this is where it’s going to happen.’
‘Where what’s going to happen?’
‘I don’t know … I’ve just got a feeling about it, something important. It’s hard to explain, it’s just knowing that there’s a kind of … logic to it all …You know, many years ago, when I was four or five, my mother lost me at a market. I was all alone in a forest of moving people, their legs cutting across me like scissors every way I turned. At first I was scared, short of breath, frozen with panic at having no hand to guide me … and then suddenly it struck me that, in fact, I was right where I was supposed to be. How can I describe it? I was like a stone at the side of a road; I stopped asking questions, I was just there. I remember it very clearly, that feeling of certainty, of total belief … Didn’t stop me spending the rest of my life wondering what the hell I was doing here … Oh, it’s raining.’
A few drops spattered down on the dusty ground, warm and heavy, slow enough to count. It made you want to ask the sky, ‘Is that all you’ve got to show for yourself?’, as the clouds slunk away.
‘Gilbert still hasn’t called me back … I’m sorry.’
‘Let’s wait a while longer and if we don’t hear from him, I’ll take you home.’
‘Oh no, you won’t! It’s a long way. And then there are the gypsies …’
‘Oh please, not you as well! Otherwise, you’ll just have to staythe night here. Unless Maxime’s “revelations” have put you off me …?’
‘I couldn’t care less; it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Whatever makes you happy.’
‘Do you like opera?
Madame Butterfly
?’
Maria Callas’s voice rose and fell like water spurting from a fountain. The temperature had not changed; it was still just as hot, the air just as static. The moon had now appeared, right in the middle of the sky. Suddenly a loud bang blew it to smithereens. Nadine and Léa got up off their loungers in unison, each as pale as the other.
‘Was that a gun?’
‘I don’t know … It came from the Sudres’.’
All things considered, you could get on just fine with a fly. You only had to rub along together and lay out ground rules that suited you both. Not that you had much choice in the matter … Now, for example, the fly must be asleep. Thus, in order to avoid disturbing it, Odette tried to make as little movement as possible. Why was it so difficult to live together? Why did you always have to pick sides? Why had they all started laying into each other? The scene at the clubhouse had left a shameful taste in her mouth, something obscene and indecent she could not get rid of. People turn stupid and ugly when they’re angry, even Léa … So what if Léa liked women? … A manager she had shared an office with for twenty years was one of them too, and it had never been an issue. We all have our weaknesses … Martial had not stopped grinding his teeth all evening. The day’s events seemed to haveknocked him sideways, perhaps even more than her. ‘I’m going for a walk’; he had barely touched his dinner. He’s a sensitive soul, Martial, he doesn’t give anything away, bottles it all up inside … ‘The Mystery of the Ministry’, his colleagues used to call him. Perhaps the two of them needed to get away for a few days … Even when you spent your whole life on holiday, you were still entitled to a break now and then! … Maybe they could go up to the mountains; it would be cooler there … Take a step back, see the bigger picture …
A gunshot doesn’t sound like a tyre bursting or a firework going off. It’s in the silence that follows that you begin to gauge the gravity of it. Odette had the impression it was the moon that had been fired at; she saw it quivering like a gong, right in the middle of the sky. It came from just behind the house … the way Martial had gone …
Monsieur Flesh looked like a starfish washed ashore, arms and legs outstretched and his face reduced to a
‘Where what’s going to happen?’
‘I don’t know … I’ve just got a feeling about it, something important. It’s hard to explain, it’s just knowing that there’s a kind of … logic to it all …You know, many years ago, when I was four or five, my mother lost me at a market. I was all alone in a forest of moving people, their legs cutting across me like scissors every way I turned. At first I was scared, short of breath, frozen with panic at having no hand to guide me … and then suddenly it struck me that, in fact, I was right where I was supposed to be. How can I describe it? I was like a stone at the side of a road; I stopped asking questions, I was just there. I remember it very clearly, that feeling of certainty, of total belief … Didn’t stop me spending the rest of my life wondering what the hell I was doing here … Oh, it’s raining.’
A few drops spattered down on the dusty ground, warm and heavy, slow enough to count. It made you want to ask the sky, ‘Is that all you’ve got to show for yourself?’, as the clouds slunk away.
‘Gilbert still hasn’t called me back … I’m sorry.’
‘Let’s wait a while longer and if we don’t hear from him, I’ll take you home.’
‘Oh no, you won’t! It’s a long way. And then there are the gypsies …’
‘Oh please, not you as well! Otherwise, you’ll just have to staythe night here. Unless Maxime’s “revelations” have put you off me …?’
‘I couldn’t care less; it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Whatever makes you happy.’
‘Do you like opera?
Madame Butterfly
?’
Maria Callas’s voice rose and fell like water spurting from a fountain. The temperature had not changed; it was still just as hot, the air just as static. The moon had now appeared, right in the middle of the sky. Suddenly a loud bang blew it to smithereens. Nadine and Léa got up off their loungers in unison, each as pale as the other.
‘Was that a gun?’
‘I don’t know … It came from the Sudres’.’
All things considered, you could get on just fine with a fly. You only had to rub along together and lay out ground rules that suited you both. Not that you had much choice in the matter … Now, for example, the fly must be asleep. Thus, in order to avoid disturbing it, Odette tried to make as little movement as possible. Why was it so difficult to live together? Why did you always have to pick sides? Why had they all started laying into each other? The scene at the clubhouse had left a shameful taste in her mouth, something obscene and indecent she could not get rid of. People turn stupid and ugly when they’re angry, even Léa … So what if Léa liked women? … A manager she had shared an office with for twenty years was one of them too, and it had never been an issue. We all have our weaknesses … Martial had not stopped grinding his teeth all evening. The day’s events seemed to haveknocked him sideways, perhaps even more than her. ‘I’m going for a walk’; he had barely touched his dinner. He’s a sensitive soul, Martial, he doesn’t give anything away, bottles it all up inside … ‘The Mystery of the Ministry’, his colleagues used to call him. Perhaps the two of them needed to get away for a few days … Even when you spent your whole life on holiday, you were still entitled to a break now and then! … Maybe they could go up to the mountains; it would be cooler there … Take a step back, see the bigger picture …
A gunshot doesn’t sound like a tyre bursting or a firework going off. It’s in the silence that follows that you begin to gauge the gravity of it. Odette had the impression it was the moon that had been fired at; she saw it quivering like a gong, right in the middle of the sky. It came from just behind the house … the way Martial had gone …
Monsieur Flesh looked like a starfish washed ashore, arms and legs outstretched and his face reduced to a
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