At two in the afternoon they returned to the hotel and didn’t re-emerge until dinner time. It would probably be true to say that Rousselot had never felt so good in his life. He wanted to write, and eat, and go out dancing with Simone, and wander aimlessly through the streets of the Left Bank. In fact, he felt so good that during the meal, shortly before they ordered dessert, he explained the reason for his trip to Paris. To Rousselot’s surprise, Simone was not at all surprised by the revelation that he was a writer or that Morini had plagiarized or copied his work, or freely adapted two of his novels to make his two best films.
Things like that do happen, was her laconic response, and even stranger things. Then, point blank, she asked him if he was married. The answer was implicit in the question, and with a resigned gesture Rousselot showed her the gold ring constricting his finger in that moment as it never had before. And do you have children? asked Simone. A little boy, said Rousselot with a tenderness engendered by the mental image of his offspring. And he added, He looks just like me. Then Simone asked him to keep her company on the way home. In the taxi, neither of them said a word; both looked out of their windows at the unpredictable spills of bright and dark, which made the City of Light seem like a medieval Russian city, or at least like the images of such cities that Soviet directors used to offer for public consumption every now and then in their films. Finally the taxi pulled up in front of a four-story building and Simone invited him to come in. Rousselot wondered whether he should, and then he remembered that he hadn’t paid her. Shamefaced, he got out of the taxi without worrying about how he would get back to his hotel (there didn’t seem to be many taxis in that neighborhood). Before going into the building, he held out a bunch of uncounted bills, which Simone put into her handbag, without counting them either.
The building didn’t have an elevator. By the time they reached the fourth floor, Rousselot was out of breath. In the dimly lit living room an old woman was drinking a whitish-colored liqueur. In response to a sign from Simone, Rousselot sat down next to the old woman, who produced a glass and filled it with that appalling liquid, while Simone vanished through one of the doors, then reappeared after a while and summoned him with a gesture. What now? thought Rousselot.
The room was small; it contained a bed in which a child was sleeping. My son, said Simone. He’s lovely, said Rousselot. And he was a pretty child, but perhaps that was only because he was sleeping. He had blond hair, which was rather too long, and resembled his mother, although Rousselot noted that there was already something thoroughly manly about his childish features. When he went back to the living room, Simone was paying the old woman, who then took her leave of Madame, and even wished her visitor an effusive good night, calling him Sir. Rousselot was thinking that the day had been eventful enough and that it was time to leave when Simone said he could spend the night with her, if he liked. But you can’t sleep in my bed, she said; she didn’t want her son to see her in bed with a stranger. So they made love in Simone’s room, and then Rousselot went out into the living room, lay down on the couch and fell asleep.
He spent the next day en famille, so to speak. The little boy’s name was Marc; Rousselot found him to be very bright (as well as speaking better French than he did). The novelist spared no expense: they had breakfast in the center of Paris, went to a park, had lunch in a restaurant on the Rue de Verneuil, which he had been told about in Buenos Aires, then they went rowing on a lake, and finally they visited a supermarket where Simone bought all the ingredients for a proper French meal. They took taxis everywhere. As they waited for ice-creams on a café terrace on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, Rousselot recognized a pair of famous writers. He admired them from a distance. Simone asked him if he knew them. He said no, but he was a passionate reader of their books. Then go and ask them for an autograph, she said.
At first it seemed a perfectly reasonable idea, the natural thing to do, but at the last moment Rousselot decided that he didn’t have the right to annoy anyone, least of all people he’d always admired. That night he slept in Simone’s bed; they covered each other’s mouths to stop their moans waking the child, and made love for hours, violently at times, as if loving each other were the only thing they knew how to do. The next day he returned to his hotel before the child woke up.
His suitcase had not been put out in the street as he had feared, and no one was surprised to see him appear out of nowhere, like a ghost. At reception there were two messages from Riquelme. The first was to say he had found out how to locate Morini. The second was to ask if Rousselot was still interested in meeting him.
He showered, shaved, brushed his teeth (a horrifying experience), put on clean clothes and called Riquelme. They talked for a long time. Riquelme told him that a friend of his, a Spanish journalist, knew another journalist, a Frenchman, who was a freelance movie, theater and music critic. The French journalist had been a friend of Morini’s and still had his telephone number. When the Spaniard had asked for the number, the Frenchman had given it to him without a second thought. Then Riquelme and the Spanish journalist had called Morini’s number without getting their hopes up, and were amazed when the woman who answered told them that they had indeed reached the director’s residence.
Now all they had to do was set up a meeting (at which Riquelme and the Spanish journalist wanted to be present) on some pretext — anything, for example an interview for an Argentinean newspaper. . with a surprise ending. What do you mean a surprise ending? shouted Rousselot. That’s when the bogus journalist reveals his true identity and confronts the plagiarist, Riquelme replied.
That night, as Rousselot was taking photographs more or less at random on the banks of the Seine, a bum came up and asked him for some change. Rousselot offered him a bill if he would consent to be photographed. The bum agreed, and for a while they walked along together in silence, stopping every now and then to allow the Argentine writer to move off to an appropriate distance and take a photo. On the third occasion the bum suggested a pose, which Rousselot accepted without demur. The writer took eight photos in alclass="underline" the bum on his knees with his arms stretched out to the sides, and in other poses, such as pretending to sleep on a bench, thoughtfully watching the river flow by, or smiling and waving his hand. When the photo session was over, Rousselot gave him two bills and all the coins in his pocket, and then the pair of them stood there together, as if there were something more to be said but neither of them dared say it. Where are you from? the bum asked. Buenos Aires, Argentina, replied Rousselot. What a coincidence, said the bum in Spanish, I’m Argentine too. Rousselot was not at all surprised by this revelation. The bum began to hum a tango, then told him that in Europe, where he’d been living for more than fifteen years, he had found happiness and even some wisdom now and then. Rousselot realized that the bum had started using the familiar form of address, which he hadn’t done when they were speaking in French. Even his voice, the tone of his voice, seemed to have changed. Rousselot felt a deep sadness overwhelming him, as if he knew that, come the end of the day, he would have to look into an abyss. The bum noticed and asked him what he was worried about.