Ясмина Реза - Babylon

As he left, Bernard asked who were the woman with the red hair and the guy with the Giscard hairdo? Our upstairs neighbors, we said. They’re funny, Bernard said, I like him. We walked out on the balcony to watch the three of them leave the building, Bernard with his motorcycle and his big helmet, the Dienesmanns rounding the corner holding each other by the waist. No trace of snow left, the sky was starry and the air almost gentle.

I said to Pierre, “Did you think I looked pretty?”

“Very.”

“You didn’t think Jeanne looked glorious?”

“She looked good.”

“Better than me?”

“No, you both looked very good.”

“Does she look younger?”

“No, not at all.”

“Don’t I look younger, though?”

“You look the same.”

“If you didn’t know me, and you were seeing the two of us, which one would you think was better-looking?”

“What do you say we clean up tomorrow?”

“You’d go spontaneously toward which one of us?”

“You.”

“Serge must have told her the same thing in the elevator.”

“Mathematics.”

“You have no credibility. Did you like her shoes? Aren’t those thongs hideous? You don’t think it’s crazy to dress like that at her age?”

“There’s one quiche left . . . Three-quarters of that disgusting chicken loaf.”

“It really was disgusting.”

“Inedible. I’m tossing it . . . huge rice salad . . . Cheese enough for ten years . . . Nobody touched the liver pâté . . .”

“I forgot to put it out!”

“The Black Forest sausage—you could kill a person with it . . .”

“Toss it. Nice of Lambert to bring you—”

“My edition was earlier.”

“Still, nice.”

“Yes.”

“Georges was already smashed when he came in.”

“He’s smashed at eight in the morning.”

“Why do you invite him?”

“He’s all alone.”

“He creates a terrible atmosphere.”

“Let’s go to bed.”

We kept up the debriefing in the bathroom.

“Danielle and Mathieu Crosse, you think that could work?” I began again.

“He seems pretty interested, her I don’t know.”

“I would’ve said the opposite. I’ll call her tomorrow morning.”

“Your pal from upstairs, though, la belle Lydie, she’s way out there in intergalactic space.”

“Oh, you think so!” I laughed. “On a desert island:

Claudette El Ouardi or Lydie Gumbiner?”

“Lydie! A hundred times Lydie!”

“Claudette El Ouardi or Catherine Mussin?”

“Claudette. At least you could have a conversation.”

“Catherine Mussin or Marie-Jo?”

“That’s tough . . . Mussin, with a gag on her mouth.

Now you: Georges Verbot or Lambert?”

“No. Impossible.”

“You have to.”

“Well then—if I wash him and scale his teeth: Georges Verbot.”

“Slut.”

Once we got to bed, I asked Pierre why we’d never used a whip, or handcuffs and all that. He had a terrible reaction: he laughed. It’s true it would make no sense between us. He said, “Georges or Bernard?” I said, Bernard in a blink. He said, “You like him, that jerk!” And that was enough to turn us on.

I was nearly asleep when I heard a noise that sounded like a doorbell. Pierre had put on his miner’s headlamp to read an old SAS spy novel (since Gérard de Villiers died, it hurts him not to have new ones to read). I felt him stiffen, but then there was silence. A few minutes later we heard the same sound again. Pierre sat up to listen more closely, he tapped me and whispered, “Somebody’s at the door.” It was five after two. We both waited, leaning slightly forward, he with his reading lamp still on. Someone was ringing. Pierre got out of bed, he pulled on a T-shirt and undershorts and went to see. Through the peephole he recognized Jean-Lino. He right away imagined a water-pipe break or that sort of thing. He opened the door. Jean-Lino stared at Pierre, he made a strange move with his mouth and then, keeping his lower lip scooped like a bucket, he said, “I killed Lydie.” Pierre didn’t immediately take in the sentence. He stepped aside to let Jean-Lino in. Jean-Lino entered and stopped still by the door, his arms hanging loose. Pierre too. They both stood waiting in the vestibule. I came in wearing pajamas—a Hello Kitty nightshirt and bottoms in checkered flannel. I said, “What’s up, Jean-Lino?” He said nothing, he stared at Pierre. “What’s going on, Pierre?” “I don’t know. Let’s go in the living room.” Pierre turned on a lamp and said, “Sit down, Jean-Lino.” He offered him the couch where he’d already spent a large part of the evening, but Jean-Lino chose the uncomfortable Moroccan chair. Pierre sat down on the couch and motioned me to come beside him. I was ashamed of the room. We’d been too lazy to clean up. We’d said we’d do it all in the morning. We’d emptied the ashtrays but the place still smelled of cigarettes. There were rumpled napkins, scattered plates, bowls of chips . . . On the chest there was still a row of untouched glasses. I wanted to straighten up a little but I sensed that I ought to sit down. Jean-Lino was higher than us on the Moroccan chair. His combover hair hung halfway down on the right side, the other part flapped to the back, it was the first time I’d seen his scalp naked. There was a kind of silence and then I said gently, “What’s going on, Jean-Lino?” We watched his mouth. A mouth trying out different shapes. “Bring us a little cognac, Elisabeth,” Pierre said.

“For you too?”

“Yes.”

I got three vodka glasses and filled them with cognac. Jean-Lino drank his down in one gulp. Something else was strange about his face. Pierre poured him another and we sipped too. I did not understand what the three of us were doing in the middle of the night drinking again in the messy dim living room. After a moment Pierre said, in an ordinary voice as if he were asking a friendly question, “You killed Lydie?” I looked at him, I looked at Jean-Lino, and with a laugh I said, “You killed Lydie!” Jean-Lino set his forearms on the chair frame, but that chair is not made for that, and for a second he looked strapped into an electric chair. I realized he wasn’t wearing glasses. I’d never seen him without glasses. “Where is Lydie?” I said.

“I strangled her.”

“You strangled Lydie?”

He nodded.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“What don’t you understand? He strangled Lydie,” said Pierre.

“Where is she?”

Jean-Lino waved a hand toward the upstairs.

“Is she dead?” Pierre asked.

He nodded and closed his eyes.

“Maybe not,” said Pierre. “Let’s go check.”

Pierre and I stood. I ran into the bedroom to get a sweater and put on slippers. When I got back to the living room Jean-Lino hadn’t moved an inch. “Let’s go see, Jean-Lino,” Pierre encouraged him, “in case she’s alive. You know, it’s not that easy to strangle someone.”

“She’s dead,” Jean-Lino said in a cavernous voice.

“Not sure, not sure, let’s go up!” Pierre was starting to get annoyed. He signaled me to step in. I took Jean-Li-no’s arm. It was unbelievably stiff and stayed clamped to the Moroccan chair. I tried to reassure him, murmuring kind words. I said, “Jean-Lino, you can’t stay in that chair all night.”

“Especially since you’re the only one who’d ever even want to,” Pierre said, trying to tone down the drama.

“That’s certainly true,” I confirmed.

“Every second counts! We’re wasting time!”

“He’s right . . .”

“Get hold of yourself, Jean-Lino!”