Never one to waste even a glum day, I resolved to take the metro to the Louvre and revisit my favorite artworks. Upon arriving at the Louvre, I paid and mounted the stairs to gaze at the Winged Victory of Samothrace. With wings windblown and ready to take flight, the stone figurehead inspired my ascent as I drew ever closer to her pedestal. I stood before her in silence. After that, I sought out the rooms that displayed the Mona Lisa and Rembrandt’s Bathsheba. I had included a description of the latter in my published dissertation: The Ethics of Virtue, and had never tired of viewing it, again and again. Bathsheba’s comely simplicity, the contemplative look on her face, and the soft glow of lamp light about her hips and breasts, had a way of slipping into the deepest crevices of my humanity. Her nudity aroused neither lust nor inordinate desire. She was the complete opposite of Manet’s Olympia. Before leaving the museum, I returned downstairs to gawk at the Venus de Milo: the Roman counterpart of the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite. For me, her statue elicited the highest sense of grace and respect for love’s mystery that a human masterpiece can create. I tried not to glance back as I departed her room. It was time to return to the pension for tea and Mme. Angleterre’s visit.
I had no idea what the concierge deemed so urgent. She brought the tray, nicely arranged with two bone-white cups and saucers, a silver creamer and sugar bowl, with spoons and forks and napkins and two small shimmering peach tarts. “The British know how to do it better than we, but, voila, Monsieur. Just for you!” she gestured with a flourish of her hands, after setting the tray on my desk.
“Well, do take a seat and tell me what’s up,” I smiled.
“Ohh, a pension’s secrets, Monsieur! The walls have eyes, you know, and ears. Don’t be upset if I whisper.”
“Whisper away,” I grinned. “You’ve got my ears burning with curiosity, and my mouth salivating over these tarts.”
“Ohhhh, you charming devil, if only I were younger and pretty, like the English mademoiselle. You like her, non?”
“Oui. She’ll do in a rainstorm.”
“Ahhh, l’amour, it isn’t just for the young, you know? I was married myself,” she boasted shyly. “But Robert was killed in the war; actually, during the Resistance. They shot him not far from here.”
“I’m humbled to hear that.”
“Humiliating was more like it. They lined him up with three others and gunned them down. Bang! Bang! Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat!” she motioned, as if spraying the room with a machine gun. “They left them on the sidewalk of the Rue D’Ulm for their families to take away. But, that’s not why I’m here!” she frowned, regaining her composure. “It’s to share a little scandal, oui!”
“I’m listening.”
“Alors! It’s Mme. Dufavre. She’s hiding a man in her apartment, a lover, I do believe. He comes late at night and leaves before anyone can see him. I’ve watched him do it three times.” She sipped her tea, while munching on the sticky tart. She wiped its glaze off her fingers and onto her apron, never once touching her fork or napkin.
“But how do you know he’s her lover? Maybe he’s just a friend, or relative?”
“Ohhh, Professeur! Come now, we’re adults!” she said, raising her voice a tiny pitch. She completed eating her tart and, tilting her head back, drained the cup to the last drop of tea, then wiped the saucer with her napkin.
“My grandmother used to do that, only she drank her tea, or rather coffee, from a saucer. Perhaps that’s an old French custom.”
“I think there’s more to Madame’s lover than—,” she paused, as if searching for the mot juste, “sensuality,” she beamed.
“Oh!”
“Yes! Definitely! I think he’s the thief who killed the old woman across the street.”
“How do you know that, or that the motive was a theft?”
“The old woman was rich, they say. Kept her money in a pillow slip. The Madame knew her. She used to be a lodger here.”
“Still, murder and theft would be hard to prove.”
“I know, so I don’t tell anyone but you.” She leaned forward and stared curiously at me. “I’d keep an eye on her. She’s a strange one, I tell you. Beware!”
Seeing I had finished my tart and tea, Mme. Angleterre gathered up the tray, with its empty dishes, and walked toward the door. I rose to open it for her.
“Remember. Watch your back.”
“Yes! Thank you. I will.”
After the concierge left, I returned to my desk to mull over her “secret.” I hardly believed that Dufavre and her visitor were murderers or thieves. Why would Mme. Angleterre have even posed the possibility, unless she herself were implicated, or entertained an incredible, creative imagination, or thwarted desire for riches of her own? I could only assume the latter disjunctives, but, surely she wasn’t involved! But that wouldn’t be the first time a concierge was at fault. There were always whispers in the dining room about previous concierges, who had cheated Dufavre of clients’ money. “They come to your room, pretend that Dufavre is ill, and that she has delegated them to collect the rent,” the two companions to my right had explained. The short, black-haired one had shaken his head with great disapprobation. “Terrible! It was terrible!” he stated, with a dour look. “She made us pay again, twice! Called us ‘Stupid!’ Oui!”
I didn’t doubt it.
That evening, as I sat at table, I surveyed the room, wondering if any of the pensioners present might be involved. The Japanese rarely came down to eat. They cooked in their room. You could smell their food the moment you entered the stairwell. Dufavre frequently threatened to oust them, but they were still there. Other than the Belgian and Christine, the other guests were all Frenchmen, or widows, and elderly at that. One old gentleman always came down in coat and tie, smartly dressed, save for his unpolished shoes, and would line up a row of spices and hot sauces to douse on each course, save for his dessert. That was usually a pudding or tart. Once in a while I would see him in the park, reading newspapers, or playing boules with a small cadre of other old gentlemen.
The only younger pensioners were Christine, myself, the Japanese, and a French woman in her thirties, along with her teenage daughter. They sat at the far end of the salle à manger, near Christine. Both had dyed their hair red; wore short skirts, and squabbled quietly between themselves. Sometimes the mother would suddenly stand up, throw her napkin in her plate, and denounce her daughter for all to hear. My knowledge of her colloquial slang was limited, but I gathered she was accusing the girl of bringing boyfriends to their room when she wasn’t there. Since they didn’t room on my floor, I had no idea how true her accusations might be. The two guys to my right would turn their heads and listen with amused interest. “Alors! There you go, Gaston! No more bus rides across town. Oui?”
“Silence!” Gaston would blush. He was the taller of the two and younger as well.
The Belgian was an engineer and worked for an electrical company on the outskirts of Paris. He dressed conservatively—dark trousers and gray shirts, with black ties, and kept to himself. He never once spoke to me, but he would nod respectfully toward Christine and greet her with a smile. Maybe he was the one? To my knowledge, he roomed in the top floor, just under the attic, which was reserved for the dishwasher, server, and cook. It was unheated, and I always felt sorry for them. They wore the same clothes, or outfits, everyday, appeared clean, but, as in the case of the server, no amount of cologne could disguise or suppress their body odor. I never knew the cook’s name, but the dishwasher was a tall, dark haired French girl, obviously poor, but pretty. The server was a shorter woman of medium height, jet black hair, her face always white from an over-application of facial powder, and her lips a bright red.