Douglas Kennedy - Woman in the Fifth

‘The police inspector then began to speak, telling me that a passer-by had taken down the number of the car — a black Jaguar — and that they expected to trace the vehicle and apprehend the driver within the next twenty-four hours. “ We are treating this as accidental manslaughter … but I must ask you: Did your husband have any enemies who might have wanted him … ? ” I started screaming again, telling him that Zoltan had been a wonderful dreamy layabout with no ambition whatsoever, so why would anyone want him dead? “ Tres bien, madame ,” the inspector said. “ I am sorry to have posed such a difficult question at this time .”

‘” I want to see them ,” I started screaming. But they refused, informing me that their injuries were too severe. My screaming intensified. “ I don’t care what they look like, I will see them. ” But they still said no, the doctor telling me it would be too traumatic … that Zoltan’s skull had been crushed by the wheels of the car and Judit had been dragged for several meters by the car and her face …

‘That’s when I went crazy — kicking the desk, overturning the chairs, clawing at my face with my nails, and then trying to smash my head against the walls. I remember the policeman and the inspector attempting to hold me down, and me fighting against them, and the doctor running out of the room, and returning with a nurse, and me now shrieking that I wanted to die, and someone forcing my jacket off me and a needle penetrating my arm and the world going dark and …

‘When I came back into consciousness, I was strapped down to a bed in the hospital’s psycho wing. The nurse on duty said that I had been sedated for the past two days. She also told me the police wanted to speak with me. A few hours later, the inspector showed up. By this point, one of the doctors on call had decided I was calm enough to be freed from my restraints, so I was sitting up in bed, still being fed intravenously, as I refused all offers of food. The inspector was all business.

‘” Madame, we have apprehended the driver … ” he said. The man’s name was Henri Dupre. He was an executive with a big pharmaceutical company and lived in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. They were certain that he was very drunk when he killed my husband and daughter — because when they arrested him the next morning at his house, the blood test showed he was still way over the limit … which meant that when he had struck them, he must have been completely bourre . Smashed beyond reason.

‘The inspector also said that one of our neighbors had identified the bodies, and that they had been released to a mortician who had reconstructed their faces, and if I wanted to view them now …

‘But I told the inspector that I didn’t want to see them dead. Because I couldn’t face …’

Silence.

‘We didn’t have many friends in Paris. But my businessman lover, Monsieur Corty, did come and see me. I was still being sedated, still under “suicide watch”, but I could nonetheless tell that he was shocked by my appearance. His kindness was extraordinary. He spoke in a very quiet voice and told me that he would be taking care of all funeral expenses, and that he had spoken with the mortician and that he could hold off for a week or so with the burial until I was well enough to leave hospital.

‘But I said that I didn’t want to be present at the funeral … that I couldn’t bear the sight of their bodies … that they should burn them straight away. I didn’t care what they did with the ashes, because they were just fucking ashes and had no meaning now that my daughter and husband were dead. Monsieur Corty tried to reason with me, but I would hear none of it. “ Burn them now ,” I hissed, and eventually Monsieur Corty nodded quietly and said that, with regret, he would carry out my wishes.

‘A few days later, I was discharged from hospital. Monsieur Corty sent a car for me. I went home to an empty apartment — yet one in which everything seemed completely frozen in that moment in time just before they died. The spaghetti sauce I had been making was coagulated in the pot on top of the stove. Judit’s drawing books and dolls were scattered in front of the fireplace. Zoltan’s reading glasses were still balanced on the arm of the easy chair where he always sat. So too was the book he was reading: a Hungarian translation of Moravia’s Contempt. Do you know the novel?’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘It was filmed by Godard.’

‘We saw it when our marriage was in a happier place. When things started to go wrong, Zoltan became obsessed with both the film and the novel. Because he identified with the central character. Like Moravia’s protagonist, he had lost the respect of his wife. Until he was dead — and every moment of every day was spent mourning him and my wonderful daughter.’

‘You felt guilt?’

‘Of course. Especially when, a few days after being released from the hospital, I was called into the commissariat de police of the Sixth arrondissement . The inspector needed to formally interview me for the dossier of the case. That’s when I found out that the same bystander who managed to get the vehicle’s registration number had also seen Zoltan and Judit right before the accident. Zoltan had seen a taxi on the far side of the road, and ran across with Judit to hail it. Halfway there …’

‘Surely you didn’t blame yourself for …’

‘Of course I fucking blamed myself. If it hadn’t been for me insisting that they rush home for dinner …’

‘That’s absurd, and you know it.’

‘Don’t tell me what’s absurd. Had I been more flexible about things, about my stupid spaghetti sauce …’

Another silence, only this time I didn’t dare fill it. Finally she said, ‘It’s time you left.’

‘OK.’

‘You think me rigid, don’t you?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘No — but I know you hate the fact I shoo you out of here after a few hours and insist that I only see you every three days.’

‘It’s OK, Margit.’

‘Liar. It’s not OK . You tolerate it, but you don’t like it.’

‘Well … if this is the way it has to be …’

‘Stop being so reasonable … especially when I know it’s an act.’

‘Everyone acts in relationships … especially ones as strange as this one.’

‘There! You said it. A strange relationship. So if you find it so strange , why don’t you abandon it? Tell me I’m a rigid, controlling bitch and …’

‘What happens after I leave here?’

‘I work.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Believe what you want.’

‘So what are you translating right now?’

‘That’s my business.’

‘In other words, nothing.’

‘What I do after you leave is my business.’

‘Is there another guy?’

‘You think me that energetic?’

‘No, just completely cryptic.’

‘Do yourself a favor, Harry. Walk out of here now and don’t come back.’

‘Why the melodrama?’

‘Because it won’t end well. It never does with me.’

‘Maybe that’s because you’ve never been able to get over—’

‘Don’t play the psychiatrist here. You know nothing about me. Nothing .’

‘I know … what you just told me … that terrible story …’

‘ What? It “touched your heart”. Or maybe it brought out your long-dormant protective instincts which you didn’t extend to your wife and daughter—’

‘That was a shitty thing to say.’

‘So leave and don’t come back.’

‘That was the point of that comment, right? See if you could really alienate me and make me never want to come back here. But maybe if you stopped blaming yourself—’