Alain Fontanel had been called last by the plaintiffs’ lawyer. After the supervisory staff, the firemen, the experts, the cook. As Fontanel answered the judge’s questions in a confident voice, Philippe Toussaint saw Geneviève Magnan lowering her eyes. When he’d caught sight of her in the corridors of the court, on the first day of the trial, and had learned that she had been at Notre-Dame-des-Prés that night, he’d instantly thought: It’s her who set fire to the room, she took her revenge.
And yet it was when Fontanel was speaking that Philippe Toussaint had felt deeply disturbed. He’d said to himself that he couldn’t be the only one feeling that way, that vertigo when faced with a lie. He’d studied the other parents, watched to see if Fontanel had the same effect on them as on him, but saw nothing. The other parents were dead. Like Violette, all dead. Like the director in the stand for the accused, staring into space, she’d listened to Fontanel without listening to him.
Once again, Philippe Toussaint had said to himself: I’m the only one who’s alive. He’d felt guilty. Léonine’s death hadn’t destroyed him like it had the others. As if, within their couple, Violette had taken it all for herself. Hadn’t shared her grief. But deep down, he knew that it was anger that had picked him up off the floor, kept him above the fray. A subdued, heavy, violent, black anger, which he’d never spoken to anyone about because Françoise was no longer there. Hatred for his parents, hatred for his mother, hatred for those people who hadn’t reacted when the fire . . .
He hadn’t been a good father. An absent father, a distant father, a seeming father. He was too selfish, too focused on himself to give out love. He’d decided only to take an interest in his motorbike and women. All those women waiting to be consumed, like ripe fruit at the grocer’s stall. Over the years, he’d helped himself so liberally to the neighbors that a friend had suggested L’Adresse to him, a place for having group fun. Where the women didn’t fall in love, didn’t take the lead, didn’t sulk, and came wanting just what the guys wanted.
The verdict was announced: two years behind bars for the director, one without remission. And compensation, lots of compensation. Which he’d keep for himself. A habit that his bitch of a mother had instilled into him, “Keep everything for yourself. That woman, she’s just there to bleed you dry.”
When he left the court, his parents were waiting for him outside, stiffer than the proceedings he’d just been through. He’d felt like bolting, leaving thorough a secret door to avoid facing their looks. He couldn’t tolerate them at all since Léonine’s death. His mother, who always blamed everything on Violette, hadn’t been able to lay into her after the tragedy. She’d tried her best, but it was she, after all, who’d insisted that Léonine go on holiday to that wretched place. He had given in and gone to have lunch with them. He’d not been able to swallow a thing or say a thing. On the back of the bill, he’d scribbled, with his father’s pen, used for writing the check: “Edith Croquevieille, director; Swan Letellier, cook; Geneviève Magnan, dinner lady; Eloïse Petit and Lucie Lindon, supervisors; Alain Fontanel, maintenance man.”
He’d returned home on his motorbike, carrying with him, as his only luggage, Fontanel’s testimony: “Me, I was sleeping upstairs. I was woken by Swan Letellier’s screams. The women had already started evacuating the other children. The room downstairs was on fire, impossible to go in, it could have been worse.”
Violette hadn’t reacted when he’d told her the verdict. She had said, “Right,” and had gone out to lower the barrier. At that moment he had thought again of Françoise, of those summers in Biot. He often thought of them, returned to the holidays in his memory when the present depressed him too much. And then he had grabbed the controller of his Nintendo game and played until he was exhausted, shouting, getting annoyed when Mario missed an obstacle, or was getting nowhere fast. When he switched the TV off, Violette had been asleep in their room for a long while. He hadn’t joined her. He had jumped on his bike to go to L’Adresse, to have sex with women who expected what he did: sad sex, climax, a booth. But he couldn’t get Fontanel’s words out of his head, “Me, I was sleeping upstairs. I was woken by Swan Letellier’s screams. The women had already started evacuating the other children. The room downstairs was on fire, impossible to go in, it could have been worse.”
What could have been worse?
Léonine’s death had been bad news for his navel. The navel his mother had taught him to contemplate, no matter what, “Don’t think of others, think of yourself.”
Sometimes, he said to Violette, “We’ll have another kid.” She said yes to get rid of him. Get rid of the man who had abandoned her years ago, the one who cheated on her, not with all the women surrounding him, but with Françoise, the only one he had ever loved. He hadn’t married Violette to make her happy, he’d married her to free himself from his mother, who harassed him.
He had felt enormous sorrow for Violette when she had lost their child. He had suffered more over the grief of his wife than over the loss of his child. He had suffered from not having been able to do anything for her. From not having to look after her. From her silence, never managing to speak to her about anything more than a shampoo brand or a TV program. Not having been able to say to his wife, “How are you feeling?” That, too, he had felt guilty about. He hadn’t even learned how to suffer. In fact, he had learned nothing.
