* * *
That evening after Pierre has spoken with his new English teacher for the first time, he comes home and types a message to Élodie on his phone:
J’ai rencontré une fille anglaise. Elle s’appelle Hannah. Je suis heureux.
V
Hannah
Hannah only stops walking when she reaches Truffaut’s grave. The shimmering black headstone looks recently cut, in spite of having been there for two decades. She recalls once seeing a photograph of Truffaut’s burial, when the grave was still a hole in the ground – and the boy actor from Les Quatre Cents Coups, himself a middle-aged man by then, is dropping a single flower onto the coffin.
There are a few pebbles of remembrance here and a take-away coffee cup filled with plastic daisies, but the place has an atmosphere of stillness, like an established suburb. She finds it amusing the way the cemetery has been divided up like the arrondissements of the city. Truffaut is in Section 21, just around the corner from Stendhal. A scene from one of Stendhal’s novels returns to Hannah – a woman in a carriage with the head of her lover wrapped in a cloth on her lap – and suddenly she wants to sit down under the still-bare chestnut trees, where the crows flack about like broken umbrellas, and weep. All of life has already passed through here and there is nothing left – at least not for the likes of her.
* * *
Spring is starting up, rather gallantly, all over the place. Apple blossoms are arriving in the trees and there are crocuses and primulas crowding the flowerbeds at the cemetery entrance. Hannah wishes she could hold onto this spring. She knows she only has a finite number of them to enjoy. Yet this one is slipping past her, exactly as the previous ones have, without having been fully grasped. Yes – the cemetery is just as alienating as the city outside of it: out there she can’t access life, in here she can’t access death. She is somewhere in between, trapped between two extremes, indecisive and afraid.
* * *
Today she has decided to end her lessons with her two Serbian students, Dragan and Filip. It is why she has arranged to meet them here in public. They were in one of the first classes she taught at Language Works, lounging in the back row like two long-limbed, dark-eyed hounds come to sniff her and her language out. Now and again they would murmur to each other in their own language, undressing her and probing at her with phrases she had no hope of comprehending.
Since they have been coming to her apartment for extra lessons, they have started to touch her more frequently than seems natural, bumping against her as they enter the room, taking an imaginary feather out of her hair, clutching onto one of her shoulders to emphasise a particular point. At the end of their most recent lesson, which she held at Le Refuge in an attempt to protect herself, Dragan leaned forward when they said goodbye and, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he kissed her on both cheeks, all spontaneous and innocent – while his hand found the small of her back and a blunt, chewed thumb investigated the groove of her spine.
Pierre
Pierre half expects to find Hannah already at the café with some other student, but the bright red room where they arranged to meet is empty. The table where she sat the last time lies in shadow while the rest of the room is filled with light.
* * *
He sits at her chair and takes out a book and tries to read. He is most of the way through a novel by Somerset Maugham. The main character is a young woman who is looking after a large house in the mountains high above Florence. One night she gives herself to a poor musician, a refugee, who kills himself shortly after they have made love. This is because he realises that she will never love him – not as he loves her. The woman knows she can’t call the police. There is too much evidence of the seduction around the house and the scandal of the vagrant in her bedroom would be too great. So she decides to get rid of the body herself. Pierre should want to know whether the woman gets away with all this, but he can’t focus on the words, let alone piece them together. Every few minutes, his eyes flick towards the entrance of the café – and the encounter he has been anticipating all week.
* * *
But the English girl doesn’t come early, or even on time.
* * *
When Pierre has been sitting there for an extra hour and ten minutes, he picks up his coffee cup and hurls it hard against the opposite wall. Fortunately, the waiter is at the front of the café, on the street, and he doesn’t hear the smash.
* * *
Pierre sits on for a while longer, glowering in the light, which has finally reached his table. Then he sighs, places a banknote very carefully under the saucer, and leaves the room. It has been a long time since he felt such rage, such impossible grief. These moods used to engulf him as a child, but since his relationship with Élodie ended he has been doing his best to control himself. Mainly by trying not to feel anything at all.
* * *
He walks on for half an hour, not caring where he goes, just wanting to get away from himself, the shame of himself. Only when he encounters a Métro station and descends underground does he realise he has forgotten his book at the café. But it doesn’t matter. Who cared what happened to the woman anyway?
VI
Hannah
Hannah only remembers her appointment with Pierre when she is on her way to meet Monsieur Levi the following day. She finds that if she doesn’t write things down in her notebook, they don’t quite exist – they slip off, like fish returned to the sea.
* * *
Her brother Oliver used to call her ‘Memorex’ after a tablet designed to ward off forgetfulness. In those days, she spent as much time as possible inside a book. She would read whenever her mother drove her and her brother in to university, she would read between lectures and during lunch, and she would read on the bus going home. She would also read all afternoon, after supper and deep into the night. If her English class was due to study Lady Chatterley’s Lover, for example, she would have read all of Lawrence’s major novels before the first tutorial. She also read widely outside of the curriculum and worked her way through such books as The Faerie Queene and Being and Nothingness for pleasure.
Oliver teased her about all of this. He was the only one who could draw her back into the world. It sometimes felt as though he lived all of life for both of them. Often, he even had to get angry or happy on her behalf.
* * *
Since Oliver’s death, she has returned to some of her worst habits. Which is why everything in her Paris apartment has been assigned its proper place. If she doesn’t keep a firm eye on all the objects around her, they slip off, like all those other fish in the sea. The alluring student with the lost expression she relinquishes swiftly, almost without a thought. At least – she tells herself – people will leave you alone when you have offended them. Letting people down at the outset was preferable to letting them down in the long run.
* * *
But she finds Pierre waiting for her outside the language school that Saturday – in the shadow of Caron de Beaumarchais. The bronze statue is standing with his legs wide apart, his arms folded unnaturally high, his clothes too tight for comfort, as he gazes with some disdain towards the activities in the street. The student, however, seems to be trying to make himself seem as inconspicuous as possible.
I’m sorry about our meeting, she tells him. I wasn’t feeling well, and as I didn’t have your number —
It’s all right, he says, almost laughing with relief. I was thinking it was something like this.
Something like ‘that’, she tells him. It isn’t here. It’s already distant, in the past.
He is nodding at her with encouragement – encouragement for himself, perhaps, as much as for her.
But I’m really not taking on any more students. Mr Joffe is still inside. If you go to the staffroom right now, I’m sure you’ll still be able to catch him.
You were saying this the last time, he says, once again dismissing the idea of Mr Joffe.
Yes, I was.
She waits for him to take the hint, but still he doesn’t move.
You are not well? he says.
Sorry?
Or are you tired of too many students?
No – not tired. I’m a writer, or at least trying to be a writer. I’m supposed to be writing a play.
She doesn’t know why she is saying this. It isn’t true: she is not trying to be a writer – at least at the moment – and she is certainly not trying to write a play. But she finds she likes this student. She likes the quality of the air around him – and she would like to inhale it for a moment longer.
* * *
Where before she found Pierre unsettling somewhere, today she feels gratified by his enduring interest, his consistency. Nothing else around her seems as consistent. In fact, the rest of the world barely seems to register her. As much as Hannah has tried to create this insular life for herself, on days when she is feeling less strong it is almost impossible to sustain. Sometimes, you have to be allowed to exchange a few words with an attractive stranger in the street.
* * *
What is your play about? he asks.
What? Oh, nothing at the moment. Right now it’s only thoughts.
I see.
* * *
He looks intrigued at the notion that she has thoughts, which also pleases her. If he notices her thoughts, they might exist – and her imaginary play might unfold like some mysterious, unexpected plant beneath his gaze.
* * *
Maybe next Wednesday, she finds herself saying, we can give it another chance?
You are not busy now?
Now?
Why not?
Because – I have another appointment. I don’t have time for a whole English lesson.
One coffee then?
He looks across at Café le Moderne. There are empty tables laid out for them, there is a waiter in a crisp white shirt expecting to take their order – and, the truth is, she has nowhere else to go.
Okay, one coffee.
* * *
They sit with their backs to the street, so that the windows of the café reflect pale versions of themselves back at them. As the late afternoon traffic thrums, they lean towards one another, their knees almost touching, while the forgotten statue directs his bombast towards the declining sun.
Hannah watches Pierre’s slightly oversized hands as they lift a pale brown lump of sugar from the bowl, unconsciously turning it this way and that, as a boy might play with a marble. This thought disturbs her, for some reason – but not unpleasantly.
So you know the terminology? she asks him. The passive, the different tenses and conditionals, modal and auxiliary verbs – and so on?
Some I maybe have forgotten. But you will see, I learn quickly.
I will, will I?
They order two coffees with milk and she asks for tap water, which seems to annoy the waiter.
And why do you want extra lessons? Why isn’t the Saturday class enough?
Because I want to better express —
What?
Myself.
She looks again at his hands, which are still turning the sugar, and wonders where all of this will lead – because she is not sufficiently assertive, when it comes down to it. Only recently, for instance, she failed to get rid of her two Serbs at the Cimetière de Montmartre.
The verb ‘to express’ is a transitive verb, she tells him. It takes an object. You have to express some thing. And the thing you want to express is yourself?
Yes.
Why English?
You mean why not – Swahili?
I didn’t mean that.
It is because English is the language of the world, he says. If you can speak it, you can go anywhere, you can be anyone. Swahili? It is far away from here. And like we all know – there is no point of ‘that’.
They both smile – at the moment in which he is demonstrating how clever he is, how quickly he will learn, how reliable he intends to be. She has to resist the impulse to touch his hands – to feel the warmth of him, to reassure herself that he is real.
How are your listening skills?
I can read and I can listen. The writing and the speaking are more difficult.
Those are the more generative skills, she says. Listening and reading are more passive.
Yes.
We could start your Wednesday lesson with a revision of the passive. It’s a good test of a person’s proficiency.
We can meet at Le Refuge, like before?
Why not come to my apartment? she suggests impulsively. It’s much quieter there – and we won’t have to pay for the coffee.
Before she has properly decided to do it, she is writing out her phone number and her address.
Pierre
That afternoon, Pierre finds her apartment block: a squat building of dark concrete standing between a Champion supermarket and a structure covered in scaffolding and sheets of blue plastic. On the ground floor is a small bazaar selling articles de ménage, cadeaux, bricolage, outillage et vaisselle. A rotund Asian man stands under a brown, pigeon-stained canopy and stares at him with suspicion, perhaps mistaking him for an associate of the drug dealers milling outside the Turkish café across the street.
Pierre keeps walking, his gaze as diffident as he can manage, until he reaches the post office on the corner. Not knowing what else to do, he goes inside, withdraws some cash and continues up the hill towards Montmartre.
* * *
It is raining steadily the next day when he finds himself back on her street. The little bazaar is shuttered and locked, the corrugated metal emblazoned with the phrase ‘Fuck Le Pen’. As much to avoid the rain as anything else, he withdraws into an alcove near the bar, the smell of hookah pipes and cinnamon buns in the air.
When Pierre was a student in Dijon, he once worked as a security guard for extra cash. He would sit through the night in an illuminated glass booth outside an office block. There was nothing to do but read, but at the time he liked the job. He is accustomed to waiting. At least – until he grows tired of it.
* * *
Within five minutes, the rain is spent and two dark-haired young men, loose-limbed and conspiratorial, arrive and prod her buzzer. It is number six, the middle button to the right. One is holding what looks like a camera on his shoulder and they pass a cigarette or joint between them. The taller of the two, who has yellower skin, a prominent Adam’s apple and the camera, laughs – and after a few minutes of half-hearted loitering, they shrug and dissolve back into the streets.
Pierre is so busy watching them that he doesn’t notice Hannah appear on a first-floor balcony. When he sees her, she is looking into the street in the direction the young men took. He slips away, around the corner, his shoulders hunched to disguise his shape.
It is surprising to find her living here. He imagined a building made of glass, inviting more light, higher up and with a better view, not looking across at a grimy Turkish café. But he reminds himself that she is only an English teacher. She can’t be rich. The idea of this, like the image of her sitting alone in the cathedral, once again revives his hope.
* * *
Towards dusk, when it is raining more heavily, she arrives in the street under a black umbrella and enters the supermarket. There she buys a bottle of red wine from the Louis Latour estate – which isn’t far from where his parents live – as well as a baguette, a bag of tomatoes and some sheep’s milk cheese from Spain.
* * *
As soon as she has gone, Pierre buys exactly the same dinner for himself. Oblivious to the rain and with a new skip in his stride, he heads back home.
VII
Hannah
It was midwinter when Hannah took the train to Paris. She watched with creeping dread as the flat yellow farmland of France gave way to industrial lots crowded with crates and cranes and racks of trucks. The city worked its way towards her like an illness – the seeping Victorian brickwork, the flares of graffiti, the rundown apartment blocks with washing sagging on
almost every balcony, the resigned faces waiting on the platforms for trains further into the city.
* * *
By then she already had her apartment. A young man called Santiago, whom she’d met the previous autumn during the grape picking at Louis Latour, had offered to sub-let to her while he was working in Madrid. The apartment consisted of a main living area and an adjoining bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. There was also a balcony overlooking rue Marcadet that could be sealed off from the main room with white wooden shutters that looked older than the building itself.
Hannah had been to the apartment once before. When the grape picking had ended, she agreed to spend the weekend with Santiago in Paris. He had a girlfriend at the time called Sidonie – a skinny tennis player with thyroid problems who had also been with them at the vendange at Louis Latour. But because Sidonie was feeling unwell, she stayed on at home with her mother in Beaune. Sidonie knew nothing about their planned weekend and Santiago never told her. It was obvious by then to both Hannah and Santiago what would happen in Paris – and, sure enough, as soon as they entered the apartment, they started undressing, their fingers still stained with the red grapes, their hands still raw from two weeks of cutting. He was like a peasant out of Caravaggio, and if at the time he seemed a bit unwashed that was probably part of his attraction.
* * *
Only on arrival in his vacated apartment did Hannah see how shoddy and neglected it really was. There were cigarette burns on the carpet, grime on the walls, black mould on the shower curtain and a cracked kitchen window that would no doubt buckle if anyone tried to clean it. The only cooking implements left in the kitchen were a kettle and a microwave that tripped the electricity if it was required to heat anything for longer than thirty seconds.
The White Room Page 3