Les Sept Jours du talion
Patrick Senécal
(Excerpt: p. 1-19)
As he saw the monster get out of the car, Bruno Hamel heard the dog growl for the first time.
About thirty metres in front of him, the police car had been stopped near the back door of the courthouse for a good minute already and its occupants still had not made an appearance. Bruno was even beginning to wonder if they had noticed his presence when the two police officers finally got out and immediately opened the rear door. The monster, handcuffed, had appeared.
Bruno saw him in flesh and blood for the first time. Except for his slicked-back hair and his freshly trimmed beard, he was like all the images he had seen on TV.
It was at that moment that the dog growl was heard, dull, distant. Bruno barely noticed. His eyes never left the face of the monster. He had always been wary of stereotypes: he thought that the most warped people looked the straightest. This time, however, the monster really did look like a louse, like a stereotypical Hollywood "bad guy," and this irritated Bruno, though he couldn't say why.
The police officers led the monster towards the door, around which about twenty citizens were demonstrating their anger and their disgust by shouting insults at the prisoner. A little grin that was trying to be arrogant curled the lips of the monster, but you could see the fear camouflaged behind that tough exterior. Very soon that smile would be replaced by a much more terrified expression. With that thought, Bruno had to make an effort not to get out of the car and shoot the monster point blank with the pistol stuck in the belt of his pants. But he forced himself to be calm, to be still. The hatred, if he used it now, would be wasted. He had to conserve it for later. Soon.
Accompanied by two police officers, the monster disappeared into the building and the small group of demonstrators immediately fell quiet.
The dog growl a second time. Bruno looked around, expected to see a big dog approaching, but he did not see any animals.
One of the two police officers came out again, walked through the group of now silent demonstrators and climbed into his car. The vehicle backed up and then disappeared to the side of the courthouse, in the parking lot. Bruno, who had not turned off his engine, followed at a distance. The police car parked near of a door, beside two other patrol vehicles. Ten seconds later, the officer went into the building.
Bruno parked about twenty metres away and finally cut the motor.
"You didn't tell me it was a cop car..."
Bruno turned to the adolescent sitting beside him. The kid shook his head with annoyance, and repeated:
"If I'd known, I'm not sure I would have said yes..."
Bruno took out his wallet and counted out ten hundred dollar bills. The youth, who had not been expecting the bonus, stared greedily at the money. He must have been sixteen or seventeen, his skull was shaven, he had a pin in his lower lip, and he was quite a handsome lad. He went to take the money, but Bruno shoved it into his coat pocket.
"When it's done," he said simply.
The kid nodded, and opened his door.
"Not right away!"
The teenager closed the door again nervously. Bruno looked at his watch: ten to ten.
He lowered his sun visor so he wouldn't be disturbed, leaned back his head and, for the first time since the beginning of the nightmare, went over the events of the last ten days.***
The darkness chose a particularly sunny afternoon to appear. That seventh of October was like a summer's day and Bruno was in his yard raking the leaves that had fallen early that year. He had no operations that afternoon and the hospital did not need him: a half a day off. He had started by spending a short hour at his computer. Computers were a passion for him, and as soon as his family or his work left him with the least amount of spare time, he dashed to his keyboard and became unreachable to ordinary mortals. But it was such a beautiful day that he had finally gone outside to do a little leisurely yard work. As he finished his third beer of the afternoon (Sylvie was not there to lecture him, so why not!), he was preparing a huge pile of leaves to surprise Jasmine. She would just love it, leaping into the pile and insisting that her father do the same. And Bruno would be happy to do as he was told.
Because, of course, he loved his daughter with a passion.
It was three twenty, the children were walking along the street and the pile of leaves was almost finished. Bruno saw Louise Bédard, who called hello. Like every day, she had gone to school to pick up her son Frédéric, who was afraid to come home alone. The little nine-year-old waved shyly at the doctor and he replied with a smile, touched, as always, by the terrible scars that had disfigured the child since he was three and which Bruno had never gotten used to. And as he watched them walk down the street towards their house, at the corner of the street, he told himself for the thousandth time that he was lucky. Very lucky.
An hour before the darkness descended on him, Bruno Hamel was thanking providence for having given him a life without real ordeals.
After seeing all the children in the neighbourhood pass, he began to wonder. When he went to the school, he was still not very worried. Perhaps she had stayed after class for extra help or some activity. But he was assured that Jasmine had left at least forty minutes before. He was not really worried either as he returned home, expecting to find his daughter playing in the leaves with her mother. Sylvie was there, but not Jasmine. Sylvie made a series of calls, but the girl was not with any of her friends.
After that, worry finally raised its ugly head. Enough to make him call the police.
When they arrived, the cops tried to be reassuring: a little seven-year-old girl who takes a little detour on the way home happens often. "Children disappearing in Drummondville are even rarer than 6-49 winners!" one had joked. Bruno knew that that wasn't quite true: at least once a year, he would come across an article in the local newspaper about the disappearance of a child. The police agreed to conduct a search, even though they weren't really alarmed.
First they went to the school, accompanied by Bruno, while Sylvie stayed at the house to welcome her daughter who, of course, would return home in the meantime.
At the school, while a policeman was questioning the yard monitor, Bruno was watching the other officer walking back and forth in the field close to the school. He repeated to himself that in an hour all three of them would be home, laughing at this situation. But he never took his eyes off the policeman who was searching intently through the bushes...
All of a sudden, the officer stopped, his eyes riveted on the ground; he took off his hat, slowly ran his hand through his hair and Bruno's legs instantly went numb.
As he walked towards the policeman, he kept repeating to himself that it was nothing, that the cop had found a book, a hat, something that had nothing to do with his daughter... He came closer and, in spite of the distressed expression on the cop's face, he was still denying it. Even when he was close enough to see a bare leg sticking out from under the bush, he kept telling himself that it was another child, another little girl, but not his, not Jasmine, because it was quite simply impossible, it happened to other children, to other parents you saw on the news and in the papers, but not to them...
He recognized her right away, and yet it was not her. It was no longer her. What broke his heart first of all was her nakedness. She was still wearing her blue dress, but it was in such tatters that it did little to decently cover that little body that he knew by heart, that he had washed thousands of times in their bath... But now... it was so... dirty! Every time Jasmine had a little cut or bruise and came home crying, Bruno was heartsick. But this time, there were so many bruises, so much blood and she wasn't crying! Why wasn't she crying, she must hurt so much!
When he saw around her neck her blue hair band, the one Sylvie had put on her that very morning, warning her not to lose it, he knew she was dead.
Jasmine, his only daughter, who he should have been playing and laughing with right now, was dead.
Then he saw her face. Never had he seen it so swollen. Never had he seen her mouth so twisted. And her eyes... Apparently empty, but deep down the horror was still there... How could there be such emotion in the eyes of a child? The one who did this had not only killed his daughter, he had destroyed her soul.
Bruno dropped to his knees. He reached out and, very gently, he picked up Jasmine, as he had done when she was sick or had fallen asleep in front of the TV. He held her against his chest, laid her face in the hollow of his shoulder and hugged her tight, without a word, without a scream, with only a slow, long, wheezing expiration. He did not notice if she was stiff or limp, warm or cold... He noticed only that, for the first time, his daughter did not respond to his touch, did not cling to him the way she always did, did not giggle with joy against his neck... For the first time, she had no reaction. And of all the hurts, this was the worst.
Still hugging her, he closed his eyes. One familiar scene after the other flashed before his closed eyes: Jasmine running to him when he called her on arriving home, Jasmine earnestly helping him sort his CDs, Jasmine squealing with joy on the back of an elephant at the zoo, Jasmine drawing eyes and a mouth in her shepherd's pie, Jasmine putting on Sylvie's dresses and parading around in adult poses, Jasmine chasing squirrels in the park and, especially, Jasmine laughing, laughing...
It was at that moment that the darkness blotted out the sun.
***
Bruno opened his eyes. Ten fifteen. The arraignment must be beginning. The doctor looked around: there was no one in the parking lot and from here, the rear door of the courthouse was visible. So he told the teenager he could go.
The kid got out and hurried towards the police car. From the pocket of this coat, he took out a tool or two that Bruno did not recognize and began to work on the door. More precisely, on the lock.
Bruno again surveyed the surroundings. The closest individuals were on the sidewalk, a hundred metres away. As for the demonstrators near the rear door, there was no reason for them to come this way. It was a little risky (Bruno had not planned for the presence of that small group of citizens), but he didn't have much choice.
He noticed how drab the other cars in the parking lot were, how grey and cracked the asphalt was, how dull the sky was... But things were not really this way, he knew that. It was he who saw them this way.
Because he had a different view now. His vision had changed.
He turned his attention to the kid, but he didn't really see him anymore, lost in his thoughts. This new vision he had was a reaction. A side effect of the darkness...***
The change of vision had occurred abruptly. Nothing gradual. Before he took Jasmine's body in his arms and close his eyes, Bruno saw in a certain way. Opening them again a few minutes later, he saw differently.
He had only a vague, almost unreal memory of all the hours following that discovery. Only a few precise moments stood out clearly against the fog: Sylvie's hysterical scream, the telephone call to his mother... He also remembered how lacklustre Sylvie had seemed, without dimension, without depth. As were the walls, the furniture and the objects in the house, which he had observed absent-mindedly.
There was now a filter over his eyes.
All evening, they sat hugging on the living room couch, not moving, barely speaking. Sylvie cried incessantly. Bruno held her with all his strength, broken with sorrow and despair, but no tears flowed from his eyes. The darkness had smothered any weeping.
Two days later, in the funeral parlour, there were many visitors: parents (even Bruno's mother, who was almost bedridden, had moved heaven and earth to be there), friends, colleagues and all the members of the board of Éclosion, the battered women's shelter where Sylvie worked part-time and where the doctor volunteered one evening a week. Bruno had hugged each of these individuals, brokenheartedly moved...
"It shouldn't happen to people like Sylvie and you," Gisèle, the director at Éclosion, had mumbled to him, her face drenched in tears. "God is sometimes the worst bastard..."
Bruno had stroked her cheek, too choked up to say anything.
He did manage to talk with people, friends, making superhuman efforts to quiet the anguish inside, if only for a few seconds. But it was no use: it was everywhere, like a perpetual wave that formed again as soon as it subsided. And under that despair there was still the darkness, that strange darkness in his soul that blocked any tears and that seemed to hide something he still didn't want to face...
During the evening, especially when he went to reflect in front of the closed coffin, he often shoved his hand in his pocket, where he had Jasmine's blue headband, the one she wore on the last day of her short life. Bruno had kept it without telling anyone, not even Sylvie. Since then, he had always had it with him and he told himself he would never be separated from it again.
In that closed wooden box was his daughter. Lying there, as peaceful as if she were asleep. Every evening, when she went to bed, she said the same thing to Bruno when he left the bedroom: "Papa, don't forget your bag, don't forget your hat, don't forget anything!" It didn't mean anything, but she had been saying it since she was three and it had become a ritual, a kind of code only the two of them understood.
Looking at the coffin, Bruno said to himself that this was the first time Jasmine has gone to sleep without observing their little ritual.
Cry! Cry already, you want to so much!
Why doesn't it happen? Why is there this strange darkness inside, that blocks any outpouring of his despair?
During the burial the next day, under a resplendent sun, Bruno felt a panic so intense he came close to throwing himself on the coffin screaming. The idea that his little Jasmine was going to spend eternity in that hole, rotting away until disintegration was total, it seemed so horrible to him, so senseless that he wanted to go far away, but Sylvie's hand squeezed his at the same moment and that gave him the strength to stay. He put his hand in his pocket and never let go of the blue ribbon.
That evening, Bruno should have gone for his volunteer work at Éclosion. Of course, he did not go, something that hardly ever happened. For three years, he had been going to the centre one evening a week to comfort the residents, talk to them and, occasionally, treat women who arrived in tears, still swollen from the recent blows they'd received from their spouses. Sylvie worked there three days a week. She and Bruno were much appreciated and the proof of that was when they received a huge card signed by all the residents at Éclosion. Most of the messages were addressed to the couple ("You helped me so much. I'll do everything I can to help you now."), but some were addressed more to Bruno ("I still remember that evening when I arrived in a crisis at the centre and when you were so gentle, so kind to me."), others more to Sylvie ("The three most beautiful days of the week are when you come to work."). They read the card standing in the middle of living room, cheek against cheek. And suddenly, Sylvie turned to Bruno:
"I want you to make love to me."
No desire or sensuality in that request, but rather an almost pleading desperation. Bruno looked at her for a long while. How long had it been since they'd had sex? Two months? Maybe three? The couple had not been very healthy for some time. They both knew it, but they had never really talked about it... No repeated arguments or specific criticisms. Just a stagnant, dreary habit that produced fewer and fewer sparks...
Bruno understood Sylvie's request: Jasmine's death was supposed to bring them closer together. It was now or never for them to again become the couple that they had once been. And above all, it was the only way to get through the ordeal. Yes, he understood. And to express his agreement, he kissed her and slowly guided her towards the bedroom, on the second floor.
In spite of all the tenderness that cloaked their communion, no real pleasure, no real excitement was felt and they stopped after a little while. Sylvie cried softly in Bruno's arms. He was thinking. Of course, it was not so surprising that it didn't work, but was Jasmine's death the sole cause? Silently, he pressed himself against her with such a need for communion and comfort that he fell asleep in that position.
The next day, at the end of the afternoon, Bruno went to Jasmine's school. He watched all the children coming out of the school and some, who knew him, looked at him uncomfortably. Bruno had the impression that all those pupils were lacklustre and washed-out, but he knew that that wasn't true. It was the filter over his eyes...
When no more children came out of the exit, the doctor stood there motionless, staring at the door, wishing with all his strength to see Jasmine open it. But it remained closed. He took the blue ribbon out of his pocket. The blood had dried on the fabric. He brushed it on his cheek, closed his eyes for a moment, then, head sagging, he returned to his car.
***
The kid was still working on the car lock, but Bruno barely saw him, still lost in thought.
These four days that had followed the arrival of the darkness had been the saddest and the most desperate. But they had also been full of resolve: the resolve to get through it, the resolve to find Sylvie again, the resolve to be stronger than fate. Of course, Bruno was still too weak from the wound to put up a real fight, but he believed in it. In spite of the darkness within him, he really believed in it. Sylvie and he could do nothing but climb back out of this abyss, and the ascent, as long and painful as it might be, would be made day by day.
But on the evening of the fourth day, the telephone rang.
***
At the end of the line, Bruno heard a voice that was both soft and husky. All the people who had called until now him had asked in an embarrassed tone of voice how he was doing, which had seemed to him to be the worst of insults. This man was the first one to vary the formula.
"This is Detective Sergeant Mercure. I'm sorry to bother you in your time of grief."
Bruno, intrigued, answered nothing.
"But the news I have will be worth it: we've found your daughter's murderer."
Something collapsed inside Bruno, weighed down on his stomach, and sent him into sickening vertigo, and his saliva thickened. At the moment, he did not understand want was happening to him, then he saw the light. For four days, he had been so submerged by the loss of Jasmine that his brain, as senseless as that seemed to him now, had never grasped the idea that there was a rapist, a killer, and that that man was still at large. For the first time, his emotions detached themselves from the loss of his daughter and focused on the existence of this murderer. This unbalanced him so much that he had to sit down, the phone still at his ear.
"Jasmine's ki... killer," he stammered.
The guy was not hard to find, according to Mercure. He had been hanging around the school for several days and had spoken to children. Teachers had noticed him too, so the identification had been easy. He had been questioned the day before. He had given an inconsistent, confused alibi, contradicted himself with his answers.
After a long silence, Bruno asked:
"He confessed?"
"Practically. When he realized that it looked bad for him, he finally admitted: 'It looks like I'm screwed...' We're holding him, Mr. Hamel."
A silence again from the doctor. He really did not feel well.
"What happens next?"
Mercure explained: the next day, there would be the arraignment, then the suspect would be held in the Drummondville detention centre. About a week later, there would be a court appearance for the preliminary examination to determine the trial date.
"He'll be going away for a long time, you can be sure of that. Rape with extreme violence, murder, certainly with premeditation. All on a little girl. He'll get twenty-five years, it's almost certain..."
"Twenty-five years?"
"That's the length of a life sentence. He could be eligible for parole, but only after fifteen years."
"He won't stay in prison for the rest of his life?"
Bruno surprised himself by saying that.
"Twenty-five years is a long time, Mr. Hamel. Even fifteen years. To be kept in prison until you die, you have to have done something really..."
He stopped himself, realizing his poor choice of words, but Bruno had understood and replied tersely:
"The rape and murder of my daughter are not serious enough, right?"
"That's not what I meant..."
Embarrassed silence. No saliva in his mouth, the doctor heard himself ask:
"How did he react? Did he... Did he seem to feel remorse?"
He rubbed his forehead. Why is he asking these questions?
"He knows he's done for and that scares him. But he's acting tough and... No, he doesn't show any remorse. When they talked to him about the horror of the crime, he... Well, he actually smiled. It was arrogance, obviously, but..."
The doctor nodded, his face suddenly pale. He mumbled in an empty voice:
"Thank you."
And he hung up. He stayed sitting there for a long while. He tried to imagine that man who, when he was accused of the worst of crimes, just smiled.
Smiled.
This anonymous killer suddenly emerged from the strange darkness that, until now and in spite of its undeniable presence, had remained stagnant in him but which, now, was slowly stirring. This dark movement even partly pushed aside his sadness, which, suddenly, lost intensity.
He finally noticed Sylvie, standing in the living room door.
"They found him, didn't they?"
It was the first time she'd mentioned the killer, at least in front of Bruno.
"Yes, they found him."
He summarized the information he'd been given. Sylvie put her hands in front of her mouth and cried. Bruno realized that, unlike him, she had often imagined Jasmine's killer.
"He will definitely get twenty-five years in prison," he explained, mechanically. And parole after fifteen years. Anyway, that's what he's likely to get."
Sylvie was surprised by the distraught look on her husband's face and asked him if he didn't feel relieved.
"I, I don't know, I..."
He couldn't help imagining the smile on that faceless murderer.
Sylvie then became very serious. She went over to her husband, took him by the hands and made him get up. She said, in a clear voice, without sobbing:
"Bruno, we have to have another child."
And, after a pause:
"As quickly as possible."
"You can't have any more."
"We'll adopt one."
"I... I'm not ready to replace Jasmine so quickly."
"It's not a question of replacing her, you know that."
"No, of course not, but..."
She was going too fast for him and that telephone call from the police had upset him too much for him to think clearly. And there was the darkness, too, which was stirring more and more in his stomach, giving him an unpleasant feeling...
"Listen, I'll think about it, but not right away..."
She nodded with a sniffle, added that she understood. He stroked her hair, smiled, then said he needed to go get some air, alone. He might not even be home for supper. She seemed a little surprised, but didn't object. He kissed her, then left.
He walked for a long time, all the way downtown, haunted by the phone call from the police.
Twenty-five years. Maybe fifteen...
He ate late in a restaurant on Brock Street, but after a few mouthfuls he pushed away his plate with disgust. He was trying to regain all the strength of the sadness that had inhabited him for the last four days, but it was hard to reach, pushed down by the darkness weighing down on it.
When Bruno got home, after wandering at length in the city, Sylvie was sitting in front of the TV. She didn't ask him what he'd done or where he'd been. She just said softly that he was just in time for the news. She had even set the VCR to record in case he came home too late. His mother had also called for an update. He nodded silently. His mouth was so dry... He went to get a beer from the refrigerator and came back to sit down in the living room, very close to Sylvie.
After the political and international headlines, the newsreader explained that the Drummondville police had just arrested a suspect in the case of "the horrible death of little Jasmine Jutras-Hamel." Then, the Drummondville police station appeared on the screen and you could see two police officers escorting a handcuffed young man.
"It's him!" whispered Sylvie.
Bruno grabbed her thigh and squeezed hard. With his free hand, he took the remote control and turned up the sound. Over the images of the young man, a narrator explained:
"Last night the Drummondville police arrested a suspect in the case of little Jasmine Jutras-Hamel, who was savagely raped and killed on Friday. The suspect is one..."
And suddenly, Bruno pressed the mute button. Stunned, Sylvie asked him what he was doing. The doctor himself was looking at the remote control with astonishment. Why had he done that? And in a voice that seemed outside of himself, he heard himself answer:
"I don't want to know anything about him. Not his name, or what he does for a living, or any other information."
Sylvie asked him why. Bruno stared at the screen for a moment, as if he was searching for a precise, clear explanation.
"Any information about him, about his personality, would make him too much like a human being..."
There, that was it. That man couldn't be human, it was obvious. A human being wouldn't have done that. And Bruno did not want to see him as a man. That was the only way to...
Why, in fact?
He rubbed his forehead, perplexed.
Sylvie did not reply for a few instants, bewildered.
"Well I want to know that information."
"You can watch the video later."
He looked at her imploringly.
"Please..."
His request was absurd, he knew it, but he couldn't help it. She nodded, understanding. She said she was going to make herself a cup of coffee and that she would watch the video later. He thanked her and she walked to the kitchen.
On the screen, they had gone to another story. Bruno pressed "stop" on the VCR, rewound the tape and, without the sound, replayed the part where you see the young man handcuffed. In his twenties, long, blond, dirty hair, jean full of holes and a worn leather coat. A few days of beard growth, hollow eyes, mouth gaping stupidly. An ugly bugger.
That guy had approached Jasmine. He had spoken to her, he had enticed her into the field on some pretext. Then, behind a bush, he had forced her down on the ground, torn off her dress, penetrated her and struck her violently, again and again and he had come inside her, while she tried to scream for help, call her mama and her papa for help... Finally, he had put her blue ribbon around her little neck and strangled her, leaving her with the last emotion of her short time on earth one of enormous, incomprehensible suffering...
In his hands, the remote control cracked weakly.
Suddenly, the young man on the TV turned his head towards the camera and gave a brief, arrogant, contemptuous smile. In a fraction of a second, Bruno's heart was consumed, turned to charred granite.
The newsreader reappeared on the screen, moved his mouth without any sound coming out. Bruno rewound the tape again, replayed the passage, until the smile. Was he smiling like that while he raped Jasmine, while he beat her? Yes... no doubt. Just as he will smile that way when he gets out of prison, either in fifteen or twenty-five years. Fifteen no doubt...
Hastily, Bruno stood up and walked towards the stairs. He met Sylvie, who asked where he was going.
"I'm going to bed," he answered quickly. "I'm really pooped..."
It was when he went to bed that Bruno gave in the most to his pain. Lying still in bed, he let the memories of Jasmine flow over him, submerged himself in them and fell asleep in this suffering. But that evening, his head buried in the pillow, he was not able to reactivate his sadness. He felt it, touched it with the tip of his soul, but the darkness became denser and denser, until he felt nauseous.
When Sylvie came to bed an hour later, he was still not asleep, even though his eyes were closed. And at two o'clock in the morning, he turned over again between his sheets, covered in sweat, his mind totally confused. Every time he tried to focus his thoughts on Jasmine's face, every time he strove to rediscover his sadness to immerse himself in it for relief, the face of the killer appeared, with his appalling smile. And inside his head, time went by, the years passed, after which his little daughter was nothing but dust, while the killer was coming out of prison, smiling.
Always, always, always smiling...
What did Bruno have to do to make him finally stop smiling? To make him finally grimace with fear and suffering, the way Jasmine did?
A flash of blood, violence and fury suddenly swept through his brain with such force that he leapt out of bed and left the bedroom, as if he was running away from the man who was in that bed two seconds earlier.
He went down to the kitchen, ran a glass of water. But he spit it out, it wouldn't go down: the darkness blocked his stomach. Moreover, nausea gripped him at the same time and he had just enough time to get to the bathroom to vomit in the toilet. And while he was vomiting, images of madness kept hammering at his head.
When he stood up again, he felt strangely calm. He looked at himself in the mirror, at first with astonishment, then his features sagged little by little, became stern.
At a leisurely pace, he went into the living room. He turned on the TV and played the news tape again. Still without sound, he watched the images, then pressed "pause" just when the murderer smiled at the camera. The young man froze on the screen and, at that instant, he became the monster.
The doctor went over to the TV, bent over and, with his face very close to the screen, stared intently at the monster frozen in front of him.
Then the darkness no longer just distorted his sadness; it erased it completely. Like a growing patch of oil, it spread through his whole body, until it filled his gaze.
When he went back to bed ten minutes later, he did not even try to sleep. Lying on his back, he stared at the ceiling with his eyes open and hard, while his brain worked all out. His thoughts were chaotic and scattered at first, but they became organized as the hours went by, little by little forming a coherent, precise whole. And all through that sleepless night, one phrase endlessly emerged from the storm of ideas that rumbled in his skull: the monster would go before the judge for his preliminary examination in approximately one week.
Approximately one week...
© 2002 Éditions Alire & Patrick Senécal
To find out what happens next...
