Lullaby - Leila Slimani Page 0,42

alone, completely alone, and that so many things have happened, so many things that she hasn’t been able to tell anyone, but that she would like to tell her. She is upset, shaky. She doesn’t know how to behave.

In the end Louise puts a brave face on it. She claims it is all a misunderstanding. Says something about a change of address. She blames Jacques, her husband, who was so careless and so secretive. She denies it, against all reality, against all the evidence. Her speech is so confused and pathetic that Paul rolls his eyes. ‘Okay, okay. It’s your business, so deal with it. I don’t ever want to receive this type of letter again.’

The letters had pursued her from Jacques’s house to her studio flat and, finally, here, to her domain, in this household that is held together only by her. They sent her the unpaid bills for Jacques’s treatment, the property tax and the fines for its late payment, and some other debts that she doesn’t even recognise. She had thought naively that they would just give up if she didn’t reply. That she could just play dead. She doesn’t represent anything, after all, doesn’t possess anything. What can it matter to them? Why do they need to hunt her down?

*

She knows where the letters are. A pile of envelopes that she has not thrown away, that she has kept under the electric meter. She wanted to burn them. In any case, she doesn’t understand any of those interminable sentences, those tables that cover entire pages, those columns of numbers with a total that keeps increasing. It was like when she used to help Stéphanie do her homework. When it came to helping her with maths questions, her daughter would laugh and taunt her: ‘What the hell do you know about it, anyway? You’re stupid.’

*

That evening, after putting the children in pyjamas, Louise lingers in their bedroom. Myriam stands rigid in the entrance hall, waiting for her. ‘You can go now. We’ll see you tomorrow.’ Louise wishes she could stay. She wishes she could sleep here, at the foot of Mila’s bed. She wouldn’t make any noise; she wouldn’t disturb anyone. Louise doesn’t want to go back to her studio. Every evening she gets home a little later, and when she walks in the street she keeps her eyes lowered, her chin covered by a scarf. She is afraid of bumping into her landlord, an old man with red hair and bloodshot eyes. A miser who only trusted her ‘because renting to a white in this neighbourhood is practically unheard of’. He must be regretting his decision now.

On the train, she grits her teeth to stop herself crying. An icy, insidious rain soaks into her coat, her hair. Heavy drops fall from porches and slide down the back of her neck, making her shiver. At the corner of her street, even though it’s empty, she feels she is being watched. She turns around, but there’s no one there. Then, in the darkness, between two cars, she spots a man squatting on his haunches. She sees his two naked thighs, his huge hands resting on his knees. In one hand he holds a newspaper. He looks at her. He does not appear hostile or embarrassed. She recoils, feeling suddenly nauseous. She wants to scream, to make someone else witness the spectacle. A man is shitting in her street, under her nose. A man who apparently has no shame left and must have got used to doing his business without any modesty or dignity.

Louise runs to the door of her building. She is trembling as she climbs the stairs. She cleans her entire apartment. She changes the sheets. She would like to wash herself, to stand under a jet of hot water for a long time, until she’s warmed up, but a few days ago the shower collapsed – the rotten floorboards under the cubicle gave way – and now it is out of order. Since then she has been washing herself in the sink, with a flannel. She shampooed her hair three days ago, sitting on the Formica chair.

Lying on her bed, she is unable to fall asleep. She can’t stop thinking about that man in the shadows. She can’t help imagining that, soon, that will be her. That she’ll be on the street. That she will have to leave even this vile apartment and that she will shit in the street, like an animal.

The next morning, Louise