“She’s stunning,” I say. “That girl on the wall. Who is she?”
There’s a long silence, so long that I think maybe she didn’t understand me. And then finally, in that rasping voice, she says: “My daughter.”
“Wow.” I take another look at her in light of this, her daughter’s beauty. It’s hard to see past the lines, the swollen ankles, the clawed hands—but maybe I can see a shadow of it, after all.
She clears her throat. “Vous devez arrêter,” she barks, suddenly, cutting into my thoughts. You have to stop.
“What do you mean?” I ask. “Stop what?” I lean forward. Perhaps she can tell me something.
“All your questions,” she says. “All of your . . . looking. You are only making trouble for yourself. You cannot help your brother now. You must understand that—”
“What do you mean?” I ask. A chill has gone right through me. “What do you mean, I cannot help my brother now?”
She just shakes her head. “There are things here that you cannot understand. But I have seen them, with my own eyes. I see everything.”
“What?” I ask her. “What have you seen?”
She doesn’t answer. She simply shakes her head. “I am trying to help you, girl. I have been trying since the beginning. Don’t you understand that? If you know what is good for you, you will stop. You will leave this place. And never look back.”
Sophie
Penthouse
There’s a knock on the door. I go to answer it and find Mimi standing there on the other side.
“Maman.” The way she says the word. Just like she did as a little girl.
“What is it, ma petite?” I ask, gently. I suppose to others I may seem cold. But the love I feel for my daughter; I’d challenge you to find anything close to it.
“Maman, I’m frightened.”
“Shh.” I step forward to embrace her. I draw her close to me, feeling the frail nubs of her shoulder blades beneath my hands. It seems so long since I have held her like this, since she has allowed me to hold her like this, like I did when she was a child. For a time I thought I might never do so again. And to be called “Maman.” It is still the same miracle it was when I first heard her say the word.
I have always felt she is more mine than Jacques’。 Which I suppose makes a kind of sense: because in a way she was Jacques’ greatest gift to me, far more valuable than any diamond brooch, any emerald bracelet. Something—someone—I could love unreservedly.
One evening—roughly a week after the night I had knocked on Benjamin Daniels’ door—Jacques was briefly home for supper. I presented him with the quiche Lorraine I had bought from the boulangerie, piping hot from the oven.
Everything was as it should be. Everything following its usual pattern. Except for the fact that a few nights before I had slept with the man from the third-floor apartment. I was still reeling from it. I could not believe it had happened. A moment—or rather an evening—of madness.
I placed a slice of quiche on Jacques’ plate. Poured him a glass of wine. “I met our lodger on the stairs this evening,” he said as he ate, as I picked my way through my salad. “He thanked us for supper. Very gracious—gracious enough not to mention the disaster with the weather. He sends you his compliments.”
I took a sip of my wine before I answered. “Oh?”
He laughed, shook his head in amusement. “Your face—anyone would think this stuff was corked. You really don’t like him, do you?”
I couldn’t speak.
I was saved by the ringing of Jacques’ phone. He went into his study and took a call. When he returned his face was clouded with anger. “I have to go. Antoine made a stupid mistake. One of the clients isn’t happy.”
I gestured to the quiche. “I’ll keep this warm for you, for when you come back.”
“No. I’ll eat out.” He shrugged on his jacket. “Oh, and I forgot to say. Your daughter. I saw her on the street the other night. She was dressed like a whore.”
“My daughter?” I asked. Now that she had done something to displease him she was “my” daughter?
“All that money,” he said, “sending her to that Catholic school, to try and make her into a properly behaved young woman. And yet she disgraced herself there. And now she goes out dressed like a little slut. But then, perhaps it’s no surprise.”
“What do you mean?”
But I didn’t need to ask. I knew exactly what he meant.