The Stone Boy (12 page)

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Respectfully yours,

Elsa Préau

Since Saturday, hundreds of exhibitors had filled the pathways of Courbet Park to sell and offer tastings of wines, local produce, and crafts. The Harvest Festival lasted two days. It had started yesterday at around three o’clock with a parade through the streets of the town. A country wagon pulled by two oxen, a wine tanker decorated with barrels and drawn by four more beasts, barrel rollers, a cart pulled by a horse, a herd of goats and goatdogs, line dancers, and gastronomic and oenocultural societies from across France had left the East Stadium and continued along Rue Jean Bouin to reach the park. There an idle crowd waited for the float bearing the Harvest Queen and her Crown Princess. All of the great and the good from the town were there, and perhaps even the County Council.

The Desmoulins family went on Saturday in their Sunday best. Madame Préau had seen them leaving the house in good spirits, the two youngest kids running up Rue des Lilas. Laurie and Kévin had probably gone to the old-fashioned grape-pressing demonstrations, ate sausages and chips from the concession stands, enjoyed the amusements, and asked for a pony ride. Maybe they had crossed paths with Bastien and his parents at the societies stand?

Madame Préau would not get to taste the 2008 vintage from the municipal vineyard at the Clos Hills Brotherhood stand. She had headaches and a natural distrust for such popular events and anything that involved petticoats. The stone boy must be unaware of such festivities; maybe he’d never been on a carousel. He would be entitled to his Sunday outing in the garden, no more, no less, and his little legs would take him no farther than the weeping birch.

That is where Madame Préau found him, as she had in previous weeks, a dark miracle that upset her. His head had been shaved, and carelessly. Odd, whitish patches of skin appeared where angles of his skull showed through. His sunken eyes ringed with mauve stared at the cedar leaves. Curled into himself, the boy stood motionless, his head tilted to one side, neglecting to play with his dirt and twigs.

A hoarse cough shook his slender body.

The stone boy was sick and seemed shriveled like dried fruit.

With a heavy heart, Madame Préau set down her binoculars; to stop looking at him was to deny him her support, to abandon him to his fate. He didn’t look up at her house once. It was a bad sign. She had to act fast: she had to make contact with him. The old lady went downstairs to the living room, opened the windows, and got settled at the piano, her shawl over the shoulders. Prelude, interlude, and the finale of
Jack in the Box
.

She felt no satisfaction in playing, even though she was giving it the attention and energy that the interpretation required. How could Erik Satie’s Fantasies comfort a child in such distress? When she let the fingers of her left hand find the first, comforting chords of “Gnossienne,” someone rang the doorbell. Madame Préau waited for the bell to ring a second time before getting up and walking, stiff-backed, to the front door. When she appeared on the porch, she looked like a child about to be scolded for making too much noise playing her drum set.

“Hello! Sorry to bother you…”

The man who stood at the gate added, “I’m your neighbor,” but it wasn’t necessary. Madame Préau recognized Mr. Desmoulins’s balding brush of blond hair. Adjusting her shawl, she went down the few steps to meet him. The man smiled, friendly looking behind the grille.

“I interrupted your concert!” he apologized.

“Not to worry. Let me open this for you.”

Madame Préau took a key ring out of her pocket and unlocked the gate warily. She had insisted to the social worker that her name not be mentioned in the file, but you never knew what to expect from someone employed by the County Council. The man had something of the military about him despite his casual attire. Thick neck, square chin, beefy shoulders—he looked like he was built to carry bags of cement.

“My wife insisted,” he said. “It was her idea. But I haven’t introduced myself…”

His voice was coarse and nasal. He crushed her right hand. A slight smell of frying emanated from his clothes.

“Philippe Desmoulins. And this is our little Laurie.”

The girl stood hidden behind her father’s legs, clinging to his tracksuit bottoms.

“Come on, you have not given up on your shy routine?”

The man caught the little girl by the arm and pushed her in front of him.

“Say hello to the lady. We’re here because of you.”

Laurie gave Madame Préau a nasty look.

The old lady felt as if she had run all the way from the station to the bakery. Her heart began to beat so hard that the blood rushed to her face.

There was no doubt about it: Laurie
knew
.

She had probably seen her in the window on Sunday. She had seen her brother throw stones into her garden, guessed their little game, and maybe even found a caramel behind the cedar hedge. Had she told her parents? And had they made the connection with being called in by the social worker? What if Mr. Desmoulins came to worm it out of her before settling the score?
If it’s that old bitch neighbor who sold us out, she’s a dead woman!

The man looked up to the roof, blinking. His blond eyelashes were almost transparent.

“You have a very beautiful house, madam. What year was it built?”

Madame Préau squeezed the key ring against her chest. She had not thought of this. She had not imagined that she would find herself in this situation. A soft autumn light washed over the garden plants, the leaves took on amber glints, and the hydrangeas shook their brocaded petals once again.

It was a perfect day to meet a bad end. Prepared for the worst, Madame Préau leaned down to the child.

“Nineteen oh eight. Hello, Laurie.”

They had not come about the stone boy. They were there about the piano. Madame Desmoulins had heard at the pharmacy near the station that there was a lady living on Rue des Lilas who had once given musical theory lessons. She had decided that it could only be Madame Préau, whose little Sunday afternoon concerts were so appreciated. So, she had given her husband the job of asking if Laurie could be one of her students.

Madame Préau nearly died. She composed herself. She apologized for her slightly chilly welcome, justifying herself by explaining that she instinctively distrusted anyone she didn’t know ringing the doorbell. She said that she did indeed know the Pommier’s pharmacist where she was occasionally a customer—appreciating as she did their range of compression stockings and socks. She hesitated before inviting Mr. Desmoulins and his daughter into her home, but she had no choice: entering into their game was the only logical option.

“I would like to evaluate Laurie’s level before giving my answer.”

While the girl perched on the piano stool playing the first notes of some nursery rhymes, Madame Préau served her father a coffee, which he knocked back—black, no sugar. They talked about the neighborhood and the building site, about how not all the houses on the street were connected to the sewage mains, the problems caused by the alternate parking system, and the lack of double glazing on Madame Préau’s windows.

“I can get you a good price if you’re interested. I work at Lapeyre. I do the installations.”

“What are the chances,” the old lady replied sarcastically.

“It would be less noisy, and warmer in the winter, that’s for sure.”

“Maybe I will do it one day. A little more coffee?”

They agreed on a price for the lessons that Madame Préau would give to Laurie each Wednesday morning, with payment due monthly on the first of the month. As she was leaving, the girl gave a hint of a smile without dropping her sullen demeanor. In fifteen minutes on the piano stool, she hadn’t stopped sighing and fidgeting, scratching the top of her thigh or sniffing the sleeve of her blouse. She certainly had no desire to learn the piano. It was already a lost cause. But if Madame Préau engineered things carefully, Laurie might agree to hand over some horrible family secrets.

Of this she was quite certain.

No child had ever resisted her baking.

Notes: Tuesday 13 October

(Day of the Desmoulins’ meeting at the social welfare office)

2:50 a.m.—Awakened in the night by the sound of a coat hanger falling on the floor of my room. Found hanger 30 centimeters from the bed. Impossible to explain how it could get there when it was hanging on a fixed hook behind the door almost two meters away. Great trouble getting back to sleep before dawn. The hissing noise above my head at night is still there. Not a single mouse down.

Talked to my pharmacist about my health concerns. The floating sensation and muscle weakness I’ve been having for several weeks are related to mixing Risperdal and Stilnox. I do not want to stop taking the sleeping tablets. My little anxieties are related to lack of sleep, nothing else. I decided to stop the Risperdal as I don’t see the need for it at the moment.

Finally solved the problem of the housekeeper: she decided herself not to go up to the second floor any longer. She said it stinks because of the toilets and bad smells that are coming up from the septic tank and also because I keep the windows and shutters closed on the upper floors. No need to open my house to the crane operator who spends his time looking into my garden and spying on what I get up to.

Hugged my ABCs of rhythm and notation with glee when I found it in a cardboard box of sheet music in the attic. Stuck the red cover back on with tape.

6 p.m.—Chocolate Swiss roll finally finished. Perfect icing. Must think to wet the tea towel more thoroughly next time for the unmolding stage.

TO DO:

Start emptying Martin’s room. Take his books down and put them in the library in the living room.

Buy a metronome.

Madame Préau had been wrong. The girl put her heart into it. Her desire to learn the piano was not an act. Held with a fuchsia band, her ponytail swung from one shoulder to the other. Her palms kept time slightly off the beat. Though weak, she played well. Sitting to the left of her teacher, the little blonde girl followed the notes along the stave cut out of cardboard that Madame Préau moved gently from one line to another, replacing the Fs with Gs. She kept patting the little girl on the back so that she would sit up straight and stop swinging her nervous little feet before they bashed into the piano.

“Yes, Laurie. Bravo. You know your notes already.”

Madame Préau was getting back into the swing of things. She had not had a student for many years. She had put on a striped purple-and-white shirt, a cashmere pencil skirt, and patent-leather ankle boots. Every summer when Bastien was a baby, she would organize a recital at her house and invite her pupils and their parents. They would blithely push the furniture out of the way and put up garden chairs. In their Sunday best, their hands clammy from fright, pianists would play their favorite works, and a snack would be served in the garden under the plum trees laden with fruit. Madame Préau served orange juice, lemonade, and cakes she had made the night before for her students—vanilla or lemon flavor, or stuffed with pieces of dark chocolate. Everyone left with a bag of sweets and rolled-up sheet music clutched to their chests.

“Good. That’s enough work. Are you hungry?”

Ten o’clock was the ideal time to lay a trap for a little girl. Madame Préau led her into the kitchen and sat her down in front of a fat slice of chocolate Swiss roll.

“Enjoy, Laurie.”

Her first spoonful was immediately followed by a second.

“Are you thirsty?”

The girl nodded. While Madame Préau prepared a soft drink for her, she looked up from her plate.

“Mum never makes cake.”

“Oh? That’s a shame.”

“Yes.”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes.”

“If you want, you can take home a piece for your brother Kévin.”

“Maybe.”

“And for your imaginary friend, too.”

Laurie grabbed the glass her teacher had filled with both hands.

“I don’t have an imaginary friend.”

Standing next to the table, Madame Préau put the water jug back down, coughing.

“Really? I was sure you did.”

“No way,” said the little girl with a chocolaty smile. “I’m not a baby anymore! It’s little babies who have imaginary friends.”

“So it’s your brother’s.”

“What?”

“It’s your brother Kévin who has an imaginary friend.”

“Kévin doesn’t have an imaginary friend. He just has a blanky that smells horrid.”

Madame Préau sat next to the child. Something about Laurie was touching. Her surly, outspoken side revealed an interesting personality. Like a valve on a pressure cooker, she must exhaust her authority over her little brother—the steam vent—and thus obscure the tragedy of the elder brother. Her dreams must be on a par with Madame Préau’s nightmares.