Viviane (5 page)

And now you're crying. You're sobbing on your bench in the little square on Boulevard de la Chapelle where all action ceases. The children in their sandbox stop excavating, their red or blue plastic shovels frozen aloft, while their mothers stop gossiping and the people palavering beneath the chestnut trees stop conducting their obscure transactions. Everyone rushes over to help but you quickly give them the slip. Fleeing toward the tracks of the Gare de l'Est, you pass the post office and the railway bridge. On the boulevard, you're running past variety and grocery stores again, sidewalks cluttered with yams, sweet potatoes, bananas, then there's a kebab place and a café, a bank, and we're back at the Stalingrad métro station.

It's ten to two; Viviane goes to pick up her daughter.

6

There's this child on our hands and we wonder how it happened. The babysitter handed her over without a fuss, pretending to believe that she was our legitimate property. We sneak off with her, hugging the walls all the way to the building on Rue Cail, in case the woman changes her mind. Once safely in the sixth-floor apartment, we settle into the rocking chair and observe the child for a very long time, waiting for a response, a revelation.

Sometimes she looks at us as if she has known us since forever, and we think she's mistaking us for someone else. Or is it that we aren't the ones we think we are: that's a possibility.

We have no idea where she comes from, this being who knows more about us than we would ever suspect, and who yet expects us to take care of her in every way.
To maintain the illusion of familiarity, we must respond to her warbling and she is the one who guides us, shapes our conversation, insists on building up this recalcitrant family connection. And perhaps she is also the one who, in her naked need and tenacity, will carry the day. Thus we will become mother and daughter simply through her stubbornness.

In the middle of the desperately bare room, we reflect upon what we could do to deserve so much love. No doubt we should take decorative action, consult furniture catalogs, acquire bibelots, stir up the fire of our maternal instinct in the warmth of our home. But we do nothing, passive as usual. The child's crying is always at the same low volume; she seems incredibly satisfied with her situation, a miracle that is frightening at first, although delightful upon reflection, leaving us with no other choice than to carry on as before, obeying the strictures of necessity. Feed, get ready, go out, come back, sleep: it's the body alone that moves forward when we have relapsed into mutism.

We think her satisfaction might come from her father, who perhaps bequeathed her the gene of equanimity. That's one explanation. We know him well, though: it's not very plausible.

We have considered the father of Valentine Hermant from many aspects. There is the side of him we saw when we first met and for a while thereafter, when simply recalling his name sparked the desire to throw all clothing out the window and run to him. There is the perspective of recent days, when he pronounced the definitive words we know, and between these two points lie various intermediary states linked to different factors: the vagaries of his moods, the progress then decline of his affection for us. From one autumn to the next, passing through all the colors of the year.

It was in this very season that we met. After we began seeing the doctor, unexpected events took place. We enjoy remembering those already distant times, but not the intrusion of this telephone now vibrating in our pocket. We answer it. Inspector Philippot is asking for a prompt appearance at the police headquarters of the 5th arrondissement because he has a few more questions to ask you.

7

The second time, the bloom is always off the rose. However risky the situation might still seem and even if the stakes are higher, the modus operandi is locked in. It's all a done deal: the routine, the little idiosyncrasies, the question/answer contests to see who'll come out on top. It's practically a bore already.

Viviane holds the baby close throughout the entire trip to the police station. The child's eyes are wide open but she's quiet, perfectly content to be an amulet, a protective fetish against evil. She registers the elements of the landscape (nippy breeze, encroaching darkness, crowded métro car, curtain of dark coats forming a surrounding well) then turns toward her fists, inexplicably muffled in mittens. Her mother is deciphering advertisements: mattress clearance sales, evening courses, adult English classes, mathematics for grades
six through twelve. My daughter, she thinks proudly, will never need remedial courses. She takes after me, it's obvious: she hardly ever cries.

This time they send her up to the fifth floor of the police station, which proves to be a lot more spacious than the fourth. The corridor serves half as many offices and there are no policemen in uniform. Through the blue-tinted glazed partitions, Viviane can see solemn men ballasted by a long career of overly rich lunches.

Philippot is waiting for her at the office door and casts a cool eye at the bundle slung in a scarf around her neck. You really feel this is the proper place for a child? he asks testily. You really feel this is the proper place for me? says Viviane, blushing immediately. Sorry, I'm touchy these days, my husband's left me. The inspector is about to reply but decides not to, stepping aside to let her pass. Behind the desk sits a big bald man quietly picking his teeth.

So, says the fat man, how's it going, my dear little Madame Hermant? I'm Chief Inspector Bertrand. No, don't look so scared, I'm just a chief inspector, not the divisional detective inspector. Him you'll see later on. Maybe. What I mean is, I hope not, Madame Hermant. But of course that depends on you.

I'm not scared at all, says Viviane, who speaks right up like an idiot, that's a trick of the trade, people answer off the tops of their heads even though they'd been determined not to let anything slip about their guilty consciences.

Well of course, you have nothing to reproach yourself for, replies the chief inspector in a tone that means I've already heard that one a million times. We called your mother.

Yes?

It isn't a good idea, Madame Hermant, to play the fool with me. But that's your lookout; you're the one who'll pay for it.

You called my mother, replies Viviane, looking the chief inspector straight in the eye.

Yes, Madame Hermant, we called your mother. And she's dead, your mother. She died on February 16, 2002, so she's been dead a good eight years, therefore I just don't see how she could have confirmed that you did not kill Dr. Jacques Sergent on November 15, 2010. Naturally, I might conclude, since you spend your life at this doctor's office, that you're utterly nuts. But we also called your husband, Monsieur Julien Hermant, and your employer, Monsieur Jean-Paul Biron. They have
described you as beyond reproach as a wife and employee, so I must urge you most emphatically, Madame Hermant, to provide us with a few explanations.

Even though everyone tells you that I'm beyond reproach? sneers the accused. Yes, my mother died on February 16, 2002: I'm almost certain of the date—I've got a pretty good memory for dates.

Your mother, continues the chief inspector, massaging his temples, owned an apartment on Place Saint-Médard in the 5th arrondissement, near the Censier-Daubenton métro station.

Excuse me, she still owns it. I pay the bills, the property tax, I go there once a month to do the windows and the dusting, I never canceled the phone.

So you're the one who owns that apartment.

Yes, I'm the one, she's the one, split hairs if you want. Put it this way: we own the apartment. What is it you're trying to say, Chief Inspector?

You're playing with matches.

What can I say? I haven't been able to make up my mind to sell it or rent it out. I was waiting for the right moment, that's what I was working on with the doctor. My husband understood very well.

That's not what he told us.

And just what did he say?

He said that if you had sold the apartment, which is worth around nine hundred euros per square foot, you would have had about a million in your piggybank. He added that this would have avoided the necessity of renting that three-room apartment on Rue Louis-Braille, but he was careful to insist that he was not thinking about the money but about your comfort together as a family. Regarding the doctor, we can therefore eliminate any financial motive.

Viviane studies the chief inspector's features closely: heavy eyelids, fleshy mouth, double chin, and the wrinkles of concentration that hold everything together. She decides he doesn't believe she could be the murderer.

I did not kill the doctor, she sighs. I'm not going to fabricate such a thing, after all. I was home with my daughter; I did not kill the inspector.

You mean the doctor.

I mean the doctor.

Why did you suggest that we call your mother?

I don't know, it just popped out. That's what the doctor taught me, to speak without thinking too much about it.

We're not in the doctor's office, Madame Hermant.
Listen, I grant you that you're going through a difficult time at the moment, with the divorce and everything. But this business of saying things to detectives off the top of your head, keeping an apartment worth a million without realizing any return whatsoever—it's just no good. You have to get a grip or there'll be repercussions. Now go on, beat it.

That's not what she'd expected: too easy, sounds like a trap, and humiliating, too. Viviane glances from the chief inspector to Philippot, who has been standing in a corner since the beginning of the interview, a tall, slinky, elegant silhouette leaning against the glass partition. She notes absentmindedly the lines of his clothing, observes again how impatient the chief inspector is as he snatches up the toothpick where he abandoned it on the blotter a little while ago. Then, as there is nothing more to say, she gathers up her things, leaves the room mumbling something inaudible, and heads down the hall.

Sitting on the edge of a plastic chair, a very pregnant woman with red hair is fiddling nervously with her nails. Viviane recognizes her immediately from having studied her picture in the morning paper. The young woman does not notice Viviane, however. She's looking for someone else and when she sees the inspector, who
has come out into the hall, she's found him. She has returned of her own accord, yes, she would like to speak to the police again, to help with the investigation, and has remembered a few things that might interest them. After Philippot has ushered her into the office, Viviane finds herself alone with her daughter, who is still saying nothing but whose eyes are heavy with reproach.

8

After that I don't know why I do what I do, but I do it. Not that I believe it's a good idea or that I'm proud of myself, only—I have to: my feet go forward and I follow them.

I leave the police station. Night encloses Boulevard Saint-Germain; passersby hasten toward the métro entrance. It's easy to interpret their movements. I could be any one of them, going home from work, swinging by the day care center, and I'd stop off at the supermarket for a few things before jumping on a bus where someone would let me have his seat. I'd get home, warm up the bottle while my husband would give the baby a bath, then we'd sit in front of the television, eating a frozen dinner I'd heated up, and toddle off to bed without making love, unless it's the evening when we do make love, in which case we'd sleep better, before beginning again the cycle of days, weeks, years, safe from all suspicion.

Appearances are on my side. Equipped with that alibi, I head toward Rue des Écoles, where I know I will find a hotel. Indeed, I find several. They're lined up parallel to the Seine on the uneven-numbers side of the street, but I doubt that one can glimpse, from behind the pastel curtains of these semiluxurious establishments, the river and its tourist attractions: Notre Dame, the former royal palace and prison of the Conciergerie, the headquarters of the Police Judiciaire in Paris at Quai des Orfèvres, and the courts of the Palais de Justice. I have my plan. I need a hotel room for a few hours, something not too costly because I'm not sure if I'll have additional expenses later on and I'd like to economize.

As it happens, these hotels all have three or four stars. Prices are not posted at the door and I don't dare go inside to ask about them, not wanting to seem hard up. Finally I stop in front of the Moderne Saint Germain where I overhear the conversation of a very East Coast American couple: they will go to the Louvre rather than on the Bateaux-Mouches excursion boats, will skip the Moulin Rouge in favor of the Musée d'Orsay. I don't need to know them to guess everything about their itinerary because I'd do the same in their place. When I was a girl, I too enjoyed discovering new places by sticking
to the sites recommended in travel guides. I smile at the couple and glance inside the hotel; a discreet-looking young man is standing at the reception desk. It's exactly what I need. But first, a drugstore.

There's one close by, where I wait on line at the pharmacy and examine the analgesics and sedatives on display behind the counter. They're mostly antihistamines, phytotherapeutic capsules, which wouldn't put a horse to sleep but a thirteen-pound child, no problem. When it's my turn, I ask for four different boxes and, as a precaution, I produce my doctor's prescription so that I can obtain the tranquilizers, just the tranquilizers. The young pharmaceutical intern gives me a worried look but I don't back down. I am the customer, she is not a policewoman, I stare back at her until she hurries off to fetch my pills, then I return to the Moderne Saint Germain where I book a single room. It's seventy-seven euros.