Free Following the Summer by Lise Bissonnette

never know about what. In English, she talked about her wedding and about New York with the janitor’s wife, a once-beautiful little brunette whose ravioli were excellent. She sewed at home and kept the hallways clean. There was wine on the table, in New York it costs nothing, and the lights were switched on around four. Ervant wanted to leave but first they had to tour the property, six floors and the perfect smell of bleach. All the doors had three locks, to which the cousin had the key, the corridors turned a corner to go to the apartments at the back, he’d put up mirrors so intruders couldn’t hide there, to lie in wait for tenants. At the third floor they held the elevator for a young woman in glasses who was making fast all the locks on her door. She carried a heavy briefcase, she agreed with the janitor about when the exterminator should come, she had a French accent. Marie was curious but didn’t dare speak, the janitor said she was subletting an apartment, he had no idea of her name. Washers and dryers in the basement, even when scoured the place smelled of grime, so the tenants preferred to take their laundry to the Chinese man next door.
    When Marie and Ervant were finally outside again, the sun had broken through for the first time, a late-day sun that created lights for those floors that were still dark.
    Now it was done, Ervant would no longer speak the language of janitors whom the new cities bury alive because they take refuge in neighbourhoods of the past. They didn’t visit these places, only walked through them to the Village, where they wanted to go for the music. To hear jazz, he had no idea where, but they aimlessly followed a trumpet’s moans. The musicians were white, the bar half empty, tourists, they were too early and Marie shouldn’t have worn flat shoes.
    An inexperienced singer leaned on the piano, a long golden skirt slit to the hips, wig-like hair a lacquered mass that fell to her breasts. The voice broke on lips smeared with pink, extended by a pencil to make them thicker. Marie slowly sipped a beer, they had no money for places like this. If they came back, she would at least consider wearing earrings, her red ones.
    There was a gleam in the singer’s eyes. She threw out her chest and offered herself to Ervant, the only man who was listening to her. Marie decided to enjoy it, leaned towards him to talk about the singer’s wiles, to brush against him. But he was frozen there. His hand gripped his glass, his eyes locked on the woman’s, she was undulating now. It was a waiter who roused him.
    She expected more chance encounters like this one as they wandered the streets. On their last night they agreed to go to Oscar’s, the Waldorf café, the least costly restaurant in the luxury hotel, where there were velvet banquettes. Ervant wore a tie, ordered wine with ease, dropped his discoveries one by one, talked about coming back. He even went so far as to tell the maître d’hotel that they were staying here, that they’d enjoyed their stay, that they had friends in New York. The man listened indulgently, he knew these refugees in search of plenty who came here seeking crumbs. He gave them better service.
    Four women, noisy, came and sat at the next table. They weren’t young, thought Marie, but their hair was like the singer’s and their dresses were cut low. They were celebrating a divorce, telling each other salacious stories about the husband’s impotence. The one with the reddest hair had her elbows on the table while she sipped her scotch, and Marie recognized the fleshiness of a Corrine. A woman who belonged in hotels. Ervant had fallen silent, was staring at these bodies that ignored him, was drinking in their throaty voices, sniffing the perfumes mingled with the sweat of late afternoon.
    When I’m forty, thought Marie, he’ll want me to bleach my hair and he’ll buy me black underwear. I’ll need heavy