The Woman in the Fifth (13 page)

I downed the dregs of the beer in one go. I grabbed the paper. I walked with considerable speed toward the rue des Petites Écuries. Mr Beard was behind the counter of the café. I dropped the paper in front of him and asked, 'Did you see this?'

His face registered nothing.

'Yes, I saw it,' he said.

'Aren't you shocked?'

'This morning, when I first saw the story, yes, I was a little shocked.'

'A
little
shocked? The guy is dead.'

'Like his wife, I had thought he had gone back to Turkey. But . . .'

'Who was behind it?'

'Why should I know such a thing? I worked with Kamal. He was not my friend.'

'Was he in some sort of trouble with somebody?'

'Once again, you ask questions which I cannot answer. His life was not known to me.'

I could tell he was lying – because his eyes kept darting away from mine whenever I tried to eyeball him. Or if he wasn't lying, he was working very hard at not appearing nervous – and failing badly.

'Will there be a funeral?'

'In Turkey.'

'How do you know that?' I challenged.

He tensed, realizing he'd just let himself be caught out.

'Just a guess,' he said, then stood up and said, 'I am closing now.'

'Do I have time to check my email?'

'No.'

'Just give me five minutes, no more.'

'Be fast.'

I sat down at one of the computer terminals, clicked on Internet Explorer and then typed in AOL. Within a minute, my mailbox covered a corner of the screen: with one actual email . . . from, of all people, my former colleague, Doug Stanley. It read:

Harry:

Sorry to have fallen off the face of the planet during the past few weeks. I'm going to cut to the chase straight away – because I've never tried to bullshit you about things . . . and I certainly won't start now. Now that the dust has started to settle here, Susan and Robson have gone public as a couple. The official version is that, in the wake of your disgrace, Susan was 'emotionally shattered'. Robson befriended her – and then they 'became close' . . . nice euphemism, eh? As bullshit goes, this is truly choice. Everyone knew they were an item long before everything blew up in your face. And yeah, I do realize now – especially after all that's gone down – that I should have told you long ago what was happening between them. I still feel damn guilty about that – thinking that, if you had been aware of their involvement, things might have turned out differently for you.

Anyway, you also need to know that Robson has been spreading word around the college that you have hit the skids in Paris. Worse, he's also let it be known that he gleaned this information from Megan. In his version of things – and, believe me, I know that it is simply
his version
(and, as such, far from the truth) – you've been sending her this series of self-pitying emails, playing up your impoverished circumstances and trying to point the finger at Susan. Again, let me reemphasize the fact that I know he's twisting whatever you sent to Megan – just as the sad,
what a tragic story
tone he adopts when relating this information makes me want to punch out his lights. But, as you well know, the man is the all-powerful Dean of the Faculty – which, in our little world, gives him power over all of us . . . especially if we don't have tenure.

I thought long and hard about whether I should burden you with this ongoing horseshit – but eventually decided that you did need to know. My advice to you is: consider that chapter of your life closed, and do know that if things in Paris are as bad as Robson described, they will definitely get better . . . because you will make them better. And there is one small bit of good news from this Ohio backwater: word has it that Robson has decided not to proceed with the college's lawsuit against you. The son of a bitch was finally convinced that continuing to crucify you was pointless.

I'm certain the separation from Megan is an ongoing agony. Trust me: she will come round. It might take some time – but it will happen. She will want to see her father again.

Finally, let me know if you are totally strapped, as I'm happy to wire over a thousand bucks pronto. I wish it could be more, but you know what they pay third-tier academics in the Ohio sticks. I certainly don't want to see you on the street.

Bon courage.

Best

Doug

PS Did you stay at the hotel I recommended in the Sixteenth? If so, I hope you fared better than some friends I sent there last month. It seems they had a run-in with some creep at the front desk.

'
Trust me: she will come round
.' I doubt that, Doug. Without question, Susan and her new man had poisoned Megan against me – and there would be no more emails from my daughter. That knowledge – and the pervasive sense of loss which accompanied it – made Doug's other news ('
. . . Robson has been spreading word around the college that you have hit the skids in Paris
') seem unimportant. Let Robson tell everyone that I had fallen on hard times. It no longer mattered what people thought of me. Because I no longer mattered – to anyone else, let alone myself.

And hitting the
Reply
button next to Doug's email, I wrote:

It was very good to hear from you. Regarding Robson's continued demolition job on me . . . my only response is: you're right. That chapter of my life is finished, so I can't really worry about what is being said about me around a college to which I will never return . . . though I am relieved that Robson has called off his legal thugs. But you should know that I had managed to re-establish contact with Megan – and she had seemed genuinely pleased to have a running correspondence with her father – until Susan found out about it and . . .

Well, you can guess what happened next.

As to my situation in Paris . . . no, I am not completely down and out. But it isn't exactly a romantic set-up either. I live in a small room in a grubby building in the Tenth. I am working illegally – a non-event night watchman's job . . . but one which gives me the opportunity to write until dawn. I have no friends here . . . but I am making use of the city and I am managing to keep my head above water. I was immensely touched by your offer of a cash injection – as always, you are a true
mensch
– but my straits aren't that dire. I am managing to stay afloat.

And yes, I did spend several nights at that hotel in the Sixteenth. And yes, your friends are right: the guy on the front desk was a real little monster.

Keep in touch.

Best

As soon as I sent this email, I switched over to the
New York Times
website. As I scanned that day's paper, an Instant Message prompt popped up on the screen. It was a return email from Doug:

Hey Harry

Glad to hear it's not that desperate for you over there . . . and I'm really pleased you're writing. Got to dash to a class, but here's a Paris tip: if you're in the mood to meet people – or are simply bored on a Sunday night – then do consider checking out one of the salons that are held around town. Jim Haynes – one of life's good guys – holds a great bash up at his atelier in the Fourteenth. But if you want a more bizarre experience, then drop into Lorraine L'Herbert's soiree. She's a Louisiana girl – starting to look down that long barrel of the shotgun marked sixty. Ever since she moved over to Paris in the early seventies, she's been running a salon every Sunday night in her big fuck-off apartment near the Panthéon. She doesn't 'invite' people. She expects people to invite themselves. And all you have to do is ring her on the number below and tell her you're coming this week. Naturally, if she asks how you found out about her salon, use my name. But she won't ask – because that's not how it works.

Keep in touch, eh?

Best

Doug

On the other side of the café, Mr Beard said, 'I close now. You go.'

I scribbled the phone number of Lorraine L'Herbert on a scrap of paper, then shoved it into a jacket pocket, thinking that – as lonely as I often felt – the last thing I wanted to do was rub shoulders with a bunch of expatriate types in some big-deal apartment in the Sixth, with everyone (except yours truly) basking in their own fabulousness. Still, the guilty man in me thought that I owed Doug the courtesy of taking the number down.

Mr Beard coughed again.

'OK, I'm out of here,' I said.

As I left, he said, 'Kamal was stupid man.'

'In what way?' I asked.

'He got himself dead.'

That phrase lodged itself in my brain and wouldn't let go. For the next few days, I searched every edition of
Le Parisien
and
Le Figaro
– which also had good local Paris news – to see if there were any further developments in the case. Nothing. I mentioned Kamal's death once more to Mr Beard – asking him if he had heard anything more. His response: 'They now think it is suicide.'

'Where did you hear that?'

'Around.'

'Around where?'

'Around.'

'So how did he take his life?'

'He cut his throat.'

'You expect me to believe that?'

'It is what I heard.'

'He cut his own throat while walking along a street, then tossed himself in a dumpster?'

'I report only what I have been told.'

'Told by whom?'

'It is not important.'

Then he disappeared into a back room.

Why didn't I walk away then and there? Why didn't I execute an about-face and vanish? I could have gone home and cleared out my
chambre
in a matter of minutes, and pitched up somewhere else in Paris. Surely there were grubbier streets in grubbier
quartiers
, where it was possible to find another shitty room in which I could eke out a living until the money ran out.

And then? And then?

That was the question which kept plaguing me as I sat at the little bar on the rue de Paradis, nursing a
pression
and wishing that the barmaid was available. I found myself studying the curve of her hips, the space between her breasts that was revealed by her V-neck T-shirt. Tonight I wanted sex for the first time since Susan had thrown me out all those months ago. It's not that I hadn't had a sexual thought since then. It's just that I had been so freighted with the weight of all my assorted disasters that the idea of any sort of intimacy with someone else seemed like a voyage into a place that I now associated with danger. But never underestimate the libido – especially when it has been oiled with a couple of beers. As I found myself looking over the barmaid, she caught my appraising stare and smiled, then flicked her head toward a beefy guy with tattoos who had his back to us as he pulled a
croque monsieur
out of a small grill. The nod said it all:
I'm taken.
But the smile seemed to hint an 'Alas' before that statement. Or, at least, that's what I wanted to believe. Just as I wanted to believe that Kamal 'got himself killed' because he owed somebody money, or he was in on a drug deal that had gone wrong, or he'd been fingering the till at the café, or he'd looked the wrong way at some woman. Or . . .

A half-dozen other scenarios filled my head . . . along with another pervasive thought.
Remember what Kamal told you when he first offered you the job: 'That is of no concern of yours.' Good advice. Now finish the beer and get moving. It's nearly midnight. Time to go to work.