In a few minutes, if everything went well, she would kill her husband.
The winding path grew perilously narrow a hundred yards farther up the slope overlooking the valley. At that point on its flank, the mountain was no longer an expanse of slope, but turned into a steep cliff. The least little misstep could prove fatal. There was nothing for the clumsy individual to cling to, no trees, no bushes, no platform; all that emerged from the rocky wall were jagged boulders ready to tear a body to shreds.
Gabrielle slowed down to look all around. No one was climbing the path behind them, there were no hikers in the opposite valleys. No witnesses, therefore. Only a handful of sheep, five hundred yards to the south, were greedily filling the meadows, their heads bent to the grass they were grazing.
“Well, old girl, are you tired?”
She winced at the way her husband called her “old girl”: precisely the sort of thing he shouldn’t say if he wanted to save his skin.
He turned around, anxious to know why she had stopped.
“Hang on a bit longer. We can’t stop here, it’s too dangerous.”
At the back of Gabrielle’s mind, a voice was sniggering at each word the future dead man uttered. “Spot on, you know just what’s coming, it’s going to be dangerous! You may even be in danger of not surviving, old man!”
A blazing white sun weighed them down, imposing silence upon the high mountain pastures, where not a breath of air brought relief; you might believe that the overheated star wanted to turn everything it touched, plants and humans alike, into a mineral substance, all life crushed.
Gabrielle caught up with her husband, grumbling.
“Go on, I’m okay.”
“Are you sure, my dear?”
“If I said so.”
Had he read her thoughts? Was she behaving differently, in spite of herself? Her one concern was to carry out her plan, so she endeavored to reassure him with a wide smile.
“In fact, I’m really glad to be back here again. I often came here with my father when I was a child.”
“Wow,” he whistled, as he gazed upon the panoramic view of the steep slopes, “don’t you feel small here!”
Her inner voice shrieked, “And you’re about to become even smaller.”
They resumed their climb; he was leading, she followed.
Above all, she mustn’t lose her nerve. Push him over without hesitating when the time came. Without warning. Avoid his gaze. Concentrate on the right movement. Do it properly, that was all that mattered. As for her decision, Gabrielle had made it a long time ago, and she wouldn’t go back on it.
He was beginning to enter the dangerous bend. Gabrielle was walking faster, but he didn’t notice. Tense, hurried, her breathing hampered by the need to remain discreet, she almost slipped on a loose stone. “Oh no,” exclaimed the voice, “you’re not going to have an accident when the solution is so near!” Her moment of weakness gave her a gigantic burst of energy: she rushed up, and with all her strength she slammed her fist into the small of his back.
Her husband arched his back, and lost his balance. She gave him the coup de grâce, kicking him in both calves.
His body slipped from the path and began to fall into the void. Frightened, Gabrielle flattened herself against the slope with her shoulder to keep from falling and to avoid seeing what she had just caused to happen.
It was enough just to hear it . . .
A cry rang out, already far away, filled with a terrible fear, then there was a thud, and another, while his throat screamed with pain, then more sounds of something hitting and breaking and tearing, and stones rolling, and then suddenly, complete silence.
There! She’d done it. She was free.
All around her, the Alps displayed their grandiose, kindly landscape. A bird was gliding, motionless, above the valley, hanging in a pure, cleansed sky. There was no shrieking of sirens to accuse her, no policeman rushing up waving his handcuffs. Nature greeted her—sovereign, serene, an understanding accomplice.
Gabrielle stepped forward from the slope and peered over the edge of the precipice. Several seconds went by until she was able to see the disjointed body that was not where she had expected it to be. It was all over. Gab had stopped breathing. Everything was simple. She felt no guilt, just relief. And already she no longer felt any connection with the corpse lying down there . . .
She sat down and picked a pale blue flower and chewed on the stem. Now she would have the time to be lazy, to meditate; she would no longer be obsessed by what Gab was doing or hiding from her. She would be reborn.
How many minutes did she stay like that?
The sound of a bell, although it was muffled by distance, roused her from her ecstasy. Sheep. Ah, yes, she would have to go back down, put on an act, sound the alarm. Damned Gab! No sooner had he left her than she still had to devote time to him, make an effort for him, make sacrifices for him. Would he ever leave her alone?
She sat up, serene, proud of herself. She had done the main thing, and now all that was left was to move a little further to find her reward: peace.
Going back the way she had come, she went back over the scenario. How odd it was to remember it, a plan she had come up with in a different time, a time when Gab’s presence was still a burden to her. Another time. A time that was already far behind her.
She walked lightly, more quickly than she normally should have, because if she were out of breath it would help convince people that she was upset. She would have to suppress her euphoria, mask her joy at seeing these three years of fury disappear behind her, three years of sharp, stinging indignation planting its arrows inside her brain. He could no longer dish out any “old girl” remarks, no longer inflict his pitiful gaze on her as he held out his hand, no longer claim they were happy when it wasn’t true. He was dead. Hallelujah. Long live freedom!
After walking for two hours, she saw some hikers and ran in their direction.
“Please help me! My husband! Help me, please!”
Everything went marvelously. She fell to the ground as she drew near them, hurt herself, burst into tears and told them about the accident.
Her first spectators took the bait and swallowed it hook, line and sinker, both her story and her sorrow. Their group split in two: the women went with her down into the valley while the men went off to look for Gab.
At the hotel Bellevue, someone must have informed the personnel ahead of time by phone, because they were all waiting for her with the appropriate expression on their faces. A gendarme with a pale face informed her that a helicopter was already on its way with a rescue team to the scene of the accident.
At the words “rescue team,” she shivered. Did they expect to find him alive? Might Gab have survived his fall? She recalled his cries, and then how they stopped, and the silence, and she had a doubt.
“Do you . . . do you think he might be alive?”
“That is what we hope, Madame. Was he in good physical condition?”
“Excellent, but he fell over several hundred yards, bouncing on the rocks.”
“We have already encountered more astonishing cases. As long as we don’t know, it is our duty to remain optimistic, dear Madame.”
Impossible! Either she was crazy, or he was. Was he saying this because he had information, or was he mouthing some stereotyped formula? No doubt the latter . . . Gab could not possibly have survived. And even if, through some miracle, he had survived, he must be broken, traumatized, crippled with internal and external bleeding, incapable of speech! After all, if it wasn’t already the case, he would die in the hours that followed. Would he have time to mutter something to the stretcher bearers? Just before they winched him up into the helicopter? Would he denounce her? Unlikely. What had he understood? Nothing. No, no, no, a thousand times no.
She grasped her head between her hands and as she stifled her tears the witnesses thought she was praying; in reality, she was cursing the gendarme. Although she was sure she was right, that nincompoop had filled her with doubts. And now she was trembling with fear!
Suddenly a hand was laid on her shoulder. She jumped.
The head of the rescue team was staring at her looking like a scolded cocker spaniel.
“You must be brave, Madame.”
“How is he?” cried Gabrielle, torn with anxiety.
“He is dead, Madame.”
Gabrielle let out a cry. Ten people ran over to comfort her, console her. Shamelessly, she screamed and sobbed, determined to purge herself of her emotions: phew, he didn’t make it, he wouldn’t say anything, the resident fool had given her the willies for nothing.
All around, everyone was feeling sorry for her. What exquisite delight, to be a murderer yet be taken for the victim . . . She indulged in it until the evening meal which, naturally, she refused to eat.
At nine o’clock, the police came back to inform her that they had to question her. Although she acted surprised, she had been expecting it. Before carrying out her plan, she had rehearsed her testimony, which had to be persuasive regarding the premise of an accident, and refute any of the suspicion that typically might fall upon the spouse when a partner dies.
They took her to the pink stucco police station, where she gave her version of the events while gazing at a calendar with a picture of three adorable kittens.
Although the policemen apologized for burdening her with this or that question, she went on as if she could not for a second imagine being suspected of anything. She cajoled them, signed the statement, and went back to the hotel to spend a peaceful night.
The next morning, her son and two daughters arrived, accompanied by their spouses, and this time the situation was awkward. She felt genuine remorse when faced with her beloved children’s sorrow; it wasn’t regret over having killed Gab, but shame at inflicting this pain upon them. What a pity he had also been their father! How stupid of her not to have conceived them with another man, to spare them these tears for him . . . In any case, it was too late. She took refuge in a sort of vacant speechlessness.
The only practical advantage of their presence was that, in order to spare their mother, they went to identify the body in the morgue. Which she appreciated.
They also tried to intercept any articles in the regional press reporting the tragic fall, scarcely imagining that the titles “Accidental Hiking Death,” or “Victim of his own lack of caution,” were a boon to Gabrielle, because they confirmed, in black and white, that Gab had died and she was innocent.
There was one detail however, that displeased her: when she got back from the coroner’s office her eldest daughter, eyes red, felt obliged to whisper in her mother’s ear: “You know, even dead, Papa was very handsome.” What on earth was she on about, that kid? Whether Gab was handsome or not, that was no business of anyone’s but Gabrielle, and Gabrielle alone! Hadn’t she already suffered enough because of it?
After that remark, Gabrielle kept herself to herself until the funeral was over.
When she went back to her house in Senlis, neighbors and friends came to offer their condolences. While she greeted her neighbors with pleasure, she quickly became exasperated with having to tell the same story over and over only to hear them echo identical platitudes. Behind her sad, resigned expression, she was boiling with anger: what good was it getting rid of her husband if she had to talk about him all the time! All the more so that she was impatient to run up to the third floor, knock down the wall, ransack his hiding place and uncover the very thing that was tormenting her. Couldn’t they just hurry up and leave her alone!
Their private mansion, very nearly a fortified château, was like something out of a book of fairytales, for under the tangle of climbing roses there were a multitude of turrets, crenellations, arrow slits, sculpted balconies, decorative rosettes, sweeping staircases, windows with gothic points and colored panes. With experience, Gabrielle increasingly relied on her visitors’ exclamations to determine how little culture they might have, and she had classified them into four categories, from the barbarian to the bore. The barbarian would give a hostile glance at her walls and grumble, “Kind of old, here”; the barbarian who thought he had some culture would murmur, “This is medieval, is it not?”; the truly cultured barbarian would detect the illusion: “Medieval style, but built in the 19th century?”; and finally the bore would cry out, “Viollet-le-Duc!” before boring everybody with a running commentary on each element that the famous architect and his workshop might have deformed, restored, or invented.
There was nothing surprising about a residence like this in Senlis, a village in the Oise, to the north of Paris, which featured many such historical dwellings on its hillside. Alongside stones dating from the time of Joan of Arc or buildings erected in the 17th and 18th centuries, Gabrielle’s home seemed, in fact, to be one of the least elegant, for it was recent—a century and a half—and its taste was debatable. Nevertheless, she had lived there as one half of a couple from the time she had inherited it from her father, and she found it very amusing that her walls denounced her as a nouveau riche, for she had never considered herself to be either rich or newly so.
On the third level of the dwelling, which would have enchanted Alexandre Dumas and Sir Walter Scott, there was a room that belonged to Gab. After their wedding, in order to make him feel well and truly at home when he moved into her house, they had agreed that he would have the total use of that part and Gabrielle would have no say in the matter; she had permission to go and fetch him there should he be late for any reason, but otherwise she was not to go there.
There was nothing exceptional about the place—books, pipes, maps, globes—and it offered only minimal comfort in the form of torn leather armchairs, but there was an opening in the thick wall, obstructed by a vertical trap door. Gab had made room for it twenty years earlier when removing some bricks. Whenever he put something in there, he would cover the surface over again with roughcast in order to hide the recess from view. Because of his precautions, Gabrielle knew that she could not be indiscreet without providing proof of it. Out of love initially, then out of fear, she had always respected Gab’s secret. Often, he made fun of it, and joked about it, testing her resistance . . .
Now there was nothing stopping her from breaking through the plaster wall.
The first three days, she thought it would seem indecent to go up there with a hammer and wrecking bar; and in any case, given the stream of visitors, she wouldn’t have had time. On the fourth day, when she saw that neither the telephone nor the doorbell were ringing, she promised herself that after a quick visit to her antique store, three hundred yards down the road, she would satisfy her curiosity.
At the very edge of town, the sign “G. and G. de Sarlat” in golden letters soberly announced an antique store of the kind that the region preferred: a place where one could hunt around both for major items—dressers, tables, wardrobes—to furnish immense secondary residences, and for knickknacks—lamps, mirrors, statuettes—to decorate well-furnished interiors. There was no particular style that dominated there, but most were represented, including some dreadful imitations, provided they were over a hundred years old.
Gabrielle’s two employees brought her up to date regarding the items sold during the fateful vacation in Savoie, then she spoke to her bookkeeper. After a brief meeting, she walked through the store that had filled with gossipy women the moment they had heard in the immediate neighborhood that “poor Madame Sarlat” was in her boutique.
She shuddered on seeing Paulette among them.
“My poor sweetheart,” exclaimed Paulette, “so young and already a widow!”
Paulette looked for an ashtray to put down her cigarette, smeared with orange lipstick, but could not find one, so she stubbed it out under her green heel, visibly unconcerned that she might burn the linoleum, and came toward Gabrielle, spreading her arms dramatically.
“My poor dear, I am so unhappy to see you unhappy.”
Gabrielle submitted to her embrace, trembling.
Paulette remained the only woman that she dreaded, for she was very gifted at ferreting out the truth in other people. Many considered her to be the most spiteful gossip, and she had the gift of penetrating people’s skulls with a laser beam—her insistent gaze, her protruding eyes—and then to find the turn of phrase that could demolish an individual’s reputation forever.
In the time it took to submit to her embrace, Gabrielle nearly choked on a few strands of Paulette’s dry, yellow hair, exhausted by decades of styling and hair dye, then she bravely confronted the face shining with swarthy foundation cream.
“Say, did the police question you? They must have asked you if you killed him, right?”
That’s it, thought Gabrielle, she already suspects me. She doesn’t waste her time, she goes straight for the jugular.
Gabrielle nodded, bending her head. Paulette reacted with a scream, “Bastards! To make you go through that! Someone like you, so crazy about your Gab, for thirty years you ate the carpet in his presence! Someone like you who’d have had any operation he asked for, who’d have changed into a mouse or a man! I’m not surprised! Bastards! They’re all bastards! Do you know what they did to me? When I was bringing up my second boy, Romuald, one day I had to take him to the hospital because the kid was all black and blue from slipping on getting out of the tub, can you imagine, the police came to get me at the emergency room to ask me if I hadn’t been battering him! Yes! They dragged me down to the station. And locked me up. Me! It lasted for forty-eight hours. Me, their mother, they thought I was guilty when all I’d done was drive my kid to the hospital. Swine! And did they do the same to you?”
Gabrielle understood that Paulette, far from suspecting her, was taking her side. She was sympathizing, as a former victim herself. For her, any woman who was interrogated by the police would logically become, by analogy with her own case, an innocent victim.
“Yes, me too, that very evening.”
“Jackals! How long?”
“Several hours.”
“Scumbags! My poor chick, was it humiliating, then?”
Paulette, offering Gabrielle the tenderness she felt for her own self, again crushed her friend against her chest.
Relieved, Gabrielle allowed her to rant and rave for a moment, then she went home to get started on Gab’s hiding place.
At noon, she went up the steps, the tools in her hand, and began to destroy the protective covering. The board jumped out, revealing a space where four small chests had been piled up.
She pulled over a low table and put the chests on it. While she had no idea what they contained, she did recognize them, for they were big metal cookie tins, and although the labels had been eroded by time and damp, you could still read “Madeleines from Commercy,” “Mint Humbugs,” “Lyon Marzipan Pillows,” and other such sweets.
She was about to lift the first lid when the doorbell rang.
Leaving aside her labors, she closed the door behind her with the key in the lock, then went down to open the door, determined to get rid of the importunating bore without delay.
“Police, Madame! May we come in?”
Several strong-jawed men were standing on the threshold.
“Of course. What do you want?”
“Are you Gabrielle de Sarlat, the wife of the late Gabriel de Sarlat?”
“Yes.”
“Come with us, please.”
“Why?”
“You are wanted at the police station.”
“If it’s to answer questions about my husband’s accident, your colleagues in Savoie already took care of that.”
“This is an entirely different matter, Madame. You are suspected of having killed your husband. A shepherd claims he saw you push him over the edge.”
After ten hours in police custody, Gabrielle was hesitant to confirm whom she despised more, the police chief or her lawyer. Perhaps she might have forgiven the police chief . . . When he was tormenting her, he was merely doing his job, adding neither viciousness nor passion, he was honestly trying to transform her into a culprit. Her lawyer, on the other hand, disturbed her because he wanted to know. And yet she was paying him to believe, not to know! What she was buying was his knowledge of the law, his experience of the courtroom, his energy to defend her; she didn’t care one way or the other whether he knew the truth.
The moment they were alone together, Maître Plissier, a good-looking, dark-haired man of forty, leaned toward his client with a self-important air and in a grave voice, the kind of voice given to heroic cowboys in dubbed American Westerns, he said: “Now, I would like you to tell me, and only me, the truth, Madame Sarlat. It will not leave these walls. Did you push your husband?”
“Why would I do such a thing?”
“Do not answer me with a question. Did you push him?”
“That was my answer: ‘Why would I do such a thing?’ I have been accused of a senseless act. I loved my husband. We were happy together for thirty years. We had three children together, who can testify to that.”
“We can plead a crime of passion.”
“A crime of passion? At the age of fifty-eight? After thirty years of marriage?”
“Why not?”
“At the age of fifty-eight, Monsieur, if we are still in love, it’s because we like one another, in a lucid sort of way, a harmonious, dispassionate affair, without excess, without drama.”
“Madame Sarlat, stop telling me what I am to think but tell me rather what you think. You might have been jealous.”
“Ridiculous!”
“Was he cheating on you?”
“Don’t defile him.”
“Who stands to inherit from your husband?”
“Nobody, he had no possessions. All the capital belongs to me. Moreover, we were married under separation of property.”
“And yet, his last name is that of a good family . . .”
“Yes, Gabriel de Sarlat, people are always impressed. They think I married a fortune whereas I only married a name with a handle. My husband didn’t have a penny to his name, and he never knew how to make money. Our property comes from me, from my father, rather, Paul Chapelier, the orchestra conductor. My husband’s disappearance does not improve my financial situation; it changes nothing, it even makes it worse, because he was the one who used to transport the antiques that we sold in the shop in his van and if I want to continue, I will have to hire an extra employee.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I’ve done nothing but, Monsieur.”
“Maître . . .”
“Don’t be ridiculous. There is nothing I stand to gain through my husband’s death. Perhaps he would have gained more from mine.”
“Is he the one then, who tried to push you, with that very intention?”
“Are you mad?”
“Think about it. We could support such a hypothesis, that there was a struggle. On that mountain path, he decided to get rid of you in order to have your money. By pushing him, you merely resorted to self-defense.”
“Separation of property! He would not have inherited a thing upon my death, nor would I upon his. And why are you making up such improbable scenarios?”
“Because a man saw you, Madame! The shepherd tending his flock says that you rushed up to your husband and pushed him into the void.”
“He is lying!”
“Why should he lie, what purpose would that serve?”
“It’s absolutely extraordinary. When I suggest that there is no reason for me to kill my husband, whom I love, you doubt me, whereas you believe the shepherd on the pretext that there is no reason for him to lie! It’s a double standard! Who hired you? The shepherd, or me? It’s unbelievable! I can give you a hundred reasons why your shepherd might be lying: to look interesting, to become the hero of his canton, to take revenge on a woman or several women through me, to stir up shit just for the pleasure of stirring up shit! And besides, how far away was he? Five hundred yards? Eight hundred yards? A mile?”
“Madame de Sarlat, don’t go making up my defense for me. The shepherd’s testimony against us is damning: he saw you!”
“Well, I didn’t see him.”
Maître Plissier paused to look closely at Gabrielle. He sat down next to her and ran his hand over his forehead, worried.
“Am I to take that for a confession?”
“What?”
“You looked all around before you pushed your husband and you didn’t notice anyone. Is that what you are confessing to me?”
“Monsieur, I am trying to make it clear to you that after my husband’s fall, I looked all around and shouted out, loudly, because I was looking for help. Your famous shepherd did not come forward, did not reply. That’s rather odd, don’t you think? If he had gone to alert the guides, or down to where my husband was lying, perhaps then . . . If he’s accusing me, isn’t it to protect himself?”
“From what?”
“Non-assistance to a person in danger. I am talking about my husband. And about myself, by extension.”
“That’s not a bad idea to turn the situation around, however, I have to be the one to put forward such an argument. Coming from you it would sound fishy.”
“Oh, really? You can accuse me of something monstrous, but I mustn’t seem too clever, how pleasant!”
She pretended to be irritated although basically she was glad she had understood how to manipulate her lawyer.
“I’ll drag him in front of the courts, that shepherd, see if I don’t!”
“For the time being, you’re the one who has been indicted, Madame.”
“I had to go tearing down the mountain for hours to find some hikers and alert the rescuers. Your shepherd, if he saw my husband fall, why didn’t he go to help him? Why didn’t he alert anyone? Because if he had reacted quickly, perhaps my husband would still be alive . . .”
Then, exasperated at having to do the lawyer’s job for him, she decided to have a crying fit and she sobbed for a good ten minutes.
Once her convulsion was over, Maître Plissier, who had been duly moved, began henceforth to believe everything she said. She scorned him all the more for his reversal of attitude: to let himself be worn down by a few sobs, what an oaf! Basically, when faced with a woman full of resolve, there was not a man on earth any smarter than the next one.
The chief of police came back and began his interrogation. He kept going over the same points; Gabrielle replied in identical fashion, although not as sharply as with her lawyer.
As the police chief was cleverer than the lawyer, after he had excluded any motives of interest, he went back to the relationship between Gabrielle and Gab.
“Be frank with me, Madame Sarlat, did your husband not want to leave you? Did he have a mistress? Or mistresses? Was your relation as satisfying as before? Did you have any reason to reproach him?”
Gabrielle understood that her fate would be determined by this gray zone, and she adopted a tactic that she would maintain to the end.
“I’m going to tell you the truth, officer: Gab and I were the luckiest couple in the world. He never cheated on me. I never cheated on him. Try to find someone to tell you the contrary: you won’t. Not only did I love my husband more than anything in the world, but I shall never get over his death.”
If at that moment Gabrielle had known where a few months later this defense tactic would lead her, perhaps she would not have been so proud of her idea . . .
Two and a half years.
Gabrielle was remanded in custody for two years while waiting for her trial.
Several times her children tried to obtain parole for her, arguing that she should be presumed innocent, but the judge refused for two reasons: one essential one, the other contingent: the first was the shepherd’s testimony for the prosecution, the second the controversy that was exacerbated in the newspapers implying that judges were too lenient.
Despite the hard life in prison, Gabrielle did not get depressed. Just as she had waited to be liberated from her husband, now she was waiting to be liberated from this accusation. She had always been patient—a necessary quality when you work in the antique business—and she refused to be discouraged by this unexpected turn of events.
In her cell, she often thought about the four boxes she had left on the little table, the boxes containing Gab’s secret . . . How ironic! There she had done everything she could to open them, and she had been stopped with her hand on the lid. The moment she cleared her name, she would explore the mystery of the cookie tins. That would be her reward.
According to Maître Plessier, the outlook for her trial was positive: the elements of the investigation were in their favor; all the witnesses, with the exception of the shepherd, would be for the defense, and would sit behind the defendant’s bench; and as the interrogations proceeded Gabrielle had shown herself to be more and more persuasive, from the police chief to the investigating magistrate.
Because Gabrielle knew perfectly how to tell a convincing lie: all it took was to tell the truth. This she had learned from her father, Paul Chapelier, for as a child she had accompanied him on his concert tours. When this talented conductor was not conducting the musicians himself, he attended other concerts, and because of his fame, he was duty bound to go backstage after the performance to compliment the artists. Mindful not to upset the colleagues with whom he had played or might play, he decided only ever to speak only of what he had appreciated; he tossed out any negative critique, and shared only his positive remarks; and if there was only one single pathetic detail worthy of praise, he would run with it, amplify it, enhance it. Thus, he never lied, except by omission. In his conversations, the performers felt that he was being sincere, and they were free to understand more; the pretentious ones picked up on his enthusiasm, while those who were merely lucid valued his courtesy. To his daughter Paul Chapelier said, more than once: “I don’t have enough memory to be a good liar.” By saying nothing but the truth and avoiding giving vent to anything at all hurtful, he managed not to contradict himself, and to establish friendships in a milieu that was nevertheless known to be extremely cutthroat.
Gabrielle adopted this method for the two and a half years of her incarceration. When she spoke of Gab, she only ever recalled the radiant period, the period of intense, shared love. His name was Gabriel, and hers was Gabrielle; together they became Gab and Gaby. The quirks of life and of birth certificates had given them a rare gift: once they were married, they were able to use the same name, give or take one syllable, Gabriel(le) de Sarlat. According to her, this shared identity expressed all their strength as a couple, the indestructibility of their union. To those civil servants who were paid to listen to her, Gabrielle described how she fell in love at first sight with this young man, whom she found shy although he was merely being well brought up; their long flirtation, their escapades, his embarrassed proposal to the artist father whom the boy admired, the ceremony at the Church of the Madeleine where an entire symphony orchestra played for them. Without being asked, she evoked the inviolate attraction of his neat, elegant body, never troubled by fat or middle-age spread, as if a slim shape were an aristocratic quality that came with the handle. She listed their moments of happiness as if saying an endless rosary—the children, the children’s marriages, the births of the grandchildren, and despite the passage of time, a man who remained physically intact, with his feelings intact, his gaze upon her unchanged, always bit tentative, respectful, and full of desire. From time to time, she realized that she was making her listeners feel ill at ease, that they were troubled by envy; one day, the examining magistrate went so far as to sigh, “What you are telling me, Madame, is too good to be true.”
She looked at him with compassion and murmured, “You must admit, rather, that it is too good for you, Monsieur.”
Embarrassed, he did not insist. All the more so as the couple’s close family—children, sons-in-law, daughter-in-law, friends, neighbors, all confirmed the idyllic nature of their love. To close the file, the culprit was twice made to sit a lie detector test, which she passed successfully.
Her detention brought with it a solitude that Gabrielle could only escape from in her memories. As a result, Gab had begun to occupy a more important, extravagant place in her new life as a prisoner: either she was talking about him, or she was thinking about him. It mattered little whether she was isolated or in company: he was there, no one else—kindly, comforting, and faithful.
The problem was that by virtue of hearing only things that were true, she ended up believing them. By hiding the last three years of her life with Gab, and revealing only twenty-seven years of bliss, Gabrielle understood less and less what had happened, what had changed her. She could hardly remember the “trigger,” the phrase that had alerted her . . . It was better not to even think about it, anyway, what good would it do! Gaby, because of that “trigger,” had proven capable of killing her husband; that woman, the murderess, must not exist until the acquittal; therefore, Gabrielle drowned her in a well of oblivion, severed herself from all the motives and reasons that had led her to bump him off; consequently, she condemned that entire part of her brain.
By virtue of thinking about him so much, she once again became the Gabrielle who was loving and loved, incapable of laying a hand on her husband. Like an actress who is obliged to spend time with her character, who ends up identifying herself with her and shows up unbelievably true to life on the set, Gabrielle showed up at her trial as the inconsolable heroine, the victim of a heinous accusation.
From the first day of the hearing, there was a consensus in her favor. On the second day, reporters were already talking about an unfounded accusation. On the third day, complete strangers in the last row of the overcrowded courtroom were weeping profusely, on the side of the unjustly treated innocent woman. On the fourth day, her children appeared over and over on the television news to express their emotion and indignation.
Gabrielle went through the interrogation and heard the witnesses, paying close attention; she was careful that nothing she said or that others said contradicted the version that she had constructed; she was like a scrupulous composer sitting in on the rehearsals of his work, with the score on his lap.
As anticipated, the shepherd turned out to be fairly catastrophic during his testimony. Not only was his French quite broken—and in this country, an error of syntax or vocabulary does not betray merely a lack of education, it constitutes an aggression against society as a whole, and is tantamount to blasphemy against the national cult of language—but he complained that he had to advance the money for his ticket to “go up to Compiègne,” and he grumbled for a good quarter of an hour about the subject. When interrogated by Maître Plissier, he committed the blunder of confessing that he recognized Gabrielle de Sarlat “from her photo in the newspapers,” then provided nothing but hateful explanations for his wishy-washy efforts to provide assistance to the body, saying, “For sure if you fall like that, there could’a been nothing left but shreds, no need to go and check, you think I’m stupid, or what?”
With the exception of the shepherd, everything corroborated Gabrielle’s innocence. On the last day but one, she relaxed a bit. As a result, when the family doctor came to the witness stand, she did not expect to be so devastatingly affected by what he said.
Dr. Pascal Racan, a loyal friend of the Sarlat couple, told several harmless anecdotes about Gab and Gaby, and among them, there was this:
“I’ve rarely seen such a loving couple. When one of them decided to do something, it wasn’t selfish, it was for the other one. For example, Gaby wanted to go on pleasing her husband, so she took up some sports, and she asked my advice in matters of diet. As for Gab, although he was thin and dry, he still had high blood pressure and he was worried, not about the disease, which could be kept in check with good medication, but about the effects of the treatment. As you know, beta-blockers decrease libido, and diminish sexual appetite. He often came to talk to me about it because he was afraid his wife might think he desired her less. Which was not true, he just didn’t feel like it as much. I’ve never seen a man so worried. I’ve never known someone so concerned about his companion. In such cases, most men just think about themselves and their health, and when they notice that their appetite is waning, it suits them, it decreases the number of adulterous relations they have; they’re delighted to become more virtuous for medical reasons without it costing them any effort. But Gab thought only about Gaby’s reaction.”
When she heard this hitherto unknown detail, Gabrielle was incapable of restraining a flood of tears. She swore she would be all right in a moment but was so upset that she wasn’t, and Maître Plissier had to ask for the hearing to be adjourned, to which the court agreed.
The members of the audience thought they understood why Gabrielle had been so moved. She did not confess anything to Maître Plissier but as soon as she was able to speak again, she voiced a request: “Please, I feel like I’m sinking, I can’t keep it up . . . Would you ask my eldest daughter to do me a favor?”
“Yes.”
“Have her bring this evening to the prison the four cookie tins that are on a coffee table in her father’s room. She will know what I’m talking about.”
“I’m not sure that she will have the right to give them to you in the visiting room.”
“Oh, I beg you, I shall collapse.”
“There, there, only twenty-four hours to go. Tomorrow will be the last day, the speech for the defense. By evening we’ll be all set.”
“I don’t know what they will decide tomorrow, and neither do you, despite your confidence and your talent. Please, Maître, I can’t stand it anymore, I’ll do something foolish.”
“I don’t see how these cookie tins . . .”
“Please. I’m beside myself, I don’t know what I might do.”
He understood that she was sincere, threatening him, that she might make an attempt on her life. When he saw how overwrought she was, fearful that she might not make it to the end of the trial, the outcome of which already seemed glorious to him—a red letter day in his career—he dreaded a gaffe and swore that he himself would bring her the boxes she was asking for. Never mind, he would take the risk.
To his utter surprise, because he was not accustomed to such effusiveness from her, Gabrielle took him by the shoulders and kissed him.
The hearing resumed but Gabrielle did not listen; all she could think of was the doctor’s testimony, the secret boxes, the “trigger,” and everything she had kept silent for two and a half years.
When she was in the van taking her back to the prison, she stretched out her legs and thought.
She had listened to so many people talking about her, and about him, without knowing the facts, that her thoughts were all in a muddle.
Why had she killed him?
Because of the “trigger”. . . Was it a mistake?
At the prison, she asked for exceptional permission to go to the shower. Because of her exemplary behavior and the indulgent treatment the media were giving to her trial, permission was granted.
She slipped under the scorching water. To wash! To cleanse herself of the nonsense she may have said or heard these last days. To think back about what had happened, about the “trigger.”
The “trigger” had come from Paulette . . . When that tall, gangly woman with her mannish features first came and settled with her husband in Senlis, she often came to Gabrielle’s store to furnish and decorate her new house. Although initially Gabrielle found her vulgar in her appearance—Paulette was as colorful as a parrot in Brazil—and in the way she spoke, she enjoyed her as a customer because she appreciated her insolence, her utter disregard for what people might think, her sharp repartee, incongruous but spot on. Several times, she took her defense against her employees or the customers she frightened off. There was one thing she had to grant her new neighbor: she was very talented at sniffing out any tricky business. Wary and perspicacious at the same time, Paulette brought a number of things to Gabrielle’s attention: traffic in fake opalines, then a gang who were dismantling old fireplaces; above all, with a single glance she could detect all the vices and secrets of the other villagers, obscure examples of depravity that Gabrielle herself was unaware of or had taken years to discover. Dazzled by Paulette’s clairvoyance, Gabrielle enjoyed spending time with her, sitting on her armchairs that were for sale.
One day, as they were chatting, Gabrielle noticed Paulette’s dark gaze—erratic, sidelong—following the movements of an intruder. The object of her scrutiny was none other than Gab, whom Paulette had not met. Amused by the idea of what Paulette would have to say, Gaby did not explain that her beloved husband had just come tearing into the store.
Although their conversation continued seamlessly, Gabrielle was perfectly aware that Paulette was not missing a single thing as she followed Gab’s movements, demeanor and expressions.
“What do you think?” asked Gabrielle suddenly, with a wink over in Gab’s direction.
“That guy? Oh my God, the perfect two-faced bastard. Too polite to be honest. The hypocrite to end all hypocrites. First prize with a cherry on top.”
Gabrielle was so taken aback that her jaw dropped and her mouth stayed open until Gab rushed over to her, kissed her, and greeted Paulette.
As soon as she had realized her blunder, Paulette changed her attitude, and the next day she excused herself for her remark to Gabrielle, but it was too late: the worm was already in the apple.
From that moment on, day by day, Gaby’s perception of Gab began to change. If Paulette had made such an assertion, she must have her reasons: she was never wrong! Gaby observed Gab, trying to forget everything she knew about him, or thought she knew, as if he had become a stranger. Worse yet, she tried to justify Paulette’s judgment.
To her extreme surprise, it wasn’t difficult.
Gab de Sarlat was polite and courteous. He dressed in a casual gentleman farmer style, was always available to help, was a regular churchgoer, had little inclination to overindulge in conversation or ideas, could fascinate and exasperate in equal measure. He was traditional in his feelings, his discourse, and his behavior—and even his physique—and he attracted some people for the same reasons he repelled others, who were not numerous: he looked perfect, ideal.
Caught out by the instinct of the ferocious Paulette, he suddenly posed the same problem to Gabrielle as had two or three pieces of furniture in her life as an antique dealer: original, or imitation? Either you saw him as an honest man who cared about others, or you sniffed out the impostor.
In the space of a few weeks, Gabrielle convinced herself that she was being swindled. If she listed Gab’s qualities one by one, she could turn the card over and discover the hidden defect. He was calm? The shell of a hypocrite. He was gallant? A way of channeling an overactive libido and attracting future prey. He dealt thoughtfully with Gabrielle’s mood swings? Abysmal indifference. He had married for love—the daring union of a nobleman with a commoner? A contract over money. His Catholic faith? Just another tweed suit, a cloak of respectability. His moral values? Words to hide his impulses. Suddenly, she suspected that the way he helped out in the shop—transporting furniture, either when she bought it or when it was delivered—was just an alibi destined to create free time so that he could move around more discreetly. And what if he used the opportunity to visit his mistresses?
Why, after twenty-seven years of love and trust, did Gabrielle allow herself to be poisoned by doubt? Paulette’s venom did not explain everything; no doubt Gabrielle found it difficult, with advancing age, to confront the changes in her body, as she struggled with her weight, her deepening wrinkles, with ever more insistent fatigue, and blood vessels bursting in her once lovely legs . . . If she found it so easy to have her doubts about Gab, it was also because she had doubts about herself, and her powers of attraction. She lost her temper with him because he was aging better than she was, because he was still attractive, because the young girls smiled at him more spontaneously than young men did at her. In society—at the market, the beach, in the street—people still noticed him, whereas Gabrielle had become transparent.
Four months after Paulette’s “trigger,” Gabrielle could no longer stand him. She could not stand herself either: every morning, her mirror showed her a stranger whom she hated, a big woman with a thick neck, with red blotches on her skin, and cracks in her lips, and flabby arms; she was afflicted with a terrible fold of flesh beneath her belly button which even if she starved herself she could not get rid of, and her diets did not make her any more cheerful. She could not digest the idea that Gab might like this—who could possibly like this? No one!
As a result, all the sweet things—smiles, attention, kindnesses, tender gestures—that Gab offered her the rest of the day were simply hurtful. What a hypocrite! Paulette had hit the nail on the head: a two-faced bastard from the House of Two-Faced Bastards, guaranteed genuine article. In the end, he disgusted her. How could anyone act so unctuously?
The only time he wasn’t pretending was when he would exclaim—although his tone remained affectionate—“old girl.” Go figure, it just came out! Gabrielle hated it when it happened; every time, she felt a shudder down her back as if she had been whipped.
She began to think about divorce. However, whenever she pictured herself in front of a lawyer or her children, trying to justify the separation, she realized she did not have any sound arguments. They would protest: Gab is wonderful, how can you come out with such nonsense? Her eldest daughter might even send her to see a psychiatrist—she already sent her children to the psychiatrist. She would have to go about it differently.
She decided to find some proof against Gab. “Men—” the peremptory Paulette had claimed, “you have to really push them to the brink to see what they’re made of.” Gabrielle started changing her mind about everything, saying she wanted to go to such and such a restaurant then refusing, re-setting the date or destination of their holidays fifteen times or more; she added whim to caprice to find him out and make him wild with rage. In vain: every time, he conceded to her demands. At the most, all she might get was a sigh, a gleam of weariness in the back of his eyes in the evening when she behaved abominably. “What has he got in his pants?” Paulette would have said. That was what she herself wondered. For some time now, in bed, if they exchanged tender gestures, not much happened any more. It was true she didn’t want it as much as she used to, and she figured that they had copulated plentifully in their life, and that to start at it again after decades was like spending vacation in the same place: boring. And while she had gotten used to it, she gave it some thought and wondered if this peace did not have another meaning for him. Mightn’t he be taking advantage of his trips in the van to cheat on her? As a result, she insisted on going along. He said he was delighted and chatted away to his heart’s content for the hundreds of miles they covered together during those weeks. At least twice he suggested stopping to make love, once in the back of the car, another time in the middle of a field. And although she accepted, she was devastated. This was the proof! The proof that when he went on his trips, he was used to having his sexual needs met.
She stopped going along on his expeditions, and became morose, communicating less and less, except with Paulette. Her friend could talk forever about men who cheated.
“In this day and age, those cretins get caught by their wives, because they can look at the calls they make or receive on their cell phones. You’d think that private detectives would march in protest against the way cell phones have harmed their business, in the adultery department.”
“And if a man doesn’t have a cell phone?” asked Gabrielle, thinking about Gab, who refused to let her give him one.
“If a man doesn’t have a cell phone, watch out! Red alert! It means he’s the king of kings, the emperor of bastards, the prince of abusers. Their sort works the old-fashioned way, he doesn’t want to be found out, he uses telephone booths that leave no trace. He knows that adultery was not created at the same time as the cell phone, and he goes on using the well worn tricks he has refined over the years. That kind of guy is the James Bond of illicit sex: you can trail him but you can’t catch him. Good luck!”
From then on, Gabrielle became obsessed with the hiding place on the third floor. Gab’s secrets had to be there, the proof of his perverse behavior, too. She went there several times with tools, wanting to break down the wall; every time, shame kept her from doing it. Several times she tried to hoodwink Gab by putting on a charm act to convince him to open it for her; every time, he came up with a new excuse to get out of it: “There’s nothing in there,” “You’ll only make fun of me,” “You’ll have plenty of time to find out what’s in there,” “Aren’t I entitled to my own little secrets?,” “It has to do with you but I don’t want you to know.” All these contradictory refusals annoyed Gabrielle to the extreme, until finally he said, “You’ll find out after I’m dead, and that will be soon enough.”
His words made her indignant. What did he mean, would she have to wait ten, twenty, thirty years, to have the proof that he had mocked her all her life, and that she had shared her existence with a shifty social climber? Was he trying to provoke her or what?
“You’re awfully quiet these days, my dear Gabrielle,” exclaimed Paulette when they were drinking tea together.
“I keep my problems to myself. That’s the way I was raised. My father stuffed my head with the idea that you should never expose anything but positive thoughts; the other ones you keep silent.”
“What bullshit! You have to get it out in the open, sweetheart, otherwise you’ll give yourself cancer. Women who keep quiet get cancer. I’ll never have cancer because I shout and complain all day long. Never mind if other people don’t like it: let them suffer—not me, girl!”
And that is how her plan took shape: she had to free herself of doubt, so she would have to get rid of Gab, a plan she carried out in the Alps.
Gabrielle was taken back into her cell with her wet hair, and she collapsed on the bed to go on thinking. That was what had been going on in her brain for the last three years of their life together as a couple, that was what she was hiding from everyone, that was how her life had been drained of savor and meaning to be reduced to a continuous nightmare. At the least by killing Gab she had acted, had put an end to that unbearable anxiety. She didn’t regret it. This afternoon, however, the doctor’s testimony had shaken her: she had learned why Gab was no longer as sensual, and how he must be suffering. The doctor’s comment had chipped away at her block of convictions.
Why was she discovering this only now? Before, she used to think he avoided her to devote his energy to his mistresses. Couldn’t that irresponsible Dr. Racan have spoken to her about it earlier?
“Gabrielle de Sarlat to the visitors’ room. Your lawyer is waiting for you.”
It couldn’t have come at a better time.
Maître Plissier placed the four tin boxes on the table.
“There you are! Now, explain.”
Gabrielle didn’t answer. She sat down and opened the tins, voraciously. Her fingers scurried through the papers that lay inside each box, pulling some sheets out to decipher them, then others, and still others . . .
After a few minutes, Gabrielle fell to the floor, prostrate, suffocating. Maître Plissier alerted the warders, who helped him to make the prisoner comfortable and got her to breathe. They took her on a stretcher to the infirmary, where they gave her a tranquilizer.
An hour later, when she had regained consciousness, she asked where her lawyer had gone. They informed her that he had gone away again with the boxes to prepare for the hearing.
Gabrielle begged them to give her another tranquilizer, and lapsed into unconsciousness. Anything, rather than think about what those metal boxes contained.
The next morning prosecution and defense stated their case. Gabrielle resembled a vague memory of herself—pale, gaunt, her eyes full of tears, her complexion blotchy, her lips drained of blood. If she had been striving consciously to gain the sympathy of the jurors, she could not have done a better job.
The prosecutor gave a summing up that was more determined than it was harsh, and it impressed no one. Then Maître Plissier, his sleeves quivering, got up like a soloist called on stage to give his bravura performance.
“What happened? A man died in the mountains. Let us leave the act aside for a moment and consider the two opposing versions that have brought us before the court: an accident, says his wife; an assassination, claims a shepherd, a stranger. Let us stand farther back still, let us stand very far back, at least as far back as the shepherd, if it is possible to see anything clearly at such a distance, and now let us examine the motives for murder. There are none! As a rule, I find it difficult to exercise my profession as a lawyer because everything seems to point to the guilt of the person I am defending. In the case of Gabrielle Sarlat, there is nothing to point to her guilt, nothing! No motives, no grounds. There was no money at stake. No tension in their relation. No betrayals. Nothing to suggest she is guilty, except for one thing. A man. That is, a man who lives with animals, a boy who can neither read nor write, who rebelled against his schooling, who was incapable of belonging to society in any way other than to isolate himself from it. In short, this shepherd, an employee whom I could easily accuse because he was let go by several employers, a worker who satisfied no one, a man who has neither wife nor children; in short, this shepherd saw her. How far away was he standing? Not two hundred yards, nor three hundred, a distance which would already be a handicap to anyone’s vision—but a mile, according to the findings of the reconstruction! Let us be serious, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what can you see from a mile away? Personally, nothing. The shepherd, a crime. It’s extraordinary, no? Moreover, after he has witnessed the murder, he does not rush to help the victim, he does not call for a rescue party or the police. Why? According to his allegations, because he cannot leave his herd. This is an individual who watches as a fellow human being is being murdered, but who goes on thinking that the life of his animals—who will end up on a skewer—is more important . . . I cannot understand this man, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. It would not matter so seriously if he were not accusing an admirable woman, a spouse of integrity, an exemplary mother, incriminating her of the very last thing she would have wanted, the death of her Gabriel, Gabriel nicknamed Gab, the love of her life.”
He turned abruptly to face the jurors.
“Well, you may object, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that nothing is ever as it seems! Even if everybody attests to their love, so strong and so visible, what was going on in their minds? This woman, Gabrielle de Sarlat, may have been corroded with suspicion, jealousy, doubt. Who can prove that she did not suffer from a paranoid neurosis regarding her spouse? In addition to all the witnesses you heard here and who did not offer the slightest justification for such a hypothesis, I would like to add, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my own testimony. Do you know what this woman did, last night? Do you know the only favor she asked of me in two and a half years of custody? She asked me to bring her four cookie tins in which for over thirty years she had been storing their letters, as well as the mementos of their love. Everything can be found in there, theater and concert tickets, the menus from their engagement party and their wedding, and all the birthdays, little notes they wrote to each other and left on the kitchen table in the morning—from the ordinary to the sublime, everything! Thirty years. Up until the last day. Up until they left on their tragic vacation. The warders will confirm that she then spent hours, in tears, thinking about the man she had lost. I ask you, and this will be my last question, does an assassin do such a thing?”
Gabrielle collapsed on her chair while her children, and the more sensitive souls in the gallery, could hardly contain their tears.
The court and the jury withdrew to deliberate.
In the corridor where she was waiting on the bench next to Maître Plissier, Gabrielle thought about the letters she had read the night before. There was one that showed her that from the time of their youth, he had always called her “old girl”—how could she have forgotten, and taken the expression for a cruel mockery? Another where he described her, twenty-five years earlier, as “my violent, wild, secret, unpredictable woman.” That is what he thought of the woman who would kill him, “violent and unpredictable”: how right he was, poor man. So, he really had loved her the way she was, with her quick temper, her rages and angers and spells of the blues, her ruminations, and he was so calm that these storms merely amused him.
And so her husband’s secret had been her own self.
In her imagination she had destroyed their love. Alas, it was not in her imagination that she had pushed him into the void.
Why had she given so much importance to what Paulette said? How could she have stooped to the level of that sordid woman, who saw the world in such an abject, petty way? No, it was too easy to accuse Paulette. She was the guilty one. She alone. No one else. Her most powerful argument for losing her trust in Gab had been: “It is impossible for a man to love the same woman for more than thirty years.” Now, she understood that the true argument, between the lines of the first one, had been, rather: “It is impossible for me to love the same man for more than thirty years.” Guilty, Gabrielle de Sarlat! The only culprit!
A bell. Commotion. Excitement. The trial was starting again. It was like going back to the races after an intermission.
“To the question: ‘Does the jury find that the accused deliberately took the life of her husband?’ the jurors have replied, unanimously, ‘no.’”
A murmur of approval went through the courtroom.
“All charges against Gabrielle de Sarlat have been dropped. Madame, you are free to go,” concluded the judge.
Gabrielle lived through what followed in a haze. They kissed her, congratulated her, her children wept for joy, Maître Plissier strutted and preened. To thank him, she declared that when she heard his defense, she had felt deep inside what he was saying: it was impossible, unthinkable, for a woman as blessed and fulfilled in her marriage as she was to commit such an act. Deep inside herself, she added that it was another woman, a stranger, an unknown person who had nothing to do with her.
To those who asked her how she planned to spend her time in the days ahead, she did not reply. She knew she had to spend it in mourning for a wonderful man. Had they any idea that a mad woman, two and a half years earlier, had taken her husband from her? Would she be able to live without him? To survive such violence?
One month after her acquittal, Gabrielle de Sarlat left her home in Senlis, went back to the Alps, and rented a room at the Hôtel des Adrets, not far from the Hôtel Bellevue where she had stayed with her husband the last time.
In the evening, on the tiny desk in white pine that was next to her bed, she wrote a letter.
My dear children,
Even though the trial ended with the declaration of my innocence, and it acknowledged that it would be impossible for me to kill a man as marvelous as your father Gabriel, the only man I have ever loved, it made his disappearance seem all the more unbearable. Understand my sorrow. Forgive me for taking leave of you. I need to be with him.
The next morning, she walked back up to the col de l’Aigle and, from the path where she had pushed her husband two and a half years earlier, she leapt into the void.