The Blue Room Page 8

  Now that she was a big girl, as she proudly claimed after starting school, she had helped her father decorate the Christmas tree and had herself placed the plaster shepherds and sheep around the manger.

  ‘You insist you knew nothing of what was happening in the Despierre family?’

  ‘I knew, through my wife, that the mother had returned to the counter in the store, but that the two women were still not talking to each other.’

  ‘Wasn’t there some mention of a lawsuit?’

  ‘I overheard a conversation about that in a café.’

  His job sometimes involved spending a certain amount of time in small village cafés, most of them dimly lit, where men simply sat nursing beers, their discussions growing louder as the hours went by. There were six cafés in Saint-Justin, although three of them did good business only on fair days.

  ‘And did you expect as well that the two women would wind up going to court?’

  ‘Your Honour, I tell you I paid no attention to all that.’

  ‘Still, you were aware of the situation?’

  ‘Like everyone else. The word was that old Madame Despierre, crafty as she was, had made a bad bargain, and that Andrée had come out the winner in the end.’

  ‘You didn’t know if that was true?’

  ‘How could I have?’

  ‘Your mistress, during your eleven-month liaison, did not tell you that she and her husband owned everything in common?’

  ‘We never discussed her marriage.’

  They had spent so little time talking that they might better have not talked at all. And the magistrate proved it by returning once more to that last Thursday in the blue room.

  ‘Still, you did speak of your future together.’

  ‘Those words were just air, we didn’t take them seriously.’

  ‘She didn’t? You’re sure about Andrée? Allow me to remind you that two months before the death of her husband, she was anticipating that event.’

  He was about to protest, but Diem kept talking.

  ‘Perhaps not specifically, but she was alluding to his disappearance when she asked you how you would feel when she became free.’

  He would have given anything – an arm, a leg, an eye – if only certain words had never been spoken! He was ashamed to have heard them without protest and hated that other Tony standing before the mirror, dabbing at his bloody lip, proud of his nakedness in the sunlight, of being an admired, handsome male, of seeing his seed dripping from any female’s vulva.

  ‘Would you like to live with me always?’

  And a little later, ‘Are you still bleeding?’

  She was pleased at herself for having bitten him, obliging him to go home and show his wife and daughter the mark of their lovemaking!

  ‘What will you say, if she asks about it?’

  She: that was Gisèle, and he had spoken of her so carelessly, as if she were of no importance.

  ‘I’ll tell her I bumped into my windshield, say, from braking too suddenly.’

  He felt the treachery of those words so deeply that when Marianne, not Gisèle, had asked him about his swollen lip, he had changed his explanation and turned the windshield into a lamp-post.

  ‘Would you like to spend your whole life with me?’

  What would have happened if the train hadn’t whistled, as if to shout at him in warning, when she was saying in her throaty voice, ‘Tell me, Tony. If I became free …’

  Now he hated those words!

  ‘Would you free yourself too?’

  Could he admit to the magistrate that he had heard those words throbbing in his ears all winter, that they haunted him at the table in the kitchen with its steamed-up windows, that he was even saying them over to himself at the very moment when his daughter was discovering the toys under the Christmas tree?

  ‘The grocery store on Rue Neuve,’ continued Diem implacably, ‘the houses, the farms, the hamlet of La Guipotte now belong to the two women, and Andrée Despierre has the right to force the public auction of the entire estate in order to collect her part of the inheritance.’

  He paused for a long moment.

  ‘There’s been a lot of talk about this in Saint-Justin, hasn’t there?’

  ‘I believe so. Yes.’

  ‘Was it not felt that old lady Despierre would never accept having part of her property fall into the hands of strangers? Isn’t that why she returned to the store, beside the daughter-in-law she detests and to whom she refuses to speak? Everything depended on Andrée, and her decision depended on yours …’

  He gave a start and couldn’t help opening his mouth as if to object …

  ‘I’m telling you what everyone was saying. That’s why they watched you, wondering whose side you would take. Old lady Despierre belongs to the village, she’s one of them, even if they resent her stubborn greed.

  ‘As for Andrée, they’ve never liked her grand airs and only tolerated her out of respect for her father’s memory.

  ‘And you: not only were your parents foreigners, but you abandoned the area for ten years, and people wondered why you had returned.’

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘Nothing in particular. The betting was on. Many people expected that Andrée would have everything sold, going to court if necessary, and that once in possession of the spoils she’d leave Saint-Justin with you.

  ‘The person everyone felt the sorriest for was your wife, despite her lack of strong ties to the villagers. Do you know what some of them called her? “The sweet little lady who tries so hard”.’

  Diem smiled as he placed an index finger on one of the files.

  ‘Everything I’ve told you today is in here, in black and white. They all talked in the end. Your lawyer, I repeat, has a copy of this file. He could have been present during these interviews. He decided, with your approval, to leave you on your own.’

  ‘I asked him to.’

  ‘I know. Although I still don’t understand why.’

  What use was it to explain that, when he went to confession, the priest behind the grille didn’t bother him, but a third person would have turned him mute. And although Diem feigned astonishment, he knew this so well that, whenever he tackled a difficult point, a delicate matter, he was careful to send away his clerk.

  ‘And now, Monsieur Falcone, shall we discuss the two last letters, the ones sent at the end of December and on 20 January?’

  5.

  His lawyer, too, kept on at him about the letters.

  ‘Why don’t you tell the truth about them as you did about everything else? You definitely received those letters. The postmaster in Saint-Justin could not possibly have invented them.’

  Like a kid who has lied and is too proud to admit it, he would say over and over, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  In his case, it wasn’t pride, but perhaps a remnant of loyalty to the blue room. He had never intended to marry Andrée. Even if they had both been free, if neither of them had been married, it would never have occurred to him to make her his wife.

  Why? He didn’t know.

  ‘Admit that her passion unnerved you,’ Professor Bigot had suggested. ‘It must have been a shock when you discovered, that September evening next to the little wood, that the woman you’d thought of as a statue, calm and aloof, could change into a sexually voracious female.’

  ‘It did surprise me.’

  ‘Flattered you, too, probably. Because it now seems that she was sincere in claiming to have loved you ever since you were in school together.’

  ‘I felt somewhat responsible.’

  ‘Responsible for this passion?’

  ‘That isn’t the right word … It seemed to me that I owed her something. This isn’t quite the right comparison, but when a lost cat starts following you, meowing pitifully, and then camps out on your doorstep, you feel responsible for what might happen to it.’

  Bigot seemed to understand. This interview took place during the second or third week of
Tony’s imprisonment. The first time he had left his cell had been to go to the courthouse, and exceptional precautions had been taken on account of the reporters, photographers and eager onlookers packing the main staircase there.

  Just as he had been about to climb into the Black Maria, the prison warden had rushed up, alerted by a phone call from the public prosecutor, and he had been returned to his cell for almost an hour.

  When they had brought him out again, he was no longer escorted by gendarmes but by Inspector Mani and a plainclothes policeman. The police van was not in the prison courtyard, having been sent on with two relatively unknown detainees to mislead the crowd.

  He had gone off in an ordinary car without special markings, which had pulled up near a small door at the back of the courthouse.

  They had played the same game for two weeks. Stirred up by the press, the public had turned against him to the point of threatening violence.

  Two months had passed. Most of the journalists from Paris and other big cities had left Poitiers, leaving the job of following the case to local correspondents and press agency representatives.

  Now and then he had come across images in magazines and newsreels of defendants being hustled through crowds to get to court or prison, protected by policemen and trying to hide their faces.

  Now he was like them, except that he did not cover his face. Did he look like them? Like someone already excluded from human society and unable to understand why?

  He kept himself under control. Before the examining magistrate, he did not behave like a hunted man. He answered questions as best he could, like a good schoolboy, proud of his sincerity and attention to detail, except on the subject of the letters. He was convinced that if he gave in on that point, he would never see the end of it.

  He had received the December letter on New Year’s Eve. The frozen snow crackled underfoot. People were beginning to call out ‘Happy New Year!’ when they met.

  ‘And a Happy New Year to you, too!’

  The sky was clear, the air crisp. Some kids were taking turns sliding down the middle of Rue Neuve. The postmaster had made no comment when handing over his mail, which Tony usually glanced through off in a corner of the post office.

  Happy Our Year.

  The blow to his heart, the pain, had been more violent this time. He sensed some mysterious menace in this message. The words had been carefully chosen, that was obvious, and he struggled to understand them. Wasn’t that ‘our’ the core of Andrée’s thinking?

  He had burned it, this last letter of the year, for the banks of the Orneau were sheathed in ice, and the river was down to a trickle.

  The next morning, he had gone with his wife and child to wish old Angelo a Happy New Year. His father had hardly said a word, not looking even once at Marianne, and Tony thought he knew why. Didn’t she remind him of both his dead wife and daughter?

  As they did every year, they had gone that afternoon to see his brother, who had to keep the hotel and café open for the holiday.

  Early that morning he had found his wife alone in the kitchen and had hugged her tight for a long time, her head leaning against his shoulder.

  ‘Happy New Year, Gisèle.’

  Had she sensed the special intensity of his emotion? Had she understood how worried he was, how afraid that this new year would not be a happy one for them?

  ‘Happy New Year, Tony.’

  Then she had looked up at him and smiled. She could never really manage a big smile, though, so it had made him feel more wistful than relieved.

  Ever since Marianne had started school, he and his wife had eaten their midday meal together. Since many children attended from farms several kilometres away and hadn’t the time to go home for lunch, the teacher had set up a canteen. Marianne, who loved being at school, had begged her parents to let her eat there.

  ‘She’s going through a phase,’ Gisèle told him. ‘I’m sure that next year, she’ll change her mind.’

  It wasn’t always easy for Tony to sit across from Gisèle while trying to hide all his worries from her. What did they say to each other? Silence made them both uneasy, and they would talk lightly about anything at all, meaningless chitchat, and be startled whenever they both simply ran out of words.

  The last letter had made things still worse. Andrée was practically giving him an order and reminding him of what she considered a promise. The message was only two words, written in big letters that took up the whole page.

  Now You!

  He had opened the envelope, as always, in the post office, on the desk with the violet ink, a broken pen and the forms for telegrams and postal orders. He could not have said afterwards how he had behaved; strangely, no doubt, because, behind his little window, Monsieur Bouvier had been concerned and asked him if he had received bad news.

  ‘I’d never seen him like that before,’ the postmaster would later tell the magistrate. ‘He looked like a man who’d just received a death sentence. He didn’t answer, just looked at me, but I’m not sure he even saw me. Then he rushed outside without stopping to close the door.’

  Fortunately, he had been planning to visit some farms and had his car with him that day. He drove aimlessly, staring hard at the road, without a thought for the customers awaiting him. He went wherever the road took him, trying desperately to see those two words in some reassuring light yet knowing it was hopeless. They could mean only one thing: ‘Your turn!’

  ‘When I think of the years you cost me …’

  She wasn’t going to waste any more time. Now that she had taken possession of him, she would finally see her childhood dream, still alive after all those years, come true.

  Could she really have waited so long for Tony without anything breaking that spell?

  The psychiatrist seemed to think so. Perhaps he had seen similar cases.

  Andrée was telling him, in no uncertain terms: ‘I’ve done my part; now you do yours.’

  Or else? Because the threat was understood. He had not protested when she had said, behind his back, ‘Tell me, Tony. If I became free …’

  And free she had been, for two months now, after developments he refused to think about. Free and rich. Free to do as she liked with the rest of her life without answering to anyone.

  ‘Would you free yourself too?’

  He had not replied. Didn’t she know, in her heart of hearts, that he had deliberately avoided answering her? True, there had been that strident, outraged whistle from the train … Andrée might have imagined that he had said yes, or had nodded in reply.

  Now you!

  If she truly wasn’t expecting him to refuse, what did she think he would do?

  Divorce his wife? Go to Gisèle and tell her point-blank …

  Unthinkable. He had nothing against his wife. He had known what he was doing when he married her. He didn’t want an impassioned mistress for a wife but a woman exactly like Gisèle, and her shy modesty had not displeased him – on the contrary.

  One doesn’t spend one’s life in a bed with someone, in a room glowing with sunshine, in the naked embrace of bodily passion.

  Gisèle was his companion, Marianne’s mother, the first one downstairs in the morning to light the fire, the one who kept the house clean and cheerful, welcoming him without any questions when he came home.

  They would grow closer together as they grew old together, for they would have more and more memories to share. Sometimes Tony imagined the conversations they would have in later years, when they began to feel their age.

  ‘You remember that grand passion of yours?’

  Who knows? Gisèle’s smile might ripen with time into its full glory. And flattered, a touch ashamed, he might reply, ‘Oh, that’s a bit of an exaggeration.’

  ‘If you could have seen yourself, when you came home from Triant!’

  ‘I was young …’

  ‘Luckily, I already knew you rather well by then. I had faith in you, although sometimes I did feel afraid. Especially after Nicolas died. The
n she was suddenly free …’

  ‘She tried …’

  ‘To get you to ask for a divorce? Sometimes I even wonder if she didn’t love you more than I did.’

  He would take her hand, in the twilight. Because he imagined them together in front of their house, in the summer, with night coming on.

  ‘I pity her. Even back then there were days when I felt sorry for her.’

  And now he was being ordered, in two words, to have done with Gisèle!

  Now you!

  The more he considered those words, the more sinister they became. Andrée had not divorced Nicolas. He had died. In the bedroom above the grocery store, she was the only one who had witnessed his death agony. She had waited until he was gone before crossing the garden to alert her mother-in-law.

  Was it really a divorce she had in mind for him?

  Now you!

  Driving around without knowing where he was, sometimes he screamed in rage: ‘Now you! Now you! Now you! Now you …’

  How could he awaken from this nightmare? Go to Andrée’s house and tell her straight out: ‘I will never divorce my wife. I love her.’

  ‘What about me?’

  Would he dare reply, ‘I don’t love you’?

  ‘But …’

  She was capable of cutting right to the heart of his thoughts with a glare of defiance.

  ‘But you let me kill Nicolas.’

  He had suspected her right away. So had Gisèle. Along with most of the villagers. It was only an intuition. People didn’t know what had happened. Maybe she had simply let him die by not sending for help.

  He had had nothing to do with it.

  ‘You know perfectly well, Andrée, that …’

  He couldn’t even run away from her by leaving Saint-Justin with his family. He had not yet finished paying off his house, the shed, the equipment. He was only just beginning to enjoy a certain prosperity and provide his family with a comfortable life.

  It was unbelievable, it made no sense. He wound up stopping at an inn for a drink. Tony’s sobriety was so well known that the woman who served him, while keeping an eye on her baby playing on the floor, began worrying about him, too. She would give evidence later on as well.