Lullaby - Leila Slimani Page 0,45

when she takes out the bin bags in the middle of the night because they contain leftover food or a toy of Mila’s that they can’t be bothered to fix. ‘You’re scared of being told off by Louise – admit it!’ he laughs, following her into the stairwell.

They find it amusing to watch Louise study, with great concentration, the junk mail from local shops that is delivered to their letterbox and which they are used to throwing away without a thought. The nanny collects coupons and proudly presents them to Myriam, who is ashamed to find this behaviour idiotic. In fact, Myriam uses Louise as an example when she lectures her husband and children. ‘Louise is right. It’s bad to waste food. There are children who have nothing to eat.’

But after a few months, Louise’s obsession becomes the subject of tension. Myriam complains about the nanny’s inflexible attitude, her paranoia. ‘Let her search through our rubbish if she wants! I don’t have to justify myself to her,’ she tells Paul, who is convinced that they have to free themselves from Louise’s power. Myriam stands firm. She refuses to let Louise give the children food that is past its expiration date. ‘Yes, even if it’s only one day past. That’s it, end of discussion.’

*

One evening, not long after Louise has returned to work following her illness, Myriam comes home late. The apartment is in total darkness and Louise is waiting at the door, wearing her coat and holding her handbag. She mumbles goodbye and rushes downstairs. Myriam is too tired to think about this or feel troubled by it.

Louise is sulking? Oh, who cares!

She could collapse on the sofa and fall asleep fully dressed, with her shoes still on. But she moves towards the kitchen, to get herself a glass of wine. She feels like sitting in the living room for a moment, drinking some very cold white wine, smoking a cigarette and relaxing. If she wasn’t afraid that she would wake the children, she might even take a bath.

She enters the kitchen and turns on the light. The room looks even cleaner than usual. There’s a strong smell of soap in the air. The fridge door has been cleaned. Nothing has been left on the countertop. The extractor hood over the cooker is free of grease stains, and the handles on the cupboard doors have been sponged off. As for the window facing her, it is spotlessly, dazzlingly clean.

Myriam is about to open the fridge when she sees it. There, in the middle of the little table where the children and their nanny eat. A chicken carcass sits on a plate. A glistening carcass, without the smallest scrap of flesh hanging from its bones, not the faintest trace of meat. It looks as if it’s been gnawed clean by a vulture or a stubborn, meticulous insect. Some kind of repulsive animal, anyway.

She stares at the brown skeleton, its round spine, its sharp bones, its smooth vertebrae. Is thighs have been torn off, but its twisted little wings are still there, the joints distended, close to breaking point. The shiny, yellowish cartilage resembles dried pus. Through the holes, between the small bones, Myriam sees the empty insides of the thorax, dark and bloodless. No meat remains, no organs, nothing on this skeleton that could rot, and yet it seems to Myriam that it is a putrescent carcass, a vile corpse that is festering and decaying before her eyes, here in the kitchen.

She is sure of it: she threw away that chicken this morning. The meat was no longer edible; she didn’t want her children to get ill from eating it. She remembers clearly how she shook the plate over the bin bag and how the creature fell, covered in gelatinous fat. It landed with a wet thud at the bottom of the bin and Myriam said, ‘Ugh.’ That smell, so early in the morning, made her feel sick.

Myriam moves closer to the creature, but she doesn’t dare touch it. Louise can’t have done this by mistake or out of forgetfulness. And certainly not as a joke. No, the carcass smells of washing liquid and sweet almond. Louise washed it in the sink; she cleaned it and put it there as an act of vengeance, like a baleful totem.

*

Later Mila told her mother exactly what happened. She was laughing and jumping around as she explained how Louise had taught them to eat with their fingers. Standing on their chairs, she and Adam