Page 105 of Where the Snakes Sleep

I have begun making my own copies.

God forgive me for waiting until fear for myself accomplished what concern for everyone else did not.

* * *

11 May 2003

Nadia says she has enough. Enough for what, I asked. She said enough to make people ask questions Henri cannot answer easily. I told her that is not the same as enough to survive accusing him.

She became furious. She said I was protecting him.

Perhaps I am.

That is the question I cannot answer anymore.

When does loving someone become protecting them from consequences? When does fear become complicity?

I told Nadia that Henri has friends beyond Le Mas.

She said she knows.

I asked how. She would not tell me.

Before leaving my office, she turned around and said something I cannot stop hearing.

“You talk about him like there are two Henris. The one you love and the one doing these things.”

I cried after she left.

Ridiculous.

Forty-six years old and hiding in an office because a woman thirteen years younger than me finally said aloud what I have spent years refusing to understand.

There is only one Henri.

That is why this hurts.

* * *

29 June 2003

One of the researchers, a young man called Josef, has not come to work for two days now. No one seems to know where he is. Henri says the man left after an argument, but no one heard or saw an argument.

Josef’s belongings remain in staff housing.

I asked Henri whether police had been called. He asked why the police would need to be involved when an adult is entitled to leave his employment. I said because the man left everything behind. Henri said he might have wanted a new life.

I said nothing more.

Later, I searched the office records. Several files were gone. Not misplaced. Gone.

Henri came into the room while I was searching. He stood in the doorway and watched me. Eventually he said, “You should come to bed.”

I went.

I do not know what is wrong with me.

* * *