Three Days and a Life Read online

  “You need to look at me, Antoine. You need to tell me where you last saw Rémi.”

  The voice had changed, it was firmer, he wanted an answer to his question . . . to which Antoine had given no thought. It had been easier dealing with Madame Desmedt. He turned to the window, trying to pluck up courage.

  “In the garden,” he managed to mutter, “down there, in the garden . . .”

  “What time would that have been?”

  Antoine took comfort in the fact that his voice had not quavered too much, no more than that of any twelve-year-old being questioned by a gendarme.

  He racked his brain: what had he heard Madame Desmedt saying earlier?

  “About half past one, something like that . . .”

  “Good. And what was Rémi doing in the garden?”

  He blurted the answer.

  “He was looking at the sack with the dog in it.”

  The gendarme frowned. Antoine realised that without an explanation, his answer made no sense.

  “It was Rémi’s father. He killed their dog yesterday. He put it in a rubbish sack.”

  The gendarme smiled.

  “Well, well, things certainly have been happening in Beauval . . .”

  But Antoine was in no mood for jokes.

  “O.K.,” said the gendarme. “So where is it, exactly, this rubbish sack?”

  “Down there,” he pointed out of the window, “in the garden, with the sacks of rubble. He killed him with a shotgun, stuffed him in a rubbish bag.”

  “So, Rémi was in the garden, and he was looking at this rubbish sack, is that right?”

  “Yes. He was crying . . .”

  The gendarme pursed his lips: O.K., I can understand that.

  “And you didn’t see him after that . . .”

  A shake of the head. The gendarme was staring at him, his lips still puckered, focussing on what he had just heard.

  “And you didn’t see a car stopping or anything like that . . .?”

  No.

  “I mean, anything out of the ordinary?”

  No.

  “O.K., then!”

  The gendarme slapped his thighs: right, back to work . . .

  “Thanks, Antoine, you’ve been a great help.”

  He got to his feet. As he left, he made a little gesture to Madame Courtin who was about to follow him downstairs.

  “Oh, yes, one more thing Antoine . . .”

  He had stopped in the doorway and turned.

  “When you saw him, down there in the garden . . . where were you heading?”

  Instinctive response:

  “To the pond.”

  Antoine realised he had answered quickly. Too quickly.

  So he said it again, more calmly.

  “I went up to the pond.”

  The gendarme nodded, the pond, O.K., alright.

  4

  The gendarme stood on the pavement, unconvinced.

  He watched as the crowd in the street swelled and grew more restive.

  Impatient voices offered a running commentary on what was happening. The gathering darkness made it seem less likely that Rémi would come home. What was being done? Who was in charge? The mayor shuttled between the group of workers and the police van, calming the former and quizzing the latter . . . The prospect of mass outburst could not be discounted since all those present, though for very different reasons, felt they were victims of injustice and had found in this an opportunity to express their anger.

  The young gendarme shrugged. He snapped his fingers and beckoned his fellow officers.

  Within a few minutes, an ordnance survey map had been spread out and the gendarme was calling for volunteers, who raised their hands like children at school. They were counted. Since Madame Desmedt had searched the town centre as soon as she noticed that Rémi had disappeared, the volunteers were each assigned an area outside the town and told to comb the roads and pathways leading into Beauval.

  Engines roared into life. The men swaggered towards their cars and climbed behind steering wheels as though going on a hunting trip. Even the mayor helped out, getting into his official car so he could participate in the search. Though they were mobilising for a good cause, there was something in the atmosphere, a whiff of mob mentality, a vindictiveness, that self-righteous determination so often witnessed before a lynching.

  Looking down from his window, Antoine had the paradoxical feeling that the people driving away were in fact coming for him.

  The young gendarme did not immediately get into his car but stood thoughtfully watching this determined crowd. What had been set in motion might not be so easy to stop.

  A missing persons alert was issued across the département.

  Photographs and descriptions of Rémi Desmedt were posted up in public places.

  At the Desmedt house, the women of the town took turns to sit with Bernadette. In fact, once she had put away the shopping and prepared the evening meal, Madame Courtin shouted up the stairs:

  “Antoine, I’m going round to see Bernadette!”

  She did not wait for an answer. From his window Antoine watched her hurry across the garden.

  Antoine had been very shaken by the visit from the gendarme. There had been something shrewd, something mistrusting about the man . . .

  He had not believed Antoine.

  He was convinced of this. The way the gendarme had lingered for a long time on the pavement, considering what Antoine had said, thinking about going back upstairs and confronting him.

  Antoine stared down at the now-deserted garden, not daring to move. As soon as he turned around, the gendarme would be there, in his bedroom, he would have closed the door, would be sitting on the bed and staring at him. Outside, the town would be strangely calm, as though utterly drained of its lifeblood.

  For an interminable moment, the gendarme would say nothing and Antoine would inexorably come to realise that his very silence was a confession.

  “So, you were up at the pond . . .”

  Antoine nods, yes, that’s right.

  The gendarme seems saddened by this response, he purses his lips and makes tutting noises to express his disappointment.

  “You know what’s going to happen, Antoine?”

  He gestures to the window.

  “All those people will be back soon. Most of them will have found nothing, obviously, but Monsieur Desmedt will have stopped by the little path, the one that leads up to Saint-Eustache.”

  Antoine swallows. He does not want to hear what comes next, but the gendarme is determined to spare him nothing.

  “He will find your wristwatch on the path, so he will keep walking as far as the big beech tree. He will bend down, reach into the crevasse, his fingers will close around something and he’ll pull – and what will come out, eh? You tell me, Antoine, what will he pull out? Little Rémi . . . Dead as a stone. His arms and legs all limp, his little head lolling the way it did when you carried him on your back, remember?”

  Antoine cannot move, he opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

  “And Monsieur Desmedt will gather his son in his arms and carry him home. Picture the scene: Monsieur Desmedt walking through Beauval with his dead son in his arms, followed by everyone in the neighbourhood . . . And what do you think he’ll do? He will calmly go into his house, lay Rémi in his mother’s arms, reappear with his shotgun, walk across the garden, climb the stairs and come into this room . . .”

  At that moment, Monsieur Desmedt bursts into the room carrying his shotgun. He is so tall he has to stoop to get through the door. The gendarme does not move, he stares at Antoine, I warned you, what do you expect me to do now?

  Monsieur Desmedt strides forward, holding his rifle at hip level, his looming shadow blotting out Antoine, the window, and the whole town beyond . . .

  A burst of gunfire.

  Antoine let out a scream.

  He was kneeling on the floor, clutching his belly, he had vomited a little bile.

  He would give anything in
the world to be anywhere but here . . . The thought gives him pause.

  Anywhere but here . . .

  This is what he has to do. Run away.

  He looks up, shocked at the obviousness of this solution. How did he not think of it before now? This glimmering shaft of light shakes him from his torpor. His brain, which had been running in slow motion, ramps up several gears. He is excited.

  He wipes his mouth with his sleeve and paces up and down his bedroom. Determined not to forget anything, he grabs his exercise book and a marker and quickly jots down everything he can think of: clothes, money, train, plane (?), Spiderman, passport!, the travel document for Germany, paper, food, tent (?), rucksack . . .

  He has to move fast. Leave this evening, tonight.

  By tomorrow morning, if he went about it the right way, he would be far away.

  He dismissed the idea of secretly going to see Émilie to say goodbye, she would be bound to tell people. Better that she find out tomorrow morning that Antoine has left for parts unknown, that she will never hear from him again – no, wait – he would send her postcards from all around the world, she would show them to her friends at school and at night she would look at them and cry, she would keep them in a little box . . .

  Which way should he go? People would assume he had headed towards Saint-Hilaire, so he should set off in the opposite direction, he did not know where it led because when you drove out of Beauval, it was always through Saint-Hilaire. He would look it up on a map.

  His mind was racing. Instantly coming up with a solution to every problem. Marmont train station was eight kilometres away, he would walk there after dark, keeping well away from the main road. Once he arrived, he would need to buy a ticket, but to make sure he was not recognised, he would ask someone else to buy it for him, he was pleased with this plan. He would pick a woman, that would be easier. He would say that his mother had dropped him off at the station and forgot to give him his ticket before she drove off, he would show the woman his money . . . Money! How much did he have in his savings account?

  He raced downstairs, yanked the drawer of the console table in the hall so hard it almost toppled over, the savings book was there! His father had been scrupulously putting money into it every birthday. 1,565 francs! Until this moment, the figure had been an abstract notion, his mother had always said it was his to spend, but “not until you’re eighteen, and only on something useful”. She had made an exception just once, last year (and even then after fierce resistance), so he could buy the diver’s watch.

  The watch . . .

  Antoine shook himself.

  More than 1,500 francs in his savings account. He could go a long way with that, hold out for a hell of a long time.

  He took the savings book back up to his room, more excited than ever. Now, he need to sort things out, to be methodical. He was eager to choose his destination. First off, a train to Paris? Or maybe Marseille? Australia and South America seemed to him the safest destinations, but he wondered whether it was possible to get there from Marseille . . . He would find out when he got there. It would be better to take a boat, he could offer to work to pay his fare and therefore keep his money until he disembarked. He glanced at the globe . . . No, he would look later . . . Tonight . . .

  A suitcase – no, a rucksack, the brown one his mother kept in the basement. He dashed downstairs. Only when he got it back to the bedroom did he notice how big it was – when he put it on, it almost dragged along the ground. He wondered what he would look like at the train station with such a huge bag. Maybe it would be safer to take something smaller, his school backpack for example? He laid them next to each other on the bed. One was too big, the other too small . . . He had to decide, fast. He opted for his backpack and immediately began to stuff it with socks and T-shirts. He slipped Spiderman into the side pocket, then went downstairs and put the backpack where it usually sat and went to fetch his savings book, his passport, the letter his mother had drawn up so he could visit his father in Germany, he could never remember what it was called, oh, yes, Travel Authorisation for a Minor. Would it still be valid?

  He was dithering about this when he heard the door open downstairs.

  He could make out his mother’s voice, but also those of Claudine and Madame Kernevel.

  He crept out onto the landing.

  Madame Courtin made tea while the three women carried on the conversation they had begun in the street.

  “Where on earth can the little tearaway have gone?”

  “Up to the pond,” Claudine was saying. “Where else could he have got himself lost? He’ll have fallen in, likely as not . . .”

  “Oh, I hardly think it will come to that, Claudine, dear,” said Madame Kernevel, “not now the driver has been spotted again . . .”

  “Wh . . . which driver?”

  “Oh, really, Claudine! The one that killed the Desmedts’ dog!”

  Madame Kernevel’s exasperation was audible. In her defence, Claudine was a sweet girl, but terribly stupid, to get anything through that thick skull of hers . . . Madame Courtin interrupted, in the pedantic tone she used when giving lectures to Antoine:

  “The driver who ran over the Desmedt’s dog yesterday – he was spotted this morning, his car was parked up near the pond. So he’s clearly been prowling around the area . . .”

  “I thought the boy just wandered off and got lost . . .”

  Claudine was devastated by this new information.

  “Think about it, Claudine: he hasn’t been seen since one o’clock this afternoon, it’s nearly six o’clock. The whole area has been searched, and I mean he can’t have gone far, he’s six years old!”

  “So someone . . . So he’s been kidnapped? Oh, God! But why?”

  This time, no-one answered.

  Though he could not have explained it, Antoine found it reassuring that they thought it might be a kidnapping. He knew that this theory would deflect suspicion from him.

  Behind him, he heard cars approaching. He ran back to the window.

  There were three of them. Now that it was dark, the searches had been called off. A fourth car appeared. Then the mayor’s official car, with the mayor himself at the wheel, pulled up and parked in the street. The men loitered on the pavement, conferring in hushed tones. Their drive and determination had sputtered out, now they seemed self-conscious, almost guilty.

  Madame Desmedt did not wait for one of them to summon the courage to go and bring her the news that there was no news, she rushed out of her house, dishevelled and distraught, and listened to their accounts one after another. With each scrap of information she seemed to shrink a little more. The men straggling home empty-handed, the black night, the passing hours . . . Eventually, Monsieur Desmedt himself arrived. Shoulders sagging, he stepped out of his car. When she saw him, Bernadette staggered, Weiser just had time to catch her before she fell.

  Monsieur Desmedt ran over, took his wife in his arms and this mournful cortege headed towards the house.

  Bernadette’s chalk-white pallor, the bags under her eyes, her visible anguish, the way she had collapsed; these things had shaken Antoine.

  He wished he could give Rémi back to her.

  Slowly, soundlessly, he began to sob, feeling a boundless, harrowing grief since he knew that Bernadette would never again see her little boy alive.

  Soon, she would see him dead.

  Lying on a stainless-steel autopsy table, covered with a sheet. She would cling to her husband and he would put his arm around her shoulders. The morgue attendant would gently lift the sheet. She would see blue-tinged, expressionless Rémi’s face, see the huge bruise that covered the right side of his head. She would break down in tears, Monsieur Desmedt would comfort her. As they left, he would nod to the gendarme standing guard, yes, that’s him, that’s our little Rémi . . .

  A few minutes later, the police van showed up.

  Antoine saw the capitaine and two of his officers walk through the garden and ring the doorbell. Then they walked
back to the van, but this time accompanied by Monsieur Desmedt, who strode quickly, visibly bristling with rage. The four headed towards the van where a crowd of factory workers quickly gathered.

  Hearing raised voices, Antoine opened the window.

  “Where are you taking him?”

  “You’ve no right . . .”

  “Let them through,” the mayor roared in a vain attempt to stop the crowd turning on the gendarmes.

  “So the mayor is siding with the police, now? Against his own people?”

  Patient and determined, the gendarmes forged a path through the crowd, bundled Monsieur Desmedt into the back of the van and immediately drove off.

  Most of the men climbed into their cars and set off after the police van . . .

  Antoine did not know what to think.

  Why had they taken Rémi’s father? Did they suspect him of something?

  Oh, if only the police would arrest someone other than him, especially Monsieur Desmedt, who terrified him . . . He thought about Bernadette, who had just seen her husband carted off by the police. Overwhelmed by conflicting scenarios, Antoine no longer knew what to think.

  Claudine and Madame Kernevel had left. Madame Courtin set about heating up their dinner.

  Antoine silently returned to his preparations. His backpack was small, it was not big enough to hold everything he wanted to take, but it didn’t matter, with the money he had, he could buy whatever he needed.

  At about 7.30 p.m., his mother called him down to dinner.

  “What a kerfuffle! Can you believe it?”

  She was talking to herself as much as to Antoine.

  She was still thinking of the incident as a minor news item, one of those stories that neighbours still mention years later, because she was convinced that little Rémi would reappear, because her mind could not accept the notion that that he really had disappeared. She could remember various instances of children going missing . . . As she laid the table, she chattered to Antoine.

  “There was that lad, the son of a neighbour of your aunt . . . Four years old, he was. Fell asleep in the linen basket, I tell you! Hours, they spent searching for him, they even called the police, it was the sister-in-law that found him . . .”