Adèle

by Leïla Slimani

  “Oh yeah. The guy from the dinner party. Listen, I can’t talk for long, I’m outside the school waiting for Lucien. I’ll probably go to the cinema tonight, then. I’d already asked Maria to look after Lucien anyway.”

  “Okay, that’s fine. You go and see the film, you can tell me all about it.”

  Thankfully he never does ask her to tell him all about it.

  * * *

  *

  Tonight Adèle is seeing Xavier. The day they returned to Paris she locked herself in the bathroom to send him a text. “I’m back.” They decided to meet tonight. Adèle bought herself a very plain white dress and a pair of polka-dotted tights. She’ll wear flat shoes. Xavier is not very tall.

  Outside the school, Adèle watches the mothers laugh together. They hold their children by the shoulders, promise to stop at the baker’s and then at the merry-go-round. Lucien comes out dragging his coat along the ground.

  “Put your coat on, Lucien. It’s cold! Come here, I’ll zip it up for you.” Adèle crouches in front of her son, who pushes her and knocks her off balance.

  “I don’t want the coat!”

  “Lucien, I’m not going to argue with you. Not now, in the street. Put your coat on.” She slides her hand under her son’s sweater and pinches the skin on his back very hard. She feels the soft flesh fold between her fingers. “Put it on, Lucien. No arguments.”

  Walking back home, the little boy’s hand in hers, she feels guilty. Her stomach is in knots. Her son stops in front of every car they pass to talk about its shape and color, and she pulls on his arm, repeating: “Hurry up!” She tries to drag him forward but he resists, refuses to move an inch. Everyone is staring at them.

  She wishes she were able to take her time. She wishes she could be patient, enjoy every moment with her son. But today she wants only one thing: to get rid of him as quickly as possible. It won’t take long. In two hours she’ll be free. He will have taken his bath, eaten dinner. They’ll have fought, she’ll have screamed. Maria will have arrived and Lucien will have started to cry.

  * * *

  • • •

  She leaves the apartment. She stops outside a cinema, buys a ticket, and puts the stub in her coat pocket. She hails a taxi.

  Adèle is sitting in the dark in an apartment building on Rue du Cardinal Lemoine. She is on a step midway between the first and second floors. She has not seen anyone. She is waiting.

  He shouldn’t be long now.

  She is scared. Someone might enter, someone she doesn’t know, someone who wants to hurt her. She forces herself not to look at her watch. She does not take her cell from her pocket. Nothing ever happens fast enough. She leans back, puts her handbag under her head, and lifts up her knee-length beige slip. It’s a light slip—too light for the season—but it hovers through the air when you spin around, like a little girl’s skirt. Adèle strokes her thigh with her fingernails. She slides her hand up slowly, pushes aside her panties, and puts her hand there. Firmly. She can feel her lips swelling, the blood rushing under the pulp of her fingertips. She closes her fist tight around her vulva. Scratches herself violently, from her anus to her clitoris. She turns her face to the wall, spreads her legs, and wets her fingers. Once, a man spat on her pussy. She liked that.

  The index and middle fingers. That’s all she needs. A hot, lively movement, like a dance. A regular caress, completely natural and utterly degrading. It’s not working. She stops then tries again. She swings her head like a horse trying to shake the flies out of its nostrils. Only an animal can be good at such things. Maybe if she cries out, if she starts moaning, she’ll find it easier to feel the spasm coming, the liberation, the pain, the anger. She whispers little ahs. But a moan shouldn’t come from your mouth, it should come from deep in your belly. No, you’d have to be a beast to abandon yourself like that. You’d have to have no dignity, Adèle thinks, just as the building’s front door opens. Someone has called the lift. She doesn’t move. Shame he didn’t take the stairs.

  Xavier emerges from the lift and takes a key fob from his pocket. Adèle has taken off her shoes. As he opens the door, she puts her hands on his waist. He jumps and cries out.

  “Oh, it’s you! You scared me. That’s a weird way to say hello, isn’t it?”

  She shrugs and walks into the bachelor apartment.

  * * *

  *

  Xavier talks a lot. Adèle wishes he would hurry up and open the bottle of wine that he’s been holding for the last fifteen minutes. Finally she gets up and hands him the corkscrew.

  This is her favorite moment.

  The moment before the first kiss, nudity, intimate caresses. That moment of anticipation when everything is still possible and when she is the mistress of the magic. She greedily drinks a mouthful of wine. A drop trickles over her lips and down her chin and drips on to the collar of her white dress before she can stop it. It’s a detail of the story and she was the one who wrote it. Xavier is jittery and shy. He is not impatient; she is grateful to him for sitting at a distance from her, on that uncomfortable chair. Adèle is on the sofa, her legs folded beneath her. She stares at Xavier with her swamp eyes, viscous and impenetrable.

  He moves his mouth toward her and an electric wave runs through her belly. It hits her pussy and explodes it, fleshy and moist, like a peeled fruit. The man’s mouth tastes of wine and cigarillos. Of forests and the Russian countryside. She wants him, and this desire, to her, feels almost like a miracle. She wants it all: him, and his wife, and this affair, and these lies, and the texts they will send, and the secrets and the tears and even the inevitable good-bye. He slips her dress off. His surgeon’s hands, long and bony, barely brush her skin. His gestures are assured, agile, delicious. He seems detached and then suddenly furious, uncontrollable. A strong sense of theater; Adèle is thrilled. He is so close now that her head starts to spin. She is breathing too hard to think. She is limp, empty, at his mercy.

  * * *

  *

  He accompanies her to the taxi rank, presses his lips hard against her neck. Adèle dives into the cab, her flesh still drenched with love, hair tangled. Soaked with odors, caresses, and saliva, her skin has a new complexion. Every pore denounces her. Her gaze is liquid. She looks like a cat, nonchalant and mischievous. She tenses her vagina and a shiver runs through her whole body, as if the pleasure is not yet totally consumed, as if her body still harbors memories so vivid that she could, at any moment, summon them and make herself come.

  Paris is orange and deserted. The icy wind has swept the bridges, rid the city of pedestrians, cleansed the streets. Enveloped in a thick cape of fog, the city offers Adèle an ideal place for daydreaming. She feels almost like an intruder in this landscape, peering through the window like someone with her eye to a keyhole. The city appears infinite, she feels anonymous. It’s hard to believe that she is connected with anyone, that anyone is waiting for her, expecting anything of her.

  She goes home and pays Maria, who as always feels obliged to tell her: “He kept calling for you tonight. It took him a long time to fall asleep.” Adèle gets undressed and sniffs her dirty clothes, which she rolls in a ball and hides in a cupboard. Tomorrow she will rub her nose in them, seek Xavier’s smell.

  She is in bed when the phone rings.

  “Madame Robinson? You’re the wife of Dr. Richard Robinson? Madame, I’m sorry for calling so late. Please don’t panic, but your husband had a scooter accident about an hour ago on Boulevard Henri IV. He’s conscious and his life is not in danger, but he has suffered serious trauma to his legs. He was brought here—to the Salpêtrière hospital—and we are conducting a series of tests. I can’t tell you any more than that for now. You may come and see him whenever you like. I’m sure he would appreciate your support.”

  Adèle is sleepy. She doesn’t really understand. She doesn’t grasp the seriousness of the situation. She thinks vaguely that she could sleep for a bit, sa
y that she didn’t hear her phone ring. But no, it’s too late. The night is ruined. She goes into Lucien’s bedroom. “Lucien, darling, we have to go for a drive.” She wraps him in a blanket and carries him in her arms. He doesn’t wake up when she gets in the taxi. On the way there she calls Lauren several times, but is answered only by her polite voicemail message. Annoyed, increasingly frenetic, she keeps calling her over and over again.

  Outside Lauren’s apartment building, she asks the taxi to wait for her.

  “I’m just going to drop my son here and then I’ll come back.”

  In a strong Chinese accent, the driver demands some cash as security.

  “Go fuck yourself,” says Adèle, tossing him a twenty- euro note.

  She enters the building, Lucien asleep on her shoulder, and rings Lauren’s doorbell.

  “Why didn’t you answer me? Are you sulking?”

  “Of course not,” Lauren replies, mouth dry and face creased. She is wearing a too-small kimono that barely covers her bottom. “I was asleep, that’s all. What’s happening?”

  “I thought you were angry after the other night. I thought you didn’t love me anymore, that you were sick of me, that you were keeping your distance . . .”

  “What are you talking about? Adèle, what’s going on?”

  “Richard had a scooter accident.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “I don’t think it’s too serious. They’ll have to operate on his leg, but he’ll be okay. I have to go to the hospital, and I can’t take Lucien. There’s no one else I can ask.”

  “Yes, yes, of course, give him to me.” Lauren holds out her arms. Adèle leans toward her and gently slides the boy’s body into Lauren’s chest. Lauren closes her arms around the blanket. “Keep me posted. And don’t worry about him.”

  “I told you, I don’t think it’s serious.”

  “I was talking about your son,” Lauren whispers as she closes the door.

  * * *

  *

  Adèle calls a taxi. She is told she will have to wait ten minutes. She stands in the dark lobby, behind the large glass door. In safety. She is too frightened to wait in the street at this time of night. She might be attacked, raped. She watches the taxi go past the building and park about two hundred yards farther on, at the corner of the street. “What a prick!” Adèle opens the door and runs toward the cab.

  She sits in the waiting room on the sixth floor. “The doctor will come and see you as soon as he’s finished.” Adèle smiles shyly. She leafs through a magazine, her legs crossed until she starts to get pins and needles in her calves. She’s been here for an hour now, watching the stretchers roll past, listening to the young doctors joking with the nurses. She has called Odile, who has decided to catch the first train tomorrow to come and see her son. “It must be hard for you, my dear Adèle. I’ll take Lucien home with me, then you’ll be able to look after Richard without worrying.”

  Adèle is not sad or upset. This accident, however, is a little bit her fault. If Xavier hadn’t swapped shifts with Richard, if she hadn’t suggested that ridiculous idea to him, if they hadn’t been so desperate to see each other tonight, her husband would be home now, safe and sound. She would be sleeping peacefully beside him without having to face all the complications that this accident will undoubtedly cause.

  But this accident is also perhaps a godsend. A sign, a release. For a few days at least she will have the house all to herself. Lucien will go to stay with his grandparents. No one will be able to monitor her comings and goings. At one point the thought crosses her mind that things could have turned out even better.

  Richard could have died.

  She would have been a widow.

  A widow can be forgiven almost anything. Grief is a wonderful excuse. She could wallow in mistakes and conquests for the rest of her life, and everyone would say: “Her husband’s death was too much for her. She never got over it.” But no, that scenario does not hold water. Sitting in this waiting room, asked to fill out papers and questionnaires, she has to accept the fact that Richard is essential to her. She couldn’t live without him. She would be completely defenseless, forced to confront the hideous reality of life. She would have to start again from scratch, do everything herself, waste time on paperwork that she could devote to love.

  No, Richard must never die. Not before she does.

  * * *

  *

  “Mrs. Robinson? I’m Dr. Kovac.”

  Adèle carefully stands up. Her legs are so numb, she finds it hard to remain upright. “I was the one who talked to you earlier. I’ve just seen the scans and the injuries are serious. Thankfully the wounds on the right leg are superficial. But the left leg has multiple fractures, the tibial plateau has been shattered, and the ligaments are ruptured.”

  “All right. So what does that mean?”

  “He’ll go into surgery sometime in the next few hours. His leg will be in a cast, and we’ll be looking at a long period of rehabilitation.”

  “How long will he stay here?”

  “A week, maybe a little longer. Don’t worry, your husband will soon be home with you again. We’re prepping him for surgery now. I’ll ask the nurse to call you when he’s been taken back to his room.”

  “I’ll wait here.”

  * * *

  *

  After an hour or so she moves to a different spot. She doesn’t like sitting outside the elevator doors, which keep opening and revealing all the horrors of the world. She finds an empty chair at the end of the corridor, near the nurses’ break room. She watches them going through files, preparing treatments, walking from room to room. She hears the shuffle of their slippers on the linoleum. She listens to their conversations. A nursing assistant pushes a trolley too hard and a glass falls to the floor. In room 6095 a female patient stubbornly refuses treatment. Adèle can’t see her but she guesses that she is old and that the nurse is used to her tantrums. Then the voices fall silent. The corridor is plunged into darkness. Sickness gives way to sleep.

  Three hours ago, Xavier’s hand was on her cunt.

  * * *

  *

  Adèle stands up. Her neck is very sore. She goes in search of the toilets, gets lost in the empty corridors, retraces her footsteps, goes around in circles. In the end she pushes open a plywood door and finds herself in a dilapidated bathroom. The bolt on the cubicle doesn’t work. There’s no hot water and she shivers as she splashes water on her face and hair. She rinses her mouth before confronting the coming day. In the corridor she hears someone speak her name. Yes, they really said Robinson. Are they looking for her? No, they’re talking to her husband; to Richard, lying on that stretcher. Richard, pale and sweating, looking frail and thin in his blue gown, is there, outside room 6090. His eyes are open, but Adèle finds it hard to believe that he’s awake. His gaze is glassy. Only his hands, gripping tight to pull the sheet over his body, his hands, defending his modesty, only his hands prove that he is conscious.

  * * *

  • • •

  The nurse pushes the stretcher into the room. She closes the door on Adèle, who waits for them to tell her she may enter. She doesn’t know what to do with her arms. She is trying to think of something to say: a comforting phrase, a soothing word.

  “You can go in now.”

  Adèle sits to the right of the bed. Richard barely turns his face toward her. He opens his mouth and thick threads of saliva stick to his lips. He smells bad. An odor of sweat and fear. She puts her head on the pillow and they fall asleep at the same time, forehead to forehead.

  She leaves Richard at eleven. “I should go and pick up Lucien. Poor Lauren is waiting for me.” In the lift she bumps into the surgeon who operated on her husband. He’s wearing jeans and a leather jacket. He’s young. Maybe still a junior doctor. She imagines him opening bodies, handling bones, sawing them, turning them over, taking them apart
. She observes his hands, his long fingers which have spent the night bathed in blood and phlegm.

  She lowers her eyes. She pretends not to recognize him. Once they are out in the street, though, she feels compelled to follow him. He walks quickly. She speeds up. She watches him from the opposite pavement. He takes a cigarette from his jacket. She crosses the road and stands in front of him.

  “Have you got a light?”

  “Oh, sure, hang on,” he says, startled, patting the pockets of his jacket. “You’re Dr. Robinson’s wife, aren’t you? Don’t worry. It’s a bad fracture, but he’s still young. He’ll be back on his feet in no time.”

  “Yes, I know. You told me all that earlier when you came to the room. I’m not worried.” He spins the wheel of his lighter. The flame flares and dies. He protects it with his right hand, but again a gust of wind blows it out. Adèle takes the lighter from him.

  “Are you going home now?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Is someone expecting you?”

  “Yeah. But . . . why? Can I help you?”

  “Do you want to go for a drink?”

  The doctor looks at her and bursts out laughing. A noisy, cheerful, childlike laugh. Adèle’s face relaxes. She smiles, she is beautiful. This guy loves life. He has teeth like a white wizard’s, a voluptuous gaze.

  “Sure, why not? If you like.”

  Adèle visits Richard every day. Before she goes into his room she pokes her head through the doorway. If her husband is awake she gives him an embarrassed, sympathetic smile. She brings magazines, chocolates, a warm baguette, or some fruit. But he doesn’t seem to like any of it. He lets the baguette go stale. The air is thick with the smell of overripe bananas.