The Woman In The Fifth

by Douglas Kennedy

  Another smile.

  'And you cornered Omar when he was on the toilet?' I asked.

  'You were right about him. His shit truly stank. And I'll let you in on a small revolting secret: when he wiped himself he only used a minimal amount of paper, so the shit was everywhere on his hands. A disgusting bastard. And I'd seen how he had treated you, how he left that communal toilet in such a grim state—'

  'You saw ? How?'

  She stubbed out a cigarette and lit another.

  'Do you know what I like best about being dead? You can smoke without guilt.'

  'But even in death you still age, just like the rest of us.'

  'Yes, that is rather ironic, don't you think? But that's how it works . . . for me, at least.'

  'And the others?'

  A shrug.

  'So you didn't go to heaven after you—?'

  'Killed myself ? Hardly.'

  'To hell then?'

  'I went . . . nowhere. And then, somehow, I was back here. I was ten years older, but the apartment was here . . .'

  'Who paid the bills?'

  'Before I left for Hungary, I saw my lawyer and told him to set up a trust with the money I received as compensation from Dupré. I left my estate to no one. And I made certain in my will that no one could sell the apartment from under me. You see, I knew what I was going to do in Budapest . . . and I also knew that I would have to disappear for a very long time afterward . . .'

  'So you weren't planning to kill yourself ?'

  'Not until the police burst in. It was a completely impulsive decision. But, like I said, I was crazy then.'

  'And you're not crazy now? Beating men to death with baseball bats—'

  'He kicked the crap out of his wife, and he also threatened to kill you.'

  'That was never established.'

  'I heard it.'

  'When?'

  'In his bar. When he didn't think I was there.'

  'And Robson?'

  'I asked you what you thought was the worst thing that could befall him. You said—'

  'I didn't think you'd actually download kiddy porn on to his computer.'

  'It's what you wanted, Harry. That man systematically destroyed your life. His punishment struck me as . . . apt. His life is now completely shattered. And before the week is out, he'll take his own life in jail.'

  'Are you going to force him to do that?'

  Another laugh.

  'I am not a spirit who invades the souls of others and forces them to do things.'

  'No – you're just a succubus.'

  'A succubus has sex with men while they are asleep. You're very much awake, Harry.'

  'So all this then is . . . what? When I came here yesterday, the apartment was covered in dust, the concierge acted as if I was a lunatic, telling me the place hadn't been inhabited – let alone cleaned – for years.'

  'You're not a lunatic. But when you come to visit me every three days, you enter this.'

  'But what is this? And what about everybody else in the building? Do they go into the same sort of trance which the concierge seemed to be in?'

  'Think whatever you like.'

  'I still don't get it. Why just the three hours? Why just every few days?'

  'Because that's all I can do . . . all I can take. I want this . . . our little liaison. But only on my terms. That's why I refused to see you more than our few hours twice a week.'

  'Because that's all you were allowed?'

  'No one controls me. No one.'

  'But you still loiter with intent every Sunday on the balcony of some dilettante American's salon, picking up idiots like myself ?'

  'You were only the second man I ever picked up there.'

  'Who was the first?'

  'A German named Horst. I met him there in June of '91. I had just . . . re-emerged, so to speak. And I was revisiting places I had been in the past. So, when I found myself back in Paris – eleven years after my death – I decided to try my luck and see what might come of a sojourn on Lorraine's balcony. I must have lurked there for weeks . . . until Horst saw me. Like you, he was a man in his forties, recently divorced, on his own in Paris, sad, lonely. We chatted. He came to this apartment at the agreed five p.m. time. We had sex. We drank Scotch. We smoked a few cigarettes. He talked about how his wife had fallen in love with another man, his stalled career as a painter, the lycée where he taught art and how it all bored him, and so forth and so on. All our stories are simultaneously unique and desperately similar, aren't they? At eight o'clock, I told him he had to leave – but that he'd be welcomed back three days later. He said he'd show up. He never did. After that, I occasionally "returned" to Lorraine's balcony, hoping someone might see me. No one did for years. Until you showed up, Harry. You saw me . . . because you wanted to see me.'

  'That doesn't make sense.'

  'You must stop talking about "sense" or the apparent illogicality of our time together. There is no logic to this – except that we are here together because, as I said before, you wanted to see me.'

  'That's bullshit.'

  'Then why did you keep coming here, dutifully, week after week? Simply for the sex?'

  'That was a big part of it.'

  'You're right. It was. But there was more to it than that. You needed to see me . . . in every sense of the word. And I needed to put things right for you.'

  'I cannot accept—'

  'Accept, accept. Faith may be the antithesis of proof . . . but you have proof. You. Me. Here. Now.'

  'You don't exist.'

  'I do exist . . . as much as you exist. In this room. This moment. This time. This bit of nothingness that is still everything because it's the instant we share now. You can't escape that, Harry. Nor should you. It's the closest you've ever come to love in your life.'

  'You have no idea about—'

  'Love? How dare you? I went out of my mind for love. I killed – butchered – for love. I have far too many ideas about love . . . and I also know it's like everything else in life: it can drive you to the worst extremes, the absolute edge. Yet, in the great scheme of things, it all comes down to a moment here, a moment there . . . and a flicker of connection with someone else. That's happiness, Harry. Nothing more.'

  'And what about love for your child?'

  Silence. Then she said, 'That's everything. And you feel you have to kill the person who takes everything away from you.'

  'Did the revenge help balm the wounds?'

  'You mean, do I still relive the sadness and horror of what happened . . . and of what I did? Of course. I still can't get away from it. It will be with me forever. But I have sought redemption . . . through you.'

  'That's insane.'

  'Putting things right for another person isn't insane.'

  'It is when you resort to violent means to do it.'

  'But look how everything is gradually working out for you. Robson is in jail. So too is Sezer and his nasty henchman . . . and you know they were both gunning for you. Omar tried to blackmail you. He's been eliminated. Yanna's husband didn't deserve a further day of life on this earth. So I cannot really see how you can complain. Because, in time, things will come even more right for you.'

  I stood up.

  'Do you really think I'm going to buy into this madness?'

  'You have already done so, Harry. You've been complicit in this from the start.'

  'You mean, because I visualized you – the invisible woman – whereas others never did?'

  'But why did you see me? Because you needed to. Just as you needed me to settle all the scores you so wanted resolved.'

  'So you follow me everywhere, is that it?'

  'Perhaps.'

  'But why me?'

  'What an absurd question. We are involved.'

  'You call this an involvement? For you it was an afternoon fuck twice a week, nothing more.'

  'And for you, it was . . . ?'

  'The one thing I had in my life that I looked forward to.'

  'Don't yo
u think I also looked forward to it? We didn't just fuck in this room, Harry – and you know it. We talked. We told each other our stories. We found some comfort in that. I certainly grew to like it . . . and to need it. I mightn't have always shown it. I might have discouraged you from getting closer . . . but you still did. You needed me – this – as much as I did you.'

  'Well, if you think I'm going to keep coming back here, slipping into this little twilight zone you've set up here—'

  'You can't leave now,' she said, her voice quiet, flat.

  'Yes, I can . . . and I will. Because this is now dead. As dead as you.'

  'No, it's not. Now that you know about me . . . now that you come into this place with me twice a week . . . now that I am the person who watches your back . . . this is not ending.'

  'Fuck you,' I said, walking toward the door.

  'A stupid response, Harry. But, I suppose, understandable. You will need time to accept—'

  'I am accepting nothing. Got that? Nothing. You're never seeing me again.'

  'Yes, I am. And you'll want to see me . . . or, at least, call out to me at some moment when you're in a situation from which you can't extricate yourself.'

  'Don't count on that. Stay away from me.'

  'No, Harry . . . the real question here is: Can you stay away from me?'

  'That won't be hard to do,' I said and walked fast toward the door.

  'See you in three days,' she said as the door closed behind me.

  I raced downstairs. Once I had crossed the courtyard I stopped for a moment outside the concierge's lodge. He was still sitting there, comatose to the world. I reached the main door. I hit the button to release the lock. This time it opened with a telltale click. I stepped out into the street. Automotive sounds filled my ears as cars drove by. I looked both ways. There were pedestrians on the rue Linné. The old guy in the corner shop was sitting behind his small counter, looking bored. Life was, per usual, going on around me. I returned to the front door of Margit's apartment. Less than a minute had evaporated since I had crossed back into the quotidian world. I punched in the code. I stepped back inside the courtyard. I turned toward the concierge's lodge. He was no longer in an inanimate state. On the contrary, as soon as he saw me he was on his feet, grabbing a large two-by-four by his desk, then stepping just outside the lodge and brandishing this club.

  'You again? I told you to stay away. You go. Now.'

  I did as requested, hightailing it back out into the street. I walked quickly toward the Jussieu métro station. Halfway there I got a bad case of the shakes. Is she with me right now? Does she shadow my every move?

  I ducked into a café. I bought a double whisky. Even when added to all the other Scotch that Margit had poured into me, it still did little to dampen down my anxiety, my growing belief that I had lost all reason. I put my fingers to my nose, the same fingers that Margit had pushed into herself. Her smell was still there. I touched the bandage on my hand. She's dead . . . and she bandaged that hand. I ordered another whisky. Think, think. No, don't think. Just run. Go back to the hotel. Get your bag. Hop a cab to the Gard du Nord. Buy a ticket on the last train out tonight to London. But what about the novel? Fuck the novel. Run.

  And then what? Without the novel I have nothing to show for my time here . . . nothing to do when I get to England. At least if I have the disk I can pick up the narrative again. I can give the day some shape by punching out my quota of words. I can tell myself, You are trying to accomplish something. So go back to the office and get the disk. There's now nothing to fear. The place has been raided. Sezer and Mr Tough Guy are locked up in some commissariat de police, and the cops are no longer interested in the place. Get the disk. You'll be in and out of there in less than a minute. Then make a beeline for the Gare du Nord and slam the door on this entire deranged episode . . .

  By the time I had left the café I had decided that a better strategy would be to go back to the office in the middle of the night . . . preferably right before dawn. If anyone was lying in wait for me – doubtful, but I was still paranoid – they would most likely give up an all-night stakeout by six. More importantly, I could sleep until five thirty – sleep now being a major need.

  I forced myself out of the café and took the métro to the Gare du Nord where I booked a ticket on the 07h35 Eurostar to London the next morning. I paid cash. As I counted out the notes, I again wondered if she was watching me buy the ticket. I jumped Line 4 back to Château d'Eau and walked into one of the many long-distance phone shops that lined the boulevard de Sébastopol. The place I entered looked like a fly-by-night operation – and was crowded with men trying to get through to relatives in Yaounde and Dakar and Benin and other West African cities. I bought a phone card and took my place at a crude plywood booth and made a call I was dreading, but couldn't avoid. I checked my watch: 8.05 p.m. in Paris . . . 2.05 p.m. in Ohio. Susan answered on the second ring.

  'Hi there,' I said.

  'Harry?' she asked quietly.

  'That's right. How are you doing?'

  'How am I doing? Terribly, that's how. But you must know that already, otherwise why would you be calling after all this time.'

  The angry tone was the one she always used with me during the final years of our marriage – when I never seemed to be able to do anything right, and when she seemed to have so completely fallen out of love with me.

  'The only reason I haven't called is because you barred me from—'

  'I know, I know. Rub it in, why don't you. Especially in light of—'

  'Susan, I just called to see how you were. That's all.'

  A pause. I could hear her stifling a sob.

  'He hanged himself this morning.'

  Oh fuck.

  'Robson killed himself ?' I said.

  'His name was Gardner – and yes, he hanged himself with a bedsheet in his cell early this morning. I just found out. Some asshole reporter from Fox News who called me and asked me for a comment. Can you imagine that?'

  I said nothing. She continued, 'Over the past week, I have lost everything. Everything. My job, my career. Now that it's been revealed I was fucking the Dean of the Faculty, no one's going to be hiring me in a hurry. Then there's the little discovery that Gardner had a thing for naked seven-year-old girls and boys. I just can't tell you how horrible it was to . . .'

  Another stifled sob.

  'Is there anything I can do?' I asked.

  'Stop trying to sound magnanimous . . . when I know you must be gloating now that your nemesis . . .'

  She broke off, crying. I said, 'Susan, I want to talk to Megan.'

  'Megan's very upset right now. The news about Gardner's crime . . . it was everywhere. All the kids at her school . . . well, you know how horrible children can be.'

  'Will you tell her I want to speak to her?'