall. She came to the last door.

  19B.

  She stopped to listen. Music came through the door; the sort of R&B pop you could hear on channels like MTV Base. She took a deep breath and pressed the buzzer. A shrill sound rang out beyond the door. She thought she would hear Cordélia’s footsteps, but there was nothing. The music continued. But someone was there.

  The light went out.

  She was plunged into darkness. Only the luminous little eye of the spyhole broke the pitch black. Then even it disappeared and Christine realised she was being watched. And what if someone else opened the door? The man who had threatened her on the telephone, for example?

  Her panic was starting to overwhelm her: she could already recognise the symptoms in her gut.

  Then the door opened wide, flooding her with light and sound, and she started.

  She looked up.

  And realised that her mouth was open, forming a perfect O.

  Cordélia.

  Standing on the threshold, naked.

  Her tall figure stood against the light of the flat behind her. Christine wondered where the light in her eyes came from, bec
ause her face was still in shadow. And then her gaze dropped lower down and she shuddered: the intern’s arms were completely tattooed from shoulder to wrist. It was as if she were wearing transparent lace over her skin. Christine realised she had never seen her bare-armed at work. On her right bicep was a ruddy sunset illuminating burgundy skyscrapers; the Statue of Liberty and blue waves veiled her forearm. On her other arm was a yellow, laughing skull, its eyes lined in black; a spider’s web; scarlet roses and a huge cross. She was also tattooed on her thighs and hips. A rudimentary alphabet, which must have had a particular meaning for the woman wearing it. Christine thought with a shiver that it was a bit like walking around with your life story printed on your skin. Her gaze then took in Cordélia’s tiny breasts, and her navel, where – contrary to what she would have expected – there was no piercing; her firm stomach muscles, and her slim boy’s hips. Finally her gaze came to rest on her groin: as smooth as a shell.

  Again she felt a shiver down her spine.

  For a moment she could not take her eyes off Cordélia’s labia minora which, in the shadow, formed a veritable seam of flesh, but what drew her eye was the dull metallic gleam of a semi-circular genital piercing, ending in two tiny balls that shone on either side of the young woman’s clitoris.

  She realised that her blood was flowing more quickly. Her head was spinning.

  ‘Come in,’ said Cordélia.

  15

  Duet

  A baby was screaming.

  A furious, famished wailing rose from the room next door, then Cordélia’s calming voice could be heard, ‘Hush, my angel … hush, my sweetie … my lovely, my lovely…’ The wailing subsided then gradually stopped.

  Christine looked around her.

  IKEA furniture, cheap trinkets, film posters: Lost Highway, The Crow, Eastern Promises. The music was too loud – pounding bass, binary techno for the dance floor; there was a smell of candles, the baby’s screaming, the alcohol, the vision of Cordélia’s nudity: Christine was struggling against the painful throbbing in her head.

  It was too hot in the flat. For a brief moment, she felt a raging desire for air. She put down her bag and hurried out onto the balcony. Above the buildings, the last light of day was fading in an ultimate burst of colour beneath a veil of low, dark clouds. Four floors further down, the hooded shadows were still calling to each other in loud voices. Christine pictured herself heading back to the Métro station and shivered.

  She went back inside.

  Contrary to what she had expected, she was the one who had been surprised, not Cordélia. She wondered if Cordélia was in the habit of wandering around her flat naked or whether the girl had greeted her like this in order to unsettle her. She had to pull herself together very quickly. She would never have imagined Cordélia as a mother. The girl wasn’t even twenty years old. She had no steady job, just a poorly paid internship. Where was the father?

  The young woman came out of the bedroom and closed the door behind her. This time she was wearing a dressing gown as black as all the rest of her wardrobe. Only the cuffs were red, as were the words written on the sleeves: FUCK ME, I’M FAMOUS. The dressing gown stopped at the top of her long skinny legs.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

  ‘I came here to try to find out why you lied,’ declared Christine.

  The two women stared at each other. Christine calmly took a seat on the sagging sofa, and crossed her legs.

  ‘Get out,’ hissed Cordélia. ‘Get out of my house. Right now.’

  Christine did not move, merely sweeping the room with her gaze, feigning nonchalance in spite of the ping-ponging in her chest.

  ‘Well?’ she said, looking up after a while, as if she was surprised Cordélia was still standing.

  Cordélia’s eyes, ringed in black, now became calculating: clearly she was weighing up the situation. Hunting for a response.

  ‘You have no right to be here,’ she said. ‘Out. Piss off.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Christine, her tone casual. ‘What are you going to do – call the police?’

  She thought she could detect a flicker of doubt in Cordélia’s eyes. It lasted only a fraction of a second, and then she heard a nervous laugh.

  ‘Right,’ she said, her tone indicating that she had not lost all her sense of humour, or her sang-froid.

  She left the room and Christine, more nervous than she would have liked, heard the sound of a fridge door opening and closing. The young woman came back with two bottles of beer, opened and covered in condensation, and she put one down in front of Christine before flopping into the remaining armchair.

  ‘Well, Madam-I’m-taking-myself-very-seriously, what do we do now?’

  Her tone was spiteful. Christine noticed that Cordélia’s dressing gown had ridden up and that she was making no effort to hide what was underneath. The young woman reached for her beer and took a swallow. Christine did likewise.

  The alcohol she’d drunk earlier that afternoon had made her thirsty.

  ‘Who told you to lie?’ she asked, putting her beer back down.

  ‘What difference does it make?’ Her pupils were dilated: Christine wondered if the girl was on drugs. ‘You came all this way just to ask me that? In this neighbourhood? Weren’t you scared? Jesus, what are you wearing: where did you dig up such an ugly thing? And what are you dragging around in there, anyway?’

  ‘Who is the man on the telephone, Corinne? Your boyfriend? Your … pimp?’

  A flicker of anger in the girl’s eyes.

  ‘What? What did you say?’ Her tone was dangerously unstable. ‘Don’t you fucking dare talk to me like that. Who do you think you are, anyway, you bourgeois slut!’

  ‘Where is the baby’s father?’ continued Christine, unperturbed.

  ‘None of your fucking business.’

  ‘Are you bringing it up on your own? Who looks after it when you’re not here? How do you manage?’

  Cordélia scowled at her. But her look was no longer quite as hard or confident as before.

  ‘I don’t have to answer your questions. What is this, some fucking interrogation?’

  ‘It can’t be easy,’ continued Christine, her tone more conciliatory. ‘Could I – could I see the baby?’

  The young woman shot her a suspicious glance.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Just because. I like children.’

  ‘Well then, how do you explain the fact that you still don’t have any?’ hissed the intern through her teeth.

  Christine pretended to ignore the attack, but she felt the blow, her belly contracting as if someone had just punched her.

  ‘What’s his name?’ she asked gently.

  A pause.

  ‘Anton.’

  ‘That’s a nice name.’

  ‘Don’t treat me like I’m an idiot! If you think you’re going to win me over pretending to be all nice…’

  ‘Can I see him or not?’

  The young woman hesitated. Finally, she stood up, never taking her eyes off Christine. She went into the next room and came back with the sleeping infant in her arms.

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘A year.’

  Christine stood up herself and went over to the mother and her son.

  ‘He’s lovely.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Cordélia.

  She took the baby back into the other room.

  ‘And now you get out of here,’ she shouted as she came back into the living room. ‘Out. Right now!’

  ‘Who told you to lie?’ said Christine, not budging an inch.

  ‘You are fucking pissing me off. I told you to get out!’

  The young woman’s face was only a few inches from hers, and her fury was so intense that Christine felt as if she were staring at a wall of flame. Cordélia was a good six inches taller than her.

  ‘Quiet! You’re going to wake Anton. Not until I get an answer.’

  She sat back down, trying to hide the trembling of her knees and hands.
r />   ‘I know an excellent private kindergarten and primary school,’ she added.

  ‘What?’

  ‘For your son. The head is a friend of mine. It’s rather expensive, but we might be able to come to an arrangement. Or would you rather Anton grew up in this neighbourhood? Can you imagine what will happen in a few years? When you won’t be here to keep an eye on him? And the guys downstairs start offering him money to be the lookout. Or drugs. That’s the way it starts. How old will he be by then, eight years old? Nine?’

  She saw a gleam of terror flare briefly in the young woman’s eyes.

  ‘I’m offering you a solution so that your son can attend a good school, and have a better chance in life, a chance to get away from what is waiting for him just outside this building.’

  ‘This is some sort of fucking joke, isn’t it?’ said the young woman. ‘You really think I’m going to swallow something like that? Even if I give you the information, once you leave here you’ll be trying to forget us as soon as possible!’

  Christine noted her use of us. She repressed a smile: she’d found her way in. She took out her mobile, switched it to speakerphone and pressed a button.

  ‘Alain Maynadier, Crédit Mutuel,’ said a voice on the loudspeaker.

  She introduced herself.

  ‘Hello, Alain, It’s Christine Steinmeyer, I’d like to make a transfer to another account,’ she said. ‘How do I go about it? Is it possible over the phone?’

  The bank employee outlined the procedure. She thanked him.

  ‘I’ll call you back in fifteen minutes.’

  Cordélia was staring at her. Something had changed in her eyes.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘How do you know that whoever asked me to lie hasn’t offered me an even bigger amount?’

  ‘And did they also offer you a future for your child?’

  Touché. Cordélia recoiled, as if she had just burned herself. She sank deeper in her chair.

  ‘Are you – are you that determined to know the truth?’

  ‘Someone is seriously fucking with my life. So, yes: I am determined.’

  She saw Cordélia think. Give her time. She picked up her beer. The silence went on. Cordélia took two more sips, looking pensive. Never taking her eyes off Christine. She glanced at her own bottle; she had already drunk half of it, just like that.