Lullaby - Leila Slimani Page 0,39
return to Paris, they will probably go to that restaurant that Myriam loved so much, where the boss had let the children choose which fish they wanted. There they will drink a bit of wine and Louise will announce her decision not to go back with them. ‘I’m not going to catch the plane tomorrow. I’m going to live here.’ Of course, they will be surprised. They won’t take her seriously. They’ll start laughing, because they’ll have had too much to drink or because they’re feeling ill at ease. And then, faced with the nanny’s resolve, they will start to worry. They will try to talk her round. ‘Come on, Louise, that makes no sense. You can’t stay here. And how will you make a living?’ And then it will be Louise’s turn to laugh.
‘Obviously, I thought about winter.’ The island must look very different then. These dry rocky hills, these oregano bushes, these thistles must look quite hostile in the November gloom. It must be dark, up there, when the first rains fall. But she won’t change her mind: no one will persuade her to return to France. She’ll move to a different island, perhaps, but she will never go back.
‘Or maybe I won’t tell them anything. I’ll just disappear, like that,’ she says, snapping her fingers.
Wafa listens to Louise talk about her plans. She has no trouble imagining those blue horizons, those cobbled streets, those morning swims. She feels terribly homesick. Louise’s words awaken memories, the salty smell of the Atlantic in the evening from the coast road, the sunrises greeted by the whole family during Ramadan. But Louise suddenly starts laughing, shattering Wafa’s sweet daydream. She laughs like a shy little girl who hides her teeth behind her fingers and she reaches out her hand to her friend, who sits next to her on the sofa. They raise their glasses and make a toast. They look like two young girls now, two schoolmates sharing a private joke, or a secret. Like two children, lost in an adult world.
Wafa has maternal or sisterly instincts. She thinks about getting Louise a drink of water, making her coffee, making her something to eat. Louise stretches out her legs and crosses her feet on the table. Wafa looks at Louise’s dirty sole next to her glass, and she thinks that her friend must be drunk to act like that. She has always admired Louise’s manners, her prim politeness, which could pass for that of a real bourgeois lady. Wafa puts her bare feet on the edge of the table. And in a salacious voice, she says: ‘Maybe you’ll meet someone on your island? A handsome Greek man, who’ll fall in love with you …’
‘Oh, no,’ replies Louise. ‘If I go there, it’s so I don’t have to look after anyone any more. So I can sleep when I want, eat whatever I like.’
To begin with, the plan was not to do anything for Wafa’s wedding. They would just go to the town hall, sign the documents, and each month Wafa would pay Youssef what she owed him until she had her French papers. But her future husband ended up changing his mind. He suggested to his mother, who was only too willing to comply, that it would be more decent to invite a few friends. ‘I mean, it is my wedding. Anyway, you never know, it might help convince the immigration services.’
One Friday morning they arrange to meet outside the town hall in Noisy-le-Sec. Louise, who is a witness for the first time, wears her sky-blue Peter Pan collar and a pair of earrings. She signs at the bottom of the sheet that the mayor hands her and the wedding seems almost real. The hoorays, the cries of ‘Here’s to the happy couple!’, the applause … all of it sounds sincere.
The little group walks to the restaurant, La Gazelle d’Agadir, run by a friend of Wafa’s, and where she has sometimes worked as a waitress. Louise observes the other guests, who stand around gesticulating, laughing and slapping one another on the shoulder. Outside the restaurant, Youssef’s brothers have parked a black sedan with dozens of gold plastic ribbons attached to it.
The restaurant owner has put music on. He’s not worried about the neighbours; on the contrary, he thinks it will be good publicity for his restaurant, that people passing in the street will look through the window at the elegantly set tables, that they will envy the guests’ happiness. Louise observes