CLARA HADN’T CLOSED THE DOOR behind her on the landing. Ania knocked, then pushed it open. She was surprised by the stale odor of soiled linens and aging skin that the fresh air did little to improve. A sheet from a notebook slipped between her feet as the door shut behind her. Ania had no memory of the place, more like an impression that she could not fully recall, something akin to a young girl’s intuition that her father was someone else. The window at the end of the hallway was open; Ania discovered the view into the park—a thick blanket of red-marbled leaves like a coat.

Clara was in the bedroom; she shouted that she would be right there. Ania hung her bag in the entrance hall, adjusted her ponytail, regretting that she hadn’t bothered to make herself look more attractive for their first meeting. Behind her, the bathroom door was ajar. Ania remembered her disgust as a child with having to place her bare feet on the tile floor. She pushed the door and turned on the bare bulb, which cast reflections off the dark green tile. Towels were strewn around the bathtub. A plastic razor encrusted with dirty shaving cream lay on the edge of the sink together with a pharmacy’s worth of medications of a man eager to die. Ania felt the intimacy of a father whom she had known only by his behavior; it was both painless and embarrassing.

The office also looked out onto the park. It was filled, on two sides, with piles of erudite books and newspapers. A large photo of a woman faced the door from within a jumble of paintings and thumb-tacked pages. The face was cut off just above the mouth, the arms rounded into a bow, as if cradling the small, naked breasts redefined by the contrast of black and white in the extension of the hollow musculature of her stomach. Ania was pleased to note that the photo hadn’t replaced that of her parents, whose memory now returned with a heartfelt pang. The photograph wore the colors of summer and was taken shortly before their marriage, among her mother’s own family, near Tehran.

Clara had just entered the room, her hands on her hips in a kind of haughty and friendly naturalness. She bent toward the picture of the couple sitting in the wind on a beach at nightfall. “They were married so young,” she said, holding out a supple hand on which Ania recognized the diamond in the black-and-white portrait, a small stone set atop a fragile ring, as fine as a hair.

She was a beautiful woman, with an uncustomary, almost martial, beauty, and younger than Ania had imagined—she must have been no more than a few years older than she was, thirty-eight or so—yet she wasn’t a young woman, being too sure of herself and conventional. She revealed nothing of what she had gone through that morning. To her great surprise, Ania felt somewhat moved by their introduction. “We could have hoped for more pleasant circumstances,” Clara joked, before adding, “maybe you’d like me to show you . . .” with the same pragmatism she had displayed on the phone. Ania followed her to the bedroom, where the drawn shutters burned with fine streaks of light. So this is where it happened, she thought, without managing to convince herself.

The mattress had been removed. Beneath the bare slats of the bed were two drops of blood, a shiny seal on the film of dust that covered the disorderly pages and used tissues. “There are companies that do only that, remove blood-soaked mattresses,” Clara said, taking a cigarette from a package. “At least I’ll have learned something.” With a broad movement of her torso, she indicated the exact position of the body, fully clothed on the bed, the face a few inches from the wall, then turned in the direction of the desk, where she had found the remains of the broken glass. “First he tried to cut his wrists,” she said, leaning against the wall. Her voice broke from time to time. Ania remembered that she had said she had arrived at the airport only that morning; she probably hadn’t slept. Her strange familiarity with the violence of the facts spared Ania from having to make pretenses or provide justifications.

“I didn’t touch his journal.” Clara pointed to an orange notebook placed alongside a small aerosol can on the shelf by the bed. “I’ll leave you to look at it,” she said as she left the room. Ania listened to her steps fade along the floorboards; Clara’s concern for Ania gave her the first real sign of emotion since that morning.

The notebook was sticky with syrup. Ania didn’t know whether it was from fear or the desire that he might have written about their last meeting that she decided to open it. She was there, in fact, a few pages from the end, in tears and being consoled by Théo in the train. Ania closed the notebook and put it down. Her body burned with the humiliation of letting herself be surprised by him while she was crying. She looked at the aerosol can, the old tissues, and the small red splotches in the dust beneath the bed, seeking in vain to connect them with her confusion.

CLARA WAS WAITING IN FRONT of the office window, one hand placed on her neck as if to keep her head from falling. She had been hoping for something from the notebook, an explanation, yet asked no questions. Imperceptibly, the distress began to overtake the courage she had displayed. Ania admired the fact that one could remain so composed under the circumstances. Where had she arrived from early that morning? It hadn’t entered Ania’s mind before that they might have had an argument or separated in such a way that Clara felt herself to be responsible.

Clara had prepared a draft of the notice of death, which she handed her. Ania read: His daughter, Ania Delâcre-Janic, his grandson Théo, his son-in-law Novak Janic, and remained silent, stunned. She would never have dreamed of an announcement. Now she would have to decide whether to put her name on it or not, and either way, the decision seemed wrong to her. “You think that’s what he would have wanted?” she asked, handing back the piece of paper. Clara remarked that now they wouldn’t have to worry about it. Her irritability reflected a kind of bitter anger toward Gabriel. For Clara was angry with him, Ania began to understand, and her actions grew harsher in having to defend herself against the unjust brutality of what he had forced her to endure. Against the light her face was marked by deep shadows. Her bones were visible beneath the skin, and the broad outline of her jaw contrasted with the long, slender bust, tightly wrapped in a light-colored fabric. She must have learned to never feel pity for herself, Ania thought, smiling, there’s something ecclesiastic about her.

The air began to grow cool and the sun withdrew from the rooms. Clara went over to look at his laptop, which sat on the desk, and then turned back to Ania. “Gabriel told me you didn’t know how to read,” she said, staring at her with a kind of attentive and strangely warmhearted objectivity. Ania raised her eyebrows, amazed at the lack of concern her father had had for others in creating his legend. “And you thought it was true?” she replied. Clara smiled but in fact was no longer listening. She was exhausted, and probably hadn’t showered, and the slightly sour odor from her armpits established an intimacy between them that was only slightly out of place. Ania suspected in her that special calm found in those who remain untouched by the judgments of others. Clara had married Gabriel even though his name had already begun to give off the stench of defeat. Ania was unable to imagine her giving in, as he had these past few years, to a revulsion for the world he lived in, or she must have done so with much more distance and serenity.

Clara had brought over an armchair for Ania and sat down beneath the open window, asking if she minded that she smoked. From the sidewalk, the sound of a container being brought back into the building could be heard. The russet of the trees occupied nearly the entire window. For a moment, Clara allowed herself to be hypnotized by the waves stirred by the wind. “Did you come here often?” she asked Ania, waving the smoke out the window. “Once or twice at most, the year he bought it.” At that moment the impression began to take shape that she had become a burden for the first time in her father’s life. The couple they formed and that Gabriel adored, the widower and the little girl, needed Les Épinettes, the garden that sloped down nearly to the water beneath the centenarian trees, and the house, of which they occupied hardly more than the barn-like living room, leaving him to its nooks and crannies and the rooms beneath the roof. Ania tried to formulate that tenuous impression, which Clara appeared to understand. At least, she maintained her concentration before making a slow sign of acquiescence, a belated reaction to what she had just heard. “I was never very welcome here myself. Among other things because that forced him to clean the place up,” she said with a trembling smile crossed by a tear. Her anger gave way. She stared at the glowing tip of her cigarette, seeming to slowly let what had happened sink in. Ania had the impression of touching her suffering with her finger. “Did my father tell you why I stopped coming?” Clara smiled oddly. “I don’t think he knew why.” She made a gesture with her hand, as if to sweep away any unpleasant reasons he may have considered. A silence followed into which burst the furious barking of two dogs lunging at one another through the park gates. Clara stood up to close the window. She pointed to another laptop, on the floor, near piles of books that had fallen, informing her that she had deleted all his accounts and profiles. Ania could very well imagine the types of comments that must have accumulated recently and didn’t inquire further. Her father’s provocations no longer worked when seen from the slightly tawdry surroundings of a bitter man. Ania was even surprised that they had been taken so seriously. Death doesn’t help you much, she mused. Gabriel must not have planned his own, he would have done a better job of staging it. It would be left to Clara to throw away the medications, the old razors, the soiled towels, the sickening writings. What would she retain of his presence in her eyes after all this? Unless she had loved him with a tenderness that had been truly exceptional.

Looking out across the park, Clara remained in her own world, her lips pressed together. A wooden barrette held the knot of straight, light auburn hair, which coiled across her cheek like soft down. She has no color, Ania realized. No makeup other than the simple beauty of intelligence and a good education, something intimidating, virile in a way, which must have deeply affected her father.

He had spoken of her only once, Ania remembered it perfectly: that she wrote magnificent letters. That was a few years ago. She had spent a Saturday at Les Épinettes. Théo had just turned two, and Gabriel had insisted on inviting them, he had something he wanted to give them. They had barely arrived when he pointed with his finger at a long coat of light-colored leather hanging in the entranceway, saying that there was a woman in his life now, that her name was Clara, and that she wrote magnificent letters. Ania had almost walked out then, for the comment seemed so intentionally cruel.

Her childhood had ended when she began to have trouble at school. Gabriel had interpreted her inability to learn as a form of obstinacy that hurt him and, in so doing, had prevented her, once and for all, from understanding. She had spent her early years in school with her head filled with distractions, withdrawn, as if she lived inside a bell that protected her from his disappointment. With the years, his impatience had ceased to paralyze her. But hearing him talk about that woman’s magnificent letters, she knew that no compassion would be forthcoming. She had waited until the end of lunch and the promised gift (of money) to leave, unaware that she would never come back. Yet on that day, Gabriel spoke of nothing other than his infatuation for this woman. He was over fifty; it was the first time since he’d become a widower that he had grown close to anyone. Ania never considered the question of his solitude. Now, she merely evaluated what it might have meant for a womanizer like him, at his age, to be involved physically with this stoic and reserved patrician.

“You went to see him yesterday at Les Épinettes,” Clara said, adding, “Might I ask why?” She leaned forward to crush her cigarette on the stone sill and sat back against the embrasure, her arms crossed, without impatience. Ania stared at her, trying to understand what she wanted to hear. “I know because he left several messages,” Clara answered in reply to Ania’s astonishment. “He didn’t say anything else about your visit, but I thought it might have something to do with this whole idiotic affair.” She took a deep gulp of air, as if she had been holding her breath for a long time. Ania tried to give her the most honest reason possible, and the following came to her immediately: she had wanted to show him that she was less interested in other people’s opinions than he assumed.

Clara listened as she slowly smoothed the leather on her boots. A faint smile creased her cheek with a dimple. “He must have seen it otherwise, you realize that, don’t you?” she noted, looking at her with her handsome, tired face. “He felt demoralized around just about everyone.” Ania hesitated a few seconds before acknowledging that she knew nothing of the situation other than that they didn’t want him on the radio anymore. The shock must have been considerable, for Clara drew back in a movement of surprise, completely without irony but, rather, with slight admiration. After scrutinizing her for a few moments as if to penetrate her singularity, she rummaged around in the mess beneath the desk and handed her a local newspaper folded just below a large photo of Gabriel taken in front of the city hall of V. A sentence was written in large characters: “I care less about this man’s death than the fate of the two young men who grew up here.” Clara had taken out a cigarette and lit it after opening the window again. Ania spread the paper across her lap and understood at once upon seeing, farther down in the article, the photograph of a squad of police in the shrubbery.

It was approximately one month since an immigrant from the Comoros had been beaten and drowned by two young men from the region. Ania had heard something about it on the news but had been even more shocked by the fact that because she knew the area, she could imagine the incongruity of a black man crossing that expanse of rutted countryside in the middle of the night. He was carrying a plastic bag with a container of dried fruit, an empty wallet, and a ticket for an emergency shelter, by which one might have assumed that he had been walking all day long. Three young men from the village had seen him as they were returning from V. on their scooters, but only two of them had decided to turn back and grab him. The man walked with long strides as the empty bag and dark tunic embroidered with arabesques slapped against him. He began to walk faster when he heard the scooter coming back, then headed off into the fields. The two young men had caught up with him and stabbed him in the back with a metal picket torn from the dirt. The body, struck several times, had then been rolled to the river’s edge. They had to hold his face beneath the stagnant green water by the riverbank until he was still. It was later discovered that they didn’t even have the excuse of being drunk.

Ania again observed her father’s expression in the photo and that of the closed faces immediately behind him, then folded the paper. He had taken the side of the murderers; his ideas had gotten that far out of hand. Sincere, as well, since they had, in a way, killed him.

Clara took the newspaper and threw it back where she had found it under the desk. Her feelings about the affair were impossible to discern, and Ania had neither the desire nor the heartlessness to question her. Clara had pulled out a cigarette, which she played with distractedly between her fingers. Her self-assurance appeared to crumble little by little beneath the enveloping weight of her fatigue. There’s no place for her to lie down after I’m gone, Ania thought, imagining the small torture she must have experienced in maintaining her composure. What kind of love for a man who had fallen to such extremes enabled her to hold up during moments like these? Ania would have liked to have been more talkative, warmer, but her attention had been distracted by the collection of pictures and photographs in which she was surprised to see herself, two of them especially. One, a small oil, rapidly executed, painted, she thought she recalled, by a rather well-known artist, in which she is shown sitting on her mother’s lap. And in a framed photograph of her alone at twelve years of age, seated in the crook of a tree, her legs folded between her arms and her head resting on her knees. The reflections of the leaves dappled her impenetrable features. Ania clearly remembered the day the picture had been taken and who had taken it, but she had never seen it before. It came back to her now, the atmosphere that poisoned her heart that summer, the last one before she left for boarding school.

Her father had invited Mourad, her mother’s cousin, for the weekend, a man in exile, a professor without a job, without money, without existence. The man seemed old to her; he was small, with a kind of outmoded elegance, and spoke softly in a feminine voice. At the end of the meal, long after Ania had left the table, he went into the garden and caught sight of her in the tree. He stood there a few moments watching her from below. Ania saw the brilliance of his scalp beneath the thinning hair, carefully parted. Then he came back a little later with a camera, which he slowly raised, as he would have cocked a rifle. Ania didn’t protest, didn’t move or smile. Her impassiveness before the lens betrayed none of the misery that kept her there. She didn’t come back down for a long time after the photograph, enjoying the strange new pleasure of discovering that she was special.

Gabriel himself wasn’t in a very good mood that summer either. He had had health problems, which had left him without a sense of smell. The radio program he had been doing for more than two years was probably not going to be picked up in the fall, or it would be moved to a time slot with a smaller audience. The rejection had left him cynical and sardonic, derisive. He had written in an article, the first that Ania had received from him while in boarding school, that, given the growing mediocrity, there was something to be thankful for, in the end, to have been moved to a nighttime slot. The recently republished photograph of him, with that slightly tremulous half smile, had been taken at the time. The insecurity Ania felt in the presence of that smile dampened her spirit. One day, when he had repeated, several times and with that same expression, a word she had mispronounced, she understood that she could never love him again.

“Did he say anything to you about this picture?” Clara moved closer to get a better look. A strand of hair had slipped down her temple. She undid the barrette, which she pinched between her lips so she could redo her hair, gazing at the picture with all the gravity the question required, one whose response was simply that Gabriel had never said anything about it. “Was it during the summer that you had stopped talking to him?” she ventured. Ania rose, preferring to say nothing and especially wishing to learn nothing more about the way her father had described their past. Suddenly, the nervous fatigue of the day and this meeting seemed to exhaust her.

“I’VE DECIDED TO BRING THE BODY back to Les Épinettes,” Clara said, as if she had only then remembered, as she walked with Ania down the hallway. “The burial is planned for Saturday.” She lifted an eyebrow as if she were defensively awaiting an objection. Ania couldn’t get over it and was quite pleased with the woman’s efficiency and competence. In fact, she had the impression of being immersed in someone else’s grief. Clara asked her if she wouldn’t like to take something as a keepsake, the photograph or something else. Ania told her she didn’t want anything, only remembering after she had left the building that Théo would have liked the laptop. She realized that Clara must have read Gabriel’s journal by now and might have learned something, and was surprised at having so little curiosity, or doubt, about the reasons for her father’s actions.

Augustin’s mother had left a message to let her know that Théo could spend the night with them if need be. Ania hesitated to call her back. She thought she heard the sound of table soccer in the background but was too much on edge to realize without a certain discomfort that Théo was willing to stay. Without really knowing why, she dialed the number for Les Épinettes. The ringing continued, Ania could hear the ringtone resounding in the open space of the living room. She was again overcome by the apprehension that had strangled her whenever she had had to discuss her vacation. Then someone picked up. It was Jean-Louis. “So you know, then?” he asked soberly, after getting over his surprise. Ania hadn’t expected to hear his voice. She said she had seen Clara and would be there for sure the following day if she could find someone to watch Théo. She had decided to find out about the Degas and all the rest.