In the Country of Others by Leila Slimani

Author:Leila Slimani [Slimani, Leila]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-08-10T00:00:00+00:00

Mathilde parked the car outside the post office. She opened the car door and stretched out her legs, touching her feet to the pavement. She’d never known a September as hot as this one. She took a sheet of paper and a pen from her bag and tried to finish writing the letter she’d begun that morning. In the first paragraph she’d written that they shouldn’t believe everything they read in the newspapers. That of course what happened in Petitjean was terrible, but the situation was more complicated.

“My dear Irène, have you left for your vacation? I imagine—though perhaps I am wrong—that you are in the Vosges, near one of those lakes we used to swim in when we were young. I can still taste the blueberry pie served by that tall lady with warts all over her face. The taste has never left my memory and I think about it whenever I’m sad, to console myself.”

She put her shoes back on and climbed the stairs that led to the post office. A smiling woman greeted her at the counter. “Mulhouse, France,” Mathilde explained. Next she headed to the main room, where the hundreds of post office boxes were located. Little brass doors, each one with a number on it, covered the high walls. She stopped next to box number 25: the same number as her year of birth, she’d said to Amine, who was always indifferent to this kind of remark. She took the little key out of her pocket and inserted it into the lock, but it didn’t turn. She took it out and put it in again but still the box wouldn’t open. Mathilde repeated the same actions with increasing impatience, and her annoyance was soon making people stare. Was this woman stealing letters sent to her husband by another woman? Or was she trying to take revenge on her lover by opening his post office box? An employee walked up to her slowly, like a zookeeper who had to return an animal to its cage. He was a very young man with red hair and a protruding jawline. Mathilde thought him ridiculous and ugly with his enormous feet and the pompous look on his face. He was still a child, she thought, and yet his expression was severe.

“Is there a problem, madame? May I help you?” She yanked out the key so quickly that she almost elbowed the young man in the eye. He was much shorter than she was. “It won’t open,” she said angrily.

The employee took the key from Mathilde but he had to stand on tiptoe to reach the lock. His slowness exasperated her. Finally the key broke in the lock and she had to wait while he called his manager. She was going to be late for work; she’d promised Amine that she would make progress on the laborers’ payslips and her husband would be furious if she wasn’t home in time to serve him lunch. The employee reappeared, armed with a

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