The Blue Book (12 page)

Agathe hid in the linen cupboard and listened to the sounds of metal and her husband's bones.

Guillaume didn't shout, didn't want to upset her, stayed unexpressed – comes across as an odd man, very gentle, slightly distant – more suited for academia than journalism.

Either way, they'd have fucking killed him.

Agathe holding her breath in the cupboard – has kept holding her breath ever since – the only sounds letting her understand Guillaume's murder.

She heard the breaking of her husband's body – what she kissed, learned, fucked, loved. They killed Guillaume.

This would be the point where she went very reasonably insane.

And afterwards –
being the perpetrators again –
the man imagines and describes searching, giggling, drunk men, stoned men, breaking things, foulness in Agathe's house.

Naturally, they found her – cruel to dwell on that and it might push her too far, lock her beyond herself again, so be gentle over it – be gentle anyway –
fuck
– of course, be gentle.

Agathe was not Tutsi like her husband and her rapists knew that. Because she was Hutu, they exercised perverse restraint, permitted everything except her murder. Or else it was premeditated torture – this leaving her alive, alone, making her see.

Trying to overwhelm those eyes. Make them shut.

The last thing they did was to cut off her hand.

The man thinks of her hoping she'd bleed to death.

Not allowed – none of those thoughts, not any more – no more dying, no rushing into destruction. Can't let the bastards make her kill herself, reach out and murder her with her own will.

The man makes Guillaume tell her that her self is sacred and mustn't be harmed, has to be held in beauty. The man allows a type of poetry to break out in his narrative because, husband and wife, they were people of words and found them impressive.

And the man talks about the way Agathe was sure Guillaume was with her and still alive when she fainted – that he was there – and then that terrible re-education when she awoke: metally bloodsmell and shit – lying in her own blood, husband's blood – broken glass, boot prints – things she cannot look at but has to, has to remember, has to eat up because they are all she has left. They were her everything.

Details, the probative details, that's what gets them and she is got.

Which is good because the man has to make her believe that she wasn't mistaken: that Guillaume did watch and wait. The man portrays her husband, invents him as being adamant on this point: that he was there beside her, beyond touching but there.

Something else for her to eat: a better everything.

And this is a type of perfection – a tenderness, but she doesn't stay with it, because her chronology is leading to her son. First her husband was murdered and then her son.

Guillaume is lighting in her, he is convincing and she wants him – but she needs her son.

The man can taste her need – he makes it like chocolate in his head – hotsweet – and she never did really know what happened to her son. Michel, her only boy.

Down in Butare it was diggers and soldiers. No more tolerance for students, no more education required. Not much we can stand to see of that.

The man says he can feel Michel, that he is running along a track in open country. He isn't properly dressed, may have lost clothes, or been woken and driven from his bed. Michel is in a crowd. The men behind the crowd are quiet and busy – they have a long day ahead – they either shoot at the crowd or hack individuals down as they wish. Michel doesn't hear what happens to him, barely understands the start of it – out of breath, dust in his throat and then gone.

This feels unconvincing, not comprehensive enough. Agathe wants to understand completely: at least be with Michel, even if she couldn't do as a good mother should and save him.

Motherlove, motherguilt, motherblood – they all fuck you up.

And I'd like to please her – I would, but Michel, he'd be sodding awkward, he'd resist. Can't get a handle on more of his dying and I'm not going to try and that will work better – it really will work better than having him torn apart for her to watch.

Guillaume – he's the best bet – he's her way out of this. He's salvation.

And she should fucking have that, so I will fucking arrange it, so fucking there.

The man lets her know how Guillaume watched her navigating Kigali. Her husband was why she didn't bleed to death and wasn't caught again. He is why the UN jeep paused where it did and she could reach it. He is why the checkpoints showed no interest in her – already dealt with.

Apparently.

Such love from him.

Bundled – always see the love in bundles, soft armfuls of the stuff.

Because I am a sentimental bastard.

But Agathe gets more than bundles.

She gets a real goodbye
.

Guillaume needs to kiss her.

Yes, he does, my love, my darling. Come on Agathe, you can do this. We can do this.

The man suggests Agathe close her eyes and that the darkness will be recast, secured from this day forwards, peaceful. And her love so near her that she can smell his skin, his hair, the things of his that are forever now.

The man wants her to purse her lips.

Deep. A deep kiss. Thoughtkiss. Move for it. Please. Come on. For me. For him. Most natural thing in the world.

If she purses her lips for the ghost of a kiss, this will work.

Leastways, it ought to work. I dunno.

Pimping her for a corpse.

Come on, girl. For me
.
You can kiss him.

Sweet Agathe.

Open all the secrets of your lips.

She does like her poetry – shame I'm not in the mood myself – too excited – never tried this before.

But he does try talking her back to the excellent pain that was wanting and needing, that was love.

Kiss.

Sweet Agathe and a kiss.

The man leans forward and whispers, ‘And he takes
your hand, Agathe. You kiss him and, as proof, he'll touch
your hand.'

The nerves get confused after amputations, they reconfigure, so – this can be possible, should be possible – a movement of
her mouth, her cheek, can summon up what's gone: she'll feel her
lost husband holding her lost hand.

And how fucking good would that be? That would be fucking good.

Not exact as a procedure.

Never tried it before, in fact.

But I did want to.

But unpredictable.

But fuck it. You can do this, Agathe. I know that you'll feel it, because you should feel it. You should have this.

You can.

And then he sees her, sees her smile and he is sure – he sees who she was and who she will be and that she is more and clean and more and strong and more and is in love.

Ecstasy. For you and me. Endlessly.

Fuck, yes.

She weeps without noticing. It rocks her, harrows her, and she lets it and still smiles. She burns.

Hurts to look.

Anything this wonderful, you shouldn't look.

Have to take care, though, stay alert.

What's left of her forearm rises from the table and her eyes still shut while she concentrates beyond the man – beyond the world – and grips, clings, touches with fingers that do not exist. She is holding her husband's hand, she can feel it, recognise it.

This is true.

Fucking true.

And this gives the man a joy approaching hers.

Fuck, yes.

* * *

It wasn't her husband, though.

Good thing the man only steered her, lightly kept her company and didn't crash in with a name.

Getting it wrong at this point would have been inexcusable.

Michel was the one she imagined returning, whose wounds undid themselves and fled, whose hair smelled of paradise when he touched her and of himself, of the total of his first cry, first look, first step, first hurt, first fight, of his known and secret life, of his mother's knowledge of his life.

Between them – she's between them – I can see it in her, in the sway of the head, the urge to lean on air, to rest her head on fantasies and let them love her.

Happy for you, Agathe.

She trusts, utterly trusts, that her man and her boy are to either side of her and she is breathing them in – greedy.

The red candle burning down.

I have explained.

I do make it very clear.

When the last candle gutters and goes out, then this is over. Permanently. The dead won't be home again, not for me, not for anyone else – so none of the other fuckers will take her, charge her, hook her up to the weekly fixes of counterfeit affection and silly tricks.

She's had me.

Had the best.

And I've given her everything she needed.

Safe hands, me. A pair of safe hands.

I
gave
her this. No charge – that's
giving
.

And no one here but us to know. No one but me.

I saved a life today.

Well done, me.

And no one to know.

The man's safe hands shaking so that he has to flatten them against the tabletop.

She can sit for as long as she wants.

We'll let it all consolidate and calm.

When Agathe finally opens her eyes, she looks at the man as if she has slept and been awoken and he clasps her hand gently between both of his and waits until she recognises him and this time and this place.

Sorry. You have to be here and they have to be gone.

The way things have to be.

And it will rip you in places that I haven't got, but this is the end and unavoidable.

And I won't do any more – I won't make you need me. I won't do that.

Here you are and only you, and I am only me, but together we made what you wanted. Please take the love in that. Be satisfied.

She is flushed, early morning bewildered – for a moment he feels her appetite, that hungry confusion – so he lets her go. He begins to re-establish a useful distance.

Sodding candle's got a way to burn, but we can snuff it out.

Or she can, that might be better. Maybe . . . Not sure . . .

Can't just hang about here getting morbid, that's for sure.

And this is the point where advice is required and suggestions, ways to proceed into a future.

Advice from me on anything . . .

Laughable.

But nobody laughing.

Why would we.

Then off we go to our lonelinesses. No need to mention them, though. Obvious. Each to our own.

But she has her consolation, yes she fucking does.

From me.

What little there could be – from me.

Keep things brisk, definitive. Check she's fine, solid, no vulnerabilities left without at least some kind of covering.

Talking of which – will she want to take the dress off? Keep it?

She'll keep it.

I'm betting she'll want to walk out wearing it.

And undressing at this juncture is to be avoided, I would say.

This game that he's played: she never understood the rules and he could end with anything, could require anything of her and probably get it, steal it, con it out of her.

But I won't. Have to end it well for you, Agathe. Something special for brave Agathe.

So he stares at the wall beyond her and mentions she has the suite for another three days – this isn't true, but can be very easily arranged – and there is no arguing about this, there can't be: his delivery lets her understand that it is necessary, that it preserves her from the rigours
of her new world until she is ready for them. The rest of
her transition will take place here.

Then he bows his head for a moment and produces an appropriate smile. When he faces her again he makes it more than readable that somehow he has withdrawn from her at depth, that this is painful and troubling, will leave him less and her more, will leave him solitary, folded back into pale isolation.

He lets himself give in to being tired.

Because I fucking am.

He reaches out and levels his right hand above the candle flame – his last gift.

Fuck the pain – there isn't any pain – I don't need to fake it, I can think it gone – and she'll like this, she'll
get
it, she'll remember.

Then he crushes out the fire with his burned palm, marks himself with ash and hot wax, and he pushes back his chair, rises, stands. He bows to kiss her cheek, while she attempts to organise her fretting for him, her thanks and rehearsed goodbyes, but he's already up again and walking, leaving, no more to say, no more permitted – one last glance expressing confidence, affection, his gratitude – he makes himself bright as bright – and then he's out, he's over, free.

He'll send someone later to gather his things – meanwhile, she may want to inspect them, or she may leave them be. He'd like to think she might be curious about him, perhaps a touch fond of who it seemed he was. His belongings are all neutral, provide no clues, just a vague sort of intimacy about them: aftershave, laundry, a mildly used bed.