Don't Turn Out the Lights

by Bernard Minier

  ‘When is this from?’

  ‘Back then,’ she replied.

  ‘Everything is in here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You were no longer an astronaut after this, were you? They let you go.’

  ‘They made it clear to me that I was no longer welcome. Apparently, it was almost as serious to accuse someone of rape as to commit it.’

  A slow intake of breath.

  ‘So there was a rape?’

  ‘It’s more complicated than that. Read it.’ She pointed to the diary. ‘Do I have your word that no one else will ever see it?’

  ‘I’ll say it again, you have my word.’

  ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go and read my son a bedtime story.’

  Servaz stood up, the diary in his hand, and smiled suddenly.

  ‘Which story?’ he asked.

  ‘The Little Prince.’

  ‘“My star, this will be one of the stars for you”,’ Servaz recited. ‘“Then you will like looking at all the stars. All of them will be your friends”.’

  She shot him a long, puzzled, amused look.

  ‘Who is Thomas’s father?’

  Her gaze immediately hardened. ‘You’ve guessed, haven’t you? It’s true he looks like him…’

  ‘He refused to recognise him legally?’

  For a split second she hesitated, then nodded.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Read it, Commandant. And now, good night.’

  28

  Intermezzo

  She undressed, brushed her teeth, put on her pyjamas and went back into the room. Iggy was still asleep on the bed, his eyes closed deep inside his collar. A pale glow came in through the French windows. As she went over to them, she saw the moon smiling at her above the Capitole. She wondered what Max was doing at that very moment, whether he was sleeping on his patch of pavement, among his belongings and his cardboard boxes.

  The only company you have left. A homeless man. You never know, maybe he is behind all this, have you thought of that? No, of course you haven’t.

  She looked at the two tablets in her palm, and the glass of water in her other hand. She swallowed them all. She had locked her door, and heard the hotel guests going by in the corridor. More and more her life was like that of a hounded man who sought refuge first in one hole and then another, like a rat. How long would this go on? Her mother had insisted on paying the hotel bill, but she could not stay here indefinitely. And Max was right: the man was not about to let her go.

  Her mother had come to see her and they had drunk coffee in the hotel bar. ‘You look terrible; you look as if you’ve aged ten years in just a few days.’ Fortunately, her mother had had things to do, as always: appointments at the gym, manicure, pedicure, facial, hot stone massage, hairdresser, shrink, the president of her charity, personal development coach, art therapy workshop, auction, and an interview with a journalist on the topic ‘Where are they now?’ Christine had spent the rest of the day wandering aimlessly in search of an idea, a solution. She had gone into a store that sold firearms and knives (and even sabres and katanas), but also tasers, electric-shock devices and pepper sprays. The salesman was an obese man who stank of sweat, and when he came a little bit too close, she told herself he was precisely the type of man who was capable of taking advantage of a defenceless woman. Of course she knew she was suspecting him because she didn’t like the way he looked, but ever since she had discovered that the world is hell for those who are most vulnerable, she felt far less inclined to give others the benefit of the doubt. She realised she was becoming increasingly aggressive. Intolerant.

  Welcome to the jungle, old girl.

  She began to get drowsy, overcome by the medication. She had no idea what she would do tomorrow, let alone the day after, or next week. A tear rolled down her cheek. She brought her knees up to her chest under the duvet and put her arms around them. She put her head down on the pillow and let the cocoon of sleeping tablets envelop her, her fears dissipating one by one like morning mist. Except that she wasn’t being drawn towards the light, but towards the night, the darkness, oblivion … She closed her eyes and let herself go.

  Respite. Until tomorrow.

  29

  Libretto

  Servaz sat at the head of the narrow bed, put some Mahler on very quietly, looked at the full moon outside his window and picked Mila’s diary up from the night table.

  Perhaps in these pages he would find the answer to all his questions. Who was Léonard Fontaine, really? What did he do that drove these women to suicide, or to living alone with their children cut off from the world? What sort of two-faced monster was he? Mila and Célia were intelligent women, hardly lacking in personality, and still he had managed to keep them under his thumb and break them. How had he done it?

  It looked like it might be a long night. Servaz was no coward, but he felt a nagging apprehension at the thought of what he was about to read. He had never forgotten Alice Ferrand’s diary. He had found it in the young girl’s bedroom, up there in the mountains, five years earlier. Her words were branded in his mind. Now he turned the first two blank pages and started reading; Mila’s story began with their arrival in Moscow.

  20 November 2007

  We got here at eight thirty in the morning. Deplaned in the brand-new terminal C at Sheremetyevo. A long wait at customs. I’m a bit nervous. Léo seems perfectly calm. Gennady Semyonov, the project head for the Andromeda mission, and Roman Rudin, the correspondent from Star City, were waiting for us at the exit. The bus taking us into town has changed, too. There is no longer that terrible smell of exhaust like last time when I came on my own. We drove towards Moscow then took the road northeast leading to Star City; all along it there is a profusion of dachas behind high fences. There are pretty little isbas that look like doll’s houses, painted blue or red, or simple huts. They show the Muscovites’ deep attachment to their native soil, despite the air pollution, the cranes, the concrete, cars, and hundreds of hoardings disfiguring the landscape. The great enterprise of uniformity is at work here like everywhere else; concrete is surely the work of the devil …

  In the bus I observed Léo. He was talking to Roman and Gennady. He wasn’t paying me any attention – or, rather, I got the impression he was deliberately ignoring me. What’s going on? Suddenly I felt overwhelmed by a bad premonition and I recalled the scene from yesterday. It had never happened to me before. Just as we were about to go out to a little party organised by the National Centre for Space Studies in our honour before our departure for Moscow, and I was finishing getting dressed and sitting at the mirror, putting on my make-up, he came up behind me and looked at me.

  ‘Do you really need to tart yourself up like that?’ he said.

  At first I thought I’d misheard.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Léo, for Christ’s sake, are you joking?’

  Then he put his hands on my shoulders, but his gesture was anything but friendly.

  ‘Of course I’m joking. But still: you’ve been going a bit overboard.’

  I felt like losing my temper, but I was too stunned. I had never seen him like this. This was not the Léo I knew. In the three months we have been together, he has always been so considerate, so funny, so loving. I’ve never felt so good with a man before.

  I have to concentrate on what’s ahead, and nothing else. This is the most important experience of my life. We have nine months instead of two years to get ready: that’s very short! So I already know that our schedule will be hellish, and this is not the time to start feeling wobbly. But this morning, and during the entire bus trip, I couldn’t help but think about what happened last night.

  20 November, evening

  Zvyozdny Gorodok, Star City: hardly the right name for it – a grey urban zone with long-deserted avenues and blocks of flats, it looks like a French banlieue lost in the middle of the Russian forest. They settled Léo and me into the Prophylact
icum, the ‘hotel-clinic’ for cosmonauts, while we wait for our flat in Dom 4 to be ready. Léo is a star here. They bend over backwards for him. This evening he went out – he had some ‘old Russian mates’ to see. I’m on my own and I’m looking at the dark lake outside the hotel, and the immense icy forest beyond. What’s going on? Since we got here yesterday, Léo hasn’t been the same. First there was the argument, and today I found him distant and cold.

  I’m afraid. It’s already hard enough being here. If he leaves me now, I won’t be able to stand it.

  28 November

  He’s at it again. He’s accused me of flirting with the Russians. We had gone out for dinner with a little group. On the way back, he suddenly said, venomously, ‘You think I didn’t see you?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t take me for a fool. I saw you.’

  I think I couldn’t quite convince myself any of it was real.

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘I saw you acting the whore.’

  That language again. I was stunned, knocked for six.

  I would never have thought he could be that jealous. I looked at him; I just didn’t understand. I couldn’t say a thing. He shrugged his shoulders and went to bed.

  Servaz checked the time: seven minutes to midnight. He rubbed his eyelids. The moon kept watch in the night sky. Even if it took him all night long, he would finish reading. Once again, he felt a growing unease when he thought of Mila. There was a feeling of imminent tragedy about her story, of something set in motion that would be impossible to stop. Or maybe that was because of what he knew already? As in Mahler’s 6th Symphony, where the clouds gathered from the opening bars, a sinister force was at work here.

  He gave a start when he heard a burst of laughter somewhere, immediately stifled by a thick layer of silence. Propped against his pillows, he shuddered.

  He went on reading.

  * * *

  Iggy raised his head.

  He thought he had heard a sound. In his grey, monochromatic world, the dog surveyed the bed and the room, bathed in silent moonlight. Sound asleep next to him, his mistress was snoring lightly. In a split second, the little dog’s brain forgot what had awoken him, to concentrate on another more urgent sensation: he was hungry. He quickly examined every available possibility. He was not at home: he didn’t know this place and it was much smaller than his usual territory, but he had explored every corner (it didn’t take long) and he knew that his mistress had put his bowl in the bathroom. The door to the bathroom was open. Maybe there was something left to eat there? No sooner had the thought occurred to him than the dog wagged his tail with pleasure, anticipating imminent sustenance, and he decided to go and see without further ado. He jumped off the bed and trotted over to the bathroom, his short legs barely clicking on the carpet, his hindquarters hampered by the splint on his left rear leg.

  In the bathroom, where his mistress had left the light on, his claws clicked more distinctly over the tiles. Now he could see his dish at the foot of the bath. From over here it looked empty, but he couldn’t see the bottom. When he reached the edge, he dipped his hypersensitive nose into the bowl, snuffled all around and felt a pang of disappointment: absolutely nothing left to nibble on! Dejected, he drank some lukewarm water from the plastic bowl and went back into the bedroom, tail dragging.

  It was as he crossed the threshold to the bedroom that he again became aware of what had woken him up. What was it? He stopped at the edge of the room, listening for a moment. The fur on his neck stood on end. There was something in the room. He had not yet identified it, but his instinct shouted that someone besides his mistress was there. Someone who was not moving: he could only properly detect things that moved. Nevertheless, he could hear slow breathing, and he could associate it with a palette of smells a hundred times richer than any human could detect, and thus create a precise map of his environment – in this case, the bedroom. Conclusion: there was definitely someone here – a living creature, over there, by the window, behind the curtain on the right. A shadow. Hiding in the darkness. It could have been an optical illusion created by a ray of moonlight, but illusions have no smell. He sniffed the air. There could be no doubt, there was a man over there. The mongrel also detected another, less usual smell: chemical, or medicinal; it reminded him unpleasantly of the effluvia at the vet’s, and he began growling, timidly at first (his fear had not left him), then a bit more loudly. It was then that a murmur came from behind the curtain – a soothing, gentle, perfectly friendly murmur:

  ‘Good dog, Iggy … good dog, good puppy … are you hungry?’

  This last word lit up his feeble intellect. His memory had inscribed it in his cortex long ago among the register of words essential for survival. He crouched down on the ground and, again joyfully wagging his tail, made a yapping sound.

  ‘Shhh … good dog, Iggy, quiet now … I’ll give you something to eat, okay?’

  Iggy’s tail wagged ever faster. He had recognised his name twice over. The intruder came slowly out from his hiding place and the dog was tempted to withdraw into the bathroom, just to be on the safe side. He was not altogether reassured. But the man said again, ‘Are you HUNGRY?’ and the prospect of a meal swept away all his doubts. When the intruder headed over towards him, Iggy was waiting joyfully, his tail ticking back and forth like a metronome.

  1 December

  Six o’clock in the morning: it’s still dark out and I cannot sleep, even though I’m exhausted. I cannot stop thinking about what Léo said yesterday. Eight hours of theoretical study and two hours of daily gymnastics, in addition to the sessions in the swivel chair – which is actually an armchair where one is transformed into a human spinning top. The Russian doctors, astonished by my resistance, told me that I’m managing better than most of the men.

  Proudly, I told Léo about it when we met up again in the evening. He shot me a look so cold it sent a chill right through me, and then he smiled and said, ‘These Russians are all trying to hit on you. It’s not their fault. You’re the one who has to watch how you behave.’

  The man who had been hidden behind the curtain stared at the sleeping form. He stood by the door to the bathroom, as motionless as a statue. As if he had the entire night ahead of him. His face lit by moonlight, he kept his gaze riveted on Christine. He felt calm, relaxed.

  It was his moment of triumph, the hum of blood through his veins, the crescendo of sensations. He was nearing the summit. He was wearing nothing but a pair of briefs, his watch and latex gloves. The rest of his clothes were in the bath.

  He swept the beam of his torch over Christine’s back and shoulders as they rose and fell rhythmically. Then down her spine and waist as it curved alluringly in her nightgown. And along her legs to her feet tangled in the sheets. He was already beginning to feel excited. He turned reluctantly away from the spectacle and headed barefoot to the minibar. Opening the little fridge, its bright interior reflected in his black eyes, he took a miniature of vodka, unscrewed it and lifted it to his lips. He drank the entire bottle in three long, cool, delicious gulps. Then he put it on the desk above the fridge. Don’t forget to take it with you. He wiped the bottleneck, just in case.

  One forty-five.

  The man grabbed Christine’s handbag, emptied the contents out onto the desk and examined them methodically in the light from the torch: credit card, loyalty cards, wallet, pack of chewing gum, keys, pens, mobile phone. His vacant, lifeless gaze lingered on a much-thumbed photograph. Christine, smiling. Sitting on a wall. A little harbour below her. Who had taken it? Where? He put everything back and reached for a transparent pouch closed on one side with a zip. One by one he removed a syringe, a cutter, two fifty-millilitre ampoules of ketamine and the rubber mask.

  He broke the ampoule and dipped the needle into it, filled it with the colourless, slightly viscous liquid, which smelled faintly chlorinated.

  Then he tapped on the syringe, and squirted a little liquid out of the needle. />
  Satisfied, he put the syringe back down, raised his arm and stretched, his legs spread wide, his toes flat on the carpet. He opened the fridge again. Reached for a second miniature. Drank another shot of vodka. Burped. Went to urinate in the bathroom. A smile on his lips. He felt strong, lucid, alert. He would flush before he left. Still smiling, he stopped by the body of the little dog, next to the toilet.

  Iggy was still wearing the collar around his neck, but just beneath, a gaping wound showed the cartilage of his windpipe beneath his blood-soaked fur. The animal’s eyes were closed, his tongue hanging out. Blood thick as epoxy paint spread in a puddle beneath him.

  The man looked at his watch: it was time to move. Grabbing the mask (a hideous grimacing red devil with a long nose, pointed ears and horns), he pulled it over his face until his eyes were level with the holes. He opened them wide beneath the mask, which felt cold against his skin, compressing his chin and hampering his breathing, but he adjusted it as best he could, and through the narrow slits his implacable gaze turned towards Christine.

  7 December

  The dacha is located in a white, isolated clearing in the forest. It looks like something out of a fairy tale.

  Surprised and troubled, I looked at Léo. I suppose I should’ve been enchanted by what I saw, but my first thought was that he was trying to isolate us from the others, get as far away as possible from Star City, even if we are only a few hundred metres away in the forest. I feel more and more cut off, emptied out, mentally drained by these recurring situations. Who could I confide in, here? I don’t know anyone, and Léo is doing everything possible to make sure it stays that way. Dare I say it – he frightens me.

  ‘Do you know what I want, right now?’ he said, once we were inside.