17. Alberte #3
When she finally calmed, she showed me a photograph of Camille she keeps in her wallet. Eight years old now.
She made me promise that if anything happened, Camille would know his mother did not abandon him.
I am writing it here because promises seem to become unreliable once they leave my mouth.
If I fail everything else, I must not fail that.
* * *
2 August 2003
Nadia is gone.
I have written the sentence fourteen times.
It does not become comprehensible.
Nadia is gone.
Her husband has called Le Mas repeatedly. His name is Alain.
Henri says she left voluntarily and told Alain as such. He says Nadia had become unstable. He says she was unhappy in her marriage. He says perhaps she took money. He says perhaps she had a lover.
Lies.
I know they are lies because some of them contradict one another, and because Henri does not care. He is not trying to discover what happened. He is creating explanations.
I asked him where she was, and he said, “Do not do this, Alberte.”
Not “I don’t know.”
Not “she is safe.”
Do not do this.
I asked whether he hurt her.
He slapped me. Henri has never struck me before. We stared at one another afterward, both shocked.
He apologized, but I still left for the cottage. What frightens me most is that he did not stop me.
* * *
5 August 2003
I went back to Le Mas to retrieve my belongings, and most importantly, my passport, but truly, I just wanted to allow him a chance to explain.
I wanted Henri to take my face in his hands and tell me I was wrong.
I wanted some impossible sentence that would return us to the people we had been.
Instead, he asked whether I was finished being dramatic.
Something inside me broke.
I never imagined love could end while still existing.
That is the cruelty. I still love him.
I believe I may be incapable of ever falling out of love with him, even if he has become a monster.
* * *
19 August 2003
Inspector Fournier came to speak with me privately this afternoon. He does not believe Nadia simply left.
He asked whether Henri kept unofficial records, and I lied to him.
What exactly am I protecting now?
Not Henri.
Surely not.
Perhaps myself.
If I tell them everything, I become part of it.
Every document I signed, every shipment I chose not to question, every time I knew something was wrong and allowed Henri to explain it until wrong became merely complicated.
Fournier gave me his number and instructed me to call from somewhere away from Le Mas.
At dinner, Henri asked what we discussed, and I told him. He asked for the inspector’s card, and I gave it.
I hate myself.
* * *
17 September 2003
Fournier is dead.
It is my fault.
* * *
23 September 2003
Henri came here tonight, to the cottage. I had forgotten he still had a key. I woke to find him sitting at the foot of my bed.
He looked tired.
I reached for him, but he did not reach back.
He asked whether I intended to leave. I said I did not know. He said, “Yes, you do.”
I asked about Nadia. I asked whether she suffered.
He told me to stop.
I asked where her body was.
“Nadia made her choice.”
I will remember those words until I die.
I said, “She had a son.”
He didn’t say anything back.
He stayed for an hour or so, sitting in silence.
I wish I did not love this man.
* * *
1 October 2003
I have begun preparing to leave France. I will be traveling to the state of Virginia in the United States. I chose this place because I heard that the Americans say that Virginia is for lovers.
If only we could start over together there.
I have told Henri that I have hidden incriminating documents in several places.
Henri does not know how many.
That uncertainty is the only protection I have left.
If I die unexpectedly, he must believe everything will surface.
Whether I can actually guarantee that matters less than whether he believes it.
* * *
9 October 2003
Alain Moreau called me. He asked whether Nadia ever spoke to me about leaving him. I said no.
He began crying, then apologized for crying.
What sort of world makes a grieving man apologize to someone who may have helped destroy his wife?
He said the police keep asking about their marriage. They say confidential sources have told them she was planning to leave him. I know exactly where that story came from.
I told Alain that Nadia loved their son.
He said, “I know.” Then, after a long silence, “Did she love me?”
I told him yes.
I hope I was right.
I think I was.
Before we ended the call, I asked about Camille.
Alain said he keeps asking when his mother is coming home.
I had no answer to that. In fact, that is when I cried myself.
* * *
18 November 2003
Henri and I had dinner. We did not speak about Nadia, or Fournier, or any of the others. It was a lovely night until at the end of the evening, when Henri asked whether I had ever loved him.
I nearly threw my glass.
He looked confused when I told him, “That is the worst thing you could ask me.”
I told him I loved him, and that I would give anything to rewrite our story. He asked me to stay, to run away with him. He promised things would be different.
And God forgive me, I wanted to.
Then I thought of the lives Henri ruined.
I said no.
* * *
2 December 2003
I leave tomorrow evening, so I must abandon you now, faithful journal, my silent confidante. I must say, I have rehearsed this departure in my mind for weeks, but now that it is here, I feel no courage.
Only grief.
I love a man who killed four people.
Henri Voclain is a murderer, a criminal, and a monster. And yet, it is the most excruciating pain that I feel leaving him. It is as if my chest is being torn in two from the inside, and I will never feel whole again.
I cannot help but wonder how I will survive this. Not only the loss of my other half, but also the ever-present knowledge that I am complicit in his crimes.
I killed Josef Klein.
I killed Théodore Desmarais.
I killed Nadia Moreau.
I killed Jean-Paul Fournier.
Hell will greet me when I die.