Lullaby - Leila Slimani Page 0,6

still look new. They are patent leather shoes, very simple, with square heels and a discreet little bow on top. She sits down and starts cleaning one, soaking a piece of cotton wool in a pot of make-up remover. Her movements are slow and precise. She cleans with furious care, completely absorbed in her task. The cotton wool is covered in grime. Louise brings the shoe over to the lamp placed on the pedestal table. When she is satisfied with the leather’s shine, she puts the shoe down and picks up the second one.

It’s so early that she has time to fix the fingernails she broke when she was cleaning. She wraps a plaster around her index finger and paints the other nails with a very discreet pink varnish. For the first time, and despite the price, she had her hair dyed at the salon. She ties it in a bun, off her neck. She puts on her make-up and the blue eyeshadow makes her look older. She is so fragile, so slender, that from a distance you would think her barely out of her teens. In fact, she is over forty.

*

She paces around the room, which seems smaller, more cramped than ever. She sits down then stands up again almost immediately. She could turn on the television. Drink some tea. Read an old copy of the women’s magazine that she keeps near her bed. But she is afraid of relaxing, letting the time slip past, surrendering to drowsiness. Waking up so early has left her weak, vulnerable. It wouldn’t take much to make her close her eyes for a minute, and then she might fall asleep and she’d be late. She has to keep her mind alert, has to focus all her attention on this first day of work.

She can’t wait at home. It’s not even six yet – she’s going to be much too early – but she walks quickly to the Saint-Maur-des-Fossés suburban train station. It takes her more than a quarter of an hour to get there. Inside the carriage, she sits opposite an old Chinese man, who sleeps curled up, with his forehead pressed against the window. She stares at his exhausted face. At each station, she thinks about waking him. She is afraid that he will be lost, go too far, that he will open his eyes, alone, at the terminus, and that he’ll have to double back the way he came. But she doesn’t say anything. It is more sensible not to speak to people. Once, a young girl, dark-haired and very beautiful, had almost slapped her. ‘What are you looking at? Eh? Why the hell are you staring at me?’ she yelled.

When she arrives at the Auber station, Louise jumps down on to the platform. It’s starting to get busy. A woman bumps into her while she is climbing down the stairs to the metro platform. She chokes on a sickening smell of croissant and burned chocolate. After taking Line 7 towards Opéra, she gets off at the Poissonnière station.

Louise is almost an hour early so she sits at a table on the terrace of the Paradis, a charmless café with a view of the building’s entrance. She plays with her spoon. She casts envious glances at the man to her right, who sucks his cigarette with his thick-lipped lecher’s mouth. She would like to grab it from his hand and take a long drag. Unable to stand it any longer, she pays her bill and goes into the silent building. She decides to ring the doorbell in a quarter of an hour, and in the meantime she waits on a step between two floors. She hears a noise and barely has time to get to her feet: it’s Paul, hurtling downstairs. He’s carrying his bike and wearing a pink helmet.

‘Louise? Have you been here long? Why didn’t you come in?’

‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’

‘You wouldn’t disturb us. On the contrary! Here, these are your keys,’ he says, taking a bunch from his pocket. ‘Go ahead, make yourself at home.’

‘My nanny is a miracle-worker.’ That is what Myriam says when she describes Louise’s sudden entrance into their lives. She must have magical powers to have transformed this stifling, cramped apartment into a calm, light-filled place. Louise has pushed back the walls. She has made the cupboards deeper, the drawers wider. She has let the sun in.

On the first day, Myriam gives her a few instructions. She shows her how the appliances