She was falling asleep when she heard a knock at the door. She didn’t answer it, but the knocks kept coming, harder and more insistent. Adèle approached the door. It had no spyhole. She couldn’t see who was behind the door and she didn’t dare open it. “Who’s there?” she asked in a trembling voice. There was no response. The knocking grew louder and she heard footsteps in the hotel corridor. She had the impression that she could hear a sigh, a long, hoarse sigh, an irritated sigh that would end up lifting the door off its hinges.
She was so frightened that she hid under the bed, covered in sweat, convinced that her assailants were going to come in and find her there, crying into the beige carpet. She thought about calling the police, shouting for help, screaming until someone came to her aid. But she was incapable of moving, her legs jelly, her head spinning.
By the time Simone opened the door, about ten o’clock, Adèle had fallen asleep. Her foot was sticking out from under the bed and Simone grabbed her by the ankle.
“What are you doing under there? What nonsense have you been up to now?”
“Mommy! You’re here!” Adèle crawled out and jumped into her mother’s arms. “Someone tried to come in! I hid. I was so scared.”
Simone held her by the shoulders and examined her attentively. In a cold voice she said: “You were right to hide. That’s exactly what you should have done.”
* * *
*
The day before they left Paris, Simone kept her promise to take Adèle on a tour of the city. A man came with them, though Adèle cannot remember his name or his face. All she recalls is his musky tobacco smell and her mother’s tense, nervy voice when she commanded Adèle to “say hello to the gentleman.”
The gentleman took them to eat lunch in a brasserie near Boulevard Saint-Michel and gave Adèle her first taste of beer. They crossed the Seine and walked to the Grands Boulevards. Adèle dawdled in front of the toyshop windows in Passage Verdeau, Passage Jouffroy, and Galerie Vivienne, ignoring Simone’s impatient nagging. Then they went to Montmartre. “The kid’ll like that,” the gentleman kept repeating. At Place Pigalle they took a tourist train and Adèle, wedged between her mother and the man, stared with terror at the Moulin Rouge.
Her memories of that visit to Pigalle are dark and frightening, at once murky and terribly vivid. True or not, she remembers seeing dozens of prostitutes on Boulevard de Clichy, half-naked despite the November drizzle. She remembers gangs of punks, swaying junkies, pimps with slicked-back hair, pointy-breasted transsexuals in skintight leopard-skin skirts. Protected by the bumps and jolts of this giant toy of a train, squeezed between her mother and the man, who kept shooting each other lascivious looks, Adèle felt for the first time that mix of fear and longing, disgust and arousal. That dirty desire to know what was happening behind the doors of those seedy hotels, in the dim depths of those back alleys, in the seats of the Atlas Cinema, in the back rooms of sex shops whose pink and blue neon signs pierced the twilight. Never since that evening—not in the arms of men, nor during the walks she took years later on the same boulevard—has she ever rediscovered that magical feeling of actually touching the vile and the obscene, the heart of bourgeois perversion and human wretchedness.
For Adèle the Christmas holidays are a cold, dark tunnel, a punishment. Because he is generous and good, because he values family above all else, Richard has promised to take care of everything. He’s bought the presents, had the car serviced, and, yet again, found a wonderful gift for Adèle.
She needs a holiday. She’s exhausted. Not a day passes without someone telling her how thin she looks, how drawn, how moody she seems. “The fresh air will do you good.” As if the air in Paris were less fresh than elsewhere.
Every year they spend Christmas in Caen with the Robinson family and the New Year with Adèle’s parents. It has become a tradition, as Richard likes to repeat. She has tried to convince him that it is pointless to go all the way to Boulogne-sur-Mer to see her parents, who couldn’t care less anyway. But Richard insists, for Lucien, “because he needs to know his grandparents,” and for her too, “because family is important.”
The house where Richard’s parents live smells of tea and soap. Odile, his mother, rarely leaves her enormous kitchen. Sometimes she comes to sit in the living room, smiles at the guests who are there for aperitifs, starts a conversation, then vanishes back to her sanctuary of saucepans. “Come on, Mom, just stay here,” pleads Richard’s sister Clémence. “We came here to see you, not to eat,” she always repeats, while wolfing down slices of toast loaded with foie gras and cinnamon biscuits. She always offers to help her mother, promises that she will take care of tomorrow night’s dinner. And then, to the great relief of Odile, she sinks into an endless nap, often too drunk to recognize the ingredients of the main course.
The Robinsons are excellent hosts. Richard and Adèle are greeted with the sounds of laughter and popping champagne corks. A huge Christmas tree stands in the corner of the living room. The tree is so tall that its top touches the ceiling and bends back, giving the impression that it might collapse at any moment. “It’s ridiculous, that tree, isn’t it?” Odile chuckles. “I told Henri it was too big but he insisted on having it.”
Henri shrugs and holds his hands apart in a gesture of helplessness. “I’m getting old . . .” He gazes in acknowledgment at Adèle with his blue eyes, as if the two of them shared some affinity, were members of the same tribe. She leans toward him and kisses his cheek, filling her nostrils with his smell of grass and shaving cream.
“Dinner’s ready!”
The Robinsons eat, and when they eat they talk about food. They swap recipes, names of restaurants. Before the meal Henri goes into the cellar to unearth bottles of wine that are met with great ahs of excitement. Everyone watches him unscrew the cork, pour the nectar into a carafe, inspect its color. Then there is silence as Henri pours a dash of wine into a glass and sniffs its bouquet. He tastes it. “Ah, my children . . .”
At breakfast, when the kids eat sitting on their parents’ laps, Odile looks deeply serious. “All right, you must tell me,” she says slowly. “What do you want to eat for lunch?” “Whatever you like,” Richard and Clémence invariably reply, used as they are to their mother’s ways. At noon, while Henri opens the third bottle of this “very drinkable little Spanish wine,” while their mouths are still full of the taste of pâté or cheese, Odile gets up and, notebook in hand, laments: “I have no inspiration for tonight’s menu. What do you fancy?” No response but a few tired murmurs. Slightly drunk, desperate to take a nap, Henri sometimes gets annoyed with his wife. “We haven’t even finished lunch and already you’re bothering us about dinner!” Odile falls silent and sulks like a teenager.
This endless routine amuses and irritates Adèle in equal measure. She does not understand this polite hedonism, this obsession everyone seems to have with “eating well” and “drinking well.” She always liked being hungry. Feeling herself bend but not break, hearing her stomach groan emptily and then conquering her need, proving herself above all that. Thinness has become a way of life.
* * *
*
Tonight, as usual, dinner lasts forever. Adèle has eaten almost nothing, but no one has mentioned this fact. Odile has given up trying to force-feed her daughter-in-law. Richard is tipsy. He’s talking politics with Henri. They call each other fascists, bourgeois reactionaries. Laurent tries to insinuate himself into the conversation.
“Par contre . . .”
“En revanche,” Richard interrupts. “Par contre is incorrect. You should say en revanche.”
Adèle puts her hand on Laurent’s shoulder, gets to her feet, and goes upstairs to her bedroom.
Odile always gives them the yellow bedroom, the largest and quietest in the house. It’s a slightly gloomy room, with a very cold floor. Adèle gets in bed, rubs her feet together, and sinks into a deathlike sleep. During the night she sometimes has
the impression of being half-awake. Her mind is on standby but her body is as rigid as a corpse. She senses the presence of Richard beside her. She has the agonizing sensation that she will never be able to rouse herself from this lethargy. That she will never wake from these bottomless dreams.
She hears Richard taking a shower. She perceives the time that has passed, guesses that it must be morning. Lucien’s voice, the distant clatter of saucepans from the kitchen below, reach her ears. It is late but she doesn’t have the strength to get up. Just five more minutes, she tells herself. Another five minutes and then the day can begin.
* * *
*
When she emerges from the bedroom, puffy-eyed and sweating, the breakfast table has already been cleared. Richard has left her a plate in the kitchen. Adèle sits down in front of her coffee. She smiles at Odile, who sighs: “I’ve got so much to do today, I don’t know how I’m going to cope.”
Adèle looks through the bay window at the garden. The big apple trees, the drizzle, the children speeding down the wet slide in their winter coats. Richard is playing with them. He’s wearing his boots. He signals to Adèle that she should join them. But it’s too cold. She doesn’t want to go out.
“You’re very pale,” Richard says when he comes in. “You don’t look well.” He reaches out with his hand toward her face.
Henri and Clémence insisted on going to visit the house. “I want to see it. You know the locals call it the manor?” Odile practically pushed them out the door, delighted to be left alone to organize the Christmas festivities. Laurent volunteered to look after the children.
Richard is nervous. He berates Clémence for taking too long to get in the car. He makes his father promise not to say anything during the visit. “I ask the questions, understood? You keep your opinions to yourself.” Adèle sits in the back, calm and indifferent. She looks at Clémence’s fat thighs spread across the seat, her bitten-down nails.
Richard keeps turning around. Even though she tells him to watch the road, he can’t stop looking at her, trying to discover what impression this country road is having on her. What does she think of those misty hills, this steep path, that wash house down there? What does she think of the entrance to the village? Of that church, sole survivor of the bombardments during the war? Can she see herself walking, day after day, amid these hillsides with their twisted apple trees? In these valleys with their streams, on this little track that leads to the house? Does she like this ivy-covered wall? Expressionless, her face glued to the window, Adèle refuses to say a word. She barely even blinks.
Richard parks the car outside the wooden gate. Mr. Rifoul stands waiting for them, hands behind his back like the lord of the manor. He’s a giant of a man, obese and red-cheeked. His hands are as big as a child’s face. His feet look as if they are about to sink into the ground. His thick, curly hair used to be blond and is now turning white. From afar he is impressive, but as they approach him Adèle notices his long fingernails. The missing button in the middle of his shirt. A dubious stain on the crotch of his trousers.
The owner extends his arm toward the front door and they enter the house. Richard bounds like a puppy up the front steps. As they visit the living room, kitchen, and veranda, he keeps interjecting little ah yeses and excellents. He asks about the heating and the state of the electrical wiring. He checks his notebook and says: “Any leaks?” Between the living room—with its French windows looking out on a beautiful garden—and the old kitchen, Mr. Rifoul takes them into a little room that has been turned into an office. He opens the door reluctantly. The room has not been cleaned for a long time and dust motes dance in a dense crowd in the ray of sunlight that escapes between the blue curtains.
“My wife was a big reader. I’ll be taking the books with me. But I can leave you the desk if you like.” Adèle stares at the hospital bed against the wall with its neatly folded white sheets. A cat is hiding under the armchair. “By the end, she couldn’t get out of bed.”
They climb a wooden staircase. There are photographs of the dead woman on all the walls, smiling and beautiful. In the master bedroom, whose windows frame the view of an ancient chestnut tree, there’s a hairbrush on the bedside table. Mr. Rifoul leans down and, with his massive hand, smooths the flower-patterned bedspread.
* * *
*
This is a house to grow old in, thinks Adèle. A house for tender hearts. It’s made for memories, for friends who drop by and others who drift away. It’s an ark, a clinic, a refuge, a tomb. A godsend for ghosts. A theater set.
Are they really that old? Can their dreams truly end here?
Is it already time to die?
Outside, the four of them observe the facade. Richard turns toward the garden and waves his hand vaguely.
“How far does it go?”
“A long, long way. See that orchard over there? All that is yours.”
“You’ll be able to make apple tarts and compote for Lucien!” Clémence laughs.
Adèle looks down at her feet. Her polished loafers have been soaked by the wet grass. They are not shoes designed for the countryside.
“Give me the keys,” she says to Richard.
She sits in the car, takes her shoes off, and warms her feet up with her hands.
“Xavier? How did you get my number?”
“I called your office. They told me you were on vacation, but I explained that it was urgent . . .”
She should tell him that she’s glad to hear from him but that he shouldn’t start getting any ideas. She is really sorry for the way she behaved the other night—it was wrong of her. She’d had too much to drink, she was a bit sad, she doesn’t know what got into her. She’s not that kind of person at all. Never in her life has she done anything like that before. He should forget about it, pretend it never happened. She’s so ashamed. And anyway, she loves Richard, she could never do that to him, especially not with this man, Xavier, whom he is so proud to call a friend.
She doesn’t say any of this.
“Is now a good time? Can you talk?”
“I’m at my parents-in-laws’ house. But I can talk, yes.”
“How are you?” he asks in a completely different voice.
He tells her that he wants to see her again. That he was so aroused by her, he didn’t sleep a wink that night. He only acted coldly because he was surprised—by his attitude toward her and her desire for him. He knows he shouldn’t. He’s tried to resist the urge to call her. He’s done all he can to stop thinking about her. But it’s no good: he has to see her.
Adèle says nothing. She smiles into the phone. Her silence embarrasses Xavier, who can’t stop talking. In the end he asks if they could meet for a drink. “Wherever you want. Whenever you want.”
“It’s better if we’re not seen together. How could I explain that to Richard?” She regrets saying this. He is going to realize that she is used to taking this kind of precaution.
But no. Instead he interprets this as a sort of deference, a desire that is nervous but determined.
“You’re right. When you get back to Paris? Call me. Please.”
She has bought a dark-red dress. A lacy dress with short sleeves, offering glimpses of her torso and her thighs. She slowly unfolds the dress on her bed. She tears off the label and pulls at a thread. She should have gone to fetch a pair of scissors but she couldn’t be bothered.
She dresses Lucien in the shirt and leather shoes that his grandmother bought for him. Sitting on the floor with a toy truck between his legs, her son looks very pale. For the past two days he’s been waking at dawn and refusing to nap. Eyes wide, he listens to the grown-ups’ promises about Christmas Eve. At first amused, and then wearily, he submits to the blackmail that everyone practices on him. He is no longer fooled by the adults’ vague threats. “If you’re not good . . .” Just let Father Christmas come. Let’s get it over with.
* *
*
*
At the top of the stairs she holds hands with her son, aware of Laurent’s gaze fixed on her. As she descends he prepares to speak, to pay her a compliment on that provocative dress, and he stammers something that she doesn’t hear. All evening long he takes photographs of her, using Clémence’s obsession with making memories as an excuse. She pretends not to notice him staring at her through the lens of his camera. He thinks he’s capturing chance moments of a cold and innocent beauty, but in fact every pose is calculated.
Odile sits in a chair near the Christmas tree. Henri fills flutes of champagne. Clémence cuts up bits of paper, and this year, for the first time, Lucien pulls the names from a bowl to decide who will receive their presents next. Adèle feels ill at ease. She wishes she could join the children in the dining room and lie down amid the Legos and toy strollers. She catches herself praying that her name will not be drawn.
But it is. “Adèle, ha!” they shout. They rub their hands and start a feverish dance around her chair. “Have you seen Adèle’s gift?” Odile worries. “Henri, that little red parcel, have you seen it?”
Richard says nothing.
He sits on the arm of the sofa and waits for the perfect moment. Once Adèle’s knees are submerged in scarves and mittens that she will never wear, cookery books that she will never open, Richard advances toward her. He hands her a box. Clémence looks reproachfully at her husband.
Adèle tears off the wrapping paper and when the little orange box appears with the black Hermès logo on it, Odile and Clémence sigh with satisfaction.
“You’re mad. You shouldn’t have.” Adèle said exactly the same thing last year.
Adèle Page 5
