Apocalypse Baby (21 page)

They're getting to the point now. Vanessa picks up the tray, offers to make some more coffee to play for a little more time. The detective is smoking cigarette after cigarette. She asks, ‘So how did things go with Valentine when she turned up?'

‘I can't say I even recognized her, there are so many teenagers like that round here, I wasn't paying attention. Only it was a bit weird because it was raining, and she was just standing there in her little anorak, under a doorway. That was why I noticed her, she looked like a drowned cat. She didn't dare speak to me, the first time she saw me. She left a note in the letter box, just a sheet of paper folded in four. Good thing it's always me that picks up the mail.'

‘What did she write?'

‘I am Valentine. Your daughter. I didn't dare come up to you. I'll be in the same place same time tomorrow. Come and fetch me if you want to talk.'

‘You kept the paper?'

‘No, I tore it up. I was thinking about Camille. I've never told him I had a daughter. And if you don't want to get caught out after telling a lie, the best thing is not to leave any evidence. So I tore it up and threw it away. I waited till the evening and I went to take out the rubbish myself, to the big bin downstairs. It's usually the help who does that.'

‘And you went to see her the next day?'

‘I didn't sleep all night. I didn't know what to do.'

‘You didn't want to see her?'

‘No. I'd got used to not thinking about her. And then
there's Camille. He doesn't want children. Suits me perfectly. How was I going to tell him one fine morning that this fifteen-year-old came knocking at the door and – oops! – I'd forgotten to tell him about her?'

‘You'd never said anything to him? But Paris is a small world. Nobody ever thought to tell Camille about…'

‘No, Camille's an architect, he doesn't see many French people, just his colleagues. It could have happened, yeah, but I got away with it.'

‘So, next day, you went to talk to her?'

She's not being allowed to fight the way she wants, Vanessa can feel the leash, the collar being pulled in a series of short sharp tugs to get her to go in the right direction.

‘I did go downstairs, yes. I took her to the seaside, by car. I thought it would be best to see each other in the car first, that way I wouldn't have to wonder how to play it, I'd just be driving, that would be all. Half an hour to get to the beach, then an hour walking on the beach. And then I'd have dropped her off wherever she wanted to go. I'd prepared things to say, I thought she'd ask me right away “Why did you leave me?” and “What have you been doing all this time?” But no. She talked a lot. About her school, about the music she liked. On the beach I bought her an ice cream. I asked her why she didn't watch her weight a bit better, she said it was “genetic”. Her father's thin, I'm thin, I didn't know what to say. She gave me news of the family, because she'd met my brothers and sisters… That took up a bit of time, there are a lot of them. But after that, we didn't really know what to talk about. I would say the weather was nice here in Barcelona, she told me she'd often gone windsurfing in Brittany, I said
it rains a lot in Brittany, but I liked the crêpes and the cider… And then I said I had to go home. She asked if she could come and have a shower in the house, and I realized she had nowhere to go. I had my bank card with me, so I took out 500 euros in cash, because I didn't want Camille to find a hotel bill on my statement, and I took Valentine to a hotel. Not far from the port, up towards the town. I paid for two nights and left her the rest of the cash, I said I'd come back but I couldn't stay just then.'

‘And when you did get back, she'd disappeared.'

‘Not straight away. She stayed for a week. I would go and find her in the late morning. We'd have lunch together. I'd asked Valentine to say she was my niece if we met anyone, or even Camille, you never know…'

‘How did she take that?'

‘She didn't say anything. We acted as if it was normal. Actually, she didn't talk as much as the first day. She's rather reserved. And very badly dressed. I suggested we could go round the shops together, get her some things, but she didn't want to. I'd pick her up at the hotel, we'd find a restaurant with a terrace and have lunch. I was getting used to her. I thought I was going to have to talk to Camille.'

‘Did she tell you what she was doing the rest of the time?'

‘She said she had found some other girls, Spanish, and they were fun. She said they went to Barceloneta Beach, the area by the harbour.'

‘Did she seem happy?'

‘She didn't complain. I just had lunch with her every day for a week, it's rather a short time to really know… She seemed glad to see me, and to be here. She didn't open up to
me that much really. I thought we had plenty of time to get used to each other.'

‘And when the police came to ask you questions, you didn't tell them anything.'

‘No, she'd asked me not to. I had said to her that she'd have to go back to her father's eventually, and she said yes, she knew that. I promised not to say anything to anyone. I thought that was the least I could do, keep my word. In fact, I was starting to like having her around. I wondered how I was going to bring it up with Camille. I needed a bit of time.'

Valentine's arrival had awakened a torrent of wild and destructive thoughts. About a series of failures, humiliations and hasty decisions. When Vanessa had settled in Barcelona, if anyone had asked, she could have replied sincerely, she'd say she was lucky, well-balanced, blossoming. Life had been outrageously good to her and she felt she had known how to ride the wave. But seeing her daughter every day, tête-à-tête, had modified her own view of herself. Not just by making her realize her age, with cruel sharpness, making her unquestionably one of the ones who will soon be on the way out. It was above all the vision of her own trajectory that she'd been forced to confront. Surviving, making the best of it, ruthless: all the words she's applied to herself were losing their ability to convince. She was just a poor girl who'd drifted from one mediocre marriage to another, collecting her derisory capital, like a little squirrel collecting nuts, putting all her effort into that. It was when she looked at Valentine, and wondered how to describe her own life story to her, that it had all changed. And she dared not touch her. She was incapable of physical affection, she wanted to make the gestures but she couldn't
manage it. Vanessa wasn't the woman she'd always imagined herself to be. And Valentine had made her realize that.

‘And François Galtan has never tried to contact you?'

‘No, he's too afraid of hearing my voice. His mother didn't call either. You've been hired to do that, basically. To avoid them having to have anything to do with me. I thought Valentine would have gone back home to them. That it would teach them a lesson. Well, one day I came to pick her up at the hotel, and she'd gone.'

Vanessa tells herself again that she hasn't done anything wrong. She'd paid another two nights in advance, and left a note saying she'd come back. She'd gone on paying, and returned to the hotel every day. Then she cleared the room. She hadn't been worried at that stage, just rather cross. It was only later that she began to be troubled by the images of that afternoon. Her hands picking up clothes and putting them in a bag. Intimate objects. Some hair conditioner, the bottom half of a bikini, very large size by the way, a paperback of a Japanese novel,
Kafka on the Shore
, with a picture of a cat on the cover. A pack of fortune-telling cards. Vanessa thought her daughter'd never told her she did that sort of thing. Some red socks with holes in. A packet of cigarette papers. A little blue pottery scarab by the bedside table, a soft green scarf she hadn't seen before, that smelled of a sweet scent. A pair of yellow high-sided Converses. It was as if she was stripping the room of its intimacy, effacing Valentine's presence, as she packed her stuff into the little orange rucksack she'd been carrying the day she arrived. It was such a small bag that it had reassured her in the middle of her panic, the kind of bag you take just for a weekend. She'd packed the things
carefully inside. She'd stayed for a short while, leaning out of the window, it was a nice view, on to a little square with a church. A decapitated angel was sculpted on the façade, alongside a Virgin and Child.

And then she had closed the door and given back the magnetic card to reception. These images are engraved on her mind, a long take in a film. Vanessa didn't cry after that. It just remained like an imprint.

The Hyena, sitting opposite her, insists, without trying to rush her, ‘And you kept her things?'

‘I spent the afternoon down at Barceloneta Beach, I went into all the bars, I asked if they had seen a plump little French girl, about sixteen, called Valentine. That night I called Camille, I said I was dining with some girlfriends. And I went on looking. I combed the beach as far as Poblenou. I didn't know what to do with the bag, to hide it somewhere would put me in an awkward situation. In Paris, I'd have thought of someone I could leave it with, but here… I dumped it in a dustbin.'

That was the clearest image of all. She was exhausted, after walking all day. A little after midnight, she'd pressed the lever of a big municipal rubbish bin. The orange bag, once inside, was too deep down to be visible. That's the image, exactly. Engraved on her eyes. Even if basically she thinks Valentine is all right. She tries to stop herself thinking that it's possible someone has done exactly the same thing with her daughter's body. Chucked it in a ditch, into a river, off a cliff. Just another little news item.

The detective asks, ‘Do you remember what happened the day before she disappeared?'

‘Yes. And the days before that. Not many of them. I don't think we talked about anything in particular.'

‘She didn't seem out of the ordinary that day?'

‘No, not at all.'

‘And you didn't report it to the police.'

‘No. Are you going to do that now, for me?'

‘It wouldn't help us much. Do you think she's still round here somewhere?'

‘I don't know what happened. I don't think all her gear was at the hotel. I get the feeling she must have taken more stuff with her. But I'm not sure. She always dressed the same way. Not very feminine.'

‘And you still haven't told your husband?'

‘It's too late now. Perhaps if I'd told him at the beginning. But after four years with him, I'd be surprised if he just took it calmly, gave me a kiss and changed the subject. You know he's …'

She has the words ‘a good catch' on the tip of her tongue. That is exactly what she's thinking but she'd prefer to put it differently. Because Camille is a good catch. Her age doesn't bother him, she knows that she's not the sort of beauty that fades quickly. She's got another good ten years ahead of her. But no need to say that. People mock mutton dressed as lamb. Vanessa only mocks women who do it without being able to carry it off. She thinks that she needn't worry about her age if she really wants to start over, but she's happy with Camille, and doesn't want it to stop. And that's why she threw the backpack into a grey rubbish bin by the sea, before getting into a taxi, and coming home to him, and not saying a word.

WE GO BACK DOWN TO THE CAR IN SILENCE.
I check the time on my mobile: we stayed three hours at Valentine's mother's place. There were times I wanted to shake her, to hurry her up a bit.

The Hyena stops, in the middle of the pavement, and looks round, puzzled.

‘This is where we left the car.'

‘You must be wrong.'

All the streets look alike in this goddam residential area. Trees everywhere, nice houses, all more or less dilapidated, and no obvious landmarks.

‘Could someone have stolen the car?'

‘If I was a thief, I wouldn't choose ours. There are plenty of top-of-the-range cars around here.' The Hyena spots a little triangular sticker on the edge of the pavement. She kneels down to unstick it.

‘They've towed it.'

‘You're joking! We paid a fortune when we got here. Three euros an hour, in case you think I've forgotten…'

‘Yeah, for two hours, but we were much longer.'

‘Must be a mistake.'

‘I did warn you when we got here. Daylight robbery's a
fine art here.
Benvingut
, darling.'

‘They tow away a car for overstaying by one hour? When we'd already paid for two?'

‘Ones with foreign plates, yeah. They know we'll come running to reclaim it. Come on, let's look for a taxi. Don't look at me like that, you're not going to let me go and do it on my own, are you? Anyway, your bag's in the boot, yeah?'

I had thrown together some things when I left the flat that morning, swearing I'd never ever spend another night in that sink of depravity and vice. At five in the morning, they were still making a huge racket and all night I didn't dare cross the corridor to go and have a pee.

The Hyena goes down the street without hesitation. All round us, nothing moves, not a person, not a car. I wonder where we're going to find this famous taxi.

‘Do you know the district? Or where you're going?'

‘You heard what she said, opposite the big mast it's the sea, so the city's in between. We're going into town. So it's this way.'

For want of any better idea of the direction to take, I follow her.

‘She's pretty sinister, the mother, eh?'

‘Sinister? Not what struck me most about her. Did you see her hands? And her legs? And the fragrance? Even her elbows are beautiful, did you notice? She had superb elbows. And the way she breathes, you can see the majesty going right into her lungs. It makes you want to be air. I just loved her voice… no, the grain in her voice, as if there was sand in it. You can imagine her singing when she comes. But actually no, I don't even want to think about it, it's too much. I don't know if
you noticed how she holds her coffee cup to drink. The way she puts her fingers round the handle, the grace of her wrist. You didn't look? Unforgettable. I've hardly ever seen such a fantastic creature close up.'