The Blue Room Read online

  He had tried to explain this to the psychiatrist, and at the time Bigot had seemed to understand, but a bit later, through some question or remark, he had shown that he hadn’t understood at all.

  If Tony had been thinking about living with her, he wouldn’t have said, ‘Sure!’

  He hadn’t the slightest idea what he would have replied, but he would have found other words. Andrée had rightly sensed that, for she had pressed him on it.

  ‘Really sure? … Wouldn’t you be afraid?’

  ‘Afraid of what?’

  ‘Can you imagine what our days would be like?’

  ‘We’d get used to it in the end!’

  ‘Used to what?’

  Was that real life? Would he have spoken like that to Gisèle? Andrée, sprawled sated on the bed, was playing the game, along with him.

  ‘To us.’

  Precisely. They were ‘us’ only in a bed, in the blue room they strove in a kind of frenzy – to use that journalist’s word – to impregnate with their odour.

  They had never been a couple elsewhere, except when they made love the first time, in the tall grass and nettles beside Bois de Sarelle.

  ‘If you didn’t love her, how do you explain …’

  What did they mean by love? Could Professor Bigot – who prided himself on his scientific credentials – have defined that word for him? His daughter had just got married: how did she love her husband?

  And the little magistrate, Monsieur Diem, with his halo of unruly hair … His wife had recently given him his first child, and, like all young fathers, he must have had, like Tony, to get up at night to bottle-feed the baby. What kind of love did he feel for his wife?

  To answer their questions, Tony would have had to tell them things that don’t bear talking about, moments like those he had experienced at Les Sables-d’Olonne.

  ‘Why choose Les Sables over some beach in Brittany or the Vendée?’

  ‘Because that’s where we went during the first year of our marriage.’

  ‘So your wife may have thought that it was a pilgrimage, that this spot had some sentimental value for you? Isn’t that exactly what you would have done if you were trying to allay her suspicions?’

  All he could do was bite his tongue and boil with anger inside. It was useless to fight back.

  Could he tell them about the last day at the shore? First, that morning … Lying under the beach umbrella, sometimes he would glance through half-closed eyelids at his wife, sitting in a striped deck chair, hurrying to finish the sky-blue pullover.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ she had asked him.

  ‘You.’

  ‘And just what are you thinking?’

  ‘That I was lucky to meet you.’

  It wasn’t the whole truth. Behind him, he could hear Marianne pretending to read the text of a picture book, and he had been reflecting that, in twelve or fifteen years, she would be in love, she would get married, she would leave them to share the life of a man.

  Of a stranger, in effect, because it takes more than a few months, or two or three years, for a married couple to really know each other.

  That’s how he had arrived at Gisèle: he was watching her knit, relaxed, focused.

  Just when she had asked her question, he had been wondering what she was thinking.

  To tell the truth, he did not know what she thought of him, how she saw him, how she judged his actions.

  They had been married for seven years. So he had then tried to imagine their life to come. They would gradually grow old. Marianne would become a young lady. They would attend her wedding. One day, she would tell them that she was expecting, and when the baby arrived they would take second place behind the father.

  Wouldn’t that be the moment when he and Gisèle would truly love each other? Don’t couples take long years to learn how to know each other, sharing many memories, ones like those of this very morning they were living now?

  They must have been thinking along the same lines because shortly afterwards, his wife murmured, ‘It feels strange to think that Marianne is already heading off to school …’

  And he was all the way up to her wedding!

  Their daughter sensed that she could get away with anything at the beach and was taking complete advantage of her father – that afternoon more than ever. She never left him alone for a minute. The tide was out, the distant sea beyond reach: for more than an hour, he had to help Marianne build an enormous fortress in the sand, or, rather, he had to follow her orders. And, like old Angelo in his garden, she kept demanding one more thing: a moat, a ditch, a drawbridge.

  ‘Now let’s go and find shells to pave the courtyard and the paths outside.’

  ‘Watch out for the sun. Put on your hat!’

  They’d bought her a Venetian gondolier’s hat in a seaside shop.

  Gisèle didn’t dare add, ‘Don’t wear your father out!’

  Each carrying a red pail, they had traipsed the entire length of the beach, father and daughter, heads down, eyes peeled for the gleam of a shell in the brown sand, sometimes tripping over the leg of a stretched-out sunbather or nimbly avoiding a beach ball.

  Did he feel he was fulfilling a duty, earning forgiveness for some failing, atoning for a fault committed? In all honesty, he would not have known. What he did know was that this walk in the sunshine, accompanied by the fluting voice of his daughter, was both melancholy and sweet.

  He was happy, and sad. Not because of Andrée, or of Nicolas. He didn’t remember giving them a thought. He would freely have said: happy and sad like life itself.

  When they turned around, to the sound of the music from the nearby casino, the way back looked long, and their goal distant, especially to Marianne, who began dragging her feet.

  ‘Tired?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘You want me to carry you on my shoulders?’

  She had laughed, revealing the gap in her teeth.

  ‘I’m too big!’

  When she had been two or three, that had been her favourite game. He had always carried her up to bed at night that way.

  ‘People will laugh at you,’ she added, sorely tempted.

  He had hoisted her up and, since she was holding on to his head, he carried both the pails.

  ‘I’m not too heavy?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is it true I’m skinny?’

  ‘Who says so?’

  ‘Roland.’

  He was the blacksmith’s son.

  ‘He’s a year younger than me and he weighs twenty-five kilos. Me, I only weigh nineteen. I got weighed before we left, on the scale at the grocery store.’

  ‘Boys are heavier than girls.’

  ‘Why?’

  Pensively, Gisèle watched them approach, perhaps with a pang in her heart. He set his daughter down on the sand.

  ‘Help me add the shells.’

  ‘Don’t you think you’re overdoing it, Marianne? Your father is here to rest. He has to go back to work the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘He’s the one who wanted to carry me!’

  Their eyes had met.

  ‘It’s the last day of holiday for her, too,’ he had said lightly in her defence.

  Gisèle had said nothing further, but he thought he had glimpsed a grateful look in her eye.

  Grateful for what? For having devoted himself, for two weeks, to both of them?

  It seemed only natural to him …

  4.

  Sometimes he had to wait in the corridor outside the magistrate’s door, sitting handcuffed on a bench between two gendarmes, different ones almost every time.

  He no longer felt humiliated, had stopped raging inside. He watched people pass by, prisoners and witnesses going to wait in front of other doors, robed lawyers flapping their big sleeves like wings, and he didn’t flinch when anyone glanced at him curiously or turned around to stare.

  Once inside the magistrate’s chambers, after removing his handcuffs, the guards would leave at a sign
from Diem, who would apologize for being late or having been detained then automatically hold out his silver cigarette case. It had become a ritual.

  The chambers were old-fashioned, not all that clean, as in train stations and administrative buildings: greenish walls, a black marble mantelpiece topped with a clock – also black – that had probably been showing 11.55 for years now.

  Sometimes the magistrate started by saying, ‘I don’t think I’ll be needing you, Monsieur Trinquet.’

  The clerk with the brown moustache would leave, carrying some work he would go God knows where to do, which meant that they would not really be talking about the facts of the matter.

  ‘I suppose you have understood why I ask you questions that don’t seem to have any bearing on the case. I am trying to establish, in a way, a certain foundation, a personal file on you.’

  They could hear the noises of the town, see the open windows across the street and people in their homes going about their daily business. The magistrate allowed Tony to stand up whenever he needed to stretch his legs, walk up and down, go and spend a moment watching the bustling street.

  ‘I would like you to describe, for example, the course of your day at work.’

  ‘Well, that depends on what day of the week it is, and in which season. Most of all, it varies with the fairs and market days.’

  Realizing that he had spoken in the present tense, Tony caught himself with a wan smile.

  ‘At least it used to … I’d follow the fairs within a radius of about thirty kilometres, the ones at Virieux, Ambasse, Chiron. Do you want the entire list?’

  ‘That isn’t necessary.’

  ‘On those days, I’d leave early, sometimes at five in the morning.’

  ‘Did your wife get up to fix you breakfast?’

  ‘She insisted on it. On other days, I’d have appointments out at various farms, to demonstrate some machinery or carry out repairs. Sometimes customers would come to me, and we’d be out in the shed.’

  ‘Let’s take an average day.’

  ‘Gisèle would get up first, at six.’

  She would slip quietly out of bed, taking along her salmon-pink dressing gown, and he would soon hear her lighting the fire in the kitchen range, just below him. Then she would go out to the garden to throw cracked corn to the hens and feed the rabbits.

  Towards 6.30 he would simply run a comb through his thick hair and go downstairs without washing or shaving. The table was set in the kitchen, without a cloth, because it had a Formica top. They would eat together while Marianne slept on, as late as she liked.

  ‘Until she started school. Then we had to wake her up at seven.’

  ‘Did you drive her there?’

  ‘Only for the first few days.’

  ‘You did so yourself?’

  ‘My wife drove her, and then did her shopping. Otherwise, she would go to the village towards nine, going to the butcher’s shop or the grocery store …’

  ‘The Despierres’ store?’

  ‘It’s more or less the only grocery in Saint-Justin.’

  During the mornings in particular, a half-dozen women were always gathered in the shop, chatting under the low ceiling while awaiting their turns. One day, he had compared the place to a church sacristy, he no longer remembered why.

  ‘Did your wife ever send you on errands?’

  ‘Only when I went to Triant or some other town, for things we couldn’t find in the village.’

  He realized that these questions were not as innocent as they seemed, but he still answered them frankly, trying to be precise.

  ‘Did you ever go inside the Despierre grocery store?’

  ‘Once every two months, maybe … When my wife was doing a thorough housecleaning, say, or if she had the flu …’

  ‘On what day did she clean the house?’

  ‘Saturday.’

  That was typical. Monday was wash day, while Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on the weather and if the laundry was dry or not, would be spent ironing. It was the same in most of the village houses, and on some mornings the yards and gardens were completely decked out in laundry pinned to clotheslines.

  ‘What time did your mail arrive?’

  ‘It wasn’t delivered to the house. The train goes through Saint-Justin at 8.07 in the morning, and the bags are taken straight to the post office. Our place is at the far end of the village, so we’re at the end of the postman’s round – he’d only get to us around noon. I preferred to go to the post office, where I often had to wait for them to finish sorting. Otherwise, they held my letters for me.’

  ‘We’ll come back to that. Did you walk there?’

  ‘Usually. I only took the van if I had something to do outside the village.’

  ‘Say, every other day? A few times a week?’

  ‘More like every other day, except in the middle of winter, because I didn’t drive around as much then.’

  He would have had to explain his profession in detail, the rhythm of the seasons, the crops. For example, when they had returned from the seaside the fairs were at their height. Then the grape harvests had followed, and fields were ploughed in the autumn in readiness for spring, so that he was overwhelmed with work.

  That first Thursday, he had avoided taking Rue Neuve to see if Andrée had put the towel in the window. He had already said that to Diem, who had gone over it anyway.

  ‘You’d decided not to see her again?’

  ‘“Decided” isn’t the right word …’

  ‘Wasn’t that because you’d heard from her through some other channel?’

  This time, he had made a mistake and he had realized it the moment he opened his mouth. Too late: the words, already prepared, were leaving his lips.

  ‘I received no news from her.’

  He wasn’t lying for himself. And he wasn’t aware of lying for Andrée, either. It was from some sort of fidelity, or male honesty.

  On the day of that interview, Tony remembered, it had been raining, and Monsieur Trinquet, the clerk, was at his end of the table.

  ‘You came home from Les Sables with your wife and daughter on 17 August. The first Thursday, contrary to your usual routine, you did not go to Triant. Were you afraid of encountering Andrée Despierre?’

  ‘Perhaps. But I would not use the word “afraid”.’

  ‘Let’s continue. On the following Thursday you had an appointment at ten that morning with a certain Félicien Hurlot, the secretary of a farming cooperative. You met him at your brother’s hotel. You had lunch there with your client and you drove home to Saint-Justin without showing yourself on Place du Marché. Still to avoid any possibility of finding yourself face to face with your mistress?’

  He found it impossible to reply. He truly did not know. For weeks he had been in a fog, confused, not asking himself any questions and, above all, not making any decisions.

  What he could honestly say was that he felt a new distance between himself and Andrée, and that he stayed more at home, as if he needed to be close to his family.

  ‘On 4 September …’

  While the magistrate was talking, Tony tried to remember what that date could mean.

  ‘On 4 September, you received the first letter.’

  He had turned red.

  ‘I don’t know what letter you mean.’

  ‘Your name and your address, on the envelope, were written in block letters. It was postmarked Triant.’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  He kept on lying, since it seemed too late to change his story now.

  ‘The postmaster, Monsieur Bouvier, made a comment to you about that letter.’

  Diem pulled a page from his file and read it aloud.

  ‘“I told him: Tony, it looks to me just like an anonymous letter. People who send anonymous letters write like that.”

  ‘That still doesn’t refresh your memory?’

  He shook his head, ashamed of lying, because he lied badly, flushing red, staring into space so that no one could se
e the misery in his eyes.

  Although it bore no signature, the letter was still revealing in its own way. The text, quite short, was also written in block letters.

  Everything is fine. Don’t be afraid.

  ‘You see, Monsieur Falcone, I am convinced that the person who wrote to you and went to mail this letter from Triant was disguising the writing for fear of being identified not by you, but by the postmaster. That would suggest someone from Saint-Justin, whose normal handwriting is familiar to Monsieur Bouvier. The following week, there was a second envelope, just like the first, addressed to you.

  ‘Making light of it, the postmaster said to you, “Well, well! I may have been mistaken. There may be some love story behind all this.”’

  The text was no longer than the first message.

  I haven’t forgotten. I love you.

  He had been so shaken that he hadn’t dared go anywhere near Rue Neuve and had detoured around it to go to the station, where he often received machine parts sent on the high-speed train.

  He had spent several anxious weeks going off to the markets and farms or working in overalls at home in the shed.

  More often than in the past, he would cross the field to the house to find Gisèle busy peeling vegetables, washing the tile floor in the kitchen or tidying the bedrooms upstairs. With Marianne in school, the house seemed emptier. When she came home at four, he felt impelled to come and see them in the kitchen, sitting across from each other having their afternoon snack, each with her own pot of jam.

  Later they would go over that again as well, and more than once. Marianne liked only strawberry jam, whereas strawberries, even when cooked, gave her mother a rash, so she preferred plum jam.

  At the beginning of their marriage, Gisèle’s tastes in food had amused him, and he had teased her about them.

  Because of her blonde hair, pale skin and oval face, people often said there was something angelic about her.

  Actually, she liked only strong flavours: pickled herring, salads with lots of garlic and vinegar, and strong cheeses. It wasn’t unusual, when she was working in the kitchen garden, to see her munching on a big raw onion. Yet she didn’t touch sweets and never ate dessert. He was the one fond of pastry.