Too Close to the Edge (7 page)

The sun was beginning to yawn above the Roman-tiled rooftops. A handful of people had emerged out of nowhere and were crossing the square, a baguette under their arm, a shopping basket in their hand, everyday people, life’s walk-on parts; Étienne would have liked to swap roles. He sighed and his eyes met Éliette’s lavender-blue gaze. She was smiling.

‘What?’

‘Nothing. You’re sweet when you’re sad. Shall we go?’

In the car, they heard on the news that a twelve-year-old English girl had just given birth. The father was thirteen. When the child reached the age of twenty, it would have a thirty-two-year-old mother. Éliette remarked that, given we were all living longer, it would soon be hard to tell grandfather from grandson in family albums. But another
news item, this time from the United States, suggested the opposite: two twelve-year-old kids had just been shot dead by police after gunning down half a dozen of their classmates along with their teacher. Christ dying at thirty-three seemed like a doddery old man in comparison.

They said no more to each other but sat thinking how quickly our time on earth is up, all the way back to Éliette’s house. A crow was nailed to the gate by its wing, its head smashed in. Éliette hid her face in her hands while Étienne pulled the bird free and sent it on one last flight before it landed beyond the bushes.

‘He’s mad! My God, what am I going to do? I can’t stay here any longer! I’m calling the police.’

‘Calm down, Éliette. I’m here. I’m sure we can find a way to sort this out without making a song and dance about it. Trust me.’

Étienne put his arms around her and kissed her on the forehead. Trembling from head to toe, she clutched him tightly. Their lips met. She kissed like a little girl, mouth barely open, the shy tip of her tongue flavoured with diabolo menthe. As they closed the door behind them, Étienne told himself there was no rest in this world until you were six feet under a marble slab.

The telephone rang for the first time while Étienne was making a tomato salad. Éliette went to pick it up. It was Serge. His father had not been seen since that morning and Serge wondered if he might by any chance have been by. After a
brief pause, Éliette responded in the negative, then asked after Rose. She was doing OK. The cousins from Aubenas were plying her with sleeping pills, leaving themselves free to sniff around in cupboards, suss out what the land and buildings were worth, and do sums on the backs of envelopes. There was such an atmosphere up there, he wasn’t sure he could stick it out until the funeral. On that note, he wished her a good evening. He would probably pop in to say hello in the morning, just to be around some normal people.

Next it was Agnès’s turn to call. She sounded completely hyper. Étienne could barely make sense of half of it.

‘I can’t understand a thing you’re saying. Speak clearly!’

‘I’m on a boat! It’s awesome! Loads of people and champagne and stuff!’

‘Good for you. What about the rest of it?’

‘It’s all good. I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Ben’s giving me a ride – and man, wait till you see his car! It’s Italian, red, a proper racing car. Nothing like Éliette’s little toy!’

‘Are you out of your mind? You’re not seriously planning on bringing this guy here?’

‘Why not? He’s got the dough, he’s cool. No problemo, Daddy-o. We’ll be able to get moving.’

‘Agnès! Do not bring that man here. Do you hear me? It’s not a block of hash you’re selling, for fuck’s sake. These people could stick a gun under our noses and skin us like rabbits. You’re off your head. You need to drop it and get out of there, Agnès … Agnès?’

‘I can’t hear you! … This phone is a piece of shit … Hello?’

‘Agnès!’

‘I’ll call you back tomorrow. Oh, and don’t do anything silly with Éliette. You know I’m the jealous type!’

‘Agnès …’

‘Love you, you funny old fart.’

Étienne remained in conversation with the dial tone for a few seconds before hanging up.

They picked at their supper of tomato salad and a slice of ham. The bird nailed to the door had cast the shadow of its withered wing over the sunny afternoon. They opened a bottle of rosé and sat on the front step, sipping their wine and waiting for shooting stars to make a wish on. Éliette wished that Paul would fall into a hole so deep and dark he might never have existed. And she had two other, more minor, wishes: that Sylvie’s children be bedridden with measles, and that Marc be forced to cancel his visit because of work (which would hardly be a surprise, after all). As for Étienne, he wished only to go back forty-five years and for a big fat star to hang permanently above his head. But all these comets, most of which were actually Russian or American satellites, were so laden with the petty hopes of humans in disarray that they left nothing but calling cards in the sky, along with the false promise that things would soon return to normal.

Since they could expect nothing from these tin-plated stars, Étienne and Éliette held one another close and waited for desire to make them climb the flight of stairs to Éliette’s room. It was more of a big cuddle than a night of torrid passion. Both of them were tired, moving about in the bed as if in an aquarium filled with thick blue jelly. Having become
used to Agnès’s matchstick body – so easily set alight – he struggled to find his way around Éliette’s, made timid and awkward by abstinence. But it didn’t really matter: their fond strokes and caresses were enough to make them feel that one day they would have time, all the time in the world. They fell peacefully asleep, like two prisoners on death row clinging to the tiny hope of a presidential pardon.

In her dream, Éliette was doing the washing up, a huge great pile of it! She had barely finished one plate when someone handed her another. She could not tear her eyes from the foamy basin of clinking cutlery, glasses and saucers. She wanted to look up at the sky which she knew was so blue, but everything was going too quickly … Still these anonymous hands were bringing piles and piles of dirty plates … One of these went crashing to the floor, and she woke up.

‘Étienne, I heard something!’

‘Hmm?’

‘I heard a noise. There’s someone downstairs.’

‘Stay here. I’ll go.’

His dream had been filled with snow. Reach the summit and he would have won. But won what? … He pulled on his trousers, wobbling in the dark, and left the room, coughing, his eyes still gummed up with sleep. It must have been around five in the morning; the pale light of dawn was creeping up the stairs like smoke. Outside, the birds were singing loudly, proud supporters of the breaking day. At the bottom of the stairs, Étienne hovered between the living room on his left and the kitchen on his right. He went for the kitchen, and the moment he stepped over the threshold, he knew what had
been in store for the winner in his dream: a blow to the back of the head.

Pushing herself up on her elbows in bed, Éliette thought she heard a soft thud, like a pile of wet laundry being dumped on the floor, and then nothing.

‘Étienne? … ÉTIENNE?’

No answer. The light of dawn filtering through the slats in the shutters looked cold, like a grey shroud. She tried to cry out again but no sound escaped through the barrier of her gritted teeth. It was pointless. Someone was climbing the stairs, but it was not Étienne. Her fingers clutched the sheets while her eyes remained fastened on the half-open door, like an animal waiting for the butcher’s axe to fall. We tell ourselves in books that we could jump out of the window, cry for help, lay our hands on a blunt object, do something. But it isn’t true: fear paralyses you, makes an idiot out of you – the victim is suicidal, obediently waiting for the executioner to do his work. You know what’s going to happen and you believe in it fervently, as though it were a form of deliverance. Perhaps it is all we have been waiting for, all our lives.

‘Paul, why are you doing this?’

He had not yet pushed the door; only the barrel of his rifle pointed through the opening. He looked different, as though his profile had been etched on a bronze coin.

‘Don’t scream, Éliette. Don’t scream or I’ll kill you.’

The words were spoken calmly, as if to a restless child
at bedtime. His gun was in his right hand, and with the handkerchief in his left he wiped the sweat from his brow. He surveyed the room and, having established there was no riot squad hiding behind the wardrobe, he sat down at the foot of the bed. He looked like a hunter returning home empty-handed.

‘I know it’s not right, all of that … But all my life I’ve done the right thing and look where it’s got me! I don’t regret anything. I would have liked it to happen differently, but … all those feelings …’

He was beating his chest with the flat of his hand, and making the bed bounce. He had tears in his eyes, his gaze as clouded as his state of mind. Éliette let out a deep sigh. Perhaps there was a way out after all.

‘Why don’t you put down your gun?’

‘I can’t … If you scream, I’ll shoot you, obviously.’

‘Why?’

‘Because that’s just the way it is! … You spend your whole life trying to find a place there’s no way back from. That’s where I am.’

‘What have you done to Étienne?’

‘That stupid little bastard? He’s not dead; I just gave him a good whack round the head. He’s tied up downstairs. What the hell do you see in that idiot, anyway?’

‘He’s a friend, Paul. Just a friend!’

Paul was now standing again, the barrel of his gun chasing the shadows.

‘He’s no man, Éliette! No man at all. He’ll hurt you, I’m telling you. I know what men are like – I was in Algeria!
Up in the Aurès mountains, you soon sorted the men from the boys. I stood and watched the prisoners dig their own graves …
Bang! Bang! … He
is not a man, believe me.’

‘You’re scaring me. Put the gun down.’

He looked at her, dazed by his own rant, and began smiling as if he knew her game.

‘I may not be the sharpest tool in the box, but I’m no fool, Éliette!’

‘What do you want?’

‘I don’t know any more … Good, evil, it’s all the same … Smashing that little bastard’s head in was fun, just like nailing that crow to your door … Doing wrong … that’s it, that’s what I like.’

‘You won’t get anywhere with that attitude.’

‘Who cares? I’m already there! I’m not afraid of anything any more! Anything at all!’

He banged his head against the door several times to demonstrate how pain made him numb. A trickle of blood ran down from his bandage, skirting his nose, to the corner of his mouth. He stuck out his tongue and licked it.

‘It’s nice. Tastes a bit like rust. I’m rusty, Éliette, just like you, just like everyone. We’re all dead, only no one else knows it yet.’

Éliette shifted her weight on the bed. Paul stiffened.

‘Don’t move!’

‘I need a wee.’

‘Piss in the bed! Yeah, that’s right, piss in front of me. I’d like that … Go on then!’

Using the tip of his rifle, he pulled back the sheets, exposing Éliette’s bare abdomen.

‘Well? Is it coming?’

‘I can’t …’

‘You’d do it for him, though, wouldn’t you, slut? But not for me … Well, from now on you’re going to do all that filthy stuff in front of me. Even if I drop dead, you’ll always have me there with you, in your dirty shitty little memories! No one’s going to forget me!’

The barrel of the gun brushed against Éliette’s nose. She could smell its acidic metal odour. Paul’s eyes bored into hers, incandescent with rage. She didn’t even have the strength to faint. Paul lowered his eyes first. The two black holes, set one on top of the other in the barrel of the gun, turned towards the window ledge, where a blackbird had just landed with much flapping of its wings. Paul let the weapon fall into his lap and burst into tears.

‘Forgive me, Éliette. I’m not a bad person … but what am I supposed to do with all the bad stuff that’s happened? I want another life too! Do you think I chose to be a bloody yokel? To go to bed with bloody Rose every night? Of course I didn’t! I’ve dreamed of going places, just like everyone else. I’ve just never been lucky enough to live my dreams. Maybe they’ve turned to nightmares now, but they’re still my dreams, they’re mine! It’s all up to me! Damn, yes!’

Éliette was holding her breath. One false move and Paul could go up like a powder keg. In spite of her terror, she could not help feeling a little sorry for him. He was right:
a nightmare was a dream that had gone wrong. Her bladder was straining. It was silly, but she was sure that if she could only go to the loo, everything would be better. Paul would calm down, everything would fall back into place, just like it was …

‘Do you remember when the kids used to play together? All laughing and shouting! Hmm? Do you remember, Éliette?’

‘Yes, Paul. I remember.’

‘We were happy back then. None of us could have imagined that one day … Know what I think?’

‘No, I don’t, but I really need the toilet …’

‘Your friend, downstairs – I think it was him who killed my Patrick.’

‘Why would he have done that? They didn’t even know each other!’

‘I don’t know. But I’m sure it was him. Ever since he’s been here, everything’s changed. You’re not the same, Éliette, nothing’s the same. It’s not just a coincidence!’

‘Let me go to the loo and then we can talk about all this calmly …’

Paul wasn’t listening. He rubbed the trigger of his gun as if stroking a clitoris.

‘I’ll get rid of him. We’ve got to tackle him, like mildew.’

‘Paul, please …’

‘Huh? Oh, all right, but I’m coming with you. You have to leave the door open. I can’t trust you. It’s not your fault; he’s pulled the wool over your eyes, but I’m here. I respect you, Éliette. You can count on me.’

She got out of bed, naked, and Paul coyly averted his eyes while she put on her dressing gown. As she relieved herself, with Paul standing guard outside the door, the rifle over his shoulder, she could not help finding a modicum of truth in Paul’s ramblings. Of course, he was raving mad, but there was no denying that since Étienne had appeared, everything had turned upside down. The abandoned car that had caused Patrick’s death, Étienne strolling down the road, the way he had acted in front of the gendarmes, the story he had told about the girlfriend leaving him in the middle of nowhere, and Agnès, whose behaviour towards her father was so unlike what one would expect of a daughter … There was nothing concrete or certain any more, as there had been in Charles’s day; even the tiled floor of the bathroom seemed as treacherous as shifting sand.