The Woman In The Fifth

by Douglas Kennedy

  She disengaged from me and took a drag of her cigarette.

  'Have I done something wrong?' I asked.

  A small laugh.

  'Your ex-wife must have played havoc with your selfesteem.'

  'That's beside the point.'

  'No, it's not. All I'm telling you is, I don't want to be made love to today, and your immediate reaction is to think that you've been "bad". Which leads me to conclude—'

  'I was just wondering why—'

  'I can give you a blow job but want nothing in return?'

  'Well, if you want to put it in such a blunt way . . .'

  'You see, you act as if I'm rejecting you . . . whereas all I'm saying is—'

  'I'll shut up.'

  'Good,' she said, topping up my glass.

  'I have to tell you . . . that's the first time I've ever had a blow job with Bartók as the musical accompaniment.'

  'There's a first for everything.'

  'Did you blow your businessman to Bartók?'

  'You are a jealous man, aren't you?'

  'It was just a question.'

  'And I will give you an answer. As our affair went on while I was still married, we always met at a little apartment he kept near his office. His fuck pad.'

  'And all the gifts . . . did he send them here?'

  'Yes. He did.'

  'Your husband didn't get upset about that?'

  'You do ask many questions.'

  She stubbed out her cigarette, then reached for the packet, fished out another one, and lit it up.

  'No,' she said. 'My husband wasn't suspicious. Because he was fully aware of the affair from the moment it started.'

  'I don't understand . . .'

  'Then I will explain it to you. It was 1975. Due to budget cutbacks, my husband, Zoltan, had just lost his job as a monitor of Hungarian radio broadcasts for some international airwaves watchdog group that was funded by the CIA. Our daughter, Judit, was just two years old. I was getting very little work as a translator, so we were dangerously low on money. Then, out of nowhere, a job dropped into my life – translating desperately boring technical documents for a French company that was exporting Hungarian-made dental supplies.'

  'I never knew Communist Hungary specialized in that.'

  'Nor did I before I got this job. Anyway, I did the translation and was then called out to the company's offices – in some modern area near Boulogne – to explain a few technical points to the company's director. His name was Monsieur Corty: fiftyish, potbellied, puff-faced, sad eyes . . . archetypal. I could see him noticing me with care as soon as I came into his office. We spent half an hour going through the documents. He then proposed lunch. I hadn't eaten in a restaurant for a very long time, so I thought, Why not? He took me to a very nice place. He ordered an excellent bottle of wine. He asked about my husband and my daughter, and found out how hard up we were. Then he started talking: about how he was married to an impossible woman; how she had so pushed him away that he found it difficult "performing" for her; how she had ridiculed him for that and essentially ended that part of their lives, and how he couldn't leave her – that traditional French Catholic thing of keeping the family together to maintain social respectability – but was looking for someone with whom he could have "an arrangement". He also said that he found me very attractive, he could see that I was intelligent, and liked the fact that I was married . . . which meant that I had responsibilities of my own. And he offered me three hundred francs a week – a small fortune to us back then – if I would meet him twice a week for two hours in the afternoon.'

  'You weren't shocked by this offer?'

  'Of course not. It was made so graciously. Anyway, I told him I would have to think about it, and that night I went home and after we got Judit to bed, I sat down with Zoltan and explained what had transpired that afternoon. The next day I called Monsieur Corty and I told him that, yes, our arrangement would be acceptable – but the price would have to be four hundred francs per week. He agreed on the spot.'

  'Your husband didn't mind?'

  'I know what you are thinking: How could he have agreed to let me whore for a fat middle-aged man? But his attitude, like mine, was very pragmatic. We were virtually penniless. The money he was offering was – to us – vast. And to me, it was just sex. Actually, the sex never lasted more than a few minutes – he was very fast. But what Monsieur Corty wanted more than anything was a bit of tendresse. Someone he could talk to for a few hours each week. So I would go to the drab functional little studio near his office that he had organized for our liaison. I would undress, he would take off his suit jacket and trousers, his shirt, but he'd remain clothed in his underwear. He would pull out his penis and I would spread my legs and—'

  'I think I know how the act works,' I said.

  'Am I making you uncomfortable?'

  'It's just more information than I need.'

  'Don't tell me you're a puritan, Harry.'

  'Hardly, but . . .'

  'Surely the writer in you appreciates that, in storytelling, the significant detail is everything. And so, the very fact that Monsieur Corty would never make love naked with me, and that sex was merely a mechanical act for him, surely must tell you that—'

  'It was a sad, sordid little arrangement?'

  'It wasn't sordid and it wasn't sad. It was what he wanted it to be.'

  'How long did it last?'

  'Three years.'

  'Good God.'

  'It was a very lucrative three years for us. The money allowed us to buy this apartment . . .'

  'Where did your daughter sleep?'

  'There's another room – a very small room . . .'

  'Where exactly . . . ?'

  'Over there,' she said, pointing to a door on the lefthand wall, near one of the French windows.

  'I hadn't noticed . . .'

  'Never overlook the significant detail.'

  I wanted to ask, What do you use the room for now? but I held myself in check.

  'What ended the affair?'

  'Circumstances,' she said.

  'Your husband must have been a remarkably tolerant man.'

  'He was as complex as anyone else. He had some great strengths, some profound weaknesses. I loved him madly and often hated him . . . and I think it was the same for him as regards me. And he was no saint when it came to other women . . .'

  'He had mistresses?'

  'Un jardin secret . . . avec beaucoup de fleurs.'

  'And you didn't object?'

  'He was discreet, he never flaunted the fact to me, he never made me feel in any way less important to him. On the contrary, I think his many lovers kept him with me . . .'

  I shook my head. She said, 'You are amused by all this.'

  'Absolutely – because I could never imagine an American couple agreeing to this sort of arrangement . . .'

  'I am certain there are many who do . . . but, of course, never breathe a word to anyone outside of their marriage . . .'

  'Maybe – but the prevailing rule in American life is, If you transgress, the punishment will follow.'

  'As you well know,' she said.

  'How do you know that?'

  'It's written all over you. You got caught at something. And the other great rule of American life is, Don't get caught.'

  'No,' I said, 'the rule is, There is a price to everything.'

  'What a sad way of looking at the world: thinking that pleasure must be punished.'

  'Only illicit pleasure.'

  'Most pleasures are best when they are illicit, n'est-ce pas?' she said, tracing a line down my face and kissing me. This time she responded when I kissed her back deeply. But then, a few moments later, she ended the embrace.

  'Like I said . . .' she whispered.

  'I know,' I said. '"Not today."'

  'But three days from now – absolutely. Now you must go.'

  'So soon?'

  'I have things to do.'

  'OK,' I said.

  Ten minutes later
I was on the street, walking quickly toward the métro, trying to sort through everything that had happened during the brief hour I had spent in Margit's apartment. Questions, questions. 'Not today.' But why? And also, what things did she have to do that made her turn me out of her apartment after sixty minutes? The story of her 'arrangement' with the fat businessman strangely rankled – because it felt as if she was testing me, seeing what I would accept, and also letting me know (without much subtlety) that this 'thing' (I couldn't yet call it an affair, let alone a liaison) would be conducted according to her rules, her limits. And if I didn't want it . . .

  But the truth was, I did want it. As I descended into the Jussieu station, the letdown intensified. Three days was a long time from now.

  While walking to work that night, all I could think was how I now had to spend the next six hours locked up in an airless room, and how I was tiring of the job, and wouldn't mind taking a sixty-five-euro loss if it meant getting one day off each week.

  But when I posited this idea to Mr Beard the next afternoon, his reaction was not positive.

  'I do not think the Boss would like that,' he said. 'You are needed there every night.'

  'But when I was first offered the job, Kamal said I could work just six nights.'

  'Kamal is dead . . . and you are needed there all seven nights.'

  'Couldn't you get someone else to handle just one night of the week?'

  'It will not be possible.'

  'Would you at least ask the Boss?'

  'I will ask him, but I know what he will say: It will not be possible.'

  But the next afternoon, when I stopped by the café to pick up my wages envelope, Mr Beard favored me with a scowly smile.

  'I have spoken to the Boss. He is d'accord. "Every man needs a day of rest," he said. Yours will be Friday, but the Boss also wants you to work one evening shift: six p.m. to midnight, one day a week.'

  'But that means doing a twelve-hour shift . . .'

  'You will not lose any money that way.'

  No, but if Margit will only see me at five p.m. every three days . . .

  'Could I do six a.m. to twelve noon?'

  'It will not be possible.'

  'Ask him.'

  When I returned the next day, Mr Beard tossed me my envelope and said, 'The Boss wants to know why you can't do those extra hours.'

  'Because I see a woman in the late afternoon.'

  That caught him by surprise – even though he tried hard not to look shocked.

  'I will tell him that,' he said, looking away from me.

  And it was only three hours before I could see her again. With time to kill, I walked over to that little café near the Gare de l'Est where I ate steak-frites twice a week. The place was quiet. I sat down. The waiter approached me and took my order. I asked him if he had a newspaper I could read. He returned with Le Parisien. I opened it up and started flicking through its pages. I have to say that I liked the paper because it was full of the usual petty crimes and misdemeanors that inform the life of a city. Today's criminal reports included: Two teenage thugs caught trashing a car in Clichy-sous-Bois. An insurance executive killed instantly when his car swerved in front of a truck on the autoroute to Versailles (and the post-mortem showed that he was, booze-wise, way over the limit). A feud between two families in Bobigny which got so out of hand that one of the husbands smashed the windshield of his neighbor's Renault Mégane. A desk clerk at a small hotel in the Sixteenth getting knocked down in a hit-and-run accident on the rue François Millet.

  Hang on . . .

  Hotel Clerk Left Paralysed By

  Hit-and-Run Driver

  Philippe Brasseur, 43, the morning desk clerk at the Hôtel Sélect, rue François Millet, has been left paralysed from the neck down after being struck by a car yesterday afternoon in front of the hotel. Eyewitnesses say that the vehicle – a Mercedes C-Class – had been double-parked near the hotel, and pulled out suddenly as M. Brasseur left the hotel. According to Mme Tring Ta-Sohn, who operates a traiteur asiatique opposite the Sélect, 'The driver of the vehicle appeared to deliberately target the man.' Mme Tring Ta-Sohn also informed the police that the license plate of the Mercedes appeared to have been covered. According to the investigating officer, Inspector M. Guybet, this detail evidently indicated that this was a premeditated act. M. Brasseur remains in a stable condition at the Hôpital de Saint-Cloud. The attending neurologist, Dr G. Audret, said it was too early to tell whether the paralysis was permanent.

  Good God. As much as I hated that bastard – and privately wanted to see him get some sort of comeuppance for his hideous behavior toward me – I still wouldn't have wished that fate upon him. The man must have made some serious enemies over the years.

  Four hours later I was recounting this tale to Margit. We were in bed, sprawled naked across each other and talking for the first time since I had arrived. When she'd opened her front door, she'd immediately pulled me down on to the bed, yanking down my jeans, hiking up her skirt. Once I was inside her, she became immoderate – her legs tight around me, her moans increasing in volume with each of my thrusts.

  Afterward, she said, 'Take off your clothes and stay awhile.'

  I did as ordered while she went into the next room to retrieve two glasses. Then picking up the bottle of champagne I had brought ('I won't say, "Again," . . . but you really must stop such extravagance'), she opened it, the cigarette ash falling off on to the sheets as the cork popped.

  'More work for the maid,' I said.

  'I am the maid. Just like you.'

  'You're beautiful,' I said, stroking her thigh.

  'You've said that before.'

  'It's the truth.'

  'You're a liar,' she said with a laugh. 'And you're continuing to evade my question . . .'

  'What question?'

  'The question I posed to you last time.'

  'Which was?'

  'How badly did your wife damage you?'

  'Badly,' I finally said. 'But ultimately it was me who damaged myself.'

  'You only say that because you believe her rhetoric . . . because, all of your life, you've been told you're a bad boy.'

  'Stop sounding like a shrink.'

  'You have nothing to be guilty about.'

  'Yes, I do,' I said, turning away.

  'Did you kill anyone?' she asked.

  'Don't try to soft-pedal this . . .'

  'It's a legitimate question: Did you kill someone?'

  'Of course I didn't kill anyone.'