The Wretches

  For Claire

  and Philippe-Gérard

  This “musty old smell”…

  A!ectionately,

  F.D.

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  EPILOGUE

  AVAILABLE AND COMING SOON FROM PUSHKIN VERTIGO

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  COPYRIGHT

  ONE

  Léopoldville: a funny sort of name for a funny-looking sort of place. It’s our town, and apparently it was built by a Belgian. I’ve never been to Belgium, and I’m beginning to think I’ll never leave here, but I don’t think the towns over there can all look like ours. When people arrive in Léopoldville—and there are more and more of them these days thanks to all the factories sprouting up—they have a hard time getting their bearings to begin with. All the roads stick out, ramrod-straight, from little roundabouts, a bit like the Place de l’Étoile in Paris, except there’s no Arc de Triomphe, and at the end of every avenue there’s another little roundabout, and so on and so on, to the point where it can feel like one of those nightmares where you’re walking in an endless maze. You find your way eventually, mind, thanks to the railway, the Seine and the church, but it’s not easy, that’s for sure.

  Our neighbourhood’s on the other side of the railway tracks, and the famous Belgian certainly didn’t lay out the street plan round there. It’s all stunted little houses, lined up any old how on a plain surrounded by chimney stacks spewing out great clouds of smoke that seem to stretch up into the sky for ever before falling back down on the town below. An ugly place, if you ask me. But it can’t be all that bad, because once a painter set himself up with his palette behind our garden to paint the view. He came back day after day. I’d go and have a peek at his canvas each evening on the way back from work. On his easel, the view looked even sadder to me. There was something disturbing about it, even—like one of those pauper’s funerals not a soul turns up to. I was hoping he was going to add some sunshine to it, to brighten it up a bit, because honestly I couldn’t see anyone wanting to hang that painting on their living-room wall. But one day the artist didn’t come back. Instead of adding a bit of light to the top of his picture, he’d made do with adding his signature at the bottom, and I cried, thinking of all the sunshine he could’ve given us, but which he’d chosen to deny us instead, just like the Lord himself.

  But listen to me going on… Does any of this matter at all? Well, yes, it does to me, because I’d like so much to make you understand why and how everything happened.

  People are always saying you should grow to love the town you’re brought up in, but you can tell that’s not the case for me. I always hated Léopoldville, probably because I always saw it as it really was: artificial and sad. Towns shouldn’t be built all in one go, by one man—they end up looking too much like warrens, and the people living there like rabbits.

  Our house is the farthest out of the whole town, right next to the vegetable plots the factories have spared. They stretch all the way to the motorway, full of leeks, carrots or cabbages, depending on the year… We dread the cabbage years in our house because the whole place ends up stinking like gone-off sauerkraut. It doesn’t matter if we keep the windows shut, the smell still gets in. I love the countryside, but I can’t stand the farmers down that way, because they’re not proper, simple country people, with their tractors and their jeans, and their leather boots from the Paris surplus stores. They’re always off to the races on Sundays in their new cars, and their wives have got their own cars too… It’s crazy what you can sell a leek for if you grow it just outside Paris.

  Getting back to our place, though, it’s a bit of a ruin if I’m honest. It’s an old house, built long before the town sprouted up around it, and the walls are crumbling like nobody’s business. Mum sometimes writes to the owners asking to get some repairs done, but they’re having none of it. They inherited the place from an old uncle, and the family don’t get along with each other so they won’t even reply to our letters.

  I know Mum could take them to court, only we’re often behind with our rent, especially when Arthur—that’s her man, my step-dad you might say—is on the dole, or on one of his benders.

  I never knew my real dad, and I don’t think Mum would recognize him either. She met him seventeen years ago at a dance. She reckons he must’ve been Italian, or something like that, and actually I do have dark hair. The tango, that’s their speciality, the Italians, everyone says so. Mum must’ve had a bit too much to drink by the end of the night. They went and got frisky in the fields, and maybe that’s why she still can’t stand the smell of cabbage in the evening now.

  When I came into the world, she put me with her mother, on the other side of the Seine, where all the quarries are. I lived there till I was six, then Granny died and I came to Léopoldville, to Arthur’s house. I’d like to tell you about him, but there’s not a lot to say. He’s the sort of man who’s always at the back of a group photo, with half his face hidden by some fat git spreading himself out. You know—the humble, timid type. Like a lot of weak blokes, he drinks to stiffen his nerve, and when he’s had a few he’ll mouth off at people he’s usually polite to. Which explains why he’s so often out of work.

  It’ll be fifteen years soon that Mum and Arthur’ve been together. They’ve never had a kid. I think Arthur would have liked at least one of his own, but Mum wasn’t interested. I reckon they’ll get married one day; Mum doesn’t realize it, but Arthur’s getting bourgeois tastes as he gets older, especially since he got the telly put in to get one over on the neighbours.

  Before it all happened, I worked in a factory. It honestly wouldn’t ever have occurred to me to work as a maid.

  You can’t get maids for love nor money round here. The proof is that the doctors and the managers get theirs shipped in from Brittany. They put adverts in the local papers in Morbihan or Finistère, and up turn a load of dumpy, rosy-cheeked girls, carrying brand-new cardboard suitcases. They stay in the job for a couple of months, time for them to settle in and lose their healthy complexions; then they quit and go and work at the factory, because the pay’s better and after six o’clock you’re free to do what you like.

  But it was just that freedom that got to me! Every day that sad road, with the stream of moped riders shouting filthy things at you… The level crossing with the crowd of workers up against it, with their dirty, wandering hands… And then Arthur’s ramshackle, barely furnished house… Arthur himself, lanky, dull as a turnip, with his jutting chin, his wispy little moustache, his lips spotted with flecks of cigarette paper.

  No, I swear, I just couldn’t take it any more.

  I started by changing my routine. To get home, I’d go through the centre of Léopoldville instead. It’s just as sad a place as the rest of the town, but at least you can feel the money round there. The houses are built from limestone and set in the middle of lawns, where sprinklers turn and spray in the evenings.

  And that’s how I first saw the Roolands’ house.

  TWO

  At first sight, it looked like the others: two storeys, an arrow-shaped weathervane sitting on top of the gable roof, with little stained-glass windows and some steps leading up to a front door flanked by light-blue earthenware pots… But what set it apart was a funny sort of feeling t
hat floated in the air around the house. How can I explain it? It seemed like it was somewhere else. Yes, it was a Léopoldville house, but it existed on a sort of desert island all of its own. A tiny, mysterious island, and one where the natives seemed to live bloody well too.

  On the red-sand driveway sat a magnificent green American car, its polished chrome gleaming, with white upholstery that reminded me of a living room I’d seen once, from the overground Métro in Paris… I’d only caught sight of it for a couple of seconds, but I’d dreamt of that living room ever since. In my mind, sinking back into a big white leather armchair seemed like the greatest happiness the world had to offer.

  The garden stretched in front of the house, a little carpet of green lawn, in the middle of which sat a marvellous swing seat, scattered with cushions and sheltered by a blue canopy. That seat looked like happiness to me too. Monsieur and Madame Rooland would relax there at dusk, glasses of whisky resting next to them on stands like iron tulips, while a wireless with a great big aerial played jazz music. I can’t tell you how enchanting the atmosphere of that garden was, with the beautiful, shining car, that music, those drinks that you could just tell were so wonderfully chilled, and that couple, gently swinging while the seat creaked.

  At first I contented myself with just slowing down as I went past the front of the house. Later, I was so completely captivated that I started going back and forth in front of the place. Round there they called them “the Yanks”.

  He had an average build, reddish-brown hair, with splashes of coppery freckles on his face and arms. He looked around thirty-five and worked at NATO headquarters in Rocquencourt. When he went out he’d wear a light suit of charcoal brown or fawn, with an open-collared white shirt and a black straw hat, jazzed up with a black-and-white-checked ribbon. At home in the evenings, though, he’d just wear grey cotton trousers and a loud shirt—one time, I remember, he wore one covered in palm trees and sand dunes. On anyone else that shirt would have seemed corny, but Monsieur Rooland had the class to pull it off. His wife was a different sort altogether. She was younger than him, but somehow she almost seemed the older of the pair. A brunette, with flecks of sunlight in her hair, she was always wearing a pair of coral-pink shorts and a light-green blouse. She had rosy skin, and I don’t know why but I got it into my head that she must have Red Indian blood. She was a chain-smoker and rolled her shoulders when she walked, like a long-jumper taking a run-up.

  Eventually they noticed what I was up to. A French couple would have taken offence, I’m sure. Or at least they would have wanted to know what I was after, why I was there outside their house at six every day, like a kid with my nose pressed up against a shop window. But the Roolands found it funny more than anything else. They started smiling at me as I went by and then, one evening, maybe after he’d had a few whiskies, Monsieur Rooland called out in English, “Hello!”, and gave me a little wave of his hand. I felt my heart burst into flame.

  I can’t tell you how the idea came to me. Do you know what I reckon a thought is? It’s like a flash of sunlight that dazzles you without you knowing where it came from.

  But one evening, as I arrived back at Arthur’s, I realized that the sun only truly shone at the Roolands’.

  Like I was telling you, it was a desert island all to itself! An island like you see on the holiday-company adverts, all flowers, the easy life and cool drinks within arm’s reach. Life on a swing.

  On that particular evening, Arthur was rat-arsed. He’s always had two types of pissed: wine-pissed and rum-pissed. Wine makes him merry, but rum—that just makes him nasty. That day he’d downed half a bottle of Negrita, and you could see in his eyes that he’d decided not to spare anyone.

  “You’re late again!” he said, straight off.

  He was sitting in front of the telly. I’ve never seen anything more depressing than that TV—it’s alone in a room with just three chairs stupidly lined up in front of it. There was nothing on yet. The screen was just a weirdly flickering white fog, but Arthur didn’t even seem to have noticed.

  “I’ve come from the factory,” I said, taking off my shoes.

  “And what way do you take back from the factory, my dear? Did you take the scenic route?”

  “I take whatever route I please!”

  It’d been years since he’d hit me. Arthur’s not really the type for a slap, I’ll give him that. That evening, though, it went off. Mum was just getting back from the grocer’s, and she heard the wallop all the way from the kitchen. She came running and saw the mark of her man’s hand on my face. I was stunned, crying without even realizing it.

  “What did she do?”

  I haven’t told you about Mum yet. I’m a bit embarrassed by it. She’s got what they call a harelip. Along with me, that’s what messed her life up. I reckon it must have been because of the lip thing that my dad, the Italian from the dance, never showed his face again after their fumble in the cabbage fields. If they’d stitched her lip up properly when she was a kid it would have changed her whole universe. She could probably have found a better bloke than Arthur, because apart from her lip she’s not bad—petite, but with all the curves in the right places to please a man.

  The slap had hurt Arthur more than me. He was standing there like an idiot in front of the blank screen, his arm hanging by his side, fingers twitching, but he tried to save some dignity:

  “She spoke to me like the insolent girl she is!”

  And then he added:

  “She reads too much, it’s turning her head!”

  That was his hobbyhorse, my reading. He couldn’t get his head round the idea that they’d print anything other than the Communist Party rag. One day, after a rum session, he’d torn up two books I’d borrowed from the library, which caused a right load of bother when it turned out they were out-of-print editions. Since then, I’d started buying my own books and reselling them to the second-hand dealers by the Seine when I went up to Paris.

  Mum sighed. I put on my shoes and left. Honestly, the air in that house was unbreathable; the air in the whole area was. It was a grey evening out. Disgusting smells came wafting on the wind, not just from the cabbage fields, but from the chemical plant too. The skyline was all factory chimneys and building sites.

  Those new houses frightened me a bit. This fresh town, sprouting up so quickly, these outsiders coming to rob us of the small amount of charm Léopoldville had to offer—I had a bad feeling about all of it.

  I started running. The level-crossing barrier was down and I pushed open the gate. The station was a hundred metres away. A train sat by the platform, panting in a cloud of steam. The crossing guard shouted something, and then I saw the express from Caen bearing down on me. I just had time to throw myself out of the way… I was shaken up. They’re right to put those warning signs up in the stations: One train may hide another.

  La Magnin was a fat, jaundiced woman who panted every time she turned the crank to shift the barrier.

  “Can’t you look before you—”

  I carried on running. And I knew where I was going.

  When I got to the Roolands’ house they weren’t on their blue swing any more. They were having their dinner on a folding table set out in front of the porch. They were the only ones in Léopoldville who dared to eat like that, in the open air, in plain sight of all and sundry. They couldn’t have cared less about being watched.

  I pushed open the gate and walked up the red-sand drive. I saw the car up close for the first time. It was even more beautiful than it looked from a distance. The paintwork gleamed, and it had a smell like you can’t describe. It smelt of wealth, of power.

  I was walking in a trance. If you could have seen me! My head straight up like a soldier on parade, my arms stiff by my sides, my whole being filled up with my heart, which was pounding fit to burst.

  Madame Rooland was eating with her left arm resting on her knee in a funny pose. Her husband was opening a couple of cartons of fruit juice. He stopped when he saw me come out from be
hind the car. I froze too. I looked at the table. I was a prize idiot to have set foot on this island. Instead of eating from plates like the rest of us, they each had a tray in front of them with beans in brown sauce, salad, tomatoes and meat covered in a sort of pink jelly.

  The woman smiled at me without getting up. He poked two straws through the triangular holes he’d just punched in the cartons with a special sort of tool.

  “Hello, Mademoiselle!”

  He was glowing. It was the splashes of red freckles that did it—sort of like dull fire burning on his skin. His eyes seemed lighter than they had from far away. I had to explain myself but I was too overcome with emotion. Instead of pressing me, they waited. Madame Rooland finished chewing her mouthful and he sucked on a straw.

  “I’m sorry for bothering you…”

  “You’re not bothering us,” he assured me. “Would you like an orange juice?”

  These last words were in English, but I realized he was offering me a fruit juice and I was gobsmacked.

  I march into their garden like a lunatic, and instead of asking me what I’m playing at, here they are offering me a drink!

  “No, thank you.”

  He had a wonderful smile, Monsieur Rooland. Teeth even whiter than in the cinema commercials, a deep dimple in his chin.

  “I came to ask whether you needed a maid.”

  His smile shrank a little, but his teeth still shone in the twilight. Madame Rooland asked him a question in American. She didn’t understand French perfectly, and I felt it was the word “maid” she hadn’t got. Her husband explained; she looked at me. This time it was the look any woman gives a young girl who’s just offered her services.

  “You’re a servant?”

  “No, I work in a factory.”

  “And you’ve lost your job?”

  “No.”

  I swear I shocked him with that, smooth American though he was.

  “So, why?” he murmured.