Lullaby - Leila Slimani Page 0,22

who got in and stood against the wall of the lift, her shopping bag between her legs.

*

‘Did she appear drunk?’

Mrs Grinberg had no doubt. Louise appeared completely sober. She couldn’t have let her go up with the children if she’d thought for a second that … The grey-haired female lawyer mocked her. She reminded the court that Rose suffered from dizzy spells and had vision problems. The former music teacher, who would soon celebrate her sixty-fifth birthday, couldn’t see very well any more. Not only that, but she lived in the dark, like a mole. Bright light gave her terrible migraines. That was why Rose closed the shutters. That was why she didn’t hear anything.

That lawyer practically insulted her, in front of the whole court. Rose desperately wanted to shut her up, to break her jaw. Wasn’t she ashamed? Didn’t she have any decency? From the first days of the trial, the lawyer had portrayed Myriam as an ‘absent mother’, an ‘abusive employer’. She’d described her as a woman blinded by ambition, selfish and indifferent to the point where she pushed poor Louise too far. A journalist seated near Mrs Grinberg in the courtroom explained to her that there was no point getting upset; that it was merely a ‘defence tactic’. But Rose thought it was disgusting, full stop.

*

No one talks about it in the apartment building but Mrs Grinberg knows that everyone is thinking it. That at night, on every floor, eyes remain open in the darkness. That hearts race, and tears fall. She knows that bodies toss and turn, unable to fall asleep. The couple on the third floor have moved away. The Massés, of course, never came back. Rose has stayed despite the ghosts and the overpowering memory of that scream.

That day, after her nap, she opened the shutters. And that was when she heard it. Most people live their whole lives without ever hearing a scream like that. It is the kind of scream heard during war, in the trenches, in other worlds, on other continents. It is not a scream from here. It lasted at least ten minutes, that wordless scream, almost without a pause for breath. That scream that became hoarse, that filled with blood, with snot, with rage. ‘A doctor’ was all that Mrs Massé ended up articulating. She didn’t cry for help, she merely repeated – in the rare moments when she flickered back into consciousness – ‘A doctor’.

One month before the tragedy, Mrs Grinberg had met Louise in the street. The nanny had looked worried and in the end she’d talked about her money problems. About her landlord who was harassing her, about the debts she’d accumulated, about her bank account, constantly in the red. She’d talked the way a balloon deflates, more and more quickly.

Mrs Grinberg had pretended not to understand. She’d lowered her chin and said, ‘Times are hard for everyone.’ And then Louise had grabbed her by the arm. ‘I’m not begging. I can work, in the evening or early in the morning. When the children are asleep. I can clean the apartment, iron clothes, whatever you want.’ If she hadn’t gripped her wrist so tightly, if she hadn’t stared at her with those dark eyes, like an insult or a threat, Rose Grinberg might have accepted. And, no matter what the police say, she would have changed everything.

The flight was delayed for a long time and it is early evening when they land in Paris. Louise solemnly says goodbye to the children. She hugs them tight and doesn’t let go. ‘See you on Monday, yes, Monday. Call me if you need anything at all,’ she says to Myriam and Paul, who dive into the lift that will take them to the airport car park.

Louise walks to the overground train station. The carriage is empty. She sits leaning against a window and curses the landscape, the platforms where gangs of youths hang around, the peeling facades of apartment buildings, the balconies, the hostile faces of security guards. She closes her eyes and summons memories of Greek beaches, sunsets, dinners overlooking the sea. She invokes these memories the way mystics call upon miracles. When she opens the door to her studio flat, her hands start to shake. She wants to tear apart the sofa’s slipcover, to punch the window. A sort of shapeless, painful magma burns her insides and it takes an effort of will to stop herself screaming.

On Saturday she stays in bed until 10 a.m. Lying on