The Woman in the Fifth (21 page)

'Badly,' I finally said. 'But ultimately it was me who damaged myself.'

'You only say that because you believe her rhetoric . . . because, all of your life, you've been told you're a bad boy.'

'Stop sounding like a shrink.'

'You have nothing to be guilty about.'

'Yes, I do,' I said, turning away.

'Did you kill anyone?' she asked.

'Don't try to soft-pedal this . . .'

'It's a legitimate question: Did you kill someone?'

'Of course I didn't kill anyone.'

'Then what are you guilty about? Betraying your wife perhaps?'

'Maybe.'

'Or was it really all about getting found out?' Silence. I turned away.

'We all want to get found out,' she said. 'It's sadly human . . . and sadly true. Just as we all can't really cope with the guilt that—'

'Do you want to know about the sort of guilt I contend with, day in, day out? Well, listen to this . . .'

That's when I told her about the hit-and-run accident involving the desk clerk at the Sélect.

'It hardly sounds like an accident,' Margit said when I finished recounting this story.

'That's what's nagging me, the fact that—'

'Now don't tell me that, because you thought ill of the bastard, the wrath of the gods came down upon him?'

'Something like that, yes.'

'But he got what was coming to him. Somebody out there didn't like the way he was behaving toward others, and decided to settle the score. And even though you had no bearing whatsoever on this person's decision to run him down, you still feel
guilt
?'

'I wanted something bad to happen to him . . .'

'And that puts you at fault?'

'I have a fucked-up conscience.'

'Clearly,' she said, topping up my glass with champagne. 'But I'm certain this self-loathing didn't simply arrive one day, out of nowhere. Did your mother—?'

'Hey, I really don't feel like talking about it . . .'

'Because she so disapproved of you?'

'Yeah, that – and because she was a deeply unhappy woman who told me repeatedly that I was the root cause of her problems.'

'Were you?'

'According to her, sure. I screwed things up completely for her . . .'

'How, exactly?'

'Before I showed up in her life, she was this big-deal journalist . . .'

'How "big deal"?'

'She was a court reporter . . .'

'A mere reporter?'

'For the
Cleveland Plain Dealer
.'

'Is that an important newspaper?'

'It is . . . if you live in Cleveland, Ohio.'

'So she was a self-important hack, covering trials . . .'

'Something like that. I arrived by accident. She was forty, a hard-bitten professional, someone who never married and lived for her work. But – and this I got from her later – she was starting to "feel her age" . . . wondering if she'd end up alone in her early sixties; a dried-up spinster, living in some small apartment, on the way out at the paper, no one caring if she lived or died . . .'

'There was no husband in her life?'

'Not until she met Tom Ricks. Ex-army guy, built up a successful insurance business in the Cleveland area, divorced after the war, no kids, met my mom when she was covering an accident case in which he was testifying. She was lonely, he was lonely, they started seeing each other. It was "pretty agreeable at first", she later told me, especially as they both liked to drink . . .'

'And then she got pregnant?'

'Yeah, that's exactly what happened. It was all a big accident, she "agonized" over what to do, whether to keep it . . .'

'She told you all this?'

'Yeah – when I was around thirteen and we'd just had a fight about my refusal to do something stupid, like take the garbage out. "
You know the biggest mistake of my life was not having you scraped out of my womb when I still had the chance
."'

'Charming,' she said, stubbing out her cigarette.

'Well, she was pretty drunk at the time. Anyway, she found herself up the spout, Dad convinced her to keep it and promised her he wouldn't stop her working or anything. But then the pregnancy turned out to be a nightmare. She ended up confined in a hospital bed for around three months. As this was 1963, when maternity leave wasn't exactly a progressive concept, the paper let her go. It was the biggest blow of her life. All the time I was growing up, she always referred to the
Plain Dealer
as "
my paper
" . . . talking about it in such mournful tones you'd think it was a man who jilted her.'

'So you were vilified for being the person who ruined her life. Is she still alive?'

I shook my head. 'The cigarettes got my father first – he died in '87. Mom went in '95 – cigarettes
and
booze. Suicide on the installment plan. I'm pretty damn sure my mom started the slow process of killing herself the day the
Plain Dealer
let her go. And . . . could we drop this subject, please?'

'But it's so illuminating – and it so explains why you feel such guilt about nothing.'

'Guilt has its own weird trajectory.'

'Which is why you
weirdly
blame yourself for that desk clerk getting run over?'

'I don't blame myself . . . I just wish I hadn't wished him ill.'

'Why spill tears over a shit? Anyway, don't you think that those who damage others deserve to be damaged themselves?' 'Only if you buy into an Old Testament view of things.'

'Or if you do truly believe in retribution.'

'But you don't believe in . . . ?'

'Retribution? Of course I do. It's a rather
delicious
concept, don't you think?'

She was smiling at me.

'You're joking, right?' I asked.

'Not really, no,' she said, then glanced at the watch on my wrist.

'Don't tell me our "allotted time slot" is over?' I said.

'Just about.'

'Great,' I said, then added, 'And yeah, I know that sounds petulant, but . . .'

'See you in three days, Harry.'

'Same time?'

She stroked my hair.

'You're learning,' she said.

Learning what?
I wondered.

I
WAS DETERMINED
to break out of my daily routine. So I made the point of exploring new
quartiers
on foot, and even forced myself to jog three times a week along the Canal Saint-Martin – my one small nod to the idea of getting back into shape. And twice a week, I declared a 'movie-free' day and loitered in museums instead of the Cinémathèque.

But, for me, all these extracurricular activities were secondary to my twice-weekly rendezvous with Margit. It wasn't just the sex. It was also the break from the quotidian – the sense that, for a couple of hours (if I was lucky), I would escape the banality of everything. No wonder we all respond to the idea of intimacy. It doesn't just allow us to cling to someone else and believe that we are not alone in the world; it also lets us escape from life's prosaic repetitiveness.

But with Margit, I always did still feel somewhat alone, as she continued to keep a certain distance from me. When I arrived for our fourth rendezvous, she led me to the sofa, opened my jeans and proceeded to go down on me. But when I tried to touch her, she gently pushed my hand away with the comment I'd heard before, 'Not today.'

Three days later, however, she was a different woman – sexually voracious and passionate, delighted to see me, full of chat and – dare I say it – almost loving. So much so that when eight o'clock arrived and she hinted that it was time for me to leave, I said, 'Listen, I know I'm probably pushing things here – but this has been such a wonderful afternoon, why don't we do something like go out to dinner or . . .'

'I have work. And so do you.'

'But I don't have to be there until midnight which gives us a couple of hours—'

She cut me off, asking, 'You really just sit there all night, while the furs come and go?'

'That's it.'

'And do you ever meet the people who employ you?'

'Just the grumpy bastard who runs the local Internet café and hands me my pay envelope every day.'

'The middleman?'

'Something like that.'

'Have you ever thought what's really going on in that building?'

'I told you, it's a furrier's.'

'And I know you're lying to me.'

Silence. She said, 'Don't tell me you're suddenly feeling guilty about not telling me the truth?'

'The truth is, I don't know the truth. Sorry.'

'Why should you be sorry? All men lie.'

'No comment,' I said.

'Listen to your guilt. But let me guess: your ex-wife talked a great deal about the need for "trust" in a marriage, and how without "complete honesty", there was "no real basis for intimacy".'

Once again, I found myself tensing – and trying to rewind my memory in an attempt to remember when I told her all that about Susan. She pre-empted me by saying, 'How did I know that? It was simply a supposition – and one based on my rudimentary knowledge of American morality in all its hypocritical finery.'

'Whereas the French way is . . . ?'

'
Compartmentalize
. Accept the Cartesian logic of two separate universes within one life. Accept the contradictory tug between familial responsibility and the illusion of freedom. Accept that – as Dumas said – the chains of marriage are heavy and, as such, they often need to be carried by several people. But never allow the two realms to meet – and never admit anything. Whereas you, Harry, confessed
everything
. . . didn't you?'

'Yes, I did. And yes, I was a fool to confess.'

'But you had to
share
the guilt.'

'I'd been caught . . .'

'Being caught and confessing are two different things.

You know the story of the man who gets caught by his wife in bed with another woman. Immediately he jumps up, naked, and starts yelling, "It's not me! It's not me!"'

'I'm afraid I've never had much in the way of "sangfroid".'

'No – you just feel uncomfortable about lying. You consider it reprehensible and morally wrong . . . even though it is the most common – and necessary – of human impulses.'

'You consider lying
necessary
?'

'Of course. How else do we navigate the absurdities of life without falsehoods? And do you know what the biggest falsehood is? "
I love you
."'

'Didn't you love your husband?'

She reached for her pack of cigarettes. I said, 'You always do that when I ask you something awkward.'

'You are a very observant man. And yes, I did love my husband . . .
sometimes
.'

'Just
sometimes
?'

'Now please don't tell me that you can love somebody all the time?'

'There's nothing I wouldn't do for my daughter.'

'Even though she won't speak with you now?'

'Did I tell you that?'

'Harry, you always sound so shocked when I infer something about your life. But it's not as if I have psychic powers. It's just . . .'

'My story is so banal and obvious?'

'All lives are extraordinary. All lives are simultaneously banal and obvious. From what you've told me so far, it's not hard to deduce certain things about you and your situation from a few hints you've dropped here and there. But as you don't want to talk about it . . .'

'Any more than you want to talk about what happened to
your
daughter . . .'

'My daughter died.'

'How?'

'Do you really want to hear this story?' she asked.

'Yes, I do.'

She turned her gaze away from me, focusing her eyes on the window near her bed. After several long drags on her cigarette, she began talking.

'On June 22, 1980, Zoltan took our daughter Judit – who was just seven – for a walk in the Jardin du Luxembourg. I remember telling him, as he left this apartment, that I was planning to have dinner ready in an hour, and wouldn't it be easier if they spent time across the road in the Jardin des Plantes. But Judit was very insistent about riding the carousel in the Luxembourg, and Zoltan – who so adored Judit he would give in to anything she asked – told me, "We'll take a taxi there and back. Anyway, it's midsummer's night, so why don't you come with us? We can splurge and go to a restaurant, and maybe even take Judit to see
Fantasia
afterward." But I had already started cooking a spaghetti sauce, and I was rather inflexible back then about changing our domestic schedule once it had been planned for the evening. So I insisted that they come back within an hour, no more. Zoltan told me I was being rigid, "
comme d'habitude
". I lashed back, saying that somebody had to be disciplined around here, in order to keep everything afloat. That's when he called me a bitch, and Judit got upset and asked why we had to fight all the time, and Zoltan said it was because I needed to control everything, and I told my husband that the only thing that was keeping me in this marriage was our little girl, because he was such a complete waste of time. Judit started to cry, and Zoltan yelled that he was sick of this marriage, and he grabbed Judit and told me that they would eat elsewhere tonight, and as far as he was concerned, I could drown in my fucking spaghetti sauce, and the door slammed behind them, and . . .'

She fell silent. Then, 'Hours went by. Three, four, five hours. I figured that, after they had gotten something to eat, they'd gone to the movie. But the cinema was only ten minutes from our apartment by foot. When eleven p.m. arrived, I was worried. By midnight, I was scared. By one a.m., totally panicked – and I started inventing scenarios in my head, telling myself that, in a fit of anger, he'd decided to check them into a hotel for the night . . . and that he wasn't letting me know their whereabouts to punish me for being such a bitch. But I knew that Zoltan would never do something so extreme. He mightn't have had much in the way of ambition, but he still didn't have a mean streak . . . something I always loved about him, even thought I was often so stupidly critical about so much to do with him. It's terrible, isn't it, how we lash out at the most important people in our lives – often against our better judgment, but just because we are frustrated in our own lives and . . .'

She broke off again. Another long drag on her cigarette.

'The police arrived just before two. When I heard the voices on the stairs, I realized immediately that . . .'

Silence.

'The police were very quiet, very solicitous. They told me there had been an accident, and would I please accompany them to the Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière. I became immediately hysterical and demanded to know what had happened. "
Un accident, madame
," one of them said, also explaining that they weren't able to discuss the circumstances of the incident or the condition of my husband and daughter. As the
gendarme
told me this, his colleague put his hand on my shoulder, as if to steady me. That's when I knew they were dead.

'I remember feeling as if I had walked into an empty elevator shaft – a long freefall. My legs buckled, but I somehow managed to make it into the bathroom and empty my stomach in the toilet. At that moment I wanted to stick my head into the vomit-filled water and not pull it out again. Death seemed like the only option. One of the policemen came into the bathroom and stood over me as I was sick. I sensed he knew I might do something selfdestructive – and once, when I dipped my head in the bowl, he gripped my shoulder and said, "You must somehow stay strong."

'I finished getting sick. The policeman helped me up. I remember flushing the toilet and going to the sink and filling it with cold water and plunging my head into it and the policeman getting a towel and wrapping it around my head, and shouting something to his colleague, and being helped into my coat and down the stairs, and into the back of their car.

'At the hospital, they brought me into this small room. We waited almost a quarter of an hour for the "officials" to arrive – but I didn't care. I knew that the longer "they" stayed away, the longer I wouldn't have to face . . .'

She stopped in mid-sentence to light up another cigarette.

'I must have gone through six cigarettes in that fifteen minutes. Then the door swung open and two men walked in. They were both middle-aged, chubby, grim-faced. One of them wore a white coat, the other a suit. A doctor and a police inspector. The doctor pulled up a chair beside me. The cop hovered by the door, watching me with dark, middle-of-the-night eyes. The doctor forced himself to make eye contact with me. When he started to say, "Madame, I regret to inform you . . ." I lost the fight I had been waging ever since the police had knocked on my apartment door. I must have cried for at least ten minutes – howling like some wounded animal. The doctor tried to take me by the hands to steady me, but I pushed him away. He offered something to calm me down. I screamed that nothing would deaden the pain. Eventually the doctor started explaining. "
Hit-and-run . . . killed while crossing a street . . . they were on a zebra crossing when the driver struck them both . . . your husband killed instantly, your daughter died just fifteen minutes ago . . . we tried everything we could to save her, but her neck was broken, her other internal injuries too severe . . .
"

'The police inspector then began to speak, telling me that a passer-by had taken down the number of the car – a black Jaguar – and that they expected to trace the vehicle and apprehend the driver within the next twenty-four hours. "
We are treating this as accidental manslaughter . . . but I must ask you: Did your husband have any enemies who might have wanted him . . . ?
" I started screaming again, telling him that Zoltan had been a wonderful dreamy layabout with no ambition whatsoever, so why would anyone want him dead? "
Très bien, madame
," the inspector said. "
I am sorry to have posed such a difficult question at this time
."