Silent Bird Read Free Page B

moving unless you hand me what I want, was the message.
    I glanced at Mr. Comb-Over, who smiled again—large yellow teeth—and directed me to follow him out of the building. In the doorway, he pointed at a smaller, plainer building across the street. It had no Corinthian columns and no balconies.
    “ Oh,” I said. “The apartment is over there?”
    He nodded, delighted with our dialogue.
    I, on the other hand, did not feel quite so delighted. Maybe there was no fridge in those apartments across the street, or no oven, or…no toilet? Was that possible?
    Waving goodbye to Blondie, I followed my prospective landlord across the plaza into a narrow hallway toward a long flight of narrow stairs. And at the base of the staircase, he pointed to a small doorway, smiling apologetically.
    “ Toilette. He is down here.”

IV
    My vocabulary left a lot to be desired, but toilet is toilet. So I got it. I saw the door with W/C on it—for Water Closet—and shook my head. No. Not doing it. Under the stairs in the lobby? Was that a toilet or the toilet?
    Monsieur began to climb, confident I’d follow .
    I need a toilet only for me , I wanted to say. Me want one toilet!
    At the top, he wiggled the oversized key into a door. I asked, “Pardon, one toilet?”
    “ One, yes. Downstairs!” He briefly gestured in the direction of Hell. “But very nice studio here! For you. Voilà .”
    I am sorry , I thought. Je suis pardon, but moi no live here.
    Then I entered that poor misbegotten studio and squinted at two huge windows overlooking the café below—and my heart lifted.
    The light. The light.
    A poplar tree stuck like a flag in the center of the plaza , throwing a quilt of leaf-shaped shadows onto the hardwood. At the window warmth curled itself like an old cat.
    “ You like, yes?” said the man eagerly, as if he were offering himself along with the studio.
    It had a bed already, single, tucked under all that luminescence. And two built-in shelves with— ta-da —one small refrigerator! Poor Blondie. Maybe he could borrow mine?
    And good Lord, the room also came with a bathtub! And a hotplate for a stove. Talk about luxury!
    Meanwhile, cutlery rang from the café below. Voices rose up in laughter, in camaraderie and joie de vivre . Life: hectic, colorful. Me: part of it yet apart.
    Hell, I could draw here: that was all that mattered. I’d draw here and pee downstairs. Though I should actually see the toilet to make sure it had a seat. I’d heard rumors of Turkish toilets with holes in the floor and tread marks to stand on—and I didn’t think I could stand that (no pun intended).
    T he toilet did include a seat, thank God. It also included toilet paper as rough as cardboard. So I decided I’d buy the softest toilet paper on earth even if I had to order it special delivery and shipped Express. I would make this work. I would make everything work. Cézanne, here I come!
    Monsieur Bernard DeCroix, as the rental agent was called, led me back across the street where Blondie still waited.
    “ Voilà , your neighbor,” Monsieur DeCroix announced.
    “ Jeannot Courbois,” Blondie said. “ E nchanté .”
    “ Pilar Russell,” I said. “Hi.”
    We shook. His hand was warm, fingers slender and long. He smiled at me and briefly held on, and in his eyes I saw a flicker of that look that I’d never liked from men but always seemed to watch out for. He was handsome, this wholesome looking Frenchman, in a slightly off-beat way, as if he might be an artist too.
    Monsieur DeCroix did count my money this time and ask for 100 francs more. He even asked for my passport though he barely looked at it. I filled out and signed an application I couldn’t read, using the hotel as my previous address. Ten minutes later, with a grand flourish of his pudgy hand, he held out the brass key.
    It was mine. I accepted it, saying “ Merci,” and was getting up to leave when a sharp pain in my toe caused me to cry out.
    Startled, I slumped into the