Lullaby - Leila Slimani Page 0,25

picnic and Mila makes fun of Louise, who is afraid of the large peacocks a few yards from them. The nanny has brought an old wool blanket that Myriam had rolled up in a ball under her bed and that Louise cleaned and mended. The three of them fall asleep on the grass. Louise wakes up, with Adam pressed against her. She’s cold: the children must have pulled the blanket off. She turns around and doesn’t see Mila. She calls her. She starts to scream. People turn to stare. Someone asks: ‘Is everything all right, madam? Do you need help?’ She doesn’t answer. ‘Mila, Mila,’ she screams as she runs, with Adam in her arms. She goes around all the rides, runs in front of the rifle range. Tears well in her eyes. She wants to shake the passers-by, to push the strangers who are hurrying along, holding their children firmly by their hands. She turns back to the little farmhouse. Her jaw is trembling so much that she can’t even call Mila’s name any more. Her head is killing her and she feels as if her knees are about to give way. In an instant, she will fall to the ground, incapable of making the slightest movement, mute, completely helpless.

Then she spots her, at the end of a path. Mila is eating an ice cream on a bench, a woman leaning towards her. Louise throws herself at the child. ‘Mila! Have you gone mad? Why on earth did you go away like that?’

The stranger – a woman in her sixties – holds the little girl protectively. ‘It’s a disgrace. What were you doing? How could she end up alone? I could easily ask this little girl for her parents’ number. I’m not sure they would be too happy about it.’

But Mila escapes the stranger’s embrace. She pushes her away and glares at her, before throwing herself at Louise’s legs. The nanny bends down and picks her up. Louise kisses her frozen neck, she strokes her hair. She looks at the child’s pale face and apologises for her negligence. ‘My little one, my angel, my sweet.’ She cuddles her, covers her with kisses, holds her tight against her chest.

Seeing the child curled up in the arms of the little blonde woman, the old lady calms down. She no longer knows what to say. She observes them, shaking her head reproachfully. She was probably hoping to cause a scandal. That would have distracted her. She’d have had something to tell people if the nanny had got angry, if she’d had to call the parents, if threats had been made and then carried out. Finally the stranger gets up from the bench and leaves, saying: ‘Well, next time, be more careful.’

Louise watches the old lady leave. She turns around two or three times and Louise smiles at her, grateful. As her stooped figure moves away, Louise holds Mila more and more strongly against her. She crushes the little girl’s torso until she begs: ‘Stop, Louise, I can’t breathe.’ The child tries to free herself from this embrace – she wriggles and kicks – but the nanny holds her firmly in place. She sticks her lips to Mila’s ear and says to her, in a cold, composed voice: ‘Never do that again, you hear me? Do you want someone to kidnap you? A nasty man? Next time, that’s what will happen. And even if you shout and cry, no one will come. Do you know what he’ll do to you? No? You don’t know? He’ll take you away, he’ll hide you, he’ll keep you for himself and you’ll never see your parents again.’ Louise is about to put the child down when she feels a terrible pain in her shoulder. She screams and tries to shove the little girl away from her. Mila is biting her. Her teeth are sunk in Louise’s flesh, tearing it, drawing blood, and she clings to Louise’s arm like a rabid animal.

That night, she doesn’t tell Myriam about her daughter running away, nor about the bite. Mila, too, remains silent, without the nanny warning or threatening her. Now Louise and Mila each have a grievance against the other. This secret unites them as never before.

Jacques

Jacques loved telling her to shut up. He couldn’t stand her voice, which grated on his nerves. ‘Shut it, will you?’ In the car, she couldn’t help chatting. She was frightened of the road and talking calmed her. She launched into insipid monologues, barely