Blood Wedding by Pierre Lemaitre Page A

thought stirs no emotion in her. It is a simple fact, nothing more.
    Sophie spends the night sitting at the window smoking cigarettes. Down below, along the boulevard, she can see the halos of the streetlamps and she imagines the prostitutes in the shadows, sheltering under trees, kneeling at the feet of men who grip their heads hard and stare up at the sky.
    By some strange association of ideas, this brings images of the “supermarket incident” flooding back. From her bag, the security guards are taking a series of things she did not pay for and laying them on a metal table. She is doing her best to answer their questions. The only thing that matters to her is that they do not contact Vincent.
    If Vincent finds out that she is mad, he will have her committed.
    Hesaid as much, long ago, in a conversation with a group of friends. Said that if he “had a wife like that” he would have her locked up. He was laughing, it was obviously a joke, but it is something she has never been able to forget. This was the moment when fear took hold of her. Perhaps she was already too far gone by then to make allowances, to see the remark for what it was: a wind-up. For months afterwards, she found herself thinking: if Vincent sees that I am mad, he will have me committed.
    In the morning, at about 6.00 a.m., she gets up from her chair, takes a shower and lies down for an hour before leaving for work. She stares at the ceiling and sobs.
    It is like an anaesthetic. Something makes her act, she feels as though she is cowering deep inside her physical body, as though inside the Trojan horse. The horse does not need her in order to act, it knows what it has to do. All she need do is wait, and keep her hands pressed to her ears.

12
    Thismorning, Jeanne looks as though she got out of bed on the wrong side, but when she sees Sophie arrive, she looks horrified.
    “Jesus, what the hell happened?” she says.
    “Nothing, why?”
    “The face on you . . .!”
    “Yeah,” Sophie says as she goes into the staff room, “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
    Curiously, she does not feel tired. Perhaps it will come later. She sets to work at once, mopping the floors.
    Mindless. You plunge the mop into the bucket, you do not think. You wring it out, swab the floor. When the mop goes cold, you plunge it back into the bucket and start over. You do not think.
    You empty the ashtrays, wipe down the tables quickly, set the ashtrays down again. In a little while, Jeanne will come over and say: “You really don’t look well . . .” But you will not say anything. You will not really have heard her. You will shrug ambiguously. You say nothing. Straining towards the escape you can feel crackling inside you, the necessary escape. Images will appear,more images, faces, you will shoo them like flies, pushing back the lank fringe that falls into your eyes every time you bend down. Automatic. When you are done you will go into the kitchen, into the haze of greasy smoke. Someone is circling you. You look up, it is the manager. You carry on with your work. Unthinking. You know what it is you want: to leave. Soon. So you work. You do whatever it takes. You will do whatever it takes to make it happen. Reflexive. A sleepwalker. You act, you wait. You will leave. You have to get away.
    *
    The end of the shift comes at 11 p.m. By then, everyone is shattered, and the manager has the hard task of galvanising his team so that everything is ready for the next morning. He strides around, through the kitchen, through the empty restaurant, shouting, “Get a fucking move on, we haven’t got all night,” or “Are you planning to do any work at all, you lazy bitch?” By 11.30, everything is done. It is a tribute to his managerial skill.
    Everyone leaves quickly. There are always a few who stand, smoking a cigarette outside, chatting idly, before making for home. Then the boss does one last check, locks the doors and sets the alarm.
    By now, everyone has left. Sophie goes