ANIA MANAGED TO CATCH THE TRAIN around eight. During the final leg, she was alone in a car whose windows were scratched with a maze of initials and drawings. The Mini was waiting at the back of the empty parking lot, in a corner bordered by a wall of hawthorns. Clara was on the phone. The screen illuminated her face, which was resting on her arm lying across the steering wheel. Ania wasn’t sure that it was her Clara had, in fact, been looking for, and she was certainly not prepared to engage in the frank discussion they had promised each other.

Clara hung up and sat erect as soon as Ania opened the gate. She removed her bag from the seat, then unexpectedly extended her hand. The handshake was firm and warm, her smile now accustomed to surprise and sorrow. “I hope it wasn’t too complicated to take off during the week. Did Jean-Louis tell you?” she added after a beat, as they were leaving the parking lot. “A petition has been circulating to prevent Gabriel from being buried in the village.” The sentence had broken off in the rancor of shocked sorrow. Ania was surprised by this show of innocence after all they had stirred up—it was clearly their own fault—and which now manifested itself in the form of defiance or, at the very least, incomprehension. “You should have seen it coming,” she noted calmly, even if she too found the idea of a petition shocking. “Yes, we should have seen it coming,” Clara repeated, shaking her head, as if the remark confirmed her divorce from the rest of the world. She rolled her neck against the headrest, wiping her nose with the back of her hand from time to time. “We told hardly anyone,” Clara said, turning to Ania as if to reassure herself that she hadn’t told anyone either. “Just close friends and some people from the area, most of whom were shocked,” she added, as if overwhelmed by their loyalty. Ania had never seen Gabriel frequent anyone from the village, in which he took at most a theoretical interest. But perhaps, in spite of everything, the proximity of his lifestyle, at least back when prominent individuals would come to Les Épinettes, had flattered the inhabitants, and, even more so, his solidarity at the moment of the local community’s condemnation.

Clara pinched her lip, which had gone entirely white. She had again taken the road through the old sawmills. Bats skimmed the roofs of the buildings with an electric whisper. The entire day had felt like summer. Ania lowered her window and opened her hand to the wind. The coolness of moss and rain-soaked wood caressed her with a damp veil. Ania had very old memories of coming back from a walk with her father at this same time, when their footsteps could be clearly heard as night fell along the road. “I had forgotten this calm,” she said as the car joined the roadway. Clara smiled, as if suddenly relieved by the sense of gratitude. There were no lights, not even another car. She cut the motor and the headlights, placed her hands on the steering wheel, and stared straight ahead.

They waited like that for several minutes, listening to the emanations of the surrounding countryside. Clara must have spent her vacations on the grounds of a property much like Les Épinettes, the kind of place passed down from generation to generation or that can be seen falling into ruin on the outskirts of a village. That much was obvious from her habit of wearing boots, her sense of ease with the real world, as if they were related. This troubled Ania, awakening a feeling of class affiliation that was unfamiliar to her.

In the distance, the wall of ivy of Les Épinettes bordered the horizon with a dark line out of which erupted the ample foliage of the lime trees. “Are you going to sell?” Clara asked, flicking the headlights on again. Ania didn’t expect to hear it this way, that the house was going to be hers, and she was overcome with a sense of apprehension and excitement. “Yes, of course. Did you think I would want to come back here to live?” she said with some irony. Clara smiled. “It’s not the worst place to live.” As if even her regret for the house, from which she had been torn away, no longer meant anything to her. “And your son?” “In any event, there isn’t even a school for him around here,” Ania replied, astonished that Clara appeared to understand. She went farther, “Was there ever a chance that you and Gabriel might have children?” Clara remained impassive for a moment. Then she started the motor and turned to Ania. “Your father would have liked to see his grandson from time to time, you know.” Ania’s indignation caused her to sit up. “And what stopped him from calling?” “Why, you, your attitude,” Clara replied with terrible gentleness.

The lighted skylight in the roof illuminated the smoke that climbed above the tiles. The Mini started forward, bouncing down the stretch of rutted road that ended at the gate. Clara honked. Insects hurled themselves into the halo of light in which Jean-Louis’s dazed face soon appeared between the wings that he opened wide before them.

Clara parked some distance away to leave room for the friends who would arrive the following morning. They didn’t say another word, both of them too upset, too on edge. The front of the house rose before them like a specter with its eyes closed in the night of the garden. Ania took a few steps in the damp grass to calm down. She thought she saw a fox slip into the little copse of hazelnut trees where she used to hide as a child but that was now smothered in nettles like all of her old hiding places.

JEAN-LOUIS HAD MADE A FIRE. The embers nested softly beneath the rising flames and fine scales of white ash. All the curtains were closed, the bedroom doorway had been hung with a sheet. Somewhere, a radio broadcast a stream of music. Ania put her bag in the entranceway and went to get a glass of water in the kitchen. Upon returning to the room, she noticed that the two small pictures, almost twins, representing a stream illuminated by the supernatural silver of the moon, had disappeared. Clara walked through the service door. She placed two bags of shopping on the table, put the yogurt in the fridge, and stood next to Ania to observe the void left by the two paintings.

“Gabriel gave them to me,” she said, gathering her hair behind her head with the gesture of a swimmer. “Your parents bought them when they first got married, along with the three Degas,” she insisted. “They weren’t part of your grandfather’s collection, which was cataloged and appraised, which is yours. Gabriel knew that as well as you. I have nothing to prove that he gave these to me. I gave them to my brother yesterday so that he would take them with him—I’m very attached to them, and you never know, what with all the hatred around here. If you want, I’ll have them brought back tomorrow.” Something hard in her had insinuated itself beneath the sense of tragedy. Ania told her she could take whatever she wanted; suddenly it all seemed so pointless and sad. She had noted that Clara had removed the small diamond on her finger, maybe to have her brother look after it along with everything else. Did she think the house was going to be stripped? Ania had a hard time believing that things had gotten to this point; she felt guilty for having been oblivious all her life to what was going on in the world around her.

THE SHEET DRAPED ACROSS THE DOORWAY felt like a presence behind them. Ania didn’t know whether it had been placed there to prevent or to protect, unclear how the body could stay there all this time without beginning to smell. Clara had arranged two place settings on the low table, not far from the fire; she appeared with two glasses, an open bottle, and sandwiches on a platter. “Serve yourself,” she suggested, softly reclining against the cushions. Ania didn’t drink wine but cut half a sandwich, leaving a smudge of butter on her fingers. The telephone began to vibrate and Clara silenced it immediately. Ania didn’t bother to interpret her apparently insistent desire to appear friendly. “It’s my mother, I’ll call her back. They’ve decided to come. It wasn’t easy to convince them,” she added, pouring a glass of wine. “Ever since he retired, my father has been the mayor of a village nearby. They were often seen together with Gabriel when he had decided to run for office here. That’s when we met. But even for a man like my father, who is far from an idealist, Gabriel was no longer someone he wanted to be seen with.” She laughed, a provocative laugh, but maybe also one of revulsion at the thought of what her love and loyalty to Gabriel, in spite of his overweening arrogance, his contempt, his excess, had brought her in the end.

Jean-Louis placed an armful of firewood next to the chimney. Clara wiped her mouth and rose to catch up to him in the hallway. He turned around with a movement that was both servile and content. Ania had never seen him really smile. His was the tight smile of a prude, which cut his cheeks with two vertical folds. Clara led him into the kitchen, then returned shortly after, excusing herself for her absence.

“I forgot to tell you something the other day,” she began after again settling into the cushions. “You don’t have to say anything, but I wanted you to know. The watch shop owned by Loïc’s parents was attacked several times in one year by a gang who came down from the banlieu, black kids, forgive me for putting it like that. It happened again yesterday evening. That guy was hanging around; he ran off when Loïc and his friend challenged him. These people are fed up. They’re tired of being spit on because they stand up for what they built here in these villages that no one much cares about. This crime disgusts me as much as you, but accept the fact that I also understand the anger that some people around here can’t let go of.”

In fact, no, Ania thought, the crime itself didn’t disgust her, or not that much, as if there were a shorter step, a lesser evil, than dying friendless and homeless, like that man in his boubou, wandering around in the fields of damp, broken earth. In fact, hadn’t Clara said that there was no riot after his death, that no one had claimed the body. The only trace of him would have been his nationality, appearing among the list of names from the shelter that he left in the morning to go who knows where, driven by some kind of determination to get there. Ania assumed that her father must have used this idea of pillage and abandonment for his campaign. Suddenly, she wanted the conversation to be over and for Clara to keep quiet, afraid the woman’s convictions might affect her.

Clara got up to stir the logs, generating sparks. She remained bent before the flames, biting her lip. “In any case, it was time for the funeral; with all the heat we’ve been having, the body’s taken a turn for the worse,” she said, coming over to sit down on the edge of the sofa. She bit off a mouthful of sandwich, which she chewed slowly without swallowing. “They’re supposed to put him in the casket here at nine. We’ll leave right after. I’ll sleep there,” she added, pointing to one of the sofas next to the office. “The bedroom has become uninhabitable.” Until then, Ania hadn’t thought too much about how things would go the next day. She admired Clara’s competence and efficiency, but where did she learn it and from whom?

NOVAK HAD CALLED TWICE. Ania moved away from the windows to listen to his messages. Mechanically, she opened the curtains to observe the night, but the shutters formed a screen before her. The house had never been barricaded before and Ania wasn’t accustomed to seeing her father’s world so diminished.

Novak wanted to know the time of the ceremony; he was planning to pick Théo up by car early in the morning. Ania couldn’t believe that the boy had been so stubborn that he had made Novak call and it was too late to tell them not to come. It all felt so distressing, so tiresome.

Ania could hear music coming from the bedroom. She pushed the sheet aside and felt a shock of compassion on seeing Gabriel there, stiff, his hands on his stomach, his shirt collar buttoned too tightly. A candle burned next to the night table lamp, along with a green spiral that deposited its ashen trace in a saucer. A sweet odor remained in spite of the light scent of citrus. The lips had opened a few centimeters, a black fly was busy on the eyelids. The sheet was supposed to offer protection from the odor and the insects. What chemistry enabled the body to maintain itself for so long? After several days, there was something barbaric but genuine about being exposed in this way. Ania couldn’t get over the fact that Clara had stayed here alone, loving and prepared to face the ongoing decomposition. That she had suddenly backed down was not without grandeur. Clearly, it was something she had to confront to free herself from this body she had loved.

Upstairs, her room had been aired out and the bedspread replaced. The heat was on, the old parka she had found two days ago was now on a hanger looped around the window pull. Someone had brought up a bottle of water and placed an ironed bath towel on the back of the chair. These discreet attentions, Clara’s doing, certainly, forced Ania to assume her share of the grief. She leaned out the window; shutters clattered somewhere along the façade. Those for the caretakers’ kitchen were not closed yet. Jacqueline was still doing the dishes. Ania could see her in profile, bent over the sink, undaunted and dedicated to the task, as she had been after the death of her own child.

It was late but Ania decided to call home. “We’re playing cards,” Nour told her in that voice of forced gaiety she had with Théo. “I think his fever is gone. Novak was here earlier this evening, the boy made him come.” Nour was under the impression that they had always planned to go to the funeral. Ania tried to hide her anger, not wanting the girl to feel bad for having been complicit in something that shouldn’t have happened. She was overcome by a sudden sense of panic at the idea that Nour would eventually find out who this father was who was being buried. It seemed inexcusable that she might lose her affection because of this.

OUT AMONG THE BUSHES, A CREATURE, a hedgehog most likely, was walking on the leaves with what sounded like a human step. Jean-Louis had gone to take the garbage pails out to the road. Returning, he stopped to consider the lawn he had carefully raked that day. Ania waited for him to raise his eyes toward her window, but his attention was on the following morning and, maybe, this rustling creature as well, so astonishingly near and present in the darkness.

Before going to bed, Ania walked along the veranda at the end of the hallway to ask Clara to wake her when she got up. The lights were off downstairs, except for the lamp near the body, whose white halo pierced the sheet hung across the doorway. Clara was sitting at Gabriel’s desk wearing a long T-shirt. She had placed one of the drawers on her knees and seemed to be sorting through the business cards.