Consequences (17 page)

Obviously, once they'd gone too far they'd enjoyed it; but there was nothing very “sexual” about it, in the current sense of the term. It had more to do with an optimum mental connection, a raging need to lock down together as tightly as possible against the violence of the winds. And there was a pleasure they found in it, almost as if it were a religious experience, something that purely and simply produced transcendence. On the night of the
fire, when they crouched in a broom closet in the cellar, hadn't he stifled a sob just as he spilled into her?

The last time they had
relations had been that winter, after the Christmas Eve that both had been toasting a little too enthusiastically—forced as he'd been again to confront his perpetual bitterness about neither of them having any friends and living kind of like savages at the edge of the road, but still in the middle of the woods, the closest neighbor being more than a third of a mile out of view and lost in an ocean of vegetation. In fact, they were no more than marginal members of their community, even if they were saved by the luck of being white and having no accent.

He'd been justified for what had happened, but never completely forgiven. When it came to Marianne, other women acted reserved, disapproved in no uncertain terms of the strange dyad made up of the two of them, or they simply saw it as unhealthy. The oldest women were the most understanding, moved as they were by their history of child abuse, which had made the local papers.

Sometimes, having a few drinks seemed to be their last and only resort, or, at the very least, a friendly strip of land you had to head for as quickly as possible to avoid a horrible Christmas Eve for two, marked by zero-percent-fat cottage cheese.

A fine layer of snow had fallen the day before that day, and the area had had a pleasant powdery look. It wasn't late yet. Sunset was plunging into a luminous cauldron that throbbed silently, surrounded by flames as Father Christmas got ready to descend to Earth.

He hadn't changed his clothes yet. What was the hurry? He wondered if he'd go and shave or watch a film to pass the time and wend his way slowly toward evening.

Facing the picture window, she commented on how fascinating the light was and asked for her first drink. It was just after four in the afternoon, but she insisted, pressuring him to get her one so that she could keep her eyes on that magnificent, amazingly soothing snow-covered landscape, give it all the attention it deserved. He opened his mouth to speak but remained silent. He was already planning on hooking up again with that new student he hadn't been seeing for very long, if he could put Marianne to bed before it got too late.

Admittedly, joining that young woman was the most pressing thing on his mind. This happened every time one of these girls entered his life. What a relief it was. What a breath of fresh air—at first, anyway. So he complied, fixed two gin martinis, hoping she wouldn't stick to that rhythm for too long a time and that he'd be able to give her the slip after putting her to bed with a damp towel on her forehead. They clinked glasses as a family of rabbits were crossing the road single file, backlit against the absolute whiteness. “Be nice and pour me another,” she said, after the last rabbit in line had disappeared into the undergrowth.

Neither of them could claim having been exempt from fate, but he refused to follow his sister into one of those jags of depression she had at regular intervals. He'd protest that they also had very good reasons to thank heaven for being alive and for having been granted a relatively normal—privileged, in fact—life, after such disastrous beginnings.

She hadn't made it to winter in very good shape. Her state
of mind had kept deteriorating until the holidays, which she was preparing to go through like a zombie. Sometimes, he'd find her sitting in a corner, even on the ground with her knees folded, all bones in her silky pajamas that were usually too big for her. He'd take her in his arms to help her back to her room.

Good sport that he was, he cautioned her about the drawbacks of pulling such an early drunk in the middle of the afternoon, although twilight was already glazing the mountaintops gold. It made no sense when a party was looming on the horizon and they were bravely hoping to hold on as long as possible to keep from seeming too pathetic. The rabbits were barely out of sight before she began shrugging at his advice and poured herself another. Then her bathrobe fell open, and the soft funnel of a lovely bare breast tipped by her nipple made its appearance; she took her time putting it back because her reaction time was already dulled.

He avoided her eyes. Put a log into the fireplace, which released sparks. She lay down on the couch facing the hearth, which was soon the only source of light. In the late days of December, night fell with astounding rapidity. He decided to sit on the carpet with his back pressed against the couch. “I'm looking forward to eating lobster,” he said, realizing that the sentence might seem puzzling. She chuckled. She must have discovered his affair with the student, it occurred to him, and was staggering under the blow, even though he'd always been careful to do what he did out of sight, especially when it came to Marianne. Her bitter, reproachful silences tinged with confused helplessness and anger had nothing to do with chance.

Sometimes, no matter how much they bit their fists to keep
from crying out, certain noises unfortunately escaped from the girls' throats that could easily be heard all the way downstairs, without any major effort at listening. He was the first to regret it. He'd always preferred the thrashings they gave him to the simple slaps Marianne got. Their mother had understood this quickly enough: she began grabbing the poor girl by the hair and shaking her until she agreed to come out of her hiding place for punishment reserved exclusively for her.

He figured she'd had her share of suffering. He didn't want to add to it. Letting his neck fall backward, he pressed his head against his sister's thigh as a way of establishing contact; any sign of affection, commitment, warmth, no matter how tenuous, was welcome in such situations. He had to be especially considerate with her. He lit a cigarette and gave it to her. How could he be the way he was? What kind of unspeakable heart did it mean was beating in his chest? How could he be the one to make her worry, live in fear?

He could feel the heat of the hissing flames that were in front of him on his forehead and cheeks, as the icy air outside sent flakes down from the heights to cover the Christmas lights, clocks, and illuminated decorations they'd installed in the streets without much imagination—and certainly without much of a budget, because of the wide-ranging restrictions still in force. He felt Marianne's hand in his hair. As a child he'd loved having his hair styled, his scalp touched, and he willingly surrendered to his sister's hands. Merely a comb passed through his hair could make him quiver to the tips of his toes; parting his hair gave him goosebumps; and getting shampooed, well, that was a guaranteed erection. Remembering such moments brought a smile to his lips—unless it was because of the antidepressants.
Their father used Palmolive Brilliantine. A truly flowing, perfumed effect.

Today, six months later, he
barely remembered that Christmas Eve. Nothing about it had stayed in his mind, except that it was the last time they'd had sexual relations together. He didn't know how they'd ended up giving in—
giving in
was the term—but the tiled floor of the bathroom was hard and cold, and the thin bath mat he'd managed to slip under their backsides hadn't turned out to be much help.

Today, in the balminess of June, they were about to begin again. They were lying on the bed in their underpants, in the darkness, and they rolled from one edge to the other, enlaced in that disquieting darkness, their exhilaration building, as if someone had tied them together. The fact that he was capable of this type of behavior in the utterly handicapped state he'd been in a few minutes earlier had something of the miracle about it.

During their tight embrace, he thought about how distant he'd acted with her lately, and this upset him. How could he have done such a thing, he kept repeating to himself, how could he have failed in his role to such an extent. At any rate, despite her scrawniness, Marianne had an ample chest. He buried his face in it before beginning to suck the violet-pink tips, which were shaped like limpets.

He needed to be very kind to her. Make up for the lack of attention he'd shown her. But at the same time, he couldn't help thinking of her relationship with Richard, and he had to hold in an urge to strangle her. Maybe he didn't know the details, but that didn't mean that the two being together wasn't intensely
unpleasant for him. Imagining Richard Olso possessing Marianne, kneading her breasts, slobbering over her like a goat, panting, and coming on her face, etc., knocked the wind out of him.

Then they fell headlong into it.

In the morning, as he was drinking his coffee, he went to the living room and came across the hi-fi equipment that Richard had been blasting the day before. Since when had that idiot been fooling around with this kind of stuff? He dropped onto the couch on which he'd found them the day before, practically sprawled on top of each other. Then he looked up. He saw a fifty-inch flat-screen with surround-sound speakers on high stands. He picked up the remote and chanced upon a mudslide that had swept away a village in the Far East. Cows, roosters, dogs, people had all ended up in the same boat. The screen image was high-resolution, accurate, and radiant. The sky was a silvered dark gray, and you could make out all the details. In a few days, as much water had fallen as during the entire year, and the disturbing, swirling depth of the sky was a sign of those furious winds on the other side of the world at times when one electrified current rumbled within another, trying to be the one to pull the blackest curtain, the densest fog that would smother sounds and bog down minds to the greatest extent possible.

Even though he was no expert in feminine sexual matters, the harshness and severity with which Marianne conducted their relationship somewhat disturbed him. Most of the time, she ended up on top of him, subjecting her womb to some kind of joyride and half-sobbing. It wasn't very healthy, and he knew it. But it wasn't his place to judge what was healthy when it came to such things. He went out to the garden to get some air. The sun was rising, and he could smell the green leaves. A luminous
mist hovered over the lake. Through the material of his pajamas, which he was wearing without the top, he gently palpated his coccyx. Things seemed to have gotten better in that respect. He'd only slept a few hours, but it had been a deep sleep, because she'd come back to his room a moment later, like a thief, after a pit stop at the bathroom upstairs; he expected her to break a bone someday by tumbling down the steps leading to his quarters.

He lit a cigarette as a faraway dog barked, and a cuckoo sang loudly in a nearby tree. The police officer's disappearance remained a mystery. His colleagues had no doubts at this point about his being dead, and tests confirmed that a sample of blood taken from an entrance ramp to the highway was definitely his. The fact that there was a cop killer in the city—like some kind of armed loony set loose in the wild, or rather, in a neighborhood high school or supermarket—was no laughing matter for anybody and didn't help the image of the police, who immediately started being viewed as good-for-nothings and dunces. He had to be doubly cautious, remain on alert. The police were investigating with a vengeance, and there was still a danger that they'd trace the car to a certain teacher who was living with his sister in the hills.

He'd rechecked the pit a few days ago; at night, in fact, because it offered the most protection. He lit his way with a good flashlight and was equipped with sturdy shoes and a rope. This was before he'd helped Annie Eggbaum out of her swimming pool and added a sprained back to his fractured coccyx, so getting down there, once he'd carefully attached himself to the rope for safety purposes, had gone off smoothly, without even disturbing an owl hooting above him as he took hold of the roots and bushes growing along the wall.

There was no stink coming from the place. No corpse visible. Lying on the outer edge of the rock spur that had first gotten in the way of Barbara's corpse, he'd methodically scoured the depths with his flashlight and finished his inspection with a satisfied look. This pit wasn't going to betray him any time soon. It was nowhere near the time for any body or carcass to be pulled from it; it looked as if it went downward endlessly.

Before climbing back up, he sat on his heels and smoked a cigarette, the light revealing several bats in some places, some mosses in others; and he heard some vague sounds of runoff as a starry disc of sky hovered above his head. He loved being in this place. Now he had more proof of it. Every time he climbed down, he felt strangely protected; every time he found himself surrounded by that wall of rock, he could breathe, succeed in relaxing entirely, clear everything from his mind. It was lucky, wonderfully lucky, that the nicotine usually put him in a dazed state, and he prayed to heaven that such an outstanding effect would recur until the end of time, that there'd never be an end to such happiness. It wasn't just smoking that could kill you in this life—there was a whole range of things.

When his sister opened her window, pulling him from his thoughts, a radiant, though sulky, version of her appeared to him. That was how their encounters usually wound up: an evasive wryness took over her face that he really didn't know how to interpret, but the darkness faded in a day or two and was often extended by quite a long stretch of tranquility, good morale, less tension.

He gestured to her. Would have liked to know more about the new equipment in the living room, but he was going to have to wait.

He took advantage of the wait by mowing the lawn and went back as often as possible to Myriam's two-room apartment in the city, whose door chimes made him tremble all the way to the tips of his toes. Right now, as often as possible meant around twice a day: in the morning, before his writing workshop, and at the end of the afternoon, or at least before nightfall, before going home. Often enough to ensure he'd teach excellent classes that were practical, crisp, popular, appreciated more and more by the students (Annie Eggbaum hadn't been the last to want to express her admiration and enthusiasm), although no one knew that the sex he was having with such zeal and regularity was largely responsible for it.