Three Bedrooms in Manhattan by Georges Simenon Page A

out and buy flowers. And he’d buy a cheap cretonne bedspread, brightly colored, to put over his gray blanket. Then he’d order in a cold supper from the Italian restaurant that served J.K.C. and Winnie every week.
    He would need to call the radio station, since he had a broadcast scheduled for the next day. He should have called already.
    Tired though he was, he was suddenly full of determination. He looked forward to the prospect of a brisk walk alone, hearing his footsteps echo on the empty sidewalks, breathing in the crisp morning air.
    Kay slept. He watched her, her lower lip still protruding, and he smiled, almost condescendingly. Yes, she had found a place in his life. What point was there, right now, in measuring the importance of that place?
    If he hadn’t been afraid of waking her, he would have kissed her gently on the forehead.
    â€œI’ll be back soon,” he wrote on a blank page in his notebook. He tore it out and slipped it under her cigarette case.
    And that made him smile, too. He knew she’d find it there.
    In the hallway he filled his pipe. Before lighting it, he pressed the elevator button.
    The night clerk was off already; one of the girls in uniform was running the car. He went out without stopping at the desk and paused at the curb to fill his lungs.
    â€œFinally,” he almost sighed.
    He nearly wondered if he’d ever come back.
    He took a few steps, stopped, then walked a little farther.
    Suddenly he felt anxious, like a man who has forgotten something but can’t remember what.
    He stopped again at the corner of Broadway, where the extinguished lights and too-wide sidewalks sent a chill through him.
    What would he do if the room was empty when he returned?
    The thought had barely struck him, and already it hurt. It put him in such confusion, such a state of panic, that he turned around quickly to make sure no one was leaving the hotel.
    A few seconds later at the entrance to the Lotus, he knocked out his still-lit pipe against his heel.
    â€œEighth floor, please,” he told the girl who had just brought him down in the elevator.
    And he only relaxed when he saw Kay still asleep. Nothing in their room had changed.
    He didn’t know if she’d seen him leave or come back. It was a moment of such deep and mixed emotion that he would never dare to tell her about it. She appeared to be asleep as he got undressed and slipped back under the covers.
    Still apparently asleep, she sought out his body with her own.
    She didn’t open her eyes. Her eyelids fluttered a bit but didn’t open, and they made him think of a great bird beating its wings but somehow unable to take flight.
    Her voice was heavy and distant but without reproach or sadness as she said, “You tried to run away, didn’t you?”
    And he almost responded, which would have ruined everything. Luckily she continued in the same voice, though fainter now, “You couldn’t.”
    Then she was asleep. Maybe she hadn’t really woken up, and it was only from the bottom of some deep dream that she had been aware of the drama that had just taken place.
    Much later, when they woke up, she didn’t say a thing.
    Already it felt as though they’d lived through a thousand similar mornings. It seemed impossible that this was only the second time they’d woken up together, naked and intimate, as if they’d been lovers forever.
    Even the room at the Lotus seemed familiar. They were surprised how much they liked it.
    â€œI’ll run to the bathroom first.”
    Then she had the remarkable insight to say, “Why don’t you ever smoke your pipe? You can, you know. I don’t mind. In Hungary there are a lot of women who smoke pipes.”
    That morning they seemed newly minted. Their eyes shone with a pure, almost childlike happiness. They were playing at life.
    â€œWhen I think that because of Ronald I’ll probably never get my things back again! I have