Apocalypse Baby (10 page)

So François writhed about on top of her for a couple of minutes, came, seemed happy, declared that for a first time it had been great and they'd do better – he had no doubt she wanted him. For all that he was an older man, he was sure of himself: she loved him, she wanted him. Upon which, he had gone to sleep and started snoring. Dissatisfied, Claire had thought about sex with Christophe, her memory of it, the perfect chemistry between them: her own body offered up, belonging, married, and deeply happy to be so. The experience of their complementarity in their flesh. She remembered his hands, the perfect size of his hands holding her hips, the playful authority with which he moved her, stretched her, searched for her womb which seemed to be opened like a flower warm and dark, and endless, and he filled it entirely. But then you could make love like that, and he could walk out on you two days later. Claire never told herself the story in its chronological order, tracing its progression didn't interest her, she retained only a chaotic memory of it. What had come in her mind to stand for sex with Christophe, once and for all, had taken place in the early years of their relationship. They'd hardly had time to start again after Mathilde's birth, and then there had been Elisabeth, and for months Christophe hadn't tried to touch her.

That first night with François had been the worst. She'd thought of going home without waking him up. The girls were staying over with her mother, she could have had a nice peaceful morning. But she wasn't familiar with the part of town where he lived, she was afraid of not finding a taxi. And anyway she didn't want to hurt him, even leaving a note he would have found a hostile act. She composed in her head scraps of the novel he would write if she behaved badly towards him. And this habit, which she had fallen into on their first date, would ever after determine her attitude towards him. She always tried to behave like a good heroine. As time went by, she came to understand that she would never be a character in her husband's novels. She wasn't a part of his fictional imagination, in fact that was something he made a point of honour. Which had disappointed her, like so many things. Life passes, a series of capitulations.

She had continued to see François, then had moved in with him, and in the early days there had been a state of grace. Sexually, he had surprised her. He was hardly very sophisticated in bed, but was much more inspired from the day – very soon, he'd asked her this after a week – when he had suggested tying her up. Claire had agreed at once, without betraying the disgust this had provoked in her. It must be something old couples did to spice up their sex, otherwise why would you do something like that? But that was before. Because once she was standing, gagged, with her little panties round her knees, her arms raised and tied by the wrists to the highest bar in the bookcase, she had discovered that at such moments she forgot to wonder if she was too fat or not beautiful enough, if her partner was feeling good, if
she wasn't making too much noise, because the only thing that interested her was her sex, between her legs pulsing away like a furious hammer. She had begged, groaned and waited. And radically changed her ideas about sex. For a while there had been a time of ecstasy. It was obvious, everyone remarked on it. She had flowered. Her girlfriends found she looked fantastic. It had been a revelation, the cement binding them together as a couple. Or at any rate the cement of the plinth. Because after a while, of course, the games were less frequent and then they forgot to play them.

It was difficult being in a couple, with three daughters. A lot of the time they weren't alone. Claire's friends told her to beware. Her mother had mentioned it straight away: ‘Valentine will do all she can to get you away from her father.' It had seemed inappropriate to her. You couldn't put these two kinds of love on the same level. She remembered very well the women her father had had, women whose age never varied as her father turned into an old man and Claire was more and more likely to be the same age as them. Very young women who sleep with old men always have something a bit weird about them. Girls who were less and less interesting, who knew less and less how to dress well. But the old man was happy enough with them. And in any case, her father seemed to be senile in the end, his girlfriends could have crapped on the table and he would have said ‘Oh poopy doo' and found it charming. He did what he could with the means left to him. And, in fact, seemed happy.

Her father's girlfriends had come one after another to his house, and every one of them had behaved as if she was the first and last, the one and only. A procession of beautiful
bitches. Exactly what Claire didn't want to be for Valentine. Neither hostile, nor intrusive, nor unfair. A respectful and open-minded adult. But the kid had behaved abominably towards her. Claire had set about neutralizing her with kindness, submerging her with tact, affection and understanding. Valentine had decreed from the start that Claire was plain stupid. And had never changed her opinion. Most of the time, she simply refused to speak to her. ‘Just leave me alone please' were the words Claire heard most often. But the teenager had always been perfectly well-behaved with Mathilde and Elisabeth. It was as if the three girls had established a tacit non-aggression pact.

Claire had hoped to convince herself that it would all work out with a bit of good will. Then one day Valentine had brought her a short story to read, one that she had written. Claire ought to have realized that it wasn't just to ask her opinion. It was the story of an ‘unspeakable Jewish woman' – Claire, being a Protestant, had felt reassured at first, thinking it couldn't possibly relate to her – who was of unimaginable lubricity, crawling through the house on all fours asking to be spanked. There were long descriptions of the parcels of flesh on her great thighs shaking under every blow. How did Valentine know so much about their sex life? It was a mystery. They had never done anything when the children were in the house. Claire hadn't dared tell anyone about the teenager's story. But its extreme obscenity had demoralized her. Valentine frightens her now. And has done, in fact for some time. It's terrible to admit it, but it's nicer now that she isn't there.

She gets out of the bath. The comforting warmth of the
fluffy grey bath towel hanging over the radiator. The steam on the mirror. The bathroom's a mess, the girls showered before her and they've left all the things they used lying around. They have a bathroom next to their bedroom, but in hers the bath is bigger and the shelves are laden with beauty products that they shamelessly plunder. She keeps telling herself in vain that it's not aimed at her, but it always makes her think that her daughters are attacking her, ‘you're old and ugly, let us use the lovely bathroom with all this stuff that smells good, your time is over'. The therapist gives her to understand that it's her own aggressivity that she's imagining as coming from other people.

It hadn't got better over time. Valentine had refused to sit at the same table to eat and if she was obliged to, she became unbearable. François didn't know how to handle it. He thought it would blow over. Basically, he thought it was fairly normal for his daughter not to like her stepmother. Jacqueline Galtan had taken her daughter-in-law's side. She thought Valentine needed taking in hand. The teenager had become physically violent. The first time she had slapped Claire they were alone in the kitchen. Valentine was drinking a Coke while getting an ice cream out of the fridge, and Claire had mildly pointed out that that was a lot of calories. ‘Oh, don't worry, I don't want to be a whore like you when I'm your age.' Tears had immediately sprung to Claire's eyes. Vulgarity wasn't part of her mode of communicating. But she found the strength to answer back for once. ‘Where'd you get that idea, sweetheart? Think your family's so rich, I must be after your papa's money?' And Valentine had slapped her face. ‘Stupid cow, you don't go out to work, you just sit
around doing nothing, so don't start getting on my tits as well.' The exchange was meaningless. It was the terror that mattered. Claire had told François about the scene. And he'd had a long discussion with Jacqueline. The upshot was they decided the teenager needed help. It remained to choose the right institution. Valentine's grandfather, who had always been opposed to her being sent to a boarding school or even seen by a psychiatrist, had died a few months earlier. Claire felt sorry about it, she would have much preferred it if things had worked out better. But they couldn't let the teenager go on running wild. And then the child had disappeared.

The interview with the detective didn't go well. Since she's left, Claire has had a bad feeling in her stomach, like when you've broken a valuable ornament or missed a date with someone, without being able to warn them you had let them down. A feeling of wrongdoing.

She hadn't imagined it would be like that. Jacqueline had announced to them that she'd hired a private investigator and it had seemed like a good idea. The police would complicate your life. They're so used to people going missing, they don't rush to pull out all the stops. And then if there was a lot of publicity, you never knew where it might end. François would hate it.

It's pretty obvious where Valentine has gone. François doesn't realize it, but he's changed since his daughter has disappeared. He's aged ten years in a few days. You think that's a figure of speech when you hear other people say it. But the expression exactly describes what's happened. He's aged ten years. The face of a mature man has turned into the face of an old man. He is so attached to his daughter.

He reacted badly when the detective came round. ‘I can't tell you much. What good would it do for me to tell you about Valentine's life? I'm glad you feel able to take advantage of our family sorrow to extract a king's ransom from us, but with respect… if I don't know where to find her, I doubt you will manage it.' The detective was looking round the room, she didn't seem offended. Her eyes were doing a search. She sat hunched up on the sofa and seemed to have difficulty finding questions to ask. François couldn't refuse when she asked if she could have a little time on her own in Valentine's room. He just sat on the sofa heaving angry sighs. He wanted her out of the house. Claire couldn't understand the strength of his reaction. She went to sit in front of the TV, preferring not to say anything. After a while, he came to see her, beside himself. ‘And she's ugly, what's more, the woman. That's all we need, eh? Doesn't surprise me, coming from my mother. Anything she can do to get up my nose. Never misses a trick.' The private eye didn't stay long in Valentine's room. When she'd left, everything was in place, so if she poked about – which she certainly must have – she took care not to disturb anything.

François hadn't mentioned the violence, or the insults. They should have, perhaps. Valentine had simply taken away their breath, their appetite, their desire to laugh, their words. And he had refused to mention Vanessa. His first marriage. All Claire knows about it is what Jacqueline has told her, or what she's gathered from reading the novels he wrote in the years afterwards. She well understands his silence. She doesn't like talking about her first marriage either. She hates people not taking it seriously. But it's stupid not to have told
the detective that Vanessa lives in Barcelona. It would save her some time. That's probably where Valentine has gone, to see her. And in spite of the warnings from the adults around her, the teenager will have wanted to go and check for herself whether her mother really doesn't want to know about her. You can't blame her for that. But if François were to find out that Claire had taken it on herself to phone Vanessa to warn her, he'd hit the roof. Especially since if she told him that much, she'd have to confess that she had telephoned her once before. At the beginning of their affair. To meet her. To see what she was like. Vanessa is not a good person. She's as negative and poisonous as Jacqueline's portrait of her. All the same, Claire thought she ought to be warned.

RAFIK'S RIGHT HAND MOVES FROM THE MOUSE
to the silvery Thermos cup of scalding-hot coffee, his eyes still fixed to the screen. He's converting the pirated data into a form I might have some chance of understanding. I stay sitting alongside him, not daring to complain that all this is taking a long time.

Rafik arrived at Reldanch in the mid 1990s and was installed at first in a cupboard up on the fourth floor, in front of a computer with an enormous tower. Jean-Marc says his internet connection was through a dial-up phone line and it made a crackling noise that they could hear at regular intervals. Two years later, he was settling himself into a small suite of rooms that had become vacant on the ground floor, so as to have room for his machines and the staff he hired; then he took over the lodge of the concierge, who was let go and never replaced. In his lair, always darkened, the keyboards rattle away, the ventilators make a deafening background noise, and the people there nearly all wear headphones. It would never occur to them to open the shutters, they say it's to keep burglars away, but given the thick bars they've fixed on the windows, even a highly-motivated gang of Chechens would give up in disgust. Especially since the place is hardly
ever empty, because Rafik's teammates are not the sort to leave their work stations and go home to sleep. They're ruthlessly competitive – they must always be telling themselves that if they leave this power hub for too long at a time they'll lose their position in the race. Rafik's domain has become the heart, lungs, eyes and brains of the whole outfit.

When he arrived, everyone was thrilled that he could access bank accounts, phone bills, ID data or legal records so easily. Then Rafik convinced the boss that we should link up with a firm of lawyers specialized in checking internet data. The older staff said he was crazy: it could only be of concern to a handful of obsessive VIPs to check how often their names came up on the internet. But Rafik got his way, and he had his service up and running exactly a year before all the chatlines, blogs and other social media exploded, making his sector the most productive of all our activity. They comb the internet. Our partner lawyers send out emails so aggressive that the site hosts put up very little resistance. If by any chance they play hard to get, you just knock out the page in question. Basta. When you see Rafik's team in action, you quickly understand that any ethical sermon about censorship shows a failure to grasp what modern times are all about: any virtual content can be eliminated, and is intrinsically capable of being rewritten, cut or manipulated. Our customers soon started giving each other Reldanch's address. More and more often, they pay our team to outwit the competition.