Théo had put the two cards down in front of him, the ten of clubs and the queen of diamonds, face up. He turned to Quentin and asked, “Inside or outside?”
Tiny flakes of snow had started dancing around them, but none of them seemed to be landing on the ground. Quentin closed his eyes before he answered.
“Inside.”
Théo turned over the card he held face down in his hand. Jack of spades.
Théo took the bottle and drank the four mouthfuls the rules demanded. Then suddenly fell backward. He made a dull thud as he hit the ground.
They looked at each other. Quentin and Clément started laughing, but Baptiste said, “Shut up!”
They straightened his legs. His upper body was lying on a carpet of leaves and his lower half on concrete. Baptiste gave him a few little slaps. He kept saying, “Hey, hey, stop messing around!” but Théo didn’t move. Mathis had never seen a body like that, so floppy.
The silence around them felt unreal. The whole city seemed to have obeyed Baptiste and come to a standstill.
Mathis would have sworn he could hear his heart thumping, a metronome like Mr. Châle’s, measuring these seconds of terror one by one. The smell of earth and rotting leaves caught in his throat.
They looked at each other again. Hugo couldn’t help himself from giving a little groan of fear.
Baptiste gave the order: “Run for it!”
He grabbed his brother’s collar, stood him in front of him and held him fiercely by the shoulders. He looked him straight in the eye and said, “We never came here, right?”
He turned to Mathis and repeated, “We were never here, OK?”
Mathis nodded. The cold was cutting through his clothes.
In less than a minute, they’ve gathered everything up—cards, cigarettes, bottles—and disappeared.
Mathis stays behind, by his friend, who looks like he’s in a deep sleep. He gets closer to his face and thinks he can see his breath.
He shakes him several times but Théo doesn’t respond.
Mathis starts crying.
If he calls his mother, he’ll have to admit that he’s not at the Philharmonic. He lied and betrayed her trust. She’ll go crazy. And worst of all, she’ll tell Théo’s parents. And if someone goes to his father’s place, Théo will be angry with him for the rest of his life.
Jumbled, obscure data he can’t decode spins around in his head at high speed, an avalanche of threats he doesn’t know how to put in order.
All his limbs are shaking and his teeth have begun to chatter, like those times he stays in the swimming pool too long.
It’s time for him to go home. He must go home.
He calls, “Théo!” And again. He shakes him, begs him. He tries one last time; his voice has become almost inaudible.
He puts his down jacket on the outstretched body. Then leaves the gardens.
He takes avenue de La Motte-Picquet then the rue de Grenelle. He checks the time again and starts to run.
A few minutes later, he’s outside his building. He taps in the entry code and goes into the lobby. He waits for a few seconds, long enough for his breathing to calm down. He puts his key in the door and instantly hears his mother’s footsteps. She was waiting for him in the living room. She opens her arms in greeting.
She says, “You’re frozen.”
He snuggles against her. She strokes his hair and says, “Don’t worry. It’s all going to be OK.” She doesn’t ask him how the concert was. She probably thinks he’s too tired and he’ll tell her tomorrow.
In his room Mathis opens the closet where his clothes normally are.
It’s empty.
He looks inside it several times.
Under the sheets, he tries to close his eyes. But images rush into his head, multiplying and dividing, operated by the turn of some invisible kaleidoscope. The colors get brighter and brighter and suddenly the exploded images all come together and appear to him whole. Perfectly clear.
The drawings from Ms. Destrée’s class loom up before his eyes, even when he keeps them open: a heart filled with blood whose rhythm is slowing, and then lungs frozen in ice, held in a film of frost, and then blood flowing on his hands, blue.
He sits up in bed; a silent sob tears at his chest.
And then he remembers that Ms. Destrée gave them her number on the day of the trip to the Natural History Museum and asked every student to save it.