When the bus charged onto Place d’Arezzo, like a marble launched at high speed, Mademoiselle Beauvert huddled in her seat, hand over her face, heart pounding. Would she be able to see without being seen?
She had taken public transportation just so that she could get a glimpse of her old apartment, and revisit her native neighborhood. Fortunately, there were only two passengers on the bus—herself and a woman asleep in the back row—so there was nobody to be surprised by her unusual behavior.
Peering through her fingers as the bus drove around the circular garden, Mademoiselle Beauvert saw the Bidermann town house, outside which photographers idled, smoking, hoping to snatch a furtive shot. She then tried to catch a glimpse of the Couvignys, either the father or the children, to see how grief had transformed them. But in vain! When they drove past her own building, she quickly turned away on seeing Marcelle’s huge form taking out the garbage pails. As she did so, she discovered on the other side, under the trees, the council gardener, a dwarf, and a little girl playing bowls. What a nerve! she thought. So our taxes go on their amusements. No sooner had she formulated that thought than she came up with two counterarguments: firstly, she was venting her own bitterness because she found it intolerable that anyone should be happy without her; secondly, the municipal gardener was a handsome man. Why hadn’t she noticed that before?
In a cacophony of trembling steel, the bus fled Place d’Arezzo and continued on its way, plunging into darker neighborhoods with gray, smoky façades.
Mademoiselle Beauvert waited a while, then sat up straight. One more change of buses and she’d be home! Having mastered the bus, streetcar, and subway routes, she had become the queen of connections, her brain superimposing maps without difficulty and devising the most ingenious journeys. Her recent poverty offered her so many new activities that she had no time for boredom. Traveling for a few cents and eating for three euros stimulated her mind. Each day brought her incredible challenges: doing her hair by herself, dyeing it herself, looking spruce without a makeup budget, making sure her clothes were clean without expensive dry cleaning, economizing on water, gas, electricity. Her obsession with numbers was still with her, but this time they no longer corresponded to casino chips or roulette pockets but were written down in the small notepad she always had with her and in which she gathered sums, subtractions, rules of three, as well as ideas for improving her daily life without increasing her bills. Sometimes, she felt a kind of intoxication in discovering ways to save, an intoxication that recalled the ecstasies of the past; as she had before, she was savoring the joy of the struggle, not against chance now, but against necessity.
Mademoiselle Beauvert got off at her stop, in Madou.
Madou! If anyone had told me in the old days . . . But she wasn’t complaining, she was enjoying it. For decades, she had imagined Madou as a complete abstraction, a non-place she certainly had no wish to get to know. First of all, what language was the name of that shabby Brussels neighborhood? “Madou” was neither Flemish nor French . . . And it was nothing but a cluster of streets down which no normal person would have a reason to walk. Why would the Ixelles middle classes do their shopping in a Turkish grocery or a North African supermarket? And now Mademoiselle Beauvert was living in this maze, finding her bearings, and delighting every day in her new habits.
This wasn’t a decline, it was a rebirth. For as long as she had everything, she hadn’t realized the value of anything. Nowadays, the purchase of any item led to a debate. Did she really need it? Could she find something cheaper? What would she have to cut back on in order to afford it? So, for example, a bath mat made of synthetic fur with a white rubber base had occupied her thoughts for several days. It was ugly, true, but it cost only a few euros and, being nonskid, would stop her from slipping on the wet tiled floor of her tiny shower. Of course it wouldn’t be an object of admiration if anyone visited her apartment, but firstly, she never invited anyone, secondly, she had nothing worth showing visitors, and finally, breaking her hips was beyond her means. She had been ecstatic when she bought that blue mat at the Sezer minimarket and now would gaze in satisfaction at it not only whenever she washed herself, but sometimes even during the day, for the sheer pleasure of it, the way you say hello to the household pet standing behind the door.
She walked into No. 5 Rue Bakmir, down the green and yellow corridor, across the courtyard, and into her studio apartment. Her few square feet enclosed her bedroom, dining room, and kitchen. Soon, as promised, the carpenter from No. 9 would give her his leftover paint, which she intended to use to rid her walls of the marks of posters and prints that previous tenants had hung on them.
When he heard the lock, Copernicus woke, shook himself, and cried excitedly, “Hello, Madame, hello!”
“Hello, Copernicus, dear.”
Besides her clothes, the parrot and his cage were the only survivors of the bailiffs’ raid. Like his mistress, the bird didn’t seem to be suffering too much from the move, and enjoyed spending more time with her.
Mademoiselle Beauvert unbolted the cage and freed the macaw, who rubbed himself against her. She stroked his beak, tail and belly. He welcomed her attention with wild, feverish, passionate joy, and a kind of melodious cooing emerged from his throat.
“We’re happy here, Copernicus, aren’t we?”
In reply, he nibbled her arm affectionately.
With the bird on her shoulder, she sat on her narrow bed and thought about the trip she had just taken. What was the point? Why go back there? Actually, it hadn’t had much effect on her. She hadn’t felt the least bit homesick, or been sorry she had left. Of course, it was nicer, a thousand times nicer than here. But those years on Place d’Arezzo were marked by her chronic sickness, her gambling frenzy, her night escapades, her secret weekend expeditions. She had spent far more energy fleeing her large apartment on the square with the parrots than living in it.
Her neighbor knocked on the window.
“Mademoiselle Beauvert?”
“Coming! Coming!”
She adjusted her pleated skirt, made sure there wasn’t anything lying around, and opened the door, with Copernicus against her cheek.
“So, shall I leave them with you?”
The neighbor, who had rings under her eyes, indicated seven eight-year-old children gathered behind her.
“Of course! You got them all together? Shall we do as arranged?”
“The mothers all agree, Mademoiselle Beauvert.”
“Come in, my darlings.”
Casting wary looks at the bird, the children rushed into the apartment, sat down around the table, and laid out their books and exercise books on the oilcloth.
The neighbor put two trays and a pan on the sink. “Here we are: yufka-based börecks as a starter, some lamb skewers to be warmed up, and sütlaç for dessert.”
“Rice pudding? I love that. And Copernicus does even more.”
Mademoiselle Beauvert thanked her neighbor, who left, and turned to the little ones. “What do you have to do for homework this evening?”
The children reported their teacher’s demands, and Mademoiselle Beauvert helped them with their exercises. When she had moved here, she had, quite by chance, explained to a schoolboy from the building how to do his subtractions. Delighted with her kindly manner and the clarity of her explanations, the child had returned the following day with his little cousin, who had subsequently told her neighbors in the building. And so, in an almost natural manner, Mademoiselle had arranged an exchange: in return for helping out with schoolwork she would get meals. These mothers were already feeding large families, so an extra helping was no big deal, whereas it was very important for them that a real, French-speaking Belgian, so refined and educated, should ensure the success of their offspring. They had accepted enthusiastically.
Mademoiselle Beauvert had used this exchange as an excuse to justify her task, but the fact was that day by day she was getting more and more pleasure from looking after the children of immigrants. She was discovering not only how useful the information she had learned by heart was, but also how precious. Her excellent French and her accurate arithmetic had become a treasure she was able to transmit and impart. The attentive, eager, even admiring looks in the children’s eyes gave her an unexpected thrill.
When a little girl asked her about Copernicus, she told her that she used to live in a wonderful square where parrots flew, all kinds of parrots, as well as green parakeets. People lived in the houses, parrots lived in the trees, and they all watched each other. The little girl giggled, and none of the children believed her. She insisted, saying it was in right here in Brussels, not much more than a mile away. They obstinately shook their heads. They believed—just as she had done previously—that there was more than a border, more than a mountain, more than a desert between Madou and Uccle, and that they belonged to two separate worlds. No resident from here ever went there, or vice versa. What did people want? she thought. Reality or dreams? Whatever they found most convenient.
They started on revision. As she spoke to the group, Copernicus, still perched on her, also listened alertly. Every so often, like a schoolboy taking notes, he would repeat a word enthusiastically—“Subjunctive!” or “Rule of three!”—and the children would burst out laughing. Mademoiselle Beauvert was proud of him because he followed the lesson and entertained the kids. On the other hand, she was surprised to observe that, whenever she started talking to a single child, he would shuffle to express his annoyance.
It happened when she leaned over plump, frizzy-haired Abdul and made him revise his irregular verbs. In spite of her attentive, gentle manner, the boy kept hesitating and making mistakes.
“Brrr! Brrr!” Copernicus screeched after the tenth mistake.
Even as she stroked the dunce’s head, Mademoiselle Beauvert profited from this intervention to say, “You see, Abdul, even Copernicus can tell you’re not concentrating.”
“He doesn’t like me,” the boy grunted, frowning at the bird.
“He doesn’t like it when you make mistakes. If this carries on, he’s going to give you the answers.”
“I dare him to!” Abdul cried, throwing back his head.
Copernicus didn’t like the child’s sudden, aggressive move. He spread his wings, rose an inch or two in the air, and went straight for the boy with his beak.
Abdul screamed, which excited Copernicus even more, making him peck more and faster.
The seven children all started yelling. Suppressing her astonishment, Mademoiselle Beauvert tried to control the commotion. “Quiet! You’re making him even more annoyed! Quiet! Copernicus, stop it! I said, stop it! Copernicus! Copernicus!”
The more she called the bird, the more he attacked Abdul.
Scared of becoming the next victims, the girls jumped up from their seats, pushed open the door, and ran out into the courtyard.
Abdul’s cousin grabbed his ruler and tried to hit the bird. Angrily, Mademoiselle Beauvert stopped him. “I forbid you!”
“But Mademoiselle—”
“Copernicus will stop of his own accord. Copernicus! Copernicus!”
But the bird wouldn’t let go of his prey. By now, Abdul was moaning instead of defending himself. Mademoiselle Beauvert decided to throw herself into the fray and, without breaking the bird’s wings, try to separate him from the child. “Copernicus!”
Suddenly, the parrot let go of his prey, gave Mademoiselle Beauvert a fierce look, and, with a burst of energy, went out through the open door into the courtyard and flew away.
Panic-stricken, she rushed after him.
“Copernicus!”
By the time she got out into the courtyard, all she could see was a flash of color quickly rising to the gutters and the roofs. The bird vanished into the blue.
“Copernicus!”
Her voice faded into the empty sky.
Mademoiselle Beauvert’s eyes filled with tears. The sound of crying behind her brought her back down to earth. She went back inside and saw the scratches, bites, and bruises on the boy’s face.
“My God!”
She let out this cry not so much because she felt sorry for the child—he’d recover soon enough—as because her pet had gone and she suspected that this advantageous exchange was at an end.
In the hours that followed, Mademoiselle Beauvert was partly able to salvage the situation: the mothers didn’t break off the deal—firstly because Abdul had a terrible reputation, and secondly because the source of the danger, the parrot, had disappeared.
But after these negotiations, when she found herself alone, at midnight, in her tiny apartment, she felt completely helpless. In losing Copernicus, she had lost both her old life and her new one; nothing seemed bearable to her anymore—neither the fact that she had disposed of everything she owned in order to pay off her absurd gambling debts nor the fact that she was stuck forever in a few square feet at the far end of a courtyard that stank of doner kebab. Her loneliness struck her as pathetic, and her poverty permanent . . .
For the first time in her life, Mademoiselle Beauvert felt sorry for herself. She had failed at everything. That night, not only did she not sleep a wink, but she experienced every second of every minute of every hour, as if she were attached to some kind of lethal drip. On the dark, dirty walls with their old grease stains, she saw her future, and it was an abyss. She was condemned to a dungeon. A dungeon? If she were in prison, she would still have the hope that she might be released. But there was no release, no commuted sentence possible here. All she could do was endure it until she died.
At about four o’clock in the morning, she rebelled against the despair that was crushing her. Why was she thinking her life was over just because a bird no longer occupied a cage at the foot of her bed? Ridiculous! A wild animal she had bought for next to nothing five years earlier wasn’t her salvation! Goodbye, you stupid bird! Just stop thinking about that macaw! That’s an order!
But when despair comes crashing down on someone, it doesn’t do things by halves, it completely suffocates that person. Mademoiselle Beauvert was shaking, hoping with each breath that she could just die, convinced that day would never break.
In the morning, light came in shyly from the courtyard through her tinted windows. For a moment, a pink glow cast a soft aura over a sprig of lily of the valley that one of the children had left for her. Mademoiselle Beauvert sat up, slapped her thighs, and made up her mind to find Copernicus.
From seven o’clock onward, she tramped the streets of the neighborhood, calling the bird, listening twenty times at every tree, beating the sparse bushes, looking at every window, every gutter, every gable, every eave.
Hearing her call out that name, the neighbors asked her the reason for her panic, and she told them. Some helped her, for a while anyway, while others asked her to be quiet. Then some shopkeepers, growing tired of her constant yelling, started to insult her. Never mind! She persisted. No complaints or gibes could stop her. As for being ridiculed, she couldn’t care less.
By noon, she had to face facts: there was no trace of Copernicus.
Queasy, exhausted, upset, she couldn’t have swallowed a thing even though her stomach was knotted with hunger. If she ate, she would be betraying Copernicus for a second time. Because there could be no doubt now, she was guilty! The day before, by taking Abdul’s side, she had offended the bird. In trying to detach the parrot from the child, it had been Copernicus she had attacked, and, unable to bear her betrayal, brokenhearted, he had fled.
There was nothing accidental about that terrible episode: she had behaved badly toward an animal who had put his trust in her. She deserved the sadness she was feeling. When she thought of the sadness he must be feeling . . . She cursed herself: how could she have given the bird so much pain! If he was sulking, shivering with cold, risking his life by becoming the prey of cats or aggressive humans, then it was all her fault. What was he going through now? Was he getting anything to eat?
At about two in the afternoon, she suddenly had an idea: she should speak to a specialist in order to analyze Copernicus’s behavior.
She checked how much money she had left in her wallet. Five euros? Not enough to pay for a visit to a vet . . . Maybe she could get around him by explaining that . . . No, it was impossible! She didn’t know any vets, and she couldn’t take the risk of having to pay for a consultation, especially as she looked like a wealthy dowager.
Suddenly she stood up, determined. She would go to a pet shop that sold parrots and ask the staff for information.
She remembered seeing, during one of her streetcar journeys, a shop devoted to exotic animals—snakes, birds, spiders, lizards, iguanas—so she worked out the route and set off.
On Quai de Mariemont, by the gray, meager canal, she passed warehouses that had been turned into studios and boutiques. Worried she might not find the shop, she walked for twenty minutes until she saw Le Monde Perdu written in Gothic lettering.
In the dark shop, she walked past glass cages that she avoided looking at, letting herself be guided by the smell of bird droppings to the section dedicated to parakeets and parrots.
No sooner had she entered the room than the sounds gave her a familiar feeling. The cries and the shuffling and the swishing of wings took her back to Place d’Arezzo and close to Copernicus.
She spotted a sales assistant in a dark T-shirt, complete with tongue piercing, as skinny as a heron. She fed him the story she had concocted: she wanted to buy a macaw, but before going ahead she wanted to find out about their personality. The young man gave her some commonsense advice, then suggested she look at the animals in the cages. In the very first one, she saw a parrot regurgitating his food and remembered that Copernicus had been doing that lately.
“This one’s vomiting. Is he in poor health?”
“No, madame. He’s bringing up his food for the female in the next cage. He’s courting her. He’s giving her what belongs to him to show her that he likes her.”
“Oh!” Mademoiselle Beauvert exclaimed, disconcerted. “Could he ever do that with a human?”
“Not usually. If he did, it’d mean that he considered the human as his mate, as the person he loved and wanted to make love to.”
Mademoiselle Beauvert swallowed with difficulty: the assistant was shedding an unexpected light on Copernicus’s behavior. “My God . . . That’s serious.”
“Yes and no,” the young man said nonchalantly. “On the one hand, it establishes a strong bond between the parrot and his owner. On the other hand, the human can prevent confusion by refusing to behave in a certain way, especially by avoiding certain kinds of contact.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can look away when the bird dances about. Turn your back on him when he talks.”
“Oh . . . And what else?”
“You especially mustn’t touch the parrot’s intimate parts, even if he asks you to.”
“Intimate parts?”
“His belly, his tail.”
Mademoiselle Beauvert choked when she thought of the thousands of times she had stroked Copernicus’s belly and tail with her finger. “What about his beak?” she asked anxiously, aware that Copernicus was particularly responsive to being touched there.
“The beak too, of course. It’s a very erogenous zone.”
Mademoiselle Beauvert shuddered from top to toe. She had thought she was leading as chaste a life as possible, and now she suddenly discovered that not only had she been sharing her apartment with a parrot in love, but that her stroking him encouraged him and even constituted a kind of sex life for him. She swallowed painfully. “Tell me . . . a parrot doesn’t always behave like that, does he? . . . I mean . . . before.”
“It starts in adolescence.”
“And when does adolescence start?”
“It depends on the size. In small species, at eighteen months. In the case of large macaws, for example, hormones don’t start to kick in until the age of five or thereabouts.”
Mademoiselle Beauvert closed her eyes: five years old, Copernicus’s age!
“It’s natural,” the young man said, “because they live longer. Up to the age of fifty, or even eighty in captivity. So what have you decided, Madame?”
“Mademoiselle,” she replied automatically. “One more question: is there a mating season?”
“It’s now, as you saw with the vomiting cockatoo. Males and females are trying to reproduce. Well?”
“I’m very tempted,” she replied, turning red. “I’ll give it some thought and call you.”
“As you wish.”
Mademoiselle Beauvert continued to play the part of an undecided customer, pretending to be interested in various specimens, then, taking advantage of another customer coming in, brushed past the cages and discreetly fled.
As soon as she was back out on the Quai, exposed to the scorching sun, she rubbed her forehead. She suddenly had a thought: what if Copernicus had gone back to Place d’Arezzo in search of a female?
She didn’t know quite what to make of the idea. On the one hand, the theory offered a solution—and thus, a glimmer of hope—and removed all misunderstanding between herself and Copernicus. On the other hand, it suggested that Copernicus no longer loved her and was looking for a female of his own species.
As she thought this through, Mademoiselle Beauvert lectured herself. Of course he must look for a female. I’m not his female, I’m his mistress.
Immediately, she realized the ambiguity of the word “mistress.”
No, I’m his . . . his owner.
This word sounded equally inappropriate and unpleasant, for a different reason this time. Owner! Could you own a living creature? By what obscene logic could she consider Copernicus, a jungle bird that had been born free, as her property? Besides, the bailiffs had left him to her precisely because he was a companion as opposed to a belonging. Otherwise, those vultures wouldn’t have thought twice. She shuddered at the thought of their selling Copernicus in an auction. That made her wonder about their behavior. Had they shown kindness, unexpected pity, in leaving him to her? But pity for whom? Her or the bird?
She shrugged. A parrot like Copernicus was invaluable, beyond price.
Back in her apartment, she quickly worked out a plan. Since this time she couldn’t hide on Place d’Arezzo, she would have to look very elegant. Not for Copernicus, but for her former neighbors.
She got to Place d’Arezzo at four o’clock, looking quite dapper and concealing the fact that she was out of breath from getting off the bus a stop early and walking the rest of the way.
Head high, she first looked up at her old windows, then at the roof, then at the neighboring balconies. No Copernicus.
As she was continuing with her search, the one person she wanted to avoid appeared: Marcelle. Even more broad-backed than before, her head sunk in her shoulders, arms glued to her body, she was rubbing her eyes uncertainly. “But . . . but . . . ”
Mademoiselle Beauvert forced a laugh. “Yes, Marcelle, I’m passing through Brussels. I had a few things to sort out with my lawyer and at the bank. Well, you know what it’s like.”
Marcelle nodded, her jaw clenched: no, she didn’t know what it was like for rich people, and she’d never met a lawyer in her life.
“How are you, Marcelle?”
“Have you come to see me?”
“Of course. I’d like to hear your news.”
“My news? I don’t have any. At least not any good news. You know my Afghan left, don’t you?”
“Yes, Marcelle, I was on the continent when it happened.” She mentally congratulated herself for having unearthed that term, “the continent.”
“Well, that’s it. There’s nothing else.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing!”
“That’s not like you, Marcelle.”
“I don’t have to be like me anymore.” She threw a dirty look into the street and then, turning back to Mademoiselle Beauvert, asked in a curt tone, just to be polite, “How about you? How’s life in New York?”
“Boston, Marcelle.”
“Oh, that’s right. Is it going well?”
“John and I are . . . very happy.”
Marcelle refrained from saying, “Damn,” again, and merely sighed.
At that moment, a fight broke out in the branches. Three parakeets were chasing after an African gray parrot.
Mademoiselle Beauvert watched them with growing anxiety. “I’m going to tell you the truth, Marcelle.”
“The truth about what, Mademoiselle?”
“Have you seen Copernicus?”
“Excuse me?”
“When I was leaving for Boston, there was a . . . a false maneuver at the airport. Copernicus’s cage opened on the tarmac. My parrot has disappeared.”
“So he’s not living with you in the States?”
“No. It’s for the best really, because, unlike me, John doesn’t like animals very much. Well, never mind that.”
“I do understand, you know. Mind you, when it comes to dogs . . . Well, at least they obey. I’ve had two that—”
“I know, Marcelle, I know. Copernicus probably wanted to come back to where he’d grown up and always lived. Place d’Arezzo.”
“Yes, that makes sense.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Mademoiselle Beauvert exclaimed, a powerful sense of hope surging within her.
“But I can’t say I’ve seen him.”
“Oh!”
Since, thanks to her lie, Mademoiselle Beauvert could now examine the trees with impunity, she went out onto the square and cried at the top of her voice, “Copernicus? Copernicus! Copernicus, are you there?”
Marcelle let her shout for five minutes, then went up to her with a sympathetic expression on her face. “I feel sorry for you. Mademoiselle Beauvert. Your Copernicus isn’t here. I would have seen him. And, frankly, I doubt he’ll have survived at the airport. It’s a well-known fact that birds get sucked up by the plane engines. Whoops, and in they go! Do forgive me, but your Copernicus has probably ended up like a slice of pâté.”
“You’ve never liked him!” Mademoiselle Beauvert was so angry, she couldn’t restrain her words. She was hurt by the casual way Marcelle had evoked Copernicus’s possible demise. She looked at her and congratulated herself on having put up with her for so many years: not only was she a mediocre cleaner, but her conversation was depressing. “What about your son?” she asked in a honeyed voice, certain that the mention of him would hurt Marcelle.
“We’ve had a falling-out.”
“Why?”
“It all went horribly wrong.”
“What did?”
“The thing with his fiancée. What a pain in the ass! A real little vixen!”
Mademoiselle Beauvert was delighted by what she was hearing. “What happened, my poor Marcelle?”
“He decided to introduce her to me on ‘neutral territory,’ as he called it. A strange expression, to start with. As if we were at war! Anyway, we met in the tearoom of a big hotel. Right from the start, I didn’t like the face the stupid girl made when she saw me, Mademoiselle. What did she expect? That I’d look like my son? I’m a woman, so it’s different anyway, and on top of everything else, I’d gotten all dressed up. I was wearing a hat.”
“A hat?”
“Yes.”
“You, Marcelle?”
“Oh, I’d taken on board what you’d told me . . . that we were from different worlds, the Peperdicks and me. So I bought myself this hat from Inno. With a veil.”
“A veil?”
“Yes, it’s very fashionable.”
“A black veil?”
“Oh, no, a white one. I’m not in mourning.”
“And what happened?”
“Because I thought the girl was a bit shy, I made her comfortable by talking instead of her. It’s only natural, with age and experience you have more things to say. It was a friendly conversation. I was very pleased. In the evening, my son called me and insulted me. He said I had no business saying what I’d said.”
“Like what, for instance?”
“Everything. He called it ‘despicable.’ I remember the word because I’d never heard it before. ‘Despicable.’ I’ve looked it up in a dictionary since. But I understood what he meant from his tone, anyway.”
“Be specific, Marcelle. What did he accuse you of?”
“The girl had hay fever, so we talked about health. My son couldn’t stand the fact that I told her about my prolapse. But a prolapse is painful. Then I told her about my treatment for constipation. You know perfectly well, Mademoiselle Beauvert, that I’ve always had these problems. It’s because of my left colon.”
“Your left colon?”
“Yes, my left colon is too long. That’s the way it is! It’s too long, so it gets blocked.”
“Thank goodness it’s not your right one!”
“Anyway, now my son’s gotten on his high horse and doesn’t want to see me again. Too bad! I’ll punish him, I won’t go to his wedding!”
“And what about your two hundred and forty-two euros?”
“My two hundred and forty-two euros?”
“For your night table.”
“He gave them back to me.”
For over five minutes, Marcelle wept, her nose in a handkerchief that was too small. Mademoiselle Beauvert took her over to a bench, sat down with her, and gave her comforting pats on the shoulder, all the while searching the branches. Alas, even though she twisted her neck in every direction, Copernicus was nowhere to be seen.
After a decent interval, she kissed Marcelle, promised she would come back on her next “trip to the continent,” then walked away with a light, coquettish step.
Half a mile farther on, dripping with sweat because of the heat and her frayed nerves, she got on a bus that would take her back to Madou.
As soon as she was in her neighborhood, she slowed down and her mood darkened. A kind of emollient liquid spread through her. Twice, she stopped and leaned in a doorway, felling so weak she was afraid she would faint.
As she paused outside the Abuzer sandwich shop, a man came running up to her. “Mademoiselle Beauvert!”
She stared wide-eyed at the dark-skinned man smiling at her from ear to ear.
“Mademoiselle Beauvert, it’s such a pleasure to see you.”
She looked around for someone to help but could only see other, equally hairy men, and muttered anxiously, “Who are you?”
“Don’t you recognize me? I used to live in the same building as you.”
“As me?”
“On Place d’Arezzo.”
“You?”
“Yes. I was staying with Madame Marcelle.”
“Oh, yes!”
She suddenly recognized the man the concierge had always referred to as “my Afghan.”
Nervously, he said something in an unfamiliar language to a woman and three small children who were on the other side of the street. “Let me introduce my wife and children. They were finally able to join me here.” He added with a radiant, conspiratorial smile, “A family reunion!”
With forced politeness, Mademoiselle Beauvert shook hands with each of them. Intimidated, the Afghan’s wife and children greeted her as obsequiously as if she were the Queen of England, which made her resolve to continue the conversation. “So how are you, my dear . . . ” She couldn’t remember his name. “Have you found a job?”
“Yes, I’ve found a position as an interpreter.”
“That’s wonderful. I didn’t know you spoke French.”
“French, English, Arabic, and Pashtun.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Mademoiselle Beauvert nodded, wondering why Marcelle had claimed the contrary.
Since his family didn’t understand French, the man was able to ask the question that had led him to approach Mademoiselle Beauvert. “And how is Marcelle?”
“Marcelle? What can I say? She’s getting ready for her son’s wedding. He’s marrying one the richest heiresses in the country, you know.”
“I’m very happy for her. Marcelle is a generous woman. She offered me hospitality. Of course, she has her faults, she tries to ignore the passing of time, she refuses to believe that a lady her age should give up on certain things. Apart from that, she’s very kind. Thanks to her, I had a roof over my head, food, and time to look for a job. An angel. Marcelle is an angel.”
“You haven’t seen her again?”
He blushed, embarrassed. “No, Madame. I can’t. Because of what I’ve just told you, because of the things she imagines . . . She never accepted, even for a minute, the fact that I was married, that I love my wife, that I was faithful to her and waiting for her to come here.” He turned scarlet, embarrassed to be talking about this. “But she’s a kind woman, very kind. I owe her my life, and my family’s life.”
Since his face betrayed his emotion, he tried to avoid his family’s inquisitive looks, quickly blurted out a goodbye, and set off again down the street in a flurry of waving.
Mademoiselle Beauvert thought about Marcelle and him for a few minutes. Which of them was twisting the truth? Marcelle? The Afghan? Or both? She would never know. Perhaps neither of them knew themselves, given the extent to which people tell each other the truth as they wish it to be, as opposed to how it is.
She dismissed these concerns and carried on walking. None of this would give her back her parrot. She had destroyed her one love affair through her own stupidity. The only living creature that had loved her, in a pure, surprising, disinterested way, had fled into a hostile world. And all because of her! She sighed and stopped to catch her breath once again, then continued shuffling along, holding on to the walls.
She felt swallowed up when she reached No. 5 Rue Bakmir. The prospect of shutting herself in her dark, damp single room made her shudder. Brushing her hand over the letterboxes, she noticed that she had a stack of mail: knowing it contained bad news, she ignored it.
She went into the courtyard, got out her key, shoulders stooped, neck aching, and inserted it in the old keyhole that had been forced so many times.
“Sergio!”
She gave a start.
From out of the sky behind her, a shrill voice repeated enthusiastically, “Sergio! Sergio! Sergio!”
“Copernicus!”
Before she could turn around, the parrot landed on her shoulder. “Hello, Madame.”
He rubbed her cheek; tears in her eyes, Mademoiselle Beauvert let herself be made a fuss of. Then she asked him to sit on her fingers—which he did with a little waddle, as voluble as a jazz musician—and opened the door to her apartment.
“Come in, darling. We’re going to have a nice evening.”
They looked into each other’s eyes. She thought she saw a flame in the bird’s black pupils, a flame that made her blush, warmed her, and disturbed her. She smiled. He cocked his head.
In return, she gave him a kiss. When her lips brushed his beak, he quivered. Then she gently held him to her chest, thinking about what the bird seller had told her: a large macaw like Copernicus could live for fifty years.
She closed the door behind them. They would grow old together. And, with a bit of luck, she would go at the same time as him . . .