His voice was raspy, and French was not his first language. But he still said, “Je voudrais voir Monsieur Monde.”
I hit the 1–1 entrance code. Downstairs I heard the telltale click of the door opening, then the door being closed with a decisive thud. I pressed 2–3 to alert my “neighbors” that they had a legitimate visitor. There were footsteps on the downstairs corridor. There was a knock on another door. The door opened and closed. Then there was silence.
I didn’t see or hear him exit, even though I kept scanning the monitor. There were no other visitors. There were no sounds from down below. My shift ended. I went home.
A few days later, the carpet finally arrived at work—and I began to bring my laptop in every night, forcing myself back into the novel. As there was no other work to do but this work—my quota of words per night—I kept at it. Days would pass when no one would ring the bell, demanding admittance. Then there would be a night when four separate callers came to the door, all men of indeterminate age, all asking to see Monsieur Monde. I’d hit the button, the door would open and close, there would be footsteps, another door opening and closing, end of story.
A month passed. February gave way to March. There was an ever-early lightening of the evening sky; the days still cold, but brighter. Had I been in a normal state of mind, the thought would have struck me: You have been working for more than five weeks now without a day off. But I was still operating on some sort of weird autopilot: work, sleep, pick up cash, movies, work. If I took a day off, I might fall out of routine . . . and if I fell out of routine, I might start to reflect about things. And if I started to reflect about things . . .
So I stuck to the routine. Day in, day out, nothing changed.
Until something unsettling happened. I was nursing a post-cinemathèque beer in the little bar on the rue de Paradis. I picked up a copy of Le Parisien that had been left on a table and started flicking through its contents. There, on the bottom right-hand corner of page 5, under the headline, BODY OF MISSING MAN FOUND IN SAINT-OUEN, was a photograph of someone named Kamal Fatel. Though the photo was grainy, there was no doubt that it was the same Kamal who ran the Internet café and found me my current job. The story was a short one:
The body of Kamal Fatel, 35, a resident of rue Carnot in Saint-Ouen, was found last night in an unused Dumpster near the Périphérique. According to the police at the scene, the body, though badly decomposed, had been identified through dental records of the deceased. The Saint-Ouen medical examiner issued a statement saying that, due to the state of the cadaver, the exact time and cause of death had yet to be ascertained. According to Inspector Philippe Faure of the commissariat de police in Saint-Ouen, Fatel’s wife, Kala, had thought her husband was traveling in Turkey to visit relatives there. Fatel, born in Turkey in 1972, had been a resident in France since 1977 and had run an Internet café on the rue des Petites Écuries . . .
I downed the dregs of the beer in one go. I grabbed the paper. I walked with considerable speed toward the rue des Petites Écuries. Mr. Beard was behind the counter of the café. I dropped the paper in front of him and asked, “Did you see this?”
His face registered nothing.
“Yes, I saw it,” he said.
“Aren’t you shocked?”
“This morning, when I first saw the story, yes, I was a little shocked.”
“A little shocked? The guy is dead.”
“Like his wife, I had thought he had gone back to Turkey. But . . .”
“Who was behind it?”
“Why should I know such a thing? I worked with Kamal. He was not my friend.”
“Was he in some sort of trouble with somebody?”
“Once again, you ask questions which I cannot answer. His life was not known to me.”
I could tell he was lying—because his eyes kept darting away from mine whenever I tried to eyeball him. Or if he wasn’t lying, he was working very hard at not appearing nervous—and failing badly.
“Will there be a funeral?”
“In Turkey.”
“How do you know that?” I challenged.
He tensed, realizing he’d just let himself be caught out.
“Just a guess,” he said, then stood up and said, “I am closing now.”
“Do I have time to check my email?”
“No.”
“Just give me five minutes, no more.”
“Be fast.”
I sat down at one of the computer terminals, clicked on Internet Explorer, and then typed in AOL. Within a minute, my mailbox covered a corner of the screen: with one actual email . . . from, of all people, my former colleague Doug Stanley. It read:
Harry:
Sorry to have fallen off the face of the planet during the past few weeks. I’m going to cut to the chase straightaway—because I’ve never tried to bullshit you about things . . . and I certainly won’t start now. Now that the dust has started to settle here, Susan and Robson have gone public as a couple. The official version is that, in the wake of your disgrace, Susan was “emotionally shattered.” Robson befriended her—and then they “became close” . . . nice euphemism, eh? As bullshit goes, this is truly choice. Everyone knew they were an item long before everything blew up in your face. And yeah, I do realize now—especially after all that’s gone down—that I should have told you long ago what was happening between them. I still feel damn guilty about that—thinking that, if you had been aware of their involvement, things might have turned out differently for you.
Anyway, you also need to know that Robson has been spreading word around the college that you have hit the skids in Paris. Worse, he’s also let it be known that he gleaned this information from Megan. In his version of things—and, believe me, I know that it is simply his version (and, as such, far from the truth)—you’ve been sending her this series of self-pitying emails, playing up your impoverished circumstances and trying to point the finger at Susan. Again, let me reemphasize the fact that I know he’s twisting whatever you sent to Megan—just as the sad, what a tragic story tone he adopts when relating this information makes me want to punch out his lights. But, as you well know, the man is the all-powerful Dean of the Faculty—which, in our little world, gives him power over all of us . . . especially if we don’t have tenure.
I thought long and hard about whether I should burden you with this ongoing horseshit—but eventually decided that you did need to know. My advice to you is: consider that chapter of your life closed, and do know that if things in Paris are as bad as Robson described, they will definitely get better . . . because you will make them better. And there is one small bit of good news from this Ohio backwater: word has it that Robson has decided not to proceed with the college’s lawsuit against you. The son of a bitch was finally convinced that continuing to crucify you was pointless.
I’m certain the separation from Megan is an ongoing agony. Trust me: she will come around. It might take some time—but it will happen. She will want to see her father again.
Finally, let me know if you are totally strapped, as I’m happy to wire over a thousand bucks pronto. I wish it could be more, but you know what they pay third-tier academics in the Ohio sticks. I certainly don’t want to see you on the street.
Bon courage.
Best
Doug
PS Did you stay at the hotel I recommended in the Sixteenth? If so, I hope you fared better than some friends I sent there last month. It seems they had a run-in with some creep at the front desk.
Trust me: she will come around. I doubt that, Doug. Without question, Susan and her new man had poisoned Megan against me—and there would be no more emails from my daughter. That knowledge—and the pervasive sense of loss that accompanied it—made Doug’s other news (Robson has been spreading word around the college that you have hit the skids in Paris) seem unimportant. Let Robson tell everyone that I had fallen on hard times. It no longer mattered what people thought of me. Because I no longer mattered—to anyone else, let alone myself.
>
And hitting the REPLY button next to Doug’s email, I wrote:
It was very good to hear from you. Regarding Robson’s continued demolition job on me . . . my only response is: you’re right. That chapter of my life is finished, so I can’t really worry about what is being said about me around a college to which I will never return . . . though I am relieved that Robson has called off his legal thugs. But you should know that I had managed to reestablish contact with Megan—and she had seemed genuinely pleased to have a running correspondence with her father—until Susan found out about it and . . .
Well, you can guess what happened next.
As to my situation in Paris . . . no, I am not completely down and out. But it isn’t exactly a romantic setup either. I live in a small room in a grubby building in the Tenth. I am working illegally—a non-event night watchman’s job . . . but one which gives me the opportunity to write until dawn. I have no friends here . . . but I am making use of the city and I am managing to keep my head above water. I was immensely touched by your offer of a cash injection—as always, you are a true mensch—but my straits aren’t that dire. I am managing to stay afloat.
And yes, I did spend several nights at that hotel in the Sixteenth. And yes, your friends are right: the guy at the front desk was a real little monster.
Keep in touch.
Best
As soon as I sent this email, I switched over to the New York Times website. As I scanned that day’s paper, an Instant Message prompt popped up on the screen. It was a return email from Doug:
Hey Harry
Glad to hear it’s not that desperate for you over there . . . and I’m really pleased you’re writing. Got to dash to a class, but here’s a Paris tip: if you’re in the mood to meet people—or are simply bored on a Sunday night—then do consider checking out one of the salons that are held around town. Jim Haynes—one of life’s good guys—holds a great bash up at his atelier in the Fourteenth. But if you want a more bizarre experience, then drop in to Lorraine L’Herbert’s soiree. She’s a Louisiana girl—starting to look down that long barrel of the shotgun marked sixty. Ever since she moved over to Paris in the early seventies, she’s been running a salon every Sunday night in her big fuck-off apartment near the Panthéon. She doesn’t “invite” people. She expects people to invite themselves. And all you have to do is ring her on the number below and tell her you’re coming this week. Naturally, if she asks how you found out about her salon, use my name. But she won’t ask—because that’s not how it works.
Keep in touch, eh?
Best
Doug
On the other side of the café, Mr. Beard said, “I close now. You go.”
I scribbled the phone number of Lorraine L’Herbert on a scrap of paper, then shoved it into a jacket pocket, thinking that—as lonely as I often felt—the last thing I wanted to do was rub shoulders with a bunch of expatriate types in some big-deal apartment in the Sixth, with everyone (except yours truly) basking in their own fabulousness. Still, the guilty man in me thought that I owed Doug the courtesy of taking the number down.
Mr. Beard coughed again.
“OK, I’m out of here,” I said.
As I left, he said, “Kamal was stupid man.”
“In what way?” I asked.
“He got himself dead.”
That phrase lodged itself in my brain and wouldn’t let go. For the next few days, I searched every edition of Le Parisien and Le Figaro—which also had good local Paris news—to see if there were any further developments in the case. Nothing. I mentioned Kamal’s death once more to Mr. Beard—asking him if he had heard anything more. His response: “They now think it is suicide.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Around.”
“Around where?”
“Around.”
“So how did he take his life?”
“He cut his throat.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“It is what I heard.”
“He cut his own throat while walking along a street, then tossed himself in a Dumpster?”
“I report only what I have been told.”
“Told by whom?”
“It is not important.”
Then he disappeared into a back room.
Why didn’t I walk away then and there? Why didn’t I execute an about-face and vanish? I could have gone home and cleared out my chambre in a matter of minutes, and pitched up somewhere else in Paris. Surely there were grubbier streets in grubbier quartiers, where it was possible to find another shitty room in which I could eke out a living until the money ran out.
And then? And then?
That was the question that kept plaguing me as I sat at the little bar on the rue de Paradis, nursing a pression and wishing that the barmaid was available. I found myself studying the curve of her hips, the space between her breasts that was revealed by her V-neck T-shirt. Tonight I wanted sex for the first time since Susan had thrown me out all those months ago. It’s not that I hadn’t had a sexual thought since then. It’s just that I had been so freighted with the weight of all my assorted disasters that the idea of any sort of intimacy with someone else seemed like a voyage into a place that I now associated with danger. But never underestimate the libido—especially when it has been oiled with a couple of beers. As I found myself looking over the barmaid, she caught my appraising stare and smiled, then flicked her head toward a beefy guy with tattoos who had his back to us as he pulled a croque monsieur out of a small grill. The nod said it all: I’m taken. But the smile seemed to hint an “Alas” before that statement. Or, at least, that’s what I wanted to believe. Just as I wanted to believe that Kamal “got himself killed” because he owed somebody money, or he was in on a drug deal that had gone wrong, or he’d been fingering the till at the café, or he’d looked the wrong way at some woman. Or . . .
A half-dozen other scenarios filled my head . . . along with another pervasive thought. Remember what Kamal told you when he first offered you the job: That is of no concern of yours. Good advice. Now finish the beer and get moving. It’s nearly midnight. Time to go to work.
Later that night, I opened my notebook and a piece of paper fell out of one of its back pages. It was the scrap on which I had written Lorraine L’Herbert’s phone number. I stared at it. I thought, What can I lose? It’s just a party, after all.
“It’s not a party,” said the uppity little man who answered L’Herbert’s phone the next afternoon. He was American with a slightly simpering voice and a decidedly pompous manner. “It’s a salon.”
Thanks for the semantical niceties, pal.
“Are you having one this week?”
“Comme d’habitude.”
“Well, can I book a place?”
“If we can fit you in. The list is very, very tight, I’m afraid. Your name, please?”
I told him.
“Visiting from . . .?”
“I live here now, but I’m from Ohio.”
“People actually live in Ohio?”
“The last time I looked.”
“What’s your line of endeavor?”
“I’m a novelist.”
“Published by . . .?”
“That’s pending.”
He issued a huge sigh, as if to say, Not another would-be writer.
“Well, you know that there is a contribution of twenty euros. Please arrive with it in an envelope, on which your name is clearly printed. Take down the door code now and don’t lose it, because we don’t answer the phone after five PM on the day of the salon. So if you misplace it, you will not gain entry. And the invitation is for yourself only. If you show up with anyone else, both of you will be turned away.”
“I’ll be alone.”
“No smoking, by the way. Madame L’Herbert hates tobacco. We like all our guests to arrive between seven and seven thirty PM. And dress is smart. Remember: a salon is theater. Any questions?”
Yeah. How do you spell up your ass?
“The address, please?” I asked.
He gave it to me. I wrote it down.
“Do come prepared to dazzle,” he said. “Those who shine get asked back. Those who don’t . . .”
“I’m a total dazzler,” I said.
He laughed a snide laugh. And said, “We’ll see about that.”
NINE
A BIG FUCK-OFF APARTMENT near the Panthéon.
Those words came back to me that Sunday evening as I walked up the boulevard Saint-Michel in the direction of the Luxembourg Gardens. I had dressed carefully for the occasion: a black shirt and black pants and a black leather jacket I had bought at that secondhand shop on the Faubourg Saint-Martin the previous day. It was a cold night, and the jacket didn’t put up much resistance against the cutting wind. I was around fifteen minutes early, so I stopped in a nearby café and ordered a whisky. Not a single malt or some other premium brand. Just a standard Scotch. When the waiter deposited the little bill with the drink and I turned it over and saw that it cost eleven euros, I tried to stop myself from gasping. Eleven euros for a shot of whisky? Welcome to the Sixth.
I would have spent a good hour nursing the whisky and reading the Simenon novel La neige était sale, which I had just picked up. But mindful of the seven thirty cutoff point, I finished the Scotch, placed the necessary money on the table, tried not to think too hard about how eleven euros could buy me a day’s food, and headed off to Lorraine L’Herbert’s salon.
The address was 19 rue Soufflot. Très haussmannien. You walk around Paris, you see dozens of examples of Baron Haussmann’s architectural left-behinds. This one was no different from the others: a large, formidable building, around six stories tall, with the requisite small baroque flourishes. Only given its location—just down the street from the Panthéon—and its elegant lobby, it was clear that this immeuble haussmannien was also a testament to imposing grand bourgeois values.
The Douglas Kennedy Collection #2 Page 43
