If I were a rich man, tadedadeda

What would you do with one million ?

Paul and Paule Berger form an average couple in their fifties, who live in the suburbs of Lille. Paul is a salesman for a food company and his wife holds a grocery. One can’t say they’re rich.

Some day, she hears on the radio that her number won the jackpot on the national lottery, one million euro. How could she tell it to her husband ?

During one of his trips, she succeeds in going unaccounted to pick up her cheque in the city-store. But instead of cashing it right away in a bank, she brings it back home and hides it in an old shoe-box of hers, in order to think about it.

She spends the following weeks wondering what to do with the money and trying not to behave different at home or with friends. She doesn’t want to become suddenly « a rich lady », she doesn’t want the both of them to become suddenly « a rich couple ». She’s keeps dangling : will she keep it or tear it ? What would they do with all that sudden money ? What would happen to their family life ?

A couple of months later, exhausted by the secrecy of this situation, she finally decides to unreveal her secret to her husband when he’s back from an unexpected week out in Paris.

But when she opens the old shoe-box, the check is gone and her husband won’t come back home.

What happened ? How will she lead her investigation ?

After "La liste de mes envies" by G. Delcourt (als – 20140512)

Title from Fiddler on the roof