Fatale (5 page)

A while later Aimée and the adviser exchanged smiles and parted company. Aimée ran a few errands, then boarded a Chausson country bus. During the eighteen-kilometer ride, she browsed through a local newspaper. For quite some time now she had stopped buying the Paris papers. But in this local sheet she suddenly came upon the information she had searched for in vain in the national press two or three weeks earlier.
DEADLY HUNTING
read the headline of a short piece on a bloody accident in which the father of a family was killed and his two sons wounded.
This
, concluded the article,
brings to a total of six the number of victims of hunting accidents since the beginning of the month. On the 2nd, M. Morin and M. Cardan shot each other in the vicinity of Saint-Bonnet-Tronçais (Allier). Two days later came the sad news from eastern France that M. François Roucart, a stock breeder, had been killed by a hunter not only inept but as yet unidentified. Are we heading for a time when hunting is more lethal to humans than to game? It is a fair question.

Aimée kept the paper when she got off the coach in a village of two or three hundred souls. She walked through the village and started up a rock-strewn path angling up a hillside. The sky was gray and stormy. Aimée covered some four or five hundred meters. She kept wrenching her ankles on the rocks. She was sweating, even though the temperature was no more than eight or nine degrees above freezing and she was hardly well bundled up.

She entered a hamlet at the edge of a wood of oak and beech. Pushing open a small metal door she came into the sandy courtyard of a stone house. Lichen and moss covered the walls. The doorway to the house was open. Aimée stood on the threshold and looked around the main room with its dark-purple tiled floor. In the half darkness she could make out a stove, a heavy table covered with an oilcloth, and a large bed piled high with eiderdowns and adorned with shiny copper fittings. A plate, a glass, silverware, and a saucepan were drying by the sink on a draining board of blackish stone.

Aimée turned around. From the doorway she looked down over the vegetable garden that sloped away from the house beyond the sandy courtyard. Down in the valley the village could be seen beneath the gray sky, and fat white cows grazed in garishly green fields. Truck farms bordered a river. In the middle of the vegetable garden sat a woman in a straw hat, her back to the house. Aimée went down the three front steps and approached her.

“Mama?”

The woman did not react. Aimée went around the chair and stood in front of her. The mother started, then closed her mouth and pursed her lips. She was a woman of about sixty, frail, with white hair pulled back and a pale puffy face with heavy eyelids. Her eyes narrowed. She was wearing a black cotton apron quadrilled by faint white pinstripes, a black woolen shawl, slate-gray cotton socks rumpled up at her ankles, and men's black shoes. She had positioned herself between a row of potatoes and a lettuce patch.

“Don't you have your hearing aid?” asked Aimée, articulating slowly so that the woman could lip-read the syllables; and when no reply, no reaction was forthcoming, she shouted, “Where is your gizmo, for God's sake?”

“I don't know,” answered the mother. “Don't swear. So you came to pay me a visit. You scared me.”

“I came by to settle some things up,” said Aimée, calmer now. “I've told Maître Queuille to increase your monthly payment. You shouldn't stay here alone... you should get someone to be with you. I've told you before.”

“Yes,” said the mother.

Aimée delved in her bag.

“I brought you some tobacco and a present.”

She handed the mother some packages of shag and a parcel tied with a ribbon. The mother slowly unwrapped the parcel and extracted a mauve cotton blouse with a motif of tiny white flowers. She held it up before her with both hands, shaking it slightly to unfold it. Then she refolded it distractedly, put it on her knees, and placed her hands over it.

“It's very pretty,” she said, staring down into the valley.

Aimée nibbled at the side of her thumb without realizing it. She went back around the chair and stood still for a moment behind her mother's back.

“You bitch!” she said. “I hate you. God, I wish you would die!”

“Are you doing all right?” asked the mother. “What about your job? Your husband?”

She did not turn to see whether Aimée replied.

“In a little while,” she went on, “the Father will be coming over. I'll make coffee. You could stay if you like and drink coffee with us.”

“I have to leave,” said Aimée.

She turned away and headed for the sandy courtyard and the little metal door.

“But,” said the mother, “perhaps you have to leave.”

Aimée reached Paris just as day was breaking. With time to kill before the Bléville train departed, she went for a walk. Near the Place du Châtelet, she was accosted by a broad-shouldered man in a chiné overcoat; his wavy hair glistened with hairspray. He followed her for a while. She accepted a light from him.

“Wouldn't you like to have a drink somewhere?” asked the man. “We can go to my place.”

With her cigarette between her fingers, Aimée threw her head back and laughed.

“Why, you little devil!” said the man, quite pleased.

He grabbed Aimée's wrist with one hand, her waist with the other, and tried to kiss her on the neck. Aimée pulled away and took a step backwards, then swiftly came forward again and slapped the man. He reddened and reciprocated.

“So that's it, you filthy lesbo!” he cried.

For a few moments the two kept on slapping each other across the face. Then Aimée grew calm. Taking a very rapid half step back, she struck the man just under the nose with the side of her hand. He reeled back, staggered, and fell to the ground on his rear. He was pressing both hands to his snout.

“Oo! Oo!” he kept crying. “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!”

His eyes were filling with tears. Aimée walked away.

In the Rue de Rivoli she took a taxi, retrieved her bags from the left-luggage office, and changed stations. There were still two long hours to wait before her train left, and she spent them in a brasserie. Then at last she was on her way back to Bléville.

O
N THE
day of her return, Aimée slept for a good many hours. Eventually she picked up the newspaper she had bought the day before, cut out the article concerning the death of Roucart, and filed it along with other clippings referring to other deaths: a factory owner in Bordeaux, five months earlier, asphyxiated on account of a faulty heater; a Parisian doctor drowned at La Baule in the early summer; and several more. Aimée used the remainder of the newspaper to line the kitchen trash can. That evening she ate no dinner. Using a little machine, she made copies of twenty or so keys that she had taken from the Bléville station luggage lockers. This was the second time she had copied keys in Bléville. By the time she finished, around ten o'clock, she had duplicates of keys to all the station's self-service luggage lockers.

“One of your neighbors has complained, Madame,” said the girl at the reception desk the next morning as she was leaving. “Last night late, there was an electrical sound coming from your room.”

“An electrical sound? Ah, yes,” replied Aimée. “My hair dryer. It won't happen again.”

“I am so glad you were able to come,” said Lindquist later that day, in midafternoon. “But this is nothing really special. Just wait till summer, when I get you acquainted with our village festivals!”

Aimée nodded her head as though intrigued. Unusually, it was sunny and dry. The sea air was fresh and bracing, but people were well wrapped up, wearing scarves. In front of a main house two long tables with white tablecloths had been set up and laden with masses of hors d'oeuvres, cold cuts, and pastries, as well as a good many corked liter bottles of cider. The guests strolled on pastureland planted with apple trees. Variegated cattle could be seen in the distance. Once again Bléville's elite were assembled. The occasion was the baptism of a new addition to a filthy-rich family of graziers. Aimée had not been invited, but Lindquist had taken it upon himself to bring her.

“There is an especially beguiling game they play,” the realtor was saying. “Young girls from the region, pretty ones preferably, are put in a paddock and blindfolded. Then a greased piglet is released among them. The girls are supposed to catch it if they can. But of course it's very hard with the slippery animal. The little pig squeals, and the little girls squeal too. It's quite captivating.”

“I'm sure it is.”

“And speaking of piglets,” Lindquist exclaimed, “just look at that one!” He pointed to a six- or eight-month-old mite in a countrywoman's lap.

The woman was forcing baby food into the mouth of the red-faced tot. The tot was shrieking at the top of its lungs and struggling. Suddenly it burped loudly and threw up everything it had swallowed.

“You disgusting little brat!” cried the woman furiously.

“Not to mention the egg-and-spoon race,” Lindquist was saying now. “And the belote tournaments! For sheer entertainment you can't beat it!”

“I can hardly wait, dear Maître Lindquist,” replied Aimée, who was watching Sinistrat and Mme Lenverguez slipping away towards the barns on the far side of the crowd.

By this time the baby was dead, though its mother had not yet noticed the fact. Mme Lenverguez and Sinistrat disappeared. Lindquist and Aimée went on chatting for a few minutes, bumping into and greeting the Tobies, the Moutets, and various other guests. Sinistrat's wife was sitting on a chair with her back to the wall of the main house and rubbing her ear morosely. All of a sudden, from the middle of the pasture, the countrywoman whose baby had vomited set up a mad, endless wailing and began beating herself about the head with her fists.

A great deal of commotion and shouting ensued. Some people crowded around the dead baby and the wailing mother. Others drew away as quickly as they could, vociferating, falling over their feet, waving their arms, and shaking their heads. Cries for help went up: “Sinistrat!” “Doctor!” After a moment Sinistrat arrived from the direction of the barns and pushed his way through the people. Aimée noticed that he had misbuttoned his fly. He undid the clothing of the tiny corpse, sounded the chest, and attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but he could not revive the child.

“He's dead,” declared Sinistrat.

The mother's cries redoubled. She had to be pacified. All the groups of guests had broken up. People were banging into one another. Between two shoulders Aimée caught a brief glimpse of the dead baby's red face. She immediately experienced a violent stomach cramp and her teeth began to chatter.

“I want—I want to leave,” she said to Lindquist.

The realtor looked at her impatiently, not understanding and making no reply. Aimée walked around him and crossed the orchard on the diagonal. She ran into Sonia Lorque, who tried to take her arm. Aimée stamped her foot on the grass, pulled free of the blonde-haired woman, and hastened towards the end of the paddock. The cries of the mother had ceased after an injection from Sinistrat. Behind the tables with their tablecloths and unopened bottles, women in gaily colored clothes were all weeping. As she went through the open gate, Aimée was striding firmly, almost running.

She covered a kilometer before fully collecting herself. She was still trembling a little. She looked out for a roadside distance marker. The sky was clouding over. After a while she found what she was seeking: a stone marked BLÉVILLE 3.5 KM. She kept on walking, rubbing her arms. She was wearing a flower-patterned silk dress that came down to just below the knee and a white wool jacket with her shoulder bag slung across her chest. It began to rain, just a little at first but then heavily. In a few minutes the young woman was soaked and her curls all gone. An ancient black Renault 4CV came along, its wings dented and dappled with dull orange paint. The car braked, and water sprayed across the crumbling roadway. At the wheel was Baron Jules. He opened the door and signaled to Aimée to come over. She did so without thinking about it. The man got out of the 4CV and went around to open the front passenger door. He held it open as Aimée stood immobile.

“I won't eat you,” said the baron.

Aimée got into the car. In the confined interior she was obliged to pull her knees up high, exposing them. She pulled at her dress to cover them once more. Baron Jules was back behind the wheel. The 4CV set off again.

“The baby died,” said Aimée.

“What's that you say?”

“A baby died. Not the one being baptized. Another baby. Belonging to a peasant woman. He vomited and then died.”

“Calm yourself,” said Baron Jules. “Take deep breaths.”

He speeded up while on the highway, then slowed and turned into a narrow, graveled minor road running straight across fields of stubble. The suspension of the 4CV was very poor and its wiper blades very worn. Through the rain clusters of trees and an oddly spiral church steeple could be vaguely discerned. They reached a hamlet. Baron Jules braked and drove the 4CV through a white double gate, which was open, and down a broad drive. The whitewash on the gate was flaking badly. Beyond lay a very large garden and a kind of manor, a tiny manor burdened down with Lilliputian pepper-pot and pinnacle turrets. The garden had once been in the French manner but had clearly not been kept up for many years. With a squealing of tires on gravel, the 4CV drew up before a double staircase flanked by a pebble-dash balustrade.

“I want to go home,” said Aimée. She shook herself. “I don't feel well. Take me back into town.”

“You've had a shock,” said Baron Jules. “You need to drink something. You need to dry off. You'll catch your death of cold.”

The man got out of the car and went up the steps. Aimée got out too and followed him. They passed through a dim hall and entered a vast, very cluttered room with bow windows giving onto both the front and the rear of the residence.