Lullaby - Leila Slimani Page 0,21

has been spent straining towards the same child-centred objective. Tonight a new light-heartedness blows over them. Their intoxication relieves the accumulated anxieties and tensions that their progeny has insinuated between them, husband and wife, mother and nanny.

Louise knows how fleeting this moment is. She sees Paul staring greedily at his wife’s shoulder. Against her pale-blue dress, Myriam’s skin appears even more golden. They start to dance, swaying from side to side. They are clumsy, almost embarrassed, and Myriam giggles as if it’s been a long time since anyone held her round the waist like this. As if she felt ridiculous to be desired in this way. Myriam puts her cheek on her husband’s shoulder. Louise knows that they are going to stop, say goodbye, pretend to be sleepy. She would like to hold them back, to cling to them, scratch her nails in the stone floor. She would like to put them under glass, like two dancers, frozen and smiling, stuck to the pedestal of a musical box. She thinks that she could stare at them for hours without ever getting bored. That she would be content to watch them live, working in the shadows so that everything was perfect, so that the mechanism never jammed. She has the intimate conviction now, the burning and painful conviction that her happiness belongs to them. That she is theirs and they are hers.

Paul giggles. He whispers something, his lips deep in his wife’s neck. Something that Louise doesn’t hear. He keeps a firm hold of Myriam’s hand and, like two polite children, they wish Louise goodnight. She watches them climb the stone staircase that leads to their bedroom. The blue line of their two bodies blurs, fades, the door slams shut. The curtains are drawn. Louise sinks into an obscene daydream. She hears, without wanting to, while refusing to, despite herself. She hears Myriam’s wailing, her doll-like moans. She hears the rustle of sheets and the headboard banging against the wall.

Louise opens her eyes. Adam is crying.

Rose Grinberg

Mrs Grinberg will describe this little journey in the lift at least a hundred times. Five storeys, after a brief wait on the ground floor. A journey of less than two minutes, which has become the most poignant moment of her life. The fateful moment. She could – as she will never cease repeating – have altered the course of events. If she’d paid more attention to Louise’s breath. If she hadn’t closed her windows and shutters to take her nap. She will cry over the telephone and her daughters will not be able to reassure her. The police will become irritated that she is giving so much importance to herself and her tears will fall more heavily when she tells them coldly: ‘Well, you couldn’t have done anything, anyway.’ She will tell everything to the journalists who are following the trial. She will speak about it to the defendant’s lawyer, whom she will find arrogant and sloppy, and repeat it in the courtroom, when she is summoned to testify.

*

Louise, she will say each time, was not her normal self. Usually so smiling and friendly, she stood motionless in front of the glass door. Adam, sitting on a step, was screaming loudly and Mila was jumping, knocking into her brother. Louise did not move. Only her lower lip trembled slightly. Her hands were joined and her eyes lowered. For once, the noise of the children did not seem to affect her. Though normally so concerned for the neighbours and keeping up appearances, she did not say a word to the little ones. It was as if she couldn’t hear them.

Mrs Grinberg liked Louise a lot. She could even say she admired this elegant woman who took such good care of the children. Mila, the little girl, always had her hair tied in tight braids or a bun held in place by a knot. Adam seemed to adore Louise. ‘Now she’s done what she did, maybe I shouldn’t say this. But at that moment I thought they were lucky.’

The bell rang and the ground-floor light came on. Louise grabbed Adam by the collar and dragged him into the lift. Mila followed, singing to herself. Mrs Grinberg hesitated before getting in with them. For a few seconds she wondered if she should go back into the lobby and pretend to check her letterbox. Louise’s pale face made her uneasy. She feared that the five-storey journey would feel interminable. But Louise was holding the door for the neighbour,