Thierry Jonquet - Tarantula

“Richard, what’s all this about a gangster, anyway?”

He told her all over again: his return to Le Vésinet, her empty bedroom, the bolts drawn, his alarm at her disappearance. And how he had found her.

“What about this thug? Did you let him go?” Eve was still skeptical and wary.

“No, he’s chained up in the cellar.”

His response was delivered in a low, expressionless voice. For a moment Eve could hardly breathe.

“Richard! You’ve got to go down there. You can’t just leave him there to die!”

“He hurt you. That’s exactly what he deserves.”

She pounded her fist on the table to bring him back to reality. The white wine in her glass, the half-eaten crab on the table, and this inappropriate talk about a guy rotting in the cellar at Le Vésinet—all conspired to give her the impression of being in some surreal play. As for Richard, he was gazing vacantly into the distance. She felt sure that if she had asked him to throw himself from the top of those cliffs, he would have complied without thinking twice about it.

It was already late when they got back to Le Vésinet and went into the house. He led the way down the stairs to the cellar. He opened the door and turned the light on. The guy was there, sure enough, on his knees, his arms stretched wide by the chains she knew so well. When Alex lifted his head, Eve gave out a long cry like the wail of a wounded animal unable to grasp what is happening to it.

Doubled over, barely breathing, she pointed a finger at the prisoner. Then she rushed out into the passage, fell to her knees, and vomited. Richard, who had followed her out, supported her and pressed his hand to her brow.

So this was it. This was the last act. Mygale had dreamed up this whole gangster story, this entire grotesque tale, simply to calm your suspicions. He had tamed you with tenderness, giving in to your whimsical desire to see the sea, only to plunge you back into endless horror!

And this trick of having you discover Alex as a prisoner, just like you four years ago, had the sole purpose of breaking you even further, of driving you even closer (as if that were possible) to the brink of madness .

Yes, that was his plan. Not to humiliate you by forcing you into prostitution, after first castrating you, hacking you up, mutilating you—after destroying your body and fabricating another one, turning you into a toy of flesh and blood. All that was just playing about, just the lead-up to his real goal, which was to drive you mad, as mad as his daughter. Since you had survived every ordeal, he had had to raise the stakes .

Step by step he had brought you low, plunging your head into the darkest waters, then yanking it up by the hair just before you drowned. And now came the coup de grace: Alex!

Mygale was not mad: he was a genius. Who else could have designed such a subtle escalation? The bastard! He had to be killed!

As for Alex, Mygale would have little use for him, as he must know. He surely had no intention of subjecting him to the same torments as you. Alex was a big oaf, a brute; he had amused you at one time: you could do whatever you wanted with him; he would have followed you anywhere, like a dog .

Mygale could do nothing with Alex: the refinements of suffering you had experienced would not be his. Perhaps Mygale intended to make you … Yes, that was it! You only had to look at Alex in his chains, naked as a worm, to see what Mygale had in mind .

One victim was not enough for him: he needed both of them at his mercy. Four years! It had taken Mygale four years to catch up with Alex. What had become of Alex in the meantime? But, above all, how had Mygale managed to find him? You knew you had never breathed a word .

Mygale was there next to you. He was holding you up. The pool of vomit was spreading on the concrete floor. Mygale murmured soft words, my love, my sweet, and fussed over you, wiping your mouth with a handkerchief .

The door to the operating room was open. You made a dash toward the table and grabbed a scalpel. Then you walked slowly toward Mygale with the blade pointed right at him .

They faced each other there in the crude fluorescent light of the concrete cellar. She advanced calmly, scalpel in hand. Richard stood motionless. In the next room, Alex began to shout. He had seen Eve fall to her knees, then drag herself out of his field of vision; now he could see her again, through the half-open door, as she moved forward with the blade.

“My gun, sweetheart! Come over here! He left the gun there!”

Eve came back in and picked up Alex’s revolver, which was indeed still lying on the sofa. Richard had not even flinched and still stood rigid in the passage, holding his ground despite the Colt now trained on his midriff. And then he uttered a few incomprehensible words.

“Eve, I beg you, tell me what all this means!”

She stopped dead, staring at him. Was his mystification faked—another of his tricks? Well, the bastard wouldn’t get away with it that easily!

“Don’t worry, Alex,” she shouted. “We’re going to fix this shitbag once and for all!”

It was Alex’s turn to be mystified. How did she know his name? Lafargue had perhaps told her? Of course, it was that simple. Lafargue had been keeping his wife locked up, and she was seizing this chance to get rid of her husband!

“Eve, kill me if you want. But at least tell me what is going on.”

Richard had let himself slip down the wall to the ground, where he now sat.

“You’re shitting me! You’re shitting me! You’re shitting me!” She had begun by murmuring the words, now she was screaming them. The muscles of her neck bulged, her eyes seemed about to spring from their sockets, and she was trembling violently.

“Eve, please, please, explain.”

“Alex! Alex Barny! It’s him. He was with me. He raped Viviane, too. He even fucked her in the ass, and I—and I held her down. You always thought I was on my own. I never told you different. I didn’t want you going looking for him, too. It’s as much his fault as mine if your daughter is insane, you bastard. But it was I who took all the punishment.”

Alex was listening to the woman. What was she saying? It’s the two of them, he thought; they are playing a weird game with me: trying to make me crazy. But then, as he looked closely at Lafargue’s wife, there was something about the mouth, the eyes…

“Aha! You didn’t know there were two of us, did you? But there were: Alex was my pal. Poor guy, he didn’t get laid much. When it came to the girls, I had to, well, sort of scare them up for him. With your girl it was harder than usual. She was strictly not interested! Feeling her up a bit, kissing her—she quite liked all that. But the second I got my hand up her skirt, that was it. So we had to force her a little.”

Richard shook his head in disbelief, beaten down by Eve’s shouting, her shrill voice still at screaming pitch.

“I went first. Alex held her. She put up a struggle. You were in the inn, stuffing your face and dancing, weren’t you? After, I let Alex take over from me. He had a lot of fun, I can tell you that, Richard. She was whimpering. She was hurt. Not as much as me, with everything you’ve done. I’m going to kill you, Mygale, d’you hear me?”

The truth was, Mygale had never known about Alex. You never told him. When he first told you why he had mutilated you—on account of the rape of Viviane and her going mad—you had decided to say nothing. Your only revenge was to keep Alex out of it. Mygale didn’t know there had been two of you .

You were lying there on the operating table when Mygale first spoke to you about that July evening two years earlier. A Saturday. You were hanging out in the village with Alex with strictly nothing to do. The school vacation had only just begun. You were supposed to go to England soon, while Alex stayed on his father’s farm working in the fields .