Arthur, a psychiatrist who struggles to see inside his own soul, laments the state of his marriage.
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As a child, Arthur was mesmerized by the golden plaques affixed to building facades. Endlessly, he would ask his nanny to decipher the mysterious titles etched under the plexiglass: “Psychologist, psychiatrist, psychotherapist, psychoanalyst.” The little boy would bounce with joy upon hearing those strange sounds. His nanny, a young woman of Moroccan origin, had explained in her own words the nature of their work: “They’re specialists who heal your mood. They talk and talk, tell lots of stories, and that’s how sad people forget all their problems and end up laughing!” Naturally, young Arthur became convinced that these beautiful golden plaques were prizes won at some World Championship of Jokes. He vowed that when he grew up, he would become a super joke champion to earn the same awards. This was how Dr. Arthur Launay’s vocation as a psychiatrist was born – on a misunderstanding.
At fifty-six, Dr. Launay found himself increasingly recalling tender childhood memories, soothing balms for his growing anxieties. Sometimes, genuine panic attacks overwhelmed him. He considered confiding in a colleague but kept postponing such admissions of instability. Meanwhile, he had taken to indulging in a good swig of whiskey after coming home from the hospital. Soon, the swig became a daily ritual. Before long, it doubled. The emptier his life seemed, the more he drank, and the more he drank, the further he sank into that abyss. Dr. Launay had become an alcoholic. In the evenings, it wasn’t unusual to find him slouched in front of the TV. One of his favorite programs was the true crime show Faites entrer l’accusé (“Bring in the Accused”). Arthur was fascinated by intimate dramas where the enemy wasn’t some outsider but someone close to home – a spouse, a family member – within the most private circles. Here, the enemy was once loved and respected before being hated and despised. Here, amidst the ambivalence of human emotions, the infamous “act of madness” would become inevitable. A tipping point, a murderous impulse erupting violently into reality, bent on obliterating the other, now unbearable. Sometimes, the deranged murderer would go to great lengths, stabbing, hammering, or hacking to ensure their victim couldn’t rise again to torment them further.
Arthur Launay lived in Saint-Mandé, a quiet, affluent suburb near Paris, in a spacious house bordering the Bois de Vincennes. On this first Saturday of October, like every Saturday, he went to the market. He bought red amaryllis and a roasted chicken. Upon returning home, he found the house peaceful and silent. The spicy scent of Tamara, his second wife, still lingered. At that hour, she was likely in the hands of a skilled masseur. Tamara loved nothing more than pampering her body. Arthur didn’t mind her absence. He had lunch in the kitchen, downed an aspirin. The previous evening, he had overindulged. He woke up with a cotton mouth and a pounding head.
He wandered into the large living room, putting on a Billie Holiday CD. The first notes of Blue Moon rose. As always, everything was in its place. If there was one thing he could commend Tamara for, it was her obsession with order and cleanliness. Arthur passed by the wall-mounted library filled with essays, novels, and psychiatry books. He stopped in front of a glass cabinet housing items that had belonged to his grandfather, Ambroise. Medals and military decorations sat alongside old hunting rifles, lined up like little soldiers. He had considered parting with them but changed his mind. After all, how could he tell the story of his fantastic lion-hunting grandfather without these artifacts? Ambroise Launay, war hero, brought down foolishly by a bad flu. The absurdity of life…
Before leaving the living room, Arthur cast a lingering look at the Jean-Michel Atlan painting above the piano. Tamara called it “a smudge.” She had never bothered to expand her meager horizons. And how, he often wondered, had he ended up in such an incongruous pairing? This question plagued him more and more frequently. The answer, inevitably, lay in the charm she had wielded after his four years of mourning and solitude. Tamara, with her artfully messy hairstyles and poses. That air of effortlessness, a subtle strategy of studied gestures, ethereal glances, beguiling smiles, even the ingenious seraphic modulations of her voice. Where had she acquired such skill at feigned innocence, this knack for faking naturalness? Had he even wanted to disarm her charms? He had allowed Tamara’s frivolous gaiety to replace, temporarily, that cursed melancholy, his ever-faithful anonymous lover. And now, this black beast was back, silent and creeping, spreading its venom deep into his soul.
Arthur entered his office, a nearly bare room. The second drawer creaked as it slid open. Mechanically, he noted that he should fix it. He pulled out a black-and-white photo in a light wooden frame. A young brunette posed in St. Mark’s Square, surrounded by a flock of pigeons. Marie smiled, her scarf caught in the wind. He sighed. Blessed are those who believe in an afterlife. Arthur Launay did not. No reincarnation, no resurrection. No destiny written by an invisible hand. For him, it was all matter, death already encoded in our genes.
Tamara had developed avoidance strategies: afternoons at the beauty institute, evenings at the Bridge Club. Arthur had, she was certain, once been in love with her. Now, he carried around a sticky sadness with a kind of deliberate care. This late afternoon, she once again found her husband sprawled on the couch, watching that vile show: Faites entrer l’accusé. It was hard to comprehend how the venerable Dr. Launay could wallow in such filth, all blood and murder. He went so far as to record missed episodes, savoring them at his leisure, like now, sipping whiskey. Usually, he was nearly drunk by the time the mystery was solved. And what fascinating mysteries they were! Here’s the latest fabulous tale that had enthralled him: Simone, a decent sixty-something woman, had been struck with a frying pan by her own son, eager to get his hands on her inheritance. The victim had lived in a shabby little house in a remote rural village where, until that fateful night, nothing had ever disturbed the monotony. The wayward son left her lying in a pool of blood after breaking a window to stage a burglary. He cleaned the crime scene, but a DNA trace gave him away. He got twenty years in prison. That’s the case. Sordid, pathetic. A pitiful story of wretched misers and starving paupers.
Tamara crossed the living room nervously, heading to the kitchen with a single thought in mind: divorce. She meticulously washed her hands. She had a phobia of germs. Mechanically, she turned on the radio. It was talking about another “Black Saturday,” about Yellow Vest protests, flash ball shots, a lost eye, a severed hand. Unmoved, she pressed the off button before opening the fridge, searching for inspiration for dinner. There were leftovers from a roast chicken.
The following Saturday, Arthur spent the morning on his ritual trip to the market. In the afternoon, he decided to wander alone in the Bois de Vincennes. The day before, torrential rains had poured over the Paris region. He was already delighted by the prospect of inhaling the damp smell of leaves, kicking acorns off his path like a spirited child, blending into the autumn hues, poetically wishing to become nothing more than part of the landscape. Naturally, he chose rust-colored pants, an orange-and-khaki argyle sweater, a yellow raincoat, and olive-green rubber boots. Dressed somewhat like a clown, Arthur set out proudly, unafraid of muddy paths.
Dr. Azoulay had injected hyaluronic acid into Tamara’s lips. Despite the ice pack, they had doubled in size and turned violet. Tamara was already dreading Arthur’s mockery. He never missed an opportunity to tease her, comparing her mouth to a duck’s beak.
Tamara found her husband in the dim light, slouched on the couch in his garden boots, his yellow raincoat open over an awful argyle sweater. He looked like a clown. He was drinking. The rug was littered with crumbs and empty snack bags. It was disgusting. She firmly decided to bring up divorce that very evening. He’d have to agree to pay her alimony, she thought, and let her remain the sole beneficiary of his life insurance. She only owned a tiny two-room apartment in Paris and had no income. Tamara had always lived under the protection of a husband, without shame. She had always embraced her status as “unemployed.” Feminists and their snarling rhetoric didn’t impress her. Working to be independent – what an enormous scam! No woman escaped this false idea of autonomy anymore. Just look at those secretaries and nurses struggling to make ends meet. Now they appeared on roundabouts in yellow vests, shamelessly flaunting their poverty.
Returning from his walk, Arthur had collapsed on the couch without taking off his yellow raincoat. He kept his boots on. On the coffee table, he had carefully placed a full bottle of whiskey and an empty glass, which he planned to fill. From the kitchen cupboards, he had found some packets of salted crackers. He had no particular desire, except to lose himself in alcohol and silence.
He drank. His thoughts wandered. Tamara’s image came to him. He no longer desired her; he probably had never loved her, he thought. Tamara had been a bandage. A dismal realization. Tamara deserved, like any human, from the most profound to the most insignificant, to be loved for herself, with her flaws and shortcomings. He thought it was time to give her back her freedom, ensuring her material well-being. It was all he could offer her.
Darkness settled, casting its tentacles on the walls. He told himself this was the last glass. Then he poured another. He raised it, facing the void filled with shadow and silence, to toast, as a solitary fool, to his downfall. He set down his glass. He waited, motionless, in the dark. Something had to happen. Something that would shatter the silence, break this inert, suspended time into pieces. He waited.
Tamara came home. She turned on the light. The brightness startled Arthur. He blinked. Tamara went to the kitchen. He heard her opening cupboards, complaining about something. She returned to the living room, rambling on with irrelevant comments. Arthur didn’t listen to her drivel. Tamara grew annoyed and demanded he look at her when she spoke. He did. And he laughed. Her lips were blue and swollen, a duck’s beak. Arthur laughed, Tamara screamed, her face twisted in anger, more comical than ever. She called him a drunk dressed like a fool. Tamara unleashed everything she had bottled up, all the grievances of a life full of boredom for which he was held responsible. After a second avalanche of scorn and curses, she mentioned divorce before laying out demands meant to cover her moral damages: alimony and life insurance. She talked about money. That was what Tamara did best – talk about money with flamboyant vulgarity.
Arthur stood up, almost effortlessly. He walked over to the cabinet with the old rifles and opened it. He took one out, knowing perfectly well it was in working order. He fetched some cartridges of a respectable caliber from an old cardboard box. He loaded the weapon, one cartridge at a time. He moved methodically, with precise gestures, as if this moment had been rehearsed countless times. Behind him, Tamara watched his every move, gripped by growing fear. She asked him in a trembling voice if he had gone mad. Arthur turned to her calmly, aiming the rifle at her. He aimed for the heart, the source of all pain. He fired.
Tamara’s body collapsed to the floor, with a scent of burnt coffee in the air. That was it. He had done it. He had crossed the line. Out of Christian charity, lacking life insurance, he had offered this inconsistent and useless woman his version of forgiveness.
Arthur took one step forward, then another, slowly, mechanically. He bent over the body, like a medical examiner confirming the death. Tamara lay on her back in a pool of blood spreading across her chest and onto the floor. Her eyes were wide open. The fatal shot had frozen her gaze in an expression of astonishment. Her duck-like mouth only amplified her idiotic look.
This time, Arthur had no urge to laugh. Strangely, he felt nothing. Could the act really be nothing more than this? This complete absence of emotion? He didn’t even feel the slightest satisfaction or relief. He sighed, walked over to the coffee table, and downed the last sip of whiskey. No, crime didn’t pay – not even with a fleeting moment of happiness. He set down the glass.
There was one last act to complete. If he had been wrong all his life, and there was indeed something behind the curtain of nothingness, he would soon find out.
