Sarah-Jeanne Loubier tucked her head deeper into her shoulders and accepted the compliment without turning around. Simone slipped away again. At any rate she didn’t have a thing to say: the drawing was so singular that all comment seemed beside the point.
The model took a few other poses. For the last, Simone drew while the students gathered round to watch and Pierre-Luc did a play-by-play. Not the most congenial set-up, but Simone was a good sport and even answered questions after. Then the students and models packed up and left, it was time, and the teacher invited his guest to grab a bite in town.
They walked in silence to a pizzeria they both liked and in fact went to every time. Sparse cottony snowflakes drifted hesitantly groundward. A table by the window had just opened up. They watched the people walking by outside, each enveloped in their tiny halo of mist.
Pierre-Luc began stammering again – he was powerless to control it, even after Simone gave him a warm look that would have put anyone at ease.
‘There’s one,’ Simone said suddenly, ‘who’s really something.’
‘You mean Sarah-Jeanne,’ said Pierre-Luc.
‘That’s right. It’s like she sees everything inside out. Like she’s outside looking in, just barely grazing her subject. I don’t really know how to explain. How does she do it?’
‘Well, I don’t know. And I don’t dare ask her to change her style. She’s stubborn. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.’
‘It’s like she’s drawing ghosts.’
‘You’re right,’ Pierre-Luc agreed. ‘What a lovely way to put it.’
Pizza came, conversation tapered off.
Pierre-Luc insisted on paying. They parted with a kiss whose tenor might be plotted not far from the midpoint of a median connecting love and friendship, though as we know all too well the path between those particular two points is anything but linear.
An hour later Simone set off on foot. On the way she bought a blouse with white and pale-grey checks, how to resist such a sale? The boutique’s bag alone was chic enough, and it wasn’t without pleasure that she scurried down to the port where a cruise ship and two icebreakers were moored. The north wind tickled her cheeks. Then she climbed into a tram that would take her to the terminus, Porte du Midi. There she procured a few bottles of wine and took refuge in a café, awaiting her order while admiring the afternoon’s purchase. She saw her bus, paid, left the restaurant, and was home by four.
A crepuscular house greeted her: it was that time of year when day cowers briefly and then beats a quick retreat. Faya wasn’t there; at least, her jacket and boots had taken leave. A cursory inspection of the fridge told Simone that no groceries had been purchased; would she not have done better to take matters into her own hands? She removed a few layers and headed toward the living room fireplace to rekindle yesterday’s coals. This mission accomplished, Simone stretched out on the couch, took off her reading glasses, and flipped through a few magazines. With a touch of coquetry she donned her new blouse and admired herself in the bathroom mirror.
This is the kind of piece, she thought, bemused, that Faya’s sure to snap up. Five-thirty rolled around. Faya, Simone thought, will surely be here soon. They must have just missed each other. Faya’s reading materials, mostly borrowed from the Bruant Public Library, were spread out all over the small living room table: Architecture and Utopia, by Gustave Alexis Pauk; The Third World and After: The Political Economy of an Awakening, by Limane Vieira; Functions of Art in Emerging Societies, by Teresa Sliman, and Beyond Misunderstanding: Feminism and Politics in the Era of Revolutions, by Leanne Boole – seminal works all, covered in a mushrooming overgrowth of Post-It notes dense with handwriting. Simon flipped through at random. At six she decided there was no point waiting for her aperitif after all. At 8:17, after single-handedly emptying a bottle of Chablis, Simone inspected the pantry and resigned herself to another plate of pasta and olive oil. Still no sign of Faya. She ate without much appetite, at once worried and annoyed that she felt thus.
At 2:28 a.m., Simone awoke to a kerfuffle below. A door closed; then laughter, whispering, clanking of bottles and glasses, what sounded like a drawer opening and shutting. Simone recognized Faya’s laugh, and in response the voice of a man – no, two. She heard old floorboards creak under percussive footsteps on the main floor, heading toward the living room where, who knew, a few coals perhaps smouldered still. Someone closed the living room door, and of what then ensued only a muffled version reached Simone’s ears. She spent several minutes with her head under a pillow, which blocked out noise imperfectly, and with eyes wide open she listened, what else could she do? The sounds came into focus. The fireplace grille was squeaking. Enthusiastic yelps could be heard, followed by Faya’s calls for silence. Then one man began to recite a text that rapidly garnered bravi from his audience. My collection of erotica, Simone surmised. The reading dragged on. Simone couldn’t quite recognize the text – she hadn’t read those for a while, and it wasn’t the type of writing whose every sentence stayed etched in your mind. She then became aware of rumblings of another nature, closer in register to moaning, and that’s when she remembered the earplugs in her handbag that lay, as chance would have it, on the chair next to the bed.
Simone was woken again at 5:38, this time by the creaking of stairs on which someone was treading, quietly and carefully, up to the second floor. Faya came into the bedroom, got undressed, slipped into bed, and nestled up against Simone in a cloud of exogenous odours: beer, marijuana, mansweat.
‘I didn’t know you were here,’ she lied in a cooing voice into Simone’s ear. ‘You should have joined us. I even brought one back for you.’
Fabrice Mansaré took advantage of his layover in Port Merveille to send his big sister a birthday card. With a little luck, his missive would reach its destination that very day. Fabrice Mansaré couldn’t speculate. For all he knew, his sister might not live in Neudorf anymore. Give Eugénie a kiss for me, he wrote in postscript, dreaming of the niece he’d never met in the flesh and knew only through a yellowed drawing, as he entrusted his envelope to the good graces of the international post.
He then boarded his plane, with a brand-new sports bag slung over his shoulder from which, once seated, he extracted a spy novel he proceeded to read not without amusement until they landed. Upon arrival he strode unchecked through customs and walked purposefully to the multimodal station where he waited for the train downtown. He didn’t think he was being followed.
Once home, he laid his bag down on his bed and sorted his things: clothing was placed back in the closet, the book rejoined its brethren on the shelf, the drawing of his niece who was no longer four years old enlivened the fridge door. An envelope stamped CONFIDENTIAL went back into an unremarkable briefcase.
Though somewhat exhausted, Fabrice Mansaré remained determined to complete his mission. He picked up his briefcase, changed his clothes, and went back outside. It was almost noon. As he pushed open the lobby door, a black sedan pulled up in front of the building. Two gruff men in black suits stepped out. The driver took up his post and stood, unmoving, at the vehicle’s side, keeping Fabrice Mansaré in the sights of his dark glasses. The other man opened the back door without a word.
‘Get in, please,’ said a phlegmatic voice from the back seat.
Fabrice Mansaré complied, without betraying any particular emotion. Three doors closed, the two last in perfect synchrony. The car started.
‘I was on my way to the bank,’ noted Fabrice Mansaré.
‘We’ll drop you off,’ said the small man who’d enjoined him to get in the car. ‘You were able to meet with Sorgue.’
‘Yes,’ said Fabrice Mansaré, elaborating only with a tap on his briefcase.
‘You should lie low for a few weeks,’ said the young phlegmatic man. ‘People have been talking since you left. Let’s not make it any worse. And since you’re going to the bank anyway,’ he added, handing Fabrice