The Most Beautiful Book in the World (5 page)

She turned to look at the man on the terrace.

He was wearing shorts, revealing fine, powerful legs, both muscular and slender. Hélène stared at his feet. How long had it been since she had stared at a man's feet? She had forgotten that it was something she liked, a man's feet, robust limbs that offered so many contradictory qualities—hard at the heel, tender on the toes, smooth above, rough below, so solid that they could carry a big body, so sensitive that they could dread a caress. Her gaze wandered up his calves to his thighs, following the tension and strength hidden beneath his skin, and she caught herself wishing she could touch the blond hairs on his legs, a delicate moss that would be soft under her palm.

Here she had just been all around the world and seen thousands of different types of dress: yet she found that the man next to her was audacious. How dare he exhibit his legs in this way? Weren't his shorts indecent?

She looked more closely and concluded that she was wrong. His shorts were quite normal, she had already seen hundreds of men wearing shorts like those. Whereas he himself . . .

Aware that he was being observed, the man pivoted towards her. He smiled. His face was golden, weathered, marked with deep creases. There was something unquiet in the green of his irises.

Confused, she returned his smile, then absorbed herself in the drama of the ocean. What would he think? That she was trying to pick him up? How dreadful! She could appreciate his expression; his face was sharp, honest, sincere, although his features hinted at a tendency toward sadness. How old was he? Her age. Yes, or something thereabouts, forty-eight . . . Perhaps less, because he was tanned, sporty, with pleasing little wrinkles; he was not the type to smear himself with sun cream.

Suddenly there was a silence; the air stopped humming with insects; then, after four seconds, heavy drops began to fall. A first rumbling of thunder, solemnly confirming the storm's arrival. The light deepened with contrasts, saturating the colors, and moisture rolled over them like the spindrift unleashed on the shore in a tidal wave.

“What filthy weather!” exclaimed the man next to her.

She was astonished to hear herself say, “No, you're mistaken. Not ‘What filthy weather' but ‘It's a fine rainy day.'”

The man turned to Hélène and examined her closely.

She seemed to mean what she said.

In that split second, he became absolutely certain of two things: that he desired this woman, profoundly, and, if he could, he would never leave her.

 

 

 

 

 

T
his time, she'd really seen her. The woman had gone through the far end of the living room, and had stared at her with an astonished air before disappearing into the shade in the kitchen.

Odile Versini hesitated: should she run after her, or leave the apartment as fast as she could?

Who was this intruder? This was at the third time, at least . . . The previous visitations had been so fleeting that Odile thought her imagination was playing tricks on her, but this time they had actually been able to exchange a glance; it seemed to Odile that the other woman, once she had recovered from her surprise, had winced with fear as she ran off.

Without giving it any further thought, Odile followed her with a shout: “Stop, I've seen you! Don't try to hide, there's no way out!”

Odile rushed into every room—the bedroom, the kitchen, the toilet, the bathroom: no one.

The only place left was the hanging closet at the end of the corridor.

“Come out! Come out or I'll call the police!”

Not a sound from the closet.

“What are you doing in my house? How did you get in?”

Heavy silence.

“Right, I've warned you.”

Odile felt a sudden wave of panic: what did this stranger want? She withdrew feverishly to the hallway, grabbed the phone, and after misdialing several times finally managed the number for the police. “Quick, quick,” she thought, “that woman is going to pop out of the closet and attack me.” Finally, when she had made her way through the barrage of answering machine messages, the beautifully resonant voice of an agent replied: “Paris police, 16th arrondissement, how may I help you?”

“Come to my house, quickly. A woman has gotten in. She's hiding in the closet in the corridor and refuses to come out. Quickly, I beg you, she might be insane, or a murderer. Hurry, I'm very frightened.”

The agent took down her name and address then assured her that in five minutes a patrol would be there.

“Hello? Hello? Are you still there?”

“Hmm . . .”

“How do you feel, Madam?”

She didn't reply.

“Stay on the line, don't hang up. There. That way you can let me know if anything happens. Repeat in a loud voice what I've just told you so that this person will hear and know that you're not helpless. Go ahead. Now.”

“Yes, you're right, Officer. I'll stay on the line with you, so that this person can't try anything without you knowing about it.”

She'd shouted so loudly that she couldn't hear her own voice. Was it distinct? She hoped the intruder, despite the distance, the door, and the coats, had heard what she'd said and become discouraged.

Nothing moved in the dark recesses of the apartment. Such tranquility was more alarming than any amount of noise.

Odile murmured to the policeman, “Are you there?”

“Yes, ma'am, I'll stay right here.”

“I . . . I'm feeling a bit panicky.”

“Do you have anything to defend yourself with?”

“No, nothing.”

“Isn't there some object you could wave that you could use to frighten this person if she gets the wrong idea and starts acting aggressive?”

“No.”

“No cane, or hammer, or a statuette? Have a look around.”

“Oh, yes, there's my little bronze statue . . .”

“Grab it and pretend it's a weapon.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Call out that now you've got your husband's gun in your hand so you're not afraid of anything. Say it loud.”

Odile took a deep breath and bawled in a somewhat hesitant voice, “No, Captain, I'm not afraid because I have my husband's gun.”

She sighed, and fought a strong urge to piss on herself: her threat had sounded so feeble, no intruder would ever believe her.

She heard the voice again on the telephone: “Well, how did they react?”

“Nothing.”

“Fine. She's frightened. She won't budge until our men get there.”

A few seconds later, Odile was speaking to a policeman on the entry phone, then she opened her door and waited for the elevator to bring them up to the tenth floor. Three big sturdy men emerged.

“Over there,” she said, “she's hiding in the closet.”

Odile shivered when they pulled out their weapons and headed down the corridor. To avoid watching a spectacle that would be devastating for her nerves, she preferred to take refuge in the living room, and from there she heard a vague commotion of threats and orders.

Instinctively, she lit a cigarette and went to stand by the window. Outdoors, although it was early July, the lawns had turned yellow, the trees were losing their reddened leaves. The heat wave had struck the Place du Trocadéro. It had struck all of France. Every day it was fine-tuning its labor of death; every day the evening news lengthened its list of the latest victims: homeless people lying on the burning tar, old people in the hospices dropping like flies, babies expiring from dehydration. And that didn't include all the animals, flowers, vegetables, trees . . . And wasn't that a dead blackbird she could see just down there, on the grass in the square? Stiff as an ink drawing, his feet broken. Pity, blackbirds have such a lovely song.

Consequently, she poured herself a tall glass of water and swallowed it down, just to be on the safe side. True, it was terribly selfish to be thinking of her own welfare when so many others had succumbed, but what else could she do?

“Ma'am, excuse us, ma'am?”

The policemen, at the door to the living room, had trouble rousing her from her meditation on heat wave disasters. She turned around and questioned them: “Well, who was it?”

“There's no one there, ma'am.”

“What do you mean, no one there?”

“Come and see.”

She followed the three men to the closet. It may have been full of clothes and shoe boxes, but it was empty of any intruders.

“Where is she?”

“Would you like us to have a look around with you?”

“Of course.”

With cautious gestures, the policemen went over the hundred and twenty square meters of the apartment with a finetoothed comb: the interloper was nowhere to be found.

“Really, you must admit that it's rather strange,” protested Odile, lighting another cigarette. “She came down the corridor, she saw me, she was surprised, and then she vanished somewhere into the apartment. How could she have gotten out?”

“The rear entrance?”

“It's always locked.”

“Let's go see.”

They went into the kitchen, and found that the door leading to the back stairs was locked.

“You see,” concluded Odile, “she can't have gotten through this way.”

“Unless she has a set of keys. Otherwise, how did she get in?”

Odile stumbled. The policemen held her by the arms to help her sit down. She realized they were right: the woman who had burst into her apartment must have a set of keys in order to get in and out.

“It's horrible . . .”

“Could you describe this woman to us?”

“An old woman.”

“Sorry?”

“Yes, an old woman. With white hair.”

“What was she wearing?”

“I don't remember. Something ordinary.”

“A dress, or pants?”

“A dress, I think.”

“It doesn't really match the usual profile of a thief or any other kind of ne'er-do-well. Are you sure this person isn't someone you're acquainted with and you just didn't recognize them?”

Odile looked them up and down, somewhat scornfully.

“I understand why you're inferring this, it's logical, given your profession, but do bear in mind that at thirty-five I am neither old nor senile. Undoubtedly I have many more diplomas than you do, I work as a freelance journalist, specializing in geopolitical issues in the Middle East, I speak six languages, and despite the heat I am in absolutely fine form. So please be so good as to believe me when I say that I am not in the habit of forgetting to whom I have entrusted my keys.”

Astonished, fearing her anger, they nodded respectfully.

“Excuse me, ma'am, but we have to take every eventuality into consideration. We sometimes have to deal with people who are fragile and who—”

“To be sure, I did lose my calm, there, earlier . . .”

“Do you live here alone?”

“No, I'm married.”

“Where is your husband?”

She looked at the policeman with bemused astonishment: she had just realized that no one had asked her this very simple question—where is your husband?—for a very long time.

She smiled. “On a trip to the Middle East. He's a special correspondent.”

The policemen showed their respect for Charles's profession with eyes wide open and a concerned silence. The eldest among them did, however, pursue his line of interrogation: “Isn't it possible then that your husband, in fact, could have lent his set of keys to someone who . . .”

“What on earth will you come up with next? He would have told me.”

“You can't be sure . . .”

“No, he would have told me.”

“Could you call him just to make sure?”

Odile shook her head.

“He doesn't like people trying to reach him when he's halfway round the world. Especially for some nonsense about keys. It's ridiculous.”

“Is this the first time something like this has happened?”

“With the old woman? No. It's the third time at least.”

“Tell us about it.”

“The other times, I just assumed that I wasn't seeing properly, that it wasn't possible. Exactly what you are thinking at this very moment. But this time, I know perfectly well that I wasn't dreaming: I was so frightened! Mind you, I frightened her, too.”

“Then I have only one piece of advice to give you, Madame Versini: you must change the keys and the locks immediately. That way you'll be able to sleep in peace. Sooner or later, perhaps when your husband comes home, you'll get to the bottom of this intrusion. In the meantime, at least you'll get a good night's sleep.”

Odile nodded, thanked the policemen, and walked them to the door.

Instinctively, she opened a fresh pack of cigarettes, switched the television to her favorite channel, the twenty-four-hour news, then began to think about what to do, approaching the problem from several angles.

After an hour, when she realized that her hypotheses weren't getting anywhere, she picked up the receiver and made an appointment with a locksmith for the following day.

 

“Two thousand two hundred people have died,” announced the anchorman, staring at his viewers. “This summer is proving to lethal.”

With her keys in the pocket of her skirt, reassured that nothing would befall her now that she had closed up the house with new locks, Odile succumbed entirely to her fascination with the perverse effects of climate. Streams dried up. Fish stranded. Herds devastated. Farmers in a rage. Water and electricity restrictions. Hospitals overwhelmed. Young interns promoted to physicians. Funeral homes swamped. Gravediggers obliged to interrupt their seaside vacation. Ecologists thundering forth about global warming. She followed each newscast as if it were a new episode in a thrilling soap opera; she was avid for adventure, eager for new catastrophes, almost disappointed when the situation did not get worse. Almost unconsciously, she kept track of the death toll with a sublime delight. The heat wave was a show that did not concern her, but it gave her something to focus on that summer, and distracted her from her boredom.

On her desk there lingered a book and several articles that were waiting to be dealt with. She didn't have the energy to focus on them, at least as long as her editors and publishers were not hounding her, screaming at her over the phone. It was odd she hadn't heard anything, actually . . . Perhaps they, too, were absolutely crushed by the heat? Or dead? As soon as she had the time—or the inclination—she would give them a call.

She surfed the Arabic channels, somewhat peeved that they showed so little interest in the situation in Europe. Truth be told, for them the heat was, well . . .

To ease her conscience she decided to drink a glass of water, and it was while she was headed for the kitchen that she had a strange feeling once again: the intruder was there!

She went back the same direction, had a quick look around. Nothing. And yet it seemed . . . For a split second the old woman's face had appeared to her, no doubt reflected on a lamp or in the angle of a mirror or on the polish of a wardrobe. The image had imprinted itself on her brain.

In the hour that followed she went over her apartment from top to bottom. Then at least ten times over she checked that the old keys could in no way be used to open the new locks. Once she was reassured, she concluded that she had imagined seeing the old woman.

She went back into the living room, switched on the television and it was then, while walking over to her sofa, that she saw her, quite distinctly, in the corridor. Just like the last time, the old woman froze, panicked, and rushed away.

Odile collapsed on the sofa and reached for the nearest telephone. The police promised to come as soon as possible.

This time as she waited Odile did not feel the same emotions as on the day before. Until now her fear had always been quite clearly defined, focused on the old woman in the broom closet and her motivations. But now Odile's fear gave way to terror. She found herself confronted with a mystery: how had the woman gotten back in here today, when the locks had been completely and thoroughly renewed?

The police found her in a state of shock. Since they had already been there the day before, they knew right away what to look for in the apartment.

She was not surprised when they came back to the living room after their search and announced that they hadn't seen anyone.