by Yasmina Reza
“Yes.”
“I have a little idea for what we can say about my being there . . .”
“Yes . . .”
I set out the story. Lending the suitcase to Lydie, his panicky arrival at our place, our visit upstairs to check the body, my lookout watch, the peephole, me imploring him in the lobby. He had no reaction, he didn’t care. It made me angry that he wouldn’t care about getting me out of the situation. He kills his wife, I do my best to help him, and now that it’s ruined he doesn’t give a damn about the whole thing. I shook him, “You listening to me, Jean-Lino? It’s not about you anymore, it’s about me. It’s important for us to have the same version of what happened.”
“Yes, it’s important . . .”
He fumbles in a chest pocket, pulls out some tickets and balls of colored tinfoil. There’s also a transparent square of self-stick arrows that he tosses on the floor with the rest.
“Can you repeat what I just said? What do I say when I get to the lobby and see you with all this stuff ?”
“You snatch the purse and the coat away from me . . .”
“And—?”
“And you say, ‘You’re crazy.’”
“No, I don’t say right away that you’re crazy, first I say, ‘What are you doing? What’s in that suitcase?’”
He looks at the floor and the bits of paper. “Yes . . .”
“You listening, Jean-Lino?”
“You say, ‘What’s in the suitcase?’ . . .”
“And then I say, ‘You’re crazy, don’t do that!’”
“Yes yes, sure Elisabeth, I put you completely in the clear, completely . . .”
He shakes his head, the mouth tic is seriously back. Not a very reassuring sight.
“You have your cellphone with you?”
“No.”
I open Lydie’s carry-all bag and take her phone out. “We can use this one . . .”
“For what?”
“To call the police.”
He gazes at the thing. An Android in a yellow case with a dangling ornament topped by a feather. I immediately regret my harshness. Everything’s out of kilter. I wish I’d listened to Pierre, hadn’t left our apartment. Jean-Lino seems completely elsewhere. He keeps silent; then, in a faint voice, he says, “I’ll never see the mosquito laboraTory.”
“Someday, sure you will.”
“When?”
“When you come back.”
He shrugs. I had promised to take him to Pasteur and show him the museum, but especially the insectarium. Jean-Lino yearned to see the magical premises of knowledge. To go where life is learned about. At the Guli megastore he languished among the racks where large cold beasts were stacked: washing machines, stove hoods, ranges, freezers evoked nothing for him. He dreamed of being brought into the world of living things, dangerous things. I’d told him about the insectarium, a steamy incubator area of a few rooms underground where there lived hundreds of larvae in white basins and as many mosquitos from all over the world in containers sealed by knots of netting. A place that is half laboratory, half laundry, with everyday gadgets and a sewing machine for the netting. I had told him how the larvae are fed liquid cat food, how the adult males gobble up nothing but sweets and don’t bite. On the other hand, I explained, their womenfolk do bite and every three days they gorge on the blood of some poor mouse that gets dropped into their cage. Jean-Lino exclaimed, “Not a word to Lydie!” I had made clear that the mouse was anesthetized, but he didn’t listen. The fact was that Jean-Lino did not want to share the privilege of his visit into the culicines’ lair.
“We should’ve gone before.”
“We’ll go.”
“You won’t be at Pasteur anymore by then.”
“I can still go.”
“I won’t be alive then.”
“OK, that’s enough, we can’t spend the whole night here. What’s the police number, 17?” I had picked up Lydie’s phone again. I went directly to the emergency number.
“Eduardo!” Jean-Lino cried. That had to come. No way to dodge the Eduardo question forever.
“Eduardo will be taken care of . . .”
“By who? The SPCA, no, no no, never! And he’s sick besides!”
“We’ll take him.”
“You don’t like him!”
“We’ll see to him. And if he’s not happy with us, we’ll put him with people who will like him.”
“You won’t know how to take care of him!”
I set the phone down on the suitcase, I stood up and tried to extricate myself from the coat.
“What are you doing?”
“Leaving.”
He stood up. “Let’s go put him in your house.”
The red had risen in his cheeks and his eyes bulged behind the yellow frames. I saw that there was no point arguing. “Quick, then,” I said. We closed the door so the suitcase couldn’t be seen (by whom, at three in the morning?) and took the stairs up two at a time. In his flat, Jean-Lino strode into the small bedroom and emerged in a minute with a canvas satchel. We went into the kitchen. He put in it a package of patties, making clear that these were not the ones that caused diarrhea; according to him the cat was, so to speak, if not exactly cured then at least past any trouble. There’d be two more days of treatment, we could skip the yeast and the anti-kidney-stone capsules but not the Revigor 200. He put the prescription slip and the vet’s address into the bag. He took a Feliway diffuser from a closet and dropped it into the bag—to replace, he said as we moved into the living room, the facial pheromones and help the cat feel safe in the new environment. I was understanding only one word out of two. In the living room he collected some toys, balls and fake mice, then stood and spun slowly in place till he spotted a long wand tipped with a tail of imitation leopard fur and feathers. “He adores the fishing pole,” he said as he shoved the whole thing into the sack. “He’s a hunter, you’ve got to play with him at least three times a day,” he commanded, heading back to the kitchen. “Can you get the litter box?” I picked up the tray. Jean-Lino grabbed Eduardo, who was prowling around his legs. And suddenly I saw the table and I said, “Wait!” My cigarette was in the ashtray! My long cigarette, barely smoked! I’d seen too many episodes of Bring in the Accused not to spot the fatal blunder! I put the stub in my pocket and looked around to see if I hadn’t left other traces. Eduardo meowed and bared his cat teeth. We went down the stairs, Jean-Lino first, me behind. I opened our door. Not a sound. I set the litter box down in the kitchen. I closed the door to the bedroom hallway. In the vestibule, Jean-Lino set down Eduardo and the traveling bag. He spotted a wall socket and immediately plugged in the Feliway diffuser. Down on all fours himself, his torso crammed into the biker jacket, he took the cat’s muzzle in his hands and whispered to him, rubbing his nose against fur. I hurried him along, terrified at the idea that Pierre might emerge. For a moment I thought of changing into shoes before rejecting the idea as a fatal foolishness. As we were leaving, Jean-Lino drew from the bag a T-shirt that probably belonged to him, balled it up and set it in front of Eduardo.
We went back to the stairs. He let himself drop onto each step like a sleepwalker. He was out of juice. Reaching the bottom, we sat back down on the same spot. I took up Lydie’s phone again and although I no longer understood much about the situation, I said, “Jean-Lino, you have to do it. And besides the battery is nearly dead.”
“Where was I going with the suitcase? . . .”
“Nowhere! You weren’t going anywhere. You don’t even know why you put her into the suitcase! You’d lost your mind, you were having a fit of madness.”
“A fit of madness . . .”
I dialed 17 and handed him the phone. A recorded voice said, You are speaking to the Emergency Police, followed by a little anxiety-producing message. Then it rang. It went on ringing with no answer. Jean-Lino hung up.
“No answer.”
“That’s impossible. Call again.”
“What do I say? . . . I killed my wife?”
<
br /> “Not ‘I killed my wife’ just like that.”
“So what should I say?”
“Give it a little form. Say I’m calling because I just did something stupid . . .”
He calls again. The message again: Your conversation is recorded, any misuse will be punished. An actual woman picks up right after. “Emergency Police, I’m listening.” Jean-Lino looks at me in a panic. I sketch one of those gestures that are supposed to calm your interlocutor. Completely doubled over on himself, his head at knee level, Jean-Lino says “I’m calling because I did something stupid . . .”
“What was it?” says the voice.
“I committed a murder . . .”
“Where are you located?”
“Deuil-l’Alouette.”
“You know the address where you are?”
Jean-Lino answers in a low voice. The girl has him repeat the street name. She asks if the address is the same as his home. She sounds nice, and calm.
“Are you out on the public street or inside a building?”
Under her voice I can hear tapping at a keyboard.
“I’m inside the lobby.”
“The lobby of your building?”
“Yes.”
“Is there a digital door code?”
“I don’t remember now . . .”
“Are you alone?”
Jean-Lino straightens up. Panic. I signal that he can mention me.
“No.”
“Who’re you with?”
Silently I mouth neigh-bor. “With my neighbor.”
“One person?”
“Yes.”
“Sir, what happened?”
“I killed my wife . . .”
“Yes . . . ?”
He turns to me. I find nothing to whisper.
“Where is she now, your wife? Is she with you right now? . . .”
He tries to answer but no sound comes out. The lower lip has begun trembling again, a continuous throbbing. It looks like a batrachian’s buccal floor.
“What’s your name, sir?”
“Jean-Lino Manoscrivi.”
“Jean . . . Lino?”
“Yes . . .”
“Are you armed, Jean-Lino?”
“No. No, no.”
“Your neighbor either?”
“No . . .”
“Have you consumed alcohol or drugs??”
“No . . .” He sees me mime the act of having a drink with friends. “A little alcohol . . .”
“Are you under treatment in connection with a psychi-atric problem? . . .”
The call breaks off. Battery’s dead . . . Jean-Lino stared at the dark screen. He closed the lid and extended the chain on the yellow plastic case to set the feather right. I laid my arm around his shoulders. Jean-Lino put his hat back on. We were in a corner of some railway station, waiting. With the long, too-small coat, my fake-fur slip-pers and the suitcase, a couple of Roma passing through. About to be sent off who knows where. He said, “That girl was nice.” I said, “Yes, she was nice.” And he: “What’s going to happen to my aunt without me? She has nobody else.”
Having nobody. The subjects in The Americans look like they have nobody. That’s who they are. They exist at the edge of roads, of benches, of rooms, they’ve come looking for something they won’t find. Now and then they gleam in some fleeting light. They have nobody. The Jehovah’s Witness has nobody. He walks the streets with his briefcase stuffed with magazines, the briefcase gives him the look of a man and stands in for a destination. When you grow up with the idea you have nobody, you don’t easily find your way back. Even if someone takes your hand and shelters you, it doesn’t really happen for you. Sundays and holidays, on Parmentier Avenue, Jean-Lino’s parents would send him out into the courtyard. He’d hang about, squatting on the cobblestones. He would scratch away at the furrows where weeds were sprouting. He would make things out of the watchmaker’s trash. There were no other children. To have nobody is to have not even yourself. Somebody loving you provides a certificate of existence. When a person feels alone, he can’t exist without some small social fable. When I was around twelve, I was waiting for love to give me back my lost identity (the one we’re supposed to have had before Zeus cut us in half ), but, unsure of such an eventuality, I also placed a bet on fame and honor. Since I was good at science, I imagined myself a future as a researcher: my team discovered a revolutionary treatment for epilepsy and I got an international medal, a Nobel kind of thing. Jeanne was my manager. She would sit on the pullout bed with Rosa the doll, who represented Therese Parmentolo, a kid from high school who had grand mal seizures, she’d listen to my acceptance speech and applaud from time to time. Afterward, Therese Parmentolo (also played by me) would come onstage to express her gratitude. Sometimes I wonder if everything we think we are might arise from a series of imitations and projections. Even though I haven’t been a researcher, and took refuge in something with more security, I often hear that I extricated myself from my background or escaped my class. That’s idiotic. All I did was save myself from insubstantiality. People telephone the Emergency Police number to talk because they have nobody else, a patrolman once told me. Those are the majority of calls to 17. There was one woman who would phone in several times a week. Before hanging up she would say, “Tell the whole crew hello for me.” Joseph Denner used to play melancholy tunes on his guitar. He would do “Céline” by Hugues Aufray, he’d do the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” which he’d sing nearly in a monotone with his weak voice, a bad accent, without understanding all the words—All the lonely people . . . Where do they all belong . . . I was all those homeless people. Tell the whole crew hello. As if she meant something to the crew.
Jean-Lino says again, “We could have taken Rémi to the mosquitoes.” He pulls out a pack of cigarettes, slides one up to his mouth. He is small, frail. His long nose tilts toward the floor, the yellow spectacles don’t go with the hat. We could still laugh over that. The smoke trails along the suitcase and envelops us. It envelops the pitted skin, it envelops the thoughts, the world becomes one immense vaporous mass. We heard the sound of voices from outdoors, and knocking against the glass. I stood up. I stepped out from the service stairs. They were there. Three guys outside the lobby door. “They’re here, I think,” I said, and I went to open up. Three men came in, dressed more or less like Jean-Lino without the poetry. Police. They right away went to speak to Jean-Lino, who had just appeared at the back of the lobby. He had taken off his hat, he was holding it in one hand, his arm folded in an awkward position. “You’re Monsieur Manoscrivi?” said one of the officers.
“Yes . . .”
“You’re the one who called the Emergency Police?”
“Yes . . .”
Uniformed cops arrived on their heels. A girl and two guys, in their caps.
“You’re the one who killed your wife? . . . Where is she, your wife?”
“In the suitcase . . .” He pointed to the stairwell and some of the officers went to take a look at the valise.
“Don’t you move. We’ll be taking you in to the station. And you too, madam.”
They handcuffed us. The girl patted down my whole body and searched the pockets of Lydie’s coat. There were some coins, a Kleenex, and the half-cigarette I had smoked up at Jean-Lino’s. Oh my god. But no, no problem, I said to myself, you could have smoked it at the bottom of the stairs waiting for the cops. A patrolman said “Come, madam, we’ll have a little talk.” He took my arm and led me out of the building. I said, “Where are we going?”
“Into the squad car.”
“Can I change my clothes?”
“Not for the moment, ma’am.”
The girl was speaking into a walkie-talkie. I heard, “We entered the lobby, the suspect confirmed that he killed his wife. She is apparently inside a suitcase. There was another person with him. We have begun questioning the two persons. We’ll need an OPJ when we get in.” I asked, “Where are we being taken?”
“To the police station
.”
“Will we be going together?” I said, pointing to Jean-Lino.
The cop drew me along without answering.
“I’m wearing bedroom slippers!”
“Slippers are fine. At least that way you won’t have to take out any shoelaces.”
Jean-Lino was no longer visible among the men.
“Will I be with him over there?”
“OK, OK, time to leave now.”
“Will I see him later?”
“I don’t know, ma’am.”
The man was losing patience. I called out, in a voice I didn’t recognize, a sharp wrenching cry that emerged after an effort I was unused to and that hurt me, “Jean-Lino, see you later!” The cop turned me around, he slid a hand beneath my left arm and pushed me outside by pressing my shoulder. I thought I saw some commotion among the men at the rear of the lobby, I thought I saw Jean-Lino’s face for a moment, I even thought I heard my name, but I’m not sure of anything. Supported by the man’s grip, with my head lowered I walked onto the wet parking lot, my checkered pajama pants sliding down, they were too big for me but I couldn’t pull them up. The police car was right out front, parked crosswise on the driveway. He had me get in through the right rear door. He came around to sit on the other side. He took out a pen and a notebook. He asked me my name, address, date and place of birth. He wrote them down carefully and slowly. On a third of the page, in white on a black square, there was the drawing of a key with the words bruet inc.—Locksmith and Glazier. I said, “Who’ll tell my husband?”
