THÉO WAS WAITING FOR HER at the entrance to the school, accompanied by a woman whom Ania immediately recognized as the principal. With his knapsack wrapped around his stomach, he refused to look at her, apparently upset at having triggered such an unusual situation. Ania bent to examine his face, marked by large rings under his eyes, and kissed him. From his dry lips she caught the scent of acetone on his warm breath. “What have you done to us?” she asked, standing.

The principal suggested taking them home by car, but Théo insisted on going by bike. She waited until he had left for the bike rack to offer her hand to Ania. “I’m Michèle, I believe you remember. Théo was tired when he arrived, it might just be stress.” Her hands, covered with wooden rings, caressed the mauve wrap tied around her thin arms. She was close to retirement but retained the beautiful classical or pagan features she must have had at twenty. Ania had always felt immature around this woman, who was, for all that, very attentive and quite compassionate. She had been shocked to learn, during an incident that took place in the cafeteria, that Théo had found in her a relatively partial ally.

“Of course, Théo can go to his grandfather’s funeral,” she said, pulling from under her arm the letter that Ania had given to him for her. Her deep-set eyelids, highlighted with golden brown eye shadow, examined her with subtle indolence. Théo crossed the courtyard, pushing his bike along a jagged line. “I had no idea you were his daughter,” Michèle blurted out, smiling, friendly, and mysterious. It took Ania a few moments to figure out that she was speaking of Gabriel. The remark had been made in a tone of such familiarity that she was unsure whether to assume that they knew one another. But the moment was already over and as if lost, for Michèle bent toward Théo without waiting for Ania’s reaction. She placed her hand on his forehead and said, “See you tomorrow,” with an encouraging wink, a sign of an extraordinarily heartfelt and adult complicity.

Théo rode ahead, emboldened to be going home at this unlikely hour. Their speed cast shadows beneath their wheels, between which he slalomed with an unsteady rage, his behind raised above the large seat. Whenever someone approached or a group of people slowed down at the entrance to a building, he placed his feet on the ground and turned around while he waited for her. The back of his T-shirt was dappled with sweat when they reached their building. Ania gave him the keys to let him go up and change while she put the bikes away and collected the mail.

There were two letters. One had been sent to Les Épinettes and redirected here, by Clara most likely, for Ania didn’t recognize the writing. The other was from Jean-Louis and Jacqueline; it must have been mailed shortly before Ania came by the day before yesterday; they seemed worried that she might not have known or would refuse to stop by. Their distress revealed itself discreetly. Ania reproached herself for not having been more thoughtful with them. She hadn’t imagined they would write. This intrusion into her home left her feeling uneasy. She placed everything on the table and unwrapped an aspirin tablet for Théo. He was in his bedroom, putting on his pajamas with somnambulistic lethargy. Ania flicked the light on and off in the hallway, indicating that he should join her.

The excitation gave way to a form of torment that he concealed quite well but that his speech betrayed. Ania took his hands and closed her eyes, inviting him to slow his breathing until he could form sounds without shouting. Théo complained a bit, then made an effort to comply. It was the school that had convinced them (and especially Novak) that it was important for him to speak, that it would open him up to the outside world. Théo advanced rapidly but without ever developing any confidence. He didn’t have the temperament necessary to be comfortable anywhere but within the world of signs. Believing it could have been otherwise would have meant lying to him and to herself.

Théo had gone silent, concentrating on the fizzing tablet dissolving in his glass. Ania tried to determine if it had been his teacher who had given the letter to the principal, and if either of them had said something. Théo told her he didn’t know anything, making a kind of forced grimace. Sometimes he really annoys me, Ania thought sadly. She went through the days, one by one, without thinking too much about what Théo would do as an adult with his handicap, his fears and obstinacy. Sometimes a chasm would open up and she would be overwhelmed by morbid thoughts for days on end. How could you arrange things so your child wasn’t the center of your life? Ania had asked herself that question many times, and more with respect to Jacqueline than to her father.

Théo got up to add more water to the whitish mixture. The silken strand of hair he had been growing on the back of his neck had been cut short, probably by Novak the day before. These paternal interferences didn’t sit well with Ania, no matter how insignificant, no matter how trivial. At the time of the divorce, she had imagined, hoped, that Novak would disappear from their lives. But in his own way, he had become an almost regular presence, and she had to accept the fact that Théo belonged to both of them equally.

The boy never said a word about the afternoons he spent with his father, and Ania soon understood that his two lives would remain distinct. Still, she made sure that it was, in fact, Novak who had cut his hair. Théo said yes but wouldn’t admit that this had bothered him. His eyes, on which the lie was clearly visible, insistently followed the movement of her lips. Ania held his face with the tips of her fingers so that his attention was directed at her until his severity was mollified. His fever surprised her and at first she hadn’t really believed it. “What did you do yesterday? You didn’t want to go out?” she asked. Théo responded briefly, suspecting some sort of trick or trap. Ania eventually realized that Novak had let him watch his grandfather on the news. Théo had mentioned it at school, which was unlike him. Ania wondered what he had understood and what else he had said, if it was this sudden excitation that had made him ill. He turned aside so she would stop asking questions. Ania grew angry with herself for having forced him to reveal information that—and he was fully aware of this—would anger her. His face was again crisscrossed with fine veins beneath the yellow skin. He suddenly retched, leaving a damp blob of mucus in his palm and his eyes wet with a distress out of all proportion to the situation. Ania took him to the bathroom, then prepared his bed while he remained bent over the toilet bowl, vainly spitting up long threads of saliva. When he was sick, he took comfort in the fact that clean sheets had been put on the bed and the living room cushions piled on top. Ania knew that it was from her mother that Jacqueline had learned to make up the bed with fresh linens when she had a fever. Long ago, her idea of happiness had been associated with the rough sensation of clean sheets on her burning skin.

THÉO HAD WANTED HER TO BRING HIM some books and leave him to himself. Ania found herself experiencing an unsettling sense of solitude and freedom. She made herself some tea, which she drank as she observed the hustle and bustle in front of the building. They had gotten the apartment from a friend of Novak’s. It was the neighborhood where he had stayed when he first came to France; he couldn’t imagine himself living anywhere else. At the time of their marriage, Ania had always lived with a roommate in Suresnes, and she had had difficulty getting used to the neighborhood, which was so far from everything, and the brutality of her relations with the neighbors, spending whole days holed up with the baby. Then an official at city hall whom her father knew had suggested the job at the day care center. Her life here had found its rhythm then. Ania had begun to recognize the faces and no longer felt as if she were being seen as an outsider in the building. She even ended up taking pride in her familiarity with these suburbs, which were, in a way, so important at the time.

The other letter was from someone named Kathy, who said she had met Ania a few times at Les Épinettes. She told her how she had been part of the cabal against Gabriel, which she herself qualified as toxic in a confession of sorts in which she explained, in writing that was florid and difficult to decipher, the reassuring feeling of being part of a body, the impression, after the fact, that all of it had been easy but unmarked by any kind of courage. Ania wasn’t sure she knew the woman or what kind of forgiveness she was expecting. She recalled an English girl, a tall, thin designer with thick, light-colored curly hair adorned with colored combs, the memory of which had remained tied, in her memory of girlhood, to the discovery of a sanitary napkin stained with blood in the upstairs toilet. What was it they had all admired in Gabriel, and why was he so different from the man they despised today?

THÉO HAD FALLEN ASLEEP and Ania was getting ready to lie down when Novak buzzed and then entered with his key, together with a friend, a man he used to hang around with when they first got married. They worked together on construction jobs, off the books; their hair was still soiled from the dust.

Novak said he’d forgotten a sweater in the hamper. His eyes betrayed signs of intoxication—grass or liquor—that Ania hadn’t seen in a long time. To relive the superficial stress of his nighttime comings and goings, which she had submitted to for such a long time, was unpleasant. She told him to hurry up, that Théo was sick. Novak flaunted his annoyance with that disconcerting wounded smile of his that no longer had any effect on Ania, then made a gesture both possessive and familiar, as if to grab her by the chin, before escaping into the bathroom.

His friend was resting against the front door, apparently with the intention of withdrawing from this expedition. Ania watched him, hunched and absent, as he pulled out a package of tobacco from his jacket and attempted to roll a cigarette. Novak was rummaging around in the medicine cabinet, and she shouted for him not to touch anything. “Tell him they were talking about your father on the news,” he blurted with forced casualness as he came back into the room. Ania suddenly felt terribly vulnerable. His friend now looked directly at her as he put away his tobacco. He had pulled out his keys, which he jingled in his palm, alerting them to the fact that he was about to leave. They had come in his car, so he must at least have been curious about what Novak had said about Gabriel to have agreed to go out of his way like this. Ania couldn’t understand his unspeakable arrogance, as if it were necessary to undermine the superiority this sudden notoriety gave her, or make her pay for it. Long ago, she had been present when a police station was attacked following the arrest of a local boy. And how could she know that the anger triggered by Gabriel couldn’t be traced back to her and Théo?