Three Days and a Life Read online

  “Antoine?”

  “Yeah, I’m still here . . .”

  His tone said otherwise.

  He was accustomed to seeing the photograph of Rémi Desmedt in the right-hand corner of Monsieur Lemercier’s shop window, yellowed by the passing years. The boy’s disappearance still cropped up in conversation, an unsolved mystery never truly faded, but the posters appealing for witnesses had long since been bleached by sunlight, and as they disappeared they were not replaced; these days the only ones remaining were in the police station, pinned up with a dozen other missing persons, and here, in the window of Monsieur Lemercier’s shop.

  “Antoine?”

  The poster had moved. It was no longer in the corner where it had always been, it was now in the centre. And it was no longer the old photograph with its washed-out colours but a vivid, recent print.

  Next to the child with the carefully slicked hair, wearing a yellow T-shirt with a blue elephant, was a teenager who looked eerily like the little boy. Age-progression software had imagined a seventeen-year-old Rémi Desmedt.

  “Antoine!”

  The poster no longer described the clothes he had worn at the time, nor the date when he disappeared – Thursday, December 23, 1999. Antoine saw his ghostly reflection superimposed over the face of this teenager he had never known, whom he alone knew did not exist. Everyone in Beauval nurtured the hope that little Rémi was still alive, that he had grown up and forgotten the boy he had once been, but it was an illusion, a lie.

  He thought about Madame Desmedt. Did she have a copy of the poster on her sideboard? Did she wake every morning and look at the child she undoubtedly still loved, and at this young man she had never met? Did she still believe that she would one day see him alive again, or had she given up?

  Antoine finally answered Laura, but the tension between them was broken. He walked on, he felt nervous, his earlier arousal replaced by a vague dread. Yeah, I’m here, he was saying to her, but he longed to get into his car, to drive away.

  “When do you get back?” Laura said.

  “Soon . . . day after tomorrow . . . Maybe tomorrow, I’m not sure.”

  He wanted to say: I’m leaving now.

  He abandoned his walk and headed home, where he went up to his room to study, but still the poster perturbed him, he felt threatened. And yet, short of someone discovering the body, he could not imagine any possible threat. Although the investigation had never officially been closed, no-one was actively searching for Rémi Desmedt. It was completely irrational, but he felt as though the threat was in the town itself and existed only when he came back here.

  Two or three times over the years, he had forced himself to walk up to Saint-Eustache. The place was exactly as the storm had left it twelve years earlier; the trees piled in a tangled heap had begun to rot, it was almost impossible to reach the centre of the forest. Being a doctor, he knew all too well what the remains of Rémi Desmedt would look like a decade on . . .

  Then, suddenly, the computer-generated image in Monsieur Lemercier’s shop window had somehow brought the dead boy back to life, made him as real, as present as he was in Antoine’s nightmares. What had changed over the years – and this saddened Antoine – was not the knowledge that he was condemned never to speak about this to anyone, but the realisation that his priorities had changed, that the little boy he had killed was no longer the most important thing in his life. All his efforts, all his energy was now focused on himself, on his ambitions, on his safety. It had been some time since he had woken with a start and pictured little Rémi’s limp hands before him, since he had heard the boy’s plaintive cries for help. The central character in this tragedy was no longer the victim, but the killer.

  Before he realised, it was 7.30 p.m. He could not decently arrive any later; he set off for the party.

  Monsieur Lemercier was celebrating his sixtieth birthday. It was late June, the weather balmy, almost summery. A barbecue in the garden, music, bunting, the usual paraphernalia, the air smelled of grilled meat, there were little barrels of red and white wine. They ate from paper plates that collapsed, with plastic knives that cut nothing.

  In Beauval, life ticked on like the workings of a clock. Time in the town that had once been shaken by disaster and mystery had resumed its peaceful, almost imperceptible flow. Ten years on, the people Antoine had once known had barely changed, and were steadily being replaced by a younger generation that – minor details aside – was much the same.

  “It’s a lovely spread, don’t you think?”

  Madame Courtin did a few hours’ cleaning for Monsieur Lemercier every week. A very decent man, she would say, very respectable. In her language this meant that, unlike Monsieur Kowalski (for whom she had not worked in many years, and whom she never mentioned), he paid her what he owed on time.

  Antoine shook hands with various people, accepted a glass of wine, then a second, ate something from the barbecue. At his mother’s urging, he stopped to congratulate Monsieur Lemercier and to thank him for the invitation.

  Plastic champagne flute in hand, Madame Courtin was chatting to Madame Mouchotte. The events that had distanced her from Bernadette Desmedt had brought her closer to Émilie’s mother, that stunningly beautiful woman with a harsh face, who spent half her life in church and the other half cleaning her house. When business at the Weiser factory eventually picked up, Monsieur Mouchotte had been offered his job back, but this long spell of unemployment had left him embittered, a bitterness that was etched on his face, he scowled at everything. Much of his resentment was focused on Monsieur Weiser – his arch-enemy when he had been made redundant and his saviour on the day he was rehired – whom he thought symptomatic of everything that was wrong with the world. He had accepted his old job at the Weiser factory with grave satisfaction, like a man who, after a long and terrible injustice, had finally been restored to his rightful place. He had always needed someone he could hate, and for a long time it had been Monsieur Desmedt. Now that he was dead, Monsieur Weiser had been promoted to the highest rank of those Monsieur Mouchotte despised. Keeping as much distance between them as Monsieur Lemercier’s garden would allow, the two men spent the evening cordially ignoring one another. Even at the factory, when he needed to issue instructions, Monsieur Weiser never referred to Monsieur Mouchotte by name, only as “the foreman”.

  To Antoine, Mouchotte’s wife remained a mystery, a paradox. A sanctimonious old prig trapped in the body of a model, she spoke little and seldom smiled, which gave her the air of a prima donna, an ice maiden, though Antoine saw it as a form of hysteria.

  “Hello, Docteur . . .”

  “Hi, Doc!”

  Émilie, blonde and smiling, held her champagne flute delicately like a fruit. Théo had just finished eating a sausage and was licking his fingers. Antoine had not seen them in a long time. He kissed Émilie. Théo clumsily wiped his hand on a napkin and proffered it. Ripped jeans, tailored jacket, pointed brogues, everything about his outfit screamed that he did not belong in this backwater, that he belonged to a different species. He took the three glasses and drifted off to have them refilled.

  Alone with Émilie, Antoine felt self-conscious, she still had a certain way of looking at him.

  “What do you mean, ‘a certain way’?” she said, intrigued.

  Antoine would have found it difficult to explain. She always seemed on the point of asking him a question. Or surprised by what he had said, by who he was.

  Over time, Émilie had grown to be more and more like her mother, to whom she was still passionately devoted – no-one in her eyes ranked higher. And it was hardly surprising that they should be so much alike. Beauval was a town where children grew up to be their parents and expected to take their place.

  They chatted a little about the party. Antoine asked what she had been up to. She was working at a branch of Crédit Agricole in Marmont.

  “Engaged,” she said, showing off her ring exultantly.

  Oh, yes, Beauval was a town where people still
got engaged.

  “Théo?” he asked.

  Émilie burst out laughing and quickly clapped her hand over her mouth.

  “No!” she said, “Me and Théo? No way!”

  “I don’t know . . .” Antoine stammered, a little piqued that she had thought his question so preposterous.

  She flashed the ring again.

  “Jérôme is a sergeant in the army. He’s currently posted to New Caledonia, but he’s just waiting for his transfer, he’ll be back in France in September and we’ll get married then.”

  Antoine felt strangely jealous, not that she had a man in her life, but that it had never been him. Even when they were at school they had never gone out, he felt he had missed every opportunity, that she had never thought of him as attractive, simply as someone she hung out with because they had known each other for ever; it irritated him to remember how much she had haunted his teenage fantasies. He had been obsessed with her blonde hair. He blushed.

  “What about you?”

  “Much the same . . . I still have to finish my residency, but after that we’re going away . . . To work in humanitarian aid.”

  Émilie nodded gravely. Humanitarian aid was good. It was obvious from her expression that the concept had no real meaning for her, but the moral connotation commanded her respect. The conversation was over. What else was there to say? Between them, there were as many things unsaid as there were memories. They looked at the garden, at the little crowd laughing and shouting, the smoking barbecue, the music blaring from the speakers lined up beside the house where, beneath the new layer of paint on the render, it was still possible to make out the old high-water mark from the flood.

  Théo reappeared with the plastic glasses and the three of them continued with their small talk. In a flash Antoine saw them again, standing on the steps of the church before Midnight Mass long ago. He remembered the brawl when he found out that Théo had been spreading rumours . . .

  He took a sip of wine and looked away.

  In Beauval, everything reminded him of Christmas 1999. What had happened then belonged to another life, even Beauval had moved on, but since the mystery of little Rémi’s disappearance had never been solved, there were still embers that could be rekindled by the slightest breath; whenever he found himself in a crowd like this, he felt threatened, every gesture was laden with significance, subject to interpretation, a source of fear . . .

  “Antoine!”

  It took him a moment to recognise Valentine, she looked as though she had put on a kilo for every year. She spun around, irritated, to some screaming brat, “I said stop that!” She gave a vicious wave as though trying to bat away a determined wasp. In her arms she cradled a baby munching on a handful of crisps. Her husband, a good-looking lad, built like a lumberjack but with a mouthful of rotten teeth, slipped a proprietorial arm around her shoulders.

  Antoine went on shaking the outstretched hands, kissing the occasional guest. Théo seemed to be following him, as though he had something to say and was waiting for the opportunity. Their eyes met once or twice, and then finally Théo leaned towards him.

  “I’m like you, these people bore me rigid.”

  “No, it’s not that.”

  Théo gave a little laugh.

  “Come off it . . . They’re dumb as shit.”

  Antoine was embarrassed by Théo’s attitude. He too felt that he had little in common with this world, that he belonged to a different, more modern species, he found the town antiquated, narrow-minded, stolid . . . he hated it, but he did not feel contempt. Théo always had been pompous, it was hardly surprising to hear him talking about Beauval with contempt. He was working on launching a start-up whose precise function was not entirely clear to Antoine, there was a lot of talk about expert systems and networking capabilities, Théo’s vocabulary was sprinkled with English expressions that were meaningless to him. He did his best to look interested, like people with a poor grasp of a language who give up trying to understand and simply nod from time to time. Émilie came back to join them, but she did not listen – this was men’s talk, it did not concern her.

  Then they drifted off in different directions. Antoine carried on drinking. Probably a little too much, he realised, especially since he had never been able to hold his alcohol.

  He had made a promise to his mother, and he had come; he had also warned her that he did not plan to stay, so it was time to leave.

  It was impossible to say goodbye to everyone, he would have to be careful if he was to slip away without offending anyone. He poured himself another glass of wine, trying to look casual, and coolly strolled towards the gate – no-one was looking at him, he set the glass down on a table and went out, closing the gate behind him. Phew.

  “Leaving already?”

  Antoine started.

  Émilie was sitting on the low wall, smoking a cigarette.

  “Yeah, I mean, no . . .”

  Émilie gave the bell-like laugh Antoine had been aware of earlier. It was one of her little tics. She punctuated conversations with this little laugh, and while it would seem charming if she did it once or twice, it soon became tiresome. It was as though she used it to replace words she did not know.

  “Does everything make you laugh?”

  He immediately regretted the question, but Émilie did not seem to notice the venom. She gave a vague wave that could have meant anything.

  “Right, well, I’d better be off,” Antoine said.

  “I’m heading home too.”

  They set off together.

  Émilie lit another cigarette, and the smell of smoke, the cool night air and her delicate perfume mingled pleasantly. Antoine was almost tempted; though he had never enjoyed it, he had succumbed to the temptation twice or three times in his life. His earlier anxiety had dissipated, leaving only an intense weariness. A cigarette . . . why not?

  Émilie returned to the conversation they had had earlier. She said she was intrigued by Antoine’s plan to work in humanitarian aid. Why did he not want to be a . . . normal doctor? He could not summon the energy to give an honest answer, so Antoine was blunt.

  “Being a family practitioner can get a bit boring.”

  Émilie nodded. There was something she did not understand.

  “But if you find it boring, why did are you studying medicine?”

  “No, it’s not medicine itself that I find boring, it’s just the thought of being a family doctor.”

  Émilie nodded again, but there was still something she did not quite get. Antoine stole a glance at her. My God, those high cheekbones, that mouth, the wisps of blonde, there, at the nape of her neck . . . The top buttons of her blouse were open and Antoine could see a hint of her firm breasts, he hung back slightly, letting her walk a little ahead so he could see the glorious curve of her arse . . .

  “Because, I mean, being a doctor,” she was saying, “It must be really interesting being able to cure people.”

  There was something profoundly sad about the fact that such a charming, sexy, young woman could be so fatuous. She spoke entirely in generalities, with ready-made ideas that required little or no thought on her part. She skipped about abruptly between subjects, most of them related to the only thing she truly knew: the people of Beauval. While Antoine studied her from head to foot, observing the perfection of certain details (her eyebrows, her ears – the girl even managed to have beautiful ears, it was absurd), Émilie had gone back to their childhood, to the time when they were neighbours, to shared memories . . .

  “I’ve got loads of photos of us at school! And at the leisure centre . . . with Romane, Sébastien, Léa, Kevin . . . And Pauline!”

  She was talking about people Antoine barely remembered but who she seemed still to know. As though this town and indeed her whole life was simply the school playground several years on.

  “I should show them to you, you’ll die laughing!”

  That little laugh tinkled again in the darkness, charming, feminine, infuriating. What was it th
at she found so amusing?

  For Antoine, school photographs evoked no fond memories. The image of Rémi Desmedt that had haunted his childhood had been a school photograph. It was a ritual, on the day of the school photograph you slicked down a stray lock of hair, you wore a clean shirt, as though heading to Sunday Mass.

  “I’ll send them to you if you like.”

  This idea seemed to thrill her so much that she paused for a moment. He gazed at her. That beautiful triangular face, those pale eyes, those soft lips . . .

  “Yeah, sure . . . if you like,” he said.

  There was an awkward silence. Antoine looked away and they walked on.

  Even in the town centre they could hear the distant echo of music from Monsieur Lemercier’s garden. As they approached the mairie, desperate for something to talk about, Antoine mentioned the huge plane tree that had been brought down by the storm.

  “Oh, yeah,” Émilie said, “the tree.”

  She was silent for a few moments and the shadow of the plane tree eclipsed their conversation.

  “That tree was kind of like the history of Beauval.”

  Antoine said nothing, what was there to say? There was another silence. The warm June air, the hushed darkness, the wine, their unexpected encounter, this entrancing girl, everything was propitious to confidences, to revisiting questions he had been brooding over.

  “What questions?” Émilie said, her tone naive and utterly without malice.

  “Well . . . you and Théo for example . . . What happened between you?”

  This time, Émilie’s tinkling laugh had no effect.

  “We were thirteen, for God’s sake!”

  She stopped in the middle of the street and turned to him in surprise.

  “You’re not going to get all jealous are you?”

  “Yep.”

  He could not stop himself. Straightaway he regretted the answer, which was really an attempt to be funny. Because more than anything he blamed himself for having been a slave to her beauty and her charms for so long. And now he blamed her too, for being what she was.

  “I was terribly in love with you.”