Woman in the Fifth

questions?’

Yeah. How do you spell ‘up your ass’?

‘The address, please?’ I asked.

He gave it to me. I wrote it down.

‘Do come prepared to dazzle,’ he said. ‘Those who shine get asked back. Those who don’t …’

‘I’m a total dazzler,’ I said.

He laughed a snide laugh. And said, ‘We’ll see about that.’

Nine

A BIG FUCK-OFF apartment near the Pantheon.

Those words came back to me that Sunday evening as I walked up the boulevard Saint-Michel in the direction of the Luxembourg Gardens. I had dressed carefully for the occasion: a black shirt and black pants and a black leather jacket I had bought at that second-hand shop on the faubourg Saint-Martin the previous day. It was a cold night, and the jacket didn’t put up much resistance against the cutting wind. I was around fifteen minutes early, so I stopped in a nearby cafe and ordered a whisky. Not a single malt or some other premium brand. Just a standard Scotch. When the waiter deposited the little bill with the drink and I turned it over and saw that it cost eleven euros, I tried to stop myself from gasping. Eleven euros for a shot of whisky? Welcome to the Sixth.

I would have spent a good hour nursing the whisky and reading the Simenon novel, La neige etait sale, that I had just picked up. But mindful of the seven-thirty cut-off point, I finished the Scotch, placed the necessary money on the table, tried not to think too hard about how eleven euros could buy me a day’s food, and headed off to Lorraine L’Herbert’s salon.

The address was 19 rue Soufflot. Tres haussmannien. You walk around Paris, you see dozens of examples of Baron Haussmann’s architectural left-behinds. This one was no different from the others: a large, formidable building, around six stories tall, with the requisite small baroque flourishes. Only given its location — just down the street from the Pantheon — and its elegant lobby, it was clear that this immeuble haussmannien was also a testament to imposing grand bourgeois values.

Which meant that, even before I had entered Lorraine L’Herbert’s building, I felt shabby and humbled by it.

I punched in the code. The door opened with a click. Inside was a speakerphone. I picked it up and pushed the button marked with her name. It was answered by the American who had vetted me on the phone. Voices could be heard in the background.

‘Name, please … Votre nom, s’il vous plait,’ he said.

I gave it to him.

‘One second, please … un instant …’ Then: ‘Fourth floor left … quatrieme etage gauche.’

The elevator was a small gilded cage. I took it to the top floor. Before it reached four, I could hear the sounds of loud conversation. When the elevator opened, I turned left and rang the bell. The door swung back. A short man dressed in black slacks and a black turtleneck was standing sentry. He had close-cropped hair and carried a stylish stainless-steel clipboard and an expensive pen.

‘Monsieur Ricks?’

I nodded.

‘Henry Montgomery. Madame L’Herbert’s assistant. Your envelope, please.’

I reached into my pocket and pulled it out and handed it over. He checked that my name was — as instructed — printed on its front. Having verified that, he said, ‘Coats in the first room down the corridor to your left, food and drink dans la cuisine. But after you’ve deposited your coat, you must come back here so I can take care of the introduction to Madame. D’accord? ‘

I nodded again — and followed Montgomery’s pointed finger down the corridor. It was a very long corridor, with high ceilings. The walls were white. There was a big abstract canvas — in five sections — that covered much of the wall space. Each panel was a varying shade of green, the outer ones lightish in timbre, the inner ones amalgamating nearblackish hue. From my fifteen-second assessment, it looked like Imitation Klein or Rothko, and was showing its thirty years badly.

But I decided that now was not the moment to proclaim such thoughts at the top of my lungs. Tourette’s hadn’t seized me yet.

Instead, I followed the corridor to the first door. It was already open. It was a small room with a double bed and one of those plastic blow-up chairs that were popular back at the end of the sixties, but now looked like something out of the Paleozoic era. Over the bed (in what I presumed was the guest room) was a big garish nude of a blonde, brassy woman with Medusa-like hair and a multicolored (maybe psychedelic?) menagerie of wild animals and exotic flora sprouting out of her ample bush of pubic hair.

I couldn’t imagine having a decent night’s sleep beneath such a painting. Still, its cheesy Summer of Love garishness did hold my attention. I must have lingered a little too long for Montgomery’s liking, as I heard his voice behind me.

‘Monsieur Ricks … Madame awaits you.’

‘Sorry, I was just …’

I motioned toward the canvas.

‘You approve?’ he asked.

‘Oh yes,’ I lied. ‘Especially as it’s so representative of a certain epoch.’

‘You know the artist?’

‘Peter Max?’

‘Oh, please … he was so commercial.’

And this guy isn’t?

‘So who’s the artist?’

‘Pieter de Klop, bien sur.’

‘Yeah, bien sur.’

‘And you know that Madame was his muse.’

‘That’s Lorraine L’Herbert?’ I asked, hearing the shocked tone in my voice.

‘Yes, that is indeed Madame,’ he said.

He motioned for me to follow him. We walked back down the corridor, then turned left into a large reception room. Like everywhere else I’d seen so far, it had white walls, a high ceiling and bad pop art. This room, however, was also large. Around thirty by twenty. Though it was currently black with people — most of whom seemed to be wearing black (at least, I wasn’t going to stand out from the crowd) — I could see that there were white leather sectional sofas dotted around the place, and a few more blow-up plastic chairs, and two more nude studies of Madame by the same artist. But I was steered away from the paintings by Montgomery. His hand firmly on my shoulder, he spun me around toward a voluminous woman — ample in all physical departments. She was nearly six feet tall, and must have weighed well over two hundred and fifty pounds. Her fleshy face was kabuki-like, courtesy of a pancake-based makeup that tinted her near-white, offset by big red-rouged lips. There were gold zodiac symbols dangling from her neck, and every finger had a ring, all of which seemed New Age in design. Her hair — now silver — was braided, and stretched down the length of her back. She was dressed in a kaftan and was holding a glass of champagne. With his hand still on my shoulder Montgomery leaned over and whispered something into Madame’s ear. She immediately burst into life.

‘Well, hey there, Harry.’

Her accent was thickly Southern.

‘Madame L’Herbert …’

‘Now, y’all got to call me Lorraine. You’re some kind of writer … ?’

‘A novelist.’

‘Have I read anything of yours?’

‘Definitely not.’