Chapter 16 Section fifteen

She is always the first to leave the apartment every morning.After going downstairs, open the mailbox, take your own letter and leave Jean-Marc's.That morning she found two letters in the mailbox, one from Jean-Marc. (She glanced at it, the letter was postmarked in Brussels).The other was hers, but it had neither an address nor a stamp on it.It must have been delivered by someone himself.She was in a hurry to get to her car, so she put the letter unopened in her handbag.As soon as she sat down in the car, she opened the letter, and there was only one sentence in the letter: "I followed you like a spy—you are so beautiful."

Her first reaction was to be a little annoyed that the person was trying to intrude into her life without her consent to get her attention (her attention span was limited and she didn't have the energy to expand it right now).The man was bothering her.But right away, she said to herself, after all; it wasn't such a big deal. What woman never received a note like this at any one time.She read the letter again, and it occurred to her that perhaps she should show it to the table next to her.So she put the letter in her handbag again.She began to look at the people around her.She saw people mostly in their seats, looking out the car window absently at the street.The two girls burst into exaggerated laughter.Beside the car door, a young, tall, handsome black man watched her.There is also a woman who is engrossed in her book, and she may have a long car ride ahead.

Usually, in the car, she never paid attention to the people around her.But now, because of this letter, she is convinced that she is being noticed, so she has to start paying attention to others.Is there anyone who will always stare at her like the black man today?As if he knew what she had just seen, he smiled at her.Suppose he was the one who wrote the note?But soon, she gave up this ridiculous idea.She stood up to get off at the next stop, and to get off she had to pass the black man blocking the door, which made her feel sick all over.As she walked up to him, a sudden brake knocked her off balance.The black man who had been staring at her started laughing.She got out of the car and said to herself: That's not flirting, it's mocking.

All day long, that mocking laughter rang in her ears.That laughter haunted her mind like a bad omen.In the office she read the letter two or three more times.After returning home, she began to think about what to do with the letter.Is it to keep it?for whom?Show it to Jean-Marc?That would embarrass her.Maybe Jean-Marc thought she was boasting.So, or destroy it?certainly.She went into the bathroom and squatted by the toilet bowl, staring at the surface of the liquid.She tore the envelope into pieces, threw it down the toilet, and flushed it down.But she folded up the letter and took it into her bedroom.She opened the closet and hid the letter under her bra.And the black man's mocking laughter rang in her ears again, as if mocking every woman including her.Her bra looked suddenly vulgar and stupid, a feminine vulgarity and stupidity.