The Woman in the Fifth by Douglas Kennedy Page B

me.
     
'OK,' he said. 'Write.'
     
I picked up the stub of a pencil that he placed on top of the pad and wrote, in French, the veiled communiqué I had been hatching in my head since waking up this afternoon:
     
Dear Mrs Pafnuk
     
I am the new resident of the room which Adnan used to live in. I was just wondering if there was anything he left behind that he needs to be sent on to him. Please send him my best wishes, and tell him I remain grateful to him for his kindnesses shown to me. I think of him often and would like to offer my assistance if his family is in need of any help.
     
Yours sincerely
     
And I signed it with my email address.
     
I pushed the pad toward the guy. He looked down at the message.
     
'It's five lines, not three,' he said, then flashed me the smallest of smiles.
     
'You have the email address?' he asked.
     
I handed over the scrap of paper slipped under my door.
     
'OK,' he said. 'I take care of it.'
     
He disappeared over to a terminal. A few minutes went by. He finished typing and said, 'It's sent.'
     
'What do I owe you?'
     
'One euro for the coffee, the whisky is on the house.'
     
'And for the translation?'
     
'Nothing.'
     
'Are you sure?'
     
'I knew Adnan.'
     
That threw me.
     
'Don't worry,' he said quietly. 'I know it wasn't your fault.'
     
But so much is my fault.
     
I was tempted to send Megan one more email – but figured she would now report it immediately to her mother, and Susan would then make good on her threat to get a barring order, and I wouldn't have the money to fight it, and any hope of ever seeing Megan again . . .
     
Abandon all hope of that. Your ex-wife has ensured that she'll despise you forever.
     
I spent the next few days in a depressed fog – going through the motions of my routine, but almost catatonic with grief as the realization hit home: My contact with Megan is over. Every day I checked my email, trying to convince myself that she mightn't have listened to her mother and decided to risk contact with me. But the mailbox remained empty . . . until, around a week later, when there was a reply waiting for me from Mrs Pafnuk. It was written in Turkish and Kamal translated it for me.
     
Dear Mr Ricks
     
I was very pleased to hear from you. So too was Adnan, whom I visited yesterday. He said that the conditions are dreadful, but he can do nothing except try to stay sane and see the time out. He sends you his best wishes – and asks me to convey to you his feelings of friendship, and hopes that you will look around his room carefully and see if you can find a storage area where he kept something very special. He senses that you have already found it – and know its contents – but are being understandably cautious. Please contact me again by email to let me know if you have found what he hopes you have found. Once again, my husband thanks you greatly for your assistance and sends you fraternal greetings.
     
Sincerely,
Mrs Z. Pafnuk
     
When Kamal finished reading the email out to me in French, he pursed his lips and said, 'She obviously hired the local scribe in her village to write this for her.'
     
'How can you tell?' I asked.
     
'Adnan told me she could hardly read or write. He would come here twice a week to write her – and he would dictate to me what to write, because he also couldn't read or write that much either.'
     
'So you're the local scribe here as well?'
     
'You run an Internet café in a quartier like this, you end up writing many emails for people. But by this time next year, this café will be no more. Our lease is up in nine months – and I know that the landlord will double the rent. Because the quartier is changing. The French are moving back.'
     
'The wealthy French?' I asked.
     
' Bien sûr . The bobos . They're buying up all the loft spaces in the Tenth and pushing property prices way up. I promise you, eighteen months from now this café will be a chic restaurant or a boutique that sells expensive soaps. Within