Blood Wedding (11 page)

She repeats each gesture several times, trying, by sheer force of will, to fuse the words to the actions. As soon as she comes home, before she even undresses, she rushes to the wardrobe to check that the folder is still there. Then she sticks it to the fridge door with a magnet until she has to go out again.

Perhaps she could kill him one day, this husband she is trying to find? No. When she is finally safe, she will go back and see someone like Doctor Brevet. She will keep two notebooks, three if she has to, she will start writing everything down, and this time, nothing will distract her. It is like a child’s resolution: if she pulls through, she will never again let madness engulf her.

Five
dates later, Sophie is no further forward. Theoretically, the agency is supposed to introduce her to potential partners who meet her criteria, but the woman at Odyssée, like an estate agent who shows you properties that have nothing to do with what you are looking for, is sending her everyone she has. First, there was a dull-witted soldier proud to have risen to the lowly rank of
sergent-chef
, next a depressive draughtsman who, she discovered after three hours of tedious conversation, had an ex-wife and two children and a poorly negotiated alimony settlement that ate up three-quarters of his unemployment benefit.

She had stumbled out of a tea room, crushed by boredom, having spent a couple of interminable hours listening to a former priest whose finger bore the mark of a wedding ring he had clearly taken off an hour earlier, probably in an attempt to spice up his bleak sex life. And then there was the tall, self-confident guy who proposed a marriage of convenience for 6,000 euros.

Time seems to be passing ever faster. However much Sophie tells herself that she is not looking for a husband (she is recruiting a candidate), the fact remains that they will have to marry, to
sleep together, to live together. In a few weeks, in a few days, she will no longer have the luxury of choosing, she will have to make do with whatever she can find.

Time passes and with it her opportunity to be free, and this is something to which she cannot reconcile herself.

Sophie
is on the bus. Go faster. She stares vacantly ahead. What can she do to make it go faster? She checks her watch: she just has time to get home, catch two or three hours’ sleep. She is shattered. She slips her hands into her pockets. It is curious how they tremble at times and not at others. She stares out of the window. Madagascar. She turns and, for a fleeting instant, looks at the poster that caught her eye. A travel agency. She cannot be certain. But she stands up, presses the button, ready to get off at the next stop. It feels as though she has travelled kilometres before the bus finally comes to a halt. She trudges back up the boulevard, moving like a wind-up toy, as always. As it turns out, it is not far. The image on the poster is of a young black woman with an innocent, beguiling smile. She is wearing a kind of turban, the sort of thing with a name you would find in a crossword puzzle. Behind her is a picture-postcard beach. Sophie crosses the street and turns to look at the poster from a distance. The better to think.

“Affirmative,” the soldier had said. “Not really my thing, I have to say. Never been much of a traveller, but, yeah, we’ve got lots of opportunities like that. I’ve got a mate, a
sergent-chef
like
me, he’s being posted to Madagascar. In his case it kind of makes sense, his wife lives there. In general, though, there aren’t many lads who are keen to leave France! Not as many as you might think . . .”

Not as many as you might think.

*

She thinks about this all the way home. Before she reaches her door she stops at a telephone booth, delves into her bag.

“Look,” the soldier had said shyly. “This might sound bad, I mean, the thing is, I don’t really know how to go about this . . . I can’t really ask you for your number, so I’m going to give you mine. It’s my private number. I mean, you never know . . .”

By the end of their date, the soldier had lost much of the superciliousness he had had when he arrived. He no longer looked like a conquering hero.

“I know I’m not really your type . . . You need someone who’s, well, more intellectual.”

He had smiled awkwardly.

*

“Hello?”

“Hi,” Sophie said. “It’s Marianne Leblanc, I’m not disturbing you am I?”

*

In fact, the soldier is not as short as he at first seemed. He is half a head taller than Sophie, but everything about him is marked with a crippling shyness that makes him seem smaller. When Sophie walks into the café, he gets clumsily to his feet. She sees him now in a new light, but new or old, there is only one thing to be said about him: he is ugly. “Well, plain,” she tries to reassure herself only for a little voice to whisper: “No. Ugly.”

“What
would you like to drink?”

“I don’t know – a coffee? What about you?”

“Same. A coffee.”

They spend a while like this, smiling uncomfortably at each other.

“I’m really glad you called. Do you always tremble like that?”

“I’m just nervous.”

“I suppose that’s normal. I am too, well, I don’t want to talk about me . . . It’s really hard to know what to say, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps we’ve got nothing to say to each other.”

She regrets this immediately.

“I’m so sorry.”

“That’s a negative! I . . .”

“Please, I’m begging you, don’t say ‘negative’ and ‘affirmative’ all the time, it’s really irritating.”

She has been brutal.

“It’s just, I feel like I’m talking to a computer,” she says by way of apology.

“You’re right. Force of habit. It comes with the job. I suppose in your job you must pick up strange habits, no?”

“I work as a cleaner, so my habits are much the same as anyone else’s. Well, anyone who does their own cleaning, that is.”

“It’s weird, I didn’t mention it last time, but I’d never guess you were a cleaner. You seem really educated.”

“Well, yes . . . I did study, but that kind of thing doesn’t appeal to me anymore. Let’s talk about it some other time, if you don’t mind?”

“No, no, I don’t mind. Nothing much bothers me, I’m pretty easy-going.”

And this declaration, uttered with disarming sincerity, makes
Sophie think that there is nothing more annoying in life than people who are easy-going.

“Right,” Sophie says, “let’s start again from square one, shall we?”

“I’m not sure we ever got past square one!”

He is not as dumb as he seems.

Why not
? Sophie hears a small voice in her head. But first, she needs to know; right now, the fact that he could be posted abroad is his one attractive quality. This is what she needs to confirm.

*

Sophie decided they should meet in the late afternoon. They have been here for an hour. The soldier weighs his every syllable so as not to say anything that might scupper the flimsy raft on which he is afloat.

“Why don’t we get something to eat?” Sophie says.

“If you like.”

From the moment they met, this has been the pattern: the man is weak, he is needy, he wants whatever she wants. She feels a little ashamed of what she is planning to do to him, but she knows what she will have to give him in exchange. As she sees it, he is hardly losing out. He is looking for a wife. Any woman would fit the bill. A wife. Even Sophie would do.

As they leave the café, she is the one who decides to turn right. He does not question her decision, he carries on chattering as he walks beside her, harmless. He is content to have Sophie lead him by the nose. It feels a little pathetic.

“Where do you fancy going?” she says.

“I don’t know . . . How about Le Relais?”

Sophie is convinced that he has had that line prepared since the night before.

“What kind of place is it?”

“A
restaurant. A brasserie . . . I mean, I’ve only ever been there once, but it’s not bad. Well, I’m not sure you’d like it.”

Sophie manages to smile.

“Let’s find out, shall we?”

*

And in the end, it is indeed not bad. Sophie was afraid it might be a restaurant full of squaddies, but did not dare ask.

“It’s really nice,” she says.

“To tell you the truth, I picked it out beforehand. I even walked past this morning to do a quick recce. I couldn’t really remember where it was.”

“You haven’t actually been here before, have you?”

“That’s a neg. I get the feeling it’s not going to be easy to lie to you.” The soldier smiles.

As she watches him choose from the menu (waiting to see whether he lingers over the prices), she wonders how a man like him will come through this unscathed. But he has to fend for himself. And since he will want to know the pleasures of the flesh, he has to accept that sooner or later she will exact a pound of his. It will be a true marriage, the two will be one flesh.

“Do you tend to lie to women?” Sophie picks up the thread of the conversation.

“No more than most men, I reckon. Less, actually, I think. Let’s say I’m probably somewhere in the middle.”

“So, on our first date, what did you lie about?”

Sophie lights a cigarette, then remembers he does not smoke. She does not care. As long as he leaves her be.

“I don’t know. We didn’t talk for long, did we?”

“When it comes to lying, some men don’t take much time.”

He stares at her.

“I
can’t compete.”

“Sorry?”

“In conversation, I can’t compete with you. I’m not much of a talker, you know that. Of course you know that. It’s probably the reason you picked me. Well, I say ‘picked’ . . .”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, I know what I mean.”

“The conversation might be easier if we both knew.”

The waiter appears. Mentally, Sophie makes a bet.

“What are you having?” he says.

“Rib-eye steak and a side salad. What about you?”

“Let’s see . . .” He scans the menu one last time. “I’ll have the same, steak and salad.”

“How would you like it cooked?” the waiter says.

“Rare. Both rare,” Sophie says, stubbing out her cigarette.

Jesus, what a stupid thing to say.

“You were saying?”

“Me? Nothing, why?”

“That’s why I picked you . . .? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, don’t mind me. I’m a born bumbler. I can’t help it. My mother always used to say if I was walking through a field and there was a single cow pat (’scuse my language), I’d be the one to step in it.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Not much to follow, I’m not particularly complicated.”

“It seems that way. Sorry, I meant . . .”

“Don’t keep apologising or we’ll be here all night.”

The waiter brings the two identical steaks. In silence they begin to eat. Sophie feels she should say something nice about the steak,
finds she cannot think of another word. The vast desert separating them has just grown wider, like a pool spreading, spreading . . .

“It’s not bad, in fact.”

“Yeah, it’s good. Really good.”

But there is nothing to be done, Sophie does not have the energy to revive the conversation, it is too much effort. She has to eat her steak and hang in there. For the first time, she studies him closely. A metre seventy-five, maybe a metre eighty. A decent body, probably, broad shoulders – soldiers tend to be pretty fit – large hands, impeccable nails. And the face: like a spaniel puppy. His hair probably stuck up before he had it cropped, his nose is a little flat, his eyes a little vacant. But he is well built. Strange that the first time they met, she thought he was small. Probably just the way he carries himself, as though he has not quite grown up. There is an innocence to him. For an instant Sophie envies him. For the first time she genuinely envies his simplicity. She realises that, until now, she has seen him as an object, that she has been sneering without even knowing him. She reacted like a man.

“We made a bit of a hash, didn’t we?” she says.

“A hash?”

“Of the conversation . . . It sort of petered out.”

“Well, it’s not easy,” he says. “When you find something to talk about, it’s easy, you just keep going, but sometimes it leads nowhere. We started off well, it’s a pity the waiter didn’t come at that point.”

Sophie cannot help but smile.

What she is feeling now is not boredom, it is not contempt. What is it? A hollowness. An emptiness. Perhaps it comes from him.

“So, what was it you said you do, exactly?”

“I’m
in the Signals Corps.”

“Well, that helps.”

“Sorry?”

“What does that mean, the Signals Corps? Tell me.”

The soldier launches into an explanation. Now that he is in his element, he is quite talkative. She is not listening. Discreetly she glances at the clock. But could it really have been any different? What did she expect? Another Vincent? She sees herself in their house just after they moved in. The day she started painting the living room. Vincent came up behind her and simply laid his hand on the back of her neck and Sophie felt his strength flow into her.

“You’re not really interested in the Signals Corps, are you?”

“No, no, I am.”

“So you find the whole thing fascinating?”

“Well, I wouldn’t go as far as that.”

“I know what you’re thinking.”

“You do?”

“Yes. You’re thinking ‘Nice enough guy, with his stories about the Signals Corps, but boring as fuck.’ Excuse my language. You’re checking the time, your mind is elsewhere. I should probably tell you right now, I feel the same. You make me uncomfortable, you’re trying to be nice because, well, what choice do you have? So here we are, talking away. But we haven’t got much to talk about. I can’t help wonder . . .”

“I’m really sorry, you’re right, my mind was elsewhere. It’s just that it’s very technical, what you do.”

“It’s not just because it’s technical. It’s mostly that you don’t fancy me. I wonder . . .”

“What?”

“I
can’t help wondering why you called me back. What is it that you really want? What’s your story?”