“Thank you,” I say. “For what?” he asks. “For putting my mind off that thing I thought about when you said September thirteenth.” There’s a brief silence between us. I’m the first to speak again. “Paul had an apartment in Paris.” “Come again?” Arsène takes a seat opposite to me, attentive and alive all of a sudden. “After he died, I started taking care of the bills. He was good with numbers, so this was normally his jurisdiction. One of the outstanding bills was an overdue rent payment on an apartment on the eighth arrondissement.” I stare into the bottom of the glass. “The Champs-Élysées
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