The Stone Boy (13 page)

“Would you like to hear a little story?”

Crossing her legs under her skirt, the former teacher began her tale of an old lady whose parents had long since gone up to heaven, and she was unhappy as could be, for she had neither a child nor a husband, nor brother or sister.

“She had no one with whom to share her sorrows and joys. Then, she invented an imaginary friend, made out of salt, water, and breadcrumbs, whom she could always count on, like a husband or a big brother.”

“Big brothers are no good,” Laurie interjected.

“Why?”

“They make everyone unhappy.”

“Really? What a funny idea. Why?”

Her little feet bounced under her chair. The girl carefully wiped her mouth.

“Because they’re naughty.”

“Naughty? What do you mean, naughty?”

Laurie grabbed her ponytail and twisted it around her fingers.

“Um, naughty is when you make Dad angry all the time. I’d like to go home now.”

The child was visibly uncomfortable. Madame Préau cleared away her plate.

“Of course, Laurie. I’ll walk you home.”

Madame Préau helped the little girl into a horrible pink coat and threw a shawl over her shoulders. At the gate, the child noticed droppings on the ground, looked up at the ash for something that would pass for a nest, and wondered how birds produced so much poo.

“Your garden is beautiful,” she added.

“Thank you, Laurie, but you know, it’s a lot of work.”

“Our garden isn’t beautiful. There’re no flowers.”

“Of course there are, Laurie. You.”

The girl seemed to appreciate the metaphor, and took Madame Préau’s hand to cross the street. It was a bit sticky and warm, a feeling that reminded the old lady of her little walks hand in hand with Bastien on Wednesdays and Saturday afternoons. She wanted to squeeze the little girl’s fingers, but held herself back.

“I’ll tell you a secret, Laurie: a long time ago, I was teacher in your school.”

“Really?”

“It’s true. And I have seen plenty of students, believe me. Small brothers and big brothers. Nice ones, and not-so-nice ones, too. But never naughty.”

“I know loads of naughty ones at school.”

They were standing in front of the lattice concrete wall where Madame Préau had slipped the caramels. Laurie ran her fingers along it, exactly where caramels were stuck ten days before.

“There were sweets here once,” she said.

Madame Préau started: could it be that Laurie ate the caramels intended for her brother? How awful. There was a grinding noise. Madame Desmoulins was standing at the gate of her house with an icy smile. Rather thin, with her hair gathered in a turban, she wore trousers and a cardigan pulled around a sky-blue turtleneck that matched her eyes. Laurie dropped her teacher’s hand to sidle up behind her mother and cling to her legs. She took a step back.

“Hello. So how did my daughter get on?” she asked, worried.

“Yes, very well.”

“Oh, so much the better!” she said, already about to close the door.

“Laurie has a real musical sensibility.”

“Oh! Well! Wow…”

Madame Préau longed to know whether the Desmoulins had gone to the meeting with the social worker yesterday. She could not help glancing up toward the house. There, behind a door, under a staircase or even in a cupboard, the stone boy was being kept, under strict orders not to make any noise. Behind the house, the crane from the building site stood, imperious. With all the racket, it was unlikely that anyone would hear a call for help. The scaffolding was now higher than the Desmoulins’ roof.

“That blasted building site,” said Madame Préau.

“Oh! It’s hellish.” Madame Desmoulins smiled. “Fortunately, we had all the windows double-glazed.”

The double glazing again. Suddenly, the crack in her neighbor’s icy smile turned to a grimace. Madame Préau shuddered: she had seen it before, in between two blows of the hammer.

“Did you hear that?” she said.

“Hear what?”

“It was like a child’s cry.”

“Really?”

“Yes, like a stifled moan.”

“Sorry, no…”

Laurie chanced a peek at her piano teacher from behind her mother’s legs. She had taken on a sullen, almost hostile attitude. Madame Préau was not going to be let past the gate.

“Ah. It must be coming from the site, so,” said the old lady.

“Yes, I think so. Excuse me, I—I’m right in the middle of tidying up… Thank you very much for Laurie. Good-bye, madam.”

“Have a good day.”

Crossing the street to go home, Madame Préau suddenly felt very cold. A strong breeze had picked up and the ash branches whipped the air.

That night, a storm went through Seine-Saint-Denis. Billboards were blown off the edge of the bypass, the blue tits’ nest fell out of the tree, and Martin had to go urgently to his mother’s bedside.

The diagnosis left little room for doubt. Madame Préau had all the symptoms of influenza A. Martin gave his mother Paracetamol to bring down the fever. He decided to spend the night by her side, sitting in the armchair, having a conversation with Audrette by text.

Madame Préau had been refusing all vaccines for years. Even though her son shared her doubts about routine immunization—which did nothing if not keep the pharmaceutical companies happy—he regretted that this year, given the threat of the H1N1 virus, his mother had not given in. He feared that he would soon pay a serious price.

With joint and muscle pain and headaches, Madame Préau was soon too weak to get up and eat anything other than vegetable soup. Martin visited her several times a day, making the round trip in between house calls. He dreaded the onset of a cough and sore throat, signs that it was worsening, which would require antivirals.

“I don’t want to go to the hospital, Martin,” Madame Préau murmured in her son’s ear whenever he leaned over her to straighten her pillow.

“I know, Mum, I know.”

“You know they’ll kill me in the hospital. They have instructions. They killed your grandfather, Martin. They gassed him, like my mother.”

“Calm down. Nobody is going to die. And you’re not going anywhere for the moment.”

At night, at the height of fever, Madame Préau was talking in her sleep, waking up her son—meaningless sentences punctuated by exclamations.
Leave me alone
and
Oh no, shit
on a constant loop. Martin fell in and out of sleep in the armchair. Sleeping sitting up was bad for his back, but watching over his mother’s health was his duty. He intended to take up his burden, his torments, whatever the sacrifice.

By Friday morning, Martin’s resolve was wavering. The fever wasn’t going down, and Madame Préau looked smaller under the burning sheets. If in a few hours the patient’s condition hadn’t improved, they would be forced to go to the hospital. The housekeeper relieved Dr. Préau from nine to noon, and then it was the turn of the nurse, Ms. Briche, to stay at the sick woman’s bedside for another four hours. She kept the fever under control and checked her pulse while doing her crossword magazine, all without forgetting to keep the old lady hydrated.

At almost seven o’clock, Martin found his mother sitting up in her bed, her shawl over her shoulders and a book by Virginia Woolf on her knees. She smiled at him. “You ate?” Martin gawped, discovering on the nightstand the remains of a snack of crackers, cheese, and apple.

“I was hungry, yes. So, did you hear them?”

Martin sat on the bed next to his mother.

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, the mice. You’ve been sleeping in the armchair here for three days, haven’t you? You must have heard them.”

The doctor pulled out the stethoscope.

“I don’t know; I didn’t pay attention. The fever has subsided, it seems…”

Martin withdrew his hand from his mother’s forehead.

“Who made you something to eat?”

“I did, why?”

“You got up?”

“Yes. You said it yourself, the fever subsided.”

Martin sighed. “Mum, you are still very weak. This morning I was this close to taking you to the hospital. You mustn’t get up if there’s someone right here to help you. Could you turn toward the window? I’d like to listen to your lungs.”

The old woman obeyed, bending her back.

“But I’m doing very well, son. I wouldn’t run a marathon or climb a ladder to prune the plum trees. But going to the toilet or down the stairs to the kitchen is well within my capabilities. So you’re saying that the mice have kept quiet since Wednesday?”

“Mum, can we talk seriously? You are very sick. Even if you feel like you’re getting better…”

“I am better.”

Martin moved the chest piece of the stethoscope to various points on the patient’s back, listening to the sound of her breath.

“It’s possible that you have contracted a mild form of the flu. But a relapse is likely. Whatever it is, you’re contagious, so you’ll be consigned to the house.”

“But my shopping, who’s going to do that? And I have to take my books back to the library!”

“You can make a shopping list for Isabelle.”

“You know that Isabelle can only read Portuguese.”

“Fine. Then I’ll do your shopping.”

“That’s nice of you, Martin, but nobody can do my shopping but
me
. I only buy certain products, particularly organic ones.”

“You’ll make me a list.”

“Look, I think I have enough supplies to last a few days.”

“Breathe deeply, please.”

Madame Préau complied. She had difficulty breathing, which led to a little cough. Her son sighed again.

“Mum, I want you to limit how much you move about in the house when you’re alone. I’ll ask Isabelle to come and prepare your meals for a few days. By the way, I reconnected your phone.”

“Don’t you think you’re making too much of this?”

Martin raised his hand for silence. He listened to Madame Préau’s heartbeat. Then he crossed his arms, and his shoulders slumped.

“This morning, I hospitalized a little girl who was on the verge of exhaustion. She was choking because of an excess of fluid. Her lungs are severely infected, and she’s suffering a great deal. The girl is being treated. I think that she’ll get through it, but there will be lasting effects on her respiratory system.”

Unable to find a comeback, Madame Préau slipped her book under her pillow and straightened her shawl, leaving Martin to take her blood pressure.

“Have you noticed the strange smell in your house?”

“A smell?”

“Yes, it smells like sewage… Have you been treating the septic tank with bags of Eparcyl? Isabelle told me that you keep the shutters closed on the first and second floors all the time. We have to let the sun and air into your house, Mum—otherwise you’ll get sick again.”

While he inflated the cuff around her skinny arm, Madame Préau prayed that the stone boy didn’t have swine flu, and that if he did, he might end up in the hospital if his illness got worse. She wondered if the Desmoulins parents did go to the social welfare centre last Tuesday, and then, without warning, she coughed so hard she gave herself a headache.

Notes: Saturday 17 October

Do they beat him? Is it only the father? Is the mother pretending she doesn’t know? How can parents inflict such torture on such a young human being, their own flesh and blood? How can you live with this going on next to you? What crime has he committed?

The cough isn’t going away.

I don’t know how long I’ll be in quarantine.

Martin was right about a relapse.

And about the smell.

My house smells bad.

Despite the septic tank treatment.

Find a solution that doesn’t require me to open the windows during the day.

Notes: Sunday 18 October

The stone boy appeared in the garden later than usual. His health isn’t improving. He’s having trouble walking.

Martin is angry at me. I was playing the piano with the windows open when he arrived. Asked me if I wanted to die. I told him that I was playing the piano for Bastien and that he would hear it better if I opened the windows. My answer had an effect: he relented immediately and spoke to me tenderly.

Martin thinks I’m losing my grip.

He asked me if I was keeping up with my therapy.

He’d be better off being wary of Audrette.

I am a miserable woman in a world of misery, but I’m not crazy.