Don't Turn Out the Lights

by Bernard Minier

  I saw the expression in his eyes, full of lust. His new look, staring at me the way you would stare at an object. A toy. He grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back. I said, ‘Léo, no, stop, please,’ but he didn’t listen. He pushed me against the windowsill, opened the zip on my jeans and pulled them down my legs along with my pants. I didn’t move, didn’t protest. I knew it was pointless, and above all, afterwards he’d leave me alone. He penetrated me right away, without a single caress, licking my cheek and ear as he thrusted.

  He climaxed quickly and as he walked away, tears ran down my cheeks.

  9 December

  The second phase has begun at last: training on board the simulator. From now on, as a titular cosmonaut, I am working with my double, a young Russian pilot called Sergey. I’ve noticed that ever since we started this phase Léo has been systematically interrogating me about how I spend my days: he wants to know exactly what I’ve been doing, and what we’ve said to each other. It’s exhausting. I’m finding it harder and harder to remember everything we have to memorise.

  But Léo doesn’t care. The other night, he came back at around two o’clock in the morning, wafting a thick cloud of various odours: vodka, beer, tobacco, women. Instead of going to sleep, or jumping on me, he made me sit in a chair in the middle of the room and he began to interrogate me. About my days, my training with Sergey, my professors, the men I had been working with. Like that, all night long, even though the next day I had a vital test for the next stage.

  18 December

  I still can’t believe it: Léo hit me. I’ve been saying the words to myself over and over again: Léo hit me …

  When I got back last night, Sergey called me about the programme for the next day. I saw the expression change on Léo’s face. As soon as I hung up, he wanted to take the mobile phone from my hand to read my messages. I resisted. Then he said, ‘You need them all, don’t you? You’re bored here, with me. You’d rather be there: so they would all be where you could get at them, within reach of your pussy!’ I couldn’t believe my ears. This time I slapped him. He looked at me, his eyes open wide, and he touched his cheek, flabbergasted. Then a moment later there came a punch in my belly so violent it took my breath away.

  I bent over and felt a second blow on my neck. I fell to the floor and then he kicked me.

  ‘Stupid bitch! Filthy whore! All you’re good for is sucking cock! Do it again and I’ll kill you!’

  He threw my mobile across the room. Then he went out, slamming the door.

  I don’t know where he spent the night. This morning, my ribs are horribly painful, my stomach and neck, too. I’ve got an important training session today. I have no idea how I’m going to make it through the day.

  Dark. Something woke her up. Suddenly Christine was sitting bolt upright, at the head of the bed. It was dark! Pitch black! An icy vertigo, a falling sensation. She reached for the light, groping feverishly. She pressed the button. Nothing happened. A power cut …

  It was completely dark. Someone had pulled the curtains in the room and switched off the light in the bathroom. She cried out, ‘Is anyone there?’ What a stupid question, as if they were about to answer! To her great surprise, a light came on at the other end of the room, a dazzling beam trained right at her, which made her blink furiously. She saw nothing but that blinding eye. She held her hand out as a screen in front of her.

  ‘Is … is that you?’ said Christine, her voice so faint she wondered if he had heard her.

  She knew very well that it was Him. Who else would it be? Suddenly, the light began to move. It came slowly around the bed, in her direction, wavering, still dazzling. She blinked like an owl, and she wanted to scream, but her throat contracted with fear and her scream was strangled in her mouth. She closed her eyes, squeezed her lids, refused to believe it was real: there was a man in her room. The man who had been persecuting her for days, He was there, with her. No, no, no – she couldn’t believe it.

  ‘Open your eyes,’ said the voice.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Open your eyes, or I’ll kill your dog.’

  Iggy! Where was he? She couldn’t hear him … She opened her eyes and almost passed out. Her chest filled with horror and she gasped, terrified: only a few inches from her face was a grotesque mask. A red rubber mask. Its long, hooked, bulbous nose was almost touching her. And that smile! Those thick lips, those yellow, pointed teeth! She pedalled frantically in the sheets to get away from the thing, she recoiled as far as she could, ground her shoulder blades, her neck and her back against the wall as if she wanted to melt into it. She turned her head away, her mouth twisted, her face disfigured by fear.

  ‘Please don’t hurt me, please…’

  As he didn’t speak, didn’t react, she regained a tiny bit of courage.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked, although she didn’t dare look in his direction. ‘What do you want? What do you expect from me? Why are you trying to drive me mad?’

  The questions pouring from her lips. A flood of questions.

  ‘Because I was asked to do it,’ he replied.

  This immediately shut her up. She was finding it harder and harder to breathe. As if all the oxygen were being sucked out of the room.

  ‘Because I’m being paid to do it … and I have to finish the job.’

  His voice was calm and neutral. Finish the job. The words caused her to gasp, horrified. She would like to struggle, to kick him, to punch him, to rear up like a wild horse, scratch his eyes, leap towards the door – but her limbs were like jelly; any strength she might have had had drained away.

  ‘Oh, no, no, no, no,’ was all she could say.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Please, no…’

  Suddenly she looked at Him. Because He had just put a hand gloved in latex on her thigh. She avoided looking at the mask; it was too frightening. She looked lower down. She saw a thin, pale body; tattoos everywhere. She thought of Cordélia. She could see his erection and she felt a violent surge of nausea. The gloved hand was moving up her thigh. She could see more tattoos through the translucent latex on his wrist, but not very well: his hand and his fingers were covered with patterns, like ivy.

  He grabbed the hem of her nightgown with both hands.

  He lifted it up over her shoulders and above her head. He left it there, behind her skull. He ran his gloved hand over her breasts one after the other. Slowly. She found a last burst of energy, squeezed her knees together as hard as she could, and pleaded:

  ‘No, no, no. Don’t do that. Please, don’t do that.’

  She could see his dull eyes behind the mask. Empty eyes. Then he leaned back, put his torch on the night table. He picked up something else instead. A syringe.

  This time, she was about to scream when he slapped a hand over her mouth and lifted the sparkling needle into the light, then rammed it into her arm.

  ‘Just wait, baby. It will go straight to your brain. It’s Super K, the real top-end stuff. You are going to trip out in a way you’ve never done before … You’re going to reach the sky.’

  He pressed very gently on the end, and with horror she felt the ultrafine stem penetrating her muscle, her flesh. She was going to pass out, for sure.

  ‘Fifty milligrams to start off with. We’ll see how it goes.’

  30

  Opera Seria

  CHRISTMAS

  Over the last few days Léo’s attacks have been more frequent and more intense. The man is evil; he wants to destroy me. Everything about him is toxic, malevolent. I should report him. But if I do, the entire Andromeda mission will be jeopardised. And I know they won’t give me another chance after this. Space travel is my entire life. I must not give up because of him. I have to resist, one way or another.

  27 January

  The third phase has begun. The one where all the teams are working together. We spend our days in the different simulators. The captain, who is at the heart of the team, running things, is Pavel Koroviev, an experienced cosmonaut
. The flight engineer, who sits to his left and who is in charge of controlling all the systems, is usually another Russian, but for the first time two French nationals are going to go on board the Soyuz at the same time, and the role has been assigned to Léo. Finally, I am on his right, the experimenter, and I’m in charge of managing air quality, taking care of the radio, etc. Koroviev is solid, serious, rigorous, and I feel better with him between us. Particularly as we’re packed like sardines in there. Now that we’re no longer alone, Léo is nervous. But only beneath the surface: on the surface, he is cheerful and jovial, and he gets along well with Pavel. When he talks about me, he cannot help but put me down however he can, but he always hides it with humour: ‘Mila’s better in bed than in a capsule,’ he said today. I blushed with shame. I felt humiliated. But I know that he was trying to make me angry, to pass me off as hysterical. I won’t give him the pleasure. This time, emboldened by Pavel’s presence between us, I actually dared answer back: ‘Quite the opposite to you, my dear.’ Léo was silent, and Pavel gave an embarrassed laugh.

  28 January

  I shouldn’t have provoked him. I still didn’t know what he is capable of.

  The man is insane.

  That evening, after the exercise, he told Pavel he had something to do and he went off somewhere. I had a drink with Sergey – he seems to like me, I know that – then I walked back to the dacha. It was pitch black out, and I followed the snowy path through the forest with the glow from my torch. I went up the wooden steps and unlocked the door. Just as I was about to switch on the light, I felt the cold steel of a blade against my throat.

  ‘Don’t turn on the light.’

  Léo’s voice, in the dark. That sinister voice he’s been using when he loses it. He dragged me into a corner of the dusty floor, then switched on a little light. I started. He was naked. There was blood, or paint, on his torso; I don’t know where it came from. He grabbed me by the hair and forced me to kneel down in front of him, and he ran the cold blade over my cheeks.

  ‘You’re ugly and useless, and on top of that you humiliated me in front of Pavel. You make me look like an impotent imbecile. You’re going to pay for it, you whore. You know what I’m dying to do now, right now? I’m dying to kill you. I’m going to kill you, you filthy whore.’

  ‘No, please! You’re right: I shouldn’t have said that. It won’t happen again, ever. I swear. Never again.’

  He dragged me by the hair, shook me hard and slapped me. ‘You’re crazy,’ he said. ‘You’re crazy and dangerous, do you know that much, at least?’ And suddenly, before I had time to realise what was happening, he placed the knife in my hand, squeezed my wrist around the hilt and struck himself in the hip with it. He screamed, ‘You stabbed me, fuck! You crazy bitch, you stabbed me.’

  I was stunned. He got out his telephone and took a photo of me holding the bloody knife, then one of his own hip covered in blood.

  ‘Don’t go getting it into your head to humiliate me again,’ he said. After that he went to the bathroom to tend to his wound.

  That night, he told me to sleep on the sofa. He said he didn’t want to share his bed with a prostitute. It was cold in the lounge and I shivered most of the night under the thin blanket he’d left me. This morning since I woke up I’ve been feeling feverish. I’m overcome with panic: all the cosmonauts are afraid of falling ill. Catch the flu or a virus and they’ll dismiss you from the programme. Oh, God: anything but that.

  [Christine looks up. She stares at the man. She is lying beneath him, motionless. She can hear his breathing. How long has she been there? She blacked out, temporarily lost consciousness. The man is not making a single sound, he is toiling away in silence. She can feel his hips sinking into the sweat-soaked sheets every time he penetrates her. Then she notices that the room around her is changing colours: orangey red, fluorescent green, electric blue, fuchsia, lilac, lemon yellow … ]

  15 February

  I wonder whether Léo has been bad-mouthing me to his Russian crewmates. Their attitude has changed. Gone is the chivalry, the kindness. I’ve come in for an increasing number of openly sexual allusions and macho behaviour. The other day, Pavel even placed his hand on my thigh in the simulator. I went completely stiff as if I’d received an electric shock, and he didn’t persist. But I can tell they have less and less respect for me.

  [Christine is overcome by a warm, strange dizziness. Her vision goes blurry all of a sudden. She stares at the rubber mask, so near, but she no longer finds it all that frightening, this time. Just … funny. She laughs without knowing why. The hooked nose emerges from her blurred vision, strangely sharp, while the rest of the horrible leering face is lost in fog. The effect is striking. She loses all notion of time. She realises she feels nothing at all, her entire body is numb.]

  10 June

  Sergey is furious. He has talked about going to smash Léo’s face in. Because at last I found the courage to confide in him. He admitted he’s suspected something for a long time. I think he’s in love with me. He said, too, that things couldn’t go on like this, that everyone at Star City could see I was at the end of my rope, that we had to find a solution. He explained that he knew someone: a vor v zakone, a sort of godfather in the Russian mafia. Sergey told me he would talk to him. I’m worried: if something serious happens to Léo, our entire team might be removed from the mission. Sergey could see I was anxious: ‘Don’t worry, I’ll tell them not to mess him up too much, that Moki piece of shit…’ Moki is the nickname they’ve given Léo. I think it means ‘mocker’, because Léo likes to joke around and tease them.

  Servaz sat bolt upright. He reread the last two sentences. He put the open journal face down on the grey blanket and swung his legs out of bed. He walked over to the little desk where he had put the diary Desgranges gave him, Célia’s diary. He opened it and turned the pages quickly. And stopped. There it was, before his eyes: ‘Moki, 16.30’, ‘Moki, 15.00’, ‘Moki, 17.00’, ‘Moki, 18.00’.

  ‘Moki,’ he said, ‘I’ve got you.’

  25 June

  Léo is in hospital. Some skinheads beat him up. It happened as he was coming out of one of the many strip clubs in Moscow where you can sleep with the girls. He has multiple fractures. He lost three teeth, but nothing that cannot be repaired. I’m sure Sergey briefed his cousin so that his goons wouldn’t go overboard. Because even though Sergey hasn’t said anything, I know he’s behind it.

  [She doesn’t immediately notice that the wind has picked up, that dry leaves are blowing and animals are fleeing invisible danger. Suddenly the room becomes a clearing swept by an icy wind, and she sees threatening shadows darkening the sky and the earth. She wants to flee, like the animals. But she cannot. Her entire body is paralysed, nailed to this bloody bed in the middle of the clearing. She tries to toss off the man weighing on her, tries to push him away with all the strength of her arms. But he slaps her and when she blinks she discovers, horrified, that she is being ridden by a homunculus, a hideous little creature, who seems to get no pleasure out of what he’s doing, totally ignoring her, his gaze fixed straight ahead.]

  3 July

  Léo left hospital yesterday, on crutches. The Russians have assured him he will be able to resume his training very soon. Our mission has been delayed by a fortnight so that Léo can take part. What a surprise: his behaviour towards me has been almost normal. Might the attack have served as a lesson? Did the men who attacked him threaten him in any way? I acted as if our relationship had never been anything but normal. He went to sleep on the sofa, leaving me the bed I’ve been sleeping in since he’s been in hospital. I hate him, I despise him. If he thinks he can find his way back into my good books, he’d better think again. But if we can just carry on like this until the end of our stay, and focus on the mission, that will be all right by me.

  [She understands at last when he leans close to her ear to say, ‘I’m a positive hero.’ She croaks, ‘What?’ And he says again, ‘I’m HIV-positive,’ just when she feels herself falling
into an endless tunnel, where her heart begins beating more and more slowly, beating so slowly it was as if … it were about to … stop … altogether … any second … ]

  4 July

  The most dreadful thing has happened. I still can’t believe it. Sergey has been run over. He died the instant his skull hit the pavement. They didn’t find the driver. I’m sure Léo is responsible. How did he find out that it was Sergey behind the attack? Did he run him down himself or hire someone to do it? And where is he now? I haven’t seen him all day. It’s past midnight. I can’t sleep. I can hear the trees rustling in the wind all around the dacha, and I’ve got my face pressed against the black windowpane as I peer into the darkness.

  He did come back. Suddenly I saw a little light: no doubt about it, the beam of a torch, coming closer. Out there on the path. I rushed into the main room and locked the door. I went back to the window. It was him. He was striding towards the clearing. His powerful voice boomed into the night: ‘Milaaaaa!’ I could hear him rattling the doorknob furiously. He shoved against the door, realised that I’d locked it, shook it violently, hammered it with his fists.

  ‘Mila, open this door. Open this door, you fucking moron! Stupid bitch! Open up!’

  He rammed it with his shoulder, forcefully, but the door resisted. Then nothing. Silence. Until suddenly the rear window shattered. I rushed to the front door, turned the key in the lock and tugged on the handle, but it resisted. I tugged harder. The door opened at last. I was about to rush out when suddenly, he had his arms around me.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going? You’re mine, Mila. Whether you like it or not, we’re bound to each other from now on. For eternity.’

  At around four o’clock in the morning, Servaz took a break.

  He felt tangled in a net of words, drawn ever deeper into Mila’s nightmare. He sensed the story could only end tragically. He put the kettle on the boil, tipped some instant coffee into a cup; beyond the dark window it had started snowing again.