THÉO RUSHED TO THE PHONE as soon as it started blinking. Ania watched him disappear, limping into the blue shadow of morning inside the apartment. His frailty and nervousness surprised her suddenly as she observed his bare thighs and little boy’s underwear. He was much calmer since Novak was no longer living there and the school had provided them with a routine, but he always seemed to be anxiously waiting for something that Ania could only hope to discover.

“Here,” he said, holding the phone at the end of his arm. His head was covered with unruly tufts of hair that Ania smoothed with her hand, making a sign for him to take a shower and get dressed. The click of a lighter could be heard on the phone, then a very self-assured and feminine “Hello.” Ania felt her heart skip a beat. It had to be Clara.

“You know who I am, don’t you?” Clara said after that brief introduction. “Your father died last night in his apartment in Monceau,” she continued, with almost no change in her youthful, firm, and pleasant voice. “He swallowed some glass, nine pieces, fairly large, from a mustard jar,” she added, exhaling the smoke of her cigarette just as she would have sneered at the unbearable idea of repeatedly swallowing a razor. “He died from internal bleeding, probably during the evening; his body was already starting to smell when I got there from the airport this morning, it must have been around six.” Clara appeared to sniffle angrily as she reported this detail. Ania remained silent, more fascinated by the voice than the news. Her mind resisted the idea that he had died at Monceau when she had just seen him the day before, indolent and derisive, at Les Épinettes, his world.

Most likely, Clara was calling from her car and probably returning to the apartment. She suggested to Ania that they meet there. She said this with the same strangely distinct voice, leaving no room for questions and as if they had agreed there would be no tears. The news, at that early hour on a gloomy Sunday morning, gave them a sense of immediate familiarity. “Gabriel and I had made a marriage contract, so you’ll get everything that’s yours,” Clara added, before asking if it were possible to meet around three.

Ania didn’t know about the marriage. She had the impression of having been rapidly swept up in events that she should have known from the first. To establish not a distance but her own rhythm, she asked Clara to repeat the address, and explained that she would try to stop by but made no promises. Ania was barely five when Gabriel purchased the small two-room apartment. She had slept there a few times back then, remembering it as an airless place where her father became someone she didn’t know. She never imagined she would one day have to immerse herself in that world again.

IT WAS NEARLY TEN O’CLOCK. Behind the closed blinds, the day—a Sunday, October 3—was beginning, a day to be remembered. Gabriel would have been fifty-eight years old in a month, she reminded herself, placing the phone back in its cradle in the living room. No new memory would replace that of his erect torso and his tender voice calling out to Théo, who had gone to explore the thick border of nettles surrounding the property. What kind of despair could have led to the death of a man capable of forgetting his own family?

Théo had turned on the television; he still wasn’t dressed. Sitting on the floor at the height of the low table, he carefully separated and arranged the pieces of a puzzle one by one. His thin legs ended in a coil of socks. Beneath the pajama top, now too short, peeked the small sharp bones of his spine. Ania turned the ceiling light on and off to let him know she was there, but Théo didn’t lift his head. Nor did he ask who had called. Ania didn’t know how you told a child about his grandfather’s death. She decided there was no urgency in doing so, nor any obligation, for that matter. Seeing him seated on the rug, sulking and painstakingly removing the pieces of the puzzle and putting them in their box, Ania guessed that something more profound than mere disappointment had taken place the day before. He appeared to be angry with her for failing to win her father’s approval while they were at Les Épinettes; he may even have felt her to be responsible for what had happened. A feeling of profound unfairness arose in her like a bitter liquid. She saw Gabriel, sitting sideways in the wicker armchair, describing his plans to make use of the freedom he would now enjoy, displaying his satisfaction at the scandal he had caused, and amused by her own opinion of it. She thought it was madness that he was so evasive and yet so fully at ease.

Ania had withdrawn to her bedroom, closing the door to have a little privacy. From the living room came the noise of the puzzle pieces that Théo was shaking around in the box. She turned on the radio, slowly scanning the dial until she came upon the familiar voices of her childhood. Gabriel had always worked with a radio playing softly. The sound of the programs hadn’t changed, it was that of the studious silence of Les Épinettes, the sound of boredom. Ania shut it off to slow the progress of the past in her. Besides, the news was over, and it was highly unlikely that reports of his death had begun to circulate. She tried to reach Novak, then his roommate these past few years in Suresnes, but didn’t leave a message. Something else suddenly began to bother her—what Gabriel had said about the Degas.

There had been three of them, ocher-colored pastel drawings of female nudes in contorted postures. They were part of his inheritance from his mother, and they had always hung opposite the bed in the upstairs bedroom. That was all Ania knew when this one, the most muted of the three, had been brought down to the library. Why had her father sold the other two, and when? Ania had never concerned herself with his financial situation. In her childhood imagination, the relative wealth that had allowed her mother and them to lead a life of elegant bohemianism was an immutable fact. Part of that inheritance—the collection of paintings and drawings, at least—had come directly to her, she was almost certain. An appraisal had, in fact, been made; she could see where the drawings had hung on the bedroom wall. If there were any documents from that time, they had to be at Les Épinettes. But after boarding school, Ania had gone directly to Suresnes, without ever bothering to clear out her childhood bedroom.

THE TELEVISION WAS OFF and Théo’s spindly silhouette soon appeared in the open doorway. He still hadn’t washed or dressed and, as if he were sickened by the thought that he no longer knew where she was, Ania teased him, telling him how odd he looked in his abbreviated pajama top and bare, blue-veined thighs. But Théo wanted to know what she was doing in the bedroom. He couldn’t bear the fact that she might be hiding her feelings. And because she refused to answer him, he pressed her cheeks with his fists to force her to open her mouth. Ania pulled back, complaining that he was hurting her. The boy frowned. Beneath the fringe of hair, his eyes examined her angrily. She held his chin and made him look at her.

“Your grandfather had an accident,” she slowly articulated. “He died last night.” Théo suddenly turned beet red. He remained standing before her, his face turned aside. Ania was angry with herself for having put him, without warning, in a situation to which he didn’t know how to respond. She ran her finger across his forehead as she often did to ease his vulnerability. “It’s not all that bad, you know, we hardly ever saw him.” Théo agreed, gravely, still red and frowning. Ania bent over him to hike up his socks. “I have to go out this afternoon; is there a friend you could stay with?” Théo listened, his chin sunk into the collar of his pajama. He wanted to go with her or stay by himself. That she insisted that he visit a friend made him stamp his feet with rage, like the day before at the train station when she had finally grown angry. Ania told herself she should never have brought him to see his grandfather.

She did get the name of a friend, Augustin, whose mother showed herself to be both concerned and efficient, volunteering to drive over and take her to the train station. Théo took a long time to decide what to wear and what to bring with him. His agitation was real, though; Ania knew that, because of her, his lack of experience was complete, as was his wariness of others.

THE CAR STOPPED AT THE END OF THE STREET and blinked its lights. Augustin’s mother had had difficulty finding the house and her nearly juvenile face retained a slight sign of impatience that contradicted the extreme warmth of her welcome. She moved the seat back for Ania, excusing the mess of crumpled papers she told her to ignore, then turned to Théo with a serious smile. At once the two boys began to talk; Ania found that Théo’s gestures were more demonstrative than customary. He seemed to be relaxed with them, but she worried that he wouldn’t know how to behave or feel comfortable in their presence. She so rarely entrusted him to others that she saw everything as threatening for the boy.

The mother drove quickly and barefoot, her red high heels stored beneath the seat. She’d turned the radio on, asking if it would bother Ania, as if music could affect her sorrow. Her son was preoccupied with a video game. He was wearing some sort of patch on his head and thick glasses behind which his face appeared very distant. Ania admired the fact that someone could be so lively and attractive even with a child with his disabilities.

The car arrived at the train station. Théo had climbed between the seats, and Ania could hear the sighs of his growing depression buzzing in her ear. She would have liked to leave without too much fuss, but Théo insisted on getting out of the car to kiss her. His tears, which he had held back until then, began to flow, and Ania could feel their damp warmth against her stomach. She lifted his face, which stuttered with anger because Augustin had seen this display of emotion. But the boy paid no attention; his mother had taken him to pick out some magazines. Ania found her to be thoughtful and easygoing, and felt she had betrayed the woman’s sympathy.