Hélène's Concern for and Protection of Anthony

Hélène’s relationship with Anthony moves between protective urgency and painful estrangement. She remembers the affectionate child he was, but struggles with his adolescent withdrawal and anger, which make him seem like a stranger; their clashes do not erase her instinct to seek him out when she fears he may be in danger.

Childhood Memory and the Adolescent Stranger

Hélène’s sense of loss is sharpened by how clearly she remembers Anthony as a young child. He had made macaroni necklaces for Mother’s Day, liked blueberry jam and cartoons, and had been a good kid whose behavior she felt she could anticipate. She remembers singing him a song and the familiar comfort of him falling asleep in her lap in front of the television. These details make the change she sees in him feel not merely like disobedience, but like the disappearance of a once-accessible intimacy.

The distance began to register in a small domestic boundary: Anthony told her to knock before entering his room. Hélène recalls that moment as a turning point after which their relationship seemed to go downhill in ways she had not expected. By the time of their visit to Malek Bouali, she sees a teenager who slouches, keeps silent, and appears to her both irritable and ashamed. The contrast between that posture and her memories of his childhood shows how adolescence has altered not only Anthony’s behavior but Hélène’s understanding of who he is.

Conflict on the Walk Back

After the visit to Malek Bouali, Hélène and Anthony cross the ZUP Residential District to return to their car. The route takes them past parking lots, flower beds, grassy mounds, benches covered in graffiti, and mopeds circling repeatedly; residents watch from their windows, while traffic moves along the distant viaduct toward or away from Paris. Hélène is pleased with how the visit went and feels that something has clicked between her and Malek Bouali. Anthony, by contrast, walks in silence with his head sunk into his shoulders. Their different responses leave them physically together but emotionally apart.

Hélène reads his slouch as swagger and tells him to change the way he walks. Anthony glares at her. When she reminds him that he was the one who took the motorcycle, he responds defiantly that he knows what he needs to do. Their exchange turns the motorcycle into a point of friction between them: Hélène invokes the original act to challenge his attitude, while Anthony does not offer the explanation she seems to want. The scene establishes that her attempt to manage or correct him meets not reassurance but resistance.

Separation and Mutual Anger

As they descend toward downtown, three roads meet at a roundabout: one leads to the Grappe Housing Development, where the Casatis live, and the others lead into town and toward the highway. Anthony quickens his pace to get away from Hélène. She grabs him by the collar and demands to know why he is behaving this way, saying she cannot stand it; he tells her to let go and leave him alone. He pulls free, and her anger is joined by a disturbing sense of estrangement.

Hélène privately experiences his recent physical and behavioral changes as difficult to accept. She sees him as frequently bad-tempered and interprets his drooping eye, which had once made his face appealing to her, differently now. In his gestures and speech she sometimes recognizes his father, Patrick Casati. That resemblance brings the adult family relationship into her perception of her son, while her memories of the child he was remain close beside it. Her reaction exposes the painful gap between the Anthony she loves as a remembered child and the adolescent she feels unable to approach. The encounter ends not in reconciliation but in an explicit declaration of mutual exasperation, followed by the sound of children in a passing car honking cheerfully at them.

Concern That Persists

The conflict does not extinguish Hélène’s protective response. When Évelyne Grandemange tells her that Patrick Casati has taken the truck and is searching for her, Hélène thinks of Anthony and runs to her car. Évelyne asks what they will tell him and warns that firefighters are on their way, but Hélène has already driven off. She is intent on finding her son, and her panic is so strong that nearly a minute passes before she shifts into second gear. The urgency of her action contrasts with the hostility of the earlier walk: she may feel unable to bear Anthony’s behavior, but when she fears for him, locating him takes precedence over the immediate situation around her.

That protective instinct is visible again when Anthony is eating French fries at Antalya and Hélène suddenly appears. She makes a U-turn across the median to reach him, nearly striking part of the terrace and two customers, then tells him to get into the car. Anthony asks what is happening, but the suddenness of her arrival makes clear that she has come to him in alarm and wants him with her. Across these encounters, care and conflict remain inseparable: Hélène tries to correct, confront, and retrieve Anthony, while he withdraws or resists. The relationship’s central tension is that her efforts to keep hold of him can intensify the very distance she fears, even as her actions repeatedly show that she has not stopped looking out for him.