Jon swallowed and stamped his boots in the snow. 'No, I only had enough money for food this time.'
'Shit.'
It went quiet again.
'Hello?' Jon shouted.
'Yeah, yeah. I'm thinking.'
'If you want, I'll come back later.'
The mechanism buzzed and Jon quickly pushed open the door.
Inside the stairwell there were newspapers, empty bottles and frozen yellow pools of urine. Thanks to the cold weather Jon did not have to inhale the pervasive, bitter-sweet stench that filled the hallway on milder days.
He tried to walk without making much noise, but his footsteps reverberated on the stairs anyway. The woman standing in the doorway and waiting for him was ogling the bags. To avoid looking him in the eye, Jon thought. She had that same bloated, swollen face that came with many years of addiction, was overweight and wore a filthy white T-shirt under her dressing gown. A stale smell emanated from the door.
Jon stopped on the landing and put down the bags. 'Is your husband in, too?'
'Yes, he's in,' she said in mellifluous French.
She was good-looking. High cheekbones and large, almond-shaped eyes. Narrow, bloodless lips. And well dressed. At any rate, the bit of her he could see through the crack in the door was well dressed.
Instinctively, he adjusted his red neckerchief.
The security lock between them was made of solid brass and attached to a heavy oak door without a nameplate. While standing outside the block in avenue Carnot waiting for the concierge to open the door, he had noticed that everything seemed new and expensive, the door furniture, the bells, the cylinder locks. And the fact that the pale yellow facade and the white shutters were covered in an unsightly, dirty layer of black pollution served to emphasise the established and solid nature of this district of Paris even more. Original oil paintings hung in the hallway.
'What do you want?'
The eyes and the intonation were neither friendly nor unfriendly, but contained perhaps a smidgeon of scepticism because of his terrible French pronunciation.
'A message, madame.'
She hesitated. But acted as expected in the end.
'Alright. Could you wait here please, and I'll get him?'
She shut the door and the lock fell into position with a well-oiled click. He stamped his feet. He ought to learn to speak better French. His mother had force-fed him English in the evenings, but she had never sorted out his French. He stared at the door. French knickers. French letter. Good-looking.
He thought about Giorgi. Giorgi of the white smile was one year older than he was, so twenty-eight now. Was he still as good-looking? Blond and small and pretty like a girl? He had been in love with Giorgi, in the unprejudiced, unconditional way that only children can fall in love.
He heard steps coming from inside. A man's steps. Someone fiddling with the lock. A blue connecting line between work and freedom, from here to soap and urine. The snow would come soon. He prepared himself.
* * *
The man's face appeared in the doorway.
'What the fuck do you want?'
Jon lifted the plastic bags and ventured a smile. 'Fresh bread. Smells good, doesn't it.'
Fredriksen laid a large brown hand on the woman's shoulder and pushed her away. 'All I can smell is Christian blood . . .' It was said with clear, sober diction, but the washed-out irises in the bearded face told a different story. The eyes tried to focus on the bags of shopping. He looked like a large, powerful man who had shrunk inside. His skeleton and even his cranium had become smaller inside the skin that drooped, three sizes too big, from the malevolent face. Fredriksen ran a grubby finger over the fresh cuts along the bridge of his nose.
'You're not going to preach now, are you.'
'No, actually I wanted—'
'Oh, come on, soldier. You want something back for this, don't you. My soul, for example.'
Jon shivered in his uniform. 'It's not me who deals with souls, Fredriksen. But I can arrange for food, so—'
'Oh, you can manage a little sermon first.'
'As I said—'
'A sermon!'
Jon stood looking at Fredriksen.
'Give us a sermon with that wet little cunt-hole of yours!' Fredriksen yelled. 'A sermon so that we can eat with a good conscience, you condescending Christian bastard. Come on, get it over with. What's God's message today?'
Jon opened his mouth and closed it again. Swallowed. Tried again and this time his vocal cords responded. 'The message is that He gave His only son, who died . . . for our sins.'
'You're lying!'
* * *
'No, I'm afraid I'm not, 'Harry said, observing the terrified face of the man in the doorway in front of him. There was a smell of lunch and a rattle of cutlery in the background. A family man. A father. Until now. The man scratched his forearm and gazed at a spot above Harry's head as if someone were there. The scratching made an unpleasant rasping noise.
The rattle of cutlery had stopped. The shuffle of feet came to a halt behind the man and a small hand was placed on his shoulder. A woman's face with large red eyes peeped out.