Soft in the Head by Marie-Sabine Roger

from the factories and the warehouses. In some cases, it was necessary to finish the creatures off, to put them out of their misery …”
    Oh my God, it was brilliant! I could picture the dead critters everywhere, the whole town being overrun. It was like a movie, but just for me, inside my head. We were sitting in the middle of the park, the two of us, chilling out in the shade of the linden tree. And all around us, if I closed my eyes—and even if I didn’t—there were huge piles of dead rats, swollen and stinking, their paws stiff. And everywhere there were others dying, whimpering, their pink tails wriggling.
    “ From nooks and basements, cellars and sewers, they scrabbled up in long shuddering lines and staggered into the light, there to reel and die …”
    Ugh, it was disgusting, all these vermin! Just thinking about them gave me the shivers. If there’s an animal thatreally turns my stomach, it’s rats. Rats and cockroaches. Cockroaches make me want to puke.
    Margueritte read a few pages, skipped a passage and carried on. I didn’t say a word. I sat there wondering if the town’s rat extermination service was going to deal with this shit or not. Because when you’ve seen the way they piss around in council offices… Well, in our town, in any case. Maybe things are different in Oran. I hope so, for their sake. Because if it happened round here, no offence, but we’d smother to death under piles of rats. And then, in the book, the concierge gets sick, and his glands are all swollen in his neck. I know all about swollen glands, because once I caught something and the glands in my groin swelled up so I know exactly how he felt. Especially because the bastard doctor pressed down on them hard.
    When Margueritte stopped reading, I would have liked her to carry on. But since we weren’t close friends, I didn’t feel like I could ask. I just said:
    “It’s really interesting, your book.”
    She gave a little nod to let me know she agreed.
    “Yes. Camus is certainly a great author.”
    “His first name is Albert, is that right? Albert Camus?”
    “Indeed it is. Have you never read anything by him? The Outsider ? The Fall ?”
    “I don’t think so. Not that I remember, anyway.”
    “If you enjoyed my little reading, perhaps we could continue with the book another day if you’re so inclined?”
    I was so inclined I’d happily have carried on right nowthis minute. At the same time, I wasn’t about to spend my days sitting on park benches having someone read me stories like you do with little kids. Except that with kids, you don’t read them stories about dead rats.
    I said:
    “Perhaps. Why not? I wouldn’t mind.”
    Which is one way of saying yes without sounding too desperate.
     
    We said goodbye without setting a date.
    I walked with her a little way along the path. She headed for the gate onto the boulevard de la Libération. I prefer to leave by the avenue des Lices, it’s shorter. Well, to get to where I’m going, it’s shorter.
    Everything is relative.

 
     
    A S I WALKED , I was thinking about what she had just been reading to me. Apart from the rats, there were other scenes I’d really liked. For example the neighbour who wants to commit suicide and writes in chalk on his door: Come in, I’ve hanged myself.
    Come in, I’ve hanged myself! That just blows me away, you know? What must have been going on in this guy Camus’s head to be able to come up with stuff like this!
    Though I suppose sometimes, in real life… I remember, when I was a kid, one of our neighbours shot himself in the head. Lombard, his name was. He was afraid of his kids finding him when they came back from school, so he left a note on the front door too: Gone shopping. And so the dog wouldn’t run away, he kept it locked inside with him. It was a huge grey-brown mutt, a vicious animal, a cross between a Wolfhound and a Great Dane. When the kids came home from school, they saw the note their dad had left and they heard