Lullaby - Leila Slimani Page 0,58

long. Her plan seems perfect to her, and now all she needs is for Myriam to agree, to let her do it, and to fall into Paul’s arms.

‘I’d like to take the children to eat at a restaurant. That way, you’ll be able to have a nice dinner with your husband.’

Myriam puts her handbag on the chair. Louise watches her; she moves closer, stands next to her. Myriam can feel the nanny’s breath on her; her presence makes it impossible for Myriam to think. Louise is like a child whose eyes are saying ‘So?’, whose entire body is stiff with impatience, exaltation.

‘Oh, I don’t know. We haven’t planned anything. Maybe another time.’ Myriam takes off her jacket and starts walking to her bedroom. But Mila holds her back. The child enters the scene, following the nanny’s script to perfection. In a sweet voice, she begs: ‘Mama, please. We want to go to a restaurant with Louise.’

At last Myriam gives in. She insists on paying for their meal and begins to rummage in her handbag for cash, but Louise stops her. ‘Don’t. Please. Tonight, I want to take them out.’

Inside her pocket, against her thigh, Louise holds a banknote, which she caresses sometimes with her fingertips. They walk to the restaurant. She spotted this little bistro a while ago; its customers are mostly students, who come here to drink its three-euro beer. But tonight the bistro is practically empty. The owner, a Chinese man, sits behind the bar, in the neon light. He wears a garishly patterned red shirt and he is chatting with a woman who sits in front of a glass of beer, socks rolled up over her fat ankles. Out on the terrace, two men are smoking.

Louise pushes Mila inside the restaurant. The air is thick with the smell of stale tobacco, meat stew and sweat, and it makes the little girl want to throw up. Mila is very disappointed. She sits down and looks around the empty room, her eyes searching the dirty shelves with pots of ketchup and mustard on them. This is not what she had been imagining. She expected to see pretty ladies; she thought there would be noise, music, lovers. Instead of which, she slumps over the greasy table and stares at the television screen above the bar.

Louise, with Adam in her lap, says she doesn’t want to eat. ‘I’ll choose for you, okay?’ Without giving Mila time to reply, she orders sausages and chips. ‘They’ll share it,’ she explains. The Chinese man barely responds. He takes the menu from her hands.

Louise also orders a glass of wine, which she sips very slowly. She tries to make conversation with Mila. She has brought some pencils and sheets of paper, which she puts on the table. But Mila has no desire to draw. She’s not very hungry either and hardly touches her meal. Adam has gone back inside his pushchair. He rubs his eyes with his little fists.

Louise looks through the window. She looks at her watch, at the street, at the bar where the owner leans his elbows. She bites her nails, smiles, then her eyes turn vague, absent. She would like to find something for her hands to do, focus her mind on one single idea, but her thoughts are like broken glass, her soul weighed down by rocks. Several times, she passes her folded hand over the table, as if to sweep away invisible crumbs or smooth the cold surface. A jumble of unrelated images fills her head; visions that flash past ever faster, connecting memories to regrets, faces to unfulfilled fantasies. The smell of plastic in the hospital courtyard where they took her for walks. The sound of Stéphanie’s laughter, at once blaring and muffled, like the noise a hyena makes. The faces of forgotten children; the softness of hair, stroked with her fingertips; the chalky taste of an apple turnover that had dried out at the bottom of a bag, but that she’d eaten anyway. She hears Bertrand Alizard’s voice, his lying voice, which mingles with other voices, the voices of all those who gave her instructions, advice, orders; the surprisingly gentle voice of that female bailiff whose name, she remembers, was Isabelle.

Louise smiles at Mila. She wants to console her. She can tell that the little girl is on the verge of tears. She recognises that feeling, that weight on the chest, that discomfort at being there. She also knows that Mila is restraining herself, that she has