Three Bedrooms in Manhattan by Georges Simenon Page B

two trunks full of clothes there, and now I can’t even change stockings.”
    She laughed. How wonderful to feel so light waking up, to stand at the threshold of a new day with no constraints, a day you could fill up with whatever you felt like.
    The sun was out, a bright, sparkling sun. They went to a diner for breakfast. Already that was one of their habits.
    â€œYou feel like taking a walk in Central Park?”
    He didn’t want to be jealous; their day had only just begun. But each time she proposed doing something, whenever she mentioned some place or other, he couldn’t help asking himself, Who was she with before?
    Who had she gone to Central Park with? What memories was she trying to relive?
    That morning she looked young. And probably because she also felt young she said, very seriously, as they walked together, “You know, I’m already quite old. I’m thirty-two. Soon I’ll be thirty-three.”
    Her daughter, he calculated, must be about twelve, and he paid attention now to the little girls playing in the park.
    â€œI’m forty-eight,” he confessed. “Well, not quite. I will be in a month.”
    â€œMen don’t age.”
    Was this the moment to open up about himself? He hoped so, but he was scared, too.
    What would happen when they finally had to look reality in the face?
    Up to now they had been outside of real life, but the time would come when they would have to go back, whether they liked it or not.
    Did she know what he was thinking? Her naked hand found his, as in the taxi, and gave a gentle squeeze, as if to say, “Not yet.”
    He had made up his mind to take her to his place, and he was afraid. Leaving the Lotus, he’d paid the bill for the room. She had noticed, but she hadn’t said a word.
    That might mean a lot of things. Maybe this would be their last walk together—at least their last before they reentered reality.
    Maybe that was why she had suggested this stroll, arm in arm, in Central Park, in the warm fall sun—to provide them with one last radiant memory.
    She began humming their song, the tune from the little bar. They both had the same thought. Night began to fall and it cooled down. The shadows on the path grew darker. They looked at each other without speaking; they knew what they wanted to do. They headed toward Sixth Avenue.
    They didn’t take a taxi. They walked. It was their fate, and they were afraid to do anything else. Most of the time they’d been together—and it seemed a long time now—they’d spent on sidewalks, walking, jostled by crowds they barely noticed.
    The time was coming when they would have to stop walking and still they kept putting it off.
    â€œListen …”
    At times she moved with a kind of childish joy. When that happened, he thought that fate must be on their side. They walked into the little bar, and the jukebox was playing their song. A sailor, elbows on the bar, was staring intently at nothing.
    Kay squeezed Combe’s arm and glanced feelingly at the man who’d picked their song to accompany his sadness.
    â€œGive me a nickel,” she whispered.
    She played the song three times in a row. The sailor turned his head and smiled sadly. Gulping his drink down, he staggered out, bumping into the door frame on the way.
    â€œPoor man!” she said.
    He almost wasn’t jealous, but he was, a bit. He had to talk, he wanted to more and more, and yet he didn’t dare.
    Was she deliberately refusing to help?
    Again she was drinking, but he didn’t mind. Mechanically he drank with her. He was very sad and he was very happy, feeling an emotion so keen that he teared up when he heard a phrase from their song or just looked around their bar, drowned in muted light.
    That night, they walked. For a long time they wandered through the crowds on Broadway and went into bar after bar without ever finding the atmosphere of their favorite spot.
    They’d go