We were summoned by the principal—by “we” I mean everyone who teaches seventh grade—to go over what happened. Mr. Nemours could have made do with a face-to-face meeting with Éliane Berthelot and me, but as the altercation concerned Théo Lubin, and I’d already raised concerns about him, he decided to bring us all together.
He was eager to point out in front of the whole team that my behavior had been completely out of line. In a school such as ours, such a lapse was unacceptable. Éliane Berthelot, who had initially threatened to make a complaint about me to the local authorities or even the police, had eventually changed her mind. She had demanded an apology, which I repeated in front of our assembled colleagues. Her little grimace of victory was quite a sight. Even if it in no way justified my behavior, I nevertheless asked that the punishment she had inflicted on Théo could be mentioned: is it appropriate to humiliate a thirteen-year-old boy by asking him to run in front of his classmates in pink Barbie sweatpants that are too small for him? Éliane Berthelot couldn’t see any problem with that at all. Or to be more precise, she couldn’t see how it was humiliating… According to her, Théo’s repeated failure to bring his gym clothes was pure provocation. He wanted to drive her crazy, as she put it. Frédéric spoke in my defense. His voice was firm, composed, a gentle demonstration of natural authority: there could be other explanations that were worth looking at. Especially as Théo had recently seemed tired, even disoriented, and voluntarily went to the nurse’s office.
Éliane Berthelot eventually admitted she didn’t like the boy, that she even felt a certain antipathy toward him. The principal, who was visibly displeased by this line of defense, pointed out that she was not required to like her students, merely to teach them her subject and show fairness.
The others had kept out of it. When Mr. Nemours asked their opinion, they all agreed that they hadn’t noticed anything in particular, except that Théo Lubin was a very withdrawn student and it was hard to capture his attention. Nothing else. Éric Guibert mentioned that Théo had skipped his last class, though he’d been in school that morning. And in fact, thinking more carefully, unexplained absences in the middle of the day had happened several times. Frédéric spoke last and described seeing Théo crying one day when he played excerpts from The Magic Flute to his class. Last, the principal read the nurse’s report out loud. In any case, Mr. Nemours encouraged everyone to remain vigilant.
When the principal asked if any of us had been in contact with the parents, I felt panic. Without thinking, I said no like the others.
I then sensed Frédéric looking at me, incredulous. His mouth was half-open, but his eyes were fixed only on me, as if to say, Why aren’t you telling the truth, Hélène?
The principal had looked up Théo’s information sheet and noticed that the father’s address didn’t appear in any of his paperwork. He asked Nadine Stoquier, the head guidance counselor, to try to get complete details for both parents.
The meeting ended there. No one had anything else to say.
When we left the office, Frédéric caught up with me. For a few seconds he walked beside me in silence. Then he put his hands on my shoulders (an instant shock, a brief electrical discharge, immediately absorbed by my body) to make me stop and listen.
“Why didn’t you say you saw the mother?”
I didn’t have an answer. Except that in the past few weeks, everyone around that table or outside of school, everyone I pass in the street, on the metro, or outside my building has become the enemy. Something inside me has woken up, that mixture of fear and anger that has lain dormant for years under the effect of an anesthetic that resembles a mild drowsiness, whose dosage I’ve controlled myself, administered at regular intervals.
I’ve never experienced this feeling in such a brutal, invasive form, and the rage that I’m struggling to contain is stopping me from sleeping.
No, I didn’t say that I’d summoned the mother, though I’m risking the principal finding out soon and reprimanding me for lying to him; I’m risking him concluding, rightly, that I’m much too involved in this whole thing. It’s true.
Frédéric’s worried. He’s afraid that the mother will come and complain about what I said. From her point of view, I summoned her without cause and alarmed her irrationally.
I wanted him to hug me. Let me rest the weight of my body against his for a few minutes. Lean on him. Breathe his smell, feel my back and shoulder muscles relax. Not, of course, for long.
When I left school I had no desire to go home. I walked aimlessly, dragged along by my own momentum, crossing the street now and then to avoid stopping. My anger had not diminished. It throbbed beneath my skin, in every part of my body. As long as I didn’t detect any signs of exhaustion, I was unable to turn toward home.
I got back late and collapsed on my bed fully clothed.