Lullaby - Leila Slimani Page 0,36

see each other. Everyone had been drinking. Way too much. Myriam, feeling sentimental, had sought a compassionate ear from Sylvie. She complained about never seeing the children, about suffering from this frantic existence where no one ever gave her an easy ride. But Sylvie did not console her. She did not put her hand on Myriam’s shoulder. On the contrary, she launched an all-out attack on her daughter-in-law. Her knives, apparently, were well sharpened, ready to be used when the occasion presented itself. Sylvie reproached her for devoting too much time to her job, despite the fact that she herself had worked all the way through Paul’s childhood and had always boasted about her independence. She called her irresponsible and selfish. She counted on her fingers the number of work trips that Myriam had made even while Adam was ill and Paul was finishing the recording of an album. It was her fault, Sylvie said, if her children had become unbearable, tyrannical, capricious. Her fault and also the fault of Louise, that phoney nanny, that fake mother on whom Myriam depended, out of complacency, out of cowardice. Myriam started crying. Paul, stunned, did not say a word, and Sylvie waved her arms in the air as she shouted: ‘Go ahead and cry! Look at her. She cries and we’re supposed to feel sorry for her because she’s incapable of hearing the truth.’

Every time that Myriam sees Sylvie, the memory of that evening oppresses her. That night, she felt as if she were being assaulted, thrown to the ground and stabbed repeatedly with a dagger. Myriam lay there, her guts slashed open, in front of her husband. She didn’t have the strength to defend herself against those accusations, which she knew were partly true but which she considered as her lot and that of many other women. Not for an instant was there even a hint of clemency or gentleness. Not a single piece of advice was offered from mother to mother, from woman to woman.

*

Over breakfast, Myriam stares fixedly at her telephone. She tries desperately to check her emails, but the service is too slow and she gets so furious that she wants to throw her phone at the wall. Hysterical, she threatens Paul that she will go back to Paris. Sylvie raises her eyebrows, visibly exasperated. She had always hoped that her son would find a different kind of woman, more outdoorsy, more whimsical. A girl who loved nature, hiking in the mountains; a girl who wouldn’t complain about the discomforts of this charming house.

For a long time Sylvie used to ramble on, always telling the same stories about her youth, her past political commitments, her revolutionary comrades. With age, she learned to tone this down. Essentially, she realised that no one cared about her nebulous theories on this world of sell-outs, this world of arrant morons addicted to electronic screens and slaughtered animals. When she was their age, her only dream was of revolution. ‘We were a bit naive, though,’ suggests Dominique, her husband, who is saddened to see her unhappy. ‘Naive? Maybe, but we weren’t as stupid as them.’ She knows that her husband doesn’t understand her ideals, which are mocked by everyone. He listens kindly as she unloads her disappointments and anxieties. She laments what her son has become – ‘He was such a carefree little boy, you remember?’ – a man trapped under his wife’s thumb, a slave to her lust for money and her vanity. For a long time, she believed that a revolution led by both sexes would give birth to a very different world, where her grandchildren would grow up. A world where there would be time to live. ‘Darling, you’re naive,’ Dominique tells her. ‘Women are capitalists, just like men.’

Myriam paces around the kitchen, phone in hand. To soothe the tension, Dominique suggests they go for a walk. Myriam, calming down, wraps up her children in three layers of jumpers, scarves and gloves. Outside in the snow, Mila and Adam run around, ecstatic. Sylvie has brought two old sledges, which belonged to Paul and his brother Patrick when they were children. Myriam makes an effort not to worry and she watches, breath held, as the little ones speed down a slope.

They’ll break their necks, she thinks, and I’ll cry about it. She constantly tells herself: Louise would understand how I feel.

Paul is enthusiastic. He encourages Mila, who waves at him and says: ‘Look, Papa. Look, I’m sledging!’ They eat lunch at