Chapter 38
“Milo?” said Nora hoarsely, taking a step outside and pulling the door closed behind her to conceal from her unexpected visitor the sight of a body lying in the entryway.
The young man waved the business card awkwardly at her by way of explanation.
“Nora, I’m sorry to disturb you. I was wondering if Inès is around? I wanted to talk to her about something.”
“Inès?” Nora seemed so taken aback by the question that Milo somehow felt foolish for asking. But surely it wasn’t dumb to ring the doorbell of the home of the person he was looking for.
“She’s at her father’s,” said Nora, looking like she’d seen a ghost.
“Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to her about. Her father was over at our place, about twenty minutes ago . . .” Milo noticed streaks of mascara on Nora’s cheeks; there were dark rings around her eyes, and they were red from crying. She looked a wreck.
“Are you okay?”
Nora stared at him as if the question were absurd.
“Absolutely!” she said eventually, forcing herself to pull herself together. Then she fell silent again. Milo, shocked by his friend’s mother’s terrible appearance, felt increasingly uneasy. Here was an adult who clearly needed help, but he felt totally powerless to do anything.
There was the sound of a car slowing down and they both turned to see someone pulling into a parking spot a little farther up the road.
To Nora’s relief it was Mathilde, who eventually managed to maneuver the car into the tight space, then grabbed her purse, opened the door, climbed out of the car, and ran to Nora’s house.
Seeing Milo on the sidewalk, she tried to figure out her friend’s frame of mind.
The panic on Nora’s face left her in no doubt: it was clearly not the boy’s lucky day.
Nora was looking at Mathilde with an imploring expression like a silent cry for help, as if she were begging.
Mathilde was caught off guard. She reached the house and smiled reassuringly at Nora and Milo. The young man stared in bewilderment from one to the other until Nora found the strength to give him a smile.
“I’ll tell Inès you dropped by to see her. Have a nice evening, Milo.”
Milo understood he was being dismissed and, in truth, was deeply relieved. He said goodbye, turned, and went back into his house.
Mathilde and Nora waited until the Geniots’ front door swung closed, then Nora fell into her friend’s arms as if she no longer had the strength to stand.
“What is going on, Nora?” Mathilde asked, holding her. “Where’s Gérard?”
Nora nodded miserably at her house. Mathilde slowly pulled away from her friend and, with her hands on her shoulders, looked her in the eye.
“You mean . . . ?”
Nora could only nod feverishly.
Mathilde gulped. “He’s dead?”
Nora lowered her eyes in response.
“Oh no!” whispered Mathilde with a horrified sigh. “What happened? No, wait, don’t tell me here. Let’s go inside.”
“No!”
Nora instinctively stepped away from the house. Mathilde gave her an apprehensive look.
“Fine. Let’s go sit in the car.”
She put one arm around her friend’s shoulders and guided her to the car.
They got in, shut the doors, and Nora began to give Mathilde a rambling account of what had happened, her words tumbling over one another incoherently, forming sentences whose meaning was vague, obliging Mathilde to interrupt her every so often for clarification.
After ten minutes or so, Mathilde had a sketchy outline of what had happened.
For several minutes the two women sat in silence, as if time had congealed into a sort of insipid purgatory. Before the descent into hell.
After a while Mathilde put an end to this strange, leaden state of penance.
“You have to call the police.”
Nora looked horrified. “You don’t really think that!” she exclaimed, bursting into loud sobs.
“It’s your only hope,” said Mathilde firmly. “You were defending yourself. Gérard had no reason to be in your house. He threatened you. All you did was protect yourself!”
“What if they don’t believe me?”
“Why wouldn’t they? It’s the truth, no?”
Nora was staring straight ahead, lost in the appalling prospect of giving herself up to the police.
Being interrogated. Revealing her crime to her children.
Facing the consequences of her act, even if none of it had been intentional.
She was seized with fear, engulfed in horror, unable to see the slightest glimmer of light at the end of the dark tunnel that seemed to have swallowed her up.
“Nora!” said Mathilde urgently. She sensed her friend spiraling into despair. “If you don’t, it’ll only be worse. They’ll find out eventually. One way or another. And when they do, you’ll have no way out.”
“Unless I get rid of the body,” Nora whispered.
“Stop!” Mathilde stared at Nora in shock. She had no idea how to get Nora to see reason. She was fully aware of the gravity of the situation, and terrified her friend was about to make a dreadful mistake that she would spend the rest of her life regretting.
“Nora, I beg you. Don’t do that. Don’t even think about it. Only the truth will save you.”
“I’ll just have to make it look like an accident,” Nora went on, apparently unaware Mathilde had spoken. “It was an accident!” she cried, as if she were trying to rouse her friend. She was trembling. She turned slowly to look at Mathilde.
There was an ocean of despair in her eyes. She began speaking very rapidly, as if trying to articulate the thread of her thoughts, but the words weren’t coming out quickly enough.
“An accident that had nothing to do with me! We can put him in the car and push it over a cliff . . . But there aren’t any cliffs around here .
. . What about the shopping mall, behind the hardware store?
There’s a new building going up. I was there just yesterday.
They’ve dug a massive hole and there’s only a barrier in front of it.
We could put Gérard in the car, drive up there, sit him behind the steering wheel, and push the car into the hole. ”
“That’s insane.”
“No, it’s simple. I’ll block the brake with something, I don’t know, a rock or something, turn on the engine, and when it starts to rev I’ll shove the rock out of the way with a stick, an umbrella, I read something like this in a novel, it shouldn’t be very hard . . .”
Mathilde groaned, aghast. “We’re not in a novel,” she said, horrified by her inability to get Nora to see reason. “That would never work!”
“Yes! It could work! But I’ll need your help. I beg you, Mathilde, don’t let me down.”
Mathilde stared at her friend in consternation, alarmed by her distress. Myriad thoughts were rattling around inside her head; she had to figure out a way to bring Nora back down to earth.
“Think of the children,” she begged, drawing on all her powers of persuasion.
The mention of the children seemed to achieve her objective: Nora shivered and seemed at last to come to her senses.
“They’re all alone at Gérard’s house,” she exclaimed, appalled. “I have to go and fetch them. Pass me your phone.”
Disconcerted by this precipitous change of tone, Mathilde hesitated.
“My phone? Why?”
“I need to call them, reassure them. Tell them I’m here. That I’m on my way over.”
“Why would you do that? You’re not meant to know they’re on their own.”
“Pass me your phone,” Nora repeated coldly.
Mathilde was overcome by misgivings. She knew the situation was beyond her control and she wouldn’t be able to prevent whatever it was from happening.
Her mind was confused, she couldn’t think straight anymore.
Feeling panicky and helpless, she reached into her purse, took out her phone, and handed it to Nora, who grabbed it and dialed Gérard’s landline.
It rang three times before Inès answered.
At the sound of her daughter’s voice, her heart contracted.
“Hello, sweetheart, it’s Maman.”
Her voice sounded as if it came from beyond the grave.
Inès greeted her mother warmly. She told her all was well, her father wasn’t home yet but they were with Mélanie. In the background Nora could hear the secretary asking who was on the line. Inès told her.
“Can I speak to her?” Nora heard Mélanie’s voice distinctly; she must have moved closer to Inès so she could take the call.
Inès told her mother she was passing her to Mélanie, said she was looking forward to seeing her on Sunday, told her she loved her, and handed over the phone.
“Madame Dep—um . . . Madame Amrani?”
“Hello, Mélanie.”
Nora was relieved to know that the children were not home alone. But she was terrified of the secretary’s questions.
“I’m so sorry to get you involved, but Monsieur Depardieu promised he’d be back over an hour ago.
I really can’t stay all evening, I have plans.
I’ve been trying to call, but he’s not answering his phone.
If I don’t hear from him in the next half hour, can I call you and you can come and take over? ”
Caught off guard, Nora turned in a panic to look at Mathilde. The urgent need for a response made her stammer.
“Of course . . . sure. . . . it’s . . . er . . . fair enough.”
Mathilde watched her with concern. “What’s fair enough?” she whispered.
“Or I could bring them over to your place, if you prefer?” Mélanie suggested, a little embarrassed to be asking such a favor of her boss’s estranged wife. But they were her children, too, after all.
“No!” Nora said, aghast. “I’ll come and fetch them.”
“Great! I’ll get back to you if he’s not home in half an hour.”
Nora ended the call and turned to Mathilde looking totally panic-stricken.
“We have half an hour.”
“Half an hour to do what?” asked Mathilde in panic.
“To get rid of the body!”