She turned off the radio. Moissac did not want to talk. “Leave it on, maman. I haven’t heard the news all day.” “Lies,” she said. “One thing one day, another the next.” She switched on the radio again and took his coat from him. He went to the sink and while he turned up his cuffs and drew a basin of water, he watched her reflection in the window. She was straightening the coat on the hanger when she discovered the bulge in the pocket, the string of glass beads he had torn from Madame Fontaine’s doorway. She put her hand in the pocket and pulled them out, the loose beads scattering over the floor. “Put them in a dish, maman. I’ll have to take them back to Madame Fontaine.” He could not hear what she was saying until he turned off the radio. “Now, what did you say?” “I said, what else was she wearing?” Moissac described the curtain of beads in the pension vestibule and how he had caught the strand in the button of his sleeve. He showed her where the button was now missing.
