The Seven Turns of the Snail's Shell: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

most were not. The whole system reeked of sewage, garlic, and vomit. She waited for the train to slow and the doors to open, then boarded, holding her breath as she noted that the car was full of people. The overcrowded cars always smelled of human sweat and stale tobacco. The doors slammed closed, and the train lurched. She found a corner and stood, holding onto a metal pole next to her so as not to lose her balance. It wasn’t long to her stop: Maubert Mutualité. Absorbed in memories, she ascended to the street. She knew the quarter well. She had lived there while attending the Sorbonne. It was where she and C-C had met and spent many hours studying together, where they had browsed for antiquarian treasures in the bouquinist’s stalls and, as lovers, walked arm in arm along the quay.
    Suddenly, a soft-beige stone building with seventeenth-century details reared up, beast-like, directly in front of her. The monster enveloped her, drew back on its tall, ground-floor windows, then pitched forward. Its eyes became progressively smaller, seeming to squint at her. The tiny mansard windows peeped down from the sloping roof, and the iron railings and protruding sills of the balconies sneered in unison. A huge “No. 4” stared at her from its forehead. Anna blinked. A young man with a cigarette in his mouth stood on the balcony of the première étage . Just as suddenly, the monstrosity shrunk and took its place amongst the others just like it on the street; the young smoker disappeared.
    Anna shook her head, thinking that she must still be jetlagged, when she realized that she was standing directly in front of C-C’s former apartment building. She pressed the main button on the keypad. The heavy, wooden porte d’entrée pushed open easily. It wasn’t locked; the daily mail apparently had not yet been delivered. She peered into the courtyard, looking for any sign of Elise, who could usually be found humming softly to herself while working in the small kitchen garden outside her apartment.
    Elise had lived in the building for over forty years. Her small apartment was on the ground floor, or rez-de-chausée , off the flower-filled courtyard. Elise had told Anna once about how she had come to Paris from Portugal and thought that the city was especially beautiful from the Seine.
    “My husband, Ferdinand, et moi , we lived in this very building,” Anna recalled her saying. “It was the appartement noble . We had a balcony. We went into partnership with a financier and, with one little decrepit boat, we wished to start a business running tourist boats on the Seine. Ferdinand thought it would be a very good business. Eh bien , on the first day out, going only in circles, the boat broke down. Et voilà . We were out of business, just like that. Today, the Bateaux Mouches line is a successful tourist attraction, but unfortunately, we have no connection to it.”
    Elise had told Anna that she never intended to manage the apartment building, but when her husband died in the war, she needed a place to live rent-free.
    Anna had been inside her apartment only once, but she remembered it well. The interior was high-ceilinged and uniquely decorated with antiques that, Anna recalled, gave off a musty scent that she had liked.
    C-C’s apartment was on the troisième étage , overlooking the street. She and C-C would hang over the balcony in the evenings and peer down into that of his neighbor below. An elderly Russian lady with bad legs and a character to match, she would sit out there and drink her glass or two of vodka, dumping the last drops every so often on passersby in the street, usually pretty young women, and mumble an expletive in her native language. It was rumored in the building that Madame Russe, as everyone called her, hardly paid any rent. Anna noted from the street that the apartment appeared to be vacant now. She caught her breath as she looked to the floor above, to the apartment that C-C had occupied. New lace curtains