This isn’t the first time Marion’s been unreachable, but it’s the first time it’s put him in this state. Something’s eating at him. And he can’t swallow a bite except for a few spoonfuls of tasteless cream-of-potato soup. He was doing better for several days, but once again he’s feeling deep sadness. An even greater loneliness. Like a patient in relapse. And nobody seems to care. He hides behind his anger, but he knows his malaise doesn’t really have anything to do with Marion. He’s used to his perfunctory relationship with his daughter.
He’s lacking something else. Juliette . . . He sighs, that’s what’s bothering him. She hasn’t come around. Although she didn’t say she’d come back, Ferdinand expected her for lunch. Hoped? No, let’s not get carried away . . . But somehow or other, the little girl is rather good company. A bit like Daisy, but in her own way. Badly brought up, saying anything that comes into her head, no respect for her elders. Entertaining, though, with her impertinent questions and improbable reading. He’ll find out what happened tomorrow, at least, if she comes back, and he’ll tell her about Mrs. Suarez’s visit.
Ferdinand is dozing when a dull thud, like pounding on a thick pane of glass, makes him jump. He opens his eyes. Something is moving on the balcony, right in front of him. A little shadow. It looks like . . . the slight figure of a child. Juliette! She’s motioning on the balcony and banging on the glass. The old man rubs his eyes. Is he dreaming or is the little girl really there waving at him? She really does have bats in her belfry! He goes to let her in.
“How could you jump down from the third floor? Are you nuts? You could have gotten yourself killed! And it’s freezing out there. Get inside, quick!” She steps inside as he shuffles back to his armchair.
“I didn’t jump. I’m not crazy, you know . . . I took out the trash and then I thought I’d come see you. I didn’t want to ring the bell in case you were sleeping, so I climbed up the rose trellises. One floor is easy. Besides, I hope you close your shutters at night. Anybody could walk right in, if you ask me.”
“You didn’t want to wake me up by ringing, but you bang like a madwoman on my clean windows? You don’t think that disturbed me even more? And what are you doing here at this hour? Shouldn’t a little girl of . . . of your age be in bed at nine thirty-five? What’s your father going to say when he realizes you haven’t come back from the trash area?”
“Tonight he’s working on a new building site. Katia, our housekeeper, is babysitting us. She fell asleep in front of the TV. You exhausted her yesterday. I’ve never seen her miss an episode of CSI.”
Juliette sits down on the sofa and wraps herself in the blanket.
“You must have noticed I couldn’t come today. It’s Wednesday and on Wednesday I have lunch with Papa since there’s no school. So how did Mrs. Suarez’s inspection go? It looks like our housekeeper did a fabulous job. It still smells clean.”
“Hey, Miss Bold-as-Brass, I didn’t call your housekeeper. I had your cleaning stuff and it was a piece of cake. I—”
“Don’t lie, Ferdinand. Katia told me everything. She spoke of certain places, like behind the fridge . . . She’d never seen that! Mrs. Claudel recommended her housekeeper to us when we moved in. So, what did Mrs. Suarez say to so much cleanliness? Did she purse her lips like she does when she’s upset at having nothing to complain about?”
“You know her well, I’d say. Yes, Mrs. Suarez remained true to form. A real little gestapo captain.”
Ferdinand gets up out of his armchair and paces in front of Juliette, in a pale imitation of the concierge.
“She did her duty, in silence, frowning, lips pursed. She came in, peeked in every room, opened every cupboard, checked the cleaning products under the sink, inspected the windows, examined the balcony, unscrewed the liquid-hand-soap bottle, scrutinized the sponges, picked up the phone receiver, glanced at the trash can, and lifted up the bedspread to see if the sheets were clean. She smirked when she found a bit of dust on top of the baseboards. She also ordered me to remove the plastic bag from the fridge, lest the green beans go bad.”
“Oh, yes, I should have thought of that . . .”
“But ultimately, I think it went well. I even took a bath and put on cologne. The president of the republic wouldn’t have been treated better! Besides, I was a bit tricksy: I offered her coffee. She didn’t even deign to respond, she just made another face like ‘coffee from that old machine with its gym-sock filters?’ She’s coming back next month. I’m not going to put up with these inspections forever. I’m not a kid! I called Marion to stop this charade, but she’s not answering on purpose. Say, you want to munch on something? I might have some pretzels,” says Ferdinand, opening the door on the sideboard.
“I’d prefer more pickles, if there are any left.”
The old man gets the jar and sits back down in his armchair.
“I’m glad everything went well with Mrs. Suarez. Wasn’t she surprised not to find any alcohol here?”
“Why do you say that? What do you know about it? Did your housekeeper tell you something? I’m not an alcoholic. So it stands to reason there isn’t a drop of alcohol in the house. What are you insinuating?”
“Calm down, Ferdinand, I’m not insinuating anything. I’m just saying it’s shady that there’s no wine, or aperitif, or liqueur. But you have aperitif glasses and snifters. That implies a stash.”
“Nonsense, Juliette! You really have an overactive imagination for your age.”
“And Mrs. Suarez didn’t say anything about your . . . straight razor? That’s what it’s called, right? Basically, your old razor’s a little scary. Remember, she’s charged with verifying that you don’t want to hurt yourself or others.”
“How can you say such things? Where do you get ideas like that?”
“In one of the books I borrowed from you—your collection of Pierre Bellemare’s Extraordinary Stories.”
“You borrowed a book from me? When? Aren’t you ashamed to help yourself like that?”
“Last time. Anyhow, sorry, your reading simply will not do. And if Mrs. Suarez hasn’t said anything yet, it’s because she didn’t see you only have stories about murders, corrupt police officers, and the war.”
“That’s not all I have. I also have a dictionary and—”
Juliette concluded, “Oh, yes, it’s true, you also have books about dogs. But they’re all about guard and attack dogs. That’s not going to improve Mrs. Suarez’s image of you. A serial killer—remember?”
“I couldn’t care less! The silly old goose can go to hell. I’m not going to buy books to please her. I don’t read anymore anyway, so there’s no point. Time doesn’t pass any quicker and I don’t have anybody to talk about it with after.”
“I can help make your library presentable. I’ll bring you my father’s horticulture books, for example. But I doubt gardening books would interest you,” says Juliette, looking around. “You don’t have any plants. Not even on the balcony. What a shame.”
“Concentrate, will you? OK, bring your father’s books. So, if I may summarize, my second inspection runs the risk of turning sour because of a razor and alcohol? I’ll make sure to buy all of that. But do you know how much more a modern razor costs? The blades especially—they’re thirty euros for a package of five! And alcohol isn’t cheap, either. As for the plants, you can forget it. That’s for women.”
“Tell that to my father and you’ll get an earful!” retorts Juliette, smiling.
“What I mean is it’s not at all my thing. I’m more Roundup ready, you see. Wherever I pass by, everything passes away. It was my wife who had the green thumb.”
“Where is your wife?”
“We separated years ago. She left me. There. Now you know everything.”
“That’s all?”
“Don’t get offended, but I won’t tell you any more. And why are you interested in the life of an old gentleman like myself anyway? A girl of your age has nothing better to do?”
“Let’s just say I’m di
fferent. A little precocious, it would seem,” Juliette says as she grabs her umpteenth pickle. “Since I know things that don’t interest the girls and boys my age, they call me ‘the brain.’ They think I’m haughty because I use words longer than two syllables. I don’t do it on purpose, I’m just like that. What I like to do is garden, play Scrabble or Questions for a Champion, read, people-watch, eat cake . . . Maybe that’s why I prefer being with older people. They say you become an adult when you realize you have to die one day. For me, that was at age six when I lost my paternal grandfather. A stupid bicycle accident. It was a shock for me. I adored my Pappy.”
“Is that why you come see me?”
“Don’t get offended, but you’re polar opposites. I started visiting you because you were the only grandpa in the complex, and I wanted to avoid the cafeteria at school. Now I like you. You make me laugh and I need that. The past year hasn’t been fun for me. My mama . . . no one could do anything. She was an extraordinary woman. Very beautiful and very intelligent, too. She was a special correspondent. She wasn’t at home much. One day, she was taken to the hospital. She’d been shot in the arm while covering a story. They kept her under observation. Then her condition deteriorated. They found out afterward that she’d caught an infection. I miss Mama enormously, but I’m trying not to think about her too much. I just want to keep my promise: work hard at school and be nice to Papa and Emma. That’s all.”
“I’m sorry about your mama. Your story’s very sad.”
“What about you, Ferdinand? Why are you all alone?”
“Well, my story is everyone’s story. My wife, she was sick of me, I think. Sick of my absences, our shouting matches. One day, when I came back after a few weeks away, she’d made her decision. I hadn’t seen it coming. She’d found my replacement. The mailman! Can you imagine? She took the first guy to come along. And an Italian, no less! To think that bastard was coming by every day to chitchat with her. One day, I even had the bright idea of inviting him in for coffee. Me, a cuckold! I’ll never accept it. I even wanted her to die. They went off to the south of France and I assume they had a lousy life together.”
Ferdinand pauses. It costs him to trust anybody—more than he imagines.
“Well, to make a long story short, a few months ago she did die. She fell getting out of the bathtub. I found out about it from Marion. It hit me pretty hard. Not so much her death, but everything it signified. Deep down, I always thought she’d come back, that she’d say, ‘I’m sorry, I was wrong, I can’t live without you.’ But no. She was never sorry, apparently. You’re going to say I’m naïve. You see, from my entire life there’s nothing but failures, regrets. A failed marriage, a daughter who doesn’t really love me and who fled to the other side of the world, a grandson I’ve seen a total of eight times . . . My only reason for living was Daisy. Without really knowing it, I was living for her. It’s funny, it was my wife who gave her to me for our last Christmas. Sometimes I wonder if she’d already planned to leave me. There. Now you really know everything.”
“That’s why you wanted to die? You picked the bus so you could go the way Daisy did?”
“I hadn’t considered that I’d picked the bus to go like Daisy, run over. Maybe, after all . . . Well, how about we talk about something a little happier? Then you go on home before your nanny wakes up. What did you learn in school this week?”
“I learned something rather interesting, but it’s not necessarily happier. We discussed the emergency actions to take in the event of a gas leak. It’s part of the new lifesaving techniques being tested at my school. I’ve already learned CPR.”
“I never did learn that. Certainly not at school. Is it easy to do?”
“With chest compressions there is still a risk of breaking ribs. But it’s better to have a few broken bones and stay alive, in my opinion. I can teach you, if you want.”
“Pff . . . At my age? It’s not worth it. And to save who?”
“Me! If one day you turn on the gas and have regrets,” says Juliette, smiling.
“Stop that nonsense, little one. Go on home now.”
Ferdinand accompanies Juliette to the door.
“I was just wondering, which is your favorite Pierre Bellemare story?”
“The one with the black-eyed garbage chute. It scares your pants off. Ever since reading it, I haven’t dared use the one on the landing.”
Chapter Twenty
Pardon?
It’s extraordinary how people can take a smile for an invitation to chat. As Ferdinand returns home from the Franprix supermarket, laden with pickles, ham, and macaroni for lunch, he suddenly finds himself nose to nose with Mrs. Claudel exiting her apartment. He faintly produces the beginnings of an almost friendly smile, then turns his back to insert his keys in the lock when his neighbor says in her strident voice, “Hello there, Mr. Brun. How did you like Katia? Was she able to put the affairs of your late canine in order?”
Ferdinand swallows wrong and coughs a little before managing to utter a few words. “Uh . . . yes. You could say she was very effective. Anyway, I think I should—”
“I’m sorry to be impolite but I’ve got to run, Mr. Brun. My fitness class starts in fifteen minutes and I’m none too fast. However, I’d be delighted to hear more about Katia’s prowess. Come over for coffee today. But no niceties. Don’t bring flowers or chocolates. I’ll say toodle-oo, now, Mr. Brun. See you at two o’clock.”
Ferdinand doesn’t have time to decline as his neighbor disappears down the stairs, without waiting for a response. As though it’s obvious Ferdinand is available, as though it’s obvious he drinks coffee, as though it’s obvious he feels like skipping his favorite radio program.
The old man has no choice: he’s going to have to bite the bullet for half an hour in exchange for the assistance Mrs. Claudel provided. It’s the least he can do.
The least he can do? Really, she didn’t make any unreasonable effort—she made a phone call! Ferdinand isn’t going to start compromising. Since his accident, the neighbor ladies have rushed—wittingly and unwittingly—into his life. First Juliette, and now Mrs. Claudel. He must face facts: he doesn’t scare anyone anymore and especially not those two. Just look at how they destabilize him and come back for more like a karate match. If Juliette has already racked up the equivalent of eight points (against Ferdinand’s zero), Mrs. Claudel achieved ippon in thirty seconds! No. Ferdinand must pull himself together. Regain the advantage. No one changes at his age. Let alone for the better.
In any case, Ferdinand has been intrigued since setting foot inside the old lady’s apartment. All the more so since—as far as he can see through the peephole—Beatrice Claudel seems to have very interesting days. Much more interesting than his own. The invitation is a chance to verify whether his hypotheses about his neighbor’s activities are correct.
Chapter Twenty-One
Great Caesar’s Ghost
The clock in Ferdinand’s kitchen says 2:05. He’s standing on his neighbor’s doormat, wondering if there’s still time to retreat, when the door swings wide open.
“Come on in, Mr. Brun,” Beatrice says. “Let me take your coat. Never fear, it’s not cold in here. But do my eyes deceive me? Chocolates?”
“Uh, no, they’re licorice. I know you asked me not to bring anything, but I think that’s what you do when you’re invited over. I’m not really sure anymore . . .”
“Oh, but you didn’t have to! You’ve positively splurged! And I love licorice. This makes me very happy. Thank you so much, Mr. Brun. Please sit down. Do you take sugar in your coffee?” Beatrice pushes a steaming cup toward him.
“Um, yes, please. Your apartment is really quite lovely. Very different from mine.”
“We bought it off-plan in 1957. I must still have the architect’s drawing somewhere.”
Beatrice takes something that isn’t far off from a papyrus scroll out of a drawer.
“The paper’s a bit yellow and the lines practically erased, but you can see the p
lace’s potential, can’t you? What’s funny is we initially chose your apartment, because you have the sun longer. But there was a mix-up during the allocation and in the end your in-laws got it. We didn’t want to make a fuss, so we kept this one and had some work done before moving in. I haven’t left it since, except for vacation or to go to my second home in Dinard. I enjoy it very much. These walls watched my four children grow up—it really was a happy home. I have wonderful memories here. Today, the apartment is much too large for me all alone. But, well, I’m rarely around. I’m very busy between my activities with the parish, the gym, my book club, going out to the theater or the movies, and the bridge club. Do you play bridge, Mr. Brun?”
“Uh, it’s been so long I wouldn’t be able to remember the rules.”
“What marvelous news! A bridge player! I host a party every two weeks. I’ll expect you at the next one. It’s Tuesday night. And don’t worry about the rules: we always go over them before every game, since we’re all getting on in years. Would you like another cup? I always have a second.”
“Um, yes, your coffee is very good.”
“Since I get a lot of visitors—my grandchildren mostly—it’s in my best interest to have decent coffee. On the other hand, you’ll forgive me for not offering you a cigar, as I’d prefer the smell of tobacco not permeate the living room. My great-grandson is coming shortly.”
“No problem, I don’t smoke cigars anyhow. What made you think otherwise?”
“I thought I’d smelled cigar smoke in the stairwell behind you.”
“Oh, yes . . . yes! To tell you the truth, I hate the smell of cigars, and pipe smoke even more, but I sometimes light one, to make me look interesting, I suppose.”
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