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Schiffer did not have to press the point. For three months, Paul had been banging his head against the same wall. He imagined himself starting his inquiries again on his own and obtaining an infinite series of zeros.

"I'll give you one day." he conceded. "We'll go around to the workshops. We'll question their colleagues, neighbors and partners, if there are any. Then you go back to the home. And I'm warning you: the slightest fuckup, and I'll kill you. This time, I won't hesitate."

His partner forced a laugh, but Paul sensed that he was scared. Fear now gripped both of them. He was about to start the car up when he paused once more-he wanted everything to be clear. -Why were you so violent with that Marius?"

Schiffer looked up at the gargoyles, which rose into the darkness. Devils curled around their perches, incubuses with turned-up noses, demons with bat's wings. He remained silent for a while, then murmured, "There was no other way. They've decided not to speak."

"Who do you mean by 'they'?"

"The Turks. The whole neighborhood's gone dumb. We're going to have to rip out each scrap of the truth."

Paul's voice cracked, rising up a tone. "But why are they doing that? Why don't they want to help us?"

The Cipher was still staring at those faces of stone. His pallor competed with that of the roof light.

"Don't you get it? They're protecting the killer."

PART V

27

Between his arms, she had been a river.

A fluid, supple, open energy. She had breezed through the nights and days like a ripple touches underwater greenery, without ever altering its languid pace. She had flowed between his hands, crossing shadowy forests, beds of moss, dark rocks. She had risen up in the clearings that burst into her eyes when pleasure came. Then she had abandoned herself once more, in a slow shift, translucent beneath his palms…

Over the years, there had been distinct seasons. Light, laughing rivulets of water. Manes of foam shaken by anger. Fords, too, truces during which their physical contact ceased. But such pauses were sweet. They had the lightness of reeds, the smoothness of bare pebbles.

When the current picked up again, pushing them again to the farthest shores, beyond sighs, their lips apart, it was to reach at last the ultimate pleasure, where everything was one and the other was all.

"You understand, Doctor?"

Mathilde Wilcrau jumped. She looked at the Knoll couch, just two yards away-the only piece of furniture in the room that did not date from the eighteenth century. A man was lying there. A patient. Lost in a daydream, she had completely forgotten about him and had not listened to a word he had said.

She concealed her embarrassment by saying, "No, I'm afraid I don't. You're not being very clear. Can you try and put it another way please?"

The man launched into another explanation, his nose facing the ceiling, hands crossed on his chest. Mathilde discreetly took a jar of moisturizing cream from a drawer. The freshness of the product on her hands brought her back to herself. Such moments of abstraction were becoming increasingly frequent and profound. She was now pushing the neutrality of the analyst to its extreme: she was quite literally no longer there. In the past, she used to listen to her patients' every word. She observed every slip of the tongue, hesitation and excess. They formed a thread that allowed her to find a path back through their neuroses and traumas… But now?

She put the cream away and continued to rub it into her hands. Nourish. Hydrate. Soothe. The man's voice was now just a murmur, rocking her profound melancholy.

Yes, between his arms she had been a river. But the fords had multiplied, the truces grown longer. At first, she had refused to worry, to see in these pauses a sign of a falling away. She had been blind with hope and faith in love. Then a taste of dust settled on her tongue, a sharp pain had gripped her limbs. Soon, even her veins seemed to have dried up, like lifeless mineral deposits. She felt empty. Even before their hearts had put a name to the situation, their bodies had spoken.

Then the breakup burst into their minds, and their words finished off the motion: their separation became official. The period of formalities began. They had to see a magistrate, calculate the alimony, organize the move. Mathilde had been irreproachable. Ever alert. Ever responsible. But her mind was already elsewhere. As soon as she could, she tried to remember, to travel within herself, in her own story, amazed to find so few traces in her memory, so few instants from the past. Her entire being was like a burned desert, an ancient site where only some meager ridges among the overly white stones still gave a sign of what had been.

She reassured herself by thinking of her children. They incarnated her destiny, were her last source of life. She devoted herself to them. She abandoned herself completely during the final years of their education. But they too, had ended up leaving her. Her son had vanished into a strange town, both tiny and huge, made up entirely of chips and microprocessors, while her daughter had found her path in traveling and ethnology or so she claimed. All that she was sure of was that her path lay far away from her parents.

So Mathilde now had to take an interest in the only person she had left: herself. She denied herself nothing-clothes, furniture, lovers. She went on cruises and trips to places that had always fascinated her.

In vain. Such extravagance seemed merely to hasten her downfall into old age.

Desertification was continuing its ravages. Lifeless sand spread ever farther inside her. Not only in her body but also in her heart. She became harder, harsher toward others. Her judgments were abrupt, her opinions strong and final. Her generosity, understanding and compassion deserted her. The slightest indulgent gesture cost her an effort. Her feelings became paralyzed, making her hostile to other people.

She ended up arguing with her closest friends and found herself alone, really alone. Having run out of enemies, she took up sports so as to confront herself. Her achievements included mountain climbing, rowing, hang gliding, shooting… Training became a permanent challenge for her, an obsession that drained way her anxieties.

Now she had gotten over such excesses, but her life was still dotted by frequent exertions. A hang gliding course in the Cevennes, the yearly climbing of the Dalles near Chamonix, the triathlon event in the Val d'Aosta. At the age of fifty-two, she was fit enough to make any teenager green with envy. And, every day with a hint of vanity she looked at the trophies that shone on her authentic Oppenordt School chest of drawers.

In reality, what delighted her was a different sort of victory: an intimate, secret triumph. During all those years of solitude, she had never once resorted to drugs. She had never taken a single tranquilizer or antidepressant.

Every morning, she looked at herself in the mirror and recalled this achievement. The jewel in her crown. A personal certificate of endurance that proved that she had not exhausted her reserves of courage and willpower.

Most people live in hope of the best.

All that Mathilde Wilcrau feared was the worst.

Of course, in the middle of that desert, there was her work. The consultations at Sainte-Anne Hospital and appointments in her private practice. The hard style and the soft style, as they say in the martial arts, which she had also practiced. Psychiatric care and psychoanalytic attention. But after a time, these two poles had ended up merging into the same routine.

Her timetable was now marked by several strict, compulsory rituals.

Once a week, when possible, she had lunch with her children, who spoke only of success for themselves, and the failure of her and their father. Every weekend, she visited antiques shops, between two training sessions. Then, on Tuesday evening, she attended the seminars at the Society of Psychoanalysis. where she would still see a few familiar faces. Particularly former lovers, whose names she had even forgotten and who had always seemed bland to her. But perhaps she was the one who had lost the taste for love. As when you burn your tongue and can no longer taste your food…