Talking to Ghosts (18 page)

“Shit, I'm dog-tired,” he said. “I'm going to try and get some sleep.”

He waved to the armchair where Pradeau was sitting.

“You can crash here, if you like. That way you don't have to drive back drunk.”

Pradeau got up and stretched, yawning, then looked at Vilar with a sardonic smile.

“I don't think so. Me and Nathalie had separate bedrooms for two years. I'm not about to start again with you!”

They laughed. Their reeling shadows, drunker than they were, faced each other on the wall. Vilar walked Pradeau to the door.

“We'll start the hunt tomorrow,” Pradeau said, turning on the landing. “We'll catch this guy and make him spill his guts.”

They said goodnight and Vilar stood in the doorway listening to his friend lurch heavily down two flights of stairs, listened to the click of the electric front door, then closed his door and stepped back into the dim apartment made suddenly darker by the humming silence that throbbed in his ears.

He could stare for hours at the wardrobe where he had lodged the urn, the doors wide open, the red container sitting on its own shelf, him sitting on the bed, hands on his thighs, his eyes glimmering with the metallic reflections that glowed in the half-light of the room like the blood of some fantastical creature, focusing all the mental energy he could muster on this patch of crimson, trying to conjure the image of his mother so he could talk to her, beg her to come back right here, right now, Maman, because I need you, because through sheer force of will anything is possible and my will is boundless.

He waited for the ghost to materialise, to condense, a distillation of love and grief, to come and sit next to him, hug him to her chest, press her lips to his hair. Sometimes he could wait for hours in the heat of the afternoon, when everyone was taking a siesta and the house was so quiet it was possible to hear the shadows of memory sighing, but each time the unbearable anticipation eventually left him feeling shattered, and it seemed as if the air had been gradually sucked from the room, leaving him breathless, crushed by his own weight, crumpling in on himself, a burst balloon, an empty bag.

There was nothing he could do to quell the anticipation. It welled up in him at certain moments, when he was alone and at peace, when things seemed to him beautiful and harmonious. He did not believe in anything, neither in God nor in the soul, he knew the dead did not return because, for them, everything is over. But he was learning that memories of them could be insistent, because a bond still exists
between the dead and those who live on, an echo, some lingering note like the vibrations of a bell which resonate long after the sound has faded, and he did not know whether he wanted it to go on or to stop, because he did not know whether it brought him pleasure or pain.

He ticked off the days on his calendar since it had happened. Forty-four. He tried to recall precisely what he had done on each day, then abandoned this impossible task, worried that the fragile archipelago of his memory seemed about to be washed away by a turbulent ocean.

All of a sudden he got to his feet so that the weight crushing his chest might fall to the floor. Barefoot, he took a few steps across the threadbare carpet, forcing himself to take deep breaths. A shiver ran down his spine, and he pulled on his T-shirt only to find he could not bear the feel of the warm fabric weighing on his shoulders. He went out onto the narrow landing and listened. He could hear faint music from Marilou's room. Rebecca was with her. Resisting the urge to go and listen outside her door, he knocked on Julien's instead, but there was no answer. He went downstairs into the kitchen and drank straight from the tap, and splashed water on his face and neck.

Outside, the light and heat were so dense that he stopped short in the doorway as though he had walked into something solid. He blinked, shielded his eyes with his hand and took a few steps, calling to Julien, who was probably working on one of the ridiculous projects that could keep him occupied for hours, alone, muttering mysterious curses.

He found Julien perched on some bricks near a shed in front of pile of wood, in the full glare of sunlight. He was wearing a football cap emblazoned with the logo of Olympique de Marseille, the team he claimed to support, though he could not explain why. “The others are idiots,” he'd say, when anyone questioned him about it. One day he let slip that Marseille had been his father's favourite team, though he had been born in Roubaix.

“What you doing?” Victor said.

The boy put a finger to his lips and gestured to him to sit down.

“Look,” he whispered.

He half opened the lid of a plastic box, pierced in several places. Seven or eight lizards were fighting viciously, sometimes drawing blood. He promptly closed the box again and set it on his knees, then jerked his chin towards another lizard that was poking its head between two logs.

“He's a big bastard.”

Slowly, he picked up a piece of bamboo he had split so that it was forked. Victor stepped out of the way and held his breath as Julien gingerly moved the stick towards the animal with a stealth that reminded Victor of a predatory animal, capable of controlling its every movement, hovering for interminable seconds before the final attack. Sweat began to trickle down the boy's forehead, a droplet hung from the tip of his nose and Victor watched this scrawny athlete – eyes bulging, tongue poking between his lips – as he tensed his every muscle while insects crackled in the grass like thousands of tiny unseen flames baking the soil, in readiness for this primitive and preposterous hunt. The lizard looked up at this creature coming towards it and Victor thought he saw the animal's sides pulse faster and its translucent eyelids flicker as Julien froze, gripping the forked stick, and time stood still, or at least it seemed to Victor that for a moment the planet paused on its axis and that the sun plunged its white-hot blade into his back.

He barely saw the gesture – it made him start in surprise though he had been waiting for it for minutes. The lizard was struggling wildly, its head trapped between the bamboo pincers, and Julien carefully picked it up between thumb and forefinger to study it.

The animal opened its mouth, darting its tongue out, trying to identify the creature in front of it.

“D'you see that?” Julien said. “He wants to bite me. But it's not like the green lizards. I caught a green lizard once, but I had to cut its head off.”

“How come?”

The boy did not take his eyes off the reptile.

“Because the little fucker wouldn't let go of my finger. So I went and got some secateurs and
snick
! It was five minutes before I could get it
off me. My finger was bleeding. They've got really sharp teeth. They kill snakes, you know.”

“You ever caught any?”

“Any what?”

“Snakes.”

Julien put the lizard into the plastic box. Then he mopped away the sweat from his face with his T-shirt.

“No, but I know where there are some. I saw some the other day. They're easy to catch. We can go there if you like. We'd have to take bikes, though.”

Victor shuddered. Even the thought of snakes gave him gooseflesh. “That would be good,” he said, his mouth dry. “What will we do with them?”

The boy shrugged.

“I dunno. Kill them. Or put them in old Georges' house, stick them in his bed. Alive.”

“Who's Georges?”

“He's Nicole's father. Marilou and Rebecca's grandfather. We're not supposed to go over there. We're not allowed. Apparently they fell out and now they can't stand the sight of each other.”

“Why do you want to put them in his bed?”

“No reason. Just because he's a bastard, that's all.”

Julien checked that the lid on the box of lizards was secure, then they both got up and stood in front of the woodpile without saying anything, looking thoughtful.

“What if they bite him? What if he dies? Imagine what would happen.”

The kid pressed his ear to the box.

“Maybe. I can hear their hearts beating, it might make the plastic vibrate.” He paused. “Nah – that son of a bitch would shit himself, but it's not like we have to. I was just thinking of something we could do with the snakes. It doesn't matter, we can worry about that later.”

Repelled though he was by snakes, Victor could not help but imagine the viper biting the old man as he slipped his legs under the
covers. He shuddered. He could almost feel the pain of the bite in his calf, the snake coiling around his ankle.

“You got a father?” Julien asked out of the blue.

The snakes disappeared. Something else bit him in the heart. He looked at the boy staring up at him, blinking against the sunlight, waiting for an answer.

“No idea. I never knew him.”

Julien nodded.

“I've got one, but he's dead. Shot himself in the bathroom. I was the one who found the body. Shit, you should have seen it … I don't talk about it to anyone.”

He screwed up his face, wrinkling his nose in an expression of disgust. He spat on the ground. Victor put a hand on his shoulder, felt the sharp bones beneath his fingers and realised how small and thin he was.

“Why are you telling me, then?”

“Cos I trust you. It's like you're like a brother. O.K., I haven't known you long and stuff, but, well … It's like you're protecting me”.

Victor didn't know what to say, he groped for words and found none. In the end he aimed an affectionate punch at the kid's bony shoulder and smiled.

Julien announced that he was thirsty, and side by side they walked along the fence by the road back towards the house. Victor noticed a man in sunglasses watching them from a grey car, parked on the other side of the street. He recognised the man. He realised it was not over.

Seeing him pause, Julien turned to look in the same direction and asked who the man was.

“No-one,” Victor said. “Some arsehole. Let's get inside quickly, it's too hot out here.”

He laid his hand on the boy's shoulder again and steered him inside. He could feel the kid's hand clutching his T-shirt.

The girls were in the living room, slumped on the sofa, their feet up on the coffee table. The T.V. was blaring. Victor could see only shifting colours, bright flashes. Marilou called Julien over so that he could show
her what he had caught and he went up and half opened the box. She shrieked in terror and delight.

Rebecca was playing with her mobile, texting. She turned to Victor, who was staring sightlessly at the deafening screen. Disdainfully she looked him up and down with a scornful pout, then turned back to the bluish glow of her phone. Victor did not understand – he guessed that her scorn was not directed at him, at least not entirely. The girl was weird, he thought, too grown-up already, though he did not quite know what that meant. He heaved a sigh then turned and went into the kitchen to get a drink. Standing in front of the open refrigerator, he swigged from the neck of the big bottle of ice-cold cola, almost choking. Then he stood in the middle of the room, inhaling deeply so he could catch his breath. When he came out of the kitchen he almost bumped into Nicole, who stopped him and ran her hand over his forehead.

“You're hot. Stay inside in the shade for a while. It's sweltering out there. Did you have something to drink?”

“Yeah. I'll be right back. I forgot something.”

He ducked outside and walked cautiously behind the hedge, crouching needlessly, then rushed over to the car door and glared at the man, his elbow still propped out of the open window, smoking as he stared back at the boy.

“Hi, Victor. Remember me? Do you want to take a spin? I've got air conditioning. We need to talk.”

Victor said nothing. The man tossed his cigarette. The smoke from the butt coiled and snaked along the tarmac.

“I don't want to force you, but …”

Victor bent, and grabbed a fistful of pebbles and, in a single movement that caught the man off guard, he hurled them at the car. Several of them hit the man full in the face, the others rattled against the bodywork and the glass. Victor wished that the windows had shattered, shards of glass ripping through the car, slashing the man.

The man's name was Éric; Victor had never known his surname. His mother had been scared of this man. Victor had seen him once,
standing at the end of the hall, a tall, hulking shadow, with a square head and a thick neck. The guy had not even looked at Victor, but his mother had told him to go back to his room and stay there. She had snapped at him, something she rarely did, and Victor felt frightened and upset. The man had come round several times after that, and whenever Victor was there, his mother told him to play outside or to go to his room.

“I don't want you having anything to do with him. I don't want him to see you or speak to you. Just pretend he doesn't exist and everything will be fine. I'll explain when you're older. And you're not to mention him to anyone, do you understand? Not to anyone, because if you do then the whole world will come crashing down on both of us.”

He knew only that he should hate this man. Hate him even more than he feared him.

More than once, he had heard raised voices from his mother's bedroom. One night, he had heard furniture being knocked over. Their heavy, muffled voices rumbled on late into the night, an ominous booming that made the walls shake. Victor had not slept a wink that night because he was frightened for her, even when their voices fell silent and Victor knew why they had and this terrified him even more than the blows and the insults he had imagined.

Éric drove off in a squeal of tyres and Victor bent double, gasping, acid churning in his stomach like dirty laundry in a washing machine. As he was spitting up bile and trying to catch his breath, he heard Nicole come up behind him and ask what had happened.

“What was that noise? That car? Who was that guy you were talking to just now? Do you know him?”

“No,” he said. “Nothing. It's nothing. I didn't talk to him.”

He was breathing hard, dripping with sweat. Through his tears he saw that the girls were watching from the doorway, shading their eyes. Nicole walked into the road and scanned the distant horizon from right to left, but could see nothing. She came back and asked Victor if he was alright, stroking him and wrapping her comforting arms around him. He roughly pulled away from her embrace, from her
constant questions, and headed for his room. Julien was sitting on the bottom step of the stairs.

“I saw him,” he said. “I've memorised the number plate, I'll write it down for you.”

He slept deeply all afternoon, lying flat on his stomach. Marilou came to wake him, shaking his shoulder gently.

“Hey, you O.K.? You should come down and have something to eat.”

He propped himself up on one elbow. The girl's big black eyes cast an invisible veil over him.

“Who was in that car?”