evening. There were a dozen people present, all younger than the three of them, with the exception of a man who may have been in his fifties, and whom Quentin assumed to be the host. He was wearing a palm-tree print shirt, and was laughing for no apparent reason other than the presence of the girl next to him, whose neck he fondled while whispering into her ear. His obvious desire to look younger than his years made him look older. On second thought, Quentin guessed that the man’s age must be closer to sixty. Very unlikable.
Conversation was lagging. Everyone seemed to have had quite a bit to drink. A boyish-looking girl gave a self-important account of her trip down south on some humanitarian mission. That kind of misery, it’s just unimaginable. And every night, you hear gunfire. They had even shot at her jeep. Quentin suppressed a yawn that made his eyes water.
Next to him, a tall, lanky American spoke in a groggy voice:
“Your bath, for instance, you take a cold one first, it’s refreshing in this heat. And then, after a little while, you want to get warmer, so you add some hot water, and that feels good. But how much is enough, huh? Because if you put too much in, you burn yourself. Then what?”
Having arrived at this point of his little speech, the American lost his train of thought and poured himself another drink. Within a few moments, he had completely changed topics; Quentin heard him trying to convince the girl sitting to his left to come spend the night at his place.
“But I’m warning you, it’s a pretty small apartment, I hope you enjoy doing it standing up,” he said.
At that, he rose and, with no further concern for the girl, issued a general “Good night, everybody,” then asked the palm-tree shirt if he could have a little bread for his breakfast in the morning. He’d completely forgotten to buy some.
Quentin, who was bored to tears, took advantage of this departure to make his own exit, and no one made a move to dissuade him.
Back home, he took out the business card he had slipped into his pocket without a glance, and learned that the woman he’d met at the Sanariglia’s was named Nina Andreïevna Praskine—dance instructor—and that she didn’t live on the Ring.
He would still occasionally dream of Louise. On some nights, she would come to him, soft and sweet. It was so good to be back together. She was his best, his oldest, his only friend. And in his dream, they were curled up together, talking in whispers until time stood still, and everything was explained, healed, forgiven.
He also dreamed a few times of a friend from college. They had been inseparable, then had a falling out for a reason he could no longer recall. Quentin had had his faults, to be sure, and in his dreams he acknowledged them, asked forgiveness; it felt so good to be a better person than he once was. Since he began dreaming about him, he often wondered whether Arnaud Mayeux had read this or that book, whether or not he would like this painting, that piece of music, whether he would approve of the way Quentin had left home, of the life he was leading in Tahas. He found himself taking his absent friend’s judgment into account, weighing his opinions. Or again, women he had known and thought long forgotten were resurfacing in his sleep like drowning victims.
Through the open door of his dreams, these people would reenter his life during the early days of his stay in Tahas; over time, their visits became less frequent, until they finally disappeared altogether.
One morning while putting some papers in order, he came across a photograph that had slipped between some bank statements. In the foreground, houses were scattered like the gray and white cubes of some building blocks knocked over by a capricious child. They had no color except that dazzling, hard-edged white and that peculiar shade of slate gray the sea turns in stormy weather. The far horizon was scored by that day’s more grayish-blue sea. It wasn’t a very sharp image, but one could make out a smattering of islands, as if on one stormy day the same wind had knocked over the tower of cubes and blown those rocks out to sea. The top of the picture showed beautiful clouds scudding across the sky above the islands. This photo taken from the upper floor of the old summerhouse captured the look of the area very well. The gunmetal gray ribbon of road that went down to the sea ran past the foot of a large tree with blue-tinted foliage. Louise, visible from the back, seemed to be hurrying down that road into the distance, flanked by a large black dog. Louise’s hair and the dog’s coat were the same color. For a moment, Quentin was tempted to tear up the photo, then changed his mind and tucked it back into the bundle of papers where chance had placed it, thinking that nothing could be further from this world of muted, deep color than the country where he was now living and, not sure whether this idea should depress or excite him, he put it out of his mind. All that remained for the rest of the day was the fleeting and nostalgic vision of pearl-gray fog—soft, warm, and fluffy as wool.
Nina Praskine lived on the ground floor of a dilapidated house back in a courtyard. It wasn’t easy to find. You had to walk through a dim passageway and zigzag around piles of garbage. Visitors were greeted by a strong smell of urine, and the first time Quentin visited her place, he almost backtracked, sure that he must have taken a wrong turn.
The house itself was not without charm, if you were willing to disregard the decrepit exterior and surrounding squalor. Fifty years ago, it had probably been a lovely suburban villa. But the city had expanded since then, and there was nothing left of the garden but a dingy courtyard constantly eroded by the helter-skelter construction of shanties made of corrugated metal and boards. An old car—who knows how it got there—was rusting away right in the middle.
The greenish-gray roughcast plaster was coming off the exterior walls in great slabs, and one could see the dilapidation spreading across the façade like a disease. One day it would reach the core of the house and the walls would collapse, at which point a fresh supply of tin and lumber would build over what was once the house.
Nina Praskine’s apartment took up the entire ground floor. The two upper floors of the house were empty. The owner who once lived there had died, and his children lived elsewhere. The windows were boarded up.
In the courtyard, all kinds of people were living, sleeping, working.
“At first,” explained Nina, “there was no one but the doorman and his family, which already meant a dozen people or more. One never knew exactly. Then he had his brother come up from the Azga region and move in. After that, another brother moved into the courtyard—always with wife and children—because his own house had collapsed. Add to that visits by any number of country cousins. There are always some of those around, and they stay for weeks at a time. Basically, they all make up one big family—the doorman’s. You see how well-guarded I am!”
And with that, she burst out laughing.
Quentin often returned to Nina Praskine’s. He never found out exactly why she’d originally come to Tahas. She’d been living there for many years, during which she watched the doorman’s family grow. She’d known the place before the shanties and garbage overtook the courtyard. She recalled a lovely tree by the door—a kind of cherry tree now cut up for lumber—and a climbing rose bush in front of the house. All that had disappeared or changed, but she remained. She said she couldn’t stand the weather in Europe.
In the entrance, one would often trip over one or another of the children playing on the floor. She never closed the door. Friends stopping by would enter without knocking. When she wasn’t at home, they would go to the kitchen and make themselves some tea, which they would drink in the living room while waiting for her to return. Nina took no offense whatsoever. This casualness had shocked Quentin at first. Within a few weeks, he started doing the same. One felt as much at home in her place as in one’s own. Mere acquaintances acted likewise, showing about as much restraint as would members of her own family. One would enter, go get something to drink, snatch a few chocolates off the buffet, and then
