2 NOT ONE BOOKPICTURE
2
N OT O NE B OOK OR P ICTURE
“You’re Barbara, right? I just stretched out for a minute because I’m wiped from all the travel. It’s impossible to sleep on that night train from Barcelona. I got here, and I just ... plop, like someone knocked me out. I left my things in the room. I took the one that looked like it belonged to Marcel. Anyway, I didn’t bring much. I don’t think I’ll stay for too long. Nothing but a suitcase that’s heavy as a corpse, some camera equipment. That’s it. Marcel didn’t mention that there weren’t any elevators. I’d already dragged it all from the station! I mean these little hills in Montmartre are a death trap, and when I walked through the doorway and saw I had to climb it all on foot ... There must be, what? A hundred steps, maybe? Now, the apartment’s a little shabby, but it’s warm and has a charm ... with those large windows. When I first opened the bedroom door, I thought, ‘It can’t be this one.’ It was too neat to be my brother’s room. Then I went into the bigger room—the one with more light, the one that faces out front. Honestly, clever as he is, I thought Marcel would’ve picked the nice room. But then I noticed that the room was full of women’s stuff. Don’t worry, I didn’t move anything; but I saw perfumes and ducks everywhere, and I figured you must have ended up with the room ... You’re his roommate, right? Barbara? Is your name Barbara?”
She couldn’t believe it. Marcel never said anything. She didn’t even know he had a brother. And if he’d ever mentioned him in some conversation in the kitchen, she certainly hadn’t heard, because in the months that they’d lived together on rue Chappe, they mostly kept to themselves. Barbara worked from home, glued to the computer, obsessed with her books, and Marcel woke up early, went to the firm, and, when he got home after dark, went out for a run, showered, ate something prepackaged, and shut himself in his room.
“Yes, I’m Barbara Hébrard. But I’m not his roommate. Marcel didn’t tell me he was subletting his room.”
“Oh no, I’m not subletting it. He’s letting me borrow the room. I’m his brother. His little brother. He told me I could move in.”
“In any case ... I think he could’ve warned me. Same way he said, ‘I’ve got an important case in Toulouse. I’m not sure how long the trial is going to last.’ He could have just said, ‘I’m giving my brother the room. He’s coming from Barcelona on this exact date. He’s got my keys and will let himself in when he pleases.’”
“I’ve had warmer welcomes.”
“And then on top of it all ... it’s bothering you ? I come home, find some guy sprawled out on my sofa, and when I go to call the police, you wake up, and you’re offended ...?”
“Look, he’s paying a thousand euros a month. The least he can do is let me borrow his bed ... Don’t you do whatever you feel like doing?”
“I don’t know what your brother told you, but we are not roommates by any means. The apartment is mine.”
“Yours?” Roger was incredulous.
“What a surprise, huh? As if!”
“Impossible.” The intruder laughed. “You’re kidding me. Marcel would’ve told me. And you ...” He looked around the apartment with distaste. “You wouldn’t have it looking like this.”
“What do you mean ‘like this’?”
“Not one book or picture in the whole house. If you don’t mind me saying, it’s decorated like an old person’s house.”
“If you don’t like it, get that dead-body luggage of yours and go stay at a hotel.” She blurted it without thinking. “If there’s one thing we have in Paris, it’s rats and hotels.”
“Jesus, we can’t be honest anymore?”
“The apartment belonged to my grandmother. She lived here her whole life. Now I live here, and because it’s more than I can afford, I rented out a room to your brother for exactly 1,150 euros a month because he seemed like a clean and polite-enough gentleman with good French, always wearing that lawyer tie perfectly straight, and he hasn’t broken a single rule since we’ve lived together.”
“Oh man, us two are night and day, aren’t we? If I were you, I’d marry him. He’s around thirty-eight and, so far as I know, single.” The intruder took his phone out of his jeans pocket. “Should I call him and ask?”
Barbara shot him a glare. Before going for the final kill, she decided to try to ignore him. She picked her two bags off the floor and placed them atop the kitchen table. Mad as she was, she opened the fridge and, without even realizing what she was doing, started shelving the half-dozen carton of eggs, the zucchini, the tomatoes, and the package of sole she planned on making that afternoon. She still hadn’t even learned Marcel’s brother’s name. He’d gone back to sitting on the red sofa and taken off his boots and socks. Barefoot, he slowly approached the edge of the kitchen. He tried to start over, with a new tone.
“Did she die a while ago?”
“Who?”
“Your grandmother.”
“My grandmother? Mine?” She turned to face him again. She found him a little too close for her liking. “Who said she died?”
“You. You said that you’d ended up with the apartment. I thought that meant ...” He extended his hand. “Roger Narbona.”
“I’m sticky from the fish. I’ll shake your hand some other day.”
He returned his hand to the pocket where his phone had been. Barbara turned on the faucet and washed her hands with dish soap. For the first time since entering the house, she let out a self-satisfied victory smile.
“She’s a personality, she is, my grandmother. She’s good and well. Mamie Margaux is my hero.”