The Apartment Page 6

  “You stay here until the morning,” the leader says softly. He leaves, shutting the pantry door, and we’re in darkness. Seconds later, the door flies open. He’s testing us.

  The door closes once more. There’s no lock on it.

  I’m shaking now; my mouth tastes like I’ve been drinking blood. We’ve got off lightly; we’re not tied up, we haven’t been blinded, tortured, raped. By South African standards, we’re lucky.

  Time passes. I can’t bear it any longer. I press my ear against the door—have they gone?

  “Should we—”

  “Shh,” Mark says. “They’ll hear you.”

  “But we have to get to Hayden.”

  “Shh,” he says again.

  When I leave the pantry to run to my daughter, he stays behind.

  —

  “Steph?” Mark’s voice snapped me out of reliving that night—the kind of thinking the police counselor had encouraged me to avoid. I was still fingering the empty space on my ring finger. He reached over to touch me, but I snatched my hand back. “We have to get you another one, Steph. Another ring.”

  “Yeah. One day.” It wasn’t as simple as replacing a laptop or a camera.

  “Soon, I promise. Hey, maybe we can buy one here?”

  “With the exchange rate like it is? That would be crazy, Mark.” But I smiled at him. “I don’t need a ring.”

  I looked down at my lap. The coat was covered in an avalanche of crumbs, and both the pastries had disappeared. I didn’t remember eating them.

  He glanced at his phone. “There’s a waxworks museum very near here. It’s supposed to be in an old theater. Feel like doing something kitschy and fun?”

  “Tomorrow, maybe.” Right then, it was fresh air I wanted. “Let’s walk for a while.”

  “Good idea.” I could tell he felt bad about his reticence with Hayden on the phone.

  The next few hours were pleasant enough. I pushed the worry about the Petits out of my head and reminded myself that Hayden was fine. Sure, the apartment was shoddy, but it was warm and dry and, let’s face it, free. We walked arm in arm, rambling along the broad boulevards and pausing to admire the opera house. Next, we window-shopped along the rue Royale, pretending we were the type of people who could afford luxury wallets and bespoke chocolates. I let the city charm me. Women strolled past, swathed in fur and scarves; slick men streamed around us in shiny shoes that no one but the most ardent hipster would dare to wear back at home.

  The sky was darkening, and Mark’s foot was bothering him. “Let’s head back,” he suggested. “Rest for an hour or so, then head to Montmartre for something to eat. Push the boat out. Blow the budget.” He drew me to him. “How does that sound?”

  We shared a smile, and at that moment I thought, Yes, this is why we came to Paris. Using the Sacré-Cœur’s domed top as a beacon, we rambled upward through cobbled streets glossy with rain, pausing to read the menus placed outside alluring bistros. A window display caught my eye: child-size mannequins wearing colorful, chic clothes, butterflies dancing around them.

  “Oh! Can we go in?”

  He hesitated. “Sure.”

  The elegant brunette behind the counter greeted us warmly. I tried a few words of fledgling French, and she immediately switched to English. Mark hovered by the door while I picked through a pile of handcrafted T-shirts, not daring to look at the price. “Hayden would love this,” I called to Mark, holding up one decorated with a quirkily designed dinosaur.

  He gave me a tight smile.

  “Ah, come on. Let’s get it for her.”

  “Up to you.”

  The assistant beamed at me as I handed her my credit card, and she began the laborious process of wrapping the shirt in tissue paper. I tried not to feel guilt at the price—fifty-five euros—which was outrageous for something Hayden would outgrow in a couple of months.

  I tapped in my PIN, and the assistant frowned. “I am sorry. It does not want to go through.”

  Flustered, I tried again. It was rejected once more. I called Mark over.

  “Perhaps you can call your bank?” the woman said politely. Mark asked her if he could use her wi-fi, and she graciously gave us the security key. He got through to the bank’s call center but lost the call almost immediately and had to try again. A smart couple carrying a sleeping toddler entered the shop, and the woman drifted away to deal with them. While Mark whispered into his phone, I checked my emails. There was one from Carla: Okay. Don’t worry. You are there to chill out. I’ll make inquiries from here. Probably some mix-up. SIGH. x

  Mark hung up and shook his head. “We were supposed to authorize the card before we left.”

  “Shit.” The couple glanced at us nervously. “But you can sort it out, right?”

  “Not from here. I can try phoning our branch tomorrow, but it doesn’t sound hopeful.”

  “How many euros have we got?”

  “Around three hundred and fifty.”

  If we couldn’t use the card, then that would be tight for six days. We’d have to be careful. Lavish romantic dinners would be out of the question, and I certainly couldn’t buy the T-shirt for Hayden. It was tempting to lash out at him, blame him for the card screw-up, but I bit my tongue. This wouldn’t have happened if you had your own bank account and salary, the voice of guilt whispered.

  Face hot, I approached the shop woman.

  “There is still a problem?”

  “Oui. I am so sorry.” And I was. She was charming about it, which somehow made the whole situation worse.

  Deflated, we stopped at a supermarket and bought the basics: more coffee, milk, butter, cheese, and a baguette—a meager supper—as well as some adhesive bandages for Mark’s foot, neither of us saying anything that wasn’t necessary. We found our way back to the apartment with its aura of old food and misery. The woman on the top floor had her music cranked up high, the strains of an eighties pop ballad I couldn’t place floating down at us. Duran Duran? David Lee Roth? Something like that. Whatever it was, it didn’t suit the building.

  Mark kicked his shoes off the second he walked through the door, threw himself on the couch, and peeled off his socks. I wrinkled my nose at the sour foot odor wafting up from his shoes, but he didn’t notice. He hauled his left foot onto his knee to inspect the damage. “Shit. That got bad fast.”

  The only damage to his sole was a tiny black dot. “There’s nothing there, Mark.”

  “It bloody hurts.”

  I kissed his forehead. “Shame, diddums.” I retreated into the kitchen to pack away the groceries. The fridge door screamed as I opened it, releasing a gust of foul air. Homesickness washed through me, taking me by surprise. After the men had broken into our house, it had no longer felt like home.

  Again, my mind strayed back to the Petits. What if something had happened to them? They might be unreliable and thoughtless, but they probably didn’t know anyone in South Africa. Weren’t Mark and I in some way responsible for them?

  “Mark? Can you check the bedroom, see if there’s anything with the Petits’ phone number written on it? See if you can find a key to the closet. I’ll look in the kitchen.”

  “Sure.”

  I started by searching through the top drawer next to the sink, which was crammed with rusty spoons and forks with bent tines. Mark called out that he’d found the key to the wardrobe in one of the drawers next to the bed, but I was too intent on what I was doing to answer him. A piece of paper was scrunched at the back, wedged into a corner. I pulled it out and unwrapped it carefully. It looked like a ripped section from a school essay. The ragged page was scrawled with childish writing in blue ballpoint peppered with red pen corrections. The only word I could understand was bien.

  “Steph?” Mark stood in the kitchen doorway. There was something off about his body language.

  “What?”

  “You’d better come and see.”

  Chapter 7

  Mark

  It’s some sort of sick joke. Someone’s
fucking with me.

  “What is it?”

  Steph’s leaning into the bedroom and now I realize I’ve made a mistake calling her in here. I don’t want her in here. I don’t want her to touch it—there could be fleas, rabies, mites.

  “It’s nothing. Don’t come in!”

  But she takes a step into the room with an impatient frown. “What is it, Mark?”

  I come up with a lie I know will keep her away. “It’s just a dead mouse.”

  “Ugh, God. I’ll leave you to it, okay?” She goes back to the kitchen and I listen until I hear her scrabbling through the drawers again.

  I can’t believe I almost let Steph see this. I picture her leaning into the closet, titillated, disgusted all at once, wanting to recoil but at the same time unable to help herself from edging nearer to the buckets.

  Three white plastic five-gallon buckets, each densely filled with hair. Human hair. Forcing myself to take a longer look than my first glance, I try to reset my eyes, try to trick them into seeing wool or cotton or material swatches, like that woman from upstairs had in her apartment. Perhaps the Petits are artists too. Perhaps the woman upstairs stores her excess material in here. But no—it’s hair. Wadded masses of it, from a lot of different heads—curly, straight, black, brown, yellow, and gray, all clumped together like human hair should never be.

  What the hell is it for?

  I check myself. For? I don’t care what it’s for. I’ve got to throw it out.

  But if Steph catches me, I can just imagine her reaction. We can’t. It’s not ours. What if they need it?

  I peer down at the matted clumps in the buckets and, drawn by it, I sink down to my knees and bring my face closer, trying not to imagine what could be crawling in the layers, the dander that’s circulating as the hair disintegrates. It’s pulling my face closer and closer, like the suck of the abyss. My nose almost in it, I breathe in.

  Relief clears my mind. It doesn’t smell dirty or anything. Perhaps there is a good explanation. Perhaps they make dolls. Maybe they’re wigmakers.

  Surely it’s paranoid to think that they—whoever they are—know about me, about Odette and Zoë. But I’ve just been smelling buckets of dead hair in my holiday apartment. I can no longer pretend that this apartment is even halfway livable. We’ve spent money we don’t have to fly all the way here and end up in a filthy shithole. There should be some measure of accountability; there should be a basic bond of decency in this “house swap” scheme. Steph bought these people fresh sheets, for God’s sake! In exchange, we get a dingy warren with buckets of human hair in the closet.

  I want to rail and yell and demand retribution, but nobody cares. We blundered into this arrangement sight unseen and it’s only our mistake—my mistake for encouraging it. I could have snuffed the idea out when it started.

  Could’ve, should’ve, would’ve. Didn’t.

  I hurry into the kitchen and grab a roll of trash bags from the murk under the sink and dodge out again, but not before Steph can say, “What do you need all those for? It’s just a mouse.”

  I pull a face. “Looks like it’s been there for a while. Thought I’d better wrap a couple of bags over my hands when I scoop it up.”

  “Yuck. Strange that I didn’t smell it.” She smiles. “Thanks for clearing it up, Mark.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say. “It’s nothing.”

  But it’s not nothing.

  I don’t know how I would even begin to explain to Steph what this means without sounding morbid and weird. Of course she knows the basics about what happened to Zoë and Odette, but not the details. How could I even start?

  Back in the apartment’s bedroom, I fit a bag over the mouth of the first bucket, as carefully as possible so that I don’t have to touch any of it, and tip the whole thing over.

  Again, I check over my shoulder to see if Steph’s going to catch me in the act, but by the sounds of things she’s back rooting through the kitchen cupboards.

  I carefully empty each of the buckets into the trash bags, tie the tops up, and stack the buckets back in the closet. Despite my care, a few loose strands wisp into my face. My arms and hands tickle where it’s touched my skin, long after I’ve wiped it off. I feel…things…walking over me. Tiny, invisible things. Microbes. I try not to think of it; thinking too much sends an icy finger trailing down my spine. I’ll get these bags out and then have a long shower.

  I slip on my shoes, not bothering with a coat, and creep out of the apartment, gruesome cargo bumping softly against my legs. I call out something about heading for the trash cans, then pick my way down the narrow stairs, my phone in my left hand lighting my way and the three black bags in my right fist extended as far away as possible, clutched like three oversize human heads. Out in the courtyard, freezing rain is filtering down from the small rectangle of sulfur sky. There were some green trash cans parked out here earlier, but now they’ve vanished. I consider taking the bags out to the street and dumping them, but I wouldn’t want to have to explain myself if anyone were to challenge me.

  Doing what should be done. That’s all I ever want to achieve, and the bloody home invasion keeps on cycling through my mind. Did I do the right thing? I let the fuckers take what they wanted without trying to act like a hero. That’s what everyone advises. Don’t play the hero. Don’t put up a fight. If they got angry, they could have tipped over into violence. So I sat there as they prowled around our home as if they owned it. I said nothing. I did nothing. Steph blames me for this, I know, but ultimately she and Hayden were unharmed—I did my job. I don’t want to ask myself what I would have done if they had tried to hurt Steph and…I don’t even want to think about it. It didn’t happen that way and we all turned out okay.

  There’s a weathered storeroom door set into the knobbled masonry a few paces along, its once-green wooden slats peeling and flaking. I peer through the low window but can see nothing through its grimy panes. My face is getting numb from the cold already and my muscles are sore from holding the bags at arm’s length, so I drop them and don’t think quite as much as I should before pushing the door open and entering the room.

  A thick, dank, cold miasma of must hits me as I search fruitlessly for a light switch. Casting my phone’s pathetic light around the low-vaulted, cellar-like space, I see a clutter of old crates and what seems like stored furniture under dust-caked sheeting. A rough and paint-spattered wooden ladder with rotten rungs leans against the exposed and moldy brickwork of the far wall. I turn to leave, but I almost feel, more than hear, a quiet whimper in the far corner of the space. It’s just a mouse or a rat, I tell myself, trying to excuse my self-preserving cowardice yet again, but there’s something so familiar about the tone of it that I can’t just turn to go. It’s like the soft, sad crying of a child. I push my feet over the cold, grainy floor, following the sound toward an arched alcove to one side of the room. There’s a bare mattress lying in the alcove, covered with a loose knot of sheets brown with aged dirt and spattered with what looks like streaks of mildew. I can still hear the whimpering, closer now, coming from somewhere in this alcove. Heart hammering, I scan my light into the corner, where I see a bundle of soiled clothes that were once bright, trapped for years in a familiar constellation—just thrown to the floor like any kid would do. A pair of still-colorful plastic boots with Scooby-Doo printed on them.

  Nobody’s here, but still the crying sound, now almost a gasping choke. I have to do it. I bend down and rip away the sheet from the mattress in a flurry of dust and dander. I stumble two paces back, clearing the air in front of me with my arm. Nobody’s crying beneath this sheet. The room is empty, I tell myself, because I don’t want to look too hard at the dark, frenzied stains across the mattress.

  Before my mind starts asking too many questions, I hurry to leave, only now remembering to pick up the three bags of hair in my left fist. Finally, as I scurry toward the entrance, I see the two green trash cans in a cranny behind the door. I lift the lid and, not looking inside,
dump the bags. The slam of the lid is offensive in the sepulchral space. It chases me out the door into the cold outside air again. Gasping in the night air’s freshness and turning toward the lobby, I walk straight into someone emerging from the shadows of the alley.

  “Oh, pardon,” I say, one of those words you learn quickly here to disguise your shock or dismay.

  The madwoman in the attic—the more I tell myself not to think of her like that, the more the phrase lodges in my mind—has dropped her shopping bag and she’s kneeling down, huffing and tutting as she gathers her groceries. Two oranges are rolling lopsidedly along the cobbles toward the gutter.

  “I’m sorry, let me,” I say, hobbling after them as my foot pierces me with a jab of pain. She stands and opens the grocery bag to let me drop the oranges in. “I’m so sorry.”

  “What are you looking for in here?” she says, indicating the storeroom door.

  For some reason, I feel like a guilty trespasser. It doesn’t help that my breath is still jagged. “I was just trying to find a trash can.”

  She shrugs. At least she’s not yelling at me. This might be my one chance to find out some answers about this building, so I try to calm down. I want to know why this building in the middle of this desirable neighborhood is deserted, but as I start to ask, “Do you know…,” the night is sliced by a strangled cry of pain and anguish. For a second, the woman shrinks back and cowers, her mask of self-possession shattering and falling, leaving the naked terror of a little girl in its place. Just a flash, like a small cloud whisked across the face of the moon, and then she’s back. A cat steps out from a culvert and saunters across our path, flicking its tail in the air and letting out a human-sounding squall as it goes.

  “Oh, Lalou,” the woman says, and then mutters something to the sauntering cat in French.

  I can’t ask this woman everything I want to know, and already she’s drifting away from me, so I end up rushing to say, “Do you know the Petits well?”