Marie NDiaye - Ladivine

Arming herself with a stubborn but amiable expression, Clarisse Rivière assured her that she liked making Freddy Moliger happy, just as she told her she never withdrew a euro from the money Richard Rivière wired to her account, and did not want to.

Ladivine realised that her mother didn’t dare ask Richard Rivière to stop sending that money, that she wouldn’t know how to go about it without seeming aggressive or sentimental or absurdly contrary, and Richard Rivière obviously would have said no, and she would have had to come up with reasons, and so it was easier to say nothing.

But Ladivine knew that, deep in her modest, thick-skinned, battered but unresentful heart, Clarisse Rivière thought it cruelly inconsiderate to be helped out by standing order.

She would have liked to get a letter each time, and the fact that a cheque was enclosed wouldn’t have bothered her in the least, on the contrary.

Richard Rivière thought he had only to direct his bank to wire a fixed amount on a fixed date, and then he could forget it, and that, Ladivine sensed, was what hurt Clarisse Rivière, his seeing to it that he would never have to think about her again, even just once a month.

That was why money was tight for Clarisse Rivière even before she met Freddy Moliger, she would gladly have taken Richard Rivière’s money but she couldn’t agree to receiving it in this way, or ask to be treated more thoughtfully, and this intransigence might have seemed an expression of wounded pride out of character for that unassuming woman, but it wasn’t that, Ladivine knew, because no-one was less proud than Clarisse Rivière, less aware of her dignity, it wasn’t that, it was rather the sign of a pain that still hurt, mute and incurable, the pain that had taken Clarisse Rivière by the throat when her husband walked out of the house and she realised that she too was now out of his life, Richard Rivière’s mysterious new life, as irreversibly as her reflection disappearing from the rear-view mirror when he turned the corner.

“Your father seems to be doing pretty well,” was all she had said to Ladivine of Richard Rivière’s business, and Ladivine didn’t ask for details, almost certain her mother knew nothing more and not wanting to make her confess that ignorance aloud, Clarisse Rivière who for twenty-five years of married life had listened each evening as Richard Rivière told of the cars he’d sold or not sold, the models he particularly loved or found sadly lacking in style or finish, or design, as he liked to say.

Neither Clarisse Rivière nor Ladivine quite knew how Richard Rivière was making all that money in Annecy, and so Ladivine felt vaguely uncomfortable, almost fraudulent, as if she’d stolen her identity as his daughter, when with a broad sweep of her skinny arm the Cagnac woman showed her the fleet of four-wheel drives, saying she hardly needed to explain whom they had to thank for all this, she and Cagnac, and after a moment Ladivine realised she meant Richard Rivière.

Her husband Cagnac was a tanned, lean man with swept-back grey hair and wearing espadrilles adorned with an intricate little knot.

The Cagnac woman introduced Marko and the children to him first, with a fervour that Cagnac must have seen as a sign, thought Ladivine, for a gleam of curiosity, of devout interest, immediately flickered on in his pond-water eyes.

Marko gave him a warm greeting, so casual that he might simply have been arriving at some gathering of friends.

Did he see, Ladivine wondered, the anticipation he aroused in these strangers, full of desire and pious respect, did he see that they’d pegged him as one of them?

When at last Cagnac turned to Ladivine, his wife having left her to introduce herself, the particular gleam in his eyes dimmed, that brief flame of longing and deference giving way to a slightly chilly politeness that was however immediately warmed by the words “I’m Richard Rivière’s daughter.”

Cagnac let out a cry of delight.

For a second time he clasped Ladivine’s hand, having first shaken it somewhat stiffly, and held it for a moment in his, as if to fill himself with some substance peculiar to the Rivières, or to attempt, through his daughter’s flesh, to recapture Richard Rivière’s real presence.

“We owe him so much, you know,” he said with emotion. “And your father’s often told us about you, very often.”

“Is that so?” asked Ladivine, sceptical but thrilled in spite of herself.

Though, she wondered, why should she think Richard Rivière never spoke of her to his friends?

She’d never doubted his affection for her, his only daughter, even when he proved little interested in having her come to Annecy, or in meeting Marko and the children.

And when she thought of Richard Rivière, she told herself love did not have to mean wanting to know all about a person’s life and companions, did not have to mean needing to be with or talk to that person, because this, she believed, was how her father loved, with a love both abstract and unwavering, vague and absolute, incurious and unlimited.

He loved her, she told herself, and that was all there was to it.

And so she’d learned to make do without the usual displays of fatherly love, and the fact that Richard Rivière asked her for news of Daniel and Annika, and often sent them presents as costly as they were inappropriate, but never thought it only natural to want to meet them one day, never even seemed to believe that that was another thing he could do, she accepted all that, since this was how Richard Rivière loved.

“He’s very proud of you,” Cagnac went on.

He cocked his head, narrowed his eyes.

“But you’re not how I pictured you. Completely different. And yet he described you so often, it’s strange.”

She could feel her breath coming heavier, hotter, her scalp prickling.

She scratched her head with a sort of fury, hoping Cagnac would say nothing more.

“We thought you’d be thin and light-haired,” said the Cagnac woman in her cold, jaded voice.

“That’s how my mother is, I mean was,” Ladivine murmured. “He never mentioned your mother.”

“Well, they were divorced,” she said, with a disagreeable sense of defending herself.

“He never told us he’d been married, not to mention divorced. He only talked about you, his daughter, and actually we had the idea you were Clarisse’s daughter.”

“Well, yes, that’s right, my mother’s name was Clarisse,” said Ladivine with a forced little laugh, feeling the blood drain from her cheeks and her lips, her mouth at once horribly dry.

“We must not be talking about the same Clarisse. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. What do you say we sit down to lunch?”

Cagnac must have been afraid he’d said too much, thought Ladivine, relieved, and so neglected his duty to be discreet where his friend Richard Rivière was concerned.

And although she had no desire to go on talking of Clarisse Rivière, although she was in fact delighted at this change of subject, she was astounded to find words crossing her lips, immediately wishing she could cram them back down her throat.

“My mother was murdered in her house in Langon,” she said hurriedly. “The trial will be starting soon.”

“Let’s go and eat, since you’re here,” said the Cagnac woman. “We’ll make do with whatever’s on hand.”

Had she not heard her?

Marko and the children were looking away, towards the gleaming cars, at once uneasy and distant, thought Ladivine, as if unconcerned by all this but nonetheless embarrassed for her, Ladivine, who couldn’t seem to get into the spirit of things.

She’d never spoken so plainly of what happened to Clarisse Rivière in front of Daniel and Annika.

And yet there was no dismay in their faces, in their eyes, still fixed on the shining four-wheel drives, nothing troubled or tense.