After the Crash (21 page)

Lylie reeled dangerously. This bar stool, with its narrow legs, seemed
to have been designed specifically to tip over whenever the person
sitting on it had had a little too much to drink.

It won’t be long, thought Lylie.
She brought the tumbler of gin to her lips. It didn’t burn so
much now. She no longer felt anything but the swaying of the
stool.
She was the only woman in the bar – Barramundi, on Rue de
Lappe. It was the kind of bar you did not enter alone, even during
the day, unless you had something very specific in mind. While
the guys in the bar pretended not to be interested in her – continuing to drink their beers and their glasses of wine, scratching at
their Lottery cards, and watching sport endlessly on the television
– she could feel their eyes on her bare thighs, creeping up her back,
towards the nape of her neck . . .
To forget.
Lylie downed the rest of her gin and turned to the barman, a
placid man with a single tuft of grey, curly hair on top of his head.
‘What else do you have?’
She had already tried vodka and tequila. For the moment, her
favourite by far was vodka. But she was still at the beginning of
her learning curve; she had never touched a drop of alcohol before
her eighteenth birthday. And even on her birthday, she had drunk
only one glass of champagne. Now she was making up for lost time.
‘Perhaps you should quit while you’re ahead, miss. Don’t you
think you’ve had enough to drink?’
What was he on about, this baldie with his stupid lock of hair?
Didn’t he realise she was eighteen now? Lylie was about to shove
her ID card under his nose, but the bastard had already turned his
back on her.
A man wearing a grey suit and a floppy tie was standing by the
bar about thirty feet away from her, staring into a glass containing
some brownish liquid. He was the only man in the bar not to have
undressed her with his eyes. Lylie leaned towards him, gripping the
counter as she balanced precariously on her stool.
‘Hey, you! What are you drinking?’
Floppy Tie sat up a little bit.
‘Just a scotch . . .’
‘I want that too! Hey, garçon, that’s what I want.’
The bartender, unruffled, frowned with his right eyebrow. ‘Are
you sure, miss?’
‘It’s all right, Jean-Charles,’ said Floppy Tie. ‘This one’s on
me.’
Jean-Charles frowned again, this time with his left eyebrow. The
man must have trained for years to attain such mastery of his eyebrows, Lylie thought.
‘Let’s make this the last one, then. I don’t want any trouble.’
The scotch drinker, whose stool-balancing technique was far
better than Lylie’s, somehow managed to sidle up alongside her
without leaving his seat. He was not there to console her, not at
all. To him, the bar was an island, and he had been here since
his ship sank, surviving on liquor and conversations with other
shipwreck victims: swapping tales of storms and messages in
bottles.
‘So what is a nice girl like you doing in a place like this,
Miss . . .?’
‘Dragonfly. Miss Dragonfly.’
The man seemed to have only just noticed that the girl he was
chatting up possessed the beautiful, slender body of a model, and
that the entire bar was watching their little mating ritual.
‘Nice name, that . . . Dragonfly. I’m Richard . . . I’m a college
professor, in Boieldieu, in the twentieth arrondissement, so as you
can probably guess, I’m . . .’
Lylie reached out to pick up her glass of scotch. She sipped it and
pulled a face. Clearly, nothing was going to taste as good as vodka.
Realising that she was completely uninterested in his tales of academia, Richard changed the subject.
‘So . . . a pretty girl like you . . . You don’t look like a pro. How is
it possible that you’re here, when you’re so pretty, I mean?’
Lylie leaned towards Richard.
‘Come here, you.’
Suddenly grabbing hold of his tie, Lylie pulled him towards her
until her mouth was close to his ear.
‘I’ll tell you, Mr Floppy Tie. I’m not pretty at all. This is just a
disguise.’
Richard looked dazed. ‘Huh?’
‘My thighs, my breasts, my mouth, my skin . . . all those things
that guys look at and want to touch . . . it’s just a disguise, you see,
made of latex. Like a wetsuit . . .’
‘You . . . are you . . .’
‘I’m not joking. Everyone thinks I’m beautiful, but the truth is,
inside, I’m a monster!’
‘Uh . . .’
‘Cat got your tongue? I’m telling you, I’m like a snake. I have
several skins. I’m like those monsters on TV, the ones that look
like humans on the surface but underneath they are ugly reptilian
things. You know what I’m saying?’
‘Not really. I don’t watch much television, you see, I’m a professor . . .’
A pull of the tie, and the man shut up.
‘I’m going to tell you something else. Something worse. I’m not
alone: there are two of us inside this skin. Can you believe it? Two
of us in the same body.’
‘Well . . . I think it’s . . .’
‘Don’t say a word. It’s better like that. I’m going to have to leave
in a few minutes. You know where I’m going? I’m going to do
something bad. Something I really don’t want to do. Something
that disgusts me. But I have to do it . . .’
Richard clung to Lylie’s shoulder; it was either that or he would
fall off his stool. His arm was pressed against Lylie’s breast. As he
brought his lips closer to hers, he stammered: ‘Why? No one has
to do anything they don’t want to do. Perhaps I could help you . . .
take off your disguise, so I could see underneath. See you and your
friend . . .’
Richard grew bolder. Lylie still had a hold of his tie, so he did not
have much room for manoeuvre, but he managed to slide his right
hand under her skirt. Lylie did not bat an eyelid.
‘It’s too late. You can’t do anything for me, nobody can. I’m going
to kill someone who has done nothing to deserve it . . . That’s just
how it is.’
‘All right, all right . . . but there’s still time. A few minutes. You
should show me your other skin, before you leave . . . if you want
me to believe you . . .’
The man’s right hand climbed higher up Lylie’s thigh, while his
left hand brushed against her breast. The bartender frowned with
both eyebrows at the same time and slammed a glass down on the
countertop.
‘Easy, Richard. Take it easy with the kid. Take your hands off her.
Don’t you think you’ve had enough hassle with that kind of thing
already?’
Richard hesitated. Lylie pulled harder on his tie, half-choking
him.
‘Hey, are you listening to me? I’m telling you I’m going to kill an
innocent person!’
Lylie leaned further forward. This time, it was too much for the
stool, and she collapsed in a heap on the floor.
Richard reached down to help her up.
‘Don’t touch me!’ she screamed. ‘Take your filthy hands off me!
Piss off!’

Mathilde de Carville pulled apart the curtains and looked through
the window to see if her granddaughter was doing what she had
been told to do. Marc gazed after her, out through the fine mesh
of the white net curtains, to the vast green and ochre park. The
Roseraie seemed to be permeated with the cocooned ambience of
an old film, with its antiquated bourgeois decor and pastel tones, all
of it slightly out of focus. In the distance, Malvina was pushing her
grandfather along the pink gravel path. The old man’s head seemed
to have fallen to one side during the walk on the uneven path, and
his neck was now twisted. His open eyes were staring up at the
white sky, or perhaps at the treetops, at the slowly falling leaves of
the large maple tree. Malvina did not bother to fix her grandfather’s
position.

Mathilde waited a few seconds longer, then slowly let the curtain fall. The room was once again plunged into a dim half-light,
in which the white silhouettes of the sheet-covered furniture and
the white lacquered wood of the Petrof glowed like frozen ghosts.
Mathilde de Carville turned towards Marc.

‘Marc . . . May I call you Marc? I think my age makes it permissible. As you have come to visit me, Marc, I would like to ask you
a question. One simple question. When you saw Lylie, in the past
few days, after her eighteenth birthday, was she wearing any new
jewellery? A ring, for example?’

Marc was standing near the piano. His fingers danced over
the keyboard without touching any of the keys.
Why lie?
‘Yes, she was wearing a ring. A pale sapphire . . .’
Mathilde de Carville did not smile. She showed no sign of triumph or jubilation. Marc found that strange.

Marc’s hand stroked the piano. The Mauser was still there, on
the white wood, about three feet from his fingertips. Marc looked
through the window, attempting to spot Malvina in the park, but
the curtain revealed nothing but a line of pale light.

‘She’s mad,’ Mathilde de Carville’s voice announced calmly. ‘My
granddaughter has gone almost completely insane. I assume you
realised that?’

Marc did not reply, so Mathilde continued: ‘What about you,
Marc? What do you think?’
Marc waited.
‘About madness, I mean. What do you think?’
Marc let his fingers dance over the ivory keys.
‘I am talking to you, Marc,’ the cold voice insisted. ‘I am talking
about
you. Just like Malvina, as a little child your brain had to deal
with all the uncertainty, the doubt. What had happened to your
little sister? Was she alive? Dead? Are you in a better state than
Malvina, when all is said and done?’
Marc looked up, but still did not speak.
‘It’s torture, isn’t it, Marc? All those years. Not knowing what to
feel about the girl you love more than anyone else in the world. Is it
a chaste brotherly love? Or something more passionate and carnal?
How must it feel to grow up with all that uncertainty?’
Her voice had changed. It had grown louder, more threatening.
Mathilde de Carville moved towards the piano.
‘In order to survive, we rationalise our feelings, don’t we, Marc?
Through all those childhood years, little Marc sought the affection
of Emilie, his adorable little sister . . . and then little Marc grew up,
and the doubt began to seem like an opportunity. Why not take
advantage of it? Bury little Emilie and fall in love with Lyse-Rose,
the rich and beautiful de Carville heir . . .’
Mathilde de Carville’s fingers crept towards the revolver.
‘I suffered, Marc. My God, how I suffered. I atoned for my sins,
all those years. I don’t even know what my sins were, but I atoned
for them anyway. My vengeance has a bitter taste, Marc, believe
me.’
Marc coughed. It was the only sound he seemed to be able to
make. Mathilde now stood only a couple of feet away from him.
What vengeance was she talking about?
Suddenly, Mathilde de Carville turned away and walked towards
the bookshelves on the other side of the room. She picked up a thickspined book, the title of which Marc could not see, and opened it.
From inside its pages, she extracted a lavender-blue envelope.
‘Grand-Duc grew close to you, Marc. He even became a family
friend. But don’t be fooled: he was still my employee. He would
file a report for me almost every week . . . at least in the early years.
After five years of investigation, there were practically no new leads
to follow. After eight years, there were none at all.’
The image of Grand-Duc’s corpse flashed through Marc’s mind.
Mathilde placed the blue envelope on the piano, next to the revolver.
‘None at all . . . except for one. The last one. The only one. This
was in 1988 . . .’
Mathilde turned around again.
‘Marc, we aren’t in any rush. May I offer you something to drink?’
Marc hesitated. Everything that had happened to him, everything
he had found, since he arrived at the Roseraie, seemed to have been
prepared, calculated, as if his arrival had been expected. This dimly
lit room. The white piano with the Mauser on top of it. The disappearance of Malvina and Léonce into the garden, or elsewhere.
‘Yes . . . sure,’ Marc said, in spite of his misgivings.
‘Herbal tea? I have some excellent varieties, grown in my own
garden.’
Marc nodded. Mathilde de Carville was gone from the room for
a long time, leaving Marc alone, next to the blue envelope and the
Mauser. This was, clearly, her intention. A form of slow torture.
Mathilde’s revenge. Marc tried to slow his breathing, examining
himself for the first signs of agoraphobia. While he had not sensed
any danger at all in the company of the armed monster Malvina,
this scene with her grandmother was having quite the opposite
effect. He was beginning to feel the familiar tingling as the blood
rushed through his veins.
Mathilde returned, carrying a small tray on which sat two cups.
She poured hot water into both, and handed one to Marc with a
saucer.
‘Drink, Marc.’
Marc hesitated. Mathilde smiled at him: ‘I’m not going to poison
you!’
He took a sip. The liquid scalded his lips.
‘I will not prolong your suffering any longer, Marc,’ said Mathilde
de Carville.
He drank some tea. It tasted good.
‘At the beginning of this decade,’ she went on, ‘as I am sure you
are aware, it became possible to find out the truth. All that was
needed was a simple DNA test. It was infallible. In return for a lot
of money and a few drops of saliva or blood, there were laboratories
in England that could give you the results within a few days. It took
me several years to make the decision. The Catholic religion does
not fit particularly well with this form of science. I hesitated for a
long time, but finally I decided to have the test done three years
ago, when Lylie was fifteen. It was Grand-Duc’s final mission, in a
way. He took care of everything. He had connections with forensics
specialists in the police force and I provided him with the money.
The way we did it was not strictly legal. He got hold of a sample
of Lylie’s blood on her birthday. I gave him mine, some from my
husband, and some from Malvina. It was so simple.’
Marc felt his legs give way beneath him. He took another sip of
herbal tea. The more he drank, the more sour the taste became. He
remembered Lylie’s fifteenth birthday, of course. Grand-Duc had
been invited, as he was every year, and he had given her a glass vase.
The vase was so thin – or perhaps it was already cracked – that it
shattered as soon as Lylie held it. She cut her index finger. GrandDuc had stammered his apologies while he picked up the broken
pieces of glass.
Would Grand-Duc confess to this subterfuge in his notebook?
Marc would find out soon. His throat was burning.
Right now, he wanted only one thing: to tear open that blue
envelope and read what was inside.
Mathilde de Carville smiled at him strangely again.
‘Marc, the results are inside that envelope. I have known them
for three years now. I am the only one who knows them. You have
helped me by coming here, Marc. Now you can take this envelope
with you.’
Marc took a last sip of tea. With trembling hands, he grabbed the
blue envelope. Mathilde de Carville’s face creased into a triumphant
grimace.
‘But you must not open it, Marc! You must take this envelope to
Nicole Vitral. This is between me and your grandmother. If anyone
else deserves to know the truth, after all these years, it is her.’
A long, frosty silence filled the room. Marc put the envelope in
his pocket.
‘How do you know I won’t open it as soon as I leave here?’
‘You are a good, obedient child, aren’t you? I don’t think you
would betray your grandmother. This letter is for her.’
‘Those are your rules. Why should I follow them?’
‘You’ll follow them, Marc. Of course you will. Because you are
already convinced that you know the answer written inside this
envelope.’
Marc gasped. His throat and stomach were burning.
‘What do you have to fear, Marc? Isn’t this what you wanted? For
Lyse-Rose to have survived, for Emilie to be dead. Nicole will be
sad, of course, but I am sure her grandson’s happiness will console
her.’
Marc could feel the symptoms of a panic attack overcoming him.
He could not control his breathing and he felt as if the herbal tea
was consuming his stomach. Mathilde de Carville gave a horrible
laugh.
‘What are you hoping for, exactly, Marc? To marry Lylie? Do you
want her to become Lyse-Rose de Carville? Do you wish to be my
son-in-law? A white wedding at Notre-Dame? My husband might
find it difficult to escort his granddaughter up the aisle, but we
could work something out. And what about afterwards? Would you
come with Lyse-Rose to drink coffee on Sundays, to play chess in
the park, while I discuss waffles and chips with your grandmother?
What a shame, Marc. What a waste . . .’
Marc tried to grab hold of his cup, but it fell from his hands and
smashed on the carpet, splattering the legs of the piano.
‘Give that envelope to your grandmother, Marc. If she wishes,
she may let you read the DNA test results afterwards. And tell her
that I have no regrets, in particular about the money I spent. I am
at peace with myself.’
Marc’s eyesight grew blurred and his veins felt as if they were on
fire. His legs, like two towers weakened by an inferno, collapsed
beneath him and his hands grasped at the Petrof ’s keyboard, slowing his fall with a sinister clash of discordant notes.