Petite Mort (34 page)

‘Camille says:
Who has done this to you? Why? Is it your employers?

‘Adèle nods.
They have killed me
.

‘Camille rushes Adèle towards the bed and leans tenderly over her.

‘Adèle’s lips move as she tells Camille the story; Camille nods, listening. She gets up.
I’ll fetch the doctor
.

‘Adèle says,
Don’t leave me…

‘Then we see Camille exiting the block and hurrying down the street. As she leaves, a pair of men carrying a gun creep down the street to the apartment block’s front door. With exaggerated caution, they sneak inside. Lights go on in the hallway of each floor as they ascend. We see, in silhouette, the thin woman, Camille’s landlady, throw up her arms in panic and fall down; in the next window, the fat woman is felled; in the final, Adèle too crumples to the floor.

‘The criminals make their escape into the night. A second later, Camille hurries back. We see her ascend the staircase, silhouetted in the windows of the apartment. She stands for a moment and then turns and walks away. She exits the apartment block, just before the police arrive, in a pantomime of whistle-blowing and truncheon-waving. Nobody notices Camille slip away.

‘Now we’re getting close to the end. In the next scene, Camille stands opposite Paul Leclerc in a different apartment.

‘Close-up of Paul’s agonised face. He shouts
There must be another way
.

‘Camille says:
If you love me, help me avenge my sister
.

‘She is holding a gun. She passes it to him and spreads her arms.

‘Covering his face with his hands, he shoots her. She clutches her shoulder but remains standing.

‘She says:
And now you must see to the other thing
.

‘Paul nods, weeping, and exits.

‘In the next scene, he arrives at the factory. He removes a set of keys from his pocket and unlocks a shed. He goes to a cupboard in the corner and picks out a film canister. The title says
PETITE MORT
. A DRAMA OF A HAUNTING. WITH DOPPELGÄNGER SCENE.

‘He shoulders the canister and produces a matchbook from his pocket; strikes a match and, coughing as the first smoke starts to show, exits the shed.

‘He appears, triumphant, back at his apartment, with the canister. The room is empty. His face falls. He searches frantically for Camille but she has disappeared.

‘Cut to a police station. Camille, clutching her arm, walks towards the entrance and disappears inside.

‘Now we cut back to the present-day scene in the woods. Paul’s friends’ faces are now alive with interest, whereas Paul’s face is written on with misery. She is gone.
The only fragment of her I have is kept here
. He fishes a cigarette case from his pocket.

‘His friends look at each other and shrug, thinking he may have lost his reason. They pick up Paul and carry him offscreen, leaving just the solitary tree with the noose hanging from it.’

Camille Roux and I look at each other for a long time.

She says: ‘Why, according to your theory, did Paul Leclerc steal the film?’

I say: ‘Imagine if it had been distributed. People would have
flocked to see it. Looked closely at the person in the mirror. Perhaps they would have realised the substitution that had been made.’

She purses her lips. ‘Wouldn’t the murderous employers immediately recognise that the girl on the witness stand was an impostor?’

‘How could they reveal that the real Adèle was dead without telling the Court how they knew it for sure?’

‘And what happens to the girl? The impostor?’

I say: ‘Oh, she lives on into old age. At first she wears a veil around the city; and then, when she feels safer, and when she ages, she takes it off. She congratulates herself on getting away with it. Until, one day, it turns out her lover disobeyed her: he kept the stolen film in her memory. It’s a lucky escape – he’s excised the only scene with her in it. But what if the missing scene comes to light? She decides the time is right to impose her version of events on the world.’

A pause.

‘You hired me because I was inexperienced,’ I say. ‘It suited you to have someone young, who wouldn’t ask awkward questions.’

There is a glint in her smile. I think for a moment it’s anger: then I realise it’s pride.

‘But you did,’ she says.

We sit together, not speaking, for another minute.

Then she says: ‘I made a misstep. With Luce, not contacting me after she was released. You suspected something.’

I say: ‘She knew you weren’t Adèle, didn’t she? She knew that day in the car, outside the courtroom. That was why she never came back. I knew it felt wrong.’

Camille nods.

‘In hindsight, there were other things,’ I say. ‘The way you described the Durands’ house. It didn’t feel like you’d lived
there. And of course, you didn’t. You only knew about it from reading Adèle’s letters.’

Another nod.

‘You must have loved her very much,’ I say. ‘To give up everything to avenge her. To live as someone else for fifty years. Did loving make-up make it easier? Did you see it as a kind of film trick to end all film tricks?’

A final nod. The point of the chin lifting. Water trembling in her eyes.

The waiter brings us another coffee. She smiles up at him and says thank you.

When he’s gone she says: ‘What happens now?’

I say: ‘The past is another country. Peyssac stole the film. Your memoirs will end with me failing to find the missing scene in his archive box.’

She digests this. Her hands, linked together on the table, are perfectly still.

I say: ‘There is just one thing I want to know. Was it worth it?’

She laughs. In the laugh is the laugh of a much younger woman.

Camille, i
.

I often go to the cinema.

Tonight, the film is an antique, and the audience is made up of older people, like me, and earnest young ones: boys with their arms slung round girls; girls with long hair and intelligent faces.

Velvet drapes open, and behind this curtain, a screen; and behind its façade are things we cannot see – the toe of the black-clad stagehand whisking out of frame, the tick of the camera, the tension in the director’s face – an army of ghosts. So we sit numbly in our seats and soak up the tricks and the story, and on the edge of the frame it takes immeasurable work to create it: ropes hauled, hands chafed, a spark in the writer which becomes a germ which becomes a script. We have paid for our tickets, and we think we own this. And the film humours us, because it’s an illusion that is created with love.

I turn my head – certain, from the brush of air, that someone has just taken the seat next to me. The light from the screen flickers over her face.

It took me years to find you
, she says sadly.
I don’t know how long I can stay
.

It doesn’t matter
, I tell her.
Flesh of my flesh
. Does anyone ever have enough time?