The Apartment

by S. L. Grey

  The B and B’s wi-fi wasn’t strong enough for me to use Skype, so I snuck downstairs, grabbed the cordless house phone from the kitchen, and slipped back up to my room. Without planning what I was going to say, I dialed. It rang and rang, and I let it ring, not sure whether or not I really wanted anyone to answer it. My hand grew sweaty on the receiver. I counted twenty rings, twenty-five; then came a click, the sound of a throat clearing, and, “Oui?”

  I jumped, flustered. “Oh, hi…hello, parlez-vous anglais?”

  A long pause. “Oui. A little.” A cough. “Who are you?” A man’s voice, elderly, interspersed with a hissing sound as if he was breathing through an oxygen mask. Darth Vader. You’re talking to Darth Vader.

  I bit back the humorless giggle. “My name is Stephanie. Stephanie Sebastian. Is this Monsieur Guérin?”

  “Oui.” Pause, hiss. “C’est moi.”

  “Monsieur, I am sorry to disturb you, but could you tell me, do you still own property in Paris?” I rattled off the address.

  “Oui. Pourquoi?”

  “I stayed in one of the apartments in your building recently and I was hoping you could—”

  “No, madame. This is not possible.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The building is empty. No one stays there.” Hiss, pause, then, “Ah…un moment.” Another pause, longer this time, followed by a flurry of mumbled voices in the background—I made out the words “Papa?” and “anglais”—and then a crackle and a fumbling sound. A younger male voice came on the line: “Allo? Qui est-ce? Who is this?”

  I repeated my name.

  “My father does not know people from England. You have the wrong number.”

  “Wait! I’m not from England. I’m South African. Afrique du Sud.”

  “This telephone number. How it is that you have it?” The voice had become guarded, less irritable.

  “It was given to me by Monsieur le Croix. He used to be Monsieur Guérin’s”—I searched for the word—“immobilier. I was hoping to talk to Monsieur Guérin about—”

  “This is not possible. My father, he is very sick.”

  “I understand, but…monsieur, please, it’s important. Will you help me then?”

  “Help you? Non. I cannot help you, and now I must go—”

  I jumped in, praying that he wouldn’t hang up. “Please. Please. Five minutes, that’s all I ask. I need answers.”

  A sigh hissed down the line. I took this as encouragement. “One of the apartments in your father’s building near Pigalle was advertised on a website by a couple who called themselves the Petits. My husband and I stayed in their apartment and they were supposed to come to South Africa and stay in my house but they never showed up.”

  Silence. Now I couldn’t even hear him breathing. “Hello? Monsieur? Hello?”

  “I am here.”

  “It seems the Petits don’t exist. I know the police have probably been in contact with you or your father, but while we were staying there, a woman, Mireille, died. She killed herself. Monsieur Petit, I…”

  A sharp indrawn breath. I hadn’t meant to call him that; it slipped out.

  “I cannot talk to you, madame. I cannot help you.”

  “Please.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “I know about the building’s history. I know that something bad happened there. I know…” I know that after we stayed in your building, my husband—my already fractured husband—has gone completely fucking mad, and there’s something vile, something dangerous, lurking in my house. “Were you the one who contacted us? Are you Monsieur Petit?”

  “That is not my name.”

  The voice was cold, but he hadn’t yet hung up on me. “Why did you want us to stay in the apartment? Please, Monsieur Petit—Monsieur Guérin—tell me why. Help me. You don’t understand, my husband, he’s…he’s…” Mad. He’s gone mad. We brought something back, we brought something back from your building.

  “I am sorry.” He was whispering now.

  “What are you sorry for, Monsieur Petit?”

  Another long pause. “I am sorry it had to be you. Merci, and goodbye.”

  A click, followed by dead air. I tapped in the number again, but it wouldn’t connect.

  Merci. What was he thanking me for?

  Je suis désolée.

  What was Mireille sorry for?

  Mark. I have to talk to Mark.

  Once more, his phone went straight to voice mail. I tried him again. And again. Still no answer. I sent another text. Then, in desperation, I called Carla. She didn’t answer either—perhaps she was with him. For once, the thought of them together didn’t make me anxious; this time it was reassuring. I left a message saying that I was worried about Mark as he wasn’t answering his phone, asking her if she’d mind checking on Mark and letting me know how he was. I didn’t tell her exactly why I was worried about him—you might want to hide the scissors if you go round there—although now I wonder if things would have turned out differently if I had.

  Should I blame myself for this? I still don’t know.

  All I could do then was wait and think about what had come before.

  Chapter 23

  Mark

  A car’s lights scan into the living room, over my books, the TV, across the glaze of the photographs on the shelf, over the masks and wire sculptures Steph brought here. I realize I’ve been sitting in the dark for several hours. The German shepherd next door starts blaring, but I’m not afraid when Steph and Hayden aren’t here.

  The stamp of the men’s boots, the sharp ooze of their voices. I wasn’t afraid for myself—the only point of my focus was Steph and Hayden. I directed all my psychic energy to protect them. It sounds stupid, I know, but when the men left, and Steph and Hayden were unharmed, I felt I had done my job. That was all that mattered; it’s still all that matters.

  But now it’s just me. I haven’t set the alarm. They can come in; I have nothing left to take.

  On another night like this, I might have a drink beside me, but tonight I don’t. I can’t swallow because the darkness is heavy enough to crush my windpipe. I think idly about killing myself, but I don’t have the fortitude. I can’t even get up; I wouldn’t know where to start. Perhaps if I sit here for long enough, the darkness will snuff me out. I smell the acrid tang of old smoke. I am decamped.

  The students next door laugh on the sidewalk as they return from their Saturday night out. Later, the gate across the road squeals as the nurse leaves for her predawn shift. Birds cackle at one another. I am finally provoked enough by this reminder of time to stand. I piss, avoiding my face in the bathroom mirror, then make for the pantry. In the kitchen, even though my eyes are accustomed to the blackness, I crack my hip bone on the corner of the butcher block as if it has deliberately been moved into my way.

  When I was about five years old, I was terrified of going into our pantry at home. There was a banshee who lived there, and, my eight-year-old cousin James told me, banshees suck out your soul as they scream. I could hear the banshee some nights as I lay in bed, an interminable low drone. I told my mother once and she said there was no banshee; my father laughed. You want to get a tin of fruit from the pantry, Markie, you’re going to have to brave the banshee.

  James and his parents came for lunch one Sunday. He locked me in the pantry and didn’t come back. It felt like hours, trying not to move in case I woke it. I tried not to cry, knowing that banshees loved fear and sadness more than anything. They can smell your fear, James had told me. I could smell the roast chicken coming in from the kitchen, Mom and Aunt Petra chatting, James outside, playing with the dog. They had forgotten me, and the banshee would wake if I moved. Finally, about to sneeze, about to wet myself, my legs cramping, I needed to escape. Eyeing the small window above the top shelf, I pushed up to the first rack, not looking back because if you don’t look back what’s breathing down your neck doesn’t exist, it can’t hurt you. I couldn’t breathe, trying to keep in my body’s noise.


  Don’t think of the fear, close your eyes, climb.

  I darted my short arm up, just reaching the next shelf. A bag of rice flopped over, rattling over two bottles of orange soda—a little intrusion of noise, settled as quickly as it started. A final roll of something; then I heard it. The banshee, it’s drone louder than I’d ever heard it.

  It’s awake.

  It’s right behind me.

  Cupping my hands over my ears, I fell, curling fetal.

  I probably screamed. I probably cried. I remember Dad coming in and yelling at me, “Would you calm down? It’s only a bloody toy.”

  The banshee was a plastic battery-operated keyboard with a stuck E. The banshee didn’t exist. I don’t remember eating roast chicken with James and Aunt Petra and Uncle Leon.

  Now I close the door behind me and will her to emerge from the enveloping void.

  Waiting, I run my tongue over my lip where it’s split. I press my fingernail into the cut, use my thumb to pare it open, concentrate on the ragged sting. But she doesn’t come.

  —

  Later, the sun shines in, so I close the curtains. But in Hayden’s room, the Disney princesses still glow too brightly and I tear them down.

  —

  I crawl on the living room carpet, gathering up the hair where we all left it.

  —

  This bed is Odette’s. She owned it first. When we were young and amorous and could still express desire without pain or guilt and before Zoë was born, she made it hers in countless ways. Steph insisted on a new mattress and new sheets, but this bed is Odette’s.

  I sit at the edge of Steph’s side and open the drawer in her nightstand, like an intruder, careful not to disturb anything. A forgotten paperback, the sort she prefers to hide from me, a notepad scrawled with plotlines for her children’s book, a tangle of necklaces and bracelets she hasn’t bothered to unknot after Hayden played with them, balled tissues, a cracked lipstick with the lid missing. I’m looking for clues to her that don’t exist.

  I close the drawer and stare around the room, trying to feel something other than this. So much has happened in this bedroom, but it’s all dust-caked now. Just me now; it’s all led to this. None of the love or joy or anguish or impassioned argument I’ve wasted my life on can counteract the fact that I am here, alone. It all seemed so important, life.

  I sit awhile and wish for her to come, and for a moment I think she has because I see something moving under the dresser. But it is not her. I go toward the shadow and crouch down, but there’s nothing there but dander.

  Then there is a crash of glass to rouse me. I want them to come in, finish the job, take away the nothingness. When they don’t, I push myself up and limp through to the living room, my hands aching, the skin on my knees grazed, a bruise on my forehead. It is dark again and all that has happened is that the photos have been pushed off the bookshelf again.

  I sit down, bare foot bleeding from the glass.

  —

  The dog barks; I have a pain in my stomach. The gate across the road shears on its hinges. Birds shout. Someone swears. It is light. I stand up to close the curtain. Nobody comes. Something dark looks at me with many red eyes from the vacant shelf. I curl up around the ache.

  —

  Bang, bang, bang. Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. That annoying sound of a chunky ring smacking against the window. It’s going to crack.

  “Open the bloody door, Mark! I know you’re there.”

  I force myself up to sitting, my spine crackling. For a moment I don’t know where I am; the drawn curtains across the bay window seep tepid light and I feel like I’m in a cave.

  Carla rattles and calls again and I get myself up and shuffle to the front door.

  As soon as I open it a crack, she shoulders through. “God, it’s rank in here, sweetie,” she says, bustling down the hall, dumping bags on the kitchen counter. “And you look like shit. Go and take a shower.”

  “What are you doing here?” I drag my hand through my hair and over my face, trying to wake myself up.

  “Your wife called me. She was worried about you. Said you hadn’t answered your phone for more than a day. I tried too.”

  “My phone?” I don’t even know where it is. It must be dead, I don’t know.

  Carla hustles into the living room and opens the curtains and windows, flaps them pointedly as if to draw out the stink in here. As I approach and smell the freshish evening air coming in from outside, I realize she’s right—I could do with a shower.

  “Okay,” I say, grabbing a clean pair of jeans and a shirt from my room and heading toward the bathroom.

  The water does improve my mood. I feel more than sticky sweat washing off me. I have been acting crazy. I don’t really know what I was thinking, trying to cut Hayden’s hair, and Steph was right to react like that. And if she’s been trying to get in touch with me, it means she’s willing to work it out. I can stop all this nonsense and start being her husband and Hayden’s father again.

  A short knock and Carla ducks inside the bathroom and picks up my dirty clothes, then darts out again.

  The odd thing is I really can’t remember what seemed so urgent a few days ago. Picking up dead animals, drifting around town chasing ghosts. Maybe this long, dark night of the soul is just what I’ve needed to gain some perspective again, sweating out my horrors.

  I soap myself all over, scrubbing until I’m red and tingling. Until I’m almost new. I dry myself off and get into my fresh clothes and find Carla wiping down the counters in the kitchen, clean dishes aligned on the drying rack, the washing machine going.

  “This isn’t just a weekend’s worth of mess,” Carla comments, not turning to face me. She’s wearing jeans and a hooded jacket over a casual silk blouse—obviously she hurried over, but I can’t help thinking that she looks good. “She’s not looking after you very well.”

  I click my tongue. “I don’t need looking after, and that’s not her job.”

  Carla shrugs, as if what I’ve said doesn’t make any difference. “I’m not trying to stir, but you’re out at work all day, and she stays here, doing what? The laundry’s piled up; the dishes aren’t done.”

  “Christ, Carla, that’s a bit old-fashioned of you.”

  “Don’t be absurd, darling. You know it’s got nothing to do with gender roles—it’s about sharing the workload. If she were out working all day and you were here, you know you’d keep the dishes clean.”

  I suppose I would, but I say, “She’s been busy with Hayden. It’s draining, looking after a kid, especially a two-year-old. You’re constantly walking after them, keeping them out of danger…”

  I stop talking as the air ices over. I don’t want to discuss this, but Carla doesn’t let it go. She finally turns to face me, color in her cheeks. “Yes, I’m quite aware that I haven’t had the privilege of motherhood, but from what I can see, looking after a two-year-old without working for a living involves a lot of sleeping.” She slaps the cleaning cloth into the sink, surprising herself, I think, because then she composes herself again, takes a tumbler off the dryer, and reaches for one of the bottles of wine next to the window.

  I know it pains her to be vulnerable, and I go and take a glass for myself. “Some for me too.”

  She pulls out a stool at the kitchen counter and sighs as she sits. “It’s not my business, I know. But you’re my friend, and I don’t like the way she undermines you.”

  I join her at the table, soothed to have someone on my side. I can’t tell her what I did to Hayden to make Steph take her and leave. “She doesn’t. I owe her a lot. You know Hayden was quite difficult when she was small—she had colic, she was really uncomfortable, she hardly slept—and I didn’t help Steph with her.”

  “Did she let you?” Carla snaps. “No, hang on, let me answer that. No, she didn’t let you. I see how she is with her, so possessive, of course you can’t find your way in.”

  “It’s not like that. I feel so guilty about—”

  “W
hat you need to do, Mark,” she interrupts, “is stop feeling guilty and start asserting your place in this family. Hayden’s your daughter, and you need to stop living here—in your own bloody house—like you’re an unwelcome lodger. For Christ’s sake, you’re the sole breadwinner; you’re the man of the household. Start acting like it.”

  I could choose to be offended or inspired or enraged, but I’m simply embarrassed. I sip my wine and slump my forehead into my hand. “Acting like a man. Jesus, there’s a fraught topic.”

  Carla pauses long enough to let the air settle. “As I say, it’s none of my business.”

  “When those men broke into our house, I was immobilized. I just sat there while they took Steph away from me. I couldn’t even look at the guy who stayed with me, just stared at my feet while he rooted through our stuff. If I had owned a gun, would I have shot them?”

  “Mark,” Carla starts, trying to steer me onto another course, regretful of having spoken her mind. But then she recognizes that my tone is meditative, not angry or defensive. I’m really wondering aloud here, telling things to my oldest friend that I can’t share with anyone else.

  “I don’t think I would have,” I continue. Now I look into Carla’s eyes. “My only role, I think, the only thing I know how to do, is mourn.”

  Carla puts her hand on mine.

  “I miss Hayden,” I say.

  “They’ll come back soon,” she says. “Then you can start again.”

  I know I’m out of chances to start again, so I say nothing.

  We go to the couch and Carla puts on a soothing cooking channel, an elegant woman in her dream house with a fragile, seductive smile and sad eyes, then two life-weathered and time-sweetened old men driving around Italy. At some point, Carla puts her head on my shoulder and I let it stay, smelling the fresh shampoo and salty grass of her hair. My hand’s on her hip, just for comfort’s sake. I have the sense that things are going to work out just fine. None of this is a matter of life or death—it will all come out in the wash.