Back in her room, she lay on her bed. Chablis snuggled up against her back, purring. Thanks to him, she felt less alone. Sleep still eluded her. She put on her glasses and looked at the ceiling.

  “Mrs. Dalloway, show me my emails, please.”

  “Right away, Clarissa. Do you wish to turn off night mode?”

  “No, Mrs. Dalloway. I haven’t been able to sleep yet. And don’t give me the time, please.”

  “Of course. Here’s a list of your new incoming email.”

  Clarissa glanced though the list on the ceiling. Among the new emails was one from her dad and one from Mia White, the student she had not yet responded to.

  “Show me my father’s email, Mrs. Dalloway.”

  “Straight away, Clarissa.”

  My darling C…,

  I was so happy to chat with you the other day. You look so lovely your flat looks wonderful I must say even to my blind old eyes. What a view and such light. Perfectly understand you don’t want to talk about François. You know how I feel about him. Never liked him. Never. But if you do want to talk I’m here. Remember your old dad can still help. You know I always preferred Toby. I don’t want to go back to such a painful subject but I still feel sad you and Toby divorced. I know the death of the child was too awful too hideous. My heart still bleeds my darling even if it was all those years ago. There’s never a day that goes by without me thinking about the child. Darling I have good news. I’ve been talking to Arthur and I think I’ve made him understand how unfair Serena’s will was. He listened you know. He didn’t hang up or anything. He listened. He’s going to convince his monstrous daughters to give something over to Jordan. Jewels I think. No idea if they’re worth anything. He says he will do it. Don’t mention it if ever he calls. I’m going to fight this all the way my darling. I’m so angry at the old goat. How selfish she was. Do write to me soon. Love from your old dad.

  Her father had always moved her, with his unfailing affection, his warmth. She missed him. Should she tell him about François? No, he would be outraged, dismayed. He was too old to hear what she had to say. He would never get over it.

  “Do you wish to answer your father now, Clarissa?”

  “No, later. Please show me Mia White’s email.”

  “Here it is.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Dalloway.”

  Dear Clarissa Katsef,

  I thought I’d give this one more chance. I hope I’m not disturbing you. I wrote to you not long ago. I’ve been in Paris for a couple of weeks now for my new term. I’m staying in an attic room near the rue du Bac. Every time I pass in front of number 108 (which is several times a day), I think of Romain Gary and of you. My mum comes from Nantes, so I’m not too familiar with Paris, really. It’s lovely to be here, though. It’s so very different from the UEA campus! I hear you gave a lecture at my university once. But that was before I got here.

  I guess parts of Paris have changed drastically since the attack. I wonder what you make of the new neighborhood? And I presume you’ve heard about the Tower hologram? Do you think it’s a good idea?

  If ever you have time to meet me, I would be delighted. I’m sure you’re very busy and you don’t have a moment to yourself. I don’t know that many people here yet. I’ve yet to make friends. I’m sometimes a bit shy, the type to stay at home with a good book! I wonder if you are writing a new novel? It’s been a while since you published one. I know you wrote several TV shows in the past years, and I’ve seen most of them. But a novel, in my view, has so much more resonance than a TV show.

  I’ve been writing some stuff of my own since I’ve been here. Not that I’d ever bother you with that. You probably get so many people asking you to look at their work.

  Thank you for reading this,

  Sincerely,

  Mia White

  Clarissa pictured a dumpy, lonely, nail-biting teenager. Should she meet her? She was barely older than Andy! She asked Mrs. Dalloway to search the name Mia White. Several social media profiles popped up. She asked Mrs. Dalloway to narrow them down to profiles that were less than twenty years old, connected to the University of East Anglia. There was one profile that matched perfectly. That person liked Virginia Woolf, Romain Gary, Émile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, Françoise Sagan, Philip Roth, Donna Tartt, and Clarissa Katsef. Well, well. Her last posts were all of Paris. The Luxembourg Gardens, Sacré-Coeur, the Louvre, and a newly resurrected Notre-Dame, long-sufferingly restored after the tragic fire.

  “Show me her face, please, Mrs. Dalloway.”

  Mia White was stunning. She had long chestnut hair, bright blue eyes, a charming smile, lovely teeth. But her appealing physique wasn’t all; a wholesome sweetness stemmed from her, making her all the more endearing. There she was on a beach, with a group of friends, wearing a bikini. Her body glowed with healthy perfection. Another photo showed her curled up on a sofa with a book and a mug, wearing oversize reading glasses. Clarissa found herself fascinated by the number of images that fitted together like a puzzle. Mia and, presumably, her parents in a restaurant, gathered around a birthday cake. Mia as a child, dressed in a fairy costume. Mia in a bookstore. Mia and a boyfriend named David in New York. Mia and another boyfriend (nameless) in Barcelona. Mia making a face with a girlfriend in a nightclub. Mia without makeup. Just as pretty. Mia with a lot of makeup. A cover girl. Clarissa couldn’t help feeling flattered that this lively, striking young girl wanted to meet her. Perhaps she’d make a good friend for Andy? Andy was always complaining about her friends; they were either too fickle or too superficial. But maybe a four-year gap, at that age, made too much of a difference?

  Perhaps, Clarissa reflected, it was at last time for her to banish the solitary mood tailing her since she’d moved here. She’d cut off ties with her friends, not responding to their calls, texts, or emails. She was well aware she couldn’t go on like this. Hiding, turning into a hermit was not going to help. She had to face things at some point. She had to get on with her life. She had always done that. She had never been afraid to do that. Her new frailty encumbered her, and this exasperated her.

  Every morning, when she looked at her phone, there were texts from François sent during the night. They were all the same—begging for her forgiveness. She had thought of blocking his number. She never had, although she was itching to. She was still waiting to figure out how to talk to him, how to express her disgust, her resentment. That moment hadn’t come. Would it ever? she wondered. Was it important to voice her anger? The marriage was over. The trust was broken. So what was the point of talking to him? A part of her wanted to understand what had driven him to this, even if that meant delving into the darkest nooks of François’s secrets. Was she ready to hear these secrets? Not for the moment. And would she ever be? She had spent over twenty years with this man. Twenty years! François Antoine, her husband, was a stranger. A stranger she no longer wanted to have anything to do with. Was it possible to erase a person from your life? she wondered. Nothing linked them to each other, apart from the apartment near the Luxembourg Gardens, half of which belonged to her. They had not had children together. And she was very glad, today, that they hadn’t. There had been ups and downs, like for many couples. When François discovered he had cancer, she had helped him fight it and recover. She had been there for him. He had encouraged her to write, had helped her find a publisher for her first novel. Now that she had pulled away, she could pick out all the shady areas of their marriage, the snags, the traps, as if she had been poring over one of her beloved maps, spotting marshes, precipices, and ravines. It was all there. How could she have been so blind? How could she not have seen this coming?

  “Clarissa, would you like to answer Mia White now?”

  “Yes! However, I’m not going to dictate it to you, Mrs. Dalloway. I’m going to go sit in front of my computer, the good old-fashioned way, and write it myself!”

  “Very well, Clarissa.”

  Dear Mia White,

  Please forgive me for not answering you sooner. I was in the middle of a move. Thank you for your emails. Welcome to Paris! You asked what I thought of the new district. In my opinion, it’s rather a success. The ruins caused by the attack were left there for years, as you know, as if no one had any idea what to do with the ghastly mess. It was abominable. An entire Parisian neighborhood, wiped out. This new area is white, modern, with lots of greenery. It’s quite well done. As for the Tower, I’m eager to see the hologram this week. I read the reconstruction work is going to take longer than they planned, and be more complicated, too. I think it’s a pretty good idea to re-create what the Tower looked like at nighttime. My granddaughter, nearly fifteen, is impatiently waiting for the moment the hologram goes up. She is too young to remember the real Tower.

  I’d be very happy to meet you! I have time right now. I’m not totally invested in the new book yet. If you wish, we could meet in front of 108, rue du Bac, our pal Gary’s place. (Every time I walk past there, I see him raising his eyes to the sky to make them look even bluer, the way his mother asked him to.) We could then walk to the Seine and chat for an hour or so. What do you say to that?

  All best,

  Clarissa Katsef

  The next morning, there was an ecstatic email from Mia White. She suggested meeting in two days’ time, at four, in front of Romain Gary’s last home.

  Andy was at last coming to spend her first night in her grandmother’s flat. She was overexcited. She was going to sleep on the sofa in Clarissa’s small office, but Clarissa knew perfectly well Andy would end up in the big bed with her and Chablis. Not that she minded. She had to admit she missed the warmth of François’s sleeping body. They had always shared the same bed, even when he had been ill. She wondered: Was she finding it difficult to sleep because she was alone?

  Mrs. Dalloway’s voice rang out melodiously.

  “Clarissa, your granddaughter, Adriana, is in the lobby. Do you confirm access?”

  The screen near the front door showed Andy’s face. Andy stuck out her tongue and squinted.

  “Yes, Mrs. Dalloway. Please let Adriana up.”

  Clarissa had prepared Andy’s favorite meal: tomato soup, baked potatoes with ham, cheese, and cream, chocolate cake. She remembered cooking it for Andy when she was three years old. When there were just the two of them, Andy wouldn’t have anything else. The doorbell chimed. Clarissa opened up and Andy came flying into her arms. Oh, how she loved this kid. They hugged as if they hadn’t seen each other for years.

  “Why can’t I be as tall as you?” whined Andy.

  “Because you haven’t stopped growing, missy. Give it time.”

  “Mummy says that when you were fourteen, you were already a giant.”

  “Your mum wasn’t around when I was fourteen!”

  “Well, she saw old photos of you. She says you were taller than your brother.”

  “I still am. He hates that.”

  Andy pranced around the living room, waving her hands in the air.

  “I’m so happy! I can smell the soup and the cake!”

  The startled cat dashed under the sofa. Andy bent over to pull him out gently, settling him on her knees. He calmed down as she patted him.

  “Is he getting used to it here, Mums?”

  Clarissa picked up Andy’s backpack, jacket, and sneakers and put them in her office. She told Andy the cat seemed happier, that she wasn’t worried about him. But she was. She kept this to herself. She couldn’t work out if he was the strangest cat ever, or if there was truly something about this apartment that unsettled him. She often found him staring up at the ceiling, transfixed. And yet there was nothing to be seen. At other times, he appeared petrified, ears back, his body shuddering. She was never able to pick out what could have alarmed him to such an extent. Did the cat see things that humans did not? Was there a ghost here? She did not believe in ghosts. She believed in what walls remembered, how places harbored past emotions, past memories. But these walls were new, brand-new. She was the first person to ever live here. Could the cat be afraid of what had happened on these premises long ago? Was his behavior to do with the attack? Was he picking up suffering and pain from the scarred land the residence was built on? Was the cat crazy? Or else, there really was something here. Someone. Something. She had felt it, too. She had picked out the tiny cameras in each room, like little black eyes, always following her around. It made her as uneasy as the cat. Maybe that was why she hadn’t been sleeping well, nothing to do with being alone. Who was watching her? What for? What could she do about it? Whom could she complain to?

  “Mums!” called Andy. “Can I wash my hair in your fabulous shower?”

  Clarissa found Andy in the bathroom.

  “That Mrs. Dalloway of yours. She won’t do anything for me. She won’t even answer.”

  Clarissa smiled.

  “She only responds to me. She’s been programmed to react to my voice and nobody else’s.”

  “Well, what if something happens to you and I need help?”

  “I guess you use your phone.”

  Andy shrugged.

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” she said grimly. She came to stand next to her grandmother, pasting her cheek to Clarissa’s.

  “Why didn’t I get eyes like yours? They’re so blue, it’s unfair.”

  “Yours are lovely.”

  “Green, like Mummy’s. Yours are really something. You don’t even need makeup, with those.”

  Then reaching up to touch Clarissa’s braid, she asked, “What’s your real hair color, Mums?”

  “When I was your age, it was auburn. Then I dyed it redder when I was in my forties. But now it would be all white.”

  “Don’t you want to try it all white?”

  “Nope. I don’t mind being an old lady, but there is no way I’m going to have white hair. I’m sticking to being a redhead.”

  “There is nothing old ladyish about you, Mums. Even if you happen to be my granny.”

  “Hop into that shower, missy. Otherwise, we’ll miss the hologram event. Wouldn’t want that, would we?”

  Tonight was the worldwide event everyone was waiting for, the lighting up of the hologram representing the Tower. At ten o’clock sharp, when night had fully fallen, all eyes would be riveted to the spot the Tower once stood upon. Clarissa was lucky to be able to see the whole thing directly from her window, and not on television. The hologram was to be projected barely three hundred meters away from the residence. The president was going to speak, as well as the mayor of Paris. While Andy showered, Clarissa laid the table in the kitchen.

  “Mrs. Dalloway, turn on the television. Find the hologram Tower event, please.”

  “Coming up, Clarissa.”

  The built-in screen lit up part of the kitchen wall.

  “Which channel do you prefer, Clarissa? They’re all broadcasting the event.”

  “You choose, Mrs. Dalloway.”

  Clarissa was aware she couldn’t avoid the president’s speech. She was going to have to look at the president’s face, listen to her voice; she was going to have to endure all of it. Like most people she knew, Clarissa had not voted for her. That woman had come to power again after having been designated a first term. With the slow crumbling of Europe, a drawn-out, inexorable calamity, and above all the unparalleled violence of the attack targeting Paris, already a decade ago, there had been nothing to prevent the indomitable young woman with the low voice from being elected. During the last presidential elections, Clarissa had prayed with all her might that she would not be reappointed. But she had been, by far. When the second victory was announced, Clarissa thought for a time she might return to live in London, as she had dual nationality. But the disturbances left in the wake of Brexit were still not smoothed over, and the subsequent attack against London, so soon after the Paris one, had also left indelible scars. She had decided to remain in Paris, alongside her daughter, her granddaughter. And her husband.

  Her husband. While she stirred the soup, she thought back to the long texts received this morning from François. He said she was on his mind all the time, every day. He missed her so much. They had to find a way to work this out, to talk it over. They couldn’t just end it all like this. It was impossible. Every morning, he opened her closet and buried his face in all the clothes she’d left behind. He breathed in her perfume. He cried. Yes, he had done wrong, yes, he had acted so badly, but their marriage couldn’t be over. She had to give him another chance; she had to let him explain, excuse himself. He was begging her. He was down on his knees. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t stand it anymore. Jordan wouldn’t talk to him. He had tried to reach her. She didn’t pick up. What did Jordan know? Did she know everything? He was full of shame. He missed Andy, too. He had seen that kid grow up.

  Clarissa had erased each message, like all the others received from him. She didn’t care one bit that he missed Andy. She didn’t care at all that he was miserable. This morning, there had also been a message from Toby. She was often in contact with her first husband. He asked her how she was; he had heard from Jordan that she had moved. He must have known from their daughter that she had left François. She’d get back to him tomorrow.

  Jordan’s face showed up on Clarissa’s phone. Clarissa picked up.

  “Guess what, Mums? I got the most unexpected email from Mimsy and Pimsy.” Jordan’s nicknames for her British cousins. “They’re sending me jewels. Jewels! A brooch. Stuff that was locked in Serena’s safe for the past century. Something tells me Grandpa has been putting pressure on Arthur.”

  “How generous of Mimsy and Pimsy,” said Clarissa ironically.