Arthur asks if we’ve ever heard the cries of a female cat on heat. He looks at Harry, then at me. “Just like a toddler,” he says. “A toddler having a terrible nightmare.” He says nobody in the neighborhood slept well after that.
Silently Arthur raises his open arms as if to point out Mr. Glorieux’s building, as if to say that life can take strange turns. That a dead toddler can sometimes lead to something like this.
22
Mrs. Privalova steps out of the elevator on her assistant’s arm. She inclines her gray head. It’s a greeting, we know that, even though she doesn’t speak or look in our direction. She is in her early nineties. Her assistant is a balding man with pink, full cheeks. Taking small steps, he goes to Garage 22. Mrs. Privalova stands motionless on the short runner in front of the elevator, leaning on her walking stick. She is festooned with antique jewelry and a sable stole. From the corner of my eye, I study her profile, which shows indomitability more than anything else. This willpower must be at the basis of her wealth. It is the willpower of the victor.
Then the inevitable happens. It happens every time. How terrible must it be for Mrs. Privalova to suffer from flatulence? An ailment that announces its presence over and over. Her elderly body is no longer able to resist. What can she do except ignore it, pretending that the escaping gas isn’t making the weirdest noises, as if her sphincter has degenerated into a fold of skin flapping lazily in the wind.
Harry and I look at her assistant as indomitably as Mrs. Privalova: he is not very skillful with the Bentley and invariably forgets to shut the garage door. I’m standing closest to her and take shallow breaths, only admitting the air that is already in my nose out of respect for this woman. Presuming, as I do, that she would find any greater intimacy unbearable.
23
Mrs. Privalova has just left when the signal for the residents’ elevator sounds again. The elevator has been programmed to ensure that the residents are never forced into each other’s company: it always completes a journey before answering the next call. It is extremely rare for one resident to immediately follow another. They could bump into each other in the basement.
Mr. Van der Burg-Zethoven has a weekend bag with him. His fiancée is carrying their hairless cat, a hideous creature wearing a black leather collar set with gems. He walks to his garage, some ten meters from the elevator, too impatient, apparently, to wait for assistance. They only arrived from their country estate yesterday. Their faces are gray with seriousness, or from the unusually early hour. A death in the family, thinks Harry.
But the couple, coincidentally or otherwise, turn out to be the harbingers of a flurry of activity among the residents. Harry and I count ten exactly who leave with luggage in the course of the day. Perhaps an important event is taking place in their circle — a premiere, the presentation of a prize, an anniversary or a farewell — and later, in some other city, they will all be guests at the same gala event, where they will recognize each other in the crowd on the dance floor as owners in the same building and start to talk, settling on some obvious subject of conversation, exchanging experiences, assessing and desiring the other’s husband or wife, agreeing to see each other again sometime soon.
24
It’s the depths of the night. Harry is sound asleep when I hear the signal for the residents’ elevator. For a moment I think I must have dozed off and am now dreaming that I’m sitting on the chair alone and hearing the signal for the residents’ elevator because I have heard it so many times today. But I am awake. Quietly I tell myself that I am awake and I clearly hear my own words.
Mr. De Bontridder is wearing casual clothes I have never seen before. In this nondescript get-up, without the three-piece suits in which he leads a fabulously successful software company, he looks like an ordinary family man who has decided that tonight’s the night to do a flit.
He comes up to me, talking as if he’s obliged to answer the question he reads in my eyes. He is agitated: maybe he took something to stay awake and overdid it. He tells me a muddled story about information he’s considered, parameters, reports he’s been following closely, all day now. The input is steady, the calculations precise, the reliability has never been higher, the margin of error is negligible. A man like him can’t stay blind. No one can stay blind, no one, make no mistake about that.
I watch his mouth opening and closing to the rhythm of the words, so far it all makes sense. But I don’t get any farther; beyond this point I seem to be lost in someone else’s dream. I still experience the physical presence of all that surrounds me. I am in the middle of a stream of air issuing constantly from Mr. De Bontridder’s body. I am sure of that much. I can mainly smell leek, but also fish. Salmon, I think.
At this hour, it’s only natural that I lend a hand. After he has fetched the Mercedes coupé, I load his luggage into the trunk. The car is decades old but magnificently designed and, now that I finally have a chance, I can’t resist the temptation to run my hand over its coldly gleaming silver curves while Mr. De Bontridder, sitting at the wheel, talks into his telephone in a hoarse voice. Not much later the familiar signal sounds, the elevator door opens with a sigh and Mrs. De Bontridder dives into the passenger seat as if it’s raining cats and dogs.
25
The next residents appear early in the morning. We’re on our feet all day in a basement that’s as busy as a train station. Almost no one pays us any attention. Today we’re a royal guard, constantly at attention, unable to be distracted from our official protocol.
Only Mr. Olano shakes our hands late in the afternoon before climbing in next to his chauffeur. A handshake accompanied by a solemn nod and “See you later.” Although it’s definitely not small or cold, his hand is neither particularly large nor particularly warm. His politeness, however, is most peculiar. Has Claudia told him about us in the darkness of her room? Has he ended up developing a soft spot for the two men in the basement who guarantee his security?
Peace returns in the evening.
Harry shakes his head. He’s worked here longer than me and never experienced this before. There’s nothing unusual about fluctuations in the occupancy rate: all of the owners have multiple residences at their disposal. But an exodus like the last few days’, no, he can’t remember anything comparable. According to his count there is only one resident left in the building. He doesn’t know his name as he only goes out sporadically. A strange, withdrawn character in his early thirties, who keeps his head shaved and always wears black. Harry couldn’t point out the staff who serve him either, not if they were standing right in front of his nose.
26
The signal for the service elevator, after three days without any sign of life. A group of staff — presumably they all serve the same family — step out of the elevator. They’re in high spirits. The men laugh as one, teasing the women, who are made up and have let their hair down, tossing it over their shoulders or softly pushing back their curls. Their leave has started. They greet us casually and we give a cursory greeting in reply. Not one of them disengages from the group. Here, in the building, they stay close together as if lassoed with an invisible rope, walking as one unit toward the entrance gate and the outside world, where it seems to be quiet and where it is very likely that their relationships with each other will change rapidly.