Sonata (North Security 3)

Slowly his arms come around me. He holds me awkwardly. Sex, he can do. Hugs are still hard for him. He squeezes too soft and too hard. I’ll accept this broken hug, but then something happens, something changes, and it feels right. Like our bodies have worked it out. They’ve communicated in the way that only cells can do. It’s biology, this hug.

He looks down at me. His expression is still stern, but there’s something in his green eyes I’ve never seen before. It might be wonder. Maybe even relief.

I purchase the manuscript and arrange for its safe delivery to the chateau. I almost don’t need to go next door, but we’re already here and I don’t want this day to end.

Liam

The bookstore has a highbrow history in literature, having been visited by famous writers of literature: Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Anaïs Nin. There are cots upstairs where transient, upcoming writers have slept with only the promise that they write. A cursory investigation revealed no connection to Samantha, her father, or anything remotely political. It appears to be simply a bookstore with a colorful past.

Then again, sometimes appearances are deceiving.

The woman who may or may not be Samantha’s mother held a bag from here. Coincidence? I don’t know. Samantha’s brown eyes sparkle. She looks high on the excitement of the day. It’s the way she looks when she masters a new complex piece.

It isn’t in me to tell her no right now. Or maybe ever.

She does own me.

Poetry. Literature. History. We walk through various rooms. The narrow space and crowd keeps a few feet between us. She turns a corner. A moment passes before I turn it, too. There’s nothing else for it unless I want to shove people out of the way.

The farther she goes, the more I feel the pull.

Will it always be like this?

A string from the center of my chest to hers. Is this love?

We come full circle to the cash registers. She hasn’t collected any books in her arms. A glance back at me. In her eyes I see the tacit agreement to leave the crowded shop. Man and woman cross between us, their expressions almost drowsy with love. Honeymooners. “We have to go upstairs,” the woman says to the man. “We have to see the notes.”

A question forms in Samantha’s eyes. “What notes?” she mouths to me.

Josh submitted a report on the background of the bookstore after he visited. “Writers who’ve worked in residence upstairs leave a short autobiographical page about themselves. I assume that’s what she means.”

Before I finish speaking I know we’ll have to go upstairs.

We pass under painted words. Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise. It’s a very Samantha-esque sentiment. I suppose if I had a bookstore it would say: be not trusting of strangers, lest they be devils in disguise.

Then again, the doors would probably be locked.

We find a h

undred lives transcribed onto blue paper, some of it written by hand, some of it done with the typewriters placed around the small second floor. They’re stacked on the desk and tacked to the wall. There doesn’t seem to be any order. How would they be found? I have to remind myself these aren’t reports filed in a security company. These are… what? Art? Stories? Diary entries? A few messages are interspersed between the notes on display, such as you might find etched into a tree. Or somewhere less savory.

The literary equivalent of a bathroom wall.

One such piece of blue paper has been folded in thirds. On the outside it’s written: Ms. S. Brooks in a neat looping script. We see it at the same time. I feel her freeze. If I had seen it first, then what? Would I have tried to keep it from her? Maybe. At least until I know what’s inside. She has it in her hands, ripped open, before I can stop her.

I take a walk in Tuileries on Friday afternoons.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

People isolated from sound sometimes experience false sensory inputs. In one study, participants were placed in a dark and silent room for 15 minutes. Some test subjects saw objects that were not there, five had hallucinations of faces, four reported a heightened sense of smell, and two felt there was an evil presence in the chamber with them.

Samantha

I’m in the sitting room. The violin is on the sofa opposite me. We’re engaged in a staring contest. I managed to take it out of the case this morning, so I think I’m winning.

The door opens behind me, but I don’t break my concentration. Even though it means someone else will now be witnessing my cowardice. Someone hitches on the back of the sofa I’m on. Too small to be Liam or Josh. They’d probably break the fragile antique if they tried that.

“What are we doing?” Isa says.