The Mad and the Bad

16

Julie was far away. She was out of breath. She was not running now, save over brief stretches of open terrain. Soon she found herself in completely wild country. The woods thinned out and gave way to rolling sandy ground interrupted here and there by jumbled rocks surmounted by pines. There were hollows with great masses of bracken. There was no trace of human settlement.

Gradually, as she walked, the girl’s mind became clearer. Her teeth chattered. She had to resist the urge to lie down and sleep. Peter was still unconscious in her arms. Her shoulders hurt, her calves hurt, her feet hurt. Her shoes were not made for walking. They were full of sand and bits of heather that got between her toes. Her smoky-gray tights were in shreds. It was three in the afternoon. It was fine and sunny, but clouds were gathering in the west. Julie navigated by the sun. It was her guiding star.

Though she was holding the little boy, the automatic pistol was still in her hand. It was hard for her to believe that she had shot two men. The idea made her burst out laughing. The girl was exhausted. She halted in the shade of a stand of pines, her back to a rock, on a mound offering a long view. She got her breath. She tended to Peter. Laid out on the ground, the little boy was sleeping with his mouth open. Julie shook him but got no reaction. She pushed his eyelids open. His eyes were slightly rolled up. He shook his head in his sleep. He was not exactly comatose but he was in a very deep, involuntary slumber, and there was nothing she could do but wait. With a dead branch she drew a large heart in the sand in front of her, and inside it she wrote: HERE LIVED JULIE THE RABID BITCH.

The girl was thirsty. After a while, carrying Peter, she set off once more. She forgot the MAB in the sand. She crossed somewhat less arid heathland. The birches were more numerous again. Eventually Julie pushed on through a veritable palisade of trees. Once through them, she found herself at the top of a rather bare slope. A valley stretched before her. At the far end of it the gray houses of a settlement could be seen. A road ran through the village. Julie set off down the hillside. Along the way, realizing what she must look like, she stood behind a rock to shed her ripped tights and untangle her hair. The sky, meanwhile, was clouding over. As she got closer to the village, from the open windows of the houses she heard live radio commentary on a football match, part of the European Champion Clubs’ Cup. The girl reached the edge of little vegetable gardens behind the houses. She clambered over an ironwork fence, followed a stony path, and emerged onto the main street, which was also the main road through the village.

Julie waited for a moment, expecting anyone and everyone to rush up to her and greet her or ask her questions. But the two or three passersby she saw paid her not the slightest attention. As for some youths seated at a refreshment stand, they were mainly interested in her legs. One of them whistled. Stiff-backed, Julie walked on.

She stopped at the local purveyor (according to the enameled frontage) of “Newspapers, Tobacco, and Novelties.” That day’s France-Soir was displayed on a plywood rack, and Julie’s photo was on the front page. A bad picture, taken several years earlier. The words “Little Peter’s nanny had been in psychotherapy” appeared in medium-size type below the picture, and underneath that, in smaller characters: “She has disappeared with the child (page 3).”

Julie did not go in and buy the paper. She hurried on, then froze in her tracks. On the other side of the road, at the end of the village and some fifty meters from Julie, the tricolor flag of the National Gendarmerie was clearly visible. At this point it began to rain. It would be so easy to run to the building, shelter there from the rain, and throw herself into the solid lap of the police. Julie turned on her heel on the narrow sidewalk. A car was approaching under the downpour. The girl stuck her arm out, thumb upward. Oh, she thought, I’ve lost my pistol. The automobile, a pale blue Peugeot 204, pulled over in a spray of dirty water. The door opened. The driver was a red-faced man in his forties.

“Get in. Pithiviers?”

“Yes,” said Julie. “Yes, I’m going to Pithiviers.”