The policemen ran to Nora, grabbed her, yanked her hands behind her back, handcuffed her, and then pulled her away from the body sprawled on the ground. Just before she was led out of the kitchen, Nora threw one last glance at Tiphaine. As she lay there, eyes open but unseeing, the mask of hatred slipped from her face and, at last, she looked at peace.
Epilogue
A neighborhood in a Parisian suburb. A calm street lined with houses, havens of peace where families come together in the evening after work and school. A place of safety, where life is good. Few passersby, little noise, no drama. A refuge.
A window onto happiness.
And then, sometimes, in one of these outwardly tranquil houses, a drama bursts out, shattering the facade of serenity. Fate, uninvited, knocks at the door, disrupting the quietude of the place, which the day before had seemed immutable. A blow of fate so unreal that its suddenness leaves everyone stunned.
Impossible.
Alerted by the unusual sound of police sirens and the ominous glow of blue flashing lights, the residents of the street open their front doors and post themselves in front of their houses as if to protect them from the spreading stench of misfortune. It’s as though they want to forbid access, as if adversity is contagious. They observe, curiously trying to figure out what’s happened.
Reassured by the presence of police officers, they cautiously walk over to the house and gather around the site of the disaster. They have plenty of things to say about the scourge of society, and plenty of judgments to make about the guilty party, who is now no longer a part of their world.
Details of the drama seep out of numbers 26 and 28, rue Edmond-Petit. Open doors, forensics officers coming in and out, police tape. Residents rubbernecking outside the two houses, trying to disentangle the arcana of this dark story. In the first house, the bloody corpse of a woman lies on the cold tiles of the kitchen floor. In the second, another woman, hands covered in blood, is protesting her innocence at the top of her voice. Between the victim and the guilty, a wall of silence, unhappiness, and lies. Of betrayal.
Outside, the neighbors form a crowd, everyone trying to glean information, pass on rumors.
“It’s that new woman from number twenty-six, she’s stabbed Madame Geniot!”
People shout and exclaim. No one can believe it. They hold their hands to their mouths in shock. Their eyes widen. Their features freeze in expressions of horror.
“It can’t be true!”
“My God!”
Some make the sign of the cross.
And then people start to talk. First in brief sentences. To explain. Because they know, of course. They’ve figured it all out already.
“Those people. It’s in their blood. It’s part of their nature.”
The echo swells to become a rumor that can only grow. “I never liked that woman. Fancied she was the Queen of Sheba, she did.”
“You can say what you like, but it’s always the same people causing all the trouble.”
And off the words fly, taking with them the scandal whose crumbs they will scatter on streets farther and farther away.
Before long a car pulls up and the driver hurriedly double-parks. It’s Mathilde. She gets out, looking utterly stunned, and runs straight into the officer guarding Nora’s house.
“Let me in. I am Nora Amrani’s friend. I’ve come to get her children.”
“Ah yes, I was told you were coming,” he says and steps aside to allow her in. She enters the house, walks through the entryway, is stopped by another policeman, shows her identity card. She is led into the living room. Inès and Nassim are sitting on the sofa, their cheeks shiny with tears. Alongside them is a woman trying to comfort them. Mathilde rushes over and puts an arm around each child. She whispers soft, soothing, reassuring words. The woman stands up and introduces herself: she’s a police investigator. She tells Mathilde to take the children away.
“What about Nora, where is she?”
“She’s in the kitchen right now. But she’ll be going down to the station pretty soon.”
Out in the street, more neighbors have joined the crowd. Madame Appleblossom is sitting on her folding chair; she has been there from the beginning. She has seen it all. And she has a great deal to tell.
Suddenly the buzz of speculation dies away, like the volume on a radio being turned down. Heads turn, throats tighten, people move aside. Sylvain and Milo make their way slowly through the crowd, following a path that opens up almost naturally. Silence precedes them. They see all these familiar faces, eyes lowered as they pass. Milo twists his head to look over the crowd, torn by the desire to know and the fear of finding out. His front door is wide open, there’s a policeman guarding the entrance. The same with the house next door...
Out of which emerge Mathilde and Nassim, with Inès just behind them, her eyes red with crying, her body shaking with sobs. Their eyes meet. And what Milo sees in her expression crushes him into a thousand pieces. Shatters him. Rips him apart. She looks at him with such desperation that he feels hammered by her suffering. He does not know what’s happened, all he knows is that disaster has struck again. Something indescribably terrible. He had been warned against love. He shudders, cannot take his eyes off Inès. He wants to run to her, take her in his arms, hold her tight. But it’s as if the ground has opened up, revealing between the two houses a bottomless chasm enclosing an impassable mire.
Night is falling on the neighborhood, plunging its inhabitants into darkness. Sylvain follows Milo, his heart clenching as he, too, tries to understand: the crowd of onlookers, the police guarding his house. They reach the front door, tell the police who they are. And just as they are about to go inside, a great clamor arises from the midst of the onlookers. Out of the house next door, framed by two policemen, Nora emerges in handcuffs and is led to one of the unmarked cars. She walks unsteadily, keeping her head down. Sylvain is rooted to the spot, his eyes fixed on her. Blinded by terror, crushed under the weight of the calumny, she doesn’t see him. She passes right in front of him. He wants to reach his hand out to her, say her name, pull her out of this unfathomable nightmare. But he is paralyzed by fear, unable to move or produce the slightest sound. Nora walks past him, following the police officer without resistance, allowing herself to be drawn toward the darkness of her improbable future, her life in tatters, devoured by the inevitable.
“Monsieur Geniot?”
