de Justice and strolled through the market. The clock was striking eleven with a dull dented sound. Loiseau was standing in front of some cages marked ‘Caille reproductrice’. He waved as he saw me. ‘Just a moment,’ he said. He picked up a box marked ‘vitamine phospate’. He read the label: ‘Biscuits pour oiseaux’. ‘I’ll have that too,’ said Loiseau.
The woman behind the table said, ‘The mélange saxon is very good, it’s the most expensive, but it’s the best.’
‘Just half a litre,’ said Loiseau.
She weighed the seed, wrapped it carefully and tied the package. Loiseau said, ‘I didn’t see him.’
‘Why?’ I walked with him through the market.
‘He’s been moved. I can’t find out who authorized the move or where he’s gone to. The clerk in the records office said Lyon but that can’t be true.’ Loiseau stopped in front of an old pram full of green millet.
‘Why?’
Loiseau didn’t answer immediately. He picked up a sprig of millet and sniffed at it. ‘He’s been moved. Some top-level instructions. Perhaps they intend to bring him before some juge d’instruction who will do as he’s told. Or maybe they’ll keep him out of the way while they finish the enquêtes officieuses.’10
‘You don’t think they’ve moved him away to get him quietly sentenced?’
Loiseau waved to the old woman behind the stall. She shuffled slowly towards us.
‘I talk to you like an adult,’ Loiseau said. ‘You don’t really expect me to answer that, do you? A sprig.’ He turned and stared at me. ‘Better make it two sprigs,’ he said to the woman. ‘My friend’s canary wasn’t looking so healthy last time I saw it.’
‘Joe’s all right,’ I said. ‘You leave him alone.’
‘Suit yourself,’ said Loiseau. ‘But if he gets much thinner he’ll be climbing out between the bars of that cage.’
I let him have the last word. He paid for the millet and walked between the cliffs of new empty cages, trying the bars and tapping the wooden panels. There were caged birds of all kinds in the market. They were given seed, millet, water and cuttlefish bone for their beaks. Their claws were kept trimmed and they were safe from all birds of prey. But it was the birds in the trees that were singing.
23
I got back to my apartment about twelve o’clock. At twelve thirty-five the phone rang. It was Monique, Annie’s neighbour. ‘You’d better come quickly,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘I’m not allowed to say on the phone. There’s a fellow sitting here. He won’t tell me anything much. He was asking for Annie, he won’t tell me anything. Will you come now?’
‘Okay,’ I said.
24
It was lunchtime. Monique was wearing an ostrich-feather-trimmed négligé when she opened the door. ‘The English have got off the boat,’ she said and giggled. ‘You’d better come in, the old girl will be straining her earholes to hear, if we stand here talking.’ She opened the door and showed me into the cramped room. There was bamboo furniture and tables, a plastic-topped dressing-table with four swivel mirrors and lots of perfume and cosmetic garnishes. The bed was unmade and a candlewick bedspread had been rolled up under the pillows. A copy of Salut les Copains was in sections and arranged around the deep warm indentation. She went across to the windows and pushed the shutters. They opened with a loud clatter. The sunlight streamed into the room and made everything look dusty. On the table there was a piece of pink wrapping paper; she took a hard-boiled egg from it, rapped open the shell and bit into it.
‘I hate summer,’ she said. ‘Pimples and parks and open cars that make your hair tangled and rotten cold food that looks like left-overs. And the sun trying to make you feel guilty about being indoors. I like being indoors. I like being in bed; it’s no sin, is it, being in bed?’
‘Just give me the chance to find out. Where is he?’
‘I hate summer.’
‘So shake hands with Père Noël,’ I offered. ‘Where is he?’
‘I’m taking a shower. You sit down and wait. You are all questions.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Questions.’
‘I don’t know how you think of all these questions. You must be clever.’
‘I am,’ I said.
‘Honestly, I wouldn’t know where to start. The only questions I ever ask are “Are you married?” and “What will you do if I get pregnant?” Even then I never get told the truth.’
‘That’s the trouble with questions. You’d better stick to answers.’
‘Oh, I know all the answers.’
‘Then you must have been asked all the questions.’
‘I have,’ she agreed.
She slipped out of the négligé and stood naked for one millionth of a second before disappearing into the bathroom. The look in her eyes was mocking and not a little cruel.
There was a lot of splashing and ohh-ing from the bathroom until she finally reappeared in a cotton dress and canvas tennis shoes, no stockings.
‘Water was cold,’ she said briefly. She walked right through the room and opened her front door. I watched her lean over the balustrade.
‘The water’s stone cold, you stupid cow,’ she shrieked down the stair-well. From somewhere below the voice of the old harridan said, ‘It’s not supposed to supply ten people for each apartment, you filthy little whore.’
‘I have something men want, not like you, you old hag.’
‘And you give it to them,’ the harridan cackled back. ‘The more the merrier.’
‘Poof!’ shouted Monique, and narrowing her eyes and aiming carefully she spat over the stair-well. The harridan must have anticipated it, for I heard her cackle triumphantly.
Monique returned to me. ‘How am I expected to keep clean when the water is cold? Always cold.’
‘Did Annie complain about the water?’
‘Ceaselessly, but she didn’t have the manner that brings results. I get angry. If she doesn’t give me hot water I shall drive her into her grave, the dried-up old bitch. I’m leaving here anyway,’ she said.
‘Where are you going?’ I asked.
‘I’m moving in with my regular. Montmartre. It’s an awful district, but it’s larger than this, and anyway he wants me.’
‘What’s
