The Woman In The Fifth

by Douglas Kennedy

  'No. But I didn't think you remembered me . . .'

  'Hon, you barging in – asking about a woman who came here once in 1980 – was hard to forget. But want to hear something rather droll? After you left I did ask Henry about – what was her name? – Kadar? He actually remembered her rather well – because her husband Zoltan got talking with another woman the night they were here, and there was a scene out on the balcony with the Hungarian threatening to toss the other woman into rue Soufflot. Henry said he'd never seen such a jealous rage – and one that came out in whispers . . . a sure sign of insanity in my book. Hell, give me a proper screaming match any day. So consider yourself lucky you really didn't meet her. That kind of crazy – when they get their claws into you—'

  'I really have to go now,' I said, cutting her off.

  'Hey, fear not. I won't say a word to Larry Coursen about any of this. Don't want to cost you a job or anything. And y'all come back here again, you hear?'

  L'Herbert was true to her word about not telling Coursen about my 'girlfriend'. There was a message the next day at my hotel from his secretary. Could I present myself at his office at 3 p.m. tomorrow for an interview?

  The American Institute was out in Neuilly. A sprawling hôtel particulier refurbished with classrooms and offices and a large public lecture theater. Coursen was pleasant and businesslike. He had dug out all my professional details. He had Googled some of my academic papers and journalistic pieces. As expected, he had read all about the scandal that had cost me my job.

  'I'd appreciate hearing the story from you,' he said.

  I took him through it, trying to be very honest about my errors in judgment and saying that, although Robson went public with the affair, I still felt great guilt about what happened to Shelley.

  After I finished, Coursen said, 'I appreciate your directness. It's damn unusual these days – and rather refreshing. I also did make a call to one of your former colleagues in your department: Douglas Stanley. He gave you a fantastic recommendation and also said that the entire business with the student wouldn't have turned into the drama and tragedy that it became if Robson hadn't fanned the flames. And hey, that's one hell of a story about what happened to Robson, isn't it? Kind of makes you believe there is some cosmic force out there that punishes bastards.'

  'That's one way of looking at it.'

  'Anyway, the thing is, this is France, thank God, not the US . . . so I can't see too many people objecting if I offer you a post here. Between ourselves . . . I completely sympathize. My second marriage ended when my wife caught me in bed with one of my students back at the University of Connecticut. Best thing that ever happened to me, as it got me to France. We're fellow refugees, Harry.'

  The post was initially for one thirteen-week term. I would teach two courses: 'Introduction to Film' and 'Great American Directors'. The entire total of class time would come to twelve hours a week and I'd be paid eight thousand euros for the term. He'd also arrange the necessary carte de séjour with the French authorities. If everything worked out, we could discuss an extension of my contract toward the end of this probationary period.

  I accepted on the spot – but with one proviso: none of the courses could run between 5 and 8 p.m.

  'No problem,' Coursen said. 'We'll set them up for the mornings and afternoons. But hey, who's the dame? And if you're seeing her from five to eight she must be married.'

  'It's . . . uh . . . complicated.'

  'It always is. And that's what makes it fun.'

  When I saw Margit the next day, she said, 'You handled the interview very well. And you were absolutely right to explain the affair the way you did. No excuses. No attempting to apportion blame elsewhere. Very smart. So congratulations . . . though I do think your new patron is très louche. And by the way, don't listen to that old queen Henry Montgomery about my deranged jealousy. What Madame L'Herbert failed to mention to you was that I caught that woman giving Zoltan a blow job on the balcony.

  Now as you well know, I am very open-minded about such things. But to shame me in public like that? So yes, I did hiss a lot at her and I did half-tip her over the balcony. But I was holding her very tightly. A little salope like that wasn't worth a lengthy spell in jail.

  'But I digress. I am delighted for you, Harry. And don't worry about the one-term probation business. Coursen will extend your contract.'

  'If you say so.'

  'I do say so.'

  'I need you to do something else for me. I need you to get Susan her job back.'

  'I'll see what I can do. Meanwhile, she's had some more good financial news come her way. Most of Robson's estate went to his children, but he rewrote his will recently, making your ex-wife the beneficiary of his pension from the college in case he died before retirement. It isn't vast – but she will have an income of around fifteen hundred dollars per month. And with your daughter's tuition now taken care of, she'll get by.'

  Susan gave me this news herself when I called her that night.

  'It's about the only thing that bastard Robson did right,' she said. 'And it couldn't come at a more critical moment.'

  'I'm pleased for you.'

  'Benefiting from the pension of a child pornographer – and having to accept it because I am in such financial hot water – now there's dramatic irony for you. And it shows just how low I've sunk.'

  'You're right to take the money.'

  'Well, at least the FBI have decided I wasn't the bookkeeper for his little Internet business. They cleared me today.'

  'More good news. And I have some to add to that.'

  I told her about the job at the American Institute.

  'Lucky you. I so miss teaching.'

  'And I so miss my daughter.'

  'She managed to sit up in a chair by the hospital bed for most of the morning. The doctors all say they cannot figure out how she came out of the coma without significant brain damage.'

  'Miracles can happen, I suppose. We're very lucky. And I'm desperate to speak to her.'

  'I broached it with her yesterday. She's still very angry at you. I do take some of the blame for that. After everything blew up for you, I really turned her against you. It was pure rage and revenge. A terrible thing to have done. I see that now. And I will try to put it right.'

  At our next liaison, Margit said, 'What an Act of Contrition on her part. Guilt is such a fantastic leveler.'

  'Did you organize the pension business?'

  'Perhaps.'

  'And the Feds?'

  'Perhaps.'

  'You really like to keep me guessing, don't you?'

  'But look at what you get in return. Emotional tidiness. Wrongs righted. Jobs offered. Admissions of guilt from those who hurt you. Even my services as a real-estate agent. There's a studio apartment for let in a haussmannien building on the rue des Écoles. Twenty-six square metres, nicely renovated, and only six hundred euros a month. Very reasonable for this quartier and you'll be in walking distance of so many cinemas . . .'

  'Not to mention you.'

  'Well, five minutes away on foot is far more convenient than all that travel you used to do from the Tenth.'

  'And you'll have me almost on your doorstep.'

  'Harry, you're always on my doorstep. You know that. Just as you know I'm with you even when you don't want me to be with you. But again I digress. You need to get to the estate agent first thing tomorrow morning. Tell them you're a prof at the American Institute – they'll like that. If they make worried noises about your lack of a bank account, tell them you've just arrived from the States and are about to open one. Coursen will supply you with a reference and a two-thousand-euro advance on your contract. That should get you set up. After that—'

  'I think I can take it from there.'

  'Am I sounding like your mother?'

  'No comment.'

  'I just want to get your life full back on track. And this apartment, it's perfect. You won't find anything like it for—'

  'OK, Margit. Point taken. I wi
ll be at the agence immobilière by nine.'

  By ten the next day I had rented the apartment. Margit was right: it was a terrific little place. Simple, but stylishly done. Coursen was very good about getting the Institute to front me two grand in advance. Within three days I had moved into the studio. After the squalor and dinginess of rue de Paradis, my new apartment seemed pristine and splendidly private. With the balance of money left over from the salary advance, I bought sheets and towels and a stereo and began the process of settling in.

  Then the teaching began. I liked my students. They seemed to like me – and I quickly remembered what a pleasure it could be to stand up at a lectern and spout on about movies. The first term passed by with great speed. I got a phone installed in the apartment. I called Susan every day. Megan was back at school within four weeks of her accident. But she was still refusing to speak to her father. 'She doesn't talk much to me either,' Susan said. 'She really mopes a lot. The doctors say it's a natural side effect after coming out of a coma. She's depressed. But at least she's talking to a psychotherapist at school. So . . . be patient. She will come around.'

  Everything began to fall into place. My contract at the American Institute was extended for two years. I met a guy at a reception at the Institute who edited a weekly magazine for expatriates and was looking for a film critic. The pay wasn't much – one-fifty a column – but it got me writing about movies again and brought in a little more money. I was able to buy a few better clothes. I invested in a television and a DVD. I purchased a new laptop. I bought a cellphone. I gave my lectures, I wrote my column, I worked out in the Institute's gym, I continued to haunt the Cinémathèque and the little movie houses that crammed my quartier. I had my daily call to Susan about Megan. We were polite with each other on the phone – the edgy anger now abating into a respectful distance. We were no longer enemies; rather, weary combatants who had decided it was now easier to be civil with each other and only had one agreed subject of conversation: their daughter.

  Time continued to accelerate. I taught all summer. I loved the vacant streets of Paris in August, and managed a two-and- a-half-day holiday on the beach in Collioure. Outside of my work I found something to 'do' every day – a movie, an exhibition, a concert, books to read, magazines to peruse – anything to fill the hours.

  One afternoon, I spent the better part of a half-hour in the permanent collection of the Pompidou, staring at one of Yves Klein's blue monochrome paintings. I'd seen this one in art books before. But approaching it – in the flesh, so to speak – was revelatory. At first sight, it was just a canvas painted a deep blue – its tint somewhat akin to a late-afternoon sky on a clear winter's day. Darkness was visible within its confines. But the longer I stared at it, the more I began to see the subtle gradients in Klein's shading of the canvas: a complex array of textures and tonal variations, all lurking behind what, at first, simply seemed like a large blue square. But it wasn't just its intricate blueness that held my attention. After a few minutes of direct eye contact, the painting proved hypnotic. The textures disappeared and I found myself staring into a place of spatial emptiness: a void without limits, from which there was no return. Until someone bumped into me, jolting me back to terra firma. I felt a little befuddled. But much later that night, as I climbed into bed and turned off the light, Klein's infinite blueness came back to me. And I couldn't help but think, That's the void I live in now.

  The floppy disk that Margit had returned to me was put away in a drawer in my new apartment. One evening, toward the beginning of September, I pulled it out and loaded it into my laptop. I spent a long Saturday reading all six hundred pages of my still unfinished novel. When I reached the end, I removed the disk from the computer. I put it back in my desk drawer and resolved never to look at it again.

  You're right, you're right, I heard myself telling her. Overcooked, self-important posturings with no real storyline, no motor to keep you turning the pages.

  I knew she could hear me say that. Just as I knew she was always there, always watching.

  'So you finally gave up on the novel,' Margit said when I saw her the following day.

  'Why ask a question to which you already know the answer?'

  'Just making conversation.'

  'No, you're just doing what you always do: reminding me of your omnipresence.'

  'I would have thought that, by now, you would have adjusted to—'

  'I'll never adjust. Never. How can I, knowing you're hovering over me, making certain—?'

  '—that no harm comes to you—'

  'But that I also stay within the rules.'

  'There's only one rule, Harry. Here twice a week from five until eight.'

  'And in the future, if I want to visit my daughter for four days?'

  'Make it three days. Or – when she's ready – fly her over here.'

  'Can't we negotiate?'

  'No. This is the set-up. It has its minor limitations. It has its liberties. As I said before, you are free to do what you like outside our time together.'

  'Even though you're watching over me at all times?'

  'And what is wrong with that?'

  I said nothing. But a few nights later, I started writing this book. I wanted to get it all down on paper; a record of what happened – just in case something did happen to me – and to try and convince myself that I was not living in a state of permanent delusion. But why should you accept this story as given? It's just a story – my story. And like all stories, it isn't, in the pure sense of the word, true. It's just my version of the truth. Which means it is – and isn't – true at all.

  How do you step out of one world and into another? I've no damn idea – but I keep doing it twice a week.

  'What happens to you when you grow older?' I asked her recently. 'Do you die again?'

  'I've no idea.'

  'And when I die, do I join you in spectral perpetuity?'

  'I have no idea . . . but I like the turn of phrase. Are you putting it in your book?'

  I met her gaze.

  'Yes,' I said.

  'It's interesting reading,' she said. 'Not that anyone will believe you.'

  'I'm not writing it to be read.'

  'Rubbish. All writers write to be read . . . to have their story "out there". But trust me: this will never get published.'

  'Is that a threat?'

  'Just a statement of fact . . . as I see it, of course.'

  'So you're going to make certain it never gets published?'

  'Did I say that?'

  'You implied that.'

  'Hardly. Your life outside our hours together . . .'

  . . . is my own?

  But how can it be when she's constantly there ? How can you make a decision when you know there is a third party present, guarding you from the wrong choice? Recently I dashed out into the rue des Écoles, trying to hail a taxi, and unaware that I had stepped right into the path of a motorcyclist. Though less than two seconds away from hitting me, the cyclist flipped over, as if shoved out of my path by some hidden force. He got up, unhurt. But when a cop showed up moments later and asked him if he had swerved to avoid me, he said he was certain someone pushed him.

  'Did you see anyone push him?' the cop asked me. I shook my head.

  The next afternoon, chez Margit, I said, 'Thank you for saving me yesterday.'