Apocalypse Baby (35 page)

‘I'm going to go back to school. Really, I don't know what you're talking about.'

‘But you've been looking very thoughtful these past two hours in the car.'

‘I'm feeling nervous at getting back to my family.'

‘Look, if you want, we don't have to go there. We won't go to your father's house. I'll take you anywhere you like.'

‘Are you a paedophile or what?'

‘If it makes you happy, no problem. I can take you, we've got the car. We can do whatever you want. But just cancel everything. Give me ten days, just ten days, and we can talk about it. Look, if you like, we can hitch a lift with a basketball team. We can say we're journalists. Think about it: twenty boys in a bus, plus the driver, the trainer, the physio. Or something else that appeals to you. For instance if you're into politics, we can go to Chiapas in Mexico, we'll wear ponchos and you can learn to shoot. Or Russia if you want? We can go to Russia and meet the rich boys and girls of a big country. Or we could tour the cathedrals of Europe, if religion's the new thing that turns you on. Whatever you like. But change your plans, don't go back to your father's house.'

‘Why are you saying all this?'

‘I know it's a heavy burden, I can see you, and I know it's heavy. It won't be like you think.'

She can be funny when she tries. And she really cares. Not so long ago, Valentine would have listened to her. But now she's had enough, she's trusted too many people in one life. She's tired of all their efforts, all of them. She can see the emptiness behind their eyes. They're clutching at straws. This private eye is clinging to her. Lucie is clinging to her mobile. They're all empty shells. Everyone. All the stuff this detective is suggesting is superficial, surface stuff. Rushing
headlong into the unknown. Forgetting what's basic. She's consumed enough of that kind of thing. She doesn't want any more of those pleasures that leave you with a hangover. Valentine sighs. ‘Don't worry about me. Really. You're being kind. But don't worry.'

On the parking lot, more trucks are asleep, like metal carcasses. The Hyena takes the wheel and wakes Lucie.

‘Now we know. It's official. We're an endangered species.'

Valentine smiles. She's waiting. She's no longer troubled by any hesitation. She has no doubts.

WE GOT TO PARIS AT DAWN. THE BUILDINGS,
the sky, the pavements, all looked grey. The overalls of the municipal workers spraying the streets with water made green patches against the rest.

We found a parking space just opposite the Galtan residence. Valentine hadn't said much during the drive. The Hyena switched off the engine.

‘I'm not coming up. I'll leave you here.'

She got out of the car and hauled her bag from the boot. Then she turned to the teenager. ‘Sure you wouldn't like to come for a little trip round town with me first?' I thought she was making quite a fuss at saying goodbye – after all they hardly knew each other. I was amazed that she was just going to leave me there without asking what we'd do about the bonus. I thought she would call me later in the day. When my turn came, she gave me a hug. Visibly, fatigue had made her sentimental. I didn't think anything of it at the time. It was cold. I watched her walk away then disappear round the corner. Her long-limbed silhouette, seen from behind, had something touching about it.

When I turned to Valentine, I found she looked pale and drawn, and I put it down to the sleepless night, the built-up
emotion and fatigue. In the lift, it suddenly gripped me: the feeling that I was making a big mistake. This time, I thought it must be because for me our return meant going back to the office, to those pointless assignments for the agency, and perhaps never seeing Zoska again. Every warning intuition I had that morning I decided to ignore.

I've rerun it so many times since. It was obvious that something was wrong. But I was tired, my mind was on other things, I didn't press the alarm button in the lift, I didn't say, ‘Come on, let's get out of here.' The Galtans, unlike their usual behaviour, were being affable. There was coffee and plenty of croissants waiting for us. They were more awake than we were. Not the kind to make a huge fuss, either. But you sensed that they were genuinely relieved. Jacqueline, all in black like an old-fashioned widow, couldn't stop thanking me. She was as honeyed when you did what she wanted as she was aggressive if you crossed her. I didn't pay attention to Valentine, her fixed smile when her grandmother stroked her hair, repeating, ‘Are you all right, little one, are you all right?' The father was ill at ease, he was having difficulty finding the right body language and words. The stepmother and her daughters came into the room a few minutes later. They must have discussed it beforehand and decided to let Valentine have a while alone with her birth family. At the time, the only thing on my mind was that it was going to be strange finding myself on my own again. And to wonder whether Zoska would forget me at once, or start texting me.

Then I left Valentine, without much emotion, since she had hardly said a word to me since the start of the journey. I patted her shoulder, repeating that I was glad she was OK and
back at home. I don't remember her expression that moment. To tell the truth, I wasn't paying attention to her. I was glad to have the envelope stuffed with banknotes in my pocket, the old woman had slipped it to me with affected discretion, as if it was a tip for Christmas. I wondered again when the Hyena would come to collect her share.

I was feeling emotional and exhausted when I got home. A lot of things had happened, but as soon as I was inside the door it was as if I'd left only yesterday, nothing had changed. I called the office to say I wouldn't be in till the afternoon. Agathe was exasperated that I hadn't reported in more regularly, but impressed that the mission had succeeded. Deucené was relieved but distant, I think he was afraid I'd use this as a pretext to ask for a rise, he preferred prevention to cure, and not to get too matey with the staff. But he too was glad to be able to close the file. And to say that the agency had successfully completed its task. When he found out I'd been driving all night, he advised me to take the whole day off. I'd never known him be so magnanimous.

I installed Skype on my computer. And waited for Zoska to come online. She was sweeter than when I'd left. Enclosed in a frame on my laptop screen. It was frustrating to be with her without her being really there. I went to bed early. There was an underlying sadness, a kind of grey dust over all my thoughts when I emerged next day. I didn't see it as a premonition. I went downstairs at eleven. I walked to the office. I considered resigning. I thought about going to live in Barcelona. I would just have to take my courage in both hands and ask Zoska how she would react. But it seemed a bit premature to unveil my plans.

As I pushed open the door, I didn't know what to expect: we had spent seven days in Barcelona without my keeping my boss up to speed, and I hadn't yet written a word of my report. Deucené took the time to see me, a quarter of an hour, ten minutes of which he spent on the phone, signalling to me to hang on. Then he declared he was pleased, that he was expecting the file to be tied up by first thing tomorrow morning, and he hoped I'd gone easy on the expenses. I didn't try to explain that the family was going to cover all that.

I closed my office door. Jean-Marc came by for a coffee, his charcoal-grey suit looked good on him. I told him I'd fallen in love. I'd never before talked to him about my private life, but I was bursting to talk to someone. When he learnt that it was with a girl, he got interested in my story, so much so that suddenly I didn't want to say any more about it.

Rafik in person called me just before lunch, to ask if I'd like him to wait for me and go and eat something together. The high life, eh. But I didn't want to be there at all. I felt cold all the time. I was surprised to find myself missing the Hyena. I would have liked her to call.

I didn't put the report in next morning, because I still hadn't written a line of it. Or the next day. Agathe was being more polite towards me, she asked me for it in a respectful tone of which I didn't know she was capable. I'd gained status all of a sudden. I took no pleasure from it. I wanted Zoska to announce that she'd bought a ticket for Paris, or for her to ask me to come at once. But love by Skype seemed to satisfy her. I couldn't understand why the Hyena wasn't trying to reach me. I was disappointed that she could manage without me so easily. By the Monday, her silence was making me furious. I
needed her help to finish my report. But I didn't know how to contact her.

That morning, I had all the same managed to write a few pages for the file. But I'd run out of inspiration and by lunchtime I was on the internet doing Tarot cards on the Vogue website, asking various questions about my relationship with Zoska and the importance she would have in my life. The cards were good if enigmatic, and I was concentrating hard when Jean-Marc came into my office without knocking. Ashen-faced, he was trying to keep his voice under control.

‘There's been a bomb attack at the Palais-Royal. I'm going downstairs to look at the TV, do you want to come?'

‘The Palais-Royal? Here, in Paris? Do they let Islamists in there?'

Like a stupid idiot, I had time to think it was rather nice being treated as if I was important, and I graciously followed him downstairs.

On the ground floor, a dozen people were standing looking at the flat-screen in the big hall. There was a funereal silence. Any desire to joke had been blocked in everyone's throat. It took time to understand what we were seeing. And an effort to convince yourself you were watching the news, live, not the trailer for some big-budget action movie. The TV commentators were talking in zombie-like voices, you could tell they'd closed down their brains, they were on automatic pilot but not sure what to say.

The smoke hadn't yet dispersed. The television cameras were being kept at a distance. The images they were taking on the spot only showed a thick black curtain. From the
helicopters, it was different. In some places, the fires had died down. The weirdest thing was not so much what had been destroyed, but what had been displaced by the force of the explosion. What our brains found it hard to process was the stuff they could recognize. Grey tiles splashed with blood, the coloured sign for the metro station, intact but thrown a hundred metres from its original spot. A tree still standing. A bench on its side. A lamp post cut in half, lying flat. Part of some railings, their tips recently repainted gold. A fragment of sculpture from a façade, a chubby cherub with a big sword. One of the black-and-white Buren columns had landed, intact, in the top branches of a tree that had remained upright. The still-recognizable residue bore witness to the fact that the mass of black rubble surrounding them had indeed once been the Palais-Royal. Terror had spared these links with a ravaged normality.

In the room, the first remark was ‘Some high-up in the government must have wanted to move a petrol pump, and oops, the Palais-Royal exploded.'

‘Like Capri juice, but worse.'

They were trying to be clever, but their hearts weren't in it.

‘But was there anyone inside?'

‘Would there be, this time of day?'

‘Can't see any bodies.'

‘Wait for the smoke to clear… Then we'll know.'

‘It doesn't necessarily have to be Al-Qaida, the Basque separatists said they were going to strike.'

‘In Paris? You must be joking, the Basques aren't asking for the Ile-de-France to be independent.'

‘Someone said there was an awards ceremony going on inside. Has anyone checked what it was?'

‘What's the building anyway, a ministry?'

‘No. It's the Palais-Royal. Keep up at the back.'

‘Oh God, I've got a friend who lives opposite there, I must call her.'

‘It's weird, looks like pictures of Haiti.'

‘Or Chile.'

‘What it makes me think of most, is the Twin Towers.'

It could have been anywhere on the globe, annihilated by a bomb or an earthquake or the attack of a malevolent giant. Life was starting again little by little, people were beginning to pass silly remarks. My legs had turned to jelly, my brain wasn't working.

On the screen, the area around the explosion was quite recognizable. A bizarrely familiar townscape. I felt like vomiting.

In the streets, we could hear the sirens of ambulances rushing past. We were within walking distance from where it had happened. We had to repeat it to ourselves several times to believe it. Like everyone else, I had often passed in front of the Palais-Royal, in the centre of Paris, opposite the Louvre, the seat of various bodies like the Constitutional Council, and the venue for investiture ceremonies attended by the great and the good. I'd never paid it much attention. I remembered that's where I had started smoking again, one sunny day, on the terrace of a café that had once existed there, with a boy I liked but whom I would leave for someone else. Right there, on that spot.

Rafik came to join me. He squeezed my shoulder, as if we
were brothers and I should know I could count on him, but must also prepare to be strong. At the time, I thought he was simply moved, and I wondered if he'd taken a shine to me, and how to let him know quickly that nothing of the kind was possible between us now. I've thought about his gesture since then, many times. Did he know, already? Who was in the know? And about what? Who had been manipulating me? Who had been protecting me? What really happened, and what role exactly did I have in it?

I called Zoska. Everyone in the room was telephoning someone. She'd heard already, people around her were talking of nothing else. I was repeating, ‘It's just crazy, it's so incredible, I can't believe it.' And then Jean-Marc came to fetch me, and drew me aside. Rafik had a very odd expression on his face.