The Stone Boy (11 page)

Increased dose of Stilnox a week ago and sleeping better (more than six hours of sleep per night). But waking is arduous: I have the sensation of floating all day, which makes my reading time more difficult. I also noticed that my muscles feel weak and my usual trips on foot are more tiring. The effect should wear off in time.

That night, from 10 p.m. to 1, more noises in the attic.

Mouse problem unresolved.

Double the dose.

Notes: Monday 5 October

This morning Isabelle discovered two caramel wrappers rolled into balls on the pavement in front of the gate.

Forget last night’s theory.

The child has begun to communicate with me.

Met Ms. Polin this afternoon to tell her the story about the caramels. She promised to make a note in the file. Told me that the letter calling the Desmoulins parents in for a meeting went out at the end of last week. Given the urgency of the matter (abuse and truancy), she sent it to speed things up. The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday 13 October at the social welfare center.

I called Martin to cancel lunch (I’m too agitated). My son could hardly hide his joy. Said he still would come here tonight to take my blood pressure. Had got a message on Saturday that the nurse was worried (the bitch). Martin plans to revise plans for my long-term treatment.

I took a quarter of Stilnox to be well relaxed if he comes as planned.

DON’T FORGET:

Ask Isabelle to stop cleaning the second floor.

Wait a night before installing traps.

Look for a book on lacto-fermentation at the library.

“Did you ever wonder what my life would have been like if I had a normal mum?”

Madame Préau smiled ironically.

“First of all, what is a normal mum?”

Martin pumped the blood pressure cuff. The cuff tightened around his mother’s left arm.

“A mother like everyone else’s.”

“Oh, right. Common, then.”

“No, a mother who gives a real gift to her son, for example.”

“I take issue with that, Martin. You can’t say that I didn’t spoil you.”

The cuff shrank sharply. Martin put it back in his bag and pulled out a stethoscope.

“Even the year that Dad left?”

The cold metal touching the base of her neck made Madame Préau shudder.

“Maybe not that year. I was very unhappy at the time, you know, and I think that I didn’t do things the way they ought to have been done.”

“Thank you for telling me that. It’s rare for you to acknowledge your mistakes. Giving a hat and mittens for Christmas, that was bloody lousy. Can you lift up your sweater, please?”

“Oh! Well, your mother isn’t perfect, Martin,” replied Madame Préau, pulling up her top, “and I’ve never claimed to be. I grant you that I’m different from other mothers, or at least from the ones I came across during all those years at Blaise Pascal. They all seemed to have been made with the same mold.”

“Now that I would have liked—a mum out of a mold, just like other mums, one who doesn’t talk to ghosts.”

“What are you talking about? I’ve never talked to ghosts. I sometimes hear noises.”

“But you do—I’ve caught you a few times, talking to yourself, alone in the house, whispering stuff to the sink…”

“No. That’s just thinking aloud. When you’re alone like I am all day long, and there’s no one to talk to, then inevitably you start talking to walls, the staircase…”

Martin put the stethoscope away.

“You’re talking to the staircase now? I wonder what exactly it is you have to say to yourself.”

“Nothing, I’m telling you. Are you doing this on purpose? So I talk to myself. You’re annoying.”

“I’m only teasing. You can get dressed…”

Martin closed his threadbare bag. It was reassuring to arrive and find his mother calm and relaxed. Contrary to what the nurse had suggested, she was perfectly fine.

“But still—you must admit that to have a mother who devotes her time to other children can be unsettling for a son.”

“Don’t confuse things, please. It’s true that I gave a great deal of myself to my work. But if I’m not mistaken, your father did, too. And it is for that reason that he left.”

“You told him to leave.”

“Yes, no, well, I asked him to choose; it’s not the same. Anyway. Do you want something to drink before you go home?”

“No, thank you. I’ve got to go; I still have house calls to make.”

Martin got up off of the plush sofa. Madame Préau got up too, pulling her sweater over her long skirt.

“Tell me, son, is the phone number of this house on the do-not-call list?”

“Yes, why? Are you getting calls from telemarketers?”

“It’s annoying but I’ve found a trick. Apropos, never try to reach me at around nine twenty a.m. or five ten. I take the phone off the hook… Where are you going?”

Martin was about to climb the stairs.

“To my room, why?”

Madame Préau grabbed a purple wool shawl from the cupboard in the hall.

“Now? But it hasn’t been cleaned…”

“Oh, I’m just going to take two or three books,” he said over his shoulder as he climbed the stairs.

“I’d rather that you didn’t go up there today. Because of the mice.”

Martin’s voice echoed down the stairs from the first-floor landing: “Mice? We have mice? Are you sure?” He sounded surprised.

“Yes, Martin. I told you, I think they’re hiding in the attic. So I went down to the hardware shop—”

“Good God, Mum, what the hell is this?”

One sharp crack and then another. Martin unleashed a torrent of curses.

“There are at least fifty of them!”

Madame Préau covered her shoulders with the shawl, defeated. He had reached the second-floor landing. Martin would carry on believing that his mother was losing her mind. She had not been careful.

She should have waited until her son had gone before laying all the traps.

On Tuesday, Madame Préau found it hard to do her stretching exercises. She apologized to Mr. Apeldoorn. She explained that her tiredness was caused by the sudden change in the weather: a warmth that viruses loved, turning the flora on its head and disrupting the proper order of things. The constant noise of nearby construction work was also a significant factor.

“It puts your nerves on edge.”

“I want to believe you, Madame Préau. Bend, push!”

That morning, the old lady had checked the mousetraps. But she had her doubts about what the Pakistani man in the hardware shop had sold her: no harm had come to them. Yet she had heard scratching overhead until five in the morning. Perhaps they didn’t fancy the Gruyère she had cut into pieces and spread out on the traps? Maybe the mice took a different route than up the stairs. Isabelle would have to stop cleaning for a few days, and then they could look on the ground and follow their little droppings along the ground straight to their hideout, like Tom Thumb.

“How is it possible that my house is full of so many pests when at least five cats, including one pregnant female, come every day to the garden shed to eat? I wonder if I wouldn’t be better off catching the cats first, and then releasing them in the attic.”

“You know what Albert Schweitzer said—there are two ways to forget life’s worries: music and cats.”

“Sounds more like Michel Tournier.”

“Maybe. I heard it on the telly. Bend, lift. And how did you get on with the lacto-fermentation diet?”

“I started my jars of carrots, turnips, andzucchini. You’re hurting me, Mr. Apeldoorn.”

“Have we decided to be a wimp today? Did you top them up to the brim with brine? Bend!”

On Wednesday morning, the housekeeper had been in a foul mood. She had been muttering as she tied her apron and put on her slippers. She wasn’t happy about having to step over mousetraps in order to dust the second floor.

“Leave the dusting on the second floor and concentrate on the other rooms, Isabelle.”

“That isn’t logical, Madame Elsa.”

“Logical? Because there’s a logic to how the cleaning is done now?”

Isabelle leaned on her broom and sighed drily.

“If I cannot clean upstairs, it’ll come down the stairwell. Dust flies about the place, Madame Elsa.”

Later, the phone rang. It was neither nine twenty nor five ten. The schedule for the automatic calls had changed, and the line crackled loudly. “Do not hang up; your call is being answered by one of our representatives who will be alerted to your call by a beep.” Soft music followed, accompanied by an advertisement that highlighted the significant energy savings to be made by a well-insulated house. Exasperated, Madame Préau finally unplugged the phones in the living room and bedroom.

On Wednesday, leaving her house to go to Dr. Mamnoue’s, the old lady noticed some droppings on the paving stones between the front steps and the gate. A pair of blue tits had taken up residence in the large ash tree. She thought it was a promising sign and an incentive to hold out until Sunday. Not having seen the stone boy for ten days was weighing on her mind. She never would have imagined that time could pass so slowly and that the hours would grind against each other to spite her impatience. At night, Madame Préau had started to dream again. Her dreams were circus acts. Mice rode astride one-eyed cats; Mr. Apeldoorn writhed about in a jar of brine; Dr. Mamnoue, dressed as a clown, walked around the floor with a big “wrong way” sign, holding the hand of a naked woman; her son Martin was in tears holding cotton candy; and in the middle of the tent, Bastien juggled pebbles in a pool of blood.

“Don’t you want us to talk about something other than your phone and this lacto-fermentation diet?” Dr. Mamnoue said with a sigh.

The question surprised Madame Préau.

“What should I be telling you, Claude?”

“About your dreams, for example.”

“I told you: I don’t dream anymore since I started taking sleeping pills.”

“And the child?”

“The child?”

“Your neighbors’ child; do you still see him in the garden?”

Madame Préau leaned against the back of the chair where she sat at each session. She would have to give him something.

“An investigation is ongoing.”

“Oh, right. So this is serious, then? You contacted social services?”

“Yes. The parents have been called in.”

Dr. Mamnoue scratched his left temple.

“Ah! Good. Are you absolutely sure?”

“Do you mean am I sure that the child is being abused? I am certain of it.”

The man shook his head.

“You’ll keep me informed?”

“Of course. It also works well with Swiss chard and radishes.”

“What works with Swiss chard?”

“Lacto-fermentation. You put them in a jar in brine for two or three days in the refrigerator. It doubles the enzymatic potential of the vegetables.”

Dr. Mamnoue gave a chuckle.

“First it was gravel, now it’s vegetables in jars. Luckily there aren’t jars big enough to fit me!”

Madame Préau smiled back.

“Who could have the daft idea of pickling you, Claude?”

9 October 2009

Care of his publisher

for the attention of Mr. Pascal Froissart,

Paris VIII teacher and author

Sir,

I have just finished reading your book about rumors. You make the distinction between history and fantasy. You claim that the Internet plays the role of both memory and distributor but that it does not create rumors. I think that the Internet is the most monstrous invention that man has ever created. Our worst fantasies are found there. It is the largest vehicle of perversity. It is out of the question that a computer would ever be found in my home. For that matter, I have always refused to get a Minitel.

You also say that you do not know how to stop rumors. Sociologically speaking, the more you deny it, the more the rumor will spread, and the greater the number of people who will still doubt you. Of course. Nevertheless, I think that the rumors that are circulating currently about our President are carefully orchestrated and have one sole goal: to instil in the people an image of a man who could be undermined. Believe me, Mr. Froissart—and this is not a rumor but a statement of fact—that man is the opposite of chaos. And he knows how to play this apparent mess. There is even a diet named after him, you know: “the Sarkozy diet, the only crumb-free diet!” Don’t you think that we are in the presence of an absolute master in the art of spreading rumors? Imagine the sympathy he can get from followers of this miraculous regime! (I do mean a nutritional regime, you understand.)