Alone, he went back to the grave. He ducked and weaved through the vineyards, making sure he was not seen. At first he circled the path of bare earth without coming close, glancing about him as though the vines or the copses of trees here and there might shed some light on this mystery. Once, he was even tempted to dig, as he bent down and touched the soil, laying a bunch of wild flowers he had collected along the way. He scratched at the earth with his fingernails, then straightened up again, overcome with terror, because he knew it was not an animal buried there. It was a child. He was convinced of it. Probably a child Rebecca’s mother had had in secret; hardly surprising given the number of men she’d spread her legs for. Stillborn maybe, or worse, a screaming baby suffocated by its mother and dumped into this hole. And Rebecca would come to visit this little creature who had barely lived, who may not even have had time to open his eyes. Her little bastard brother.
The rest of the day he hung around Marilou, unable to pluck up the courage to talk to her. She pretended not to notice his little game, or perhaps she was truly oblivious: she scarcely looked at him, besides she was busy making jam with Nicole. He lurked around on his own since Julien hardly set foot outside the garage these days, though his restoration job on the moped was making very little headway as he bounded like a dwarf on springs among the confusion of engine parts, one minute excited, the next discouraged.
That evening, Victor went up to Marilou, who was lying in the hammock playing on her mobile phone.
“I know about Rebecca.”
The girl sat up quickly and turned towards him, her legs dangling over the mesh of rope. She stared at him, trying to work out how to react.
“You know about what?”
“About her little brother.”
“Her little brother?”
Marilou was rigid, leaning her weight on her arms, her eyes wide.
Victor knew he had hit a nerve. She sat on the end of the hammock, clutching the ropes, her feet on the ground. Suddenly she looked as though she were carved of wood or stone.
“Can you just stop it about Rebecca? Leave her in peace.”
“Her little brother is buried at the other end of the vineyards, where the grove of trees is,” he said. “I saw the grave.”
“What grave? Where?”
“You know what I’m talking about. You’ve known all along. There’s flowers on it and everything, just like in a cemetery.”
“I don’t know anything about it, I don’t even know where you mean.”
“I’ll show you.”
Marilou got to her feet and glanced back at the house.
“Is it far?”
When they got to the grave, breathless and soaked in sweat after cycling in silence without stopping through the oppressive heat of the evening, Marilou took Victor’s hand, squeezed it hard and moved so close to him that he could hear her breathing and feel her warm breath on his shoulder.
“We shouldn’t go too close.”
“Why not? Are you scared?”
She did not answer, but pressed herself against him.
“What does Rebecca do when she comes here?”
“I only saw her once. She knelt down and put down some flowers and then she just stayed there.”
They were whispering now. A sudden breeze from the estuary almost drowned out their voices.
“I don’t know any prayers – if I did I’d say one,” Marilou said softly.
“To pray there has to be a god, and you don’t believe in God. You’d just be talking to yourself. Actually that’s what people who pray are doing, because God is just bullshit.”
“No, but I could talk to him, to the little boy there. Tell the poor thing we’re thinking about him. Sometimes they like it when you say things to them.”
“He probably wouldn’t even understand what you said, I mean he died when he was only a baby, he wouldn’t have been able to talk or anything.”
They stood there, pressed against each other, while the wind carrying its acrid smell of mud swirled around them like a spirit. They said nothing for a moment, because they could find no words, then Marilou started to sob. When Victor asked her why she was crying, she said she was thinking about Rebecca and the baby and she cried harder, letting go of his arm and turning away, her shoulders now shaking with sobs. The boy was silent for a minute, then he said that maybe they should head back now, because Nicole would wonder where they’d been and ask awkward questions.
When they got back to their bikes, Marilou put a hand on Victor’s arm.
“I have to tell you something.”
She sniffled again, wiped her eyes with the hem of her T-shirt. Victor tried to meet her gaze, but she stared back at the place from which they’d come.
“The dead boy … he’s not Rebecca’s brother.”
Victor felt something stab him in the back, leaving him unable to breathe.
“It’s her son. She had him when she was thirteen.”
Victor shook his head. He grabbed his bike by the handlebars then let it fall back onto the grass. The bicycle bell rang faintly and he stared at the little chrome casing, unable to move.
“It was her father, he … Ever since she was little he did things to her, you know what I mean … Her mother went to the police and now he’s in prison. But Rebecca told me that Grandpa Georges used to try and touch her up whenever she went to his house, so now she doesn’t go anymore, but she never told anyone about it. She says she wants to kill him herself. Anyway, he’s just old paedo, everyone knows that. Apparently he got in trouble when he was younger and his wife even left him because of it.”
Victor managed to find a gulp of air and could speak again.
“How d’you know all this?”
“Rebecca told me. She tells me everything. We tell each other secrets, even really private things.”
“But she didn’t tell you about the grave?”
Marilou finally looked at him, her eyes still glittering with tears.
“No. She told me she got an abortion … you know what that is? She had it in Lesparre from some woman.”
Victor nodded. His mother had explained it to him once.
“She didn’t come to school much that year, her mother didn’t want her going, said she was too ashamed. She never really cared about school anyway … Even in primary, she used to wind up the teachers and fight with everyone. Then, the year she got pregnant, well, that’s when they came and arrested Christophe, her father.”
Without thinking about it, they had sat down side by side on a bank of dry grass, and Victor was almost shocked to find himself sitting there, dazed, with a buzzing in his head that made it impossible for him to hear Marilou’s soft, droning voice. They had begun to whisper again as though the wind might carry their secret all over the village, but now they said nothing, hunched over, suddenly years older.
When finally they got to their feet and picked up their bikes, Marilou grabbed Victor roughly by the neck of his polo shirt.
“If Rebecca finds out I told you, she’ll kill me, O.K.? And I’ll tell her you showed me the grave and she’ll split your skull. She can be really cruel, you know …”
“What do you take me for? You don’t talk about stuff like this, you just don’t.”
“All the same, I’m glad we talked about it. This way, there’s two of us.”
Nicole was grappling with a supplier on the telephone and Denis was not home yet, so they did not have to find an excuse for being late. Marilou went to set the table and Victor ran into Julien on the patio.
“Where were you? Fuck’s sake, been looking for you all over the place.”
“We went for a ride, we felt like cycling.”
The boy laughed and gave him a wink.
“Yeah, yeah, I believe you. Just the two of you, was it?”
“Don’t say anything, will you?” Victor whispered.
“No sweat! I’ll even lend you my moped. I’ll have it working soon.”
*
Victor had trouble finding sleep, so overwhelmed was he by the confusion of sinister and violent thoughts and images. As dawn began to break, he felt that the sadness that had haunted him for weeks was now giving way to something that welded his jaws shut and made his heart pound so hard he could feel it in the pit of his stomach. It seemed to him that such evil could not go unpunished; he did not know how, did not know whether he would be capable, but he knew he could no longer make do with being sad.
It was while talking about old Georges with Julien that the two of them decided to catch vipers. There was a tumbledown house to the north, on the road that ran along the estuary. There were thousands of them there, Julien assured him. They spent the whole morning plotting, settling all the details of their expedition. The kid prepared by practising the intense concentration of great hunters, or of warriors in a movie before a decisive battle. He wielded his forked bamboo stick, tested the bottom of an old canvas bag he had found in a cupboard in the garage. Victor surprised him, off on his own, learning to control his breathing, swelling and emptying his bony ribcage.
The smaller boy forced his way through the brambles in rubber boots so big his skinny legs disappeared into what looked like the mouths of subterranean monsters, then he stopped and balanced on the crumbled foundations of the ramshackle house, only one wall of which was still standing among the broken beams; he bent down, hands on his knees, forked stick tucked under one arm, to peer into the dark corners, stir up a mound of gravel with his stick, looking for any vipers nesting there. Victor stood a few metres away, legs slightly apart, clutching a piece of wood, vigilant, ready to repel anything that might appear, telling Julien to be careful, feeling a cold shudder run down his back in spite of the fire falling from the incandescent sky.
Suddenly, Julien started and seemed to plunge into the rubble. He poked about for several seconds that to Victor seemed interminable. All that was visible of him now was the curve of his back, the vertebrae poking through the faded T-shirt that had probably once been red.
“Got one! Quick, gimme the bag!”
Victor crept closer and saw the snake writhing between the supple tines of the forked bamboo. About fifty centimetres long, it was coiling and uncoiling itself furiously around the stick that held it captive. It had been trapped a few centimetres below the triangular head it was struggling to lift, its mouth wide, its tongue flickering in short, quick darts. Victor bent lower and saw the vertical pupils, like those of a cat, but lifeless, cold, and he felt an urge to trample the terror this lethal gaze inspired in him. It was the first time he had seen a snake up close without being protected by a wall of glass and his whole body quivered with an almost painful tremor and he thought that this might well be the feeling caused by the poison from the bite as it circulated through a living creature before it died. He felt sweat pour from him, saturating his T-shirt, trickling down his temples. He sucked as much air as he could into his lungs, grabbed the snake just behind the head and held it at arm’s length, studying it. The long, tepid body coiled about his wrist, embracing it with a sort of gentleness that made him whimper with disgust. He tightened his hand around the neck of the beast and felt beneath his fingers the firm muscles harden and move beneath the rough skin.
Julien stared at him open-mouthed. He looked terrified.
“Careful! Don’t let it go! Jesus Christ, you’re mad, you are.”
His voice was choked, he seemed lost, swaying in his huge rubber boots, still balanced on the rubble.
“Open the bag,” Victor said in a low voice. “Move it!”
The kid did as he was told, pulled apart the edges of the jute sack, which as soon as Victor had dropped the viper into the bottom he quickly tied again with string.
They walked away from the ruins and sat on the parched grass. Julien set the bag down in front of him and stared at it as he took off his boots and wiggled his toes, red from the friction and the heat. Inside the bag, the serpent was still moving a little.
“One should be enough,” he said, wiping sweat from his damp ankles. “Why did you do that?”
Victor did not reply. He all but turned his back and looked through the trees and the swirling, foaming waters of the river. His legs were trembling and he pressed his knees together to control the shock wave that fear still sent shuddering through him.
“Me, I never touch ’em, I kill ’em. I only touch them when they’re dead,” Julien said. “One’ll be enough, won’t it?”
He slipped his bare feet into an oversize pair of trainers, then jumped to his feet. The thick soles, doubtless designed to break world records or make one believe this was possible, made his spindly legs look like two matchsticks planted in pieces of chewing gum. He walked back to his bike, picked up his bag.
“We should go there, while the bastard’s not in.”
Once on his feet, Victor found that his legs supported him without weakening. He grabbed the sack containing the snake and hung it from the handlebars. Then they headed off, riding breathless along the road towards Artigues where the old man lived.
They leaned their bicycles against an E.D.F. substation next to a vineyard and wiped their sweaty faces on their T-shirts. They gulped warm lemonade from the flasks they had brought, finding it delicious, then decided to keep some for later because the sun was beating down, and a heat haze drifted above the rows of vines heavy with grapes which were already ripening here and there.
From where they were, all they could see of old Georges’ house was the rooftop rising above the shrubs and trees of his garden. They had encountered the old man on his moped, a rifle slung over his shoulder, a juddering trailer hitched to the back. He was heading towards the estuary wearing a faded cotton sunhat. He often went down there to hunt river rats off the fishermen’s wharf with his .22, then feed them to his dogs. They walked along the narrow deserted road, its tarmac melting in pools that Julien carefully avoided because he was afraid of getting stuck.
“What if it suddenly went hard? I mean you never know. You could be stuck there with a car heading straight for you.”
“Then you get out of your shoes, dumb-ass,” Victor said.
The kid slowed his pace, glanced over at Victor, pulling a face beneath the huge peak of his baseball cap, then bowed his head, staring at his shoes, perhaps, or at the road.
“Yeah, but then you’d be in your bare fuckin’ feet on the hot tarmac. Think about it, you’d end up with blisters on your soles! Fifth-degree burns!”
Victor put a hand on the kid’s shoulder to shut him up. They were no more than thirty metres from the house now. Here and there pyracanthas spilled out through gaps in the broken railings and this botanic barbed wire represented a barrier more impenetrable than a wire fence – even an electrified one. As they stepped towards it, a blackbird flew out of the tangle of thorns with a raucous cry, making them both jump. They stopped in front of the gate, a crude metal frame, set with bars, some of which were warped as though someone – or some animal – had tried to escape without bothering to jump the gate. A few smudges of black paint were still visible on the rusted ironwork.
They never heard the dogs approach. From Victor’s scream it sounded as though one of the beasts had its jaws around his throat, and Julien started violently and found himself sitting on the road. A pair of Rottweilers had leapt at the railings, pushing their jaws between the bars. The two boys had felt warm breath and wet drool on their faces. They had seen the fangs up close, seen the jaws snap right under their noses. The gate shook from the dogs’ assault.
“Fucking dogs!” Julien screamed.
Victor watched the dogs leap and howl, their dead eyes rolling back in their heads. He had brought his hand to his heart to calm the terror in his chest, the hammering fit to break his ribs; he tried to catch a little breath, just enough to give him the strength to get away from here.
“C’mon, let’s get out of here!” he managed to say. Julien had moved closer to the railings and Victor tried to drag the kid away.
“Hey, don’t panic. I know this kind of dog. Papa used to have one. They’re fine with me most times.”
“Well, this isn’t most times, Jesus, you can see for yourself they’re fucking savage! They’ll eat us alive! Now, come on!”
Victor screamed when he saw Julien place his hand flat against the gate. Rearing up on his hind leg the larger dog, the male, was taller than Julien; it sniffed loudly at the little fingers, forcing its snout between the bars. The other dog, a bitch, stood back, barking frantically, teeth bared, muscles trembling, moving beneath her sleek coat like fists. The kid whispered gently to the dog, calling him “Pépère”, his nose only inches from the gaping maw.
“Let’s get out of here,” Victor said again. “Shit, that thing’ll rip your face off!”
But the dog had stopped growling. It was now licking at Julien, whose hand was stroking its head, scratching between its ears, disappearing into its huge mouth. With his other hand, Julien lifted the latch on the gate and pushed gently.
“Come on,” he said without looking around. “It’s all cool. Follow me.”
They walked across an area of gravel that crunched under their feet. Tufts of grass had tried to force their way between the pebbles, but the drought – or a dose of weedkiller – had completely shrivelled them. The bitch lumbered over to a sort of tumbledown lean-to, moving slowly at first as though exhausted; she thrust her snout into a bowl and lapped greedily, then trotted back, describing a semicircle, her nose pressed to the ground, her eyes fixed on Victor. The boy froze, arms pressed against his body so as not to agitate the animal as it growled and sniffed, first at his ankles, then at the bag.
“She can smell the snake,” Victor said.
Julien turned, one skinny arm wrapped around the neck of the other dog as it strained to lick his face.
“Don’t worry about her. She’s scared. Don’t say anything, just ignore her.”
He whistled. The bitch looked up at him and yapped, jumping up and raising a small cloud of dust.
“Fucking hell, how d’you do it?” Victor said.
“Are you using some kind of magic words or what? It’s like they know you.”
The kid nodded proudly then launched into a little routine to demonstrate his control over the dogs. The male followed him meekly, walking to heel, but the bitch simply ran in circles around them giving little barks, sniffing at Victor, stretching her neck towards him, eyes fixed on his.
Julien walked around to the back of the house. They passed two cars so patched and mended with salvaged parts it was impossible to determine their original colour. They were old large Peugeots with rusting chrome bumpers and windows grimed with dust. Victor glanced inside the first wreck and, where the back seat had once been, he noticed a filthy pile of empty cans and bottles, dirty rags and plastic containers on top of which lay a chainsaw. He looked away because the mess disgusted him and, though he did not understand why, it frightened him a little. He decided not to look inside the other wreck, vaguely thinking that he might just as easily have seen a nest of rats or maggots devouring a corpse. His mind filled with grisly images, he hurried to catch up with Julien, who was already rounding the corner of the house, bouncing along like a puppet on his spindly legs and his huge trainers, followed by the huge dog.
Behind the house – the one part of the grounds where a little order seemed to reign – a well-tended vegetable garden, protected from the dogs by posts and wire fencing, ran along the right-hand wall to the end of the lot with rows of tomato plants, lettuces and other vegetables that Victor did not recognise. The rest of the garden was an overgrown area of grass overlooked by three peach trees laden with fruit, and a cherry tree. Beyond the back fence, stretching away interminably, were the vineyards, their dark green leaves shimmering in the sun. Victor wanted to steal some peaches, but Julien was already inside the house and holding the door open for him.
They stepped into a narrow hall, the dark blue wallpaper was patterned with big pink flowers and the damp had left brownish stains and streaks that ran down from the ceiling. The place smelled of mould, stale tobacco and perhaps urine. A khaki oilskin coat hung from a lopsided coat stand, and a pair of rubber boots crusted with dried mud stood on the floor. Julien, who had been peering into each room in turn, now pushed the door opposite, drawing his head back at the terrible screech of hinges as it swung open to reveal a dark corridor at the far end of which was a glass-panelled door leading into a room bathed in sunlight.
“Down there, that’s the kitchen,” Julien said in a whisper.
“That’s his bedroom, it’s got his bed in it.”
“What about that one?” Victor pointed to the door on their left. The kid opened it.
“The living room? Let’s take a look.”
The room was dark, Victor fumbled for the light switch and found it under a painting depicting a hunting dog with a pheasant in its mouth. Three of the five bulbs flickered on in a fitting shaped like a cartwheel. The room smelled of wood and dust. The board cracked under their feet as they walked slowly across the creaky floor, gazing around them with the astonished air of explorers in a pharaoh’s tomb at the furniture covered in curios and framed photographs, the geometric orange and black wallpaper hung with gilt-framed paintings bought from supermarkets and furniture shops. They were rural landscapes, meadows ringed by tall trees in which cattle grazed, country scenes from a far-off time: cows down by the river, a couple of shepherds with their sheep.
Victor studied the paintings in this pitiful gallery. He did not know what to think of them, but the luxuriant vegetation reminded him of scenes he had seen in cartoons, only uglier. They exuded a curious sadness he found somehow fascinating. Eventually his contemplation was disturbed when he felt the snake jerk inside the bag and he continued quickly on his way.
Everything was grey with dust. He blew on the table raising a cloud that prickled his throat. With a fingertip, he traced the word FUCKER on a dark wood tray whose varnish made the word shimmer.
Julien wandered over to a bell jar enclosing a figurine of a flamenco dancer playing castanets. A souvenir of Toledo. Next to it, in a large frame, a bride and groom smiled out of a photograph. Julien studied it in the light from the chandelier and laughed.
“That’s him there with his slut of a wife.”
Victor came over. He looked at the photograph, then threw the frame against the wall where it shattered in a crash of breaking glass.
“What d’you do that for?”
Victor turned away without answering. He stood in front of a sideboard on which stood a stopped carriage clock garlanded with tarnished gilt. Around it was a crowd, a sort of tribe, peering out of photographs in black-and-white or in washed-out colours, most of them in dusty frames. He could see mouse droppings on the frayed doilies.
“It’s disgusting,” he said, and, with the back of his hand, swept the whole mess onto the floor in a deafening crash.
Julien shouted something at him, alarmed, but Victor did not hear because of the racket made by the carriage clock as it shattered on the floor. Cogs and springs bounced and rolled. A clear, shrill note pierced the sudden silence as the two boys hesitated.
“You’re mad!” Julien whispered, “What the fuck did you do?”
Victor walked over to an armchair, unzipped his pants and started pissing on it. He shook himself off then spat on the back of the chair.
“You do it too,” he said.
“Shame I don’t need to take a shit.” Julien went over to the window and pissed on the curtains.
“Fuck, this is so cool!” he said.
Victor was already opening the door of the sideboard and peering in at the crockery. Bone-china plates, soup tureens and sauce boats, serving dishes decorated with floral patterns: a whole dinner service, probably given to the couple as a wedding present. He rummaged about brutally.
“Shit, that’s enough,” Julien said.
“He’ll come back.”
Victor shrugged and kicked the sideboard closed.
“Stop it!”
He waved the sack he had been carrying all this time.
“Where should we put it?” Julien said, his eyes wide.
Victor opened the kitchen door. The smell of rancid oil mingled with the stench of piss made his stomach heave. He knocked over two bottles next to the fridge and the sudden crash made his heart skip a beat. Boxes and crates covered the work surfaces and were piled up on top of the cupboards. The gas cooker was covered with a brown film and there were brown spatters on the hood. In the sink, plates and cutlery were soaking in murky greasy water. Everything was caked in grime. The floor was stained with a slick film that sometimes squeaked underfoot: probably a mixture of oil and dirt.
“Jesus, this place is scuzzy,” Julien said.
“Can you imagine what it was like for Rebecca?”
Pinned to the wall were yellowed press clippings, one of which was a large photograph of a bunch of grape pickers, wooden baskets strapped to their backs, posing in front of horse-drawn carts piled high with fruit. Victor read that a warm welcome had greeted the owner, an important, indeed a legendary figure in the Médoc, who had come to implore the pickers to take great care with the precious harvest which would once again be transformed, through the magic of winemaking, into an illustrious vintage that would be served at the most prestigious tables the world over. The boy peered at the image and saw, amid the fly specks, men with moustaches and women in scarves doing their best to smile while, in the middle of the crowd, a man in a large hat and polished boots posed with one hand on his hip and the other holding a pipe to his lips. The boy was surprised to discover the man’s name was double-barrelled and clearly aristocratic, then remembered that the French Revolution, for all its good intentions, had not managed to chop off all their heads.
“Over here,” Julien said from behind him.
He had just opened a drawer in the table. Cutlery, a napkin in a napkin ring. The oilcloth was worn here and there where the old man rested his elbows.
“This is where he sits when he’s eating, look,” said Victor.
“Well tonight when he goes to get his fork the viper will bite his hand. And apparently when you’re bitten on the hand the poison goes straight to your heart.”
He opened the drawer wider and started untying the string around the bag.
“What if someone finds out it was us?” Julien said.
Victor stopped what he was doing and looked at the kid, trying to think of an answer.
“It was the snake. They’ll find him, see he’s been bitten by a snake and that’s that. The bastard could have been bitten out in the garden, couldn’t he? Besides, the snake will slither away, no-one’s ever going to find it.”
The kid looked at him, chewing his nails.
“But what if someone saw us?”
“Fuck’s sake, shut it! This was your idea, so stop whining! We’ll tell them the whole story about Rebecca and that’ll be that. Justice is done. Anyway, at school they told us that if you’re a minor you get like half the sentence. What have we got to lose? Nothing.”
Julien was still staring into the drawer. “Shit, we should have caught two. With one, we can’t be sure he’ll croak.”
“We haven’t got time now. He’ll be back soon. Come on, let’s do it. Shut the drawer as soon as the snake’s in there.”
He shook the bag and they immediately heard the viper wriggling among the knives and forks as Julien slammed the drawer shut.
They stood for a moment by the table, staring at their trap. Victor put a hand on Julien’s shoulder and the kid nodded imperceptibly, struggling with some private conflict or perhaps nodding at his own determination.
They were still standing transfixed by the drawer when the dogs began to bark. The boys heard them run to the railings, heard the iron gate clang, shaken by the strangled rage of barks and cries. Victor went to look out of the window but could see nothing but the thorny hedge hiding the road and the bounding dogs.
“That’s probably him now,” Julien said. “They heard him coming.”
Without consulting each other both boys dashed through the dining room, tripping over the jumble of objects strewn over the floor. The carriage clock went flying under the sideboard in a last jangling crash as they rushed out into the warm air just as both dogs gave a howl of pain and began to whimper pitifully. Victor saw the dogs coming towards them, tottering clumsily as though drunk, shaking their big heads. The bitch slumped down in the shade of a tree, rubbing her eyes and her snout with her paws while the male, a little further off, rolled in the dry grass and moaned.
“It’s not him,” Julien said.
Victor turned away from the dogs and saw the man, the one called Éric, closing the gate behind him, leaving his grey car parked by the side of the road. He was tucking a canister into his pocket. Tear gas. Julien ran over to the dogs, grabbing them by the scruff of the neck, shaking them and shouting “Attack!”, but the animals lay there sneezing, panting and choking as they whimpered.
The man took out a knife, a flick knife, released the catch and the blade snapped into view.
“Careful with them dogs of yours or I’ll gut them, you little wanker,” he said to Julien. “Now take your bike and get the fuck out of here, and keep your mouth shut unless you want me to come around and torch your place.”
“Who is it?” Julien said. “Is it the guy from the other day?”
He came over to Victor. The man stopped about ten metres away from them, half sitting on the bonnet of one of the Peugeots.
“Fuck off, and don’t say anything,” Victor said. “This is none of your business. If you say anything I’ll kill you, I swear, I’ll fucking do it. You got that?”
Julien picked up his backpack and walked quickly towards the gate, head sunk into his shoulders, trembling on his scrawny legs. He had to walk past the cars to get out and tried to give the man a wide berth, but not wide enough because the guy had only to reach out to give him a slap across the face that sent him staggering back two paces.
“Don’t fucking threaten me again, you little son of a bitch, you got that? Now go home and fuck your mother before I do it for you!”
The kid ran, pressing a hand to his cheek. He turned briefly to Victor, eyes wide with fear, blood dripping from his face and staining his T-shirt.
The man did not take his eyes off Victor. He did not move, did not blink. He waited, arms wide, the palms of his huge hands turned towards him, until Julien was out of sight. He kept his thumb pressed against the handle of the flick knife. They heard the gate close, the soles of the kid’s trainers slapping along the road. The dogs lay slumped on the grass, their sides quivering in the heat.
The man lit a cigarette. He exhaled a cloud of smoke and jerked his chin at Victor.
“So what you gonna do now? Throw stones at me? Gonna call the dogs? Not so tough now, are you? You’re just like your mother. Soon as I showed her who was boss, she caved. Nothing but shit on my shoes. That’s whores for you. They open their mouths and spread their legs and they don’t even know why. Am I right?”
He closed the flick knife and slipped it back into the pocket of his trousers. He ran a tentative hand over his close-cropped hair, glanced up at the white sky, blinked and pulled a face. He stepped towards Victor, skirted around him without making eye contact and leaned against one of the window shutters in the shade. Victor had to turn to look at him.
“What did the pair of you come here for? To steal stuff? Who lives in this shithole anyway?”
Victor shrugged. He thought about the viper now probably coiled up around the old man’s napkin, or wriggling about looking for a way out. Then he calculated his chances of escape, of retrieving his bike or running through the vineyards, making it as far as a storehouse or a winery. No chance. He was sorry he had left his knife in his bag rather that slipping it into the pocket of his shorts. He would have started a fight with this guy, stuck the knife into his throat or slashed his face. He pictured the scene and a shiver ran up his arm and down his back.
Éric opened the door and gestured for him to come over.
“Get inside. Don’t make me come over there.”
Slowly, Victor walked towards him and stepped into the filthy hall. The man came in behind and quietly closed the door. Victor could hear him behind him, breathing. He bowed his head. Waited for the blow.
“Jesus fuck, I don’t believe it,” the man said.
He opened the door to the dining room and stopped dead when he saw everything smashed on the floor. He turned back to the boy. His piercing blue eyes shone in the darkness. He made a sort of grimace. Perhaps this was how he smiled.
“Been behaving like a little chav, have we? You mother would be disappointed. Did you think about that?”
“So what? You’re not my papa, what the fuck’s it got to do with you?” Victor said this in a breathless rush without a second’s thought. Instantly, he dreaded how the man might react.
The man did not move. He grimaced again.
“How would you know, you little bastard? How would you know who your papa is, with all the guys who fucked your mama over the years? D’you ever think about that? You see, that’s the thing with a whore’s kids, they never know who they are. You’re old enough to think about it now, aren’t you, now you’re all alone in the world. Maybe I should give you a hug, my son.”
He gave a soundless laugh. He spoke quietly, almost gently, but every word hit Victor like a kick in the stomach. The boy thought of a knife being twisted in a wound. He knew for a fact that this man had killed his mother and had enjoyed it. He knew for a fact that he would kill this man. Or this, at least, was what he vowed as the man looked to see how much pain he had inflicted with his words, and this is what gave him the strength to stand there, to stare him down.
“So what did you kids come here for? There’s nothing worth nicking here.”
Éric stood in the middle of the kitchen glancing around suspiciously, looking for some clue that might betray the boy’s intentions. Then he grabbed Victor by the neck of his T-shirt and pulled him towards him.
“What’s the matter, you little queer? Got nothing to say?”
Victor lashed out, jabbing an elbow into his belly, probably surprising him more than it actually hurt. The man pushed him against the table, slammed his head down between a dirty bowl and a hunk of stale bread. Victor let out a high-pitched scream and started sobbing, his jaws clenched tight, his face lined with pain and rage. The man almost lay on top of him, pressing his lips against Victor’s ear, still forcing the boy’s head down on the filthy tablecloth.
“Readies, is it? The old bastard stashes his cash here and you little shits came here to rip him off? Where is it, then, where’s the money?”
“No, no,” Victor gasped, “it’s not money.”
Outside the dogs began to whine, the gate squealed and there was the sound of a car rolling across the gravel, its engine turned off, probably being pushed by the old man. Victor tensed, he felt sweat stream down his back as though someone had poured a bottle of water between his shoulder blades. Éric stood up and pressed an ear to the door leading in to the hall. He took out his knife, placed his thumb on the catch and waited.
The dogs fell silent. There was a sound of metal, the noise of things being moved around in the shed. The man was grumbling, muttering to himself, or maybe talking to the dogs. The front door was opened slowly, then the old man seemed to stand for a moment on the threshold as though listening for something suspicious. Éric was breathing through his mouth, his lips formed an O, his eyes stared at Victor without seeing him, or tried to drill through doors and walls so he could know exactly what the old man was doing as he wandered into this house that had suddenly become a trap, sensing the danger and muttering to himself to allay his fears. The living-room door opened and there was total silence as the old man surveyed the wreckage, paralysed with shock or choking with rage while Éric, knife in hand, looking less vicious now, less arrogant, stared at the door behind which the old man still stood, reeling from the shock. He kept giving Victor quick sidelong glances and the boy realised he no longer knew what to do and thought perhaps he might make the most of the anxious hesitation he could see in Éric’s eyes to try and make his escape. He was trying to summon strength to his trembling legs when suddenly he felt a draught on his face as the living-room door was wrenched open and the old man bounded into the kitchen with a furious roar, waving his rifle, firing wildly at Éric and missing, cocking the rifle again, cursing and swearing as his target rushed at him, one hand grabbing the barrel to deflect it or yank it from him, while with the other he slashed the old man’s face and throat with the flick knife.
Victor had backed away against the fridge and if he could he would have slipped between it and the wall because by now the old man was covered in blood and bellowing, still clinging to his rifle, occasionally finding enough breath to swear at his assailant. Another shot rang out and hit the tiled floor a metre from where Victor was crouched. The bullet must have ricocheted because one of the windows exploded with a crash that made him cower in panic. It was then that he realised that the door was still open and he turned, preparing to make a run for it, and when he saw the two men rear up, both clutching the rifle, and whirl around the room like two drunken dancers, he dodged past the table, shuddering as his hand grazed the drawer in which the snake was lurking, then ran and ran, knocking into furniture, bumping into doorframes, slipping on the filthy linoleum in the hall before finding a foothold on the gravel outside while the howling dogs dashed through the door he left wide open.
Back on the road, looking around for his bicycle, he realised he was deaf. He stood stock-still but could hear nothing but a dizzying buzz underscored by the frantic pounding in his veins. He shook his head, stuck his fingers in his deafened ears, but it made no difference. This scared him a little and he turned back towards the house, expecting that at any moment it would explode or go up in flames, then spotted the E.D.F. substation, ran over to it and got on his bike. The breeze on his face brought him round and he concentrated on the effort he had to make to pedal, he felt sweat stream down him, felt sensation return to his body, something more than the trembling and the cold that had gripped him in the kitchen where the two men were fighting. Gradually his eardrums also recovered and the muffled buzzing was replaced by a permanent whistling which seemed to come from the depths of his brain. As he passed the water tower, he saw the village at the bottom of the hill and this reassured him as, almost happily, he allowed the bike to freewheel down.
When he got back, Nicole, just back from doing the weekly shopping in Pauillac, asked him to help unload the car. She did not notice anything was wrong, and he could breathe easy again. He felt as though he had been reborn, as though everything around him was returning to its proper size and place, to a stillness that did him good. He carried the drums of mineral water and the heaviest bags, and was careful to bolt the doors behind him. When he had finished, Nicole slipped an arm around his neck and hugged him to her chest, kissed the back of his damp neck. He let himself be hugged, smelling the perfume that seemed to come from her breasts and he thought about Rebecca and his groin ached with a terrible desire for her.
Feeling suddenly exhausted, he wandered aimlessly into the living room, where the television was chatting to itself, and as he passed the sofa he saw, leaning against the high back among the cushions, the small, skinny figure of a sleeping Julien, his mouth hanging open, his face slick, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. He wanted to wake him, to make sure he had said nothing about what had happened at old Georges’ place and his heart beat faster at the thought that by now the old man was probably dead, slaughtered by Éric. In the end he gave up, not knowing what to do; Rebecca would be happy when she found out that piece of scum was dead. Reassured by that thought, he went upstairs leaving the scrawny kid sleeping.
In his room, he quickly fell asleep in the darkness that was almost cool.
He was woken with a start by raised voices which had merged with a sad dream in which his mother did not recognise him. He wiped away the tears from his nightmare, touching only his dry cheeks, then went to the door to listen.
Denis was there, Victor could hear him talking loudly, probably into the phone. Nicole was also saying something unintelligible. Victor held his breath for what seemed like forever when he heard that old Georges’ had gone up in flames, that it had been almost completely razed by the time the fire brigade arrived. Slowly, he went down the stairs and immediately he saw Julien, still on the sofa, staring at him wild-eyed, a panicked look on his face.