The Front Seat Passenger (9 page)

‘What’s going on? There’s no light?’

‘You’ve been gone more than four hours.’

‘The supermarket was closed for lunch. I had to wait for it to open. Has the current been off for long?’

‘Long enough for Madeleine to be ready to pop into the oven.’

‘Shit, the freezer! It’s the storm that has cut the electricity; that often happens here. I’m going to reset the meter.’

Five minutes later, the bedside lamp and the radio began to push back the shadows and fill the silence with sports results. Martine reappeared smiling.

‘There, it’s working again. Is that better?’

‘Oh yes, just great! I spent four hours imagining the ice melting on Madeleine’s body, one second, one drop, one second, one drop … Four hours!’

‘Calm down. In any case the freezer must be good for at least twelve hours on the generator. It’s German-made – reliable.’

‘Did anyone see you?’

‘Of course not. The house is three kilometres from the village, and I didn’t even drive through it, I took a detour.’

‘I know what the countryside is like. There’s always some yokel on a tractor there to ogle you as soon as you stop to take a piss.’

‘No one saw me. Everything’s fine, I tell you. How’s the leg?’

‘Starting to throb again, but it’s OK.’

‘I’ll redo the dressing. I was thinking, why don’t we have dinner downstairs tonight? Champagne, candles, the works?’

‘Why?’

‘It’s my birthday.’

Martine had become beautiful, in the way of women who are not used to being so. It made her slightly awkward, which was touching. She wore a very simple black dress she had found in Madeleine’s wardrobe and she had made herself up like little girls do, with a bit too much of everything. As on the first evening, the table glittered with the flicker of the candles on the crystal and the silver cutlery. France Musique turned down low was playing a vaguely irritating Italian opera. Martine had settled him in an armchair propped up with cushions, a pouffe in front of him so that he could stretch out his leg. He had been astonished by her strength: when she helped him down the stairs, she had practically carried him on her back.

‘Well … er … to us!’

‘Happy birthday, Martine, happy … How old are you?’

‘Thirty-two. Is it cold enough?’

‘Perfect!’

‘You know, we’ve finished the dishes Madeleine made. So you’re going to have to make do with my cooking now. I’ve kept it simple: roast beef, mashed potato and salad. It’ll be tins from now on.’

‘I don’t mind that.’

The meat was overcooked, the mashed potato too runny, the salad dressing bland but the champagne made everything edible. The conversation was stilted, flurries followed by silences. As if they were dining together for the first time, feeling shy and playing it safe. Fabien was having difficulty keeping a grip of himself. There was something surreal about the situation, which made him want to giggle. He felt as if he were playing with a
child like Léo. It was rather agreeable. But the cut telephone wire, and Madeleine on her bed of ice were preventing him from enjoying it to the full. This was perhaps a good moment to get her to contemplate the future. He was about to open his mouth, but Martine got in first.

‘I’ve … Excuse me, were you about to say something?’

‘No, no, after you.’

‘I’ve … I’ve a present for you.’

‘For me? But it’s your birthday!’

‘What’s the difference? Wait a moment!’

She blushed as she rose from the table. On the radio, the opera was coming to an end, the tenor taking an inordinately long time to die. The parcel she held out to him, lowering her eyes, contained a pipe and a box of tobacco.

‘That’s … very kind, thank you! I’ve never smoked a pipe but I shall start now.’

‘Pipe tobacco smells good in a house, it’s warming, like a wood fire. I thought it would make a good present for a man.’

‘Absolutely! I’m going to light it straight away.’

She did not take her eyes off him all the time he was tamping down the tobacco until he took the first puff. With his foot on the pouffe and his pipe in his mouth, Fabien felt thirty years older.

‘Excellent! Thank you, Martine, thank you very much. It must be more pleasant to smoke … outside.’

‘Why outside?’

‘When it’s cold, the pipe is warm in your hand.’

‘Yes … but it’s good inside too.’

‘Of course, inside as well as outside.’

For a moment nothing could be heard but the voice of the presenter on France Musique solemnly announcing a suite for cello by Bach.

‘That music is getting on my nerves.’

She fiddled about with the frequency and finally turned it off.

‘A bit of silence won’t do us any harm. After a while that music …’

Her face had changed like a blurred image on TV. Fabien felt that the spell had been broken by his error in bringing up ‘outside’. As hard as he sucked on his pipe, he had no clue how to put things right.

‘You want to leave here?’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. What do you think you’re going to find “outside”? Problems, boredom, other people. That’s what you’re missing?’

‘No! No, but we can’t just stay here! That would work for, what, a fortnight? A month? Two months? And then what would happen?’

‘What about now? Don’t you ever think about the here and now? Always after, after, after! Do you think you’re immortal?’

‘Calm down, Martine. It’s true that we’re good here, very good even, the two of us in the house, and that I would also like it to last for ever. But that’s exactly why I’d like to find a more … lasting solution.’

‘You know, you’re a bastard, you really are. You just don’t get it. And why not a mortgage plan as well? You ruin everything; you talk about the future like a little old man. In fact you are old, too old to have another life – you haven’t the balls.’ She had risen
and was circling the table. Fabien painfully swallowed the pipe juice, which burnt his tongue.

‘Martine, you misunderstand me. I’m thinking of our happiness, of yours as much as mine.’

‘What do you know about my happiness? You’re just like Madeleine – all she wanted was for me to be happy, and all the others before her. I don’t give a shit about happiness. I want to be left in peace whether it’s for an hour or for a hundred years, I don’t care! I’m fine here. So listen to me: no one’s coming in, and no one’s going out, no one!’

Fabien almost vomited and felt a rush of blood to the head as she kicked his wounded calf. For several seconds he was incapable of uttering a sound. The searing pain caused an incandescent red mist to descend. Then he closed his eyes and groaned.

‘Don’t expect me to help you back upstairs. Good night!’

‘Coffee?’

Martine was busy clearing the table of leftovers from the evening before. Fabien hadn’t had the strength to go up to the bedroom. He had spent the night in the armchair, shivering with cold, fever and pain. His leg had swollen and he had had to remove the dressing, now stiffened with dried blood.

‘I’m ill. I want to lie down.’

Martine stared at him for a moment, then set down the plates she was carrying and went over to him.

‘Put your arm round my shoulders. Ready?’

It proved laborious. Fabien was trembling all over; his moist hands slipped on the banister. He was so spent and exhausted, like an old washcloth turned inside out, that once he was lying down, he thought he would vomit.

‘Would you like me to bring you up some coffee?’

Fabien shook his head and passed his tongue over his cracked lips. Martine poured a glass of water and made him drink a little.

‘I’ll be back soon.’

It wasn’t raining any more but the sky was overcast. As if it still had more to say. The sight of the cows dragging their udders from one tuft of grass to the next brought tears to his eyes. All around him, normal life was continuing, full of normal people calmly looking after their cows, little suspecting that Fabien Delorme was in the process of dying like a dog a few hundred metres away. But over there in the forest how many creatures were also in the process of dying? Insects, slugs, rabbits, even wild boar, all those that weren’t killed by hunters or eaten by others. What became of those that died of old age or illness? You never saw the corpses of animals when you were out walking … Flesh and skin would of course decompose or would be devoured by vultures, but what about the bones? Forests were swarming with game – wouldn’t one expect to find tibias and shoulder blades all over the place? Martine did not leave him time to elucidate this mystery. She had brought the radio back.

‘Here, take your pills.’

She didn’t seem angry, absent more like. Fabien swallowed the two tablets.

‘Aren’t you going to redo my bandage?’

‘No, not now.’

‘But look at the state of my leg!’

‘Not now, I said.’

‘You want me to die? Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t get out of here! Please, Martine, it’s serious! You can’t leave me like this! Or else shoot me now, and get it over with.’

Martine didn’t reply. Her face was as smooth as a mirror, completely devoid of any emotion.

‘I’m going to make your lunch. Sauerkraut – would you like that?’

‘Don’t talk to me about fucking sauerkraut! Shit!’

By the time he’d located something to throw at her, Martine had gone. The ashtray smashed uselessly against the door.

‘Fucking bitch! You want to kill me, is that it? You’ll see. I’m not going to let you!’

He used his teeth to wrench off strips of sheet and began to clean the coagulated blood with some water. Then he wrapped the rest of the material round his calf. His eyes were popping out of his head with rage, and he ground his teeth.

‘You’ll see if it’s me that dies, bitch!’

He spent the next two hours picturing himself strangling her with his bare hands, suffocating her with his pillow or crushing her skull with a chair. But for any of that he would have had to be able to find her. She must suspect what he was thinking of doing. He would have to lie low and wait for the opportune moment.

He didn’t see her again for two days. When he slept she would leave two tablets and a carafe of water on his bedside table. But no food. The only other sign of her presence was the ashtray on the floor near the chair at the other end of the room. She must watch him while he was asleep. That was the most disquieting thing, the empty chair over by the wall. He felt incredibly weak and hollow-boned. Had it not been for his leg which was heavy as lead, he would have floated about the room like a balloon.

He had redone his bandage once or twice with the means at
his disposal, and then he hadn’t bothered any more. It was too disgusting; it stank. He only took the pills out of habit. The pain arrived when it wanted to and shredded his nerves. He fell into periods of apathy, of varying lengths, and delirium. His moments of lucidity were rare. The cows had abandoned him.

Martine reappeared on the third day, carrying a kettle of hot water, a basin, compresses and many other things that she put on the bedside table. Fabien watched her sit down on the edge of the bed and make a face as she unbandaged his leg. He would have been completely incapable of making a move and she knew that.

‘Hello. I’m going to have to make an incision to let the pus out. It’s going to hurt. Do you want to have a drink first? I’ve brought some brandy.’

‘And a cigarette for the condemned man?’

‘We’re not at that point yet.’

She offered him the bottle and lit a cigarette for him. He took his time emptying the bottle and smoking without taking his eyes off her. She looked out of the window, her hands between her knees, impassive.

‘I’m ready, you can do it now.’

She might as well have been preparing to cut his nails for all the emotion she showed. He felt as if he were at a tea ceremony, with the clean towel under his leg, the sparkling penknife, the boiling water and the compresses. Each of her precise movements seemed charged with heavy significance. He felt no fear.

When the blade cut into his flesh, a current of pain ran through him from top to bottom. He thought his teeth would explode he was clenching his jaw so hard. The worst part was knowing that the incision was just the beginning.

‘“When Tahar lost sight of him, he turned his head towards the square. The two North Africans who, from a distance, had kept an eye on his car and who had made sure Betsy Lang had not been trailed to their meeting point …” Shall I stop reading? Do you want to go to sleep?’

He was too tired to want anything; nothing mattered to him. The reading aloud of the old Paul Kenny, its cover curled by the damp, had been part of the silence, like the staccato rhythm of the rain on the tiles, the groaning of the woodwork, or the scampering of mice in the attic above his head.

‘I’m going to have to go back into town; we’re out of everything. Is there anything you would like?’

‘No, nothing. Will you be gone long?’

‘I’ll be as quick as possible.’

‘Yes, because I don’t like being left on my own. It’s miserable being alone. Everything seems too big. Too cold.’

‘Don’t worry, you will never be on your own ever again. I’m here.’

‘Help me sit up; I want to look out of the window … Aren’t the cows there any more?’

‘Too wet; they have to be kept inside.’

‘Like me.’

‘Exactly, like you.’

‘And you? Do you need me?’

‘Of course. We need each other. Shall I put the radio on for you?’

‘No, I don’t like all those voices in the room; I can’t understand what they’re saying. It’s tiring.’

‘Right, I’m off. Consider me back already.’

‘See you later, Sylvie.’

Martine didn’t react. He was sitting up in bed lost in contemplation of the pale rectangle of window when she left the room.

‘I called her Sylvie … But what’s the difference after all? I should have asked her to bring those biscuits … Too bad. I can live without them … The wall, the road, the meadow with its tree, the edge of the forest, the sky, that’s all I need of the world. Nothing can go wrong with those. I wonder why I’ve resisted so long …’