The Wretches Page 10

  “I swear it!”

  He put the Bible down on the bedside table. How ridiculous it all must have looked. This man in his pyjamas, asking a naked girl to swear on a Bible! I feel ashamed to think of it now, and not because of my lie—because of how childish Jess’s behaviour was, in the middle of such dramatic scene.

  “What did she say exactly?”

  I had sudden a flash of inspiration. I gave him the words in English. When Thelma was still alive and I came to their dinner table to ask which one of them wanted the ketchup or the mustard, she’d always murmur something like “’ts Jess”.

  “Answer me, Louise. What did my wife tell you?”

  He didn’t seem angry any more. Far from it—he was like a whipped dog.

  “She said ‘’ts Jess’.”

  “And then?”

  That wouldn’t do him. He was expecting a direct accusation.

  “And then she said…”

  At that moment, I had no idea what I was going to say. But inspiration always comes to the rescue when you need to tell a dirty lie.

  “And then she said, in French this time: ‘He wanted me dead. He wanted me dead!’”

  I’ll never forget what happened next. Jess cried out at the top of his voice—a groan like the splintering of a tree trunk, falling to earth after the last blow of the logger’s axe. A terrifying sound. One day, if you’re going at a hundred miles an hour in your car and you realize the brakes aren’t working, maybe you’ll make a sound like that too. Everyone who sees their death coming makes that awful sound—either out loud or in their head.

  “Monsieur Rooland!”

  He pulled me off of the bed and threw me out of the room. The door slammed shut behind me. I found myself on the darkened landing. I tried the handle, but he’d drawn the bolt this time. I dropped to my knees.

  Despite my nakedness, I didn’t feel the cold of the night.

  With my cheek up against the bottom of the door, I whispered:

  “Jess, don’t push me away… I told you, it doesn’t matter. You were right to leave your car on the rails like that… She only got what she deserved. She was a whore, Jess… Nothing but a whore! Keep me, Jess. I’ll love you for ever. I’ll never be with anyone apart from you! Never!”

  He didn’t answer. I stayed there for hours, talking to the ray of yellow light shining through the crack under his door.

  EIGHTEEN

  I suppose I must have gone back to my room at some point. I don’t remember a thing about it. I don’t remember falling asleep either, that is, if you can call it sleep—more like a numbing of my brain from sorrow and regret.

  I remember listening out in vain for Jess, trying to hear what he was up to, but all I heard were the wild gusts of wind in the garden.

  When I came to, in the sad, unforgiving light of day, the awfulness of the situation was clear to me. There was no more sun. The house was no desert island any more—it was just another part of my sad, grey town now.

  From now on I’d live inside that artist’s painting—the one who came and sat behind our garden that time, to paint the saddest picture in the whole wide world.

  I shouldn’t have told Jess that I knew. He’d done it, of course, but so long as nobody knew about it he can’t have felt truly guilty.

  Now it would never be the same. Somebody knew! And because somebody knew, he’d become a murderer for real.

  It was eight o’clock, according to my alarm clock. Normally I would have been up well before that time, but I didn’t have the energy to get out of bed, get dressed and go down to the kitchen. I think I must have had a fever too. I was shivering and my chest burned when I breathed too deeply.

  I lay there in bed. The silence in the house worried me. There were no noises coming from his bedroom. At last, at half-past eight, I heard the shower splutter into life. He’d got up a bit late, but he was going through his usual morning routine.

  He probably thought I was busy making him his coffee and fried eggs, like every other morning.

  Shortly after that he went downstairs. I listened closely, following his movements about the house. He went into the kitchen.

  He was hardly in there for a second—just long enough to give his shoes a quick brush. He could give breakfast a miss for once.

  Then he left. Was he really going to go without seeing how I was first? It was as if he had a thread tied around his waist—a long thread, and I was holding the other end. Jess could go as far away as he wanted, to the end of the world, even—that thread would still join him to me, without him having the faintest idea that it was there.

  The squeaking of the gate, the purring of the car’s engine, the heavy clunk of the driver’s door… He was leaving all right. Sod it, it didn’t matter. I pulled the sheets up to my nose to enjoy the full effect of my fever. Sometimes it feels good just to lie and sweat in a stiflingly hot bed—it felt like my final refuge.

  Imagine if I was on an Arctic ice floe, floating south. As the temperature rose, the ice floe would melt. Well, the Rooland ice floe had melted—all that remained were these three metres of mattress, on which I could float a little bit longer before I found myself in the sea.

  The purring of the car’s engine, the heavy clunk of the driver’s door, the squeaking of the gate. No doubt about it: Jess had come back!

  He was wearing a suit I hadn’t seen before: with thick purple and blue stripes. A purple shirt. Like a bunch of lilacs. Except he gave off an air of sadness. An air of mourning.

  He was wearing a hat—a straw hat, as usual, with a ribbon that was too big.

  “Why don’t you get up?”

  “I’m ill!”

  He put his hand on my forehead. His touch felt wonderful. It was worth a thousand cold compresses.

  “Do you want me to call a doctor?”

  “No!”

  He wasn’t really interested. He hadn’t come back to see how I was—he wanted to ask me some questions, and he got straight to the point.

  “Louise, you lied to me.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “My wife can’t have told you that I let the crash happen on purpose. She was sleeping when the accident happened!”

  “She must have woken up at the last moment. It wouldn’t have taken long to understand what was happening.”

  “You swore that you were going to tell the truth, Louise.”

  “And I’ll swear it again, Monsieur Rooland. Even in court, if I have to!”

  He nodded his head. The dimple in his chin was deeper than ever.

  “Monsieur Rooland…”

  “Yes?”

  “You know, you have to take me to America. You have to! Don’t worry, I won’t get in the way. I’ll do the housework, and even if you bring other girls home, even if you get married again, I’ll never breathe a word to anyone.”

  “No!”

  “But Monsieur Rooland, I can’t live apart from you. I only want one thing: to see you. To cook your meals, make your coffee…”

  “In the States, men in my position don’t have maids, Louise.”

  “So I’ll find another job near you!”

  He cut me short:

  “I may never go back to the USA, Louise.”

  “My God, really?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not just saying that, for my sake?”

  “No. Tell me, are you really sure that Thelma…”

  Her again! I was sick of Thelma.

  “…that Thelma said those words? You’re sure you heard her correctly?”

  “I’m not deaf. And if you’d seen her eyes, Monsieur Rooland… They were shooting flames. You’re lucky she’s dead, otherwise she would have told the police what you did and you’d be in prison now.”

  He was stunned. He repeated what I’d said, as if he was trying to make sense of it.

  “Lucky that she’s dead!”

  “That’s right.”

  “Thelma would never have accused me of…”

  “But she
did.”

  “She was delirious, Louise, she was just delirious…”

  “No, Monsieur Rooland, she wasn’t delirious, she knew what was going on. She wanted revenge, if you ask me.”

  “Thelma didn’t hold grudges. Even if she did think it was my fault, she wouldn’t have wished me ill.”

  “And what would you know about it? Do you know what it’s like to be on your deathbed? When you can feel your life slipping away, and you know it’s your husband’s fault… of course you bloody well wish him ill!”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed, one of my feet underneath him. It hurt my ankle a bit, but I didn’t budge an inch. I liked to feel his weight pressing down on me. It gave me the feeling that he would always be there.

  “If you knew how much I love you, Monsieur Rooland.”

  I would have liked to call him Jess, like I had on that first evening, but I couldn’t any more.

  My declaration left him cold.

  “So, Thelma died thinking that I’d killed her,” he said, lost in thought.

  It didn’t make any sense. Instead of worrying himself sick over the threat I was to him, all he could think about was Thelma.

  “So what? What difference does it make?” I cried out. “She’s dead. She can’t accuse you any more. There’s only one person you need to worry about, Monsieur Rooland: me!”

  He leant towards me. I hoped he was going to kiss me, but then I saw the empty, glassy look in his eyes.

  “You! You’re a snake, Louise.”

  “Monsieur Rooland!”

  “A snake that bites anyone who comes too close.”

  “And you’re a murderer. All this talk about your love for Thelma—don’t make me laugh! If you loved her, would you have got rid of all her things? Would you have brought a girl back here? Would you have taken advantage of me? There’s nothing in your heart, Jess Rooland. You don’t love anyone. You made your wife unhappy, and when all’s said and done maybe it’s because of you that she ended up a slut.”

  Jess stood up.

  I’ll never forget the way he looked: the grimace on his face, the two furrows above his desperate eyes, his sagging shoulders.

  I slid out of bed and wrapped my arms around his legs.

  He took hold of my chin and tipped my head back.

  “Did Thelma die thinking that I killed her, Louise?”

  I thought I was going mad.

  “Yes!” I screamed. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

  He left.

  NINETEEN

  Rather than going back to my bed, I went to Jess’s. The sheets were cold, but they reminded me of our previous night’s love-making. And they had that Rooland smell, a manly, tobacco-tinged scent that tugged at my heart.

  I curled up in a ball, hugging the pillow to my chest with both arms, whispering Jess’s name to it. I was used to lying like that. I may as well admit it now: I’d done the same every night since I’d arrived on the island.

  After a while, I felt something cold and smooth against my hand, an uncomfortable feeling. Looking down, I saw it was a photo. A photo of Thelma, but a Thelma ten or so years younger than I’d known her, with long hair and a fuller face, beaming with happiness. The photograph had been taken on an American street. I could see some black people in the background, and a policeman too, in a peaked hat, with all sorts of equipment hanging off his belt.

  So, Jess had gone to sleep looking at this photograph?

  Despite the laughter in her eyes, there was a watchfulness to Thelma’s gaze, somehow. It gave me a funny feeling, like she was really looking at me, if you know what I mean? She was looking at me like she had in the ambulance, trying to make sense of something about me, something that isn’t clear.

  And suddenly I understood.

  “Listen, Thelma,” I stammered, “it’s true, I think—you’re the only one he loves. If he set up that accident it was out of love, only out of love, because of your fooling around with that general. He couldn’t get that image out of his head, do you see? But he’ll love you until his dying day. I was wrong to carry on like I did, wrong to want him for myself at any price. You’re stronger than me; you win. I’m just a common kid from Léopoldville who got carried away. The factory, Arthur’s house—that’s where I belong… If people like me want a grand, romantic affair we can watch it in the cinema or on the telly. Fields of cabbages, washing yourself standing up at the sink, mopeds coughing out filthy blue smoke—that’s what our lives are made of. Forgive me, Thelma. Forgive me. When Jess comes back I’ll tell him the truth, all right? You didn’t say anything to me. Nothing! I saw it in your eyes, that’s all. I could have been wrong. I’ll tell him everything, I promise.

  “After that he can think about you as much as he wants, about that highway in New Orleans that goes to the state of Mississippi. By the way, how did you end up meeting on a road like that?”

  The photograph was soaked with my tears now, the image blurring rapidly. And so Thelma died peacefully in my hands—satisfied, it seemed to me.

  Now I couldn’t wait for Jess to come back, for him to give me his Bible so that I could… unswear. When I was little, if anyone (rightly) doubted what I was saying, I would swear to them that it was true, but in secret I was crying out “I unswear! I unswear it for you, baby Jesus!”

  A knock on the front door woke me up. I’d fallen asleep on Madame’s photograph. The rectangle of paper was all crumpled and torn.

  I went to look out of the window and saw the police commissioner on the doorstep.

  “I’m coming!” I cried.

  I was trembling so much I didn’t even manage to put my dress on.

  He seemed taken aback when I opened the door. I can’t have been a pretty sight: unwashed, sickly, my hair all over the place, my face all puffy from crying, my bare feet shoved into a pair of tatty old slippers.

  “I’m sorry, I… I was in bed. I’ve got the flu.”

  “Oh! I’m afraid I’m disturbing you.”

  He was being tactful. I could tell he thought I’d been upstairs with my employer.

  “I’d like to speak to Monsieur Rooland.”

  “He’s not here.”

  I saw a weary scepticism in his eyes.

  “What a pity. When will he be back?”

  “It depends, but if it’s something urgent you can always call him at NATO headquarters.”

  This time he believed me, finally.

  “I have some news for him regarding our investigation. We’ve arrested the people responsible.”

  It was like a hammer blow to the back of my skull.

  “Which people?” I stammered.

  “The ones who raised the level-crossing barrier on the night of the accident. A couple of soldiers on leave. Drunk. Raised the barrier for a laugh. Unfortunately their stupid prank had tragic consequences…”

  The rest became a background hum. I’d stopped listening. I caught the odd phrase here and there.

  “Under arrest… brought before the court…”

  The young commissioner wasn’t paying much attention to his words any more either. I’d bet anything that he’d thought Jess was guilty, just like me.

  The image of Thelma and the general in the car that night, dazed and blinking in the light, must have stayed with him, tormented him. He probably fancied Thelma himself—enough to imagine how her husband might feel, enough to understand his need for revenge… So now he was relieved to have got to the bottom of it all. He’d gone after the culprits—doggedly, methodically—and he’d found them.

  “…You really don’t seem well, I won’t bother you any further…”

  I was seeing everything through a thick fog.

  “Could you please ask Monsieur Rooland to stop by my office?”

  I must have nodded, or said something in response. He raised a finger to his cap in salute and his thin figure disappeared back down the drive.

  In every home, even Arthur’s, there’s a sort of warm vibration in the air that comes from the people living th
ere. No sooner had I shut the front door than the Roolands’ house became a cold, dead thing, like a switch somewhere had been flicked to “off”. A feeling of foreboding came over me. The furniture looked as if it had been slumbering under dust sheets for an age. The floorboards smelt of mould.

  I went over to the telephone. Would it still work? Lifting up the receiver I heard the familiar crackle, but rather than feeling relief at this sign of life, I found myself thinking of the vastness of the skies above, teeming with worlds upon worlds. I dialled the number for NATO headquarters. I had to let Jess know as soon as possible, to tear him from the nightmare I’d plunged him into. They connected me to his office, where a girl asked me who I was. I told her I was Monsieur Rooland’s maid. It gave me a jolt to hear myself say it. His maid! Yes, that’s all I was, just a maid: somebody who does the dishes, shines the shoes and scrubs the floors, not somebody who acts out an epic romance novel with her employer.

  “What is the reason for your call?”

  The girl on the end of the line had an American accent, stronger than Jess’s.

  “I’d like to speak with Monsieur.”

  “With which Monsieur?”

  “My Monsieur, of course! Monsieur Rooland.”

  “He’s not here at the moment.”

  She certainly had a piercing voice, this secretary. Perhaps it was because of her bad French. Maybe she didn’t trust the words she was saying to get her meaning across.

  “As soon as he arrives in the office, can you tell him to call the house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t forget, it’s very important.”

  Her answer to that was to hang up.

  I did the same, blindly fumbling to put the phone back on the hook as I stared into space, lost in thought. I could feel the blood pounding in my temples. The shivers running through my body were coming more and more quickly now. I went and took some aspirin. I had to get rid of this flu. I was going to need all my strength to tell Jess the truth. How could I ever own up to a lie like this?

  I didn’t have the strength to look into his solemn child’s eyes, to see his contempt for me in them. I wouldn’t be able to go on after that.