from PAIRS: Eight Paris Episodes by Lilian Faschinger

Translated from the German by Elizabeth Gaffney

Chapter 4

For the past three months, Nicole Bouquet had lived alone. This morning, she was sitting at her round dining-room table and enjoying a second soft-boiled egg. For her, breakfast was the most important meal of the day. She poured another cup of coffee and took a sip, spread a slice of bread with butter and honey and bit into it. She leaned back in her chair and gazed at the undisturbed place setting across the table. When she'd eaten something more than half the bread, she went around to the other side of the table, the remaining bread in one hand, the shell of her first soft-boiled egg in the other. She placed the half-eaten slab of bread on the empty plate and slid the scooped-out eggshell into the egg cup that stood beside it. Then she poured some coffee into the empty cup and drank it down almost to the bottom. She stirred the clean teaspoon around in the dregs and laid it on the saucer, next to the cup. Before rumpling the neatly folded white linen napkin, she took the unused knife, dipped it briefly into the honey and returned it to its place. She stepped back and took in the scene. Then she went into the front room, where she found a pack of cigarettes, and dumped its contents - five cigarette butts - onto the lid of the jelly jar.

A short time later, Nicole Bouquet left her apartment, as she did every Saturday, to visit her father in Nogent-sur-Marne. On her way out, she stopped short, bent down and picked up a sheet of paper lying on the shiny parquet floor, just by the front door. She smiled. A gift from the landlord's daughter. Every few days, the little one slipped a drawing under the door. She glanced briefly at the paper. It was another one of her great spider webs with stick men dangling from the strands. The girl and she had never discussed the drawings, and Nicole had no intention of mentioning them. It pleased her that they had this small secret together. She laid the sheet of paper on the hall table, next to a stack of mail addressed to Alain Bouquet, and left the apartment. On the stairs, Nicole met Madame Moretti and greeted her curtly, avoiding her eye. She didn't like the girl's mother.

In the center of the square patio, which was planted with trees, shrubs and flowers, an old man in a gray suit with droopy arms sat on an uncomfortable chair. Urs Berger had closed his eyes and turned his face to the sun. His nose was large and well formed, his skin mottled with dark age spots, his hair snow white and still fairly thick. Behind his unusually long ears, he wore a pair of bulky, flesh-colored hearing aids.

He blinked. His daughter would be visiting him today. He had no objection to her coming, but the way she bustled around made him nervous and interrupted his memories. Despite the warm, summery weather, he was often cold, and the moment a ray of light fell on the patio, he moved his chair to the spot in the sun, sat motionless and soaked up the warmth. When the sun moved, he moved his chair along with it. Sometimes he marveled at the fact that he would be spending the rest of his life in France, but it didn't much matter to him one way or the other where he was. He lived in the house of his childhood, in the small Swiss village by the lake.

"Push harder, my boy," said his grandmother in her headscarf, her black housedress waving in the wind, as she pulled the wagon of fresh hay. Head down, he leaned with all his might against the wooden frame of the vehicle and he saw his bare, brown feet walking across the light, dry grass between the wheel tracks. "Listen, my boy - that's the sound of lost souls," his grandmother said when the stove hissed, then opened the small iron door and tossed a pinch of salt into the fire, making it sizzle. "Pull harder, my boy," said the priest, and he pulled, went down on his knees and hung onto the bell pull until it lifted him high in the opposite direction.

The old man opened his eyes and turned his head. From a branch of the small cherry tree hung a large bird cage, swaying gently this way and that. This cage had been the home of his canary, a small bird with mottled green and yellow plumage which had delighted him with song for almost eleven years - it was a roller canary. Although it was true that with the passage of time, it had grown increasingly difficult for him to make out the bird's song; his hearing had declined rapidly after his wife's death. A short time after his move, the bird had died; he just hadn't been up to the relocation. His feathers had grown dull and mangy, he'd lost interest in flying, then stopped singing entirely. Six months ago, he'd lain dead in his cage, on his back, and the old man had buried him in a corner of the patio.

Urs Berger refocused his gaze on the scene in front of him and was startled to see his daughter standing there, smiling. He hadn't heard her coming. She looked a little severe in her dark dress; light colors suited her better. She said something to him, but he didn't understand it. He lifted his large, callused hands to his ears and turned the dials of his hearing aids. He usually kept them off or halfway up, for though he heard better with the volume on full, the squeals and crackles that went along with the volume annoyed him. Anyway, there really wasn't much he needed to hear; he could get the essential information just by reading his daughter's lips. He didn't communicate with anyone but Nicole and her husband, unless you counted the few words he exchanged with his neighbors, the vendors at the market and the cashiers at the grocery store. Lately, he hadn't seen much of Alain either, for that matter.

"I brought a filet of beef, Dad," his daughter said. "You like that, don't you?"
The tone of her voice grated on his ears. There were certain vocal ranges he couldn't stand.
"Can you hear me, Dad?" she asked. "Filet of beef with olive sauce."
Olive sauce. He didn't enjoy the food his daughter made. She was not a good cook.
"Wonderful!" he said.

Alain Bouquet was going upstairs. Halfway there, he ran into Mira.
"Hello, Mr. Bouquet," she said. "Are you living somewhere else now? I haven't seen you in so long."
"Hello Mira," he said and patted her on the head without stopping. "Did you know that the noses of curious girls just grow and grow and grow?"
"I don't hear the music anymore, either," she called after him, closely inspecting the tip of her nose with her fingertips.

Alain Bouquet entered the apartment, took the small stack of letters from the hall table and glanced through them to see who they were from. Envelopes in hand, he entered the spacious living room but paused after a few steps, when he saw the table. Apparently, Nicole had not eaten breakfast alone. He came by every Saturday to pick up his mail, and this was the third time in several weeks that there had been two places laid. He went over to the table and examined the remains of the meal. The cigarette butts caught his eye. Five of them. Last time it was three. Nicole hated smokers. She never invited her officemate from the Swiss Cultural Institute to the house, although she liked him, because he smoked. She preferred to meet him in a café. This was odd. Alain went over to where his marimba stood in the corner, picked up the wooden mallets and played the first few bars of "El Carretero." Sooner or later, he would have to have the marimba moved over to Natalie's. But her apartment was full of furniture, plants, books, pictures, other junk, and he wondered where they would find room for it. He let his arms drop, turned and stood motionless, his back slumped.

How nice that Nicole was amusing herself. Very nice. It seemed that she was getting over the separation relatively quickly after all. Very good, then. He stretched. So he had no reason to worry. That was great, if nonetheless a little surprising. For a short while he'd been afraid she might harm herself. But no. On the contrary. It was a good thing he wasn't the jealous type. Furthermore, she'd always hated smokers.

Alain (stood up and) sauntered through the apartment, thumbs stuck in the armholes of the vest he wore over a white T-shirt that read: Hola, Salsa! The door to the bedroom stood half open, and he glanced inside. The sheets were in disarray. Peculiar. Nicole normally made the bed before leaving the house. He went into the bathroom. Draped over the edge of the tub lay a cream colored silk nightgown. Alain bent down and sniffed it. In addition to the familiar odor of Nicole, he thought he smelled a faint whiff of smoke clinging to the fabric. Remarkable how quickly a person could distance herself from long-standing principles. Presumably, the guy reached for a cigarette first, in the morning, and only then for Nicole. He shook his head to dislodge the vision of Nicole and this chain-smoker sharing his marriage bed. He didn't like the image. He had never smoked. But really it was lovely for her, just terrific. In principle, the situation was ideal for all parties involved. He wondered what the guy looked like. Probably like Serge Gainsbourg. Hadn't Serge Gainsbourg smoked sixty Dunhills a day? And died of lung cancer? The risks were fairly great. Generally, chain-smokers didn't live long. Lung cancer or circulatory problems, the guy could count on one of them. It wouldn't be easy for Nicole, but he was sure she would stick by him. He knew her. She'd sacrifice everything to care for him till the end. Would Natalie do the same for him, if he were gravely ill, he wondered. Probably not - she was just twenty-five. At that age, the sense of responsibility was not highly developed. He looked into the mirror over the sink, wrinkled his brow and stroked his cheeks. He looked a little the worse for wear; there were dark rings under his eyes. Last night they'd played till two at the Tropical, and then Natalie had wanted to go dancing. The whole concert long she had watched him with /in?/ amazement from a table near the stage. Of course he was flattered by her adulation, but it had been almost a little oppressive. Right on the edge of oppressive.

Alain took off his skullcap. Nicole had knitted it for him from colorful bits of leftover wool at the beginning of their relationship, and he wore it constantly, to hide his bald spot. It was expected that musicians appear young. Unless they were extremely successful. He was not young any longer, and no more successful than he was young. But not old. Nicole was the same age. It was actually pretty astounding that a middle-aged woman had taken up with such a heavy smoker after such a brief separation from her husband. It was foolish. Ultimately, she would become a passive smoker and damage her own health as well. Her personality must have undergone some drastic changes in the past months. He looked at the thin gray hair that reached almost to his shoulders. It was hard to believe that Natalie, this wonderful, youthful creature, worshipped him. It was a gift. What else could he have done? How could anyone have expected him to decline such a gift? When he'd revealed that he'd fallen in love with another woman and wanted to move in with her, Nicole had reacted with great insight. She had once again shown a great deal of understanding. That sort of generosity in a woman was rare. She deserved her new happiness with the chain-smoker. It was a good thing he wasn't the jealous type. He took a deep breath and turned away from the mirror.

Nicole walked arm-in-arm with her father along the bank of the Marne. It was hot, but he'd refused to take off his jacket. Her father could certainly be stubborn. She looked out at the boats at anchor in the small yacht basin.

"Did you enjoy the beef, Dad?" she asked.
"Why doesn't Alain come to see me anymore?" he asked, turning to look at her.
"Did you enjoy it?" she repeated.
"You know, I do miss that bird," said her father, looking across to the other side of the river. "He was so trusting; he always came to my finger. I loved to watch him preen himself. He would run his beak across each of the pin feathers and tail feathers individually. A very clean bird."

It was hard to have a conversation with her father, his hearing was so bad. She'd often tried to convince him to get modern hearing aids, but he didn't want to part with the old, familiar apparatus. They came to the former Ginguettes, a row of small, simple restaurants with outdoor seating in back, where people had once drunk wine and danced on the weekend.

"What do you say we sit under a tree and have something to drink?" asked Nicole.
He continued on without reacting to her question.
"He just loved to take a bath. Every day, he took a bath."
"Maybe you should get another canary?"
"A bird?"
"Yes, wouldn't it be nice if we got you another canary?"
"Did you know it was the Tyroleans who first brought canaries up north from Italy?" he said. "The Tyrolean miners. It was a great source of extra income for them. They lugged huge wooden frames on their back on which these tiny bird cages were hung. They could bring up to two hundred canaries north that way at a time, can you imagine? The Tyroleans were famous for selling birds." He paused briefly. "I miss the roller." he said at last.
"The bird market will be open tomorrow. We'll drive down there and buy you a new one," said Nicole.
"He lived to eleven years. That's old," said her father. "He sang all four melodies and their variants. That's rare. He had a beautiful voice."
Nicole stood still and gestured toward the water with her hand. "Look at the island!"
"Lovely," said he father, without raising his eyes from the ground. "And after a bath, he sang particularly beautifully."
Nicole was feeling a little impatient. It was very hot.
"Let's go back," she said. "We can sit on the patio for a while. It'll be cooler there."
She turned around without letting go of her father's arm, and in this way forced him to follow along with her. He stumbled and held onto her tightly.
"I miss Alain," he said. "Why doesn't he come anymore? He hasn't died, has he?"
"No, Dad. We've separated. Three months ago."
"That's wonderful!" said Urs Berger, looking up at his daughter and smiling.

Nicole parked her car in the rue Beaurepaire and got out. She was exhausted. The traffic had been heavy, and she was having difficulty concentrating. She locked the car and walked toward the canal. Sometimes she wondered if it had been a good idea to bring her father to live in Paris, after her mother had died. He was so lonely here. But she was an only child, and there were no other relatives to take him in. And so she'd bought the apartment in Nogent, with the thought that she would later move in with Alain. Her parents' apartment in Glarus had been small and had no outdoor space, but in Nogent her father could sit out on the patio. She liked the area, it was on the water, and it was quieter than in the city. Her father was eighty-six years old, and in the meantime, thanks to his increasing deafness, he would hardly have been able to get along on his own anymore, even if he were still in Switzerland.

She crossed the street and passed close by a large Dumpster that contained a mountain of knotted, pink tulle. From the small windows of a top-floor apartment, a couple of young men with bare chests shouted untoward remarks in her direction and laughed. At the entrance to the café in her building stood Mr. Moretti, the proprietor, quite lost in the observation of a young woman wearing tight jeans who was about to cross one of the bridges that arched over the canal. Nicole climbed the stairs and entered her apartment. The stack of letters was gone. She opened both windows in the living room. From below, she could hear the nagging voice of the landlady. Madame Moretti hit the girl, and her father didn't protect her. Nicole stood there at the window until the yelling had stopped . She asked herself why she didn't interfere, why she didn't tell the girl's mother it wasn't right. On the other side of the courtyard, on the ground floor, the door to what had once been the superintendent's apartment stood open. She could see the painter who had recently moved in sitting under the small glass chandelier, contemplating a half-finished picture. With his little bald pate, he looked like a monk.

"And we'll go to Cuba in August. Do you promise me that?" said Natalie, wrapping her brown arms around Alain's neck. I can't believe you never been there. I mean, you been playing with Cuban musicians for years."

Alain didn't respond. The cell phone rang. Natalie looked for it and found it under some clothes by the bed. It must be Pascale. She called her sister almost every morning and discussed her dreams with her. On standing up, he stepped into a wooden bowl of chips and let out a quiet curse. He tiptoed his way like a dancer through the maze of food cartons, plastic bags, books, plates, bottles and clothes that lay on the floor to the kitchenette, where Natalie's cat Robespierre waited miaowing for his breakfast and began to rub up against Alain's legs. The cat was old and smelly. Alain had taken a dislike to him right from the start. He shoved him aside with his foot. The tiles beneath his feet were sticky. He looked around for the espresso maker, found it at the bottom of a mountain of dirty dishes and washed it out. Then he reached into the overhead cabinet where the can of coffee was stored. The door hung half off its hinges and would probably fall to the floor before long. The can was empty. He cursed quietly again and put a small pot of water to boil on one of the two burners. Gradually, the disorder of Natalie's apartment was beginning to get to him. Every inch of space was taken; you could barely move.

"So, my sister dreamed her room was completely filled with English roses," called Natalie from the bedroom. "Pink and white. Fascinating, huh? I had given them to her. Any idea what it might mean? Something to do with lesbianism and latent incest, at any rate."

He said nothing. On the kitchen counter lay the bread they had bought the night before. He tried to cut a piece of it, but it was rock hard. Then he went down the long, narrow hall to the tiny bathroom that had no door, and stepped into the shower stall, the door of which was ajar. It was jammed. He turned the hot-water spigot, but there was only cold.

"Havanna's supposed to be such an unbelievable city. You promise we'll go?" she asked, and he turned around. She stood in the doorway, lithe, brown and naked, with a narrow waist and round hips, her dark hair framing her sleepy face. Her body was flawless. The erection he got a moment later was slightly painful. Natalie smiled a slightly crooked smile and joined him in the shower.

"What did he say?" asked Urs Berger, nervously turning on his hearing aids. "That's not a roller canary, it's another kind. I don't know that kind."
"It's a Belgian water schläger," said Nicole. The salesman said they're easy to care for. Isn't he handsome?"
"That's no roller," muttered the old man and he watched the delicate, yellow and white bird in its little cage.
"They're particularly good singers," said the salesman. "They're bred in the Mechelen area and are interesting, cheerful, resilient creatures. I highly recommend them. I can offer you a good price."
Urs Berger understood little of what the salesman said. He didn't like him; he thought he looked like a rip-off artist with his black-button eyes, his knife-sharp nose and his all too lively body language. They didn't have people like that in eastern Switzerland. You had to be on your guard here. He turned emphatically away. Behind a building, the towers of Notre Dame jutted up into the sky. The last time he'd seen them, they were black; now they were snow white. But he still didn't find the cathedral attractive - there was something threatening about it. And it was so gloomy inside.
"Could you try to focus on this for a minute?" said Nicole with some annoyance. "We don't have all day - I left the car in the short-term parking zone. What do you say? I think he's darling."
"But he doesn't sing," he said.
"Of course he sings," said Nicole loudly. "Can't you hear at all? Turn up your hearing aids. If you had the new ones, you wouldn't have these problems, but no, you've set yourself against it, for years. Sometimes I just don't understand you. How can a person be so stubborn?"
It was exactly what he didn't like about his daughter. She was constantly wanting to replace things. He could not comprehend what his daughter had against his hearing aids. The equipment was sound and had operated without problem for years. In eastern Switzerland, there were specialists. Who knew what sort of cheap product these Paris salesmen would foist upon him for some huge sum of money. The old man looked around. The plaza where the bird market was held was bright in the sunshine. It was a beautiful spot. Everywhere were bird cages. It seemed that there were hundreds of kinds of birds for sale. Astounding. The chirping, whistling and singing was quiet, as if far away. The only thing that bothered him were the many people.
"I would rather have a roller."
"They don't have any rollers," said Nicole with agitation.
"Wonderful!" said the old man. "We'll take him. He doesn't look like a bad sort."

Nicole sat eating breakfast. The cell phone rang.
"Hello," she said.
"It's me." It was Alain.
Nicole said nothing.
"We have to see each other, Nicole. It's not all so simple."
Nicole said nothing.
"Are you there, Nicole?"
"Yes."
"I have to talk with you. As soon as possible. It's not all so simple. Can I come by?"
"Well I'm just getting ready to go out of town. To Nogent. Maybe next week. Why don't you call me back the middle of next week."
"But - "
Nicole hung up. As she spread another slice of bread with butter and honey, she thought about her father. Then she took a letter, which she had written some days earlier in a hand quite unlike her own and addressed to herself, opened it and put it with Alain's mail on the hall table. She put on a light jacket and left the house.

"Flowers for Madame?" asked the proprietor of the Café Le Libre Échange, as he wiped down the sidewalk tables with a cloth and smiled at Alain. It had rained overnight. Alain smiled back.
"Good morning, Monsieur Moretti," he said.
"Women!" said Jacques Moretti and rolled his eyes to the sky.
Just as soon as he was inside the apartment, Alain went to the dining room. Six cigarette stubs in the empty coffee cup of his rival. Repulsive. How could Nicole stand it? Presumably she was crazy about him. That was the only explanation for this change in her sensibilities. Alain removed the cellophane wrapper from the bouquet and arranged the flowers in a large vase. They were English roses. Pascale hat put the idea in his head. After his thing with the little Brazilian girl a couple years ago, he'd won her back with white lilies, the flower she'd carried in her bridal bouquet. But he wasn't the kind of man to repeat himself. And the situation was more difficult now. Serge Gainsbourg was a formidable opponent. The roses were gorgeous, almost too heavy for their bowing stems to support. He was grateful to the two lovely sisters for the inspiration.

Alain stood in front of his marimba and played the song about the two gardenias. Then he went to the window and looked out. There was no question of moving the delicate instrument to Natalie's apartment. It was certain to be damaged in the chaos that reigned there. On top of that, the girl didn't understand the first thing about music. And Robespierre would scratch the rosewood rods. Nothing was safe from that tomcat; not long ago, he'd ruined the wool-felt covering of his mallets.

Natalie was exhausting. Exciting but exhausting. Everyone in the salsa band envied him for the gorgeous creature that came to the club night after night alone to stare at him, but sometimes he wished he could just undo the night he'd gone over and sat down at her table after the concert.

He went to the front room and looked at the mail. Among the letters to him, there was one addressed to Nicole. She must have put it with his by accident. He turned the envelope of thick handmade paper over in his hands. It had been opened. The letters R.G. were written in a right-slanting hand on the back. He slid out the letter and unfolded it. He wouldn't read the letter - just skim it. He saw: "I kiss you all over" and "my tongue inside you." Just very glancingly skim it. He read: "your stunning body," "I'm consumed with longing," "those sweet rosebuds," "for ever and ever." The handwriting was powerful. This was amazing. The prose style reminded him of the correspondence of Paul Éluard and Gala Dalí, which he had read years before. It had the same passion. The letter was signed, "Yours alone, R." René? Robert? Rémy? Richard? At any rate, not Serge. His name was not Serge. That surprised him.

Alain folded the letter and returned it to its envelope. He hadn't expected this level of feeling from a physically unfit chain-smoker. He'd thought it was just some fling, not a great passion. How lovely for Nicole - but not at all healthy. Relationships of this sort could be dangerous; in most cases, they ended in catastrophe. Rémy would start drinking, too, and one night his sixtieth Dunhill would set fire to the covers under which he and Nicole were huddled. It must not happen. He had to win his wife back, for her own sake. The roses were a start. Natalie was magical, but the truth was she couldn't tell a rumba from a mambo. Her remarks about Latin-American music had embarrassed him in front of his colleagues. And she insisted on coming to auditions and playing cabazas and maracas, despite having absolutely no feel for the rhythms of salsa. It was embarrassing. He thought about Nicole's exquisite timing. No matter how you looked at it. Nicole was restrained. She had such delicacy of feeling, such control. She was a wonderful dancer. He imagined Rémy putting on a Gainsbourg CD, dimming the living-room lights, taking Nicole in his arms and slowly turning her while Gainsbourg's rough voice filled every corner of the room. It summoned up a feeling he would have called jealousy, if that were an emotion he was capable of. Natalie was charming, but there was a slight trace of vulgarity in the way she moved. Something tainted.

Alain strolled through the apartment. The door to the bathroom was ajar. Thinking about the ravenous passion of his rival had made him hot, and he had the urge to splash his face with cold water. He entered the bathroom and stood before the porcelain basin. Two toothbrushes. Quite a domestic scene. So had Rémy already moved in? Perhaps this passion wasn't quite as explosive as he'd gathered. The two toothbrushes standing harmoniously beside one another in a glass conveyed a far more peaceful feeling. In fact, it reminded him of the deep, calm connection that he and Nicole shared. He felt a pang - but not of jealousy. He didn't suffer from that. At any rate, he was calmed by the fact that Nicole was not in imminent danger. There was a dark red tie lying on the light gray tiles. Rémy wore a tie, then. That suggested a civilized attitude. It was a relief. Probably the two of them went out the theater, to concerts. Nicole was a cultivated woman, why shouldn't Rémy be, too? He'd made a mistake in assessing his rival. He was an educated man, if also one with addictive tendencies. Last night they'd gotten back to the apartment late after seeing a performance at the Comédie Français. Racine, Andromaque. First Racine, then a light supper at the Galerie Colbert, finished off with a lemon sorbet for Nicole and profiteroles for Rémy. But what was the tie doing on the floor? Perhaps Nicole had ripped it from Rémy's neck in a mad rush? So there was passion, after all. Even while they were still at the small, dimly lit restaurant, they'd started to grow hungry for each other - between the cheese and the sorbet. And who knew what they'd done in the back of the taxi that brought them home? There were limits to Nicole's reserve - who knew that better than he?

Alain left the bathroom and stood before the closed door of the bedroom. He would not go in. He could be that discreet . What Nicole and Rémy had done behind this door, after already having begun to rip each other's clothes off on the stairs, had nothing to do with him. He opened the door. Just a quick look. Tangled sheets, signs of their lust. A knotted black slip on the bed. Just another glance. Cigarette butts. He stepped into the room. Cigarette butts on the carpet, and nearby a half-full glass of whiskey. Nicole didn't drink. He'd been right. Rémy was on the verge of losing control; his passion for Nicole had gotten the best of him; he was losing himself to drink. Sooner or later, it would turn to violence, that was clear. And Nicole was well on the way to falling victim to this man who was at the mercy of his own questionable urges. He had to save her. What in the world could have led him to risk his marriage to this angel for an ordinary trollop, even if she was endowed with a heavenly body? Sometimes he baffled himself. It was time to act. He went into the living room, sat down on the sofa and dialed Natalie's cell phone.

"Hello?" she said in a sleepy voice.
"It's me, Alain."
"You woke me up," complained Natalie. "I fell back asleep after you left. You know I need ten hours sleep."
"Listen."
"Call me later. I'm tired."
"I'm moving out."
"What do mean, you're moving out? You already moved out."
"I mean I'm moving out from your place."
"From my place? But you just moved in."
"Yeah, but I'm moving back out. My wife needs me."
"What's that supposed to mean, she needs you? You said you couldn't stand that uptight shrew. You said you couldn't bear to listen to her dreadful Swiss accent anymore."
"How dare you put such words in my mouth? Nicole is an elegant, reserved middle European woman, not some frivolous Parisian like you and your friends. I won't allow you to malign her that way."
"Have you lost your mind? Pascale heard you say it, too."
"Pascale isn't a trustworthy witness; she's a crazy person and she ought to be locked up."
"Excuse me? What did you just say about my sister?"
"And you threw yourself at me. I couldn't defend myself. That's the truth."
There was silence on the line. Alain could hear quiet weeping through the ear piece.
"Oh, don't cry," he said. "Don't give me your crocodile tears."
"I should have listened to Pascale," sobbed Natalie. "She predicted this. Two weeks ago she said, 'I wouldn't be so confident if I were you. I saw Alain and his wife in a dream. They were eating dessert at the Grand Colbert, very peacefully. Alain had a plate of profiteroles in front of him, his wife a Tarte Tatin.'"
"A Tarte Tatin?"
"What about our trip to Cuba?" cried Natalie. "You promised me we'd be flying to Havanna in two weeks. I've just got to go to Cuba. Who knows how much longer Castro will be alive."
"My wife needs me," he repeated. "I'll come by and pick up my things - or whatever your mangey cat hasn't ruined."
He hung up and dialed his wife's cell.
"Hello," said Nicole.
"Nicole, forgive me, it was a terrible mistake."
Nicole said nothing.
"I'm coming home. You need to be protected. Rémy's not the right man for you. An addict like that can't be trusted."
"Rémy?"
"Yes, and I'm sure you've already become codependent. I'm going to take you to AA. One or two meetings should be enough to get your inner balance back."
Nicole said nothing.
"I need you, Nicole. I need you like I need air to breathe, you know that. You've always known it."
Nicole said nothing.
"I'm staying here, waiting for you. We'll go out and have a nice dinner, drink some good wine. I'll explain everything. When will you be back?"
Nicole said nothing.
"When will you be back? I'm consumed with longing for you. I kiss you all over," Alain said.

Nicole switched off the cell phone and set it down next to her plate, on the table in the middle of the patio where she was eating lunch with her father. The sun was shining, and in the large cage that swung gently this way and that from a branch on the cherry tree, the Belgian water schläger sat and sang with his beak wide open.
"This is really tender, don't you think?" she asked and took a bite of the salmon filet.
"I'm going to call him Hansi, like the other one," said Urs Berger and took a sip of Heineken. The fish was too strongly seasoned, and he didn't like the beer either. Nicole was a miserable cook. But at least they were eating lunch and not dinner, like the French. It was a bad habit, eating so late. He leaned back and watched the bird.