Dominique Manotti: Lorraine Connection

‘Did you check whether my mother made any phone calls in the hour before her death?’ The cop stalls, slightly worried.

‘I repeat that we are doing, and will do, everything in our power.’

In the lobby, Aisha’s father is pacing up and down, yelling a string of unintelligible curses, wailing and banging the walls with his fists and his head. Beside him, Amrouche is desperately trying to calm him down. Rolande comes out of the room. Aisha’s father throws himself upon her, grabs her by the coat collar and shakes her, howling, then throws her to the ground and runs off. The psychologist is there like a shot, helping her to her feet. Amrouche also comes over.

‘Ali, can you tell me what’s going on?’

‘Saidani repudiates his daughter and holds you responsible for all his misfortunes.’

‘But why?’

‘The doctor told him that his daughter was pregnant.’ Silence. ‘And that she probably committed suicide because she didn’t dare tell him. The old man is blaming the factory, her girlfriends — you included — for corrupting his daughter. He won’t forgive her, and he won’t forgive you.’

Appalled, Rolande glances around the foyer. There is no one there except Amrouche, the psychologist, and herself. She sees a bench against a wall. Her legs give way, she collapses on to it, breathless and trembling, her hands resting on her knees.

‘I don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it. How can anyone have said such terrible things to Aisha’s father?’

‘Rolande, calm down. Aisha could have been pregnant. During the strike she did … you know … what people do to end up pregnant.’

‘That was two weeks ago. How would she have known? And decided to commit suicide because of that?’

‘Women know when they’re pregnant, they know it straight away, that’s all.’

‘What do you know about women, Ali, can you tell me? You always side with management and the cops. You’re a scab, Ali. Go away, it would better for everyone if you cleared off.’ She turns to the psychologist. ‘Where is she, the psychologist who told Aisha’s father all that filth? I want to give her a piece of my mind.’

The woman in the simple, elegant suit hesitates, clearly ill at ease, before coming over and sitting on the bench beside Rolande. Then she takes the plunge.

‘There was no psychologist present during the interview with Mr Saidani, only the forensic doctor and a police officer. As it is a suicide, you understand, Mr Saidani isn’t strictly speaking the father of a victim …’

Rolande feels giddy, as if she’s spiralling down into a bottomless well.

‘You don’t believe these things, you don’t believe them until they happen to you. The lives of the working class count for nothing. We can be raped, crushed or hanged, and nobody gives a shit.’

The two coffins sit side by side on trestles in the windowless room inside the morgue, which serves as the chapel of rest. Aisha’s coffin is open: her ashen face is very beautiful with her eyes closed and her hair parted down the middle and looped back at the sides. On seeing her, Rolande cries. Rolande’s mother’s coffin is closed. A corpse not fit to be seen. Soft lighting, two big candles burning, and chairs around the coffins. Rolande has decided to spend the night keeping vigil over her two dead, a priest will come and bless them tomorrow morning. Later the coffins will be buried in Pondange’s small cemetery.

The room gradually fills up. Women. Her workmates. Word has got around, they come with bunches of flowers picked from their gardens, sprays of autumnal leaves gathered in the forest. They need vases, the morgue’s supplies are exhausted, and they rush off home to fetch some more. Soon the two coffins disappear beneath a sea of plants. Rolande smiles. Hands over hands, warm kisses on her cheeks, arms around her shoulders, it reminds her of the atmosphere in the factory, women together, understanding, supportive. The women settle down to spend the night there. One has brought a thermos of mulled wine, another a plum tart, still others cakes, chocolates. It’s getting late. The women break up into small groups. The work shifts have more or less re-formed, they chat to keep themselves awake. Sitting on a chair, her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands, Rolande listens to the hubbub of conversation all around her. Aisha, her beauty, her way of speaking, intense, determined, naive too. Aisha, the virgin without a man, hardly surprising given the father she had, he’d beat her first, ask questions later. ‘You know he left Pondange today?’ ‘Apparently he’s gone to live with his son, not even attending his daughter’s funeral, can you understand that?’ ‘Not a happy person, Aisha. Do you remember the Korean engineer’s accident? Covered in blood, a nightmare, Aisha was so distraught I thought she’d never return to the factory.’ But she did return. ‘Brave woman.’ And then, same thing again, Émilienne’s accident. Unlucky. ‘She never laughed, did she?’ ‘We should have rallied round her, then maybe she wouldn’t have killed herself.’

Killed herself. Aisha. Rolande clamps her mouth shut with both hands to stop herself from screaming. You didn’t commit suicide, I know you didn’t. Flashback: Étienne’s funeral, accidents happen so easily, she hears her own voice, the woods, the dead leaves at this time of year, the grounds slippery … the cops say accident. The cops say suicide. What would be the point of saying to the girls: Étienne and Aisha were murdered? They’d never admit it. Life’s hard enough as it is. Order, justice, you’ve got to believe in something. Otherwise, what would they do from now on? But you, you can’t believe in them any more. You’ve seen it first-hand. It’s a question of dignity.29 October

The men arrive in the morning. The room is beginning to feel stuffy and smell of wilted flowers. Amrouche is the first, touching with his clumsy kindness and concern. He sits down beside Rolande.

‘If you don’t want to go back to your apartment after all this, I’ll lend you my house for as long as you need to get over it all. I can turn the top floor into a flat for you, it’s not big but it’s comfortable and quiet, you know, you’ll be completely independent. And then there’s the garden …’

Rolande cries for the second time that night, her face buried in her hands. Maréchal has appeared too. Rolande gets up and takes his arm.

‘Come for a walk, I want to talk to you.’

They pace up and down the empty foyer, where Rolande hears Aisha’s father’s helpless rage echoing again. From her coat pocket she takes the list Montoya gave her. Maréchal gives it a cursory glance, then gives it back to her without a word.

‘Naturally, you know about this Mr Maréchal, you’ve already seen this list, you know who produced it and why. You have to explain.’

‘If you’re asking me to …’

Maréchal tells her how he was in Quignard’s office when Park telephoned him during the occupation; about the ‘bonuses’ paid to the Korean managers in guise of payment of phoney invoices; about Quignard, who finds out about the scam when it’s too late to do anything about it. Then he pauses.

‘You didn’t let matters rest there, Mr Maréchal, I know you. I saw quite clearly that you were as upset as I was to see your name on that list. If I managed to get hold of it, then you …’

Maréchal puts his arm around Rolande’s shoulders and they take a few steps in silence.

‘Come and sit down.’

He steers Rolande towards the bench. They sit down side by side. He turns to face her while he speaks.

‘Given where this list of bank accounts was found by Neveu, one of the company accountants was clearly involved. There are only two. I plumped for Germont. A sad character, married to a harridan who’s pathologically jealous and keeps an eye on him the minute he sets foot outside the factory, but he can afford to bet heavily on the horses. So he’s making money on the side. I went to see him and he spilled the beans. I shan’t explain the entire scheme to you, because I didn’t understand it completely. It was a complicated set-up that Daewoo negotiated directly with the Luxembourg bank. The main thing, Ms Lepetit, is how the accounts operate. We are supposed to have signed proxies for Germont and Park. With our names and code numbers, Germont can make transfers from one account to another on his own. But it needs both Germont and Park’s signatures to withdraw money. Or the signature of one of the account holders, you or me for example, as long as they know the code. As this eventuality had never been envisaged, it hadn’t been ruled out either. Is that what you wanted to know?’