The troublemaker

Out of the blue

He opened his fridge, grabbed a bottle of lemon water, plopped down on a kitchen stool and took a long swig.

- Who the hell are you?

- My name is Jeanne and this is my little sister Thérèse," replied the taller girl cheerfully.

- Why do you follow me everywhere? Why don't other people see you? Have I gone crazy?

- Well, I don't know. It was Monsignor Michaël who asked us to come.

- To help you, he said," added the youngest.

- Are you guys for real or is this all in my head?

- The other people here can't see us! We're seraphim.

Charles froze, his eyes wide, then felt a sob rising in his throat, as he had earlier, which he once again managed to hold back. He fell onto a stool and repeated ten times, "I'm crazy, I'm crazy!"

The little girls approached and each put her hand on one of the desperate man's shoulders. As in the square, he felt a gentle warmth spread through his muscles. The sensation was that of a roaring fire after a static wait in a draught.

Then, a prodigious event occurred. Jeanne and Thérèse began to sing.

Instead of two small, childlike voices, he felt as if an entire orchestra were playing in his kitchen. A powerful harmony rose up, each note resonating as if the room were a cavern. The two a capella voices answered each other in canon, in feminine, sometimes low tones reminiscent of the variations of the counter violas. He raised his head. The two small throats vibrated like drumheads. Their eyes lit up as they gazed up at the ceiling. The song surrounded Charles with a thousand caresses that made him shiver. His vision was blurred by a shower of sparks. He was seized by an appeasement that far surpassed his most serene post-coital consolations.

The two children now looked at him and continued to sing. Each note of the song filled his body with sensations like camphor balm on a sprain.

The song grew louder and he thought he heard a third singer. The notes seemed endless. As the sound rose to a crescendo, he had thought that the air formed no phrases, only "a" and "é". When the rhythm calmed down, he heard that the girls were singing in Latin. He wished those minutes of happiness would never end.

But eventually the singing died away. Emptied of all strength, he felt an infinite peace come over him. Jeanne and Thérèse stared at him with wide, satisfied smiles.

- What was that?" he breathed.

- It's Monteverdi's Duo seraphim," whispered little Thérèse.

- It's beautiful," he murmured gratefully.

- It's beautiful," repeated Thérèse, "it's our fetish song.

- Fetish," corrected Jeanne.

They stood there for long minutes, transfixed, saying nothing to each other. He sipped at his inner emptiness. What bliss to feel his mind restless, no longer building projects or brooding over grudges.

Helping himself to the table, he finally stood up, his eyelids misty and his consciousness dazed like a sleepwalker. He left the kitchen without a word or a glance for the girls. Although it was still early, he began his usual bedtime routine: pyjamas, teeth brushing, glass of water. He dropped onto his bed without getting into the sheets. He turned off his bedside lamp, but kept his eyes open. He stared at his painting of Jean Miotte, illuminated by the digital red of the clock.

The euphoric, anaesthetic effect of the song was gradually fading. He felt oppressed again by the question of his sanity. He could see, hear and feel these fairy-tale apparitions as clearly as the woman he had embraced that afternoon or the watch he was touching. At this very moment, the girls' laughter was echoing in the next room. They were quarrelling now, then relapsing into hilarity. Why this madness? The very idea of naked little girls and nothing else raised the horrifying question of pedophilia. The very idea made her want to vomit. The thermal shock of stepping out into a noisy, heat-crushed street could expose a temporary hallucination, certainly not such a lasting disturbance. The questions kept coming. The main one kept coming up: what was wrong in his life to explain this precipice?