Louise opens her eyes. Adam is crying.
Rose Grinberg
Mrs Grinberg will describe this little journey in the lift at least a hundred times. Five storeys, after a brief wait on the ground floor. A journey of less than two minutes, which has become the most poignant moment of her life. The fateful moment. She could – as she will never cease repeating – have altered the course of events. If she’d paid more attention to Louise’s breath. If she hadn’t closed her windows and shutters to take her nap. She will cry over the telephone and her daughters will not be able to reassure her. The police will become irritated that she is giving so much importance to herself and her tears will fall more heavily when she tells them coldly: ‘Well, you couldn’t have done anything, anyway.’ She will tell everything to the journalists who are following the trial. She will speak about it to the defendant’s lawyer, whom she will find arrogant and sloppy, and repeat it in the courtroom, when she is summoned to testify.
*
Louise, she will say each time, was not her normal self. Usually so smiling and friendly, she stood motionless in front of the glass door. Adam, sitting on a step, was screaming loudly and Mila was jumping, knocking into her brother. Louise did not move. Only her lower lip trembled slightly. Her hands were joined and her eyes lowered. For once, the noise of the children did not seem to affect her. Though normally so concerned for the neighbours and keeping up appearances, she did not say a word to the little ones. It was as if she couldn’t hear them.
Mrs Grinberg liked Louise a lot. She could even say she admired this elegant woman who took such good care of the children. Mila, the little girl, always had her hair tied in tight braids or a bun held in place by a knot. Adam seemed to adore Louise. ‘Now she’s done what she did, maybe I shouldn’t say this. But at that moment I thought they were lucky.’
The bell rang and the ground-floor light came on. Louise grabbed Adam by the collar and dragged him into the lift. Mila followed, singing to herself. Mrs Grinberg hesitated before getting in with them. For a few seconds she wondered if she should go back into the lobby and pretend to check her letterbox. Louise’s pale face made her uneasy. She feared that the five-storey journey would feel interminable. But Louise was holding the door for the neighbour, who got in and stood against the wall of the lift, her shopping bag between her legs.
*
‘Did she appear drunk?’
Mrs Grinberg had no doubt. Louise appeared completely sober. She couldn’t have let her go up with the children if she’d thought for a second that … The grey-haired female lawyer mocked her. She reminded the court that Rose suffered from dizzy spells and had vision problems. The former music teacher, who would soon celebrate her sixty-fifth birthday, couldn’t see very well any more. Not only that, but she lived in the dark, like a mole. Bright light gave her terrible migraines. That was why Rose closed the shutters. That was why she didn’t hear anything.
That lawyer practically insulted her, in front of the whole court. Rose desperately wanted to shut her up, to break her jaw. Wasn’t she ashamed? Didn’t she have any decency? From the first days of the trial, the lawyer had portrayed Myriam as an ‘absent mother’, an ‘abusive employer’. She’d described her as a woman blinded by ambition, selfish and indifferent to the point where she pushed poor Louise too far. A journalist seated near Mrs Grinberg in the courtroom explained to her that there was no point getting upset; that it was merely a ‘defence tactic’. But Rose thought it was disgusting, full stop.
*
No one talks about it in the apartment building but Mrs Grinberg knows that everyone is thinking it. That at night, on every floor, eyes remain open in the darkness. That hearts race, and tears fall. She knows that bodies toss and turn, unable to fall asleep. The couple on the third floor have moved away. The Massés, of course, never came back. Rose has stayed despite the ghosts and the overpowering memory of that scream.
That day, after her nap, she opened the shutters. And that was when she heard it. Most people live their whole lives without ever hearing a scream like that. It is the kind of scream heard during war, in the trenches, in other worlds, on other continents. It is not a scream from here. It lasted at least ten minutes, that wordless scream, almost without a pause for breath. That scream that became hoarse, that filled with blood, with snot, with rage. ‘A doctor’ was all that Mrs Massé ended up articulating. She didn’t cry for help, she merely repeated – in the rare moments when she flickered back into consciousness – ‘A doctor’.
One month before the tragedy, Mrs Grinberg had met Louise in the street. The nanny had looked worried and in the end she’d talked about her money problems. About her landlord who was harassing her, about the debts she’d accumulated, about her bank account, constantly in the red. She’d talked the way a balloon deflates, more and more quickly.
Mrs Grinberg had pretended not to understand. She’d lowered her chin and said, ‘Times are hard for everyone.’ And then Louise had grabbed her by the arm. ‘I’m not begging. I can work, in the evening or early in the morning. When the children are asleep. I can clean the apartment, iron clothes, whatever you want.’ If she hadn’t gripped her wrist so tightly, if she hadn’t stared at her with those dark eyes, like an insult or a threat, Rose Grinberg might have accepted. And, no matter what the police say, she would have changed everything.
The flight was delayed for a long time and it is early evening when they land in Paris. Louise solemnly says goodbye to the children. She hugs them tight and doesn’t let go. ‘See you on Monday, yes, Monday. Call me if you need anything at all,’ she says to Myriam and Paul, who dive into the lift that will take them to the airport car park.
Louise walks to the overground train station. The carriage is empty. She sits leaning against a window and curses the landscape, the platforms where gangs of youths hang around, the peeling facades of apartment buildings, the balconies, the hostile faces of security guards. She closes her eyes and summons memories of Greek beaches, sunsets, dinners overlooking the sea. She invokes these memories the way mystics call upon miracles. When she opens the door to her studio flat, her hands start to shake. She wants to tear apart the sofa’s slipcover, to punch the window. A sort of shapeless, painful magma burns her insides and it takes an effort of will to stop herself screaming.
On Saturday she stays in bed until 10 a.m. Lying on the sofa, hands crossed over her chest, Louise looks at the dust that has accumulated on the green ceiling lamp. She would never have chosen something so ugly. She rented the apartment already furnished and has not changed any of the decor. She had to find somewhere to live after the death of her husband, Jacques, after her expulsion from the house. After weeks of wandering, she needed a nest. She found this studio, in Créteil, through a nurse in the Henri-Mondor hospital who became fond of her. The young woman assured her that the landlord wouldn’t ask for too much in the way of security and that he’d accept cash payments.
Louise stands up. She pushes a chair underneath the ceiling lamp and grabs a cloth. She starts scrubbing the lamp, holding it with such force that she almost rips it off the ceiling. She is on tiptoes and the dust falls in big grey flakes into her hair. By eleven, the whole apartment has been cleaned. She’s washed the windows, inside and out, and she’s even wiped the shutters with a soapy sponge. Her shoes are lined up along the wall, polished and ridiculous.
Perhaps they will call her. On Saturdays, she knows, they sometimes eat lunch at a restaurant. Mila told her that. They go to a café where the little girl is allowed to order anything she wants and where Adam tries tasting a bit of mustard or lemon from the end of a spoon, under his parents’ tender gaze. Louise would like that. In a packed café, surrounded by the din of clanking plates and waiters’ shouts, she would be less afraid of the silence. She would sit between Mila and her brother and she’d straighten the large white napkin on the little girl’s lap. She’d feed Adam, spoon after spoon. She’d listen to Paul and Myriam speak. It would all go too fast. She would feel good.
She puts on a blue dress, the one that comes down to her ankles and that buttons, up the front, with a row of little blue pearls. She wants to be ready, in case they need her. In case she has to meet them somewhere, quickly, because they’ve undoubtedly forgotten how far away she lives and how long it takes her, every day, to get to their apartment. Sitting in the kitchen, she drums the Formica table with her fingernails.
Lunchtime comes and goes. The clouds move in front of the clean windows, the sky darkens. The plane trees shake in the wind and it starts to rain. Louise becomes agitated. They’re not going to call.
It is too late now to leave the apartment. She could go and buy some bread or get some fresh air. She could just walk. But there is nothing she wants to do in these deserted streets. The only café in the neighbourhood is full of drunks, and even at three in the afternoon men sometimes brawl there near the railings of the empty garden.
She should have made her mind up earlier, rushed down into the metro, wandered around Paris, surrounded by parents buying school supplies. She’d have got lost in the crowd and she’d have followed beautiful, busy women as they walked past department stores. She’d have hung around near Madeleine, brushing past the little tables where people drink coffee. She’d have said ‘Sorry’ to the ones she bumped into.
Paris is, in her eyes, a giant shop window. Best of all, she likes to walk in the Opéra neighbourhood, going down Rue Royale and turning on to Rue Saint-Honoré. She walks slowly, observing the passers-by and the shopfronts. She wants everything. The buckskin boots, the suede jackets, the snakeskin handbags, the wrap dresses, the camisoles overstitched with lace. She wants the silk blouses, the pink cashmere cardigans, the military jackets. She imagines a life where she would have enough money to possess it all. Where she would point out to an unctuous saleswoman the items that she liked.
Sunday arrives, an extension of her boredom and anxiety. A dark, miserable Sunday sunk deep in her sofa bed. She fell asleep in her blue dress and its synthetic material, horribly creased, made her sweat. Several times during the night, she opened her eyes, unsure if an hour had passed or a month. If she was sleeping at Myriam and Paul’s apartment or next to Jacques in the house in Bobigny. Then she closed her eyes again and slid back into a brutal, frenzied sleep.
Louise really hates weekends. When they still lived together, Stéphanie used to complain that they never did anything on Sundays, that she wasn’t allowed any of the activities Louise organised for the other children. As soon as she could, she started fleeing the house. On Fridays she would be out all night with the neighbourhood teenagers. She’d come back in the morning, face pale, eyes red with rings around them. Starving. She’d walk across the small living room, head lowered, and aim straight for the fridge. She would eat, leaning against the fridge door, without even sitting down, digging with her fingers into the boxes that Louise had prepared for Jacques’s lunches. Once, she dyed her hair red. She had her nose pierced. She started disappearing for entire weekends. And then, one day, she didn’t come back. Nothing now could keep her at the house in Bobigny. Not school, which she’d left a long time ago. And not Louise either.
Her mother reported her disappearance, of course. ‘Kids that age, running away, it happens a lot. Wait a bit and she’ll be back.’ That was all they said to her. Louise didn’t search for her. Later she found out from neighbours that Stéphanie was in the South of France, that she was in love. That she moved around a lot. The neighbours couldn’t get over the fact that Louise didn’t ask them for details, didn’t ask any questions, didn’t want them to repeat the little information they had.
Stéphanie had disappeared. All her life, she had felt like an embarrassment. Her presence disturbed Jacques, her laughter woke the children Louise was looking after. Her fat thighs, her heavy figure pressed against the wall in the narrow corridor to let the others pass. She feared blocking the passage, being bumped into, sitting on a chair that someone else wanted. When she spoke, she expressed herself poorly. She laughed and she offended people, no matter how innocent her laughter. She had ended up developing a gift for invisibility, and logically, without fanfare, without warning, as if that had been her manifest destiny all along, she had disappeared.
On Monday morning Louise leaves her apartment before daybreak. She walks to the train station, changes at Auber, waits on the platform, walks up Rue Lafayette then takes Rue d’Hauteville. Louise is a soldier. She keeps going, come what may, like a mule, like a dog with its legs broken by cruel children.
September is hot and bright. On Wednesdays, after school, Louise shakes up the children’s stay-at-home indolence and takes them to play in the park or to watch the fish in the aquarium. They go boating on the lake in the Bois de Boulogne and Louise tells Mila that the algae floating on the surface is in reality the hair of a deposed, vengeance-seeking witch. At the end of the month it is so warm that Louise, excited, decides to take them to the botanical gardens.
Outside the metro station, an old North African man offers to help Louise carry the pushchair down the stairs. She thanks him and picks up the pushchair single-handed with Adam still sitting inside it. The old man follows her. He asks how old the children are. She is about to tell him that they are not hers. But he is already leaning down to the children’s level. ‘They’re very beautiful.’
The metro is the children’s favourite thing. If Louise didn’t hold them back, they’d run along the platform, they’d jump into the carriage, standing on people’s feet, just so they could sit next to the window, tongues lolling, eyes wide open. They stand inside the carriage and Adam imitates his sister, who is holding on to a metal bar and pretending to drive the train.
In the gardens, the nanny runs with them. They laugh and she spoils them, buying them ice creams and balloons. She takes a picture of them, lying on a carpet of dead leaves, bright yellow and blood red. Mila asks why certain trees have turned that luminous shade of gold while others, the same kinds of trees, planted next to them, look like they’re rotting, going straight from green to dark brown. Louise is incapable of explaining. ‘We’ll ask your mama,’ she says.
On the fairground rides, they howl with terror and joy. Louise feels dizzy and she holds Adam tight in her lap when the train rushes into the dark tunnels and hurtles down the slopes. In the sky, a balloon flies away: Mickey has become a spaceship.
*
They sit on the grass to picnic and Mila makes fun of Louise, who is afraid of the large peacocks a few yards from them. The nanny has brought an old wool blanket that Myriam had rolled up in a ball under her bed and that Louise cleaned and mended. The three of them fall asleep on the grass. Louise wakes up, with Adam pressed against her. She’s cold: the children must have pulled the blanket off. She turns around and doesn’t see Mila. She calls her. She starts to scream. People turn to stare. Someone asks: ‘Is everything all right, madam? Do you need help?’ She doesn’t answer. ‘Mila, Mila,’ she screams as she runs, with Adam in her arms. She goes around all the rides, runs in front of the rifle range. Tears well in her eyes. She wants to shake the passers-by, to push the strangers who are hurrying along, holding their children firmly by their hands. She turns back to the little farmhouse. Her jaw is trembling so much that she can’t even call Mila’s name any more. Her head is killing her and she feels as if her knees are about to give way. In an instant, she will fall to the ground, incapable of making the slightest movement, mute, completely helpless.
Then she spots her, at the end of a path. Mila is eating an ice cream on a bench, a woman leaning towards her. Louise throws herself at the child. ‘Mila! Have you gone mad? Why on earth did you go away like that?’
The stranger – a woman in her sixties – holds the little girl protectively. ‘It’s a disgrace. What were you doing? How could she end up alone? I could easily ask this little girl for her parents’ number. I’m not sure they would be too happy about it.’
But Mila escapes the stranger’s embrace. She pushes her away and glares at her, before throwing he
rself at Louise’s legs. The nanny bends down and picks her up. Louise kisses her frozen neck, she strokes her hair. She looks at the child’s pale face and apologises for her negligence. ‘My little one, my angel, my sweet.’ She cuddles her, covers her with kisses, holds her tight against her chest.
Seeing the child curled up in the arms of the little blonde woman, the old lady calms down. She no longer knows what to say. She observes them, shaking her head reproachfully. She was probably hoping to cause a scandal. That would have distracted her. She’d have had something to tell people if the nanny had got angry, if she’d had to call the parents, if threats had been made and then carried out. Finally the stranger gets up from the bench and leaves, saying: ‘Well, next time, be more careful.’
Louise watches the old lady leave. She turns around two or three times and Louise smiles at her, grateful. As her stooped figure moves away, Louise holds Mila more and more strongly against her. She crushes the little girl’s torso until she begs: ‘Stop, Louise, I can’t breathe.’ The child tries to free herself from this embrace – she wriggles and kicks – but the nanny holds her firmly in place. She sticks her lips to Mila’s ear and says to her, in a cold, composed voice: ‘Never do that again, you hear me? Do you want someone to kidnap you? A nasty man? Next time, that’s what will happen. And even if you shout and cry, no one will come. Do you know what he’ll do to you? No? You don’t know? He’ll take you away, he’ll hide you, he’ll keep you for himself and you’ll never see your parents again.’ Louise is about to put the child down when she feels a terrible pain in her shoulder. She screams and tries to shove the little girl away from her. Mila is biting her. Her teeth are sunk in Louise’s flesh, tearing it, drawing blood, and she clings to Louise’s arm like a rabid animal.
Lullaby Page 6
