Three Strong Women (24 page)

“What was that game you were playing just now in school?”

“What was …?” the child repeated after a few seconds.

“You know, when you were playing with a ball. It’s not a game I know.”

Djibril’s eyes darted anxiously, hesitantly, right and left.

His mouth was half open.

He’s wondering, “What’s behind this sudden curiosity?” and since he can’t work it out, he’s looking for the best strategy, the best way to find out what underlies my question.

“It’s just a game,” the child said slowly, in a low voice.

“But what do you have to do? What are the rules?”

Rudy was trying to make his voice sound kindly and unthreatening.

He lifted himself up to smile into the rearview mirror.

But the child now seemed terror-struck.

He’s so scared he can’t think straight.

“I don’t know the rules!” Djibril almost shouted. “It’s just a game, that’s all there is to it.”

“Okay, okay, no problem. Anyway, you were enjoying yourself, weren’t you?”

The child, still not looking any less anxious, mumbled something that Rudy didn’t catch.

Rudy felt that his son was looking a bit like a half-wit. That annoyed and upset him.

Why was the child incapable of understanding that his father was only trying to get closer to him? Why didn’t he make the
effort to meet his father halfway? And the high intelligence that Rudy had, perhaps smugly, always credited him with, did it still exist, had it ever existed?

Or else, finding little stimulation at the village school where the teachers were narrowminded and hardly up to much—at least that was what, deep down, Rudy felt—and oppressed by the atmosphere of sadness, resentment, and dread that prevailed at home, the boy’s intelligence had shriveled and withered, so that without it Djibril, his son, would be just like so many other children: not very interesting …

If Rudy felt no particular hostility toward mediocre children, he saw no reason to love them and didn’t think it likely that he ever would.

He was sliding into a state of bitter affliction.

He was powerless to offer his son unconditional love, so that must mean he didn’t love him. He needed good reasons to love. Was that what fatherly love amounted to? He’d never heard it described as depending on the qualities a child might or might not possess.

He looked at Djibril in the rearview mirror again; he looked at him intensely, passionately, alert to any sign of paternal feeling stirring within himself.

It was his son, Djibril; he’d recognize him even surrounded by other children.

Force of habit?

His heart was just a muddy pool into which, with a ghastly swish, everything was slipping.

Rudy’s mother lived in a tiny, low-roofed, square house in a
new housing development at the end of a village consisting of only one street.

When she’d returned to France with Rudy just after Abel’s death she’d gone back to live in their old house deep in the countryside, and Rudy had gone to board at the nearest secondary school.

He’d gone to university in Bordeaux (he remembered the infinite desolation of the gray streets, the campus located far away in the dreary suburbs), and it was to the same old, isolated house that he occasionally went to visit Mummy.

Then, after taking his finals, he’d gone back to Africa and was appointed to a teaching post at the Lycée Mermoz.

Five years ago, after getting fired, when he’d returned to France under a cloud with Fanta and Djibril in tow, he’d found that his mother had left her house for that little villa with tiny square windows and a roof that, like a low forehead, made the whole place look mulish and stupid.

From the word go, he’d felt ill at ease in this neighborhood of houses that all looked alike, built on bare rectangular plots now artlessly graced with tufts of pampas grass and a few replanted Christmas trees!

He’d had the impression that in moving there Mummy was not only submitting to, but also ratifying, even anticipating in a smug, rather nasty way, the judgment of absolute failure that, at the end of her life, a supreme authority would be handing down.

Rudy had been burning to ask her: Was it really necessary to advertise her ruination in that manner? Hadn’t her existence in the countryside been more dignified?

But as always with Mummy, he’d said nothing.

His own situation seemed nothing to brag about, either!

Besides, he’d soon realized that Mummy liked the neighborhood and that its large captive female audience made it much easier than before to peddle her stock of angelic brochures.

She’d made friends with women the very sight of whom filled Rudy with embarrassment and sadness.

Their bodies and faces bore all the signs of a brutal, terrible life (scars, bruises, skin turned purple through alcohol addiction). They were for the most part unemployed and willingly opened their door to Mummy, who tried to help them determine the name of their soul’s guardian and then track it down—the angel none of them had ever seen and who had never come to their aid because it had never been correctly invoked.

Oh well, Rudy had finally said to himself, not without bitterness, Mummy was perfectly at home in her unlovely housing development.

He wandered around a bit on the grounds, lost as usual (that happened every time he visited), going up and down the same streets without realizing it.

Mummy’s pocket handkerchief garden was one of the few not littered with plastic toys, bits of furniture, and auto parts.

The yellowish grass was overgrown because Mummy—completely taken up with her proselytizing—claimed no time to mow the lawn.

Djibril got out of the car very reluctantly, leaving his schoolbag on the backseat. Rudy, getting out in his turn, grabbed it.

He could see from the terrified look on the boy’s face that he’d just realized his father was going to leave without him.

But he has to see his grandmother from time to time, Rudy thought, very upset.

How distant, now, seemed the morning of this very same day when, informing Fanta he’d collect Djibril and take him to spend the night at his grandmother’s, it had dawned on him that he hadn’t so much wanted to give Mummy a nice surprise as to prevent Fanta from leaving him!

Because why would he suddenly get it into his head to try to please Mummy that way?

Even if he couldn’t agree with Fanta’s claim that his grandmother didn’t love Djibril—because that would be to make the mistake of seeing Mummy as an ordinary person who simply loved someone or didn’t love them—it seemed obvious to Rudy that ever since the child was born, ever since Mummy first leaned over his crib, examined his features, and found that he in no way corresponded, had no hope of ever corresponding, to her idea of a divine messenger, and so had never really taken the trouble to bond with the child: it seemed obvious to Rudy that it was this attitude—benign indifference—that Fanta had taken for hostility.

Rudy put his hand on Djibril’s shoulder.

He could feel the little, pointy bones.

Djibril let his head fall against his father’s stomach. Rudy ran his fingers through the boy’s silky curls, feeling the beautifully smooth, perfect, miraculous skull.

His eyes suddenly filled with bitter tears.

Then he heard a cry above them, a single angry, threatening shriek.

He took his hand away and pushed Djibril toward the garden gate, so brusquely that the boy stumbled.

Rudy steadied him, gripping him tightly, and they crossed the overgrown lawn to the front door. Rudy thought it looked as if he were dragging the child along against his will.

But, terrified and distraught, not daring to look up at the sky, he had no intention of letting go.

But, moaning, Djibril shook himself loose. Rudy didn’t try to stop him.

The child looked at him in fear and bafflement.

Rudy forced himself to smile and banged on the door.

If the buzzard was going to swoop down on Rudy before Mummy opened the door, what would become of his attempts at restoring his honor?

Oh, all would then be lost!

The door opened almost at once.

Rudy dragged Djibril inside and closed the door.

“Well, well,” said Mummy in a cheery voice, “what a surprise!”

“I’ve brought Djibril to see you,” Rudy murmured, still in a state of shock.

There was no need to do that, Fanta, there was no need to do that now …

Mummy stooped down toward Djibril’s face, looked at him closely, and kissed the boy’s forehead.

Ill at ease, Djibril wriggled.

She stood up next to kiss Rudy, and he felt from the quivering of her mouth that she was happy and excited.

That made him slightly anxious.

He guessed that her feverish cheeriness was due not to their presence but to something that had happened before their arrival
and that their visit would in no way disturb, being negligible, superfluous alongside this mysterious source of exultation.

He felt jealous about that, both for himself and for Djibril.

He placed his two hands heavily on his son’s shoulders.

“I thought you’d like to keep him for the night.”

“Ah!”

Nodding gently, Mummy folded her arms, and her searching gaze played on the child’s features again as if trying to estimate his worth.

“You could have warned me, but all right, it’ll be okay.”

Rudy remarked with some displeasure that she seemed particularly youthful and amiable today. Her short hair had been freshly dyed, a nice ash-blond color.

Her powdered, very pale skin was stretched over her cheekbones.

She was wearing jeans and a pink polo shirt, and when she turned around to go into the kitchen, Rudy saw that the jeans were quite tight and hugged her narrow hips, her small buttocks, and her slender knees.

In the tiny kitchen all in dark wood, a boy was sitting at the narrow table having his tea.

He was dipping into a glass of milk a shortbread cookie that Rudy recognized as being like those Mummy made for special occasions.

He was about Djibril’s age.

He was a beautiful child with pale eyes and fair curly hair.

Rudy nearly retched.

He had in his mouth the taste of ham and soft white bread.

“There, you sit down here,” Mummy said to Djibril, pointing to the other chair in front of the small table. “Are you hungry?”

She asked that with an air of hoping that his reply would be in the negative. Djibril shook his head. He also declined her invitation to sit down.

“It’s a little neighbor, I’ve got a new friend,” said Mummy.

The blond child didn’t look at anyone.

Assured, confident, he was eating happily, diligently, his lips wet with milk.

Rudy felt certain, at that moment, that there was no other explanation for Mummy’s eager bliss, for the hard sheen of happiness on her face, than the presence in her kitchen of this boy feasting on the shortbread she’d baked for him.

No, there was no other cause for the quivering of her lips and trembling of her skin but the boy himself.

It was equally clear to him that he wouldn’t leave Djibril with Mummy, not that evening nor any other, and having decided this, he felt immensely relieved.

Holding his son close he whispered in his ear, “We’re both going home, you’re not staying here, okay?”

Then, since Djibril was probably hungry and, at least for a short time, might as well sit at Mummy’s table, Rudy pulled up a chair for him and poured him a glass of milk.

“Come,” Mummy said to Rudy, “I’ve got something to show you.”

He followed her into the living room filled with heavy, useless furniture, navigable only by narrow corridors with complicated angles.

“What do you think?” asked Mummy in a tone of feigned detachment.

He could hear her voice trembling with desire, impatience, and delight.

“I use him as a model, he is an excellent sitter. I won’t let go of him.”

She let out a brief, shrill laugh.

“In any case, no one takes care of him at home. Good heavens, he’s so beautiful, don’t you think?”

From the table covered in pens, paper, and brochures tied together with string, she picked up a sheet of paper, which she showed to Rudy.

It was the sketch for a more developed drawing.

Clad in a white robe, Mummy’s little neighbor was shown flying above a group of adults frozen in what was presumably intended to look like an attitude of fear or ignorance. The execution was clumsy.

In a strained, sharp, but delighted tone Mummy explained, “He’s there, above them, and they’ve not yet recognized him, it has not yet been granted to them to see the light, but in the next drawing they will be enlightened and their eyes will be opened and the angel will be able to take his place among them.”

Rudy was overwhelmed by a feeling of weary disgust.

She’s stark, staring mad, and in the most ridiculous way. I can’t and shouldn’t cover up for her any longer. Poor little Djibril! We’ll never set foot in here again.

Rudy thought his mother had read his mind because at that moment she smiled tenderly at him, stroked his cheek, and patted
the back of his head with her cold, damp hand. Rudy found that rather disagreeable.

Since she was short, he could see her fairly heavy breasts revealed by the plunging neckline of her polo shirt. They appeared swollen with milk or with desire.

He looked aside and backed away to get her to remove her hand.

She only talks to me about boring things that get on my nerves, but the things I still need to know she won’t ever take it upon herself to tell me, because she lost interest in all that long ago.

“Did anyone ever find out,” he began slowly, awkwardly, “who provided my father with a gun?”

She stiffened momentarily with surprise, but that was perceptible only during the time it took her to put the sketch down and turn toward him. Her dry lips parted slightly in an annoyed, pinched smile.

“That’s all over and done with,” she said.

“Did anyone find out?”

She sighed ostentatiously, coquettishly, annoyed at his insistence.

She flopped down in an armchair, seeming almost to disappear in the flabby folds of the oversize rosy vinyl upholstery.