Daisy held out the cap. “It was nothing.”
Von Sternburg placed the cap on his head and drew the brim low on his brow. The ugly scar on the side of his face fell into shadow, so he seemed a degree less forbidding. He took her hand and kissed it, just as he had upon his arrival, and said, in a voice almost too low to be heard, “If you have need of anything, madame, anything at all, I hope you will not hesitate to find me.”
Daisy withdrew her hand. “I can’t imagine the necessity. Good evening to you, sir.”
He stood another second or two, quite rigid, studying her expression as if he meant to continue the conversation, wanted to discover some common ground between them. But not for nothing had Daisy endured eight years of marriage to Pierre Villon. She schooled her features into impassivity, a complete absence of intent, of personhood. She refused to acknowledge the earnest blue of his eyes, or the stern cut of his features beneath the brim of his hat, or the curve of his mouth that seemed to be pleading with her. To all these things she returned nothing, not the slightest sign of recognition, not even her own breath.
He closed his eyes briefly and sighed. “Good night, Madame Villon,” he said, and spun in an exact semicircle, opened the door, and left the apartment.
When the door clicked shut, Daisy let out all the air in her lungs. Her shoulders slumped. She put out one hand and leaned against the wooden panel, panting as if she’d just run a mile, as if she’d just dashed across Paris, all the way across France itself. Her pulse thudded in her neck.
“Madame?”
Daisy wheeled around. Justine stood a few meters away, holding her hat in her hands. She stared cautiously at the quick movements of Daisy’s chest.
“I’ve finished the dishes. Is there anything else?”
“No thank you, Justine. I’ll see you Monday.”
“Yes, madame.”
But Justine didn’t move, and Daisy realized she was waiting for her wages. She hurried into the salon and unlocked the desk, where she kept her precious store of francs. When she returned to the foyer, Justine was adjusting her hat before the mirror. She was a short, sturdy, dark-haired girl, the kind who might have been stout if it weren’t for the war and its shortages.
“Here you are, Justine. Good night. Give my greetings to your parents.”
Justine counted the coins and put them in the pocket of her jacket. “Yes, madame.”
This time, when the door closed, Daisy didn’t hesitate. She took off her shoes and padded down the hallway to the study, the door of which was closed and probably locked, though she didn’t try the handle. Instead she leaned the side of her head carefully against the hairline crack between door and frame. A low mutter of voices came to her, muffled by wood. She closed her eyes, so that every ounce of her concentration might pour through that little gap and gather up noise, gather up syllables and connect them into words, connect the words into sentences.
But the voices remained too low and too muffled. Daisy could distinguish only the smell of cigarettes, the clink of glasses, the occasional creaking of wood as somebody shifted his feet or his seat on a chair.
At last she stepped away and moved down the hall to the kitchen. Justine had left everything tidy, every dish put away, the table wiped and the floor swept, the lamp switched off, the curtains snug so as not to permit the slightest leak of warmth or light into the air outside. From the corner, the radiator groaned softly. Daisy turned and went back down the hallway, all the way to the end, where their bedroom lay. The men were still talking, and Pierre （she knew this from experience） would not want her to linger and wait, to add any feminine awkwardness to their masculine farewells. She changed into her nightgown, washed her face, brushed her hair and her teeth, checked briefly on the children—both sleeping peacefully—and crawled into bed. The sound of voices drifted through the walls, and as she lay awake on her thin pillow, staring through the darkness at the shadowed ceiling, she thought she heard the word July.
Possibly she fell asleep then, because she next became aware of Pierre banging open the door of their bedroom, reeking of cigarettes and brandy, humming something in his flat, tuneless way. He switched on the lamp carelessly and she opened her eyes a millimeter or two to watch him strip his clothes away, toss everything on the floor, piece by piece, necktie and collar and shirt and trousers, and clatter open a drawer for a pair of pajamas. She shut her eyes again and felt the sway of the mattress, the groan of springs as he settled in beside her.
“Daisy?” he said. “You’re awake?”