The Lying Down Room (Serge Morel 1) (24 page)

Each night he mourned his own fate. What could he make of himself? There had been so many betrayals. His mother. Charles. Olivia, Amir. Their faces appeared in his dreams at night, taunting him.
He also mourned the fate of those orphans Nina cared for. Neglected and betrayed by those who should have protected them. How well he understood those kids.

Gradually, an idea formed in Armand’s head. At first it was nothing, a barely formed notion which he didn’t take too seriously. But slowly it came to him that he could make it
happen, if only he could work up the courage. It would be the thing that made sense of his time here.

One evening he invited Nina and Volodya over for dinner. He made a real effort, cooking a coq au vin and sautéed potatoes, followed by a chocolate cake he’d baked himself.
He’d bought vodka and wine.

The chicken was scrawny and the potatoes still raw in the middle, but the three of them worked their way quickly through the vodka and wine. By the time they ate dessert no one noticed how dense
the cake was. Armand’s guests scoffed it down quite happily and complimented him on his baking skills.

When they had all finished eating and were drinking at the table, he asked Nina if she could help him. He’d given a lot of thought to how he would argue his case and he chose his words
with care.

At first she seemed reluctant. She didn’t want any trouble with the orphanage, she said. They wouldn’t like it if they knew she’d been talking to him, a foreigner, about
conditions there. But Armand assured her it would be fine. She would not be implicated in any way. The thing was to say she knew someone who was interested in adopting a child. And to help arrange
an appointment with the director. They could have met by chance, he said. If she could find it in herself to help him, he might be able to make a difference in the life of an orphan. Maybe there
was a particular child she thought especially deserving; a little boy, for example, whose hopes of living a better life were particularly slim.

Judging by Nina’s face, he saw this was the right thing to say. Volodya sat by her side looking as if he was holding back from saying what he really thought, as if the minute Armand was
gone he would open his mouth and a torrent of words would pour out. But it didn’t matter because Armand saw that Nina had already made up her mind.

For several weeks he heard nothing from her. He wondered whether he had misjudged the situation. But he was patient, knowing instinctively that if he pushed any further she would not help him at
all. In the meantime he’d worked out his notice at the French Lycée and found a job teaching at a local school. He would start there at the end of the long summer break. The money was
pitiful but he could manage if he was careful. Now, as he saw it, he would be no different from his neighbours, who commented often and anxiously on the city’s spiralling food prices.

Then the day came when she said she had arranged for him to meet with the director on a Saturday morning. It was probably a good idea to wear a suit, she said.

It was six weeks after their first conversation when he finally made the trip back to the orphanage.

He’d had to borrow a suit from a former colleague at the Lycée whom he’d kept in touch with, pretending it was for a wedding. Now that it was summer the road looked completely
different. The sun was high in the sky and a dusty haze covered everything. Armand felt excited and slightly sick.

He turned into the orphanage’s car park and walked towards the main entrance. In the courtyard, children were chasing chickens. They squawked and ran in panicky circles around the
yard.

The woman who greeted him was the one he’d spoken to on the phone to confirm the appointment. A blonde anaemic creature with dark circles under her eyes. Scrawny and nervous, she fussed
and flapped, just like one of those mad chickens sprinting past his feet a moment ago. She led him into an office with a desk the size of a single bed and told him to wait. The painting on the wall
behind the desk was of a forest filled with row after row of emaciated birch trees. The background was painted black and the trees white. Armand stared at the painting and tried to breathe
normally.

The woman who walked in ten minutes later introduced herself as the director. Armand had a feeling she had delayed her entrance to make herself look important. That and the smell of cheap
perfume that preceded her arrival meant he took an instant dislike to her. But he was on a mission and determined to win her over. While she practised her French on him he pretended to be
interested in her cleavage, and she rewarded him with a smile, lipstick stains on her front teeth.

She asked questions and jotted notes in an exercise pad before her. After a while he realized that his answers meant little to her. She was going through the motions but she had already made up
her mind.

‘We have a boy I think might be suitable; he is six years old and unfortunately is unable to talk. But he understands perfectly what you tell him and he is a quiet and accommodating child.
You won’t have any trouble with him.’

Armand had expected a long, drawn-out process. Frequent trips to the orphanage, letters and phone calls, references the director would want as proof of good character. Instead she casually named
an exorbitant sum of money that she said was standard procedure and would help speed up the administrative process.

‘If you like the boy, of course.’

The sum was half of his inheritance, Armand calculated. The thought of it made him dizzy.

He stood up and swayed before the director, who was picking up the phone now and talking to someone. When she hung up he grasped her hand and thanked her with tears in his eyes. It was the right
thing to do. She too grew emotional and embraced him. He found himself squashed against her ample bosom, half-hanging on to her because he was sure otherwise he would faint from the smell of
perfume and his own panicked state.

He was still in her grasp when he felt her stiffen.

‘The child is here,’ she whispered in his ear.

As the boy stepped forward, Armand felt his past slipping away from him. What had happened before, all the things he’d done, were of no consequence.

‘As I mentioned before, Dima has just turned six,’ the director said. She pinched the boy’s cheek. There was no response. Armand tried not to show how shaken he was. The boy
was exactly as he had imagined him to be, as he had hoped. A slender child with big dark eyes. His hair was cropped short.
I will let his hair grow
, Armand thought.

He wanted to say,
When can I take him?
Instead, he asked if he could take the boy for a stroll down the road, not too far. The director shrugged as if to suggest it no longer concerned
her.

He followed the boy out of the room, noticing that he walked with a limp. The boy’s faded T-shirt and trousers looked as though they had been passed down several generations of other
children at the orphanage. They weren’t fit to be worn.

Armand stepped outside. The light was harsh and for a moment he hesitated, wondering which way to go. But the boy was right behind him, waiting to be led. Armand began walking towards the
forest.

There was no one on the path. When they reached the edge of the woods, where the trees began, Armand stopped and wiped his brow. The boy was watching him coolly, as though he was looking at
something up on a screen that was not part of his reality. All this time Armand hadn’t said a word to him. He didn’t know how to communicate with the boy.

Back at the orphanage, they insisted on putting him up for the night. The world outside seemed forbidding, harsh. He accepted.

They put him in a small, airless room with a single bed. The mattress was thin and the steel frame dug into his back. He tried to open a window but the latch refused to yield.

For a long time he tossed and turned.

Sometime in the night he felt the child climb in next to him. The two of them barely fitted in the narrow bunk. Despite the heat and the clamminess of their bodies, they held each other as
though lost in the middle of a storm. Gradually, Armand forgot about the discomfort and fell asleep.

When he woke up, the boy was gone.

Breakfast was included. They had brioches and coffee in the dining room at 7.30 before checking out of the inn and getting into the car. They would stop at Charles’s
house before meeting with Armand Le Bellec’s old schoolteacher.

‘Shall we tell Charles we’re coming?’ Lila said.

‘Let’s surprise him instead,’ Morel said.

When they got to Charles’s house his car wasn’t in the driveway and there was nobody about.

Lila looked at her watch. ‘Do you think it’s possible he’s already left to take the kids to school?’

‘Maybe.We’ll come back after we’ve spoken to the teacher.’

They drove to the school, where the teacher waited for them. It was a small building with a playground. A rabbit hutch and a vegetable garden.

‘Pierre Fourmond?’

‘That’s me.’

They shook hands.

‘It’s a nice school you’ve got here,’ Morel said. ‘And the kids have got rabbits, I see.’

The teacher nodded. He reminded Morel of his old physics teacher. Greying beard and khaki trousers. Tall and narrow-shouldered, with a soft paunch in an otherwise lanky body.

‘We’ve got three rabbits. Every once in a while one of them dies and we replace it without making a fuss. The kids seem to take it in their stride,’ he said. ‘Come on in.
I thought we could sit in the staff room; there’s no one about yet.’

The room he took them to could clearly have done with some funding to replace the shabby armchairs and worn carpet.

‘It’s comfortable enough,’ the teacher said, following Morel’s gaze. ‘So you want to talk to me about Armand? You know it’s a long time ago.’

‘I know. But we were hoping that you’d be able to help us.’

‘Is he in trouble?’

Morel looked at the man’s concerned face. It was funny, the way everyone’s first thought seemed to be that Armand was in trouble.

‘We need to find him and ask him a few questions,’ Morel replied. ‘I hope you don’t mind if I don’t tell you what it’s about; right now we know very little.
If we could talk to him it would help.’

Pierre Fourmond offered them tea, but Morel shook his head.

‘I remember him as a shy kid,’ the teacher said, turning the kettle on.

‘Do you remember a child called Charles Berg?’

‘Yes, of course. Charles still lives here.’ Pierre Fourmond seemed to think for a while. The kettle began to whistle. ‘He and Armand were friends. He was Armand’s only
friend, in fact. Charles was the sociable one, but somehow he picked this introverted boy. It seemed odd to me in a way, though I could also understand it.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Armand was a kid who didn’t seem to care what anyone thought of him. He didn’t care about making the right impression. I think Charles respected that in him. Charles
didn’t have that kind of strength. He needed to be liked.’

‘How is it you remember so much about all of this? I’m just curious. As you said yourself, it’s such a long time ago,’ Morel said.

The teacher shrugged. ‘This is my life. I remember many of my students well.’

‘Was Armand a good student?’

‘Exemplary. Very bright and diligent.’

Lila leaned forward. Waited for Fourmond to finish making his tea. He sat down with his cup and a biscuit.

‘What can you tell us about Armand’s mother? Do you remember her at all?’

Pierre Fourmond bit into his biscuit and chewed thoughtfully. ‘I do.’ Morel tried not to betray his impatience.

‘Madame Le Bellec was a very possessive parent. This is why I remember Armand so well, in fact. Halfway through the year she pulled her son out of school. After that we didn’t see
him again till the following year. I’m not sure what happened.’

‘Surely a parent can’t just remove their child from school without the school getting involved and asking a few questions. Someone must have approached her.’

‘Sure. But nothing came of it.’

‘Who was it? The head teacher?’

‘Yes.’ Guessing their thoughts, Pierre Fourmond said, ‘But you won’t be able to talk to him, I’m afraid. He died of a heart attack some years ago. I can tell you in
any case that whatever was said or done didn’t make any difference. She didn’t budge and Armand missed school for six months.’

‘So what happened when Armand came back?’

‘He kept to himself. Got on with his school work but that was about it.’

‘He and Charles weren’t friends any more?’

‘No.’ Pierre Fourmond looked at Morel.‘It was quite striking, the contrast. One minute they were always together, the next they were avoiding each other. Well, Armand
wasn’t talking to anyone. And as for Charles, his grades started slipping.’

Lila raised an eyebrow.

‘I remember it well, you see, because it’s not the sort of friendship you see often between boys at that age.’

‘In what way?’

‘So intense. Usually you see the boys playing together as a group. There isn’t that exclusive behaviour which you tend to see more among girls.’ He smiled at Lila. ‘I
know this is a simplistic way to look at it but there is a great deal of truth there and I’ve observed the same patterns of behaviour again and again amongst my students.’

‘Tell us a bit more about Charles,’ she said.

‘He was an easy-going sort of kid. Open and friendly. He got on with everyone, and everyone liked him. From what I remember he was doing well across the subjects. Not in a spectacular way
but well enough. He was good at sports. But there was a transformation.’

‘When Armand came back, you mean?’

The teacher thought about it for a while. ‘No. It was when Armand left the school.’ He nodded his head. ‘That’s when Charles became disengaged with school.’

‘Any idea what happened?’ Morel said.

‘No. But I’m guessing it had to do with Armand; and that Armand’s mother had a hand in it.’

‘What was going on between her and her son? What was the problem?’

‘I’m not a psychologist, obviously, but all I can say is she was terribly possessive and she seemed to play a very active role in Armand’s life.’ He thought for a while.
‘I got the impression that she was never far from him, no matter what he did. It was almost like she was shadowing him. I don’t know how else to explain it.’