Nothing Is Lost by Cloé Medhi

Author:Cloé Medhi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Europa Editions
Published: 2022-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

15

The odd thing is that nobody goes to the police station to report the burglary. I wonder why. Zé repairs the door at his own expense and they spend several days cleaning the whole apartment. I keep well out of it. There are heated arguments about the new TV that Gabrielle plans to buy. She likes watching news and documentaries. Zé retorts that there’s always the radio, she says it doesn’t distract her as much. He says it’s bad for her, when there are items about war it makes her sad. She replies that closing your eyes to what’s going on in the world doesn’t wipe it out. He says that if they let me I’d spend my whole life watching cartoons. She says he thinks I’m more stupid than I am.

In the end, she waits for him to take me to school and then sneaks out, and by the evening a new secondhand TV has replaced the old one. Zé sulks but gives in. We celebrate this victory with grape juice.

Having heard Nouria’s recommendations, Zé undertakes to sew on that half ping-pong ball. I’m able to sleep again. It’s as if I’m getting a second life, a second chance, but there are too many murky things going on around me for the enthusiasm to be more than half-hearted. One evening, a few days after the burglary, while I’m watching the news with Gabrielle, I again tackle the question of who was responsible.

“It’s very unusual for there to be nobody in. You were both out for an hour, seeing the lawyer, and then you came to pick me up. It can’t have been chance, they must have been watching the building.”

She nods as if it doesn’t concern her. I know she’s pretending. I look at her and she looks at the screen.

“The two of you are hiding things from me.”

“Yes,” she says.

“Yes?”

“Of course. You have enough problems as it is.”

“It’s my problem, too, when they wait for me outside school and rummage through my toys.”

“Maybe. But you can’t do anything to stop what’s happening. It’s more than we can handle either.”

I keep insisting, but she refuses to say another word.

The following evening, Zé drives straight to Les Verrières, just a few blocks from the school. The hearing will be soon, and he still has no evidence that my mother is on his side. Her letterbox is overflowing with leaflets. Zé keeps a lookout, nervously smoking a cigarette in the lobby of the building, while I slip my hand inside. I pull out a handful of envelopes. Bills, fines, and a letter from the court, a summons to the same hearing. She doesn’t even know about it. The last letter goes back to October 16, three months ago.

“Okay,” Zé says, “I’ve had enough of this. Wait for me here.”

He returns with a backpack that jingles metallically as he moves. I follow him to the fifth floor. He peers in through the keyhole, but the apartment is too dark to see anything. He hesitates for a moment then rings the neighbor’s bell.

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