The Woman In The Fifth Read online

  Then the film started. It was long and talky – but I followed most of it. It was largely set in some slightly rundown, but hip corner of Paris. There was a thirty-something guy called Mathieu who taught philosophy at a lycée, but (surprise, surprise) was trying to write a novel. There was his ex-wife Mathilde – a semi-successful painter who lived in the shadow of her father, Gérard. He was a famous sculptor, now cohabiting with his acolyte, Sandrine. Mathilde hated Sandrine because she was ten years her junior. Mathieu certainly didn't like Philippe, the info-tech business executive that Mathilde had been sleeping with. Mathilde, however, liked the lavish way Philippe treated her, but found him intellectually exasperating ('The man has never even read Montaigne . . .').

  The film began with Mathieu and Mathilde sitting in her kitchen, drinking coffee and smoking and talking. Then it cut to Sandrine who was posing naked for Gérard in his country atelier while Bach played on his stereo. They took a break from this modeling session. She put on some clothes. They went into his big country kitchen and drank coffee and smoked and talked. Then there was a scene in some expensive hotel bar. Mathilde was meeting Philippe. They sat at a banquette and drank champagne and smoked and talked . . .

  On and on it went. Talk. Talk. More talk. My problems. His problems. Your problems. And, by the way, la vie est inutile. After around an hour, I lost the battle I was fighting against jet lag and lack of sleep. I passed out. When I came to, Mathilde and Philippe were sitting in a hotel bar, drinking champagne and smoking and . . . Hang on, hadn't they done this scene already? I tried to keep my eyes open. I didn't succeed. And then . . .

  What the fuck?

  The opening credits were rolling again – and Mathieu and Mathilde were sitting in her kitchen, drinking coffee and smoking and talking. And . . .

  I rubbed my eyes. I lifted my arm. I tried to focus on my watch, but my vision was blurred. Eventually the digital numbers came into view: 4 . . . 4 . . . 3.

  Four forty-three?

  Oh Jesus, I'd been asleep since . . .

  My mouth was parched, toxic. I swallowed and tasted bile. My neck was rigid, nearly immobile. I touched my shirt. It was soaked through with sweat. Ditto my face. I put my fingers to my forehead. Intense heat radiated from my brow. I put my feet on the floor and tried to stand up. I didn't succeed. Every corner of my body now ached. My body temperature plunged – the tropical fever turning into a near-Arctic chill. My knees caved a bit as I attempted to stand up again, but I managed some sort of forward propulsion that moved me out of the aisle toward the door.

  Everything got a little blurry once I hit the lobby. I remember negotiating my way out past the box office, then moving into a maze of walkways, then finding the elevator, then getting disgorged on to the street. But I didn't want to be on the street. I wanted to be in the métro. So why had I gone up when I should have gone down?

  A smell hit my nose: fast-food grease. Check that: fast-food grease goes Middle East. I had emerged near a collection of cheap cafés. Opposite me was a tubby guy, deep-frying felafels at an outdoor stand. Next to him, on a rotating spit, was a blackened, half-carved leg of lamb. It was flecked with varicose veins (do lambs get varicose veins?). Beneath the lamb were slices of pizzas that looked like penicillin cultures. They provoked nausea at first glance. Aided by the felafel fumes, I felt as if I was about to be very sick. A moment later, I was very sick. I doubled over and heaved, the vomit hitting my shoes. Somewhere during my retch, a waiter in a café opposite me started shouting – something about being a pig and driving away his custom. I offered no reply, no explanation. I just lurched away, my vision fogged in, but somehow focused on the plastic ventilation shafts of the Pompidou Center in the immediate distance. Halfway there, I got lucky – a cab pulled up in front of a little hotel that was in the line of my stagger. As the passengers got out, I got in. I managed to give the driver the address of the Sélect. Then I slumped across the seat, the fever reasserting itself again.

  The ride back was a series of blackouts. One moment, I was in a dark netherworld; the next, the driver was engaged in an extended rant about how my vomit-splattered shoes were stinking up his cab. Blackout. More hectoring from the driver. Blackout. A traffic jam – all spectral yellow automotive lights prismed through rain-streaked windows. Blackout. More yellow light and the driver continuing his rant – now something about people who block the taxi lanes, how he never picked up North Africans if he could help it, and how he would certainly steer clear of me if he ever saw me again on the street. Blackout. A door was opening. A hand was helping me out of the car. A voice whispered gently into my ear, telling me to hand over twelve euros. I did as ordered, reaching into my pocket for my money clip. There was some dialogue in the background. I stood up, leaning against the cab for ballast. I looked up at the sky and felt rain. My knees buckled. I began to fall.

  Blackout.

  And then I was in a bed. And my eyes were being pierced by a beam of light. With a click, the light snapped off. As my vision regained focus I saw that there was a man seated in a chair beside me, a stethoscope suspended around his neck. Behind him stood another figure – but he seemed lost in the encroaching shadows. My sleeve was being rolled up and daubed with something moist. There was a sharp telltale stab as a needle plunged into my arm.

  Blackout.

  Two

  THERE WAS A light shining in my eyes again. But it wasn't a piercing beam like the last time. No, this was morning light; a stark, single shaft landing on my face and bringing me back to . . .

  Where am I exactly?

  It took a moment or two for the room to come into definition. Four walls. A ceiling. Well, that was a start. The walls were papered blue. A plastic lamp was suspended from the ceiling. It was colored blue. I glanced downward. The carpet on the floor was blue. I forced myself to sit up. I was in a double bed. The sheets – soaked with my sweat – were blue. The candlewick bedspread – flecked with two cigarette burns – was blue. The headboard of the bed was upholstered in a matching baby blue. This is one of those LSD flashbacks, right? A payback for my one and only experiment with hallucinogenics in 1982 . . .

  There was a table next to the bed. It was not blue. (All right, I'm not totally flipping here.) On it was a bottle of water and assorted packets of pills. Nearby was a small desk. A laptop was on top of it. My laptop. There was a narrow metal chair by the desk. It had a blue seat. (Oh no, it's starting again.) My blue jeans and blue sweater were draped across it. There was a small wardrobe – laminated in the same fake wood as the bedside table and the desk. It was open – and suspended from its hangers were the few pairs of trousers and shirts and the one jacket I'd shoved into a suitcase two days ago when . . .

  Was it two days ago? Or, more to the point, what day was it now? And how had I been unpacked into this blue room? And if there's one color I hate, it's azure. And . . .

  There was a knock on the door. Without waiting for a reply from me, a man walked in, carrying a tray. His face was familiar.

  'Bonjour,' he said crisply. 'Voici le petit déjeuner.'

  'Thanks,' I mumbled back in French.

  'They told me you have been sick.'

  'Have I?'

  He put the tray down on the bed. His face registered with me. He was the desk clerk who sent me packing when I arrived at that hotel . . .

  No, this hotel. The Sélect. Where you told the cabbie to bring you last night after you . . .

  It was all starting to make sense.

  'That is what Adnan said in his note.'

  'Who is Adnan?' I asked.

  'The night clerk.'

  'I don't remember meeting him.'

  'He obviously met you.'

  'How sick was I?'

  'Sick enough to not remember how sick you were. But that is just an assumption, as I wasn't here. The doctor who treated you is returning this afternoon at five. All will be revealed then. But that depends on whether you will still be here this afternoon. I put through payment for tomorrow, monsieur, thi
nking that, in your "condition", you would want to keep the room. But your credit card was not accepted. Insufficient funds.'

  This didn't surprise me. My Visa card was all but maxed out and I'd checked in, knowing that I had just enough credit remaining to squeeze out, at most, two nights here, and that there were no funds to clear the long-overdue bill. But the news still spooked me. Because it brought me back to the depressing realpolitik of my situation: everything has gone awry, and I now find myself shipwrecked in a shitty hotel far away from home . . .

  But how can you talk about 'home' when it no longer exists, when, like everything else, it has been taken away from you?

  'Insufficient funds?' I said, trying to sound bemused. 'How can that be?'

  'How can that be? ' he asked coolly. 'It just is.'

  'I don't know what to say.'

  He shrugged. 'There is nothing to say, except: Do you have another credit card?'

  I shook my head.

  'Then how do you propose paying for the room?'

  'Traveler's checks.'

  'That will be acceptable – provided they are valid ones. Are they American Express?'

  I nodded.

  'Fine. I will call American Express. If they say that the checks are valid, you may stay. If not . . .'

  'Maybe it would be better if I left now,' I said, knowing that my budget couldn't really afford multiple nights in this hotel.

  'That is your decision. Checkout time is eleven. You have just over two hours to vacate the room.'

  As he turned to go, I leaned forward, trying to reach for a croissant on the breakfast tray. Immediately, I fell back against the headboard, exhausted. I touched my brow. The fever was still there. So too was the pervasive sense of enervation. Getting out of this bed would be a major military maneuver. I could do nothing but sit here and accept the fact that I could do nothing but sit here.

  'Monsieur . . .' I said.

  The desk clerk turned around.

  'Yes?'

  'The traveler's checks should be in my shoulder bag.'

  A small smile formed on his lips. He walked over and retrieved the bag and handed it to me. He reminded me that the room cost sixty euros a night. I opened the bag and found my wad of traveler's checks. I pulled out two checks: a fifty-dollar and a twenty-dollar. I signed them both.

  'I need another twenty,' he said. 'The cost in dollars is ninety.'

  'But that's way above the regular exchange rate,' I said.

  Another dismissive shrug. 'It is the rate we post behind the desk downstairs. If you would like to come downstairs and see . . .'

  I can hardly sit up, let alone go downstairs.

  I pulled out another twenty-dollar traveler's check. I signed it. I tossed it on the bed.

  'There you go.'

  'Très bien, monsieur,' he said, picking up it. 'I will get all the details I need from your passport. We have it downstairs.'

  But I don't remember handing it over to you. I don't remember anything.

  'And I will call you once American Express has confirmed that the traveler's checks are legitimate.'

  'They are legitimate.'

  Another of his smarmy smiles.

  'On verra.' We'll see.

  He left. I slumped back against the pillows, feeling drained. I stared up blankly at the ceiling – hypnotized by its blue void, willing myself into it. I needed to pee. I tried to right myself and place my feet on the floor. No energy, no will. There was a vase on the bedside table. It contained a plastic floral arrangement: blue gardenias. I picked up the vase, pulled out the flowers, tossed them on the floor, pulled down my boxer shorts, placed my penis inside the vase, and let go. The relief was enormous. So too was the thought: This is all so seedy.

  The phone rang. It was the desk clerk.

  'The checks have been approved. You can stay.'

  How kind of you.

  'I have had a call from Adnan. He wanted to see how you were.'

  Why would he care?

  'He also wanted you to know that you need to take a pill from each of the boxes on the bedside table. Doctor's orders.'

  'What are the pills?'

  'I am not the doctor who prescribed them, monsieur.'

  I picked up the assorted boxes and vials, trying to make out the names of the drugs. I recognized none of them. But I still did as ordered: I took a pill from each of the six boxes and downed them with a long slug of water.

  Within moments, I was gone again – vanished into that vast dreamless void from which there are no recollections: no sense of time past or present, let alone a day after today. A small foretaste of the death that will one day seize me – and deny me all future wake-up calls.

  Bringggggggg . . .

  The phone. I was back in the blue room, staring at the vase full of urine. The bedside clock read 17.12. There was street-lamp light creeping in behind the drapes. The day had gone. The phone kept ringing. I answered it.

  'The doctor is here,' Mr Desk Clerk said.

  The doctor had bad dandruff and chewed-up nails. He wore a suit that needed pressing. He was around fifty, with thinning hair, a sad moustache and the sort of sunken eyes which, to a fellow insomniac like me, were a telltale giveaway of the malaise within. He pulled up a chair by the bed and asked me if I spoke French. I nodded. He motioned for me to remove my T-shirt. As I did so, I caught a whiff of myself. Sleeping in sweat for twenty-four hours had left me ripe.

  The doctor didn't seem to react to my body odor – perhaps because his attention was focused on the vase by the bed.

  'There was no need to provide a urine sample,' he said, taking my pulse. Then he checked my heartbeat, stuck a thermometer under my tongue, wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my left bicep, peered down my throat and shined a penlight into the whites of my eyes. Finally he spoke.

  'You have come down with a ruthless form of the flu. The sort of flu that often kills the elderly – and that is often indicative of larger problems.'

  'Such as?'

  'May I ask, have you been going through a difficult personal passage of late?'

  I paused.

  'Yes,' I finally said.

  'Are you married?'

  'I'm not sure.'

  'By which you mean . . . ?'

  'I am legally still married . . .'

  'But you left your wife?'

  'No – it was the other way around.'

  'And did she leave you recently?'

  'Yes – she threw me out a few weeks ago.'

  'So you were reluctant to leave?'

  'Very reluctant.'

  'Was there another man?'

  I nodded.

  'And your profession is . . . ?'

  'I taught at a college.'

  'You taught?' he said, picking up on the use of the past tense.

  'I lost my job.'

  'Also recently?'

  'Yes.'