The Fata Morgana Books by Jonathan Littell, Charlotte Mandell

was still not protesting, up the steps to the narrow landing, where once again I hesitated in front of the two doors. Finally I chose the one on the left, the black one. The room was dark until I turned on the light: everything, the furniture, the floor, the loft where the bed was, was covered in large plastic sheets, dirty but transparent. One of the sheets, draped over a stool, formed a bulge on which a set of building blocks was placed, an assemblage of red, yellow, blue, black, and white pieces, the only touch of color in this grey, abandoned room, a room that looked as if it were waiting for repairs forever delayed. I contemplated the window with dismay; behind it the white wall of the air shaft gleamed weakly. “So, the other room, then,” I finally conceded with regret, without looking at the girl who remained silent. This room was more open, I could see right away; the window, here, looked out on a brick wall, so close you could almost touch it, but the long narrow room didn’t look dark, and it suited me. The walls were pale, they must once have been white, but time had stained and dirtied them, you could even see indistinct traces of color, and they were covered in pictures, photographs, newspaper clippings, old sepia prints, pages torn from books, tacked on or stuck there with yellowed Scotch tape. I had no idea who could have assembled this clutter of images, perhaps another tenant, perhaps me, at another time, hard to say. Near the door stood a blondwood board resting on metal trestles, on which lay scattered a few books, most of them with their covers torn off, and some piles of papers; on the other side, a low, round table with a chair occupied the space in front of the bed, so wide that it left only a narrow passageway to reach the bathroom door, painted the same red as the entry door. I motioned the girl to the bed: “Go on, lie down there.” She skirted round me with a childlike laugh and crossed the mahogany-colored floor as if she had no feet; in front of the bed, she spun round in a fluid motion and let herself fall back, her arms outstretched, scattering her Venetian blonde hair on the lilac expanse of the sheets, without taking off her apple-green raincoat, which revealed smooth, slim legs. I sat down at the round table, poured myself a drink from a bottle there, and lit a cigarette.The girl laughed in crystal-clear tones and leapt up. “You’re funny!” she laughed. She let her raincoat slip to the bed; underneath, she wore a short, eggplant-colored summer dress, chiffon possibly, which barely reached below her upper thighs. She ran her fingers through her thick shoulder-length hair and walked lightly forward. I stretched out my hand to caress her thigh in passing, but she smoothly dodged it, and my fingers just grazed the thin, rustling cloth of her dress as she slipped behind the desk and began playing with the papers, leafing carelessly through the piles. “Don’t touch,” I scolded, amused.—“Why don’t you offer me a drink?” she asked, smiling, still looking at the papers. I poured her a glass and brought it to her; she drank a mouthful and suddenly raised her large, dark eyes to me, deep and laughing. “Will you run me a bath?”—“Run it yourself,” I retorted rudely, sitting back down at the round table. She burst out laughing, straightened up and crossed the room, undoing the hooks on the back of her dress, which she slipped smoothly over her head and threw onto the sheets to join the green raincoat. Aside from the dress, she wore nothing but a pair of tiny, salmon-colored panties made of an almost transparent tulle; I admired the long curve of her back, the radiance of her golden skin, the slender nape of neck under her short hair. “You are a boor!” she called out to me before turning round, hands on her hips. “Do you think I’m beautiful?” she went on, her laughter intensifying. Her brown nipples stood out on small breasts, I could make out her thick pubic hair