BECAUSE OF ANIA’S HOURS at the day care center, it was still dark when she had to wake Théo. He had so much difficulty waking to the reality of what he was doing, his body lethargic, disorderly, that she felt like she was hurting him. The lights in the pool created a bluish pattern in the depth of the water. Ania remained wrapped in the peace of this hypnotic encounter for as long as it took Théo to emerge, dress, and slowly focus on the contents of his schoolbag. The school had managed to calm him from the chaos that Novak had introduced into their life. Théo, however, remained uncompromising before the disorder or simple negligence of others. Ania hadn’t gotten over his inconsolable rage the day their bikes had been stolen from the garage. His face, childish beneath the straight line of his bangs, hardened when she talked of moving. He didn’t really have any friends in the area, but the world for him began here. Ania feared the day when the neighborhood would treat his handicap with the inevitable brutality. Ever since the two of them had been living alone, her life had been organized around her concern for him and him alone. She would have been happy if she had been able to reassure herself about what the future might bring. The new possibilities that enabled her to hope for an inheritance from her father made her impatient in a way she hadn’t experienced before. She wasn’t sure, however, that it would be an improvement to suddenly become someone else.

The school was barely two kilometers away, and they passed through new neighborhoods, an orderly universe of red roofs, hedgerows, and garages as far as the eye could see. Théo followed Ania, his wheel near hers, with a concentration that never wavered. He was always the first student to arrive. Ania entrusted him to the guard and didn’t leave until she had seen his silhouette, with the large schoolbag on his back, appear in the glass-enclosed hallway leading to the classrooms. He never turned to wave goodbye, so suddenly absent from the unwavering ritual of their intimacy. Ania could never accustom herself to seeing him delivered alone to the silence. It was this guilt from which Gabriel had been able to relieve her at Saint-Lazare: to have brought a child into the world in such isolation.

Ania arrived early at the day care center, where she found a mattress with a broken seam lying like a body over the low entrance wall. One of the children was waiting by the door immediately behind it, accompanied by his father, which happened often now, a tall, thin man wearing a kufi on his shaved head the color of black wax. The two older boys also attended the center, but inconsistently; Ania could never figure out what determined whether they would show up. Their gaze was dense, strong-willed, and a staleness clung to their clothes, which were hung to dry on the ceiling of a lightless studio. Plans were being made to find a new apartment, but things remained up in the air. The mother entrusted herself to God or the staff at city hall with the same angry entreaties. Ania had little patience for her vindictiveness and her indolence; it took her several weeks to overcome her anger at seeing her pregnant once again.

The mattress shone with dew. Ania went to get rubber gloves to heave it over the garbage bin. Little Issa’s father didn’t lift a finger to help her, apparently embarrassed to find himself in her presence outside the center. The milky stain of a cataract covered his eyes, making his gaze almost blue. Ania wondered what he saw. She didn’t even know if he spoke French. He responded to instructions by slow movements of his raised hand. Ania had never heard his voice or seen any of the children shout in his presence. The man carried within him an obscure and very ancient law that was intimidating. Ania realized that it was this face of burnished night that she had imagined, the body as erect as a stave beneath the long, dark tunic, on the man who had been found drowned in the river in V. The watchmaker’s son had never been a thief, never been very courageous. Where did the hate come from whose only appeasement lay in pummeling those gaunt limbs covered in a simple cotton garment?

Ania had removed her gloves to take the boy’s hand. Motionless near the containers, the father watched them walk away. When she closed the door, Ania saw that he had turned the mattress over on top of the garbage to inspect it thoroughly before leaving, princely and miserable. This brief scene left her with a feeling of annoyance and discomfort all morning long. Issa immediately went to play with the toys. His impenetrable face looked at her from the depths of the room. Ania was not always patient or capable of resisting his hostility. Her concern for these lives of such precariousness, who were showing up in greater and greater numbers, overwhelmed her with anxiety and feelings of antipathy that she was often unable to understand.

THE CHILDREN WERE SLEEPING, curled up on the foam mats spread among the shadows. Ania allowed herself to be overcome by the fatigue and tenderness she felt at the sight of them. They exuded an odor of damp clay, their tranquil faces given over to a state of complete abandon whose memory she would have liked to preserve. The dishes had been washed, Lili, the new employee, had gone out to make a phone call. With her cheek resting on her pudgy arms, Lucia dozed behind her bangs, her eyelids weighed down with blue mascara. She wore the same gingham dress as the day before over chunky boots with colored laces. Ania had had difficulty with her the first few months, with her outsize personality. Yet eventually she grew accustomed to the uncomplicated inconsequence of her moods and her outfits, which had initially shocked some of the parents and upset some of the children.

Ania had said nothing to her colleagues about her father, not even Lucia. She felt it would have been a kind of lie to do so without also explaining who he was. She sat down at the table with her tea. Lucia lifted her head and yawned. “I screwed up last night,” she said, resting her other cheek on her arms. “I shouldn’t have let you open up all by yourself.” This happened so often that Ania didn’t bother responding. “I found an old mattress just before the entrance when I arrived,” she told Lucia. She couldn’t get the disturbing impression out of her mind that Issa’s father had contemplated taking it. Lucia listened as she stretched, revealing her unshaven armpits beneath the pink-and-white dress. “We don’t force them to stay,” she noted, yawning once more. “They should be sent back home. Especially the mother,” she added, after making certain that Lili was still outside on the phone. A balloon of chewing gum burst over her attractive pout. Ania didn’t move and stared at the steam rising from her cup. She would never have admitted that she didn’t like the woman either, Issa’s mother. The hatred took root here with the jubilant fury of a conflagration. Ania remained on the edge of her own. Such remarks, which had now grown commonplace in the neighborhood, exposed unsounded depths in her. What kind of indifference toward their own fear and violence would have led them to risk such a confrontation?

A small silhouette in a flared skirt, her hair in a bun, slowly approached from the end of the hallway. Her mouth, of dark plum, perfectly delineated, chewed on a piece of cloth. “Your phone rang,” she said impudently, when Ania approached to ask her why she wasn’t sleeping.

It was Théo’s school. He had thrown up, he had a headache; he was resting in the infirmary, but someone should come get him. The voice was peaceful, inviting. It stirred up an unsuspected desire in Ania for someone to feel sorry for her and take charge. She said she would be there in no more than an hour. Lucia had turned around suddenly when she heard this and stared at her, cracking her chewing gum. Ania slowly put away her phone and turned to face her. “My father is dead,” she said, looking straight ahead. Her voice must have sounded false because Lucia didn’t believe her. Under the blue mascara, her eyes shone with malice and a kind of affection. “And when will you be back?” she blurted insolently, as Lili entered the room. “Monday, probably,” she said suddenly, without being sure she would return.