Chloe Aridjis - Asunder

That night in bed I must’ve changed position twenty times, switching from right side to left and then back to right. I got up to open the window and then got up to close it, tried two pillows, then none. Despite these attempts I couldn’t rest, my mind captive to one image, hovering there at the centre in great magnification as if an enormous hand kept readjusting the lens: the face of the chatelain. Polished objects reflect the light, unpolished objects trap it.

One thing was clear. I did not feel anger or indignation. I had intruded, he had defended. Every few minutes I’d run my fingers over the scratch that burnt its fine way down my cheek and feel some sort of communion with this chatelain who was at that moment most likely curled up in a shabby mattress in a fireplace, and with a strange flutter I envisioned, how else to put it, the solitude of a man in his architecture.

The following morning I rose late to more silence, and an empty flat. A cafetière and two mugs in the sink. The lingering trace of one of Pierre’s cigarettes in the air. Three stubs in the saucer. A few more hours, I told myself, only a few more hours.

These hours passed vacantly. Without structure or purpose, my sense of time had weakened. Just as I’d finally motivated myself to get up from the sofa and put on my coat, a heavy rain started to fall, aborting all thoughts of a walk, and I remained indoors watching the curtain of water thick as a double window. Through the parallel panes of glass and water I looked out on to the street, the refracted lights from cars like abrasions in the tarmac, and listened to what sounded like church bells in the distance, as if something greater were trying to assert itself over the weather.

At 4.35 they returned, Daniel carrying an enormous dark blue umbrella that he placed open in the bath to dry. Pierre was wearing a pink flower, possibly from the Luxembourg Gardens, and upon seeing me he plucked it from his lapel and extended it in my direction.

‘Did you see the rain?’ Daniel asked.

‘From indoors,’ I said, tucking the flower behind my ear for want of a better idea, then feeling foolish and removing it.

Pierre folded his three suits into his suitcase, emptied the saucer of cigarette stubs into the kitchen bin, and drank a glass of water.

‘I’ll be back in an hour,’ Daniel said, ‘I’m taking Pierre to the station.’

‘Is he heading back to Stockholm?’

No, Daniel explained, first he would go to Amsterdam to visit a sick friend, a Dutch poet he’d been translating since the seventies, who was now dying of emphysema. From there Pierre would go to Ljubljana to see Gregor and only after that back to Stockholm, where he lived, Daniel added, with his mother in a two-bedroom flat in a sixties tower block.

At the door Pierre extended a hand. ‘Nice to see you,’ he said. ‘Meet you again.’

Daniel picked up the suitcase and Pierre reached for his briefcase. He bowed in my direction, a second more formal farewell. The door clacked behind them.

Shortly after they left I spotted Daniel’s keys lying on the kitchen table. Caught up in his friend’s departure, he had forgotten his set.

I made myself a sandwich and ate it while wandering slowly through the flat, fending off a growing sense of despondency. Once I’d finished eating I was seized by a desire for company, three-dimensional or two, and walked over to Daniel’s desk. But the book was no longer there. Hesitantly at first and then more boldly, I searched the drawers, beneath papers and folders, then his room, his suitcase, even lifted the mattress, but the women seemed to have left the premises, retreated into their silent black and white thicket.

Perhaps Daniel had given the book to Pierre, though it scarcely seemed like something that would interest him. Where had they gone, the women?

Ten, twenty, thirty minutes later — I had no idea — the doorbell rang. A second time. A third. I remained on the sofa, where I’d been sitting, thinking.

Loud knocks, followed by exclamations of a fist that pounded out a phrase, sentence, paragraph.

‘Marie, it’s me,’ his voice reached me as if from a distant peak.

From my position on the sofa facing the entrance, I observed the vibrating wooden rectangle attached to three hinges that separated me from Daniel, and Daniel from the interior of our ephemeral home. Minutes later, a woman’s voice. The concierge.

I had no choice. I walked to the door and opened.

He was not smiling.

‘I was asleep,’ I said.

‘And you didn’t hear a thing?’

‘Nothing.’

The concierge mumbled a few words and started down the stairs. Daniel thanked her, said something about demain , and entered the flat.

For our final meal, we returned to the Italian restaurant across the street where we’d gone on our first night. After the waiter had taken our order and brought out bread and olives I thought of asking Daniel what he’d done with the book but refrained; he would know that again I’d trespassed.

We filled the minutes with talk about London, what we would do once we got back, what awaited us where. We spoke, but it was small talk.

Our food arrived quickly.

Daniel sliced his pizza in two with a sharp knife.

‘He was quite taken with you, wasn’t he, our nobleman?’

‘Only at first.’

‘Or perhaps it was more you who were taken with him.’ He tore the halves of his pizza apart, then cut each half into quarters. I reached for my knife and did the same to mine.

‘And yours, will you miss him?’ I asked.

‘Yes, but we’ll write.’

‘You really disappeared when he was around.’

‘Marie, it was a unique opportunity for me. I never meet anyone like him.’

‘But that’s your choice.’

‘Will you miss him too?’

‘Pierre? He wasn’t much more than a phantom, to be honest.’

‘I think he’s shy around women.’

‘Well, you seemed blind to them when he was here.’

He gave me a quizzical look. ‘Meaning?’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I thought you’d understand.’

I finished off my wine and refilled the glass.

‘Your mood hasn’t exactly been jovial,’ he added.

‘Well, our trip took an odd turn.’

‘Trips often do.’

‘I guess so.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘So, what time does our train leave tomorrow?’ I asked.

‘Ten fifteen.’

Halfway through dinner a large black spider dropped on to the table — having lowered itself, presumably, from the air vent in the ceiling directly overhead — and scurried across between the dishes, vanishing over the white drop of the tablecloth.

Daniel still had many euros left over and insisted on paying the bill. We traipsed back across the street, through the green doors that felt heavier than ever as I gave them a push, and up to the flat to prepare for our departure. Daniel tackled his desk, returning papers to folders and folders and books to bag, while I packed up my own things, my only purchases during the trip a guidebook, a scarf, some candied chestnuts, and a eucalyptus candle I’d found at a street stall.

It took us no more than an hour, albeit an active one, to divest the flat of our presence. Once we had finished all traces of our visit were withdrawn, our scenes rolled up and waiting by the door. I retired to my room, Daniel to his.

The next morning the concierge rang our bell half an hour earlier than agreed. After a brief march through the flat during which she kept wiping her hands on her apron though I’m sure they weren’t wet, she concluded it was in the same state, if not better, than when we arrived, and seemed content with Daniel’s tip. Her son, a spindly teenager we’d glimpsed only a few times during our stay, helped carry our bags.