nded to pull off others, if
only to prove God doesn’t exist. The world needs proof. They were a perfect pair of swindlers. They had their lives in front of them. She was a wizard with numbers. Straight after they were
married, he opened an office in the small town. Six months before discovering she couldn’t have children, which was the sign, and also the beginning of the game and their downfall. They
realised straight away only horror could keep them together. They realised they would only have a chance by indulging in horror. They ended up linking this horror to the libertine baron’s
philosophy of treachery. Before horror and treachery could become established and control the relationship in spite of them – as happens in the general run of marriages, according to the
baron – she proposed the game to him, inspired by the baron’s philosophy and by her own childhood. At the start it was fun. He let her go out in the car in the early morning after
he’d emptied the brake fluid in the middle of the night, which she only noticed when she put her foot down on the pedal, and, avoiding a cart, lost control on a twisty but fortunately flat
and near-empty road which went through a maize field, where she ended up in total chaos, though without any serious injury. She crashed against a tree and when they came to her assistance they
found her laughing out loud to herself when she realised what had happened. She, in her turn, hired two lads, members of the party of the extreme right whose meeting the couple used to attend, to
mug him when he came home alone one stifling night, after work, while she was in the supermarket. Two months later, he abandoned her in a small yacht they’d rented, out at sea, pretending
he’d been drowned, while she, who could hardly swim or sail, adrift in the boat, was desperately trying to get help on a radio which had been purposely broken. Until another boat came to save
her. She forged a summons from the Ministry of Finance, which he got in the mail, accusing him of tax evasion. And he went as far as to appear at the appointed day and time, terrified, after a good
deal of hesitation, for fear that if they’d discovered the tip of the iceberg, they might find the submerged part; he only realised he’d been tricked when the receptionist told him she
didn’t know of any employee with the name of the person who had signed the summons. And there, on the spot, in front of the Ministry of Finance receptionist, he laughed out loud as she had
done after the accident in the middle of the maize field. They knew how to enjoy themselves. The game was a school of fear. A never-ending test. And, in their own way, you could even say they were
happy. Until she said those words and he broke the rules and brought her death forward. Not that they might not die, as a result of a trick with a greater risk of violence, for example, or by some
mistake in the plans, that was part of it, but chance had always been a fundamental element. It wouldn’t have been right to get rid of chance. He had planned every detail of her death, so she
couldn’t escape. It was the only way of being able to carry out the rest of his plan, so he thought, still completely unconsciously, without realising that all he had to do was eliminate her
to ruin everything. In this game between them, she might create problems at any moment, and he didn’t want to risk anything, at least not this time. He couldn’t. He wanted to kill a
client and didn’t need accomplices. He didn’t want to leave witnesses. The only thing he didn’t know was how she’d found out. If she really had found out, as those words
made him think she had. Also, he couldn’t imagine what she might leave to be said only at the moment of death; she might avenge herself when she was murdered, and he’d be caught
completely unprepared. One night, when he returned home after an untimely, unexplained crisis which to those who didn’t know them might even look like jealousy and maybe the wife had
interpreted that way, she was waiting for him in the living-room, as usual. It was a stone house on top of a hill, like the little chapel, with a view over the valley and the ruins of the
baron’s castle, a house they’d bought with the money from the first swindle, when they realised they were made for one another. A house she decorated ‘in the American
style’, as she liked to say to please her husband, whose dream was to move one day to Chicago, the land of gangsters and limitless opportunity, at least that was what he proclaimed in the
first months of the marriage; he was always consorting with the worst people in the town, before they discovered she couldn’t have children. It was when he realised that he’d stopped
finding it funny, and it wasn’t just from what she said. He even slapped her in the house at the mere mention of the phrase ‘in the American style’ about the decoration, in the
presence of a couple of guests they’d recently got to know at the meetings of the party of the extreme right, who left in a hurry, out of sheer embarrassment. And before the horror took over,
she decided to take the initiative and propose to her husband this game, which to you and me might seem insane, inspired by what she had gone through in childhood, but also under the influence of
the libertine baron, at first sight with the single aim of saving their marriage. If she was going to be hit, then it might as well be with her own consent, in a game. That way they would take
turns in the roles of victim and torturer. If it would save the marriage. They even laughed at the pretext. But not for long. Only till the night when she was waiting for him in the living-room,
after he’d had a crazy attack of jealousy, which made no sense at all at that stage of the proceedings, when he came home without saying a word. She said she had something to say to him. And
she spoke in the same way she referred to the décor of the house in front of the guests: ‘in the American style’. She said just what he didn’t want to hear at that moment.
Her eyes shining, and with a glass of whisky in her hand, she said: ‘For you, the best thing would be if he didn’t exist, he’s your weak point’. She didn’t say
anyone’s name, as if she read her husband’s thoughts, and at that moment he could only imagine she’d found out. Though he couldn’t understand how. His whole brain was taken
up with the plan to get rid of the client. He knew she might just be trying it on, to put him to the test and terrify him. She might be talking about something else. But he couldn’t live with
the suspicion, now that everything was real. He couldn’t let her find out and get in the way of his plans. He couldn’t allow himself to get into her power, to be threatened by her. And
what if, in any future reversal of the game, she decided to inform on him to the police to terrify him even more? That was the only thing the wife said, her eyes shining, and with a glass of whisky
in her hand: ‘For you, the best thing would be if he didn’t exist, he’s your weak point’. And it was enough. It was only of secondary importance, whether she knew or not. It
hardly mattered whether she knew about her husband’s plans to kill his client or not. He couldn’t go ahead, with that on his mind. With a single sentence, she’d brought about her
own death. What he couldn’t suspect was that, in a certain sense, this was a form of suicide. He couldn’t know that perhaps there was nothing involuntary or unconscious about what his
wife did. It’s possible she was tired, or that she had to put him in check, and check-mate him only with her own death. Perhaps she had no strength or imagination left in her. Because it was
a game of the imagination. Perhaps she’d simply felt the moment of the final trick arrive; what’s certain is that she played like an actress in a gangster movie she saw on television
while she was doing accounts, always doing accounts, ‘in the American style’: sitting on the living-room sofa with her eyes shining and a glass of whisky in her hand. He pretended he
hadn’t heard and changed the subject. He didn’t ask ‘who d’you mean, he?’ He didn’t change expression. He changed the subject. He was imperturbable. She
pretended to think he hadn’t heard, and replied to what he asked her now about something else nothing to do with what she’d said. He knew as well as she did that the next step would be
his, it was his turn, the next trick was his. She knew he had heard the sentence and taken it in. He knew that she knew he had heard the sentence and taken it in. And that she was waiting for his
reaction, for him to get even. But they acted as if they didn’t know, so that the game could go on. The next month, he came home with two air tickets, even though he had a fear of flying, and
said the two of them were in need of a holiday. ‘But isn’t it a dangerous place?’, the wife asked, ‘in the American style’, sitting on the living-room sofa with her
eyes shining and a glass of whisky in her hand, referring to the destination he’d deliberately chosen. ‘Isn’t it a city with a high crime index? Are you sure it isn’t
risky?’ And he swore they would have a wonderful week, that, after a lot of thought, he’d chosen it among all the cities in the world. It seemed to him the most suitable. And she
smiled, sitting on the sofa with her eyes shining and a glass of whisky in her hand. That was the way they played it. The best victim is the one who pleases the torturer, who enjoys the role of
victim. And she deluded him so well. At no moment did she let him see that he would be the greatest victim of her death. Not for a moment. Only when it was already irreversible, when she was
already dying and he couldn’t do anything else to save himself from the ‘fear of Sade’ she was leaving him with. She was going to die ‘in the American style’, with a
glint in her eyes and a smile on her lips. She looked at the tickets and asked him what they were going to do there. She’d heard that the city was hell on earth, and terribly hot. And he,
pretending he believed in her objections, played his role too and tried to convince her, affectionately, that they needed a week’s holiday, it was some time since they’d been together,
just the two of them. And she pretended to give in. She’d already been persuaded a long time before he’d brought her the tickets. She already knew that if it wasn’t here, it would
be in Bangkok, in Yemen or Istanbul, in some place or other she would have to disappear. She had to disappear ever since she said those words: ‘For you, the best thing would be if he
didn’t exist, he’s your weak point’. He pretended not to hear it, because he didn’t even bother to ask ‘Who d’you mean, he?’ He knew that she might be
trying it on or making a mistake, provoking him in connection with the apparent, unexpected attack of jealousy in the afternoon. He knew she might be talking about something else, or even someone
else, and not the client. He knew she might not know anything about it. But he couldn’t expose his flank. He couldn’t even risk bothering to ask ‘Who d’you mean, he?’
She’d invited death with those words. The only thing he didn’t know was that, through her death, he was the one that would die. They boarded the plane at night and got here in the
morning. He was calm, or at least feigning calm, in spite of his fear of planes. He was very attentive to her the whole night through. And she was calling his bluff. Her life to prove God
doesn’t exist. It’s very probable she was tired. Tired of thinking up new horror-games. She’d put all her cards on this last one. She knew it would be the last. He did too. Only
that he thought the last throw of the dice would be his and not hers. That was why he was calm. They went through passport control, through customs, and when they got out with their luggage, a man
speaking French and with a sheet of paper on which the couple’s surname was printed was waiting for them in the airport arrivals area. ‘See how easy it was? I’ve got everything
organised. From now on, they look after everything,’ said the husband to the wife in a fatherly tone, which she returned with her smile ‘in the American style’. The man
accompanied them to the car outside. She got in first, then her husband. The man who had met them and the driver looked after the cases. Then they too got into the car. The husband gave them the
hotel address. But they went off in the opposite direction. She wasn’t the first to notice. She was tired, and she’d handed herself over. She knew what her destiny was. Or suspected, at
least. She’d won. It was up to him to give the sign. And that was what he did at a certain moment. He pretended to be suspicious and apprehensive. And it was only when she noticed his false
nervousness that she emerged from her sleepiness and asked him what the matter was. It was at that moment, when the husband told her he thought they weren’t going the right way, and while
they were moving away from the centre of the city, going past shacks, filth and vacant lots, that she took on the role of victim and, getting suddenly nervous in her turn, asked the man who’d
met them at the airport where they were going and got the fatal reply. He turned round and ordered the two of them to shut up, not ‘in the American style’, but in a sharp, brutal way
which terrified her for the first time. That was the game, after all. This really was horror. However much everything was planned (as she had planned it, without her husband knowing, thinking he
was in control of the situation), however much she might know where she was going, at bottom she never knew. There were always surprises, things that were unexpected. Like when the man who had met
them at the airport raised his hand and clouted her in the face. And she, who had sat forward, on the edge of the seat to ask where they were going, flew back into the upholstery. The game was
different here. She tried to open the door and fling herself out of the car. And then, when she saw she couldn’t get out, she began to cry. She wept her heart out. She remembered her
childhood, boarding school, her brothers in silence as they were beaten with a belt, the time she spent in her grandparents’ house, her grandmother’s death, her certainty that hell was
right here, her first job and the operation she did with the first money she got, the first time she mutilated herself, the first of many. Without telling anyone, she persuaded a doctor to take her
womb out, so that she would never have the chance of getting pregnant and putting a child into this hell, not even by some unhappy accident or if she weakened in her determination, for love or some
other lie, not wanting to be at the mercy of chance, of love, or of the possibility of conflicting wishes, human beings are complex, human beings will invent anything to justify what can’t be
explained, they invent God and love, and with the first money she earned she put an end to the whole farce and the guilt of bringing someone else into the world to prove, like her, that God
doesn’t exist. She ended the whole lie, but without anyone finding out, so she wouldn’t be called mad, so much so that she didn’t even tell her husband, not even him, when they
met at the firm and planned the embezzlement together, so they couldn’t be caught, a plan based on the complete confidence of the boss, she doing the accounts and he the legal consultant, nor
when they were partners in crime, nor when they were married in the chapel above the valley where he had been born, she didn’t even tell him at the altar – she said the scar was from a
Caesarean, spoke about a dead foetus – and it was only when he discovered the truth, and she saw that the horror could slip from her hands, that she decided to propose the game, since
everything dies except horror. The foundation of the baron’s philosophy. She wept for the marriage to which she’d decided only to invite her sister, the only one among the guests who
understood what that marriage was, another act of self-mutilation, for life could only,