Paris Noir - Aurelien Masson [63]
The old man raised his head and stared at Arnaud without answering. He picked up the coffeepot, brought it to the table, and filled the two cups. He sat down in front of Arnaud, right next to the dog; he scratched the animal behind the ear for a long time. Then, as if he’d just made a decision, he sat up, put his two hands down on the table, and said: “I’m going to tell you a story.”
2.
You see, sir, in two or three months this building’s going to be torn down. I think about it every time I see it. Every time I turn the corner I’m glad to see its old walls still standing, and then the potted geraniums of the old lady on the third floor, they’re old as the building. She takes cuttings from them and puts them in glasses of water, they’re all over her kitchen. During the summer, with the flowers and the wash drying outside the neighbors’ windows, you’d think it’s a street in Italy. That’s what I tell myself, you see, even though I’ve never been to Italy. Every time I see the building from the street I’m happy, and relieved. As if the demolition crew might come in with their bulldozers and jackhammers before the date they’ve set, and there’ll be nothing left of my house but a pile of rubble. They’re going to build what they call a “residence,” you know, one of those high-class buildings they sell to young people for a fortune because you can see the trees in the park, as if you couldn’t go live in the country when you feel like seeing trees. Twenty years ago it was a hotel—you can still see the sign painted on the front—then they knocked down some inside walls and turned the rooms into apartments to rent to people who didn’t mind sharing a bathroom with four other apartments and a toilet out on the landing. Yes, people like me and Layla’s mother.
But I’m always afraid they’ll knock down the building without any warning, and every time I go out I take a bag with my most important things in it: my papers, the money I’ve saved up, my watch—I don’t like to wear it on my wrist—my social security card, some letters from my mother, and … these photos. That’s Layla. Take a look. She got these snapshots done in the Photomaton at the supermarket; she gave them to me on her fifteenth birthday. You can see how beautiful she is. Nobody ever knew who her father was; her mother got married and had three other kids but Layla was the oldest, from the years when her mom was going out and having a good time. The kid was conceived who knows where and she was born who knows where, in the street, she was in a hurry to see the world, the neighbors didn’t have the time to call an ambulance.
For a long time she was ashamed of it, being born in the street. The other kids in the neighborhood knew—kids always know everything—and you can bet they made fun of her. Then one day I took her by the hand—her mother asked me to watch her a lot when she was a little girl and the kid was used to coming over my place—and I took her to rue de Belleville to show her the marble plaque on number 72, where Piaf was born, you know, five minutes away from here. And then I took her to the library to show her what a great lady Piaf was, I showed her books and I made her listen to recordings too, she looked like a little mouse with those earphones—she was … oh, not more than five or six. I never had a record player and neither did her mother.
That story of Piaf who was born in the street like her … it was a good thing for her—and a bad thing too. Because she decided right away she’d be a singer, and she did have a nice little voice. She started singing all the time. Since they couldn’t handle her anymore at her place, with the three other kids squealing, she’d come to