Woman in the Fifth

Twelve

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 Cinematheque.

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 cafe 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