Blood Wedding Read Online Free PDF Page B

coursing through her. Now that she is outside, now that it is all done with, she could gladly slam his head into a wall. As she runs to the taxi, she feels his fingers brush against her again and the almost physical relief of grabbing his ears and pounding his head against a wall. Because it is the ugly fucker’s face she cannot bear. It triggers a blast of black fury . . . She can picture herself digging her nails into his ears, smashing his head against the wall. It makes an eerie noise, a deep, dull clang. The guy looks at her as though this was the most absurd thing in the world, but that look gives way to a rictus of pain. She goes on pounding, three, four, five, six times and gradually the rictus gives way to a frozen stare, his glazed eyes become blank, vacant. She stops, relieved, her hands covered in the blood that is streaming from his ears. His eyes are fixed, unmoving, like a dead body in a movie.
    Suddenly the image of Léo rises up before her, but the child’s eyes are truly dead. They are nothing like a movie.
    Her head is spinning, a darkness descends.

5
    “Hey,love, are we going or what?”
    She looks up. She is standing, frozen, next to the taxi.
    “You feeling O.K.? At least promise me you’re not going to throw up?”
    No, everything will be fine, Sophie. Just get into the taxi. Get the hell out of here. You need to calm down, everything is fine. You’re just tired, this whole thing has been a terrible ordeal, that’s all, you’ll be fine, just focus.
    As they drive to the station, the driver doesn’t take his eyes off her in the rear-view mirror. She tries to calm herself, staring out at the landmarks she knows so well, République, the banks of the Seine, the pont d’Austerlitz in the distance. She concentrates on her breathing. Her heart begins to slow. The most important thing is to stay calm, get some distance, think.
    The taxi draws up in front of Gare de Lyon. She gets out and pays the fare, standing at the driver’s window. He looks at her again, worried, fascinated, afraid, perhaps a bit of everything, but he is also relieved. She lifts out her suitcase and goes towards the departures board.
    Sheneeds a cigarette. Feverishly, she delves into her pockets. She needs one badly. At the tobacconist’s there are three people queuing. When it is her turn she asks for a pack of cigarettes, no two. The girl turns, takes two packs, sets them on the counter.
    “Actually, make it three . . .”
    “So how many do you want, one, two or three?”
    “Give me a whole carton.”
    “Final answer?”
    “Give me a fucking break. Oh, and a lighter.”
    “What kind?”
    “I don’t care, any lighter.”
    She grabs the carton of cigarettes, dips a hand into her pocket and takes out a fistful of notes. Her hands are shaking so much that the money scatters over the piles of magazines laid out in front of the kiosk. She looks behind her, then left and right as she gathers up the fifty-euro notes and crams them into various pockets. You’re losing it, you’re really starting to lose it, Sophie. A couple stares at her. They are standing a few feet away, obviously embarrassed for her; a fat man pretends to look elsewhere.
    She re-emerges from the tobacconist’s with the carton of cigarettes. Out of the corner of her eye she sees a red sign warning travellers to beware of pickpockets . . . What should she do now? She would scream if she could, but, curiously, she feels something else, something she has often felt after these incidents, a strange, almost comforting feeling, like a child in the midst of a harrowing night terror who, at the height of her fear, feels a faint but unshakeable intuition that what she is experiencing is not entirely real, that in spite of the fear, something, somewhere, is protecting her. Some unknown force protects us all . . . The image of her father flickers for a moment, then vanishes.
    Magicalthinking.
    Deep down, Sophie knows this is simply a child’s way of feeling