I left for Rheims before day had even risen. My plan was to arrive unexpectedly before Madeleine had time to put up any smokescreens. I knew where to go. The bar. She’d told me that its location would make it the place to be for every party animal in town. It was situated on a square behind the cathedral, opposite the movie theaters. It should be easy enough to find.
I drove into the town just before ten in the morning and headed for the historic center. I saw the cathedral looming up in front of me, and drove around it. It was market day, and I realized I needed to park quickly. I continued on foot and came to the square with the movie theaters without even searching. The bar was on the other side. From a distance, you could see scaffolding. The front of the building was being renovated.
As I approached, I saw that the double door was open because of the smell of paint. I ventured inside. I could hear a radio playing. A stand-up comedian was doing a monologue. The bar was far from ready to open. The counter was still nothing but a wooden frame. One wall had been knocked down, and the rubble hadn’t been cleared. The sound of the radio came from the rear of the premises, so I continued on through. in a large room with a fireplace, a painter was at work, carefully painting the frame of a mirror.
“Sorry to bother you. I’m looking for Madeleine Barteau.”
He switched off the radio and came down from his perch. He had a blotchy face and very clear blue eyes. From the way he wrung out his brush, and how clean his hands were in the middle of all that mess, you could see he wasn’t an amateur.
“Sorry?”
“I’m looking for Madeleine Barteau.”
“Oh, the girl! It isn’t her time, my friend, you’ll have to wait a bit. What do you want with her?”
“I lent her some money. I can’t seem to reach her.”
That was how I presented it. A creditor showing up at a site was credible. I wasn’t going to tell him my whole life story.
“Well, I hope you have stamina.”
“Is it as bad as that?”
“You see this place? I’m starting on the finishing touches here while they’re still taking the other side apart. It’s all like that. Him, I saw once and then goodbye, I wonder if he’s on the run. She’s his puppet. She doesn’t decide anything. She doesn’t have the money. She talks to him on the phone for hours, but nothing ever happens. She acts like she’s the boss, but if you want my opinion, he’s stringing her along. The thing is, he must have tried to get a few local bigwigs to come in on this surefire deal of his, and when that didn’t work, he made himself scarce, and she’s going to end up in the shit. As far as getting paid is concerned, I’m not holding out much hope. The only reason I’m finishing the job is for my reputation, not for anything else. Do they owe you a lot?”
“Quite a bit. Around what time does she get here?”
“Sometimes she doesn’t come at all!”
“I don’t suppose you know where she lives?”
“Not far from here. In a hotel that rents out rooms. It’s in a dead-end street at the end of Rue des Carterets. I had to go there and wake her once, because of a supplier who was kicking up a fuss.”
“So she doesn’t have an apartment?”
“No, that’s his. He managed to get a loft, just to show off. But it’s over between them, he has other girls now. You should see his suit, his watch. Once he’s had what he wants from them . . . ”
I left the bar. The light blinded me. Rue des Carterets started at the corner. I just had to walk a few yards to get to it. It was a fairly narrow but very long street, which started in the rather classy pedestrian zone, and ended up in a noticeably more down-market neighborhood where some of the buildings were being demolished. The dead-end street was tiny, and the hotel the only one. The front was almost black, and an endless crack ran down it from top to bottom. It must have been collapsing on its foundations and, to stop it sinking any more, it was being held up on its right side by beams, like a crutch.
I stopped outside the front door. A sign indicated the prices, by the day or the month. Given the kind of place it was, they weren’t cheap. I rang the doorbell and a very stout individual came and opened. He was wearing pants that were too short for him and he took up the whole width of the narrow corridor. A strange character. His face made him look like an enormous infant. He looked me up and down suspiciously, then moved away from the door to let me in. Once he was sure I didn’t want to rob his till or deal drugs in his hotel, he had no objection to my going up. He even apologized for the fact that he couldn’t warn Mademoiselle Barteau because the house phone was out of order. Personally, that was fine by me.
Madeleine was living on the top floor, in the attic, where the rates were cheapest. The fat man had told me the number of her room. It was the one that was missing. As I approached the door, she came out. She was in her nightdress, her hair was disheveled, and she was barefoot. She stood there for a few seconds in shock.
“I was just going to the toilet. Go in. I’ll be right back.”
I went in. The room was tiny, the ceiling blistered and swollen. A single bed occupied one side of the room and, facing it, wedged in between the drainpipe and a narrow chest of drawers, was a table with an electric hotplate on it. I sat down on the bed. A small transom in the ceiling was slightly open, letting in a little fresh air as well as daylight. My eyes came to rest on my sister’s bag, the one she took with her everywhere. It was filled to the brim, as if she was about to leave, or maybe had never even unpacked it. I saw a keyring hanging from one of the handles. I hadn’t noticed it when she came to the house, but I knew that keyring. She’d always had it. When she was a little girl, it had adorned her school bag. It depicted a cartoon character who was always getting into trouble. I tried to remember his name. At that moment she came back from the toilet. She lifted her hand to her hair and pushed it back.
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“The time it would have taken me to get hold of you, I thought it was quicker to just come. I dropped by the bar. I saw the painter. He drew me a picture of the situation.”
“Is that meant to be funny?”
“Unintentionally.”
She must have felt like killing me at that moment. I could see it in her eyes. I’d landed in her real world. I was so close to her, it was indecent. She couldn’t retreat, or run away. She grabbed hold of the chest of drawers. She decided to fight back, in spite of everything.
“If you’re worried about your money—”
“I don’t care about that.”
“At least let me finish. Right now, Patrice is negotiating with a new partner. We underestimated the cost of the work, that’s true, but—”
“Stop.”
“He’s coming back and then everything will get back to normal. Now’s not the time to—”
“Stop, Madeleine!”
The impact of my voice in that little room hit her full in the chest.
“You’re just like Ma. Don’t you realize? You lie to save face and you end up believing in what you say. You choose men who beat you or humiliate you, just like her. But that’s your business. It’s your life. I’m not here to pass judgment. I came because of Léonard. Because he has nothing to do with any of this.”
“I’ve always protected Léonard. You know, his father—”
“You didn’t leave him, he left you. You’d still be with him, otherwise. And your son would be locked up. Like now!”
“That’s a horrible thing to say. He needs treatment, that’s all.”
“He isn’t a schizophrenic.”
“So you’re a psychiatrist now?”
“He has Asperger’s syndrome. It isn’t a disease. It’s a different way of looking at things. He absolutely mustn’t be isolated, that’s the worst solution of all. He needs two things: to be recognized as someone who’s different, which you haven’t done, and then to be accepted as he is, which your men haven’t done, and when that happens the only solution you can find is to push him away.”
This time, she was stunned. I saw that from the way her hands lost their grip on the chest of drawers and she almost collapsed, like a boxer on the ropes.
“He’s the one who wanted to go there. The psychiatrist explained it was what he was asking for with his fits of temper.”
“And why do you think that is? To protect himself from you, and from me, too, because I let him leave.”
Madeleine adjusted her dressing gown, and we stood there in silence, brother and sister, face-to-face, in that tiny room. The fight was over. The blows had hit home, it was finished. There was nothing more to defend, nothing to hide. She seemed to relax. Even her voice changed, becoming more human.
“What do you want to do?”
“Get him out of there.”
“You won’t be able to.”
“Give me a proxy. I’ll do the rest.”
“He’s never been like this before. He stopped playing chess. He broke his chess set.”
“Give me that proxy.”