This Little Family. Inès Bayard

in the Monge neighborhood. Marie and Laurent had hesitated for a long time before settling on their apartment in Charonne; they’d been offered an exceptional property on the rue Daubenton but didn’t yet have the funds to afford it, much to the disappointment of Marie and Sophia, who’d been friends for years and liked to go to the Sunday market together on the rue Mouffetard.

      “Are you staying in the car, or what?” Agreeing to make love with Laurent before the meal was also a bad idea. Her body had begged her to stop but it was too late and now she must simply wait for the pain to subside a little. Marie finds it hard to get out of the car. Her husband slams the door, doesn’t notice the trouble she’s having. “I do like Charonne but you gotta admit this neighborhood’s quieter. It’s better for kids.” He still hasn’t given up.

      Paul and Sophia have a three-year-old son and live in a large duplex apartment. He’s a gynecologist and she a dental surgeon. Marie has always found it practical having friends with a medical bent, but this evening she’s wary of Paul’s experience. After the rape she thought of the sexual diseases she might pass on to Laurent and the psychological trauma of abused women, but she hopes she can forget, erase all the suffering of this period. She’s going to take refuge in her work and her marriage. Perhaps the longing to have a child with her husband will resurface in a few days, stronger than before.

      Sophia appears on the landing looking radiant in a loose-fitting orange tunic. She takes Marie warmly in her arms. A delicious smell of Middle Eastern spices hangs in the air in their living room. “I made a couscous—Granny Zara’s recipe!” Sophia was born in Morocco. She’s proud of her roots and makes a point of passing on a few words of Arabic to her son so that he’s familiar with his second culture. Paul is not very enthusiastic about this and thinks it will end up giving the child identity issues. “There she goes again! We’re not in the medina now, baby!” They tease each other, laugh about it, understand each other. Marie envies their natural intimacy. Maybe Paul would have known straightaway, unlike Laurent.

      Every subject they broach around the table strikes her as dull. She’s distracted, far removed from the dinner, aware of the sounds without really hearing or understanding them. She stares blankly in one direction and then turns and alights on another. A few words ring out: “She was covered in bruises. Her body swollen and bleeding. She was most likely raped several times.” Marie’s eyes light up, her body is electrified, she wakes up at last. Paul is talking about one of his patients, a girl of seventeen who was beaten by her father for years and probably raped by him, and who came to see Paul in his office after a violent altercation. “When I examined her everything was confirmed. I didn’t even need a speculum.” There’s a brief silence. The subject is disturbing, a bit disgusting. Sophia gets up to fetch the couscous from the kitchen while Paul continues to give details of the story.

      Laurent doesn’t seem put out, continues to chew absentmindedly on his piece of bread, as if to pass the time. “But are you sure it’s the father? No, it’s just these days it seems like everyone’s been raped and the perpetrators are named before anyone can be sure it’s really them.” Marie doesn’t say anything, this contribution smacks her full in the face. She feels dirty and ashamed before her husband, suddenly guilty for what she may have provoked the night before. Paul is used to this sort of discussion and tries to present a different argument. Good, evil, men accused of rape turning out to be victims of spite, the public lynching of some men, the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case, Polanski …

      Sophia comes back into the dining room and puts a large colorful earthenware dish on the table. The couscous is almost overflowing. “Maybe we could talk about something else? I mean we could do without your work stories about rape when we’re trying to eat.” Marie wants them to talk about it. She wants to get up and scream that she too has been raped, by her boss, and she understands this young girl. She wants to announce loud and clear to her husband and friends that she was forced to take a penis in her mouth, in her ass and in her vagina, that her body was butchered, she had blood on her thighs, semen in the corner of her mouth, puke all over her breasts, and shit spread over her stomach. She could do it. Her mind fights to speak out. But she doesn’t have the courage. She’s afraid she’ll destroy everything, lose her husband and friends, be judged, be suspected of lying or exaggerating. She decides against it.

      They move on to something else. The subject is changed. “So, Laurent told us the good news. Enjoy yourselves while you can because they don’t leave you in peace for a single night in the first year!” The baby again. Marie doesn’t think she can keep this up. Her vagina feels stretched, torn between her thighs. She slips away to the bathroom, as natural as can be. Her breathing accelerates, on the verge of a panic attack. The walls close in, the paintings hanging along the corridor talk to her, criticizing her weakness. Uncontrollable tears spill down her cheeks, distorting her face, smudging her makeup. Her reflection appears. She looks like a whore. A raped whore. A few smears of blood seep into the toilet paper.

      When she joins the others again, there are North African gazelle horn pastries proudly displayed on the table. “Is everything okay? You look a little tired this evening.” Marie smiles, claims she hasn’t been feeling too good since yesterday. Her husband puts his arms around her, cuddles her, and says they’ll leave soon. Marie drains her coffee as she listens to Sophia’s ideas for their next winter vacation. The four of them could go to Switzerland together. Her mother will look after their son. Skiing in the glorious alpine landscapes around Geneva, nothing better just before Christmas. Marie is mortified, she realizes just how much the future means to people. No one ever talks about the present, and not much about the past. The evening when she was raped is already long ago, almost forgotten, obsolete. Even if she spoke about it publicly, she couldn’t be sure how people would react. She’ll have to see her attacker in the workplace, maybe even accept his congratulations for the contract she will soon have signed, walking beside him, smiling at him and smelling his aftershave. He will have forgotten, time will pass, and justice will too. The facts will have lapsed.

      It’s time to go home. Paul hands Marie her coat and wants to help her put it on. She refuses his offer, not wanting him to touch her. She thinks about his penis, about how he might take Sophia. She pictures him examining his young patient, imagines her tortured, abused vagina, its flesh and nerves raw. Sophia hears her son crying and kisses Marie before hurrying upstairs to soothe him.

      “I’ve always thought it odd for a man to be a gynecologist. Seriously, it’s kind of weird looking at vaginas all day long, isn’t it?” The walls of the arcades by the Louvre Museum are so old, rising out of the ground since forever, solid as rocks. She’d liked to turn the steering wheel, for Laurent to hurtle into them, for the two of them to die instantly together, for him to shut up at last. He puts his hand on his wife’s thigh. She automatically pushes it away as if terrified. Everything seems so easy to him. “Are you sure you’re okay? You were a little strange over dinner.” Marie gives up, puts his hand back on her leg and slides it a little way toward her crotch. Laurent smiles again. She wants him to stroke her, she thrusts his hand inside her tights and rubs his penis at the same time. He has an erection. It’s late. There’s very little traffic along the riverbank. The bright light of streetlamps intermittently illuminates the inside of the car. At night Paris is sparklingly beautiful. Laurent has taken a wrong turn. The Hôtel de Ville is deserted, its white stone illuminated by dazzling reflections from the Seine. His penis hardens as Marie rubs it backward and forward. Her hand accelerates. He sighs, moans, raises his foot from the accelerator. She makes him come in a few minutes. Her hand is sticky, cloying. She disguises her disgust, looks for a tissue in the glove compartment to wipe herself. “Oh, I think you have your period, honey.” His fingers emerge from her tights soaked in blood. She tells him it’s nothing, just the remains of her last period. Actually, no, she was raped a day ago, her insides torn in places till they bled while he was enjoying a lobster at the Coupole brasserie with his client.

      He won’t try anything this evening. Marie can go to bed without worrying. She’ll let the time sift through her fingers. She knows that sometimes it will be tough, insurmountable, but she’s sure she can do it. A whole new day starts tomorrow. Laurent gets into bed, kisses her. He’s asleep already.