The Woman in the Fifth (48 page)

'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.'

'Didn't your mother ever tell you to look both ways before stepping out into the street?'

'If he had hit me, it might have taught me a lesson.'

'If he had hit you, you would have been dead. The fact that he
didn't
also taught you a lesson.'

'How wonderful to have a Fairy Godmother,' I said.

'How wonderful to be appreciated. Still writing the book?'

'Aren't you reading it as I write it?'

'You have no proof. But I do worry about the way you work so late into the night, and are then up a few hours later.'

'I don't need much sleep.'

'Correction: you don't
get
much sleep, but you still need it.'

How can anyone sleep when they know there's someone monitoring them all the time?

'I'm fine.'

'You should start taking those pills again.'

They won't help. Because I will never rest easy with you in my life.

'They didn't do much good.'

'Go see a doctor and get something stronger.'

'I'm fine.'

'You hate this.
Us
.'

'I'm fine.'

'You will adjust. Because you'll have to. You have no choice.'

But I still clung to the belief that, outside of our hours together, I did have choice. A few nights after this conversation, I went to a jazz joint on the rue des Lombards and got talking at the bar with a fellow American named Rachel: a woman in her forties, single, something in Mutual Funds in Boston, attractive, alone in Paris for a long weekend ('The job's so pressured, I only can squeeze a few days off, here and there'), chatty and happy to match me drink-for-drink over the course of three hours. Around two in the morning, as the place was closing down, she covered my hand with hers and said her hotel was a five-minute stagger from here.

It was all very pleasant and rather romantic. I had to get up early to teach. Rachel wrapped her arms around me in bed and said, 'What a nice bit of luck meeting you. And if you're free tonight . . .'

'I'm free tonight.'

She smiled and kissed me.

'You've just made my day.'

And she'd made mine. I spent much of it in a state of delighted exhaustion, thinking just how smart and lovely Rachel was, and how nice it was to want and feel wanted again.

I arrived back at her hotel, as arranged, at seven that night, a bottle of champagne in hand. But when I asked the desk clerk to call Rachel in her room, he asked, 'Are you Monsieur Ricks?'

I nodded.

'I'm afraid Madame has checked out. A death in the family. She left you this.'

He handed me an envelope. Inside, on a piece of hotel stationery, was a hastily scribbled note.

Dearest Harry:

Have just found out my mother passed away this morning. All very sudden and shocking. I so loved our night together. If you're ever in Boston . . .

And she gave me her number.

I crumpled up the note and handed the desk clerk the bottle of champagne and told him I had no use for it anymore.

If you're ever in Boston . . .

Rachel, I'd come like a shot to see you in Boston – but only for forty-eight hours. Because that's all the time allotted to me.

'Did you kill her mother?' I asked Margit the next afternoon.

'She was an eighty-year-old woman. At that age, a sudden heart attack . . .'

'So if I see another woman again . . . ?'

'Hopefully she won't lose her mother so suddenly.'

'Or walk under a bus. You like traffic accidents, don't you? They're your preferred way of settling the score.'

'You have no proof.'

'You're always saying that.'

'See you in three days, Harry. And who knows, you might get a pleasant surprise before then.'

The surprise arrived just before midnight that night. I was at home, working on this book, when the phone rang. I answered it.

'Dad?'

The receiver shook in my hand.

'Megan?'

'Thought I'd call and say hello.'

We talked for around twenty minutes. I didn't raise the subject of the last ten months. Nor did she. Her conversation was tentative, guarded. She talked about the accident, about school, how her mother was still out of work, how she wasn't sleeping well, and still felt 'spooked by stuff '.

'This counselor I've been talking to at school – well, he's more of a shrink – he says, "We're all spooked by stuff."'

'He's right,' I said. 'We all are.'

She said she had to go. 'But maybe I can call you next week.'

'That would be great,' I said.

'Cool. Catch you then, Dad.'

After Megan hung up I sat at my desk for a long time, swallowing hard, choking back tears. Only sometime later did I find myself wondering,
Did 'she' set that up? Was this the 'pleasant surprise' she talked about?

'
You have no proof
. '

But I did have evidence.

Inspector Coutard also had evidence. My laptop. Still impounded in the
commissariat de police
of the Tenth
arrondissement
. A week before Christmas, he rang me at the American Institute to say that I could come by and collect it now.

I showed up later that afternoon. He was wearing the same grubby jacket he had sported when he first interviewed me. His desk was awash with paperwork, his office ashtray clogged up with butts, and he had a cigarette screwed into a corner of his mouth.

'How did you find out I was teaching at the American Institute?' I asked.

'I'm a detective. And I also see that you now have a
carte de séjour
and a new address in the Fifth. I'm pleased that you have moved up in our world; that things are better.'

'Yes . . . I suppose they are.'

'Well, we no longer have any use for this,' he said, pointing to the laptop positioned on the edge of his desk. 'Sezer and his associates are still under lock and key. They'll go to trial for Omar's murder and everything else in February. It's a
fait accompli
that they will be convicted. The evidence is so conclusive . . .'

Because she knows how to plant conclusive evidence.

'Anyway,' he said, tapping the laptop, 'now you can return to your novel.'

'I've given up on it.'

'But why?'

'You know why. It was no damn good.'

'I never said that.'

'I'm not saying that you did.'

'But surely you haven't given up on writing altogether?'

'No, I'm working on something.'

'A new novel?' he asked.

'Non-fiction . . . though everyone will think otherwise.'