The Paris Apartment (22 page)

She watches through the shutters as he is carried from the building. Just as she watches everything in this place. Sometimes
from her cabin in the garden, sometimes from the recesses of the building where she can spy on them unnoticed.

The body in its improvised shroud is visibly heavy. Already stiffening perhaps, unwieldy. A dead weight.

The lights in the third floor apartment have been on up until now, blazing out into the night. Now they are extinguished and
she sees the windows become dark blanks, masking everything inside. But it will take more than that to expunge the memory
of what has occurred within.

Now the light in the courtyard snaps on. She watches as they set to work, hidden from the outside world behind the high walls,
doing everything that needs to be done.

Seeing him, she thought she would feel something, but there was nothing. She smiles slightly at the thought that his blood
will now be part of this place, its dark secret. Well, he liked secrets. His stain will be here forever now, his lies buried
with him.

Something terrible happened here tonight. She won't talk about what she saw, not even over his dead body. No one in this building
is entirely innocent. Herself included.

A new light blinks on: four floors up. At the glass she glimpses a pale face, dark hair. A hand up against the pane. Perhaps
there is one innocent in this, after all.

I'm hunting through Ben's closet in case there's an outfit an old girlfriend left behind, something I could borrow. Before
Theo hung up on me I was going to tell him that I don't have anything smart to wear this evening. And no time or money to
get something—he's barely given me any warning.

Just for a moment I pause my riffling through Ben's shirts and pull one of them against my face. Try, from the scent, to conjure
him here, to believe that I will see him standing in front of me soon. But already the smell—of his cologne, his skin—seems
to have faded a little. It feels somehow symbolic of our whole relationship: that I'm always chasing a phantom.

I drag myself away. Choose the one of my two sweaters that doesn't have any holes and brush my hair: I haven't washed it since
I arrived, but at least it's less of a bird's nest now. I chuck on my jacket. Thread another pair of cheap hoop earrings through
my earlobes. I look in the mirror. Not exactly “smart,” but it'll have to do.

I open the door to the apartment. The stairwell's pitch-black. I fumble around for the light switch. There's that whiff of
cigarette smoke, but even stronger than usual. It smells almost like someone's smoking one right now. Something makes me glance
up to my left. A sound, perhaps, or just a movement of the air.

And then I catch sight of something out of place: a tiny glowing red dot hovering overhead in the blackness. It takes a moment
before I understand what it is. I'm looking at the end of a cigarette butt, held by someone hidden in darkness just above
me.

“Who's there?” I say, or try to say, because it comes out as a strangled bleat. I fumble around for the light switch near the door and finally make contact with it, the lights stuttering on. There's no one in sight.

 

My heart's still beating double time as I walk across the courtyard. Just as I reach the gate to the street, I hear the sound
of quick shuffling footsteps behind me. I turn.

It's the concierge, emerging once more from the shadows. I try to take a step away and when my heel hits metal I realize I'm
already backed right up against the gate. She only comes up to my chin—and I'm not exactly big—but there's something threatening
about her nearness.

“Yes?” I ask. “What is it?”

“I have something to say to you,” she hisses. She glances up at the encircling apartment building. She reminds me of a small
animal sniffing the air for a predator. I follow her gaze upward. Most of the windows are dark blanks, reflecting the gleam
of the streetlamps across the road. There's only one light on upstairs, in the penthouse apartment. I can't see anyone watching
us—I'm sure this is what she's checking for—but then I don't think I'd necessarily be able to spot them if they were.

Suddenly she snatches out a hand toward me. It's such a swift, violent action that for a moment I really think she's going
to hit me. I don't have time to step away, it's too fast. But instead she grabs a hold of my wrist in her claw-like hand.
Her grip's surprisingly strong; it stings.

“What are you doing?” I ask her.

“Just come,” she tells me—and with such authority I don't dare disobey her. “Come with me, now.”

I'm going to be late for meeting Theo now but he can wait.
This feels important. I follow her across the courtyard to her little cabin. She moves quickly, in that slightly stooped way of hers, like someone trying to duck out of a rainstorm. I feel like a child in a storybook being taken to the witch's hut in the woods. She looks up at the apartment building several more times, as though scanning it for any onlookers. But she seems to decide that it's worth the risk.

Then she opens the door and ushers me in. It's even smaller inside than it looks on the outside, if that's possible. Everything
is crammed into one tiny space. There's a bed attached to the wall by a system of pulleys and currently raised to allow us
to stand; a washstand; a minuscule antique cooking stove. Just to my right is a curtain that I suppose must lead through to
a bathroom of some sort—simply because there's nowhere else for it to be.

It's almost scarily neat, every surface scrubbed to a high shine. It smells of bleach and detergent—not a thing out of place.
Somehow I would have expected nothing less from this woman. And yet the cleanness, the neatness, the little vase of flowers,
somehow make it all the more depressing. A little mess might be a distraction from how cramped it is, or from the damp stains
on the ceiling which I'm fairly sure no amount of cleaning could remove. I've lived in some dives in my time, but this takes
the biscuit. And what must it feel like to live in this tiny hovel while surrounded by the luxury and space of the rest of
the apartment building? What would it be like to live with the reminder of how little you have on your doorstep every day?

No wonder she hated me, swanning in here to take up residence on the third floor. If only she knew how out of place I am here
too, how much more like her than them I really am. I know I can't let her see my pity: that would be the worst insult possible.
I get the impression she's probably a very proud person.

Behind her head and the tiny dining table and chair I see several faded photographs pinned to the wall. A little girl, sitting on a woman's lap. The sky behind them is bright blue, olive trees in the background. The woman has a glass in front of her of what looks like tea, a silver handle. The next is of a young woman. Slim, dark-haired, dark-eyed. Maybe eighteen or nineteen. Not a new photograph: you can tell from the saturated colors, the fuzziness of it. But at the same time it's definitely too recent to be of the old woman herself. It must be a loved one. Somehow it's impossible to imagine this elderly woman having a family or a past away from this place. It's impossible, even, to imagine her ever having been young. As though she has always been here. As though she is a part of the apartment building itself.

“She's stunning,” I say. “That girl on the wall. Who is she?”

There's a long silence, so long that I think maybe she didn't understand me. And then finally, in that rasping voice, she
says: “My daughter.”

“Wow.” I take another look at her in light of this, her daughter's beauty. It's hard to see past the lines, the swollen ankles,
the clawed hands—but maybe I can see a shadow of it, after all.

She clears her throat. “
Vous devez arrêter,
” she barks, suddenly, cutting into my thoughts.
You have to stop
.

“What do you mean?” I ask. “Stop what?” I lean forward. Perhaps she can tell me something.

“All your questions,” she says. “All of your . . .
looking
. You are only making trouble for yourself. You cannot help your brother now. You must understand that—”

“What do you mean?” I ask. A chill has gone right through me. “What do you mean, I cannot help my brother now?”

She just shakes her head. “There are things here that you cannot understand. But I have seen them, with my own eyes. I see everything.”

“What?” I ask her. “What have you seen?”

She doesn't answer. She simply shakes her head. “I am trying to help you, girl. I have been trying since the beginning. Don't
you understand that? If you know what is good for you, you will stop. You will leave this place. And never look back.”

There's a knock on the door. I go to answer it and find Mimi standing there on the other side.

“Maman.” The way she says the word. Just like she did as a little girl.

“What is it,
ma petite
?” I ask, gently. I suppose to others I may seem cold. But the love I feel for my daughter; I'd challenge you to find anything
close to it.

“Maman, I'm frightened.”

“Shh.” I step forward to embrace her. I draw her close to me, feeling the frail nubs of her shoulder blades beneath my hands.
It seems so long since I have held her like this, since she has
allowed
me to hold her like this, like I did when she was a child. For a time I thought I might never do so again. And to be called
“Maman.” It is still the same miracle it was when I first heard her say the word.

I have always felt she is more mine than Jacques'. Which I suppose makes a kind of sense: because in a way she was Jacques'
greatest gift to me, far more valuable than any diamond brooch, any emerald bracelet. Something—someone—I could love unreservedly.

 

One evening—roughly a week after the night I had knocked on Benjamin Daniels' door—Jacques was briefly home for supper.
I presented him with the quiche Lorraine I had bought from the boulangerie, piping hot from the oven.

Everything was as it should be. Everything following its usual pattern. Except for the fact that a few nights before I had
slept with the man from the third-floor apartment. I was still reeling from it. I could not believe it had happened. A moment—or
rather an evening—of madness.

I placed a slice of quiche on Jacques' plate. Poured him a glass of wine. “I met our lodger on the stairs this evening,” he
said as he ate, as I picked my way through my salad. “He thanked us for supper. Very gracious—gracious enough not to mention
the disaster with the weather. He sends you his compliments.”

I took a sip of my wine before I answered. “Oh?”

He laughed, shook his head in amusement. “Your face—anyone would think this stuff was corked. You really don't like him, do
you?”

I couldn't speak.

I was saved by the ringing of Jacques' phone. He went into his study and took a call. When he returned his face was clouded
with anger. “I have to go. Antoine made a stupid mistake. One of the clients isn't happy.”

I gestured to the quiche. “I'll keep this warm for you, for when you come back.”

“No. I'll eat out.” He shrugged on his jacket. “Oh, and I forgot to say. Your daughter. I saw her on the street the other
night. She was dressed like a whore.”

“
My
daughter?” I asked. Now that she had done something to displease him she was “my” daughter?

“All that money,” he said, “sending her to that Catholic school, to try and make her into a properly behaved young woman. And
yet she disgraced herself there. And now she goes out dressed like a little slut. But then, perhaps it's no surprise.”

“What do you mean?”

But I didn't need to ask. I knew exactly what he meant.

And then he left. And I was all alone in the apartment, as usual.

For the second time in a week, I was filled with rage. White hot, powerful. I drank the rest of the bottle of wine. Then I
stood up and walked down two flights of stairs.

I knocked on his door.

He opened it. Pulled me inside.

This time there was no preamble. No pretense of polite conversation. I don't think we spoke one word. We weren't respectful
or gentle or cautious with one another now. My silk shirt was torn from me. I gasped against his mouth like someone drowning.
Bit at him. Tore the skin of his back with my nails. Relinquished all control. I was possessed.

Afterward, as we lay tangled in his sheets, I finally managed to speak. “This cannot happen again. You understand that, don't
you?”

He just smiled.

Over the next few weeks we became reckless. Testing the boundaries, scaring ourselves a little. The adrenaline rush, the fear—so
similar a feeling to the quickening of arousal. Each seemed to heighten the other, like the rush of some drug. I had behaved
so well for so long.

The secret spaces of this building became our private playground. I took him in my mouth in the old servants' staircase, my
hands sliding into his trousers, expert, greedy. He had me in the laundry room in the
cave
, up against the washing machine as it thrummed out its cycle.

And every time I tried to end it. And every time I know we both heard the lie behind the words.

 

“Maman,” Mimi says now—and I am jolted, abruptly, guiltily, out of these memories. “Maman, I don't know what to do.”

My wonderful miracle. My Merveille. My Mimi. She came to me when I had given up all hope of having a child. You see, she wasn't
always mine.

She was, quite simply, perfect. A baby: only a few weeks old. I did not know exactly where she had come from. I had my ideas,
but I kept them to myself. I had learned it was important, sometimes, to look the other way. If you know that you aren't going
to like the reply, don't ask the question. There was just one thing I needed to know and to that I got my answer: the mother
was dead. “And illegal. So there's no paper trail to worry about. I know someone at the
mairie
who will square the birth certificate.” A mere formality for the grand and powerful house of Meunier. It helps to have friends
in high places.

And then she was mine. And that was the important thing. I could give her a better life.

“Shh,” I say. “I'm here. Everything will be OK. I'm sorry I was stern last night, with the wine. But you understand, don't
you? I didn't want a scene. Leave it all with me,
ma chérie
.”

It was—is—so fierce, that feeling. Even though she didn't come out of my body, I knew as soon as I saw her that I would do
anything to protect her, to keep her safe. Other mothers might say that sort of thing casually. But perhaps it is clear by
now that I don't do or say anything casually. When I say something like that, I mean it.