Louise should have said no.

She knew it at the precise moment when Pascal Pascal placed his hat on the counter of Heart of Fabrics as though he were setting down proof of destiny.

— I came about the apartment, he repeated.

The sentence sounded simple. It was not. With Pascal, nothing stayed simple for very long. A piece of information became an omen, a blunder a legend, a moral debt a chapter of a novel.

Louise crossed her arms.

— Are you truly looking for a place to live?

— For years.

— Then you are a very poor searcher.

— Or very patient.

— Or very difficult.

— I would rather say I was waiting for the right ceiling.

Marie-Soleil, standing near the scarves, held back a smile. Claire and Pierrette, who had been pretending for twenty minutes that they had to return to the café, did not move an inch. Even the mannequins in the window seemed to have leaned toward the conversation.

Louise pointed to the door.

— The notice is there by mistake. The owner was supposed to remove it.

— A notice placed by mistake is often more sincere than an invitation.

— Do you always speak like that?

— Only when I lack defences.

— That is strange. I would rather have said: when you are trying to get around a closed door.

He inclined his head slightly, almost admiringly.

— You credit me with a great deal of skill.

— I credit you with a great deal of intention.

Pascal smiled.

The smile was gentle, almost humble. But Louise sensed that behind that smile someone was taking notes. Not with a pencil. With a kind of more slippery intelligence. He was not merely looking at the boutique. He was assessing people. Distances. Hesitations. Weak points.

Jean, for his part, would have taken the apartment as an investment. Pascal, one could feel, wanted to occupy it as one occupies a stage.

— Let me reassure you, he said. I am a very discreet tenant.

Claire coughed.

Pierrette raised her eyes to the ceiling.

Pascal turned toward them.

— What?

— Discreet? Pierrette repeated. You?

— I said very discreet, not invisible.

— You wear a cape in a neighbourhood restaurant.

— Precisely. I concentrate my extravagance in my clothing so as not to scatter it elsewhere.

— It doesn’t work, said Claire.

Louise could not help laughing. One second. Only one. But Pascal saw it. He received it as encouragement.

— You see, Madame Lang, he immediately pleaded. I am harmless. Ridiculous, sometimes. Poor, often. But harmless.

Louise stiffened.

He had just played his favourite card: belittling himself in order to disarm.

— People who say they are harmless make me cautious.

— A wise reflex.

— You are not helping your case.

— On the contrary. I prefer to grant you the right to be right before you have to defend yourself against me.

The sentence was brilliant. Too brilliant. It gave Louise’s mistrust an almost noble air, while placing himself on the side of lucid and sincere men. He lost and won in the same movement. That was his strength.

Marie-Soleil slowly approached.

— You are a writer, it seems?

— In principle.

— Published?

Louise almost smiled. Marie-Soleil had pressed exactly on the same wound as that morning at the café.

Pascal brought his hand to his heart.

— You too?

— Me too what?

— You too like to strike men where they keep their drafts?

— I like to know whom I am speaking to.

— Then yes, I am a writer. No, I am not published. And yes, that contradiction follows me like a thin dog.

— A thin dog sometimes bites, said Marie-Soleil.

Pascal stared at her. This time, his smile was slower.

— You are dangerous.

— No. I notice.

Louise observed her friend with gratitude. Marie-Soleil had that gift: she could say a strange thing and still touch the exact centre.

Pascal turned back to Louise.

— Let me visit. Only visit. If the place does not suit me, I shall disappear from your threshold and from your morning.

— You promise?

— I promise to disappear from your threshold.

— Not from my morning?

— Madame Lang, you have already stained mine by refusing me your forgiveness.

— You were the one who stained my dress.

— See. We already have a shared past.

Louise wanted to answer. The bell chimed. A customer came in. Then another. The opening continued, despite the catastrophes already seeking room and board there.

The owner, reached by telephone, agreed that she could show the apartment quickly. He was delighted. Too delighted. From the sound of him, any tenant without a dog, without drums and without a recent bankruptcy represented a blessing.

Pascal owned no dog. As for drums, he swore he had never felt any rhythmic vocation. As for bankruptcy, he answered that his poverty was too constant to experience collapses.

An hour later, he was climbing the staircase behind Louise.

The apartment above the boutique was larger than she had imagined. A narrow living room overlooking the street, a bright bedroom, a small rather old kitchen, floors that creaked with distinction, and a rear window from which one could see rooftops, staircases, a few electrical wires and a portion of sky.

Pascal visited in silence.

That silence worried Louise more than his sentences.

He passed his hand over a windowsill. Stopped in the centre of the living room. Listened to the floor beneath his feet. Then he bent slightly, as if the place had been speaking to him for a long time.

— Well? asked Louise.

— Here, I could write.

— That is not a rental reference.

— No. It is more serious.

He approached the window overlooking the street. From there, one could see the golden sign of Heart of Fabrics, reversed in the glass.

— I could also watch over your sign.

— It does not need watching over.

— Everything that shines attracts crows.

Louise sighed.

— Monsieur Pascal, I never know whether you are flattering me, threatening me or preparing a sentence.

— The three are compatible.

He looked at her. Less theatrically this time. Almost simply.

— I need this apartment.

— Why this one?

— Because it is above your boutique.

— That is a very bad answer.

— It is the only honest one.

She stepped back.

— You do not know me.

— No. But I have already met you.

— You spilled coffee on me.

— It was our first collaboration.

— Collaboration?

— You gave me a scene. I gave you a stain. It is not equal, I admit.

Louise remained stern. She would have liked to go downstairs, close the door, call the owner again, explain that this tenant was not suitable. But a part of her, more curious than cautious, wondered what this man was really made of.

He was not handsome in the ordinary sense. Perhaps too short, too dressed as himself, too conscious of his effects. But he had presence. A troubling presence. He always seemed about to fall, and yet he fell exactly where he wanted.

— Will you pay your rent?

— Yes.

— On time?

— As often as possible.

— Bad answer.

— Then yes.

— You will not scare away my customers?

— Why would I?

Louise looked at him for a long time.

— I do not know. That is precisely what bothers me.

Pascal raised his right hand as if before a court.

— I solemnly swear not to harm Heart of Fabrics intentionally.

The word intentionally remained suspended.

Louise noticed it.

— You are impossible.

— I am available.

She should have said no.

She said:

— I will speak to the owner.

Pascal bowed slightly.

— You will not regret it.

Which, in the mouth of certain men, often means: you will regret it too late.

________________________________________

The first weeks of Heart of Fabrics were beautiful in appearance.

The window drew looks. Customers came in to touch the materials, ask questions, pay compliments, promise to return. Louise received each kind sentence like a small coin dropped into an invisible piggy bank.

But compliments did not pay the rent.

Sales remained fragile.

Too many women hesitated. Too many found the dresses magnificent, but were waiting for an occasion. Too many came back with a friend to show her a jacket, then both left, enriched by free enthusiasm.

Louise kept smiling. She wrapped the rare purchases carefully. She answered questions. She noted requested sizes. She changed the window every three days. She kept her accounts in the evening, alone, behind the closed till.

The figures had less tact than the customers.

They said: be careful.

Then: still be careful.

Then: this will not be enough.

Jean came by on a Tuesday afternoon, three weeks after the opening. He entered with his expensive cologne, his phone in hand and that assurance which gave every room the feeling of being inspected.

— It is pretty, he said.

Louise was arranging blouses.

— Thank you.

— Very pretty. Perhaps too much so.

— Too pretty?

— Too personal. Customers must be able to project themselves. Here, one feels your sensitivity too much.

— It is my boutique.

— Precisely. A boutique must belong to the women who buy, not only to the woman who dreams.

She slowly placed the blouse on the rack.

— Did you come to encourage me or to correct me?

— Both, if you are intelligent.

Jean scanned the space. He touched a label.

— You should lower some prices.

— I cannot.

— You cannot afford not to sell.

— I am starting.

— You are spending.

— I am investing.

— Words do not change columns of figures.

She did not answer. He was right, which made him even more irritating.

— I can introduce you to someone, he went on. A marketing consultant. Very efficient.

— I cannot afford one.

— I can advance the money.

— No.

— Louise.

— No, Jean.

His face closed a little. Not much. Jean was too well trained to show his displeasure immediately.

— You would rather fail out of pride?

— I would rather not owe you any more.

He smiled.

— You already owe me a great deal.

The sentence entered the boutique like a cold draught.

At the same moment, footsteps sounded on the inner staircase. Pascal was coming down.

He appeared near the back door, a cup of tea in his hand, wearing a long black cardigan that made him look like an unfrocked priest who had missed a career in opera.

— What a charming sentence, he said.

Jean turned around.

— Pardon?

— “You already owe me a great deal.” Admirable. One hears in it the tender love of a creditor.

Louise closed her eyes.

— Pascal…

— I am silent.

— And you are? asked Jean.

— The tenant upstairs.

— Ah. The poet.

— Ah. The gentleman of advances.

Jean narrowed his eyes.

— We have met before.

— Through a window. You had a very eloquent hand on Madame Lang’s back.

Louise intervened at once.

— Pascal, that is enough.

He lowered his head.

— Forgive me. I sometimes confuse frankness with unnecessary decoration.

Jean smiled in turn, but there was nothing light in his smile.

— Louise, I understand better why you refuse my advice. You receive it from a man who comes downstairs in a dressing gown during opening hours.

— It is not a dressing gown, said Pascal. It is a tragic cardigan.

— Above all, it is bad for business.

— On that point, you are the expert.

The two men looked at each other.

Louise felt something dangerous settle between them. Jean was arrogant, but direct. Pascal seemed to amuse himself by making other people’s arrogance stumble in order to hide his own more effectively.

— Jean, she said, we will speak later.

— Certainly.

He took up his phone again, leaned toward her and placed on her cheek a kiss that resembled a signature.

— Think about it. Pride is expensive.

He went out.

Pascal waited three seconds.

— Charming fellow. One wants to sell him a tie so he may strangle himself elegantly.

Louise turned toward him.

— Were you not supposed to be working?

— I was listening to commercial silence.

— You were listening through the floor.

— The floor is thin. I am innocent.

— You are rarely innocent.

He seemed touched.

— You are progressing.

— Toward what?

— Toward lucidity.

Louise stared at him, exasperated.

— Pascal, my boutique is not doing as well as I hoped. I need calm. Seriousness. Customers. Not verbal duels in the middle of the racks.

— I can help.

— No.

— You have not heard my proposal.

— That is what allows me to answer more quickly.

— I can write a short text for the window. Something restrained. Elegant. “Dresses do not hide women; they reveal to them a way of walking.”

Louise remained silent in spite of herself.

The sentence was beautiful.

Too beautiful.

— You see, said Pascal. I can be useful.

— That is what worries me.

________________________________________

In the evening, when the boutique emptied, Louise drew.

She closed the till, turned off some of the lights, locked the door, then settled at the counter with her pencils, papers, fabric samples and a tea she almost always forgot to drink.

Drawing calmed her.

The figures told her she had to sell. The fabrics reminded her why she had begun.

She traced long lines, waists, sleeves, collars, pleats. Some dresses were born like answers. Others like refusals. When Jean worried her, she drew straight, precise, almost pitiless suits. When Pascal irritated her, she drew dresses more fluid, more dangerous, as if she wanted to create garments capable of escaping the men who commented on them.

One evening, Marie-Soleil found her like that, bent over a sheet of paper.

— Still here?

— I am closing soon.

— You have been saying that for a week.

Louise did not raise her eyes.

— Look.

She turned the sketch toward her friend.

The dress was strange. A simple cut at first glance, but crossed by an oblique, almost secret movement. The fabric seemed as though it should change according to the light. Restrained from the front, troubling in profile.

Marie-Soleil sat down slowly.

— That one, you must make.

— I do not have time.

— Precisely. Make it.

— Marie, I have bills, boxes, stock, customers who admire without buying, and Jean speaking to me as if I were a poorly managed branch of his ego.

— And Pascal?

Louise sighed.

— Pascal speaks to everyone.

— That is his profession.

— His profession is writer.

— No. His profession is entering.

Louise finally raised her eyes.

— Entering?

— Into conversations. Into silences. Into wounds. Into boutiques. Into apartments above boutiques. Into the ideas of women who should be sleeping.

— You are dramatising.

— Perhaps. But he looks at you like a man who has already begun using you in a sentence.

Louise lowered her eyes to her sketch.

— I know.

— And do you like it?

— No.

A silence.

— A little, she admitted.

Marie-Soleil nodded, without judgment.

— Then be careful. Jean wants to possess you. That is heavy, but visible. Pascal wants to tell you. That is lighter. It is worse.

Louise remained a long time without answering.

Above, footsteps crossed the apartment. Pascal was walking. Or writing while walking. Or preparing an entrance. Since he had been living there, the boutique was never entirely silent anymore.

— This dress, said Louise, I am going to call it The Escape.

— Good title.

— It is not a title. It is a model.

— With you, the two become confused.

Louise smiled faintly.

Then the bell chimed.

She started.

— I had locked the door.

Pascal entered from the back room, by way of the inner staircase. He had a sheet of paper in his hand.

— I wrote the text for the window.

— I did not ask you to.

— I know. It gave me more freedom.

Marie-Soleil stood up.

— Good evening, Monsieur Tenant.

— Good evening, Madame Dangerous Intuition.

He placed the sheet before Louise.

She did not want to read.

She read.

“HEART OF FABRICS

For those who are not only looking for a dress, but for the moment when their silhouette meets their courage.”

Louise cursed herself for liking the sentence.

— It is too literary.

— Remove “only”.

— Why?

— Because I have just noticed it.

— You correct your own emphasis?

— Rarely. Take advantage of it.

Marie-Soleil read it in turn.

— It is good.

— Thank you.

— Too good.

Pascal smiled.

— That sounds like an honest compliment.

— No. Like a warning.

He pretended not to understand. That was another of his skills.

Louise folded the sheet.

— I will think about it.

— You will use it.

— Do not be so sure of yourself.

— I am sure only of the sentences that make you fall silent.

He had just pricked her. Gently. Exactly.

Marie-Soleil saw it. Louise too.

But Pascal had already stepped back, as if he had merely set down a flower.

— Good night, ladies. I return to my ruins.

He went back upstairs.

Marie-Soleil waited until the footsteps disappeared.

— You see?

— Yes.

— He provokes you, then withdraws before anyone can accuse him.

— I see.

— And you are still going to use his text.

Louise looked at the sheet.

— Perhaps.

________________________________________

The text was placed in the window the next day.

It had an immediate effect.

Women stopped to read it. Some smiled. Some came in out of curiosity. Two customers bought scarves. A third tried on a dress without buying it, but returned the following day with her sister.

Louise should have been delighted.

She was.

She should also have mistrusted it more.

Pascal, for his part, very quickly understood the power of the threshold.

Every morning, he went down to Monsieur Prahallis’s café, then slowly returned in front of Heart of Fabrics. He greeted the window. Sometimes, he arranged the little card bearing his text, as though he were its guardian. He pretended to help.

But he helped in his own way.

That is to say, by drawing attention to himself before redirecting it toward the boutique, when the mood took him.

— Madame, he would say to an elegant passer-by, forgive my intrusion. Your coat deserves a dialogue with that blue dress.

— Pardon?

— Do not be afraid, I sell nothing. I am only the witness to a possible harmony.

The hurried women avoided him.

The curious ones stopped.

The romantic ones smiled.

He knew how to recognise them.

Soon, he was approaching women in front of the boutique with the nonchalance of a metaphysical tout. He praised a sleeve, a colour, a fabric, but almost always ended up speaking about himself. About his novel. About his poverty. About the stained dress. About destiny. About Louise, sometimes, with enough delicacy to appear respectful and enough insistence to become invasive.

Some customers entered, amused.

Others left, annoyed.

A very elegant woman, who had at first seemed interested in an ivory coat, turned on her heel after Pascal declared to her:

— You have the walk of a heroine who does not yet know the tragedy of her neck.

She stared at him coldly.

— And you, monsieur, have the assurance of a man who does not yet know the ridiculousness of his mouth.

The woman left.

Louise had seen everything from the till.

She came out at once.

— Pascal!

He turned around, falsely surprised.

— Yes?

— You have just scared away a customer.

— Perhaps. But what repartee! She had a magnificent temperament.

— I do not sell temperaments. I sell clothes.

— Precisely. She would not have bought anything. Too armed.

— You know nothing about that.

— I can read silhouettes.

— You mostly read what suits you.

This time, he did not smile immediately.

— Would you prefer me to stop?

— Yes.

— Very well.

He removed his hat, bowed and crossed the street toward the café, like an offended actor leaving a bad scene.

Louise returned inside, furious.

Inside, a young employee she had just hired part-time, Élodie, was replacing hangers with a dreamy smile.

— What is making you smile?

— Nothing.

— Élodie.

— Monsieur Pascal is funny.

Louise felt a new problem emerging.

— Has he spoken to you?

— A little.

— When?

— Yesterday. And this morning. He says I have pianist’s hands and that I should wear dark green to bring out my soul.

Marie-Soleil, who had come to help for the afternoon, slowly raised her head.

— Your soul?

Élodie blushed.

— It was pretty.

Louise closed her eyes.

Pascal had not stopped at the customers.

He was beginning to court the entire atmosphere of the shop.

A few days later, Claire came in laughing, a slip of paper in her hand.

— Your poet left me this on a napkin.

Louise took the napkin.

“Claire, you carry coffees as others carry news from the war.”

— He is writing to you now?

— Oh, he writes to everything that moves. Do not worry. But he asked me whether I thought Pierrette was a thwarted tragedienne.

— And she?

— She answered that she was mostly thwarted from working whenever he came into the café.

Louise did not laugh.

The problem was that Pascal was pleasing.

Not to everyone. Not lastingly. Not clearly. But he disturbed. He flattered. He gave women the impression, sometimes pleasant, sometimes irritating, of suddenly being observed as important characters. He distributed attention as others distribute business cards.

And each time, Louise lost a little control over her own decor.

One customer asked:

— Is he your husband?

Another:

— Does the gentleman with the feather work here?

A third:

— I will come back when he is not in front of the door.

That last sentence remained in Louise’s head for a long time.

For the figures continued to speak.

Sales rose on some days, then fell again. More customers came in, but several bought nothing. Some came to see the character. Others avoided him. The boutique was becoming known, yes, but in a way Louise had not chosen.

Heart of Fabrics risked becoming the theatre of Pascal Pascal.

And she, the owner of the stage.

One evening, Jean came in without warning.

He found Louise sitting at the counter, surrounded by sketches. She was drawing fiercely. The Escape already had three variations. A short one. A long one. A black one with a pale lapel. She was no longer drawing only to create. She was drawing in order not to scream.

Jean took a sheet.

— Is this new?

— Yes.

— It is not what will sell most easily.

— I know.

— Then why waste your time?

She gently snatched the sheet back from him.

— Because it is the only thing keeping me from losing my mind.

Jean observed the sketches, then the almost empty boutique.

— Louise, we need to speak seriously.

— I am listening.

— If things continue like this, you will not last six months.

She did not answer.

— I can help you, he went on.

— Under what conditions?

— Why do you always speak of conditions?

— Because with you, even tenderness has them.

He smiled sadly, but his eyes remained cold.

— I could take a larger share. Restructure. Reposition the boutique. Prune.

— Prune?

— The style that is too personal. The impossible designs. The texts in the window. The poet.

She raised her eyes.

— Pascal has nothing to do with this.

Jean gave a small laugh.

— On the contrary. He already has too much to do with it. That man is harming your image.

— My image interests you only because it can serve yours.

— And he? What do you think he is serving? Art? Poetry? He is using you, Louise. He is using your shop, your light, your name. He will turn you into a secondary character in his little mythology.

She did not answer.

This time, Jean had touched the truth.

And that annoyed her almost as much as if Pascal had lied.

— You should close for two days, Jean continued. Rethink all this. I can bring someone in.

— No.

— You are going to be stubborn?

— Yes.

— Then do not come crying if Heart of Fabrics becomes an expensive whim.

He left the boutique.

Louise remained alone.

Above, Pascal was walking.

In the street, cars passed.

On the counter, her sketches seemed to be waiting for her to choose between caution and stubbornness.

She took a pencil.

At the bottom of a new sheet, she wrote:

DRESS FOR A WOMAN WHO REFUSES TO CLOSE.

Then she drew.

For a long time.

A very long time.

When she finally raised her head, the window was black. In the reflection, she saw her own face, tired but still upright. Behind her, on the inner staircase, a shadow was descending.

Pascal.

He remained in the shadow.

— You work late.

— And you spy late.

— I write.

— About me?

A silence.

— Not only.

She turned slowly.

— Get out of my boutique, Pascal.

He did not move at once.

— I can save you.

The sentence was low, almost tender.

Louise felt a shiver of anger.

— That is exactly why you are dangerous.

— Because I want to help you?

— Because you call saving what would allow you to enter farther.

Pascal remained motionless. For the first time, he did not immediately find a sentence to make himself beautiful.

Then he smiled.

A sad smile. Well chosen.

— Good night, Louise.

He went back upstairs.

She remained alone with her sketches, her debts, her dresses and that strange certainty: Jean could make her boutique close through calculation, but Pascal could make it die while pretending to give it a soul.

END OF CHAPTER III