Viviane (3 page)

After leaving her with the sitter, Viviane heads straight for Boulevard de la Chapelle. She's wearing a houndstooth ensemble beneath her gray coat, the clouds are streaming away precisely parallel to the railway tracks, and everything seems very organized. She takes the 5 line in the métro, which drops her off six minutes later at République, where she switches to the 8 line bound for Créteil-Préfecture. It's obvious: the murder weapon must go back where she found it. Of course one can simply get rid of it in the Seine, but it's always when one goes to dispose of the incriminating evidence that a witness just happens to pop up, luckily for the law. Yes, the knife must go back to Julien's place, to the shelf where it has slept ever since it arrived, instead of resting quietly in a kitchen drawer from which one would remove it, once a week, to dissect the Sunday roast.

Emerging from the métro at Michel-Bizot, Viviane takes Rue de Toul to Louis-Braille. Number 35 is a middling-size apartment building constructed sometime during the 1970s. She crosses the small garden, pushes open the door, and runs into the concierge washing the floor beneath the mailboxes.

Ah, Madame Hermant, how nice. Imagine, I just saw your husband yesterday evening. With someone.
Don't worry, she's much too young for him. Be patient and he'll come back, believe me, and crawling, too.

Thank you, thanks, Viviane stammers in confusion. I was wondering if he'd left any mail in the box.

Um, no, I think he took it up. But I still have the key for upstairs. If you like, we can go take a look.

Viviane couldn't have asked for more, to be invited in without appearing to have her own key. She carefully avoids the damp area where the mop has passed while the concierge looks in her lodge for the keys and then follows her upstairs, where she opens the apartment door without a qualm, as if she spent every day snooping around empty premises. She peeks under both a cushion on the sofa and the TV schedule in the kitchen, then announces without further details, well I'm going to look around in the bedroom. Viviane hurries down the hall after her, then nips into the second bedroom. While the other woman inspects the master bedroom, Viviane puts the knife case back.

Aha, looky here, crows the concierge on the other side of the wall. Joining her, Viviane sees that she has picked up, at the foot of the bed, a scrap of shiny plastic that might well be a condom wrapper, but once the concierge has unfolded it, disappointment: the contents
were simply chewing gum. Viviane shows her the old slippers snatched up from the back of the closet to justify having lingered in the other bedroom: I thought I'd pick these up as long as I'm here. Oh, go right ahead, dear, whyever would you leave that man any presents, after all. They finish touring the apartment; there is no mail anywhere. Viviane leaves the concierge to lock up. Thanks anyway, Madame Urdapilla, it was really nice to see you.

Then she walks to Place Félix-Éboué, where she orders a plain ham baguette sandwich and a sparkling water in a brasserie—no, give me a glass of wine instead, white, yes, that's fine. Outside the glass-enclosed terrace, the eight bronze lions of the fountain spit out water like lamas. Tiring of the lions, Viviane chews on a bite of sandwich, spots a copy of a daily paper lying on the end of the counter, and stops chewing.

Flipping through the front pages of
Le Parisien
, of no interest to her, she stops at page thirteen, which has news-in-brief items, then homes in on the lower left column headed “Homicide”: “A secretary kills her ex-boyfriend.” Nothing to be learned there. The thirty-nine-year-old woman was questioned three hours after the incident in her home in Normandy. Detectives
know their job, they're specialists in this kind of amateur murderess. So what are the police doing? It's half past twelve. The doctor has been dead since yesterday evening and must have been found quickly—a patient, a worried wife stuck with the leg of lamb and parsley potatoes getting cold. There would have been weeping and wailing; a neighbor would have rushed to the scene of the crime and dialed the emergency number in front of the wild-eyed widow.

Sooner or later, the phone will ring: a detective would like to know how Viviane spent her evening, why she asked for an urgent appointment, because the patient who was there with the doctor that morning when he took the call will have reported their conversation. All they had to do was go through the doctor's address book to find out with whom he was speaking; you're so stupid, Viviane, really so stupid, you should have taken his phone, it was right there on the desk, you remember that perfectly.

Before folding up the paper, she consults the horoscope on the last page: “Love: Something is changing in your relationship. Success: You might find yourself at a kind of turning point. Health: A little nervous tension.” She drains her glass and leaves the brasserie, considers
taking the métro, then decides to proceed on foot. She walks and thinks faster and faster beneath the methodically aligned clouds overhead. With a bit of luck, the police will be swamped with work. And anyway, the success rate in homicides is what?—80 percent according to government statistics, not counting judicial errors, so that makes at least a 20 percent chance of going scot-free she thinks as she goes along Rue Faidherbe and Rue Saint-Maur. Besides, there is no criminal record or motive, and the doctor considered her such a boring patient that his files can't possibly contain anything suspicious. Viviane goes around the Hôpital Saint-Louis on its north-northwest side. About five hundred feet to the right and she's back at Place du Colonel-Fabien, and now it's a straight shot home, and now in the pocket of her big gray coat the phone begins to vibrate.

4

Set back from Place Maubert and hidden by a row of local shops, the police headquarters of the 5th arrondissement occupies a large city block bounded by Boulevard Saint-Germain, Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Geneviève, Rue des Carmes, and Rue Basse-des-Carmes. Intentionally or not, its architecture seems to have been inspired by a military esthetic exemplified by the bunkers, blockhouses, and submarine bases built by the Germans along the French coasts during the Occupation. In short, it's pretty ugly.

Crossing the lobby, their clenched fists clammy with perspiration, Viviane and her daughter arouse no interest among the officers in confab around the security gate. The clerk at the information counter, however, studies this mother with a touch of suspicion upon learning that she has been summoned by Inspector
Philippot of the Criminal Investigation Division. Well of course she has no idea what he wants, shut up Viviane, you're getting confused, digging yourself in deeper, shut up. Go to the fourth floor, replies the clerk, and wait there until you're called.

Stepping out of the elevator, she sees plastic chairs lined up in front of offices with blue-tinted glazed partitions and Venetian blinds. It all looks exactly like the cop shows on television. Upon closer inspection, though, police housekeeping leaves much to be desired and the walls could use a lick of paint.

An officer signals to Viviane to sit down and she sits down. Watching the comings and goings in the corridor, she can easily tell the plainclothes police, moving casually around the offices, from the real civilians tiptoeing in or dashing for the exit. After fifteen minutes the baby begins to fuss, cry, and finally scream outrageously. Everyone looks at Viviane, who blushingly rises to pace the corridor. She whispers comforting words to her daughter but so unconvincingly, since she herself has little reason to feel reassured, that the child only wails even louder.

A door opens to reveal a very tall, very handsome man. He towers over the mother by a good head and slips a sidelong glance at the infant, who clams up. Come in,
says Inspector Philippot, let's end this agony. They enter an office with a table piled high with files, a chair on either side, an old computer in a corner, and no charm whatsoever.

So, my dear lady, you are a patient of Dr. Jacques Sergent. How did you learn about his death? Then he stares piercingly at Viviane who has gone completely mindless. The policeman's head is perfectly smooth and he has full lips, like a pale-eyed Yul Brynner. His sky-blue shirt matches his eyes, his sandy jacket matches his skin. He's about fifty-three, fifty-four. She likes him a lot. She likes him a lot and he's going to nab her because he doesn't seem like an idiot.

He's dead? she asks innocently but without much hope. How could he be dead? I saw him the other day, he was fine, and who's going to take care of me now?

Funny, that's what they all say, notes the inspector ironically. When was your last appointment?

I was there Friday. Yes, Friday, I had a noon appointment. That's been my schedule for the last two months, with the Wednesday one at ten a.m. Before that I was pregnant, she explains, indicating her daughter with a tiny jut of her chin, the way one points to vegetables at the market or change lying on a counter.

And it went well?

I'm not going to lie to you, says Viviane after a pause during which she thinks I'd be better off lying, then no, I'm a lousy liar, he'll never believe me, and finally, let's be frank, maybe I can buy myself some credit. So Viviane says, I'm not going to lie to you, it never goes very well.

Yes?

Yes what? she shoots back. Sorry, he used to say that. He would keep saying yes instead of answering my questions, it was very irritating.

You're nervous.

Correct, I'm nervous, that's why I consult a specialist.

But he gets on your nerves.

So what are you trying to make me say, that I have problems? Because I can confess to that right now. Yes, I have plenty of problems and I'm worn out, my husband has left me, and she starts to cry.

Okay okay okay, the inspector says, because although he's relentless in his search for the truth, he doesn't seem too comfortable with personal secrets. And what were you doing last night between five and midnight?

I was home with my daughter, says Viviane, sniffling but without worrying because that's hardly a lie:
at five she was there, at home with her daughter, and at midnight as well. Then she adds too quickly, if you don't believe me, you can ask my mother. She called me around eight, she'll tell you, now excuse me, I'm going to take a tablet to calm down.

You're on medication?

The doctor had me take some now and then. But they're completely ordinary prescriptions, see, I've got one with me.

Yul glances at the paper, jots down a few words, probably the name of the drugs, and hands back the prescription. Viviane's stomach is heaving. It's the prescription the doctor wrote her yesterday, with the date in the upper right-hand corner. Her fingers are shaking as she puts it back in her purse, but Yul's mind is elsewhere. She doesn't seem to interest him very much and how can she resent him for that? She can tell that this interrogation makes her seem like a soon-to-be divorcée, garden variety, and such dry soil isn't fertile terrain for murderous germs and deadly herbs.

But tell me, dear lady, why did you call the doctor at ten thirty-eight yesterday morning?

Think fast, Viviane, think, say something, anything to break this guilty silence. Well, yes, she finally replies,
I was feeling faint. He gave me an emergency appointment at six thirty but I couldn't make it, I didn't find anyone to look after my daughter, just ask my mother.

And you couldn't have mentioned that earlier?

I thought, pleads Viviane as she begins crying again, that it would look suspicious even though you can see I had nothing to do with it, and the inspector doesn't bother to disagree, he finds her so lackluster as a suspect.

Then the telephone interrupts them and Philippot spends a few minutes paying close attention to the caller, saying little while fresh evidence appears to be on offer at the other end of the line. At last he hangs up and says fine, that's enough for today.

I'm free to go? asks Viviane in surprise.

Right, you're free, replies Yul as he escorts her to the exit, limiting contact with the grateful eyes of the mother and the more cautiously circumspect gaze of the child. You really could have found someone to take care of her, you know, he says a bit more pleasantly.

5

The article in
Le Parisien
the next day, Wednesday, November 17, poses all sorts of problems. According to the paper, the doctor's body was not found until the morning after his death—and not by his wife or a patient but by a green-eyed redhead in an advanced state of pregnancy, a resident of L'Argentière-la-Bessée in the Hautes-Alpes, someone about whom one might well wonder what she was doing there on Tuesday at six thirty a.m. Then there was some difficulty in tracking down Madame Sergent. Although officially residing with her husband in a comfortable apartment on Rue du Pot-de-Fer, she appeared to spend her nights in a two-room flat on Rue du Roi-de-Sicile belonging to one Silverio Da Silva. Who—a psychoanalyst but not a psychiatrist, or even a doctor or state-certified psychologist, in short a simple lay analyst credentialed by
the goodwill of his peers—did not deny being the widow's lover. Instead of getting huffy when the investigators asked him, in their petty bureaucratic way, if it didn't bother him to borrow another man's wife, he attempted to point out that the human experience cannot be reduced to the laws of civil society, or rather that one sometimes enjoys transgressing them. Well naturally, riposted the public servants as they locked him up for the night. “Love: You are paying less and less attention to your look. Success: Avoid decisions that might affect your future. Health: Allergies.”