‘You want some music?’ Asked Patrick. Nicolas said he’d like that. Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, Patrick flipped through the cassettes in the carrying case. Nicolas wondered if he was going to play the same tape they’d listened to the day they’d gone shopping, but Patrick selected a different one, something slower and softer. Accompanied only by a guitar, the voice was almost plaintive, and even without understanding the English words, you could guess the song was about a winter journey on snowy roads edged with sleep. Nicolas stretched out on the backseat, using a frayed old blanket as a pillow. The blanket smelled of dog, and Nicolas almost asked Patrick if he had one at home, and where home was, and what it was like where he lived, but he didn’t want to seem as if he was trying to make conversation, so he kept quiet. Patrick was probably dreading his questions, and Nicolas decided not to ask any. Since he was lying with his head behind the passenger’s seat, he could look up and see Patrick concentrating on his driving. The end of his ponytail lay across one shoulder. Nicolas had noticed his hands on the steering wheel: tanned and muscular, exactly the hands that Nicolas would have liked to have when he grew up, but now he knew that was impossible. The heater was set on high, to keep the windows from fogging. Nicolas had curled up, tucking his hands between his thighs, and he realized to his astonishment that he could doze, allowing himself to be lulled to sleep – as though he were feverish – by the heat, the serene and wistful music, the soothing hum of the defroster. Before the drive to the chalet, he’d counted the miles on his father’s map: two hundred and sixty. He and Patrick hadn’t gone even fifteen yet. As long as he stayed inside the car, he was safe.
When he woke up, they were already on the highway. The snow was all gone, but the sky was white. Patrick hadn’t put in another tape, probably to avoid disturbing Nicolas’s sleep. He’d turned off the defroster. He was sitting up straight, concentrating on the road ahead, with his ponytail still draped over one shoulder as if he hadn’t moved the whole time. Although he had certainly noticed when Nicolas sat up, Patrick hadn’t said anything. Only after a few minutes did he force himself to ask, in what was meant to be a jolly tone, ‘Did you have a nice nap?’ Nicolas answered yes, and then silence fell again. Nicolas kept an eye out for signs along the highway that would show how far it still was to the town where he lived. A hundred and twenty miles. They were almost halfway there. Nicolas reproached himself for having let the first half of the trip slip by so fast while he was asleep. He had the feeling that things would now start happening more and more quickly.
Patrick moved over into the right lane, slowed, and got off at an Esso station. Nicolas remembered Shell’s prize coupons and suddenly began to cry, quietly, without sobbing. Tears trickled down his cheeks. Patrick would never have known if he hadn’t stopped the car in front of the pumps at that instant and turned around. Nicolas couldn’t stop weeping; he looked down, away from Patrick, who stayed twisted sideways in his seat for a moment, gazing at him without a word. ‘Nicolas,’ he sighed, one more time. That was the only thing left to do – say a name over and over, with love and despair. René’s parents must have been doing that, too, at night, lying in the bed where they would never sleep peacefully, ever again – and the parents of the child buried alive by the botched anesthesia …
‘Come on, Nicolas,’ said Patrick finally. ‘We’ll have something to eat. You didn’t have any breakfast, you must be hungry.’ Nicolas wasn’t hungry and suspected Patrick wasn’t either, but after the gas tank had been filled, he followed Patrick into the restaurant.
Near the entrance was a newspaper rack, before which Patrick had a moment of panic. He tried to distract Nicolas and block his view of it, but although Nicolas pretended not to notice, he still caught a glimpse of the photo and the word ‘fiend’ in the headline half hidden by the fold in the newspaper. Patrick quickly dragged him over to the vending machine and made certain that they could leave by another door. He got himself a coffee, bought an orange juice and a pain au chocolat for Nicolas, then led him over to the corner by the rest rooms, where there were three gray plastic tables. They were sticky and cluttered with empty paper cups. Patrick politely said hello to the only person sitting there, a blond woman drinking coffee. She returned his greeting and gave Nicolas a smile that pierced him to the heart.
Her fur coat, which gleamed as if covered with dew, was open over a blue dress of some precious, shimmering material. The wisps of blond hair that had escaped from her loose chignon seemed to invite a caress. She stood out against the grimy drabness of the place with her air of wealth, luxury, and above all, gentleness – a gentleness that was enveloping, magical, almost unbearable. She was beautiful. Precious, gentle, and beautiful. She calmly surveyed her dreary surroundings and the parking lot outside, and when her gaze fell on Nicolas again, she smiled at him once more, with a smile that was neither distracted nor forced, but personally meant for him, bathing the whole of him in the celestial tenderness that surrounded her like a halo. Her blue silk dress, cut rather low, revealed the beginning of her breasts, and a bizarre thought struck Nicolas: everything inside her body – her internal organs, her intestines, the blood flowing in her veins – had to be as pristine and luminous as her smile. He remembered the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio. With her, there would be nothing more to fear. She could, if she wanted, make the horror disappear, make what had happened go away, and if she knew, she would want to, that was certain.
Patrick stood up, saying he was going to the bathroom for a minute. Nicolas realized that his fate would be decided in that minute. He had to speak to the fairy. Tell her to save him, to take him away with her to where she was going. He wouldn’t have to explain; he was sure she’d understand. One sentence would be enough: ‘Please save me, take me with you.’ She would be astonished for a moment, but studying him attentively, with the care, the sweetness that touched your soul and made you want to cry, she would see that he was telling the truth, that only she could work the miracle. ‘Come,’ she would say, taking him by the hand. They would hurry to her car, leaving the highway at the next exit. They would drive a long time, sitting side by side. As she drove, she would smile at him, saying soothingly that it was over now. They would go far, far away, to where she lived a life as precious, gentle, and beautiful as she was, and she would let him stay with her always, out of danger, at peace.
Nicolas opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He had to attract her attention, to send her his message with his eyes, at least. She had to look at him, see his mute supplication – that would be enough: she would understand. Yes, yes, she would understand. She would know how to sense the anguish within a little boy encountered by chance at a rest stop, and she would know that she alone could set him free. But she wasn’t looking at him anymore, she was looking outside, watching a man dressed in black who was striding toward them across the parking lot. Almost choking on the silence that caught in his throat, Nicolas saw the man come closer, push open the glass door. Bending a loving face over the woman, he kissed her on the neck, near the wisps of hair from her chignon. She smiled up at him with her heavenly smile. Now she had eyes only for him. Never in his life had Nicolas ever hated anyone so much, not even Hodkann.
‘It’s fixed,’ the man said. ‘We can go.’
The fairy rose and left with him. As she closed the door behind her, she gave Nicolas a little wave, then turned away. The man slipped his arm around her shoulders to keep her warm, and Nicolas watched them walk to their car, drive off, disappear. Underneath the table his fingers were knotted together, hopelessly entangled, and he saw a kind of red-and-blue string lying on the ground between his feet, among the empty sugar packets and the cigarette butts. The bracelet had fallen off. He tried to remember the wish he’d made when Patrick had tied it on him, a week earlier, but he couldn’t. Perhaps he’d hesitated so long, trying to choose the one that would best protect him from life’s endless dangers, that he’d never made any wish at all.