CHAPTER FIVE

Foulerot, 1

ON THE FIFTH FLOOR, right-hand side, right at the end: right below where Gaspard Winckler had his workroom. Valène remembered the parcels he received every fortnight for twenty years: even at the height of war they had kept coming regularly, and every one identical, absolutely identical; obviously, the postage stamps varied, allowing the concierge, who wasn’t yet Madame Nochère, but Madame Claveau, to ask if she could have them for her son Michel; but apart from the stamps there was nothing to distinguish one parcel from another: it was the same kraft paper, the same string, the same wax seal, the same address label; it made you think that before leaving, Bartlebooth must have asked Smautf to work out in advance how much tissue paper, kraft paper, string, and sealing wax would be needed for all five hundred parcels! He probably hadn’t needed to ask, Smautf would have understood without prompting! It’s not as if they had been short of trunks.

Here, on the fifth floor right, the room is empty. It is a bathroom, painted a dull orange colour. On the rim of the bath, a large oyster shell lined with mother-of-pearl – for it had once contained a pearl – now holds a piece of soap and a pumice stone. Above the washbasin there is an octagonal mirror in a veined marble surround. Between the bath and the basin, a Scottish cashmere cardigan and a skirt with braces have been thrown onto a folding chair.

The door at the end is open and gives onto a long corridor. A girl of barely eighteen comes towards the bathroom. She is naked. In her right hand she holds an egg, which she will use for washing her hair, and in her left hand she carries issue No. 40 of Les Lettres Nouvelles (July–August 1956), a review containing, alongside a note by Jacques Lederer on Le Journal d’un prêtre by Paul Jury (Gallimard), a short story by Luigi Pirandello, dating from 1913, entitled “In the Abyss”, and telling the tale of how Romeo Daddi went mad.