Consequences (11 page)

Prison represented the worst nightmare you could imagine. Whenever he thought about it, he liked to be sitting down, since he got short of breath. He imagined getting hold of cyanide capsules and keeping them under his tongue, in case he was ever threatened with getting locked up. Just the thought of it took his breath away. And who'd take care of Marianne if he disappeared? Who'd look after her?

He didn't feel very fresh in yesterday's clothing, hadn't washed or shaved, so he refrained from making too bad an impression by refolding his newspaper and paying some attention to the man, presently holding forth on the weather for the next six days. Captivating subject—or at least one that tempted you to take off for the Caribbean at the last minute (the fare happened to be on sale for two hundred euros).

The detective looked around thirty. Kind of plump. From the way he sounded, it wasn't from the croissants—he'd given up smoking. Drinking, too, maybe. Or else his wife was cooking a little too much for him, he joked. “You never can trust women, right?”

“You said it, Inspector. Hearing you loud and clear.”

He was dying to ask the detective about his reasons for being in the campus cafeteria so early in the morning, but he kept his mouth shut. He wasn't going to make the slightest mistake. When the eggs arrived, he looked up and smiled at the waitress.

“You're a teacher, right, and a very early riser?” observed the detective, eyeing his fried eggs.

“No, this is an exception,” he answered, “a happy one. Or I wouldn't be able to handle it.”

He had to keep staring at the detective for a good fifteen seconds before the other understood and nodded with a smile, saying, “Sorry, I didn't want to pry.”

“You're not prying, Inspector. Believe me, the fact you were doing your job doesn't shock me. It's obvious crime's on the rise in this country.”

The detective signaled the waitress to let her know that he wanted the same thing, fried eggs. At this point the place had filled up; two new girls had begun working, and a second cook had gone into the kitchen.

The detective was there on a campus drug case, but he hadn't forgotten about Barbara's disappearance. “Spoke to her stepmother the other day. Promised her we were doing our best, but what can we do? We don't have a body, don't have anything. And it's a wide, wide world, you know.”

He agreed with the officer, who was now intently giving him the once-over.

“Did you fall down the stairs?” the man asked. “You don't have to answer. This isn't an interrogation.”

“No, not the stairs. Does it look that nasty?”

“No . . . Just a little yellow. Blue. Your lip is split a little.”

“A little? Listen, some guys jumped me the other night. They attacked me in the parking lot, bashed my head in. Don't ask me why. Who even knows if there was a reason. Nowadays, people get stabbed right in the middle of the street for next to nothing, but I don't have to tell you that. Useless to go looking for an answer to everything. As a whole, people are getting nuttier and nuttier. Right? Don't you think so? Anyway, they really worked me over.”

“Know what you mean. We're up to here with it. Sorry about it. But it's becoming unmanageable. Evil's out of hand in this country. If you can't even make it from your office to your car without getting beat up by the neighborhood loonies, things aren't working anymore, they've gone kerflooey. What do you think they wanted?”

“Beats me!”

This time, just as he was saying the word
beats
, he spotted her at the entrance, unmoving, pale, her hair a mess, her eyes trained on him. A few hours ago, he'd still been holding this woman in his arms, both of them relentlessly engaged in every kind of intimate caress until daybreak, and he'd taken her in all kinds of positions until they were both completely exhausted and came for the last time around five in the morning. Sated, wiped out. But apparently, it wasn't enough. It hadn't prevented a thing, to judge from the violent desire taking possession of him once more. His appetite for her rewhetted like a razor, burst forth again like a flame from an ember in a burning blast. It made him jump to his feet and put a bill on the counter without waiting for his change or offering the detective a word of excuse. Without the slightest discretion appropriate for such a situation, he walked straight toward her in broad daylight, scorned again every rule that had been imposed on him, pushed those in the way aside, and went straight for her. In public. Right under the nose of the detective, who was watching the whole thing with unconcealed interest.

This time the encounter took place in the red-brick building next door, which contained the library and a carefully remodeled multipurpose auditorium with ultramodern equipment, and which had toilets the students could not access. He steered
her along. Didn't feel very comfortable with the idea that he was taking her somewhere he'd used two or three times before, for nearly identical reasons; but right now he was devoured by desire, nothing else counted.

The funniest thing was that he'd anticipated this possibility, pictured it countless times, mentally prepared himself to face it and firmly resist it. Now here he was succumbing at the first bout, losing all control—and as a result, any way of protecting himself. Here he was leading Myriam to the toilets.

After walking through her door the evening before, no more than a minute had gone by before he began making love to her, after a long kiss that had made his head spin. That meant they'd barely had a chance to exchange more than a few words since they'd become lovers, if he added it all up.

And here it came again. As if they grew speechless the moment they found themselves face to face. They tore down the stairs leading to the stage, then branched off toward the washbasins, without a single word. Never. Never. Never would he have believed that desire this consuming could exist, that it could swallow him up to this extent. They didn't go there; they ran. Like a couple of high school students, crazed, insatiable young dogs. Some miracle kept them from running into anyone else, such as a cleaning lady with her pail or a stray electrician.

While he gasped for air, she put a hand on his shoulder and used the time to pull off her panties, hopping from one leg to the other. Then she hitched up her skirt.

He couldn't wait to be able to invite her to lunch. He wanted to get to know her, discover who she was, what kind of book she was reading, and blah-blah-blah-talk with her and tell her in a low voice how new this was for him, how excited he was by
this new continent, this astounding virgin territory that she was opening up to him; but obviously that wasn't going to happen tomorrow. This was no pleasure cruise that encouraged chatting.

Clearly, proof of patience was necessary in this context. You had to accept these silent encounters, which could, moreover, prove to be the sign of an adult relationship, the kind you strike up with mature women and not with young girls, a sign of that milestone you pass on your path to deserving the older ones, becoming appreciated by them and invited into their game, assuming the position of a worthy partner. Maybe silence was indispensable to such ventures at the beginning. Maybe you had to see it as the fly that hovers over the truffle, the sign of a serious affair that certainly was getting off to an auspicious start.

When they were done, they listened to each other's breathing. It always felt good coming back to life. Then they tidied up their clothing. Washed their hands. Glanced at each other silently in the mirror as they were drying them. Deep inside, he was laughing at the thought of the two or three students he'd taken here. What a journey he'd made today, what a leap forward. At the height of the experience, hadn't he let out a slight moan and then trembled for almost a minute against her after he'd ejaculated? Had he ever known anything like it? Deep down, he was little more than a child. He admitted it. He'd known nothing about it before today. He'd been born today. He remembered that one of his past conquests had had a weakness for lavatories, the smell, something he'd thought of as the last word when it came to sexual maturity. He chuckled to himself silently.

He pitied the man he'd been until now, the poverty of his existence. With a slight shrug he lit a cigarette. Asked her if she
wanted one. She accepted. He said he'd be happy to buy her a coffee. She accepted. He nodded.

They went back to the cafeteria—he actually gave a start when their fingers brushed against each other as they walked, which at least made her laugh. The sun was getting stronger, and soon it would surge up over the crests. The students they passed still had sleepy faces. The grass was still damp, and the tongue of mist unraveling on the lake seemed the result of some mysterious, languid molting that had fallen to Earth during the night.

Together they walked into the room. Frankly, he knew no better way of attracting all kinds of trouble. It was pure rapture.

The next day, Richard Olso
explained to him how badly viewed were a certain professor's too friendly relations with the stepmother of a student who'd disappeared—little Barbara, about whom there was still no news.

He listened silently, wondering how such things could be possible. Sometimes, when he thought about Richard Olso, when he examined him from head to toe, as he was at that moment, and stared at his ugly face and ridiculous goatee, all the merit of Marianne's sacrifice stood out. The poor girl. The poor girl. On the other hand, he'd never asked for anything of the sort. He would have never been able to ask for such a thing. No one had asked her for anything. He couldn't assume such a burden. Not that one. Out of the question. Besides, she herself wasn't very clear about it. She could never look him in the eyes when he brought it up. She'd never formally admitted that she disliked Richard, not really, not one single time; there was that two-faced way she had when she said, no, not at all, adamantly
shaking her head, even though it was as plain as the nose on her face, even though, obviously, she was far from being impervious to the interest he showed in her.

Richard Olso was complaining that he wasn't listening. “Listen to me, old man. Soon I won't know any more how to handle you, you know. Marianne knows it. I won't always be able to intervene. But what's up with your hanging around that woman? Are you doing it on purpose, or what? I mean, she's the only one you can find? Are you sure you've really looked around?” In the middle of the black ocean made up of being fired from work, a spot of light was forming, and this pool of light came from a feeling of freedom regained, no longer having to put up with any kind of oppression, wherever it came from; no longer having anybody over him. Being outside the realm of the All-Powerful. Too bad he hadn't been fired and that Richard Olso was still his superior.

At any rate, he didn't intend to bring this relationship into the light of day. He knew the cafeteria episode wasn't an example of any very clever or responsible behavior on his part. Carrying on with her in public. Practically being seen on her arm. He. A man in his situation. Not that he regretted that act of bravado. Absolutely not. He'd savored every second, every minute of it; but he couldn't allow himself to play around with his security. That was a luxury he couldn't afford.

He had to restore the protections around him. “All right, Richard, I'll make you a promise. You won't hear any more about this business. I promise you total discretion. No meetings on campus nor anywhere near it. No stir. No making waves. How's that?”

“Marc, I'm not your enemy. Do you know that?”

“Any man who's hanging around my sister is my enemy. Just joking.”

“We could hit it off, you and me. But that doesn't seem to occur to you.”

“It doesn't? Really?”

“I'm having a barbecue Sunday. Are you coming?”

“Are you asking if I'd come to your barbecue?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Sunday? This Sunday?”

When he spoke about it to Marianne, she suddenly seemed to recover her speech, and questioned him about the rumor about him and that woman.

“Don't listen to gossip,” he told her. “I haven't done anything but drink coffee with her. It's okay. That shouldn't send me to hell. It's okay. Let's not start up again.”

“A bit too easy an answer, isn't it?”

“It has nothing to do with being easy or not. It has to do with refusing to argue when there are no grounds for it.”

“Argue? About what? I don't give a good goddamn about you and your whore.”

With those words, she guffawed. He handed her a glass of white wine and turned toward the sunset, which was powdering the horizon orangish. Gossip traveled quickly, spread almost instantaneously. Their foray to the toilets in the multipurpose auditorium and the robust breakfast that followed—they'd helped themselves to a basket of fresh croissants as they waited for the eggs and waffles they'd ordered—had only happened yesterday, but the campus rumor about a creative writing professor going out with the wife of a soldier who'd been sent to Afghanistan was already on everybody's lips.

He was in a good position to know what Marianne was feeling since he'd experienced it a hundred times himself, that fear of being abandoned, that horrible fear of being abandoned, with nothing that could save you. But he was the boy, despite the fact that she was older; he was the boy who had to set the example, even if it meant clenching his teeth a little harder when problems arrived—and he'd never hesitated, not as long as their mother had run things.

Of course, he had no intention of failing in his role with regards to his sister. His own health depended on it. Hadn't he spared her from his past adventures to a large extent? Hadn't he demonstrated that he was the most discreet of men? Had he given her any serious reason to see her position as threatened?

He sat down near her and massaged her feet. He was largely persuaded that he shouldn't change any of that, that they'd miraculously succeeded in achieving a kind of equilibrium—but what an equilibrium, what a monstrous one. So much fragility was mind-boggling. So much weakness disconcerting. Few people had figured that brother and sister would somehow regain their footing one day. Taking into account the path they'd traveled, the fact that they were where they were today made those who knew the story respect them.