Only herself to blame.
There was nothing more she could take off. She didn’t own any jewelry or a hat. She had no possessions apart from her shabby handbag containing a Paris guidebook, a few sachets of salt and sugar, a hair clip, her identity card and her coin purse. She placed the bag next to the shoes and the ring. Then she began to clamber onto the parapet.
First she rolled onto her tummy and pulled her other leg up, but she nearly slid back down. Her heart was pounding, her pulse was racing and the rough sandstone scraped her knees. Her toes found a crack, and she pushed herself upward. She’d made it. She sat down and swung her feet over the other side.
Now she simply had to push off and let herself fall. She couldn’t possibly mess this up.
Marianne thought of the mouth of the Seine near Honfleur, through which her body would sail after drifting past locks and riverbanks and then float out to sea. She imagined the waves spinning her around, as if she were dancing to a tune that only she and the sea could hear. Honfleur, Erik Satie’s birthplace. She loved his music; she loved all kinds of music. Music was like a film that she watched on the back of her closed eyelids, and Satie’s music conjured up images of the sea, even though she had never been to the seaside.
“I love you, Erik, I love you,” she whispered. She had never spoken those words to any man other than Lothar. When had he last told her that he loved her? Had he ever told her?
Marianne waited for fear to come, but it didn’t.
Death is not free. Its price is life.
What’s my life worth?
Nothing.
A bad deal for the devil. He’s only got himself to blame.
She hesitated as she braced her hands hard against the stone parapet and slid forward, suddenly thinking of an orchid she had found among the rubbish many months ago. She’d spent half a year tending and singing to it, but now she would never see it flower. Then she pushed off with both hands.
Her jump became a fall, and falling forced her arms above her head. As she fell into the wind, she thought of the life insurance policy and how it would not pay out for a suicide. A loss of 124,563 euros. Lothar would be beside himself.
A good deal after all.
With this in mind, she hit the ice-cold Seine with a sense of joyous abandon that faded into profound shame as she sank and her gray flowery dress enveloped her head. She tried desperately to pull down the hem so no one would see her bare legs, but then she gave up and spread her arms, opened her mouth wide and filled her lungs with water.
Dying was like floating. Marianne leaned back. It was so wonderful. The happiness didn’t stop, and you could swallow it. She gulped it down.
See, Dad. A promise is a promise.
She saw an orchid, a purple bloom, and everything was music. When a shadow bent over her, she recognized death. It wore her own face at first, the face of a girl grown old—a girl with bright eyes and brown hair.
Death’s mouth was warm. Then its beard scratched her, and its lips pressed repeatedly on hers. Marianne tasted onion soup and red wine, cigarettes and cinnamon. Death sucked at her. It licked her; it was hungry. She struggled to break free.
Two strong hands settled on her bosom. Feebly she tried to force open the cold fingers that, little by little, were cracking open her chest. A kiss. Cold seeped into her throat. Marianne opened her eyes wide, her mouth gaped and she spewed out dark, dirty water. She reared up with a long moan, and as she gasped for air, the pain hit her like a keen blade, slicing her lungs to shreds. And so loud! Everything was so loud!
Where was the music? Where was the girl? Where was the happiness? Had she spat it out?
Marianne slumped back onto the hard ground. Death hit her in the face. She stared up into two sky-blue eyes, coughed and fought for air. Feebly she raised her arm and gave death a limp slap.
Death talked to her insistently—asking a series of quick-fire questions as he pulled her into a sitting position. Marianne gave him another slap. He struck back immediately, but not so hard this time. No, in fact he caressed her cheek.
She raised her hands to her face. How had this come to be?
“How?” Her voice was a muffled croak.
It was so cold. And this roaring noise! Marianne looked left, then right, then at her hands, which had turned green from clutching the damp grass. The Pont Neuf was only a few yards away. She was lying beside a tent on the Rive Droite, and the hum of Paris filled the air. And she was not dead. Not. Dead. Her stomach hurt, as did her lungs. Everything hurt, even her hair, which dangled wet and heavy on her shoulders. Her heart, her head, her soul, her belly, her cheeks—everything ached.
“Not dead?” she spluttered in despair.
The man in the striped top smiled, but then his smile faded behind a cloud of anger. He pointed to the river, tapped his forehead with his finger and gestured at his bare feet.
“Why?” She wanted to scream at him, but her voice disintegrated into a hoarse whisper. “Why did you do it?”
He raised his arms above his head to illustrate a dive, and pointed to Marianne, the Seine and himself. He shrugged, as if to say, What else could I do?
“I had…a reason, many reasons! You had no right to steal my death from me. Are you God? No, you can’t be or else I’d be dead!”
The man stared at her from under thick black eyebrows as if he understood. He pulled his wet top over his head and wrung it out.
His eyes settled on the birthmark on Marianne’s left breast, which was visible through the buttons of her dress that had come undone. His eyebrows shot up in surprise. Panic-stricken, she pulled at her dress with one hand. For her whole life she had hidden the ugly birthmark—a rare pigment disorder, shaped like fiery flames—under tightly buttoned blouses and high necklines. She only ever went swimming at night, when no one could see her. Her mother had called the birthmark “a witch’s mark,” and Lothar had called it “a thing of the devil.” He had never touched it and had always closed his eyes when they were intimate.
Then she noticed her bare legs. She tried desperately to tug down the wet hem of her dress and simultaneously do up the buttons to cover her chest. She knocked away the man’s hand as he offered to help her to her feet, and stood up. She smoothed her dress, which clung heavily to her body. Her hair smelled of brackish water. She staggered uncertainly toward the wall of the embankment. Too low. Too low to throw herself off. She would hurt herself but wouldn’t die.
“Madame!” the man begged in a firm voice, and reached out to her again. She rebuffed his hand once more and, eyes closed, swung wildly at his face and his arms, but her fists encountered only air. Then she kicked out, but he avoided her blows without retreating. Onlookers must have thought they were lovers performing a tragicomic dance.