Lullaby - Leila Slimani Page 0,23
the sofa, hands crossed over her chest, Louise looks at the dust that has accumulated on the green ceiling lamp. She would never have chosen something so ugly. She rented the apartment already furnished and has not changed any of the decor. She had to find somewhere to live after the death of her husband, Jacques, after her expulsion from the house. After weeks of wandering, she needed a nest. She found this studio, in Créteil, through a nurse in the Henri-Mondor hospital who became fond of her. The young woman assured her that the landlord wouldn’t ask for too much in the way of security and that he’d accept cash payments.
Louise stands up. She pushes a chair underneath the ceiling lamp and grabs a cloth. She starts scrubbing the lamp, holding it with such force that she almost rips it off the ceiling. She is on tiptoes and the dust falls in big grey flakes into her hair. By eleven, the whole apartment has been cleaned. She’s washed the windows, inside and out, and she’s even wiped the shutters with a soapy sponge. Her shoes are lined up along the wall, polished and ridiculous.
Perhaps they will call her. On Saturdays, she knows, they sometimes eat lunch at a restaurant. Mila told her that. They go to a café where the little girl is allowed to order anything she wants and where Adam tries tasting a bit of mustard or lemon from the end of a spoon, under his parents’ tender gaze. Louise would like that. In a packed café, surrounded by the din of clanking plates and waiters’ shouts, she would be less afraid of the silence. She would sit between Mila and her brother and she’d straighten the large white napkin on the little girl’s lap. She’d feed Adam, spoon after spoon. She’d listen to Paul and Myriam speak. It would all go too fast. She would feel good.
She puts on a blue dress, the one that comes down to her ankles and that buttons, up the front, with a row of little blue pearls. She wants to be ready, in case they need her. In case she has to meet them somewhere, quickly, because they’ve undoubtedly forgotten how far away she lives and how long it takes her, every day, to get to their apartment. Sitting in the kitchen, she drums the Formica table with her fingernails.
Lunchtime comes and goes. The clouds move in front of the clean windows, the sky darkens. The plane trees shake in the wind and it starts to rain. Louise becomes agitated. They’re not going to call.
It is too late now to leave the apartment. She could go and buy some bread or get some fresh air. She could just walk. But there is nothing she wants to do in these deserted streets. The only café in the neighbourhood is full of drunks, and even at three in the afternoon men sometimes brawl there near the railings of the empty garden.
She should have made her mind up earlier, rushed down into the metro, wandered around Paris, surrounded by parents buying school supplies. She’d have got lost in the crowd and she’d have followed beautiful, busy women as they walked past department stores. She’d have hung around near Madeleine, brushing past the little tables where people drink coffee. She’d have said ‘Sorry’ to the ones she bumped into.
Paris is, in her eyes, a giant shop window. Best of all, she likes to walk in the Opéra neighbourhood, going down Rue Royale and turning on to Rue Saint-Honoré. She walks slowly, observing the passers-by and the shopfronts. She wants everything. The buckskin boots, the suede jackets, the snakeskin handbags, the wrap dresses, the camisoles overstitched with lace. She wants the silk blouses, the pink cashmere cardigans, the military jackets. She imagines a life where she would have enough money to possess it all. Where she would point out to an unctuous saleswoman the items that she liked.
Sunday arrives, an extension of her boredom and anxiety. A dark, miserable Sunday sunk deep in her sofa bed. She fell asleep in her blue dress and its synthetic material, horribly creased, made her sweat. Several times during the night, she opened her eyes, unsure if an hour had passed or a month. If she was sleeping at Myriam and Paul’s apartment or next to Jacques in the house in Bobigny. Then she closed her eyes again and slid back into a brutal, frenzied sleep.
Louise really hates weekends.