Trafika Europe 12 - French Bon-Bons

Louis Armand

‘Finish your tea.’ I did so, trying to keep from swallowing the leaves, and immediately she snatched the cup away from me and began scrutinising the dregs at the bottom of it. I sat there uncomfortably watching her. It had been my idea to ask about Hájek’s apartment and maybe suggest that I move in, if there was no‐one else living there, and help out with odd jobs and so on and so forth, but seeing the way the caretaker was poking around at the tea leaves didn’t make me feel overly optimistic. While she poked she began to hum, and presently she began talking, I suspected at first to herself, without, however, shifting her gaze. ‘It seems to me everything has to be the way it is and no other way.’ I wasn’t sure I’d heard her rightly and lent forward with my eyes grown wider, as if either would help me hear any better now that she’d stopped talking again. Aware of how foolish I must’ve looked, I straightened up and cast around for a new angle of approach. I began to ex- plain my relationship with Hájek, but she cut me off. ‘I know,’ she said. I gathered there were probably a great number of things La Severínová knew. Just then she fixed me with a cold stare and said: ‘Why don’t you go up there, since that’s what you came for? The keys are on the hook beside the stove.’

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