The Stone Boy (9 page)

She was looking forward to tomorrow.

To play for the child who had asked her to.

So long as it didn’t rain.

Over his sweatshirt, he had donned a dark blue anorak that was too short. His skinny wrists stuck out of his sleeves. It didn’t seem to bother him. He recovered a burst ball and tried to fill it with soil to restore its round shape, scratching his head lazily. The other two children bickered for the swing. Judging this to be right moment, Madame Préau put the binoculars down on the table and went to the living room. She opened the curtains and the window, sat down at the piano, and began a series of Charles-Louis Hanon exercises, which she knew by heart. She continued with a Czerny study and, having the feeling that she wouldn’t go on much longer, she launched into an improvisation, a series of chords with the left hand, against which the right hand picked out a melody. When a moped passed in the street, blocking out the piano with its shrill buzzing, Madame Préau stopped playing. Her joints were hurting and she was suffering from a bad back. She massaged her fingers and then her neck before getting up. Then she listened. On the other side of the street, Kévin’s shouts answered his sister’s taunts. Could he have heard the piano from the garden across the way? The old woman went to the window and peered through the cedar foliage behind the latticed concrete wall. Nothing moved in the weeping birch. She stayed like that for several minutes before returning to her room to get the binoculars. Crouching, the boy continued to fill the flat ball with soil and scratch his head. What was she hoping for? That the child would hold up a banner that read “Thank you for the music”? That he’d applaud at the end of the concert? Madame Préau had no idea. But that there was no change in the child’s behavior affected her so badly that she forgot to eat dinner and went to bed at seven without having washed. In the middle of the night, she was awakened by the passing 2:45 freight train and then by rustling from the attic. As she couldn’t get back to sleep, she went to the kitchen to nibble some biscuits and drink a glass of warm milk. She went back to the bathroom to freshen up and to soak the joints in her aching hands, and listened to the pathetic mewing of a cat coming from the garden shed—was some idiot molly there to mourn the one-eyed tom?—then she lay down again.

It was only in the morning when she opened her bedroom shutters, that she saw it.

The burst ball that the child had filled had landed in her flower bed.

Thursday night dinner had turned into lunch on Mondays at Yakitori Express, a Japanese restaurant. Martin could have taken her to a kebab shop; it would have made no difference. Madame Préau was in a hurry to finish. The place was noisy, the menu sticky, and the food certainly tasteless. But Martin was in the habit of going there. The waitress brought them two overly sweet kirs and prawn crackers, which the medic munched absentmindedly.

“It’s convenient for me here because I’m close to the surgery. That gives us an hour to chat. It’s not bad, is it?”

“If you say so.”

Madame Préau unfolded a paper napkin so thin that it almost flew away.

“So… what does one eat here?”

“Raw fish or meat skewers.”

“Raw fish. You’re sure?”

“I come here almost every day. I haven’t ended up in the hospital yet.”

“Yes. Well, I think I’ll pass. Have you heard from your father?”

Martin stared into his mother’s face. Her features were drawn, her skin dull and slack.

“What’s wrong, Mum?”

“What do you mean, what’s wrong?”

“Usually, you ask me that question at dessert.”

“Oh? Well, today I wanted a change.”

“Are you sleeping well?”

“Yes. Actually, I have a mouse problem.”

“Mice? Where?”

“In the attic. But don’t worry, the problem is about to be sorted.”

Martin swallowed his aperitif in one gulp. He clinked the champagne flute against his mother’s.

“You’re not drinking your kir?”

“No thank you. You know, I’ve gone back to the piano—”

The waitress came to take their orders, interrupting Madame Préau.

“Excuse me, are you ready to order?”

The latter stared at her.

“I feel as if we’ve met… Your father isn’t a piano tuner, by any chance?”

The young woman looked a bit embarrassed. She was having trouble with the term “tuner.” Martin half choked on his prawn crackers.

“My mother is making a joke.”

“I think you look very much like him,” continued Madame Préau.

The waitress nodded and gave a slender laugh, believing it to be a compliment. Satisfied, the old lady put on her glasses and leaned into the menu.

“What do you recommend for the speediest food poisoning, set menu M1 or B13?”

Madame Préau chose her kebabs according to her son’s advice. She told him what she had learned recently about Charcot and Daudet in two biographies borrowed from the library, and expressed her regret that Michel Onfray could publish drivel like
The Aesthetics of the North Pole
or
The Art of Enjoyment
, among other relevant philosophical works; she raged against the hedge cutters who never stopped ringing the bell to offer their services at all hours; and passed quickly on her visit to the Blaise Pascal School.

“You went back there?” gaped Martin. “They let you in?”

“Why not? I am not a terrorist, so far as I know.”

“That’s not what I mean. You can’t just drop into a school anymore. You have to be the parent of a student or have an official reason to go there.”

Madame Préau took no notice. She moved on to another topic of conversation: Isabelle.

“I’m not sure I want to keep her.”

Martin dropped his chopsticks.

“Don’t start this again, Mum. You’re not going to make us go through the ‘maid who goes through your things and steals your jewelry’ rigmarole again. Isabelle is perfect. She has been taking care of the house for years. When you were away—”

“When the cat’s away, the mice will play.”

Martin glared into his mother’s eyes.

“Let me be clear: if Isabelle goes, you go, too!”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

Leaning toward her, enunciating each word, he said, “I’ll send you to a retirement home.”

Madame Préau carefully rested her chopsticks on the plastic place mat. The reappearance of her ex-daughter-in-law in her son’s life was making itself felt: this was a speech that showed how Martin was being fed hostility toward her. Never underestimate the power of the enemy. She knew it was too early to get rid of the housekeeper. She would get back to that later. For now, there was an important matter to resolve: to learn about the Desmoulins family. She had to get to the bottom of the story of this child who doesn’t exist: why is he not in school, and why does his sister deny his existence while still putting him in her drawings?

“You’re still seeing Dr. Mamnoue on Wednesdays?” asked Martin.

“Of course.”

“How’s it going?”

Madame Préau straightened, taking on the air of a circumspect headmistress.

“Well, we discuss many different subjects. The lamentable state of public services in the region, for example. Abolishing the business tax represented a loss of three hundred million euros in taxes for Seine-Saint-Denis. And, for now, there is still no compensatory allowance from the state. I am very worried for the future of corporate taxpayers. Be that as it may, you can call him if you want.”

“I will call him. Are you sure you’re taking your sleeping pills?”

“Yes, yes, don’t worry. All is well. And my blood pressure is good. So long as I don’t eat too much of this food tainted with MSG, I shouldn’t fade away.”

Despite his age, Martin still needed to be reassured.

Madame Préau made sure that he was.

She put a hand on his left arm and smiled tenderly.

She did not speak of Bastien, or of the burst ball in her garden.

After he dropped her off, Madame Préau waved at her son from the front porch. The old woman did not open the door. She went back down the steps and closed the gate behind her. A moment later, she was sitting in the number 229 bus. Madame Préau got off a few steps from 4a Rue Alsace-Lorraine. She was received immediately by Ms. Polin, the social worker on duty, a woman in her fifties with her skin still tanned from her holidays; an alleged abuse case was a priority.

On the walls of the office where they sat, posters aimed at a public in trouble set the tone for the interview: sordid affairs were handled here. On one of the posters, a baby was pictured sitting in a high chair. His terrified eyes reflected the slogan inscribed under his chair:
The only witness to the domestic abuse of women is often two years old.
AIDS, hepatitis B, illiteracy, pedophilia, violence against women—each image was a slap to Madame Préau, helpless in the face of so many evils. Leaning on her handbag as she sat on a chair with a gray faux-leather backrest that dug into her middle, she felt the blood pounding quickly in her veins.

“Can you tell me more about this child?”

Name and address of the parents, approximate age and general condition of the boy. Ms. Polin noted the details given by her interviewee carefully on a large notepad. Her right hand slipped nervously onto the page. A pendant that matched a pair of cherry earrings shimmered with her movements.

“You say he’s not in school?”

“It seems not. His brother and sister are currently in the Blaise Pascal School. The parents have been living in the area for two years, so the child must have been doing his last year of kindergarten in the same school. But the school headmistress assured me that Laurie and Kévin were the only Desmoulins children to have been registered.”

“You spoke to the headmistress?”

“Very briefly.”

“This doesn’t mean that he hasn’t been in school: perhaps he’s still attending his old school. We would need to know their previous address to check. Have you witnessed any mistreatment of the child?”

Madame Préau shifted in her seat. The interview was making her uncomfortable.

“I’ve never really seen him up close.”

“Do you mean to say that you haven’t met him?”

Madame Préau crossed knees.

“No. But I have been watching him playing in the garden every Sunday for months, and the view from my window is unobstructed.”

Ms. Polin raised an eyebrow.

“From your window?”

Madame Préau pulled at the hem of her black skirt. She had the feeling that she had suddenly crossed over to the wrong side.

“From my window, yes. Listen, I know that an old lady who spies on her neighbors from behind the curtains sounds… well. But I wouldn’t have come to bother you if… The life of a child is in danger, do you understand?”

The social worker rubbed the top of her pen mechanically with her thumb.

“Madam, may I ask your age?”

“I use binoculars,” answered Madame Préau weakly.

“I couldn’t quite hear you.”

The old woman coughed lightly.

“I use opera glasses. And I hope that your vision is as good as mine when you’re over seventy.”

Ms. Polin readjusted her garnet-colored rectangular glasses.

“I think that ship has sailed.”

“Pardon?”

“I’m talking about my prescription,” she said, tapping her frames with a pen before rereading her notes. “So far, we have an initial witness statement based on an observation of a child of about seven or eight years of age living some thirty meters from your home, a child who never leaves his house and who isn’t being educated either. Right. Any other witnesses? Family members? Neighbors?”

Madame Préau shook her head.

“I live alone. And the part of the garden where the child stays isn’t visible from any other house because of the weeping birch tree that his little sister put in a drawing for school—under which you can see the outline of a child.”

“I see. I am going to pass on these details to the CPIO. But I must ask if you would like your name to appear in the file, or if your statement is anonymous.”

“What is the CPIO?”

“An office that collects information of concern. It works in conjunction with Child Social Services, based in Neuilly-sur-Marne.”

Madame Préau refused to let her name and address go on the report on the grounds that she didn’t want the neighbors to know that she was the source of the report.

“I don’t know them, and I’d be worried about how people might react, you know.”

“That’s understandable.”

“How many days will it take for the office you mentioned to process the report?”

“It shouldn’t be too long, but don’t expect to hear from us any sooner than a month from now if all goes well.”

“A month? But that’s frightfully long! What if the child is suffering?”