“Did you see him?” David’s mother asked.
“No. But I heard a door slamming.”
“What do you mean?”
“As I was unlocking our door, just after the ringing, I heard a door slamming someplace.”
“Probably the door leading to the service steps.”
“Yes,” David’s father said. He paused. “Where’s David? Is he asleep?”
“Yes. He had a bad dream a little while ago.”
“Poor kid. What shall I do, honey? Do you think our friend’ll be back tonight?”
“I doubt it,” David’s mother said, and paused. Her voice through the bedroom wall sounded very funny when she spoke again. “Come here,” she said.
That night was the last time the doorbell rang.
What had happened, David supposed, was that his father had frightened the intruder away. He had jumped to his feet at the first long ring and was already unlocking the door by the time the intruder had pressed the bell the second time, which was probably why the second ring had been so short. The intruder must have realized a trap had been set, so he ran for the service steps just as David’s father unlocked the door. That was probably the sound his father had heard, the service steps door slamming behind the intruder as he ran away. David’s father didn’t get to see anyone by the time he rushed into the hallway, but he certainly must have scared whoever had been ringing the bell because that was the end of it.
In September, school started and Helga came back from Denmark with stories about everything she had done. David began thinking about Paris again only because Helga had just come back from Europe. He would lie in bed each night and think about Paris, and one night he suddenly got the idea. He began laughing, and then stuck his head under the pillow because he didn’t want them to hear him in the bedroom next door. He kept laughing, though, under the pillow. It seemed to him that it would be a great joke. In fact, the more he thought about it, the funnier it seemed. He took his head out from under the pillow and listened. The apartment was very quiet. He threw back the covers, got out of bed, tiptoed to the door of his mother’s bedroom, and peeked in. She was lying with his father’s arms around her, the blanket down over her hip, sort of. David covered his mouth with his hand because he felt another laugh coming on, and then tiptoed to Helga’s bedroom. Her door was closed. He could hear her heavy breathing behind it.
He went to the service door of the apartment.
Carefully, he unlocked the door without making a sound, trying his best not to laugh. Then he opened the door and peeked out into the service alcove. There wasn’t a soul in sight. It seemed to him that he could almost hear the whole building breathing in its sleep. He picked up a milk bottle from where it was standing outside the service door, and used it to prop the door open, and then went out of the service alcove and into the area just outside the elevators. He listened to make sure the elevator wasn’t coming up, and then he went to the front door.
He almost laughed again.
He listened.
He couldn’t hear anything.
This was going to be a good joke.
He reached out for the doorbell.
He rang the bell once. He heard it ringing inside the apartment. What he was going to do was run right back through the service entrance and then pretend he didn’t know what had happened, if he could keep a straight face. He was only going to ring the bell that once, as a joke. But somehow, standing there in the hallway with the building asleep all around him, he rang the bell again. And then, he didn’t know why, he rang it again. And again. As he rang it, he could remember the phone ringing each morning at eight o’clock in the Raphael, and running into his mother’s bedroom and climbing into her bed to ask the concierge Quel temps fait-il? He kept ringing the bell and ringing it. He didn’t even hear the front door when it opened. His father was in pyjamas, his mother was standing beside him in her nightgown.
“David!” she said. “What are you doing?”
David started to smile, half-expecting his mother to laugh, or run her hand over his head. But instead she was looking down at him with a very puzzled look on her face, and he decided not to smile because he had the feeling something terrible was going to happen, though he didn’t know what. He ducked his head.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
They were all quiet for a few minutes, and then his father said, “Why’d you ring the doorbell, David?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you rang it, didn’t you?” his father said.
“Yes.”
“Well, why?”
“I thought it would be a good joke.”
“A what?” his father said.
“A joke.”
“A joke? After all we went through last month? You thought it would be a joke to...”
“I didn’t do it last month.”
“I know that, but how could you...”
“This is the first time I ever rang it.”
“I know that,” his father said, and the hallway went silent.
“Why did you do it, David?” his mother asked.
He looked up at her, wanting to explain, but a hundred crazy things popped into his head instead. He wanted to say, Mom, do you remember the little stone balcony with the big windows where we used to have our breakfast every morning, do you remember the man who waved and winked at you? He wanted to say, Mom, do you remember the models kissing me at the salons and those two with their brassieres that time, the way you laughed, do you remember? Do you remember driving out to have a picnic lunch by the Loire on Bastille Day, and the wild traffic around the Étoile that night when we drove back into the city, and the fireworks later, do you remember holding my hand on the little stone balcony outside our room?
“Why,” she said again. “Why did you ring the doorbell, David?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“You must have had a reason, David,” his mother insisted.
“No, Mom,” he said. “I didn’t have any reason.”
She kept looking at him.
His father sighed then and said, “Well, it’s very late. Let’s all get back to bed.”
On the Sidewalk, Bleeding
The boy lay bleeding in the rain.
He was sixteen years old, and he wore a bright purple silk jacket, and the lettering across the back of the jacket read THE ROYALS. The boy’s name was Andy, and the name was delicately scripted in black thread on the front of the jacket, just over the heart. Andy.
He had been stabbed ten minutes ago. The knife had entered just below his rib cage and had been drawn across his body violently, tearing a wide gap in his flesh. He lay on the sidewalk with the March rain drilling his jacket and drilling his body and washing away the blood that poured from his open wound. He had known excruciating pain when the knife ripped §cross his body, and then sudden comparative relief when the blade was pulled away. He had heard the voice saying, “That’s for you, Royal!”, and then the sound of footsteps hurrying into the rain, and then he had fallen to the sidewalk, clutching his stomach, trying to stop the flow of blood.
He tried to yell for help, but he had no voice. He did not know why his voice had deserted him, or why the rain had become so suddenly fierce, or why there was an open hole in his body from which his life ran redly, steadily. It was 11:30 P.M., but he did not know the time.