Concierge

Concierge

The Loge

The gate clangs shut behind the girl. She thinks that she’s staying in a normal apartment building. A place that follows ordinary rules. She has no idea what she has got herself into here.

I think of Madame Meunier’s instructions. I know that I have no option but to obey. I have too much at stake here not to cooperate. I will tell her that the girl has just left, as she asked me to do. I will tell her when she comes back, too. Just like the obedient member of staff I am. I do not like Madame Meunier, as I have made clear. But we have been forced into an uneasy kind of alliance by this girl’s arrival. She has been sneaking around. Asking questions of those that live here. Just like he did. I can’t afford to have her drawing attention to this place. He wanted to do that too.

There are things here that I have to protect, you see. Things that mean I can never leave this job. And up until recently I have felt safe here. Because these are people with secrets. I have been too deep into those secrets. I know too much. They can’t get rid of me. And I can never be rid of them.

He was kind, the newcomer. That was all. He noticed me. He greeted me each time he passed in the courtyard, on the staircase. Asked me how I was. Commented on the weather. It doesn’t sound like much, does it? But it felt like such a long time since someone had paid any attention to me, let alone shown me kindness. Such a long time since I had even been noticed as a human being. And soon afterward he began asking his questions.

“How long have you worked here?” he inquired, as I washed the stone floor at the base of the staircase.

“A long time, Monsieur.” I wrung out my mop against the bucket.

“And how did you come to work here? Here—let me do that.” He carried the heavy bucket of water across the hallway for me.

“My daughter came to Paris first. I followed her here.”

“What did she come to Paris for?”

“That was all a very long time ago, Monsieur.”

“I’m still interested, all the same.”

That made me look at him more closely. Suddenly I felt I had told him enough. This stranger. Was he too kind, too interested? What did he want from me?

I was very careful with my answer. “It isn’t a very interesting story. Perhaps some other time, Monsieur. I have to get on with my work. But thank you, for your help.”

“Of course: don’t let me hold you up.”

For so many years my insignificance and invisibility have been a mask I can hide behind. And in the process I have avoided raking up the past. Raking up the shame. As I say, this job may have its small losses of dignity. But it does not involve shame.

But his interest, his questions: for the first time in a very long time I felt seen. And like a fool, I fell for it.

And now this girl has followed him here. She needs to be encouraged to leave before she is able to work out that things are not what they seem.

Perhaps I can persuade her to go.