Mister Durand: An excerpt from a novel in progress

Mister DurandAn excerpt from a novel in progress Deirdre Madden (bio) What follows is the opening of a novel I have been working on intermittently over the past few years. It is set in Paris, a city I know well. My wish is to represent Paris accurately and in a way that does not fall into cliché, as can often happen when writing about a city with an exceptionally strong identity. I am greatly interested in the visual arts and have written about them in my previous work; in this book, it is the look of the city that particularly interests me. Place figures prominently in my fiction, much of which is set in continental Europe, where I have lived and traveled extensively. End Page 69 Click for larger view View full resolution "Mister Durand, " an excerpt from Deirdre Madden's novel in progress, is set in Paris. End Page 70 Although the central character of this novel, Caoimhe, is an Irish woman in Paris, as I once was, Mister Durand is decidedly not autobiographical: Caoimhe's circumstances, her temperament, and, most definitely, her facility for learning languages are quite unlike my own. Mister Durand explores some of the same questions that engaged me in my previous novel, Molly Fox's Birthday, including: How much do we really know about other people, including our friends? —deirdre madden ________ "durand, " said the voice on the intercom. "Third floor, " I replied. I pressed the buzzer to release the door in the hall, and then stepped out of the apartment to wait on the landing. We lived at that time in an old Haussmann building, and a tiny lift had been added years after the construction of the house, in the stairwell, in the space around which the mahogany banisters curled. I could hear the lift ascending. Through the black metal grille, the man named Durand would be able to see the blue doors of the apartments on each floor as he went up. I watched the looped cables rise and fall. The roof of the lift appeared, and then I could see him within it as, with a heavy clunk, the lift stopped right before me. He opened the metal grille, then the protective glass door, and stepped out. "Bonjour, Madame. " "Bonjour, Monsieur Durand. " We shook hands, and he followed me into the apartment. "Such a fine autumn day, " I remarked, as I led him down the corridor, and he said in reply, "Three rooms, yes? " We went in turn into each of the rooms that needed painting. They were empty, with slightly grubby walls and herringbone parquet. Two of them—our son Martin's room and the room that was to be the nursery for the baby when it arrived—looked out onto the courtyard. The third room, the salon, gave onto the street. End Page 71 Monsieur Durand looked up at the ceilings. He inspected the plasterwork and folded back the shutters at the windows; he gently touched the walls. We discussed the sort of paint he would use, the type of finish that would look best in an apartment such as this. He said that my suggested color, blanc cassé, a kind of softened white, was a good choice, as pure white would be too stark in such big rooms. He spoke a slow, clear French, which I found easy to understand, and that was a relief to me. Only a week earlier a plumber, who was a native of Marseille, had come to fix the shower, and I had been bewildered by his accent. Although I was studying hard to improve my French, it was still a long way from where I thought it should be. I had just turned thirty. Durand was older, in his late forties, possibly his fifties, with dark curly hair that was going gray and a short beard. He was casually dressed, in jeans, a red and black check shirt, a black leather jacket, and trainers, but the overall effect was of extreme neatness. He was self-contained and self-possessed; even by Parisian standards, he struck me as exceptionally reserved and formal. He had no small talk whatsoever; he was. . .