So I am doing what seems the best thing to do.
VIRGINIA WOOLF, March 28, 1941
This can obviously be held accountable to a nervous breakdown.
ROMAIN GARY, December 2, 1980
SHE VISITED TWENTY APARTMENTS before finding the right one. Nobody could imagine what an ordeal it had been, especially for a writer obsessed with houses, with what walls remembered. The building had been completed last year. It wasn’t far from the Tower, or what was left of the Tower. After the attack, the neighborhood had suffered. For years, the place remained a dusty and wrecked no-man’s-land ignored by all. Little by little, the vicinity was able to rise from its ashes. Architects had thought out harmonious neoclassical structures, as well as a vast green garden including the memorial and the space where the identical Tower was yet to be rebuilt. With the passing of time, this part of town had been able to recover its serenity. Tourists came flocking back.
Mrs. Dalloway’s soft voice was heard.
“Clarissa, you have incoming emails. One is from Mia White, not in your contact list, and one is from your father. Do you wish to read them now?”
Her father! She checked her watch. One A.M. in Paris, midnight in London, and the old chap was still awake. Getting on for ninety-eight and full of beans.
“I’ll read them later, Mrs. Dalloway. Please turn the computer off. And the lights in the living room.”
In the beginning, she had felt guilty, bossing Mrs. Dalloway around. But she had gotten used to it. It was quite pleasurable, in fact. Mrs. Dalloway never appeared. She was merely a voice. But Clarissa knew Mrs. Dalloway had eyes and ears in every room. Clarissa often wondered what she would have looked like, had she existed. It was believed Virginia Woolf modeled Mrs. Dalloway’s character after a woman named Kitty Maxse, a frivolous party giver who had been a close friend, and who had met a tragic end, tumbling over her own banisters. Clarissa had looked up Kitty Maxse, and discovered photographs of a perfectly groomed lady with an hourglass figure and a dainty parasol.
She stood in the dark living room, facing the window, clasping the cat close to her. The computer no longer glowed into the deepening darkness. Would she ever get used to this flat? It wasn’t so much the smell of new paint. There was something else. She couldn’t quite place it. She loved the view, though. High up above the ground level, away from the action, she felt safe, tucked into her own private shelter. Was she really safe? she wondered as the cat purred against her and the black night seemed to hem her in. Safe from what, safe from whom? Living alone was proving to be more difficult than she’d thought. She wondered what François was doing now. He was still in their old apartment. She imagined him in their living room, binge-watching a TV show, feet up on the table. What was the point of thinking of François? No point at all.
Clarissa’s shortsighted eyes gazed down to the street, far below, where tipsy vacationers staggered, their laughter wafting up to her in a muffled roar. This new area of the city was never empty. Hordes of tourists materialized ceaselessly on sidewalks, in a dusty synchronicity that befuddled her. She had learned to avoid certain boulevards, where swarms of sightseers stood, vacuously, brandishing cell phones at what remained of the Tower, and the construction site of the new one. She had to wade through their compact mass, sometimes even had to elbow through them in order to get past.
Watching the building across the street and all those beings behind each window would never tire her. Within the past weeks, since she’d been living here, she’d learned to pick out each occupant’s routine. She already knew who was sleepless, like she was, who worked late in front of a screen, who enjoyed a snack in the middle of the night. She couldn’t be seen; she was too high up, tucked away behind the stone cornices. Sometimes, she used her field glasses. She never felt guilty, although she would hate it if anyone spied on her that way. She always checked to see if someone was looking back at her. And even if no one was, why did she still feel an eye upon her?
Other people’s lives unfolded in front of her, enticing alveoli forming a giant hive in which she could forage at her will, fueling her imagination boundlessly. Each opening was like a Hopper painting, lush with detail. The second-floor woman did her yoga every morning on a mat she rolled out with care. The third-floor family never stopped bickering. The slamming of those doors! The person on the sixth spent hours in the bathroom (yes, she could see through panes that weren’t opaque enough). The lady of her age on the fifth floor daydreamed on her sofa. She didn’t know their names, but she knew nearly everything about their daily existence. And it fascinated her.
When she started to look for her new abode, she hadn’t realized to what extent she was going to trespass into unknown people’s intimacy. Each room told a story by the disposition of its furniture, objects, through odors, scents, and colors. She had only to walk into a living room to extricate a prescient vision of the person who lived there. She could picture the inhabitant’s life entirely in one dizzying and addictive flash. She saw it all, as if she had been provided with special internal sensors.
She’d never forget the duplex flat situated on boulevard Saint-Germain, near Odéon. The description fit her needs perfectly. She liked the neighborhood, and already visualized herself trotting up the polished stairs daily. But once she was inside, the ceiling was so low, she practically had to hunch her back. The real estate agent had asked, jokingly, how tall she was. What an idiot! She was able to tell right away the owner worked in publishing, because of all the manuscripts piled up on the black lacquered desk. Some editors still revised texts on paper, but they were exceedingly rare. The bookshelves were full of hardcovers and paperbacks, a vision of joy for a writer. She tilted her head to read the titles. Yes, there were two of hers there, Topography of Intimacy and The Sleep Thief. It hadn’t been the first time she’d seen her own books while visiting a flat, but it invariably brought her pleasure.
The duplex was lovely, but miniature. She couldn’t stand properly in any of the rooms; her body ate up all the space, like Alice in Wonderland becoming larger than the house. It was a shame, because the premises were sunny, quiet, giving on to a pretty interior courtyard. She hadn’t been able to stop herself from looking at the beauty products in the bathroom, perfume and makeup, and when the agent had opened the wardrobe, she had taken in the clothes and high-heeled pumps. Swiftly, the portrait of a woman had arisen: small, dainty, spick-and-span, young still, but alone. No love in her life. Something dry and barren permeated the place, shadowed the walls, upholstered the air. In the glossy brown bedchamber, the mattress had the funereal aspect of a tombstone, where all she could perceive was a recumbent effigy, petrified by a century-long torpor. No one ever had orgasms within these walls, either alone or in company. A profound gloom oozed from the immaculate and silent rooms. She had fled.
She began to see a flat a day. One time, she had felt sure she’d found the right home, at last. A cheerful fifth-floor flat with a balcony, near the Madeleine. It was sunny, one of her priorities. It had recently been renovated and the décor suited her. The owner was moving back to Switzerland. Since the attacks, his wife didn’t wish to go on living in the city. Clarissa had just been about to sign the lease, when she noticed, to her dismay, the existence of a rugby pub on the ground floor. She had always come in the morning, and hadn’t paid attention, as the bar was closed. She had returned later in the evening just to get a feel of the area at nighttime and had made the discovery. The pub opened every evening and operated until two o’clock in the morning. Jordan, her daughter, had made fun of her. So what? She could use earplugs, couldn’t she? But Clarissa hated those. She decided to test the noise level by spending the night in a small hotel across from the pub.
“We have nice quiet rooms in the back,” said the receptionist when she checked in.
“No, no”, she replied, “I want to be in front of the pub.”
He had stared at her.
“You won’t get much sleep. Even if there’s no game on, you’ll still get a lot of noise. And in the summertime, I can’t even begin to tell you what it’s like. The neighbors complain all the time.”
She had thanked him and held out her hand for the card. He was right. Clients chatting on the sidewalk, pint in hand, had awakened her steadily until two in the morning. Every time the pub doors opened, loud music could be heard, very clearly, in spite of the double glazing. She called the agency the next morning and said she wouldn’t be taking the flat.
Everything she ended up seeing failed to suit her. She began to lose hope. François had tried to hold her back. Didn’t she want to stay? She hadn’t wanted to hear a single word. Had he gone crazy? After everything he’d done? Did he really think she was going to shut up and stick around? Act like nothing had happened? When she had become desperate, and was even contemplating moving to London, into the dismal basement flat rented out to students in her father’s house in Hackney, she met Guillaume at the inaugural cocktail party for a bookstore-café in Montparnasse. She hadn’t planned to stay long, but the owner, Nathalie, was a fervent supporter of her work. The opening of a shop that sold books was such a rare event that she decided to go, and also out of friendship for Nathalie.
She was introduced to a trim young man called Guillaume, a friend of Nathalie’s. He swiftly explained he had nothing to do with publishing, that calamitous business; he was into real estate. He offered her a glass of champagne, which she accepted. After the attack, the major part of the seventh arrondissement had to be rethought and rebuilt: everything situated between the Tower and the École Militaire, and between avenue de la Bourdonnais and boulevard de Grenelle. His firm had been chosen in order to reconstruct the area along the old track of avenue Charles-Floquet. Like most Parisians, Clarissa was aware that the streets and avenues that had been destroyed had been rebuilt differently, with new names. There had been an emphasis on foliage and vegetation. A peacefulness much needed by all, Guillaume had pointed out.
Clarissa had never envisaged that recent neighborhood. It was probably expensive, she said to herself, out of her league. Guillaume proudly described the accommodation he’d created with his team, showing her photos on his mobile device. She admitted it was magnificent. Verdant, contemporary, striking. He chimed his number and emailed it to her phone. All she had to do, if ever she wanted more information, was to send him a text.
“Are there any flats available?” she asked tentatively.
“That’s complicated,” he said. “Yes, technically, there are, but they’re reserved for artists. There’s a quota we need to keep to.”
She asked what he meant by “artists.” He shrugged, scratched his head. He meant painters, musicians, poets, singers, sculptors. There was a special residence just for them. But no one publicized it; otherwise, they’d be swamped. In order to get in, there were interviews, presentations, in front of a committee. Quite a thing. Serious stuff! Not many people made it.
“What about writers? Haven’t you forgotten them?”
She was right; he had forgotten writers. They were indeed artists, just as much as the others.
“Can you tell me how I can sign up?”
Obviously, he had no idea who she was, what she did. She didn’t mind; after all, her latest success had been published a while ago. She pulled him by the sleeve, all the way to the bookshelf labeled “K,” slid out Topography of Intimacy, and handed it to him under Nathalie’s curious gaze as she chatted a little farther away. He leafed through it, and said he was sorry he did not know more about her and her work. He never read books. He didn’t have time to read. Politely, he asked her what it was about.
“It’s about writers and the link between their work, their homes, their intimacy, and their suicides, particularly Virginia Woolf and Romain Gary. It’s a novel, not an essay.”
He was taken aback, staring down at the cover, where Gary’s blue eyes made an interesting contrast with Woolf’s dark ones.
“Ah, yes” was all he could bring himself to say. He looked at her for the first time, and Clarissa knew what he was thinking, that she must have been good-looking once, and that, curiously, she still was.
He suggested she contact a woman named Clémence Dutilleul, via a specific website, of which he gave her the address. She was the person who dealt with admissions concerning the artists’ residence. Clarissa had to hurry. There were very few vacancies. When she returned to the studio she rented weekly in order not to endure her husband’s presence, she went online to the website. She was certain she didn’t stand a chance, but why not register? That same night, she filled out a detailed questionnaire and sent it through a link to Clémence Dutilleul. She was most surprised to get an answer the next morning, and a proposal for a meeting scheduled the day after.
“Do you really want to live where all those people were killed?” Jordan’s voice was ironic. “Especially you, obsessed with places? You’ve written about that over and over again. Won’t you be getting into trouble? You’ll never be able to sleep!”
Clarissa tried to defend herself by stating that living in a city like Paris meant she walked over bloody tragedy every day, in every step she took. The new buildings attracted her because they had no past.
Clarissa went into the kitchen; the lights turned on as she glided by. Light switches had disappeared years ago, and she rather liked it. She had been told, when she moved in last month, that she could name the apartment’s virtual assistant with a term of her own choosing.
“Mrs. Dalloway, turn on the kettle.”
Mrs. Dalloway complied. Clarissa left most household matters to her. The heating, air conditioner, alarm, shutters, lighting scheme, automatic cleaning system, and all sorts of other tasks were under Mrs. Dalloway’s expert supervision. Clarissa was still getting used to it. She had hesitated between “Mrs. Danvers” and “Mrs. Dalloway” at first, before her unconditional veneration for Virginia Woolf had prevailed. And there was something rather frightening about Mrs. Danvers in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. Clarissa was alone now, in this flat, without her husband of many years. The tall, gaunt black figure of the devoted housekeeper, Manderley’s disquieting sentinel, was not a reassuring one. She was still trying to find her marks in this brand-new dwelling. Clarissa Dalloway seemed a far more comforting character, and she had inspired half of her pen name, after all.
She prepared herbal tea, added a dollop of honey. It was artificial, of course, and tasted sugary and creamy. The real stuff was impossible to find. She had obtained a tiny treasured amount last year, through a clandestine connection, but at what price! Honey was now more expensive than caviar. So were flowers. Sometimes she pined for the smell of real roses, like the ones that had grown in her mother’s garden long ago. Fake roses were rather cleverly manufactured; they even boasted drops of false dew, twinkling like diamonds in their crimson hearts. The petals felt velvety at first, but soon a rubbery consistence took over. After a while, their pungent perfume revealed a nasty chemical whiff she could no longer stand.
As she sipped the herbal tea and looked out to the rooftops across from her, she thought, not for the first time, that perhaps she had chosen this apartment too hastily in the wake of her sudden decision to leave François. Perhaps she should have given the move more thought. Was this the right place for her? The cat was her daughter’s idea. Jordan had told her cats were the perfect pets for writers. For solitary writers? Clarissa had asked. But just how solitary had she really wanted to be? The living room stretched out in front of her, its elegant minimalism still an enigma to her unaccustomed eye. It looked beautiful, but empty.
Once she had decided to leave her husband, it had been a mad rush. She had believed, and how wrong she had been, that a new lodging was going to be easy to find. She wasn’t set on anything big, or fancy; she simply needed a room to work in. A room of one’s own, as her dear Virginia Woolf said. A living room and one bedroom, so that Adriana, nicknamed “Andy,” her granddaughter, could still come and spend the night. She wasn’t fussy either about the area she wanted to live in, as long as shopping was easy and public transport available. Nobody drove cars in the city. She had even forgotten how to drive. Another thing François and Jordan had done for her, on holiday. Now it was going to be Jordan’s job.
The cat rubbed against her shins. She stooped to pick him up, catching him clumsily, as she wasn’t used to handling him yet. Her daughter had shown her how, but it hadn’t seemed easy. The cat’s name was Chablis. He was a three-year-old Chartreux with a mild nature. He’d belonged to one of Jordan’s friends, a woman who had moved to the States. It had been tough in the beginning. Chablis had stayed in his corner, never responding to her calls, and only deigned to nibble at his nuggets when she wasn’t there. She thought maybe he was sad and missed his mistress. Then one day, he came to sit on her lap in a very dignified manner, as still as a gray sphinx. She had hardly dared pet him.
Chablis, like her, was finding it tricky to adapt to the luminous and modern space, built with glass and honey-hued wood and stone. However, a part of her liked the austerity, the sleek surfaces, the light. She and the cat would have to make this territory their own, and that would take time. Patience was needed. She had left behind so much stuff when she moved in. She hadn’t wanted anything emotionally stamped with François. As if he had died. But the worst thing was, he had not died. He was, in fact, doing very well—insolently well. It was their marriage that had passed away. It was their marriage she had laid to rest.
Clarissa put Chablis into the basket placed in a corner of her room. It was useless, because in the middle of the night, the cat landed gently on her bed and burrowed against her back. When he had started to knead her shoulder with his front paws, as if she were a slab of tasty dough, she was startled. Jordan had explained that all cats did that; it was instinctive. She had gotten used to it. In fact, it comforted her.
After a quick shower, Clarissa lay down on her bed in the semidarkness. A new mattress. François had not slept on it. He had not been here, either. She hadn’t invited him. Would she? It was still too early. She hadn’t taken it all in. Several times, Jordan had asked what was it that her stepfather was guilty of, to make her mother pack up and leave on the spot. She could have told her. Jordan was forty-four. No longer a kid. She had a teenage daughter. But she hadn’t had the courage. Jordan had insisted. What had he done? Had he screwed around? Was he in love? Clarissa thought of the purple room, the blond curls. She could tell her daughter everything. She knew exactly which words to use. She imagined Jordan’s face. She had let the words rise to her lips, like a bitter bile, and had repressed them.
Forget François. But it wasn’t easy to scrap a man she’d spent so many years with. When night came, she asked Mrs. Dalloway to project images and videos on the ceiling of her room: concerts by musicians she loved, movies, biopics, artistic creations. She let sounds and lights drift her away, often falling asleep. She couldn’t draw a frontier between her peculiar, sparkling dreams and Mrs. Dalloway’s displays. Sometimes, she let Mrs. Dalloway choose sequences picked according to what she had already seen. She didn’t see the night float by. Everything converged into a single tawdry cotillion she endured, as if she had been drugged. When she woke up, the cat snuggled against her; she found it hard to get out of bed, and her mouth was dry. Early mornings had seemed harsh ever since she’d moved here. Her entire body felt sore. She put it down to the collapse of her marriage, and the move. Would she ever get used to both?
“Mrs. Dalloway, show me my emails.”
The messages appeared on the ceiling.
Dear Clarissa Katsef,
I know you get dozens of emails like these, but I thought I’d give it a go. My name is Mia White. I’m nineteen. I’m a student at UEA, in Norwich. I’m in my second year. I’m studying French and English literature. I’m also enrolled in a creative writing course.
(If you’ve read this far, then I pray you might continue?)
I’m interested in how places influence writers. How their work is shaped by where they live, where they write. This, of course, is at the core of your own work, and in particular, Topography of Intimacy, which I read with great pleasure.
(This is not a gooey fan letter, don’t worry. I’m not that type of reader.)
I will be in Paris for the next six months, for my year abroad. I’m sure you’re very busy and you don’t have much time, but I’d like to meet you. I’m also bilingual, like you, and I grew up learning two languages, like you. My mum is French and my dad is English. Like you.
I don’t know if you make time to meet your readers. Perhaps you don’t.
Thank you for reading this.
Sincerely,
Mia White
Clarissa took off her glasses, rubbed her eyes. No, she didn’t usually meet readers, apart from book signings and lectures. She used to, ten or fifteen years ago. Not anymore. Mia White. It was interesting, refreshing, getting an email from a nineteen-year-old. Didn’t that mean that a tiny minority still read books? And that they read her books? Wasn’t that short of miraculous?
Hardly anyone read books anymore. She’d noticed that a while ago. People were glued to their phones, to their devices. Bookstores shut down, one after the other. Her biggest success, Topography of Intimacy, had been hacked so many times, it hardly brought in any royalties. It could be found online and downloaded in a single click, in any language. At first, Clarissa had put up a fuss, tried to warn her publisher, but she soon realized publishers were not doing much against piracy. They had other anxieties. They had to face that other, even more worrying problem she watched thrive month after month like a sly tumor: the loss of interest in reading. Yes, it seemed no one yearned for books anymore. No one bought them. This had been going on for quite a while. The phenomenal space social media gobbled up in everyone’s life was no doubt a reason for this disaffection. The frenetic succession of attacks strung one after the other like bloody pearls on a steadfast necklace of violence was another. Mobile phone snug in her palm, she, too, had found herself hypnotized by atrocious images scalding her with the abomination of sheer detail. She understood that to those addicted to such displays of barbarity, those constantly seeking more sensationalism like a junkie hankering for a fix, novels could appear savorless. It took time to read a book. As it took time to write one. And it appeared no one had the time to read or write anymore.
“Would you like to answer Mia White?” asked Mrs. Dalloway.
“No. Later. Show me the other emails.”
She put her glasses back on. Her father’s email showed up now on the ceiling. She knew he dictated them. His arthritis prevented him from using a keyboard. He didn’t do too badly. His punctuation was poor, but he made himself clear. She corresponded with him by email. He didn’t hear well enough anymore to speak to her by phone or video. Probably something wrong with his hearing chip. She hadn’t told him yet about François.
My darling C … [he still used her real name, which she hated],
I’m ok and you. Your brother’s been looking after me but the damn boy’s got better things to do. I’m so bored you know. Most of my friends are dead and those who are still here are so fucking boring you can’t imagine. I know you haven’t spoken to your brother since that shitty inheritance business. My sister was a selfish pain in the ass. Really how could she possibly leave all her money to Arthur’s daughters and nothing to Jordan. I still can’t get over it. I know you don’t want to discuss this and that it hurts you but it hurts me too. Arthur has been a letdown to you his only sister but to me his father as well. He could have done something about the will. Give an amount to Jordan. What the fuck. He did nothing. I know Jordan doesn’t speak to her cousins. What sluts. They don’t have an ounce of your daughter’s class and brains. Serena’s inheritance totally screwed up this family. Thank God your mum is no longer here to see this mess. Darling please give me some news. I’m your old dad and even if I can’t make heads or tails of the intellectual stuff you write I’m so proud of you. You know you haven’t written to me in two weeks. Why and what the hell is going on. I asked Andy how you were. She always answers me not like her granny. She told me you had moved. What is going on. Where are you living now. I loved your flat near the Luxembourg gardens so why did you leave. Did François decide this. Or you. I’m sad I don’t get it. Come on tell me. Everything. Every email from you is like a little gift. It lights up my day. I miss you sweetheart. Come and see your old dad one of these days. I’m too old to come to Paris. I’m counting on you. Your old dad who loves you.
She couldn’t help smiling. Her father wrote the way he spoke. She could almost see him in his ground-floor lair, surrounded by his hunting trophies, his golf clubs, and his collection. He collected ancient representations of hands, made of clay, porcelain, marble, plaster, wood, or wax. She had often brought some back for him, harvested during her book tours. So Adriana had let the cat out of the bag. Perhaps a good thing. She’d have to think carefully about what to tell her father. He wasn’t particularly fond of François, which hadn’t been the case with her first husband, Toby, Jordan’s father.
“Do you wish to answer your father’s email?” asked Mrs. Dalloway.
“Not now,” she said. And then she added, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Clarissa.”
There was even a hint of a smile in Mrs. Dalloway’s voice. Like any virtual assistant, Mrs. Dalloway knew everything. She could answer any question, come up with the right answer each time. But Clarissa knew Mrs. Dalloway had also been programmed with specific data concerning herself. What, precisely? She hadn’t been able to find out. When she had met Clémence Dutilleul, she had undergone a surprising interview. The C.A.S.A. headquarters were also situated within the new neighborhoods that had sprung from the cinders of the attack. A tall glass-and-steel building with a rooftop garden. Clémence’s office gave on to that top floor. It was a vast and airy room with a view. The pale walls were paneled with mirrors. From here, Clarissa could see how the new white zone contrasted with the old Haussmannian gray-slated arteries, but it was a welcome, hopeful sight, she felt.
Clémence was a small, thin woman in her early forties. She wore a black suit, which had a 1940s aspect to it, giving her a severe elegance Clarissa rather liked. She had no idea what to expect. There was no information about the interviews on the website, and she hadn’t found anything online. The C.A.S.A. artists’ residence remained shrouded in mystery. A short man in his fifties came to join them, and she didn’t catch his name. The interviews took place around a white oval table. A young man came to offer them tea and coffee. Clarissa had decided not to dress up for this. Most of her clothes were still in the flat she shared with François. She wanted to be seen exactly as she was. What was the point of pretending to be someone else? She wore a green shirt, white jeans, and sneakers. Her red hair was braided. She was convinced she would never get in anyhow. She was too old, not famous enough, she didn’t sell enough books, she wasn’t trendy. There were probably hundreds of younger, brighter candidates on their list. She hoped this wouldn’t be too humiliating.
They had no files in front of them. Not even a device, a pen, or a piece of paper. They asked her if she minded being filmed. Yet she couldn’t see a camera anywhere. She said, no problem. She wondered where the camera was hidden. The man in his fifties had a pleasant face. It was his eyes that bothered her, how they took her in. Two black shiny marbles that never left her.
Clémence sipped her coffee, and beamed. The silence lasted, and it didn’t bother Clarissa. She wasn’t afraid of silence. If they were expecting her to talk, to fill in the blanks, then they were wrong. She wasn’t going to come across as eager, or even desperate. She had nothing to lose. So she smiled back. There was probably an invisible team, tucked away in the building, or perhaps behind one of those mirrors, watching her every move, dissecting whatever she did.
“Thank you very much for coming in today,” said Clémence Dutilleul at last.
The man with the shiny black eyes spoke up.
“This has nothing to do with a formal interview. The conversation we’ll be having is meant to be a relaxed, cordial one. Not an examination. We want to hear you talk about yourself, about your work. Our artists’ residence is a real estate elaboration that holds great promise. We crafted it so that people like you, artists, can live and work there serenely. We need to get to know you a little better. We’re not interested in what’s already been said or written about you. However, what does interest us is your own approach to your artistic output and the implementation of your body of work. We want to know more about your career history, your development. You can take all the time you wish, or, on the contrary, be succinct. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is the quality of your project and your artistic endeavor. I hope I’ve been clear, now. Over to you.”
Two grins, slightly inflexible, and two pairs of inquisitive eyes. A fit of giggles nearly swept over her for a quick moment. Where should she begin? She hated talking about herself, and always had. She hadn’t prepared anything, no speech, no presentation. She couldn’t stand authors who took themselves seriously, who delighted in their own rhetoric. She couldn’t figure out what criteria these people’s selection process depended on. However, what does interest us is your own approach to your own artistic output and the implementation of your body of work. What the fuck, as her dad would say. She made up her mind fast. She was going to be to the point. Her application was never going to be chosen anyway. In ten minutes, she’d be out of here.
“I’ve just left my husband.”
It just slipped out. She hadn’t meant to bring up her personal life. Too bad. They were still staring at her attentively, nodding. She went on.
She explained she had never lived alone. She had to feel good within a home, not only in order to live there but to write there, as well. She was looking for an apartment that could be a sort of shelter. A haven that would keep her safe, that would protect her. Fittingly, her work explored houses and homes, what they conveyed. She had come to writing late in life. She was already over fifty by the time her first novel was published. The path to writing had opened up as she had pieced together the link between writers and places. She hadn’t planned on writing a book at all. The novel foisted itself upon her after a personal tragedy and her discovery of hypnosis. It had been published, almost by chance, after a series of encounters, and it had done well. There was something else she wanted to tell them. In her opinion, artists don’t need to explain their work. If people didn’t get the gist of it or became sidelined, that was their problem. Why should an artist be heard? Creation spoke for itself. Occasionally, readers asked her to explain the endings of her books. It made her chuckle, weep at times, or even become downright furious. She wrote to make others think, not to give them answers.
She realized her voice was loud, ringing out within the huge room, and her hands were waving around. The video team was probably sniggering while they filmed. No doubt they had crossed her name off the list.
“Please go on,” said the man with the glasses.
She replied that she didn’t have much more to add. Oh, just one last point. She had been raised by a British father and a French mother; she was perfectly bilingual. She had two writing languages and had never been able to pick one over the other. So she had used both. This was a well-known fact about her. The difference was that today she had started to write in both languages at the same time. This was the first time, ever, that she had chosen to do this.
“That’s most interesting,” said Clémence slowly. “Could you please tell us more?”
They ogled her with the same yearning. What glistening, voracious eyes!
Could she trust them? They had such intense stares. She said that no, she couldn’t tell them more. Aptly, she was planning to write about just that: what it meant to have a hybrid brain that wrote in two languages simultaneously. It was a new project and it was too early for her to talk about it. Her editor wasn’t even aware of her project. It was difficult to describe an idea as it was thriving. But she knew how deeply the subject touched her, how personal it was, and she intended to get to the bottom of it. She had always found bilingualism and its mechanisms riveting. She wanted to take time to explore it, to take ownership of it.
“A fascinating topic,” said the man.
Clarissa was expecting to leave. She was due to visit a two-room apartment this afternoon, near La Fourche Métro station. A neighborhood she barely knew.
“We will be back shortly,” announced Clémence with a wide smile. “Please wait for us here.”
She was left alone in the large room with its mirrored walls. What had they gone to do? To discuss her candidacy with their team? Did she have a chance? She appeared to have attracted their attention with the bilingual-writing business. Was she still being filmed? For a short moment, she sat motionless. Then she got up, walked across to the terrace. She didn’t care if they were still watching her. The garden was beautiful, but artificial, with fake perfumes floating over the false hedge. Box trees had never recovered from the destructive Asian moth attacks years ago. They had been utterly defoliated and had not been able to regain their past splendor. She fingered lavender, sea oat grasses, bonsai, daylilies. She had to admit the plants felt almost real. She hadn’t seen a genuine garden in such a long time. This one was almost like the real thing. Almost. There was something too perfect about it. Nature, she remembered, was messier. The silence was eerie. No more insects. Not the faintest hum or buzz. No more birds. No chirping, no twittering. From down below, very little noise, either. Parts of the new neighborhood were entirely pedestrian, served by self-driving electric cars. Occasionally, the quaint clip-clop of hooves could be heard. Police patrols had taken to riding horses since the attacks, and she loved the sound. It gave the city an old-fashioned feel she treasured.
She glanced northward, to Montmartre. François’s secret studio was near there. What was he going to do about it? He probably continued going there. She forced herself not to think about him. She still felt devastated by the trauma she’d endured in that place. She must obtain a flat in the C.A.S.A. artists’ residence. Otherwise, she was not going to make it. She was going to drift away. There was no way she could keep her chin up anymore. All her vulnerabilities became apparent, rising up to overwhelm the barricades she had patiently built up, year after year, since the baby’s death, all that time ago. She felt desperate, weak. Never had she endured such intense loneliness. Whom could she confide in? What she had to say was unspeakable. She felt ashamed, too, and she resented her husband for inflicting that shame upon her. She hated him. She despised him. Her disappointment was colossal. She hadn’t even been able to tell him that. She had nearly spat in his face. All she had been capable of doing was to pack in silence, hands trembling, while he wept. Not finding an apartment worried her. She was haunted by the prospect of a new home, just for her. A new place, with no past, no traces of anything. Her shelter. An intimate space. Her fortress. She thought of all the flats she’d seen. The idea of having to see more of them depressed her.
“Here we are!”
Clémence’s voice made her jump. They were standing in front of her. In the bright daylight, she noticed the creases in their clothes, the fine dandruff on the man’s shoulders. She was invited to come back inside. She was offered another cup of tea. She took it, intrigued by their leisureliness. They didn’t seem in any hurry. What did they want? What were they expecting from her?
“We’d like to show you something,” announced Clémence.
A screen materialized on one of the mirrors. Photos of a luminous apartment with a skylight appeared. The C.A.S.A. logo was clearly visible on the bottom left.
“This is our artist’s studio,” said the man. “Eighty square meters.”
“Facing northwest and south. Full of light,” added Clémence. “Top floor, the eighth.”
Why were they showing her these photographs? A floor plan showed up now: a large main room, an open kitchen, a small study, a bedroom, and a bathroom. It all seemed low-key, tasteful, elegant.
“Preparation will be necessary; it will take half a day,” said the man. “You’ll have to come back. Nothing complicated, no need to worry. All you’ll have to do is answer a series of questions. Security, maintenance, and a personal assistant for the apartment need to be set up. Then you’ll also meet Dr. Dewinter, who’s in charge of the artists of the residence. She runs the C.A.S.A. program.”
Wild hope surged through her. Had they chosen her? Had she made it? Was she going to be able to get on with her life, away from François? These people were so odd. What sort of game were they playing?
“I haven’t quite understood why you are mentioning the apartment.”
“Mrs. Katsef, your candidacy has been accepted. We’re delighted.”
She wanted to dance around the table. But she held back. Her age, her experience. She gave them a charming smile. She said she was delighted, as well. Could she see the place? She was told she could, and no later than this evening. When could she have the keys? Move in?
Clémence Dutilleul beamed again.
“You can move in shortly. But you won’t be needing keys, or a pass.”
Clarissa looked at her, baffled.
“Your retina will be your key to enter the lobby on the ground level. And your right index finger will open up the door of your studio. Keys and badges are done. Things of the past. Welcome to C.A.S.A., Mrs. Katsef.”
I’m not quite sure when it started. There had been warning signs, but I hadn’t paid attention to them. I guess I hadn’t wanted to see. I began to notice he was often late, or that I couldn’t get hold of him during the day. Most of the times, his phone was switched off, and I began to find that strange.
We had been through this before. Moments of pain I did not want to go back to. That dreadful instant when the suspicion takes over. When you can think of nothing else.
We had been through what many couples go through. Those bitter, painful, intimate moments where infidelity rears its head. It happens. And it had already happened quite a bit to us. He had always said the other women were not important. I had always managed to forgive.
Why had I been so lenient? I wonder now. With years comes a new kind of power. The idea that you don’t want anyone taking advantage of you anymore. The inner conviction that you have had enough.
It doesn’t happen overnight. It builds up slowly, like a thick liquid taking ages to boil. It took a while, for me.
There had been a truce. And it had lasted for years. He had been ill for quite a stretch. I suppose any thought of an affair had not gone through his head, nor mine. We were too busy tending to him, making sure he would pull through. His medication exhausted him. He slept most of the time.
I helped him get better, stayed by his side, listened to him. I got on with my life, wrote my books, wrote my TV shows, saw my daughter, my granddaughter, my friends.
He regained his strength and the illness became a bad memory. He got back to work, spent time with his team, and traveled. Sometimes he left for a day or two.
I’m trying to think back to what made me understand something was going on. The exact minute when I came out of the fog. The second I knew he was seeing another woman.
He had been late. He usually was, so I hadn’t paid attention. We were having dinner at the home of some friends, and he turned up with a bouquet of flowers, mumbling some excuse.
It wasn’t till later, when we got home, while he was in the bathroom, that I noticed the hair on his jacket. Long and blond. I remember saying to myself that this was like a scene out of a bad movie. Terribly clichéd. And yet there it was, that long golden hair stretching out like a snake on the sleeve of his jacket.
I didn’t say anything. Then I reached out for his jacket, put my nose against the collar. I picked it out immediately.
Another perfume lingering there.
I sometimes wonder. If I had noticed anything earlier, if I had done something, would that have changed the course of events?
I don’t think so. Everything was leading up to that moment.
Me, standing in front of that door, holding the key in my hand.
The key to Blue Beard’s secret room.