She can be laundered clean like dirty money.
Thanks to a genuine birth certificate issued under a false name. All she needs now is to find a husband to give her a married name that is untarnished and above suspicion.
It will be impossible to find her.
One Sophie the thief, the killer, will disappear. Farewell, Sophie the Psycho.
And out of the depths of the black hole.
Here comes Sophie the Saint.
11
Sophie has not seen many gangster movies, but she can conjure images: a backroom bar in a sleazy neighbourhood, full of repulsive men playing cards in a haze of smoke; instead she finds herself in a large white apartment with a picture window that offers sweeping views of the city, standing in front of a man of about forty who, although he is not smiling, is clearly civilised.
The place is a caricature of everything she despises: the glass-topped desk, the designer office chairs, the abstract painting on the wall, the work of an interior designer without one iota of personal style.
The man is sitting behind his desk. Sophie is standing. A note in her mailbox summoned her here at the most inconvenient possible time. She had to take an unscheduled break from work and is already in a hurry to get back.
“So, you need a birth certificate?” the man says, looking at her.
“It’s not for me, it’s . . .”
“Don’t waste your breath, that’s no concern of mine.”
Sophie focuses on the man, trying to memorise his features. More like fifty than forty, otherwise unremarkable. He could be anybody.
“Our reputation in the market is unrivalled. Our products are of the highest quality,” the man goes on. “That is the secret of our success.”
His voice is soothing and firm. It gives the impression of being in safe hands.
“We have a variety of good, solid identities we can offer. Obviously, they cannot be used indefinitely, but as a medium-term solution the product offers exceptional value for money.”
“How much?” Sophie says.
“15,000 euros.”
Sophie yelps, “But I don’t have that much!”
The man is a negotiator. He thinks for a moment and then, in an authoritative tone, he says, “We cannot go below twelve thousand.”
It is more than she has. And even if she could make up the difference, it would leave her without a cent. She is in a burning building, standing by an open window. Should she jump? She will not get a second chance. She tries to weigh the possibilities in the eyes of the man staring at her. He does not move.
“How does it work?” she says at last.
“It couldn’t be simpler.” The man smiles.
*
The restaurant is heaving when Sophie arrives back twenty minutes late. As she rushes in, she sees Jeanne pulling a face and jerking her thumb towards the far end of the counter. Sophie does not even have time to take off her coat.
“Are you taking the piss?”
The manager swoops down on her. To avoid customers overhearing, he is standing very close as though about to hit her. His breath smells of beer. Through clenched teeth he growls:
“You pull this kind of shit again, and I’ll fire you and personally kick you through that fucking door.”
After that, the day is the usual hell of mopping floors, collecting trays, ketchup stains, the smell of hot cooking oil, the floor tiles sticky with spilled Coke, overflowing bins. Almost seven hours later, Sophie realises that she has been so engrossed in her thoughts that she did not notice her shift finished twenty minutes ago. She does not mind the unpaid overtime, she is mostly concerned about what is going to happen next. Because through all the turmoil, she has been thinking about her meeting and the fact that she has a deadline: now or never. The plan is sound. Everything now is just a matter of skill, and money. Since her visit to the agency, she feels sure she has the skill. As for money, she is still short. Not much. A little less than a thousand euros.
She goes into the small staff room, hangs up her uniform, changes her shoes and looks at herself in the mirror. She has the haggard face of those who work cash in hand. Lank, greasy hair falls into her eyes. As a child, she sometimes looked at herself in the mirror, stared deep into her own eyes and, after a while, she would feel a dizzying trance-like state and have to clutch the edge of the washbasin to stop herself from falling. It was like plunging into the unknown depths that lie dormant in each of us. She stares at her pupils until she can see nothing else, but before she can be swallowed up by her own gaze, she hears the manager behind her.
“Not bad.”
She turns. He is standing in the doorway, arms folded, one shoulder resting casually against the frame. She pushes back her fringe and turns to face him. She does not have time to think, the words come unbidden.
“I need an advance on my salary.”
A smile. An ineffable smile that hints at all the darkest triumphs of men.
“Well, well . . .”
Sophie leans back against the washbasin and folds her arms.
“A thousand.”
“A grand? Really? Is that all?”
“It’s more or less what I’m owed.”
“What you will be owed at the end of the month. Can’t you wait?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Oh?”
For a long moment they stand, staring at each other, and it is in this man’s eyes that she finds what she was looking for in the mirror, that strange feeling of vertigo, but there is nothing intimate about it now. It is a dizzying nausea that assails her in the pit of the stomach.
“Well?” she says, trying to shrug it off.
“We’ll see . . . we’ll see . . .”
He fills the doorway, blocking her exit, and Sophie fleetingly remembers the man back at the bank several months ago. An unsettling sense of déjà vu. But there is something different too.
She moves to leave, but he grabs her wrist.
“It should be possible,” he says, enunciating each syllable, “Come and see me tomorrow after your shift.”
Then, jamming Sophie’s fist against his crotch, he adds:
“I’m sure we can come to some arrangement.”
This is the difference. The brash insolence. This is not an attempt at seduction but a display of power, a crude deal between two people each of whom has something the other wants. It is very straightforward; Sophie is surprised at how simple it is. She has been on her feet for twenty hours straight, she has not had a day off in more than a week, she sleeps very little to avoid the nightmares, she is exhausted, drained, she wants it to be over, she has invested her last ounce of strength into this plan, she has to make it work, right now, whatever it costs it will be much less than the life she is living where everything is wasting away, even the very roots of her existence.
Without making a conscious decision, she unclenches her fist and grasps his hard cock through the fabric of his trousers. She is staring into his eyes, but she does not see him. She is simply holding his cock. This is a contract.
As she catches the bus, she realises that if she had had to give him a blow job, right there, right then, she would have done it. Without a flicker of hesitation. This thought stirs no emotion in her. It is a simple fact, nothing more.
Sophie spends the night sitting at the window smoking cigarettes. Down below, along the boulevard, she can see the halos of the streetlamps and she imagines the prostitutes in the shadows, sheltering under trees, kneeling at the feet of men who grip their heads hard and stare up at the sky.
By some strange association of ideas, this brings images of the “supermarket incident” flooding back. From her bag, the security guards are taking a series of things she did not pay for and laying them on a metal table. She is doing her best to answer their questions. The only thing that matters to her is that they do not contact Vincent.
If Vincent finds out that she is mad, he will have her committed.
He said as much, long ago, in a conversa
tion with a group of friends. Said that if he “had a wife like that” he would have her locked up. He was laughing, it was obviously a joke, but it is something she has never been able to forget. This was the moment when fear took hold of her. Perhaps she was already too far gone by then to make allowances, to see the remark for what it was: a wind-up. For months afterwards, she found herself thinking: if Vincent sees that I am mad, he will have me committed.
In the morning, at about 6.00 a.m., she gets up from her chair, takes a shower and lies down for an hour before leaving for work. She stares at the ceiling and sobs.
It is like an anaesthetic. Something makes her act, she feels as though she is cowering deep inside her physical body, as though inside the Trojan horse. The horse does not need her in order to act, it knows what it has to do. All she need do is wait, and keep her hands pressed to her ears.
12
This morning, Jeanne looks as though she got out of bed on the wrong side, but when she sees Sophie arrive, she looks horrified.
“Jesus, what the hell happened?” she says.
“Nothing, why?”
“The face on you . . .!”
“Yeah,” Sophie says as she goes into the staff room, “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
Curiously, she does not feel tired. Perhaps it will come later. She sets to work at once, mopping the floors.
Mindless. You plunge the mop into the bucket, you do not think. You wring it out, swab the floor. When the mop goes cold, you plunge it back into the bucket and start over. You do not think.
You empty the ashtrays, wipe down the tables quickly, set the ashtrays down again. In a little while, Jeanne will come over and say: “You really don’t look well . . .” But you will not say anything. You will not really have heard her. You will shrug ambiguously. You say nothing. Straining towards the escape you can feel crackling inside you, the necessary escape. Images will appear, more images, faces, you will shoo them like flies, pushing back the lank fringe that falls into your eyes every time you bend down. Automatic. When you are done you will go into the kitchen, into the haze of greasy smoke. Someone is circling you. You look up, it is the manager. You carry on with your work. Unthinking. You know what it is you want: to leave. Soon. So you work. You do whatever it takes. You will do whatever it takes to make it happen. Reflexive. A sleepwalker. You act, you wait. You will leave. You have to get away.
*
The end of the shift comes at 11 p.m. By then, everyone is shattered, and the manager has the hard task of galvanising his team so that everything is ready for the next morning. He strides around, through the kitchen, through the empty restaurant, shouting, “Get a fucking move on, we haven’t got all night,” or “Are you planning to do any work at all, you lazy bitch?” By 11.30, everything is done. It is a tribute to his managerial skill.
Everyone leaves quickly. There are always a few who stand, smoking a cigarette outside, chatting idly, before making for home. Then the boss does one last check, locks the doors and sets the alarm.
By now, everyone has left. Sophie goes into the staff room, hangs up her uniform, shuts her locker, walks through the kitchen. There is a corridor that leads to an alley behind the restaurant and, on the right, the door to the manager’s office. She knocks and goes in without waiting.
It is a cramped concrete room, the breezeblocks have been painted white; it is furnished with cast-offs, a desk piled with papers, invoices, a telephone, a calculator. Behind the desk is a metal filing cabinet and above it a grimy window that looks out onto the yard behind the restaurant. The boss is at the desk, talking on the telephone. When she appears, he smiles and gestures for her to sit as he goes on with his call. Sophie remains standing, leaning against the door.
He says simply “O.K., later . . .” and hangs up. Then he stands and comes over to her.
“You come for your advance?” he says in a low voice. “How much was it again?”
“A thousand.”
“I should be able to sort you out.” He grabs her hand and presses it to his flies.
Sophie no longer remembers the details now. He said something like, “We understand each other, yeah?” Sophie must have nodded, she understood, but in fact she was not really listening, she was overcome by a kind of vertigo, something that came from deep within her and left her mind a blank. She might easily have collapsed like a dead weight, right there, melted away, swallowed up by the earth. He must have put his hands on her shoulders and pushed, hard, and Sophie felt herself sink to her knees in front of him, but this is something else she cannot really remember. Then she saw his stiff penis moving towards her mouth. Perhaps she clung to him, she cannot remember what she was doing with her hands. No, her hands hung limp, she was reduced to a mouth wrapped around this man’s cock. What did she do? Nothing, she did nothing, she let the man pump in and out for a long time. A long time? Maybe not. Time is difficult to measure. It passes eventually. There is one thing she does remember: he got angry. Probably because she was not enthusiastic, he pushed deep into her throat and she recoiled, banging her head against the door. He must have taken her head in his hands, yes, that must be right, because his hip movements became jerkier, more feverish. One more thing. She remembers him saying, “Tighter, for fuck’s sake.” Angrily. Sophie tried to make herself tighter, she did what she had to do. She pressed her lips tighter. She had her eyes closed, though she cannot really remember. And afterwards? Afterwards, nothing – almost nothing. The guy’s cock stopped for a moment, he gave a hoarse grunt, she tasted his sperm in her mouth, it was thick and bitter and tasted like bleach, she let him come in her mouth while she wiped tears from her eyes, and that was all. She waited and, eventually, he stepped back, she spat on the ground, once, twice, and when he saw her spit he yelled “Slut!”, yes, that is what he said, Sophie spat one last time, doubled over, one hand on the cold concrete floor. And then . . . what? He was standing in front of her again, furious. She was still in the same position, her knees ached so she got up, but it was difficult to get to her feet. When she was finally standing, she noticed for the first time that he was not as tall as she had thought. He was having trouble getting his dick back into his trousers, he looked as though he did not know how to go about it, squirming and swaying his hips. Then he turned around, went to the desk, came back and pressed money into her hand. He was staring at the floor, at what Sophie had spat up, he said, “Go on, piss off.” Sophie turned, she must have opened the door and walked down the corridor, she must have gone into the staff room. No, she went to the toilets, she needed to rinse out her mouth, but she did not get a chance. Hardly had she taken three steps than she raced for the toilet bowl and vomited. This much she remembers. She vomited everything up. The pain in her belly was so excruciating, the wracking heaves so powerful that she had to kneel and cling to the porcelain. She clutched the crumpled notes in her hand. Threads of saliva hung from her lips, she wiped them with the back of her hand. She did not even have the strength to flush the toilet and the whole room stank of vomit. She pressed her forehead against the cool porcelain and tried to regain her composure. She saw herself get to her feet, but did she actually get up? No, at first she lay down on the wooden bench people used to change their shoes. She brought a hand to her forehead as though trying to stop her teeming thoughts from engulfing her. She rests her head in one hand while the other rubs the back of her neck. Using the locker for support, she struggles to stand. This simple act requires superhuman effort. Her head is spinning, she has to close her eyes for a moment to steady herself and the dizziness passes. Gradually, she comes round.
Sophie opens the locker, takes out her jacket but does not put it on, she slings it over one shoulder as she leaves. She gropes about in her bag. It is not easy with one hand. She sets the bag down on the ground and carries on searching. She finds a crumpled piece of paper – a receipt, an old supermarket receipt. She rummages a little more and finds a ballpoint pen. She scratches hard on the paper until the pen finally begins to work, sc
ribbles a few words and slips the note under the door of one of the lockers. Now what? She turns left, no, she needs to turn right. After closing, staff leave by the rear door. Like they do in banks. The corridor is still lit. He will lock up. Sophie pads down the hall, passes the door to the office, places her hand on the metal bar and begins to push. A breath of cool night air buffets her face for an instant, but she does not step outside. Instead, she turns and looks down the corridor. She does not want it to end like this. So she retraces her steps, her jacket still slung over her shoulder. She is standing in front of the office door. She feels calm. She transfers her jacket to her other hand and gently opens the door.
*
The following morning, Jeanne found a little note pushed under the door of her locker: “We’ll meet again in another life. Much love.” The note was not signed. Jeanne stuffed it into her pocket. The staff on duty are already in the restaurant, but the metal shutters have not been rolled up. Forensics technicians from identité judiciaire are hard at work at the far end of the corridor. Police officers have already taken names and are carrying out the initial interviews.
13
The heat is stifling. Sophie is half-dead with exhaustion and yet sleep will not come. Close by, she can hear dance music. Electric music. Electric nights. Her mind cannot help but pick out the titles of some of the songs. Golden oldies from the seventies. She never liked dancing. She always felt too awkward. She would dance to rock music now and then, but always the same four steps.
A gunshot makes her flinch: it is a firework, the first of the display. She gets out of bed.
Blood Wedding Page 7
