The house stood on a narrow tree-lined street fronting the canal - an anonymous doorway beside a cramped shop front which from the faded sign seemed once to have been a bakery. Now the window displayed half a dozen shoe boxes with perched on each a single confection of frail coloured leather. She crossed the cobbles and for a moment stared into the window. She found herself looking at a delicate platform with black woven straps. But she barely registered fact because somehow as she crossed the street she'd become aware without looking that the door to number 26 was open.
Now that she was here her sense of herself seemed to have deserted her. She was a shell. She could not begin to decide whether to go in or to turn back because the person who took these decisions, the thinking, reasoning part of her had gone. A wind was blowing from the direction of the railway bridge sending a scattering of dead leaves along the gutter. She felt the breeze go through her, as if her body was incapable of offering the slightest resistance to even this insubstantial movement of air.
So it was without volition that she turned aside, lifted her hand and entered 26 Rue de Sante.
It was dark in the hall. Plaster was peeling from the walls of what had once been an imposing entrance. A broad staircase rose in front of her, its steps littered with debris. She stood on the cold tiles and listened. Nothing. The house smelled of damp and neglect. To her left a door opened onto an empty room lit by a gap in the wooden shutters. A dusty chandelier hung drunkenly from the ceiling. Not there, she thought.
The street was just a step away. She had only to turn and make her way out into the daylight and it would be over. She could return to her hotel, pack, confirm her train reservation, and be back in the arms of her husband by morning. How simple that would be to accomplish. She could slip back into her familiar life and pick up where she had left off less than a week before. She opened her purse and looked inside, as if in search of something that might help her. But beyond a single 100 franc note, carefully folded, the purse was empty. Was she ready? Had she done what he asked of her? She ran through the written instructions he'd asked her to memorise to make sure. Yes, everything was as he wished. She closed the purse and headed towards the stairs.
The staircase delivered her to a broad landing which swung back on itself and led to a large room at the front of the building. Light poured in from four large windows overlooking the street. Like the rest of the house, the room was empty of furnishings except for a single discarded café chair which lay on it's side. He was standing by the window, smoking a cigarette. He must have watched her arrive. A big man. They had warned her of that. With a mane of silver hair whose unruly bulk fell onto the collar of his overcoat.
"Come in. Please."
He spoke without turning to look at her and blew a long spiral of smoke into the air. Then throwing aside his cigarette he ground it into the floorboards and faced her.
He looked at her carefully, and once again she felt the hollowness that had become so familiar over the last days invade her. She was sure he could sense the frailty in the image of herself she was struggling to present to him.
"I have other houses", he said. "But this one I keep as it is."
He gestured in the direction of a patch of brickwork that was showing through the damp plaster.
"It's good to be reminded of what lies underneath the civilised exterior don't you think?"
She could think of nothing to say to this – but it seemed that nothing was required because he went on with barely a pause.
"Let me tell you what you're thinking. You're here without quite knowing what has brought you. All you know is that you have seen a door that till now has been closed to you. And you feel that not to open it would be a betrayal of who you are, or who you could become. This is your chance to open that door. Am I right?"
She nodded.
"Very well. I think it's time you showed what you've brought me. Open your coat."
She had known this moment would come. If she obeyed him, any pretence that she was merely curious would evaporate. She would be condemned by her own complicity. From that moment on she would not be the person who had entered the room, the woman who had arrived in Paris only a few days before with a house and a future and a husband who loved her. She would be another. She knew all this. And yet she did not hesitate. She did as he asked and at once felt the cold air of the room on her skin.
"Wider."
She held her coat open so that he could look at her. Her breasts were uncovered. Below the coat she wore only the black lace pants and the stockings he had asked for.
"You've shaved?"
She nodded, waiting for some words of approval, some acknowledgement that he was pleased with what he saw. But he simply went on speaking in his detached way.
"You are young. Your body is a stranger to you. You have lived with it for 20 years but you have not begun to understand. The body has a language of its own. This I think you suspect or you would not be here. You need someone to show you what that language is, whatever the cost, because you fear that not knowing will leave you incomplete. You believe I am a person who can show you. Is that true?"
"Yes."
"Good. Then now it is time to choose. In a moment I am going to ask if you wish to stay. You are of course free to leave here. If you decide to walk away no one will try to stop you. The door is still open. But understand this. If you stay, then you put yourself entirely in my hands. Whatever happens to you from then on will not be for you to decide. Is that absolutely clear?"
Her arms were beginning to tremble with the effort of holding the coat open, and the cold had touched her breasts so that her nipples stood out. The hollowness seemed to have concentrated somewhere in the pit of her stomach.
