After the speech for the defense, everyone had to leave the court to go and have a drink in Aix while the jury was deliberating. The weather was lovely, as always in Aix, and that neither gladdened nor saddened Irène. Lovely weather had never had any effect on her. She didn’t give a hoot about it.
Nadia Ramirès went off to the Saint-Esprit church to light a candle. Irène went into a random café, not fancying sitting at a terrace like all the others. She went upstairs to have peace. She wanted to read. The previous evening, when Paul, her husband, was already asleep, she had started a novel, which she now longed to get back to.
Mr. Prudent, who liked the sun but not the crowds, was there alone, sitting in a corner. Waiting for the verdict on his client, leaning against a closed window. Staring into space, he smoked one cigarette after another. Although he was alone upstairs, a smoky fug filled the room, right up to the lights. Before stubbing one out, he would use it to light the next. Once again, Irène froze at the sight of his right hand as it crushed the butt in the ashtray.
In the novel from the previous day, she had read that an invisible thread links those who are destined to meet, that this thread can become tangled, but never break.
When Gabriel Prudent saw Irène Fayolle at the top of the stairs, he said to her, “You were in court earlier.” It wasn’t a question, merely a comment. There had been many people in the court. And she had been at the back, on the second-to-last bench. How had he noticed her? She didn’t ask. She sat in a corner, in silence.
And as if he had heard her thoughts, he began to describe to her the outfits worn by each member of the jury and the deputies, by the defendants, and by all those in the public gallery. One after the other. He used strange words to describe the color of some trousers, a skirt, or a sweater, “amaranthine,” “ultramarine,” “whiting,” “chartreuse,” “coral.” He might have been a dyer, or a fabric seller at the Saint-Pierre market. He had even noticed that the lady at the far left of the third bench, “the one with a jet-black bun, poppy scarf, and linen-gray outfit,” was wearing a brooch in the form of a scarab. During this extraordinary sartorial description, he flapped his hands at certain moments. Especially when he needed to say the word “green,” which he hadn’t said. As if this word were forbidden him, he had used the words “emerald,” “peppermint cordial,” pistachio,” and “olive.”
Still silent, Irène Fayolle wondered what, for a lawyer, was the point of identifying each person’s clothing
Once again, as if he had heard her think, he told her that, in a court, everything was written in the clothing. Innocence, regrets, guilt, hatred, or forgiveness. That each person chose exactly what he or she wore on the day of a verdict, whether it was on them or on someone else. Like for one’s funeral or one’s marriage. That there was no room for chance. And that according to what each individual wore, he was able to predict whether it was someone from the plaintiff’s side or the opposite side, the prosecution or the defense, a father, brother, mother, neighbor, witness, lover, friend, enemy, or busybody. And that he adapted his speech for the defense according to the clothing and appearance of each individual when he directed his words and eyes at them. And that, for example, she, Irène Fayolle, from the way she was dressed today, it was clear that she was not implicated in this business. That she was totally unbiased. That she was there as a dilettante.
“As a dilettante.” He actually used those words.
She didn’t have time to respond because Nadia Ramirès had just joined her. She told Irène that she was crazy to shut herself away in this bistro in such beautiful weather, that her man, he would have dreamt of sitting at a terrace. And that if he were acquitted, they would sit at every terrace in Aix, one after the other, to celebrate. And Irène Fayolle thought: Well, my dream is to continue reading the novel at the bottom of my bag . . . or to set off for Iceland with the man with the hands who is chain smoking at the end of this room.
Nadia greeted Mr. Prudent, told him that his defense speech was outstanding, that, as agreed, she would pay him a little every month, that her Jules would surely be acquitted thanks to him. And the lawyer replied, between two drags, in a deep voice:
“We’ll know that later, after the deliberations. You’re looking lovely, I really like the dragée-pink dress you’re wearing. I’m sure it must have raised your husband’s spirits.”
Irène had a tea, Nadia an apricot juice, and Gabriel a draft beer with no foam. He paid for it all and left before them. Irène looked at his hands one last time; they were clutching his files. Two great pincers gripping the case in progress.
Irène Fayolle couldn’t access the public gallery for the verdict; only family members were admitted. But she waited outside the court, at the end of the walkway, to observe the color of people’s clothes as they came out. She saw the ultramarine sweater, the coral dress, the mint-cordial skirt, and the scarab of the woman with the jet-black bun. She clocked them all, one after the other.
Irène returned alone to Marseilles. Nadia Ramirès stayed in Aix to celebrate the acquittal of her Jules from terrace to terrace.
A few weeks later, Irène closed her hairdressing salon and took up horticulture. She felt that she wanted to do something else
