Two hundred and forty-two euros! Can you imagine? I gave him two hundred and forty-two euros up front to build my night table!”
Pulling on the thread of her tapestry, Mademoiselle Beauvert was only half-listening to Marcelle’s recriminations; careful not to ruin her embroidered rose, she lent only a casual ear because, whatever happened, the concierge’s prattling never veered away from two main lines: complaining or talking about money.
“I really need that night table, Mademoiselle! Because I changed my mattress. Because of my Afghan. Two hundred and forty-two euros I gave my son. Two hundred and forty-two euros, that’s quite a lot for a few pieces of wood!” Marcelle shook then spanked the heavy velvet folds, punishing them for attracting dust. “Two hundred and forty-two euros in his hand, and now he tells me he has other things to do.”
“What other things, my dear Marcelle?”
“Getting married!”
Furiously, Marcelle put the curtains back in their place against the wall. Then she crossed the room like an angry buffalo.
Deciphering what Marcelle had just told her, Mademoiselle Beauvert gave a start. “Your son’s getting married?”
“Yes, and because of that, the young gentleman isn’t doing odd jobs anymore. I can forget about my night table . . . And I’ve lost two hundred and forty-two euros.”
She said, “Two hundred and forty-two euros”, one more time, and disappeared into the kitchen.
Mademoiselle Beauvert wanted to follow her but decided not to, choosing instead to finish her pink rose petal, and above all to wait for Marcelle to get over her moaning.
Mademoiselle Beauvert raised her eyes to heaven. How did Marcelle organize her priorities? Putting two hundred and forty-two euros and a night table above her son’s wedding—that was just being stubborn! She could only see things from her standpoint, a short, heavyset woman with a low forehead.
“Sergio! Sergio!”
“Yes, my darling, you’re right,” Mademoiselle Beauvert sighed.
“Sergio!” the voice insisted.
Mademoiselle Beauvert went over to the flame-red parrot, opened his cage, and put her arm in, inviting him to come out.
The bird gripped Mademoiselle Beauvert’s ring finger with his eight digits, let her release him from his prison, and rubbed himself on her angora pullover.
“Sergio!”
She increased her caresses; the parrot seemed insatiable, wriggling as if every stroke increased his craving.
“Yes, you understand me, Copernicus!”
Copernicus danced from one leg to the other.
At that moment, Marcelle reappeared, her fleshy lower lip drooping, her eyes bulging, her neck drawn down into her stout bust, displaying all the grace of a pit bull. “Yes, believe it or not, the little bastard’s getting married. And without even asking my opinion.”
“Aren’t you happy?”
“About what?”
“I don’t know . . . that he’s in love . . . that he’s finally found the right woman . . . ?”
“Well, he certainly looked for her. But whether or not he’s found her . . . ”
“Don’t you like her?”
“I don’t know. He hasn’t introduced her to me.”
“What?”
“That’s right. He doesn’t want it to happen at my place. He wants it to happen outside.”
In Mademoiselle Beauvert’s opinion, the son was right. Better not scare the girl off by bringing her to the lodge where Marcelle lived. A storage room that smelled of leeks and cabbage soup; the decoration was nothing but a heap of frightful trinkets, wooden roosters, porcelain spaniels, fluffy kittens, post office calendars, Vosges barometers, Swiss cuckoo clocks; armchairs, chest of drawers, and tables were decked out in crocheted doilies; as for the cleanliness of the place, it left a lot to be desired, even though Marcelle cleaned other people’s homes extremely well. Even if the bride came from a deprived background, she might still have taste.
“Sergio!” the parrot cried, Mademoiselle Beauvert having neglected him for a moment. She resumed stroking his hard skull.
Marcelle started polishing the TV set with great vigor. She gave it priority, considering it an important centerpiece in a home. “He’s obsessed, your Copernicus, isn’t he?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“He keeps repeating, ‘Sergio.’”
“Copernicus isn’t obsessed, he’s telepathic,” Mademoiselle Beauvert said huffily.
“Pardon me?”
“Telepathic.”
Marcelle looked blank, unable to catch the name of what she assumed was a medical condition.
“Look!” Pleased to demonstrate, Mademoiselle Beauvert set Copernicus down on the perch next to the TV. “He senses what I’m thinking.”
She walked away, sat in the armchair, ten feet away from him, and leafed through a magazine, staring down at it but hiding it from him. After a few seconds, the bird cried, “Oh, what a nice car!”
Radiant, Mademoiselle Beauvert stood up and showed Marcelle the magazine: one of the pages had an advertisement for a sports convertible.
“Amazing,” Marcelle grunted, looking at the parrot suspiciously.
“And now he’s going to guess what I’m about to do.”
She walked around the room, hesitated twice, then froze, struck by an idea. Immediately, the parrot chattered, “Telephone. Ring. Ring. Telephone.”
Simultaneously, Mademoiselle Beauvert showed Marcelle that she was already holding her cell phone in her right hand.
Marcelle scowled. She didn’t doubt the animal’s accomplishments but found them suspect.
Mademoiselle Beauvert advanced triumphantly. “I’ve calculated that he knows four hundred words.”
“Four hundred words! I’m not sure I know four hundred words.”
Mademoiselle Beauvert gave a high-pitched laugh bordering on hysteria. “Linguists claim that three hundred words are enough to get by in a language.”
Tight-jawed and grim-eyed, Marcelle looked at the parrot. “Get by? In that case, my Afghan knows fewer words than your parrot.”
Delighted by the triumph of her pet, Mademoiselle Beauvert decided to indulge herself even more and tapped Marcelle’s arm. “Marcelle, why do you say ‘my Afghan?’ Anyone would think you’re talking about a dog.”
“So? I love dogs too. I’ve had two. A Pekingese and a Bernese Mountain Dog. Unfortunately, they both died poisoned. Never had any luck with animals.”
Mademoiselle Beauvert bowed her head, eager to conceal from Marcelle the reason for those deaths: some of the building’s tenants had been unable to stand those noisy, flea-ridden mutts, so they had put rat poison in some meatballs and given them to the two wretched gluttons. Dismissing this thought, she said, “I insist, Marcelle: you shouldn’t say ‘my Afghan.’ The young man has a name.”
“Ghuncha Gul.”
“How’s that?”
“Ghuncha Gul. His first name is Ghuncha Gul.”
“Oh, dear . . . ”
“I won’t tell you his surname because I still can’t pronounce it.”
“Yes, it can’t be easy . . . And does it mean something?”
“Ghuncha Gul?”
“These names that are so exotic to our Western ears often express unexpectedly beautiful and poetic things.”
“Apparently, it means ‘bunch of flowers.’”
Mademoiselle Beauvert looked at her openmouthed: it was hard to connect a bunch of flowers with the hairy, broad-chested, dark-eyed fellow who shared the concierge’s bed.
Marcelle shrugged. “That’s why I prefer to call him my Afghan.”
The conversation being over, she went back into the kitchen.
Mademoiselle Beauvert withdrew into her shell. Too bad for her. Marcelle doesn’t deserve to know . . .
After her telepathy demonstration with Copernicus, she had expected Marcelle to ask: “Since the parrot says Sergio forty times a day, who is Sergio?” Yes, a minute ago, she would have divulged her secret, because there are times when you feel like disclosing something you’ve been hiding forever, mysteries you’ve kept under wraps for the longest time because they define you, because they are part of your identity, because they allow you to assert: This is me. Fortunately, the circumstances had prevented her from revealing her private truth.
At that moment, Marcelle reappeared, head forward, fists clenched. “Who’s Sergio?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your parrot there, the psychopath who can read your thoughts, keeps saying Sergio. Does it mean you think about Sergio all day long?”
Mademoiselle Beauvert stood up, blushing as if she had been caught in the arms of a scoundrel, walked forward a few steps, making her skirt whirl around her, sat back down, arranged a couple of folds, made sure her hair had kept the shape she had fixed with spray, then murmured, her eyes sparkling, “Sergio was my first love.”
“No, really?” Marcelle came closer, her curiosity aroused. “How does he know that?”
“Who?”
“The parrot.”
Mademoiselle Beauvert studied the tips of her pumps, comfortable in her own embarrassment, delighted with the attention Marcelle was paying her. “When I was given Copernicus, I taught him the word.”
“Did Sergio give you Copernicus?”
“Good Lord, no. Copernicus arrived years later.”
“Phew . . . I wouldn’t have liked my lover to give me a parrot that kept repeating his name after he left me.”
Mademoiselle Beauvert got on her high horse. “What are you talking about, Marcelle? Sergio didn’t leave me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“He died.”
“He died?”
“Yes, obviously! Sergio drowned in the sea off the coast of Cyprus. His sailboat sank.”
“Was he alone?”
“Unfortunately, I was never able to share his passion for sailing, because I get seasick. And now I’m sorry. I would have preferred us to die together.”
A thousand times, Mademoiselle Beauvert had pictured that moment: the two of them standing side by side on the deck, the fatal wave sweeping them away . . . She would imagine their two bodies, lost in the storm, clinging to one another, then, aware that they were going to die, kissing for a long time before sinking. This way, they would not have died from drowning, but from a long slow kiss.
Overwhelmed with regret, she blinked. Marcelle grabbed her wrist in her callous palms. “Don’t cry, Mademoiselle.”
Liberated by these words, Mademoiselle Beauvert let tears flood her face. It was such a delight to display this suffering in public, yes, a delight, for once, not to sit and sob in a corner on her own.
Marcelle was saying affectionate words to her, accompanying them with rough little slaps. She seemed embarrassed.
At last, Mademoiselle Beauvert took a deep breath, a sign that she was determined to pull herself together.
Marcelle sighed. “Such a shame you didn’t have time to get married or have children.”
“Oh . . . Would it really have been a good idea to produce orphans?”
“Funny,” Marcelle said, trying to distract her. “I never think about my first love. I remember it well, but it’s in the past.”
“Not for me.”
“What stops me from thinking about it is the ones that came after.”
“What do you think, Marcelle, that I’ve only had one man in my life?”
“Well . . . yes . . . I mean, the parrot keeps repeating his name . . . ”
“I’ve known some extraordinary men, many extraordinary men.”
“Of course, Mademoiselle. You’re so pretty, so classy, so well turned out, I have no doubt men must find you attractive.”
Mademoiselle Beauvert appreciated the fact that Marcelle was paying her this sincere compliment. She shared her opinion, thinking herself reasonably beautiful. And reasonably well preserved at the age of fifty-five.
Reassured about her charms, she resumed the course of her anxieties. “Well, men do sometimes find me attractive, but do I find them attractive? That’s the question.”
Marcelle made a knowing face. “Ah, you’re a lesbian!”
Mademoiselle Beauvert shuddered. “No, not at all!”
Given her chronic spinsterhood, some did indeed assume she preferred women to men.
“Absolutely not! What a strange notion!”
“You’ve just admitted you don’t find men attractive. So I assumed you’re a lesbian.”
“No, I’m not attracted to women.”
Seeing that Mademoiselle Beauvert was bursting with indignation, her temples scarlet, her eyes cold, Marcelle looked away, glanced around the room, saw Copernicus scratching his neck, and almost said, “Only attracted to parrots.” But coarse as she was, she knew that would hurt her.
“Actually, I’m suspicious of the men who get close to me,” Mademoiselle Beauvert continued.
“Now that’s something I find amazing.”
“I can’t help assuming they have an ulterior motive.”
“What?”
“Money, of course!”
Mademoiselle Beauvert had whispered these words, as if they were dangerous.
Marcelle nodded. There was a legend in the neighborhood that Mademoiselle Beauvert was much wealthier than her apartment or lifestyle suggested, that she was a billionaire who took great care to appear merely well-off. This sudden confidence confirmed the rumor spread by those in the know.
Marcelle trembled with emotion. With those few words, her employer had grown in her eyes: of the two revelations, the one about her first love and the one about her fortune, it was the second that impressed her more.
“How can I tell if they want me for my money? If I were poor, I’d gladly trust them.”
Marcelle nodded, then exclaimed, “If I had money, it wouldn’t bother me that men were even more attracted to me.”
Mademoiselle Beauvert gave her a sarcastic smile that meant: You don’t really know what you’re talking about.
Marcelle didn’t insist. She went back to the kitchen where she diligently performed her morning chores.
When she brought Mademoiselle Beauvert her stack of letters, the parrot cawed, “Mail!”
Marcelle gave him a black look.
“All right then, I’ll leave you, Mademoiselle. I’ll come by again this afternoon.”
“Very well, my dear Marcelle. See you later.”
As soon as she crossed the room, Copernicus cawed, “Goodbye, my dear Marcelle, goodbye.”
Marcelle untied her apron with an angry gesture and stopped at the door. “I wouldn’t like to live with an animal that’s more intelligent than we are.”
Mademoiselle Beauvert looked up from her bills, delighted. “Copernicus isn’t more intelligent than we are.”
Marcelle shrugged. “Well, he is, isn’t he?”
“No, he’s not.”
“Can you guess what other people are thinking?”
“No, but—”
“Well, then!”
And with that, Marcelle left the apartment.
She closed the door just as Mademoiselle Beauvert was opening an envelope containing a sheet folded in half, on which two lines were written:
Just a note to tell you I love you. Signed: You know who.
She hated this kind of advertising, which created a mystery and maintained it just to attract people’s attention: a number of messages would follow until they finally revealed the good they wanted you to buy. Irritably, she threw the letter into her waste drawer, so that she could reuse the paper. She shook herself and once again bent attentively over her accounts, a literature she much preferred.
Meanwhile, Marcelle was descending the stairs, a cloth in her hand, wiping the banister as she went.
Pushing open the glass door of her lodge, with its net curtains, she saw her Afghan slumped on the couch, listening to the news of his country on a tiny radio. For a second, she wondered if it wouldn’t have been better if he’d been out looking for a job, but then, observing him, so manly that he looked closer to forty than thirty, she thought how lucky she was, at the age of fifty-five, to have attracted such a young, vigorous lover, and something inside her quivered: from her conversation with Mademoiselle Beauvert, she had concluded that her Afghan must love her, a penniless concierge, without any ulterior motives.
She opened the only letter she had received:
Just a note to tell you I love you. Signed: You know who.
Heavy and tired, Marcelle sat down and rubbed her forehead as she examined the envelope.
Who had written this message? Her son? Was he trying to beg forgiveness for the two hundred and forty-two euros and the night table she’d probably have a long wait for? Or was it a boyfriend? An old boyfriend? Paul? Rudy? The assistant at the pharmacy?
Never mind. Whoever it was, it made no difference.
It’s over, she concluded. No more room. Last year, yes, but now it’s too late: I have my Afghan.
She raised her head, looked at her lover, and affectionately yelled at him to take his feet off the cushions.