From time to time, a village appeared, with a rural church steeple jutting up. Then a spotlessly white water tower trembled in the hazy light. It seemed unbelievable that they were just a few miles from Paris.
Laurent launched his last distress flare. "Just promise me you'll agree to have more tests done. And I don't mean a biopsy. It will only take a few days."
"We'll see."
"I'll go with you. I'll devote all the time we need. We're with you-you do understand that?"
Anna did not much like the word we. Laurent was in full association with Ackermann. She was already more of a patient than a wife.
Suddenly, from the top of the hills of Meudon, Paris appeared in a flash of light. The entire city lay there, with its endless white roofs, glittering like a lake of ice, stuck with crystals, peaks of frost and clumps of snow, while the skyscrapers of La Défense stood like icebergs. Gleaming with clarity, the city was burning in the sunlight.
This dazzling sight cast them into a dumb stupor. They crossed the Sèvres bridge then drove through Boulogne-Billancourt without exchanging a word.
When they were approaching Porte de Saint-Cloud, Laurent asked: "Shall I drop you off at home?"
"No, at work."
"You told me you were taking the day off" His voice was tinged with reproach.
"I thought I'd be more tired than this," Anna lied. “I don't want to leave Clothilde on her own. On Saturdays, the shop's taken by storm."
"Clothide and the shop.." he said sarcastically.
"What about it?"
"This job. I mean… It's beneath you."
"Beneath you, you mean."
Laurent did not reply. Maybe he had not even heard her last comment. He leaned forward to see what was happening in front of them. The traffic had ground to a halt on the bypass. Impatiently, he asked the driver to get them out of there.
Nicolas got the message. From the glove compartment, he produced a magnetic flashing light, which he placed on the roof of the car. With its siren blaring, the Peugeot 607 pulled out from the traffic jam and sped away again. Nicolas kept his foot down.
His fingers gripping the back of the seat, Laurent followed each turn, every twist of the wheel. He looked like a little boy concentrating on a video game. Anna was always amazed to see that, despite all his qualifications and his job as director of the Ministry of the Interior's Centre des Etudes et Bilans, Laurent had never forgotten the excitement of the beat, the call of the street. Lousy cop, she thought.
At Porte Maillot, they turned off the bypass and into Avenue des Ternes, where the driver at last switched off the siren. Anna was back in her universe. Rue Saint-Honoré and its precious window displays, the Salle Pleyel with its high bay windows through which, on the first floor, slender dancers could be seen moving around; the mahogany arcades of Mariage Freres, where she bought her special teas.
Before opening the door, she picked up the conversation where the siren had interrupted it.
"It's not just a job, you know. It's my way of staying in contact with the outside world. Of not going completely nuts in that flat."
She got out of the car, then bent down toward him. "It's that or the lunatic asylum, you understand?"
They exchanged a final look and, in a twinkling of an eye, were allies once more. Never would she have used the word love to describe their relationship. It was based on complicity and sharing, which lay beyond desire. Passion, or the fluctuations caused by days and moods. They were calm, underground waters mixing deeply. They could then understand each other, reading between their words, between their lips…
Suddenly, she felt hopeful once more. Laurent would help her, love her, support her. The shadow had now lightened. He asked: "Shall I pick you up this evening?"
She nodded, blew him a kiss, then headed toward the Maison du Chocolat.
4
The bell on the door rang as though she were an ordinary customer. Its simple, familiar notes reassured her. She had applied for this job a month before, after seeing it advertised in the shop window. At the time, she had just been looking for something to take her mind off her obsessions. But she had in fact found far more -a refuge.
A magic circle protecting her from her anxieties.
At two in the afternoon, the shop was empty. Clothilde must have taken advantage of this quiet moment to go to the stockroom.
Anna crossed the floor. The entire shop looked like a chocolate box, wavering between brown and gold. In the middle, the main counter rose up like an orchestra, with its black or cream classics in squares, circles and domes. To the left, on the marble slab of the till, were the "extras," the small delights customers picked up at the last moment while paying. To the right were the miscellaneous: fruit jellies, sweets, nougats, like a series of variations on a theme. Above, the shelves contained more gleaming delicacies, wrapped in glassine, whose bright glints were even more appetizing.
Anna noticed that Clothilde had finished the Easter window display. Woven baskets contained eggs and hens of every size; chocolate houses with caramel roofs were being watched over by marzipan piglets; chicks were playing on a swing, in a sky of paper daffodils.
"Is that you? Great! The assortments have just arrived." Clothilde appeared on the goods lift at the back of the shop, which was worked by an old-fashioned hoisting winch, and allowed them to bring goods up directly from the garage on Square du Roule. She leapt off the platform, strode over the piles of boxes and stood radiant and breathless in front of Anna.
In just a few weeks, Clothilde had become one of her reassuring landmarks. She was twenty-eight, with a small pink nose, and light brown hair that fluttered in front of her eyes. She had two children, a husband "in the bank," a mortgage and a destiny that had been traced out with a T square. She lived in a world of certain happiness that amazed Anna. Being with her was both comforting and irritating. She just could not believe this faultless scenario devoid of any surprise. There was a kind of obstinacy or underlying falsehood in such a credo. In any case, it was an inaccessible mirage for her. At the age of thirty-one, Anna was childless and had always lived in an atmosphere of malaise, uncertainty and fear of the future.
"It's been a hell of a day. I haven't stopped." Clothilde picked up a box and headed toward the storeroom at the back of the shop. Anna slipped her shawl over her shoulder and did likewise. Saturday was such a busy day that they had to make the most of the slightest lull to prepare new trays.
They went into the windowless room. Which measured ten square yards. Piles of cardboard and layers of bubble packs were already cluttering the floor.
Clothilde put down her box, pushed her hair back and pouted. "I forgot to ask you. How did it go?"
"They made me take tests all morning. The doctor said something about a lesion."
"A lesion?"
"A dead area in the brain. The region that recognizes faces.”
“That's crazy. Is there a cure?"
Anna put down her box and repeated, parrot-fashion, what Ackermann had told her. "Yes, there's going to be treatment. With memory exercises and medication to shift that function to another healthy part of my brain."
"That's marvelous!" Clothilde was smiling broadly, as though she had just learned that Anna had completely recovered. Her reactions rarely fitted the situation and revealed a profound indifference. In reality Clothilde was oblivious to other people's misfortunes. Grief, anxiety and doubt slid off her like drops of water on an oilskin. Yet, at that moment, she seemed to sense her mistake.
She was saved by the bell.
"I'll go," she said, spinning on her heel. "Make yourself comfortable. I'll be back."