Woman in the Fifth

‘Surely you didn’t blame yourself for …’

‘Of course I fucking blamed myself. If it hadn’t been for me insisting that they rush home for dinner …’

‘That’s absurd, and you know it.’

‘Don’t tell me what’s absurd. Had I been more flexible about things, about my stupid spaghetti sauce …’

Another silence, only this time I didn’t dare fill it. Finally she said, ‘It’s time you left.’

‘OK.’

‘You think me rigid, don’t you?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘No — but I know you hate the fact I shoo you out of here after a few hours and insist that I only see you every three days.’

‘It’s OK, Margit.’

‘Liar. It’s not OK. You tolerate it, but you don’t like it.’

‘Well … if this is the way it has to be …’

‘Stop being so reasonable … especially when I know it’s an act.’

‘Everyone acts in relationships … especially ones as strange as this one.’

‘There! You said it. A strange relationship. So if you find it so strange, why don’t you abandon it? Tell me I’m a rigid, controlling bitch and …’

‘What happens after I leave here?’

‘I work.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Believe what you want.’

‘So what are you translating right now?’

‘That’s my business.’

‘In other words, nothing.’

‘What I do after you leave is my business.’

‘Is there another guy?’

‘You think me that energetic?’

‘No, just completely cryptic.’

‘Do yourself a favor, Harry. Walk out of here now and don’t come back.’

‘Why the melodrama?’

‘Because it won’t end well. It never does with me.’

‘Maybe that’s because you’ve never been able to get over—’

‘Don’t play the psychiatrist here. You know nothing about me. Nothing.’

‘I know … what you just told me … that terrible story …’

‘What? It “touched your heart”. Or maybe it brought out your long-dormant protective instincts which you didn’t extend to your wife and daughter—’

‘That was a shitty thing to say.’

‘So leave and don’t come back.’

‘That was the point of that comment, right? See if you could really alienate me and make me never want to come back here. But maybe if you stopped blaming yourself—’

‘That’s it!’ she said, standing up. ‘Get dressed and get out.’

But I grabbed her and violently yanked her back on to the bed. When she struggled, I pinned both her arms down and climbed on top of her legs.

‘Now you can answer two questions for me.’

‘Fuck you,’ she said.

‘That scar on your throat …’

She spat in my face. I ignored that and increased my pressure on her hands and legs.

‘That scar on your throat. Tell me …’

‘A botched suicide. Happy now?’

I let her arms go. They lay motionless on the bed.

‘Did you try to kill yourself right after you were released from hospital?’

‘Two days later. In the apartment where I fucked Monsieur Corty.’

‘He asked you to fuck him forty-eight hours after … ?’

‘No. I proposed the idea. He was hesitant, telling me there was no need to rush things. But I insisted. After he’d given me his usual two-minute in-and-out, I excused myself and went into the kitchen and grabbed a bread knife and …’

‘You really wanted to punish him, didn’t you?’

‘Absolutely — even though he was always so good to me. Or as good as anyone could be to a whore.’

‘But the very fact you did it when he was in the next room …’

‘No, it wasn’t a cry for help. If you cut your throat the right way, you die on the spot. I botched it … and Monsieur Corty somehow managed to stop the bleeding and call an ambulance and …’

‘You lived.’

‘Unfortunately … yes.’

‘And Monsieur Corty?’

‘He visited me twice in the hospital, then sent me a check for ten thousand francs — a small fortune back then — with a short note, wishing me well in the future. I never heard from him again.’

‘And the driver of the car?’

‘He was a man with many connections — so he managed to keep everything out of the papers, and the magistrate investigating the case somehow decided to drop the charges from manslaughter to something punishable by a slap on the wrist and a fine. His people offered me compensation. Fifty thousand francs. I refused the offer — until my lawyer reasoned with me and said that I would be spiting myself if I didn’t take his money … especially as he could get it increased by fifty percent. Which he did.’

‘So you accepted the payment?’

‘Seventy-five thousand francs for the lives of the two people who meant most to me in the world.’

‘And the driver just vanished from view?’

‘Not exactly. The world sometimes works in strange ways. Three weeks after the accident, there was an attempted burglary at the home of Henri Dupre. It was the middle of the night, Dupre surprised the burglar, there was a tussle and Dupre was stabbed in the heart. Fatally.’

‘And you felt avenged?’

‘It counted for something, I suppose — especially as Dupre showed little remorse for the murder of my family. His lawyers did all the dirty work for him — but I never even received a card apologizing for the terrible thing he had done. All I received was a check.’

‘So revenge has its virtues?’

‘The standard moral line on revenge is that it leaves you feeling hollow. What bullshit. Everyone wants the wrongs against them redressed. Everyone wants to “get even”. Everyone wants what you Americans call “payback”. And why not? Had Dupre not been killed, I would have lived my life thinking that he’d gotten away with it. That burglar did me a huge favor: he ended a life that was worth ending. And I was grateful to him.’

‘But did it in any way balm the wound?’

‘Hardly. You might come to terms with the loss of a husband — no matter how much you miss him — but you never get over the death of a child. Never. Dupre’s death didn’t mollify my grief — but it did give me some grim satisfaction. And I’m certain that shocks you.’

‘Part of me wants to say, “Yes, I am appalled …”’

‘And the other part?’

‘Understands exactly why you felt that way.’

‘Because you too want revenge?’

‘I haven’t suffered anything like you have.’

‘True, no one died. But you did suffer the death of your marriage, your career. And your child will not speak with you …’

‘As you reminded me earlier.’