obstructed by a vertical trap door. Gab had made room for it twenty years earlier when removing some bricks. Whenever he put something in there, he would cover the surface over again with roughcast in order to hide the recess from view. Because of his precautions, Gabrielle knew that she could not be indiscreet without providing proof of it. Out of love initially, then out of fear, she had always respected Gab’s secret. Often, he made fun of it, and joked about it, testing her resistance . . .
Now there was nothing stopping her from breaking through the plaster wall.
The first three days, she thought it would seem indecent to go up there with a hammer and wrecking bar; and in any case, given the stream of visitors, she wouldn’t have had time. On the fourth day, when she saw that neither the telephone nor the doorbell were ringing, she promised herself that after a quick visit to her antique store, three hundred yards down the road, she would satisfy her curiosity.
At the very edge of town, the sign “G. and G. de Sarlat” in golden letters soberly announced an antique store of the kind that the region preferred: a place where one could hunt around both for major items—dressers, tables, wardrobes—to furnish immense secondary residences, and for knickknacks—lamps, mirrors, statuettes—to decorate well-furnished interiors. There was no particular style that dominated there, but most were represented, including some dreadful imitations, provided they were over a hundred years old.
Gabrielle’s two employees brought her up to date regarding the items sold during the fateful vacation in Savoie, then she spoke to her bookkeeper. After a brief meeting, she walked through the store that had filled with gossipy women the moment they had heard in the immediate neighborhood that “poor Madame Sarlat” was in her boutique.
She shuddered on seeing Paulette among them.
“My poor sweetheart,” exclaimed Paulette, “so young and already a widow!”
Paulette looked for an ashtray to put down her cigarette, smeared with orange lipstick, but could not find one, so she stubbed it out under her green heel, visibly unconcerned that she might burn the linoleum, and came toward Gabrielle, spreading her arms dramatically.
“My poor dear, I am so unhappy to see you unhappy.”
Gabrielle submitted to her embrace, trembling.
Paulette remained the only woman that she dreaded, for she was very gifted at ferreting out the truth in other people. Many considered her to be the most spiteful gossip, and she had the gift of penetrating people’s skulls with a laser beam—her insistent gaze, her protruding eyes—and then to find the turn of phrase that could demolish an individual’s reputation forever.
In the time it took to submit to her embrace, Gabrielle nearly choked on a few strands of Paulette’s dry, yellow hair, exhausted by decades of styling and hair dye, then she bravely confronted the face shining with swarthy foundation cream.
“Say, did the police question you? They must have asked you if you killed him, right?”
That’s it, thought Gabrielle, she already suspects me. She doesn’t waste her time, she goes straight for the jugular.
Gabrielle nodded, bending her head. Paulette reacted with a scream, “Bastards! To make you go through that! Someone like you, so crazy about your Gab, for thirty years you ate the carpet in his presence! Someone like you who’d have had any operation he asked for, who’d have changed into a mouse or a man! I’m not surprised! Bastards! They’re all bastards! Do you know what they did to me? When I was bringing up my second boy, Romuald, one day I had to take him to the hospital because the kid was all black and blue from slipping on getting out of the tub, can you imagine, the police came to get me at the emergency room to ask me if I hadn’t been battering him! Yes! They dragged me down to the station. And locked me up. Me! It lasted for forty-eight hours. Me, their
Now there was nothing stopping her from breaking through the plaster wall.
The first three days, she thought it would seem indecent to go up there with a hammer and wrecking bar; and in any case, given the stream of visitors, she wouldn’t have had time. On the fourth day, when she saw that neither the telephone nor the doorbell were ringing, she promised herself that after a quick visit to her antique store, three hundred yards down the road, she would satisfy her curiosity.
At the very edge of town, the sign “G. and G. de Sarlat” in golden letters soberly announced an antique store of the kind that the region preferred: a place where one could hunt around both for major items—dressers, tables, wardrobes—to furnish immense secondary residences, and for knickknacks—lamps, mirrors, statuettes—to decorate well-furnished interiors. There was no particular style that dominated there, but most were represented, including some dreadful imitations, provided they were over a hundred years old.
Gabrielle’s two employees brought her up to date regarding the items sold during the fateful vacation in Savoie, then she spoke to her bookkeeper. After a brief meeting, she walked through the store that had filled with gossipy women the moment they had heard in the immediate neighborhood that “poor Madame Sarlat” was in her boutique.
She shuddered on seeing Paulette among them.
“My poor sweetheart,” exclaimed Paulette, “so young and already a widow!”
Paulette looked for an ashtray to put down her cigarette, smeared with orange lipstick, but could not find one, so she stubbed it out under her green heel, visibly unconcerned that she might burn the linoleum, and came toward Gabrielle, spreading her arms dramatically.
“My poor dear, I am so unhappy to see you unhappy.”
Gabrielle submitted to her embrace, trembling.
Paulette remained the only woman that she dreaded, for she was very gifted at ferreting out the truth in other people. Many considered her to be the most spiteful gossip, and she had the gift of penetrating people’s skulls with a laser beam—her insistent gaze, her protruding eyes—and then to find the turn of phrase that could demolish an individual’s reputation forever.
In the time it took to submit to her embrace, Gabrielle nearly choked on a few strands of Paulette’s dry, yellow hair, exhausted by decades of styling and hair dye, then she bravely confronted the face shining with swarthy foundation cream.
“Say, did the police question you? They must have asked you if you killed him, right?”
That’s it, thought Gabrielle, she already suspects me. She doesn’t waste her time, she goes straight for the jugular.
Gabrielle nodded, bending her head. Paulette reacted with a scream, “Bastards! To make you go through that! Someone like you, so crazy about your Gab, for thirty years you ate the carpet in his presence! Someone like you who’d have had any operation he asked for, who’d have changed into a mouse or a man! I’m not surprised! Bastards! They’re all bastards! Do you know what they did to me? When I was bringing up my second boy, Romuald, one day I had to take him to the hospital because the kid was all black and blue from slipping on getting out of the tub, can you imagine, the police came to get me at the emergency room to ask me if I hadn’t been battering him! Yes! They dragged me down to the station. And locked me up. Me! It lasted for forty-eight hours. Me, their
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