Right away I knew she’d left for a long time. She’d been to her place very early and took some money from her mother’s purse. Everybody was still sleeping. They thought one of the kids had left the door open and someone had snuck in. I didn’t say a thing, but I was sure it was her, even if she never stole before. I was hurt, less because of what she did than because it meant she wouldn’t be coming back for a long time. And also because I told myself that if I’d only given her more she wouldn’t have had to steal.
I began to spend my evenings at Samir’s, the grocer on the corner of rue Piat. He had a TV set in the back room and when he had customers he let me watch whatever channel I wanted. I watched all the shows Layla told me about, those shows for young people. I never thought there were so many kids who wanted to be famous, and that made me afraid for her. It’s true she had a nice voice and she was very good-looking, but there were lots of other kids with nice voices too, just as good-looking. I just hoped it wouldn’t ruin her life, hoped she wouldn’t be afraid to come back. I got five postcards from her over the next year, look, you can see them over there on the wall. She wrote the same thing on every one of them, or just about: I’m fine, Grandpa. Love you.
One evening I really thought I saw her on a show. I’m almost sure of it. By that time I’d lost hope, I kept going to Samir’s mainly because I wasn’t used to staying home alone anymore, especially without much chance of Layla dropping by. The girl I saw only stayed on stage for a few minutes, they didn’t even give her time to finish her song. She said her name was Olympia but that doesn’t mean a thing, you know. She had heavy makeup on, with silver on her eyelids and red lips, done up in a way she never would have dared here, a shiny dress, very short. I remember thinking, So much money for such a short dress. But her voice sounded like Layla’s and she sang a Piaf song, which is funny because the others chose much more modern music, the kind you hear blasting on young people’s car radios when they’re stopped at a light with their windows rolled down, or when they don’t shut their bedroom windows. I couldn’t get a good look at her face, it went so fast, I yelled for Samir, hoping he could help me figure out if it really was her, but by the time he got there — he was helping another customer — it was already over.
The weeks after that I kept watching the show, but the girl — Layla — she never came back. I kept hoping for months, I told myself maybe it was just the first round and we were going to see her again at some point. But I never did.
A few months later there were the rumors. Somebody claimed they saw her in a bar, a nightclub really, then somebody else, and then somebody else again. They swore it really was Layla, said she was dancing every Saturday over there, near Pigalle, then they said the words peep show. I didn’t know what that meant either, before. Around that time, her family moved out; they didn’t even leave an address — I don’t know if it was the shame of the neighborhood hearing that their daughter was dancing naked in front of men. Her mother just left a box in front of my door with the girl’s things. They’re still there, in my bedroom.
There isn’t much left to my story. One day I went there. I don’t know why, I think I was sure it wasn’t Layla, just as I had been sure that I’d seen her on TV at the gates of fame with Piaf’s song on her lips, but I needed to see her in person. The rumor had become more and more persistent and I basically knew where to look for her. I waited a few weeks, the time to get up my courage, and then I took the bus to Pigalle one evening around midnight. I didn’t have to look far. There were photos of her at the entrance to one of the clubs. I looked at them for a long time, so long the guy watching the door got impatient and said, “Hey, Gramps, you coming in or you growing roots there?” In some pictures she was wearing dresses with slits at her thighs and between her breasts and in others she was almost naked. I had washed her when she was a baby and when she was a little girl; it didn’t bother me to see her naked. But there wasn’t one single photo where she was smiling. The lipstick was like a gash across her face, she’d lost her nice round cheeks, and her black eyes looked very big. When the guy at the entrance spoke to me I was caught unprepared, I couldn’t stop looking at her face after not having seen her for months, and when he said, “Well, Gramps?” I asked, “How much is it?” and I fumbled around in my wallet to pay the admission.
Inside the peep show, as they call it, it was dark and it smelled of sweat, the music was too loud, you’d think you were in one of the worst bars in our neighborhood. I stayed standing near the door of the room they pointed me to, men kept coming in, pushing each other, I was hot, and then I realized I still had my cap on and I took it off. The first girl was a blonde in a shiny pink slip, she couldn’t dance but the men were whistling and yelling, some of them tried to touch her but there was a strongman watching the edges of the stage. After that I didn’t have to wait long, because the next one was Layla.
I won’t tell you about how she was dancing under the eyes of those men, my poor ruined little girl. I didn’t stay very long, just enough to see her pace back and forth on the stage two or three times on her high heels, with a swaying walk I’d never seen from her, and then just when I was putting my cap on to leave — maybe it was my motion that attracted her attention — she saw me. She didn’t stop dancing but she dropped her arms, she’d been holding them over her head till then, and she twisted her ankle. I saw her mouth tighten in pain but nothing more because I’d already turned around, and I left without looking back.
I didn’t tell anyone about what I saw. Nobody asked me anything but I think a lot of people understood, because I never went back to watch TV at Samir’s. I just went out to walk the dog and shop for food. The rest of the time I stayed here sitting in the kitchen, and I tried not to think. I didn’t even wonder anymore where I’d go when the building was torn down.
I didn’t think she’d come. I didn’t guess it in her look when she spotted me at the peep show, all I saw was boredom and that new toughness, and the jab of pain when she twisted her foot, but I didn’t see joy or sorrow at the idea of what she’d lost, and I told myself she’d put all that behind her. Still, when there was a knock on the door one evening, very late, I knew right away it was her. I’d fallen asleep on the couch; since she left that’s where I usually slept, as if giving myself the illusion she was in the room next door. I went to splash some water on my face before I opened the door.
She was pale, and I realized right away she’d knocked on the door across the hall first, the door of the apartment where her family used to live. It hadn’t been rented again because of the plan to demolish the building, but two guys set up house there, with candles for light and a coal stove for heat. They drank all day and begged in front of the Monoprix supermarket on rue des Pyrénées, a little further up. She must have woken them up because the younger one, a guy with a beard, was standing in the half-open doorway looking at us. When she came in, I didn’t hear him close the door and I’m sure he stayed there waiting for her to come out again.