The next day, I discovered that a balcony could have social consequences.

Well.

I had already suspected as much.

Since the Eugène incident, the balcony was no longer really a balcony. It was a border zone, a source of responsibility, allergies, hallway conversations, and decisions my cat regarded with criminal interest.

I thought I had stabilized the situation.

Reinforced mesh.
Glass door closed.
Increased surveillance.
Removal of furniture that could serve as a launchpad, ladder, or philosophical justification.

An imperfect system, but a coherent one.

I hadn’t accounted for Liora’s father.

Mistake.

On Sunday afternoon, around four, someone knocked on my door.

Two knocks.

Sharp.

Not Liora’s.

Liora knocked the way she entered a sentence: quickly, as though the conversation had begun before the door opened.

This was controlled.

Measured.

The kind of knock that appeared to have read the building regulations and found several points of concern.

Eugène lifted his head from the couch.

Demitrius froze in his corner with a strand of hay between his teeth.

“If it’s for you, you’re not here,” I told Eugène.

He blinked.

I looked through the peephole.

Liora’s father.

Obviously.

He stood upright in the hallway with that calm presence that made even the walls seem as though they ought to correct their posture. Beside him, Liora occupied the space very differently. Pale sweatshirt, hair tied back, hands in her pockets, expression half guilty and half amused.

A very bad combination.

I opened the door.

“Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon, Aurèl.”

He knew my name now.

I still wasn’t used to it.

In his voice, it sounded less like a name than a case file.

“Hi,” Liora said.

She smiled too quickly.

“Before he starts, I should clarify that this is not a summons.”

Her father slowly turned toward her.

“No one said anything about a summons.”

“It’s the atmosphere.”

“Liora.”

“I’m warning him.”

I kept one hand on the door handle.

Defensive position.

Probably visible.

“Is there a problem?” I asked.

“No,” her father said.

Then he looked toward my balcony, visible behind me.

“Not yet, at least.”

Very reassuring.

Liora rolled her eyes.

“Dad.”

“A problem does not need to happen before it can be addressed.”

“See?” she said to me. “Active prevention.”

Her father took a small folded notebook from his pocket.

Of course.

He had a notebook.

“I examined the divider between our balconies.”

“From your side?”

“Yes. It is inadequate.”

I looked at Liora.

She grimaced in a way that meant, I know.

“I’m working on securing it.”

“I saw the current installation.”

Silence.

Not good.

“It’s temporary,” I said.

“I should hope so.”

Fine.

The conversation had just become a technical assessment.

“Dad has an idea,” Liora said.

“An idea with diagrams,” her father corrected.

The hallway suddenly seemed too narrow for their family dynamic and my discomfort.

“You want me to take a look?”

“Yes.”

“You need to see the angle from our side,” Liora added. “Two minutes.”

I froze.

Their apartment.

The place next door.

The territory where the footsteps, voices, doors, moderately deafening political videos, and Liora’s laughter came from.

That place had existed in my life for months in the form of sounds.

I hadn’t expected it to have an entrance.

Well, obviously it had one.

But until then, their door had represented a theoretical boundary. A closed rectangle explaining why the sounds weren’t exactly mine.

“Only two minutes,” Liora repeated more softly.

She had noticed my hesitation.

Which annoyed me.

Not at her.

At the fact that it was visible.

“Yes, of course.”

Too formal.

Eugène appeared behind my legs.

Perfect timing.

He slipped halfway into the doorway and looked up at Liora, then at her father, as though greeting two diplomats from an opposing nation.

Her father looked at him.

“He is not coming.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Liora replied.

“You were about to think it.”

“Thinking isn’t forbidden by the building regulations.”

“Not yet,” I murmured.

Liora almost burst out laughing.

Her father looked at me, surprised that I had spoken.

I stepped into the hallway while blocking Eugène with my foot.

He attempted a lateral escape.

Failure.

“Stay.”

He looked deeply betrayed.

Liora’s door was open.

I crossed the threshold.

And the apartment next door became real.

Not merely larger than my studio.

Much more inhabited.

The space was filled with passageways. With evidence that several people lived there on different schedules, with overlapping habits and incompatible emergencies.

Shoes beside the entrance.

Too many shoes.

A coat rack overloaded with jackets.

A sports bag against the wall.

Keys in a dish that was too small.

A scarf over a chair.

The smell of something simmering.

Tomato.
Spices.
Coffee too.

A television playing with the sound off.

Framed photographs on the walls.

Liora when she was younger, in running shorts with a medal around her neck, looking victorious and probably already unbearable.

Her father younger too, with less gravity in his shoulders.

A woman came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish towel.

I recognized her before I had really seen her.

Liora’s mother.

Not because she looked exactly like Liora.

Something in her eyes said the same thing more quietly.

“Hello.”

A gentle voice.

Steady.

A voice that didn’t need to rise in order to exist.

“Hello.”

“Mom, this is Aurèl,” Liora said.

“I know.”

Silence.

Brief.

Highly effective.

Liora opened her mouth.

Closed it.

I searched for a neutral point near the coat rack.

Bad choice.

One of Liora’s jackets was there.

So it wasn’t neutral.

“I mean,” her mother continued with a smile, “you mostly talk about Eugène, obviously.”

“There,” Liora said. “Exactly. Eugène.”

“And Demitrius.”

“Obviously.”

“And the exhibition.”

I remained still.

Liora scratched her temple.

“Yes, well.”

Her father returned to us.

“We came to discuss the balcony.”

“Yes,” Liora said. “Fascinating subject.”

Her mother looked at me.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“No, thank you.”

Immediate response.

Survival instinct.

She smiled as though she had expected it.

“I’ll make tea anyway.”

Fine.

So I had lost.

We crossed the living room.

I didn’t know where to look.

In my studio, every object had a relationship with me. Even the disorder was mine.

Here, everything looked at me from too many angles.

The photographs.
The books.
An abandoned mug.
A blanket folded halfway.
Administrative papers stacked neatly.
A small plant on a windowsill.

The living room was louder than mine even without sound.

Liora looked at me.

“You okay?”

“Yes.”

“You have the face.”

“Which one?”

“The one trying not to touch anything.”

“That’s a common face when entering someone else’s home.”

“Not that common.”

“Liora, let him breathe,” her mother called from the kitchen.

“I am.”

“You’re commenting on his breathing.”

“Not yet.”

I smiled despite myself.

Her father opened the glass door.

“Come and look.”

The family balcony was slightly larger than mine, or seemed that way because it contained more things. Two folding chairs, a pot of basil healthier than all my plants combined, a toolbox, an outdoor rug, a solar lamp.

From this side, the divider seemed even lower.

Treacherous.

Her father pointed at the ledge.

“Your cat crossed here.”

“Probably.”

“Certainly.”

“Yes.”

“The slope gives him leverage. The problem isn’t only the height. It’s the angle.”

He was right.

I hated how easily he was right.

“I put mesh up on my side.”

“I saw.”

That phrase again.

Liora, still standing beside the glass door, said:

“He’s doing what he can.”

I turned toward her.

Too quickly.

She stopped.

So did I.

Her father didn’t appear to notice.

Or pretended not to.

“I don’t doubt it,” he said. “But a solution that depends on human optimism is not a solution.”

“You should frame that,” Liora said.

“I could.”

I looked at the divider.

“What do you suggest?”

He took a folded diagram from his notebook.

An actual diagram.

With measurements.

Arrows.

Annotations.

The kind of document produced either by a serious carpenter or an air-accident investigation.

“A transparent panel here. Attached to the railing and the divider. Not too high, so it won’t block the light. With an angled return on the side.”

“A return?”

“Otherwise he’ll go around it.”

I looked at the drop.

Then the imaginary panel.

Then Liora.

“He would go around it?”

“It’s Eugène,” she said. “Probably.”

Betrayal.

Accurate, but still betrayal.

“I have a sheet of Plexiglas in the basement,” her father continued. “We’ll need to check the fittings on your side.”

It took me a few seconds to understand.

“You want to install it?”

“I’m offering to help.”

A simple sentence.

His tone made the assistance sound like a decision that had already been established as reasonable.

“I can do it.”

“Do you have the appropriate drill?”

“No.”

“An electric screwdriver?”

“No.”

“A saw to adjust the panel?”

“No.”

He nodded.

Not triumphantly.

Worse.

Factually.

“Then I can help.”

Liora was looking at the balcony floor.

I could sense that she wanted to intervene.

“That would be kind,” I finally said.

“It is a matter of safety.”

Of course.

Kindness had been removed from the file.

We returned to the living room.

Liora’s mother had placed four cups on the coffee table.

I had refused one.

She had assigned one to me anyway.

Family life ignored certain answers.

“Sit down.”

Her father took the armchair.

Liora dropped onto the couch with the ease of an official resident. Her mother sat beside her.

There was one place left on the couch.

Beside Liora.

Or a chair.

I chose the chair.

Obviously.

Liora gave me a look.

“Strategic choice.”

“Mobility.”

“Emergency exit?”

“Always.”

Her mother smiled into her tea.

Her father had already moved on to the next part of the file.

“So you work from home?”

“Yes.”

“You’re an illustrator.”

“Yes.”

“Freelance.”

“Yes.”

Three yeses.

A beautiful beginning to an interrogation.

No.

A normal conversation.

That was precisely the problem.

“How long have you been doing it?”

“A little over two years.”

“You began after completing your studies?”

“Not exactly. I spent one year at an applied arts school, then left. After that, I worked other jobs while gradually taking commissions.”

I didn’t like the sentence.

It was true.

It still felt like walking over loose floorboards.

“Why did you leave?”

A simple question.

Not unkind.

Maybe that was what made it difficult.

“It wasn’t really for me. I felt as though I spent more time learning how to present my work than actually making it. And financially, it was difficult.”

Her father nodded.

“And is it stable now?”

There.

The word arrived.

Stable.

I could almost see it settle between the tea and the cushions.

Liora opened her mouth.

“He genuinely works, Dad. He has commissions, clients, an exhibition coming up. It isn’t as though he draws three things in a corner while waiting for inspiration to fall through the ceiling.”

I knew she was trying to help.

And something inside me was touched so quickly that I didn’t have time to reject it.

She defended me with simple certainty.

As though my work did not need to apologize for existing.

But hearing “he genuinely works” inside her family’s living room made me want to disappear into the upholstery of the chair.

Because if she needed to say it, perhaps it wasn’t obvious.

Or not obvious enough.

“I didn’t say otherwise,” her father replied.

“You were going to.”

“I’m asking whether he can support himself.”

“That isn’t the same thing.”

“It is very close.”

“Not when you say it like that.”

“Liora,” her mother said.

One word.

Not harsh.

She fell silent.

Quickly.

I noticed.

Like at the stadium.

Not the same, obviously.

But there were rhythms in this family that she knew very well.

“It isn’t always stable,” I said.

Liora turned toward me.

I didn’t look at her.

“Some months are better than others. Sometimes all the commissions arrive at once, and sometimes they don’t. I have a few regular clients. I also make artwork for small publishers and posters.”

“Are you officially registered?”

“Yes. As a sole trader.”

“You keep proper accounts?”

“Yes.”

He nodded.

I couldn’t tell whether he approved or had added the information to a column.

“And the exhibition, is that paid?”

“No. The pieces can be sold, but there’s no guarantee.”

“You’re paying for the prints?”

“Partly.”

“So you are investing without any guaranteed return.”

“Dad,” Liora said.

More quietly this time.

Tired.

Her father looked at her.

“These are normal questions.”

“I know. But they all land on the same side.”

The silence became more delicate.

Her mother lifted her cup again.

“Your father always counts the steps before climbing a staircase.”

I looked toward her.

She was smiling slightly.

“It isn’t because he thinks it will collapse. He wants to know where he is placing his feet.”

Her father raised one eyebrow.

“I do not count stairs.”

“Mentally.”

“Not systematically.”

“Of course.”

Liora smiled.

So did I.

A little.

The air shifted inside the room.

Her mother turned toward me.

“And have you been drawing for long?”

The question didn’t carry the same weight.

“Always, I think.”

“You think?”

“I don’t know when it starts counting.”

She nodded.

“Liora told me you draw interiors.”

“She talks a lot, apparently.”

Liora pointed one finger at me.

“Careful.”

Her mother smiled.

“She talks when something interests her.”

Fine.

I drank tea.

Too hot.

I needed to stop using beverages as a tactic.

“Rooms, corners, windows. Things like that.”

“Things like that,” Liora repeated.

I glanced at her.

She looked almost proud to have caught me minimizing it.

“It’s more than that,” she told her mother. “He draws what remains. Places after people. I’m not sure I’m saying it properly.”

I looked down at my cup.

She had taken my words from the balcony.

Brought them here.

Into her living room.

In front of her parents.

It wasn’t a betrayal.

But something inside me closed slightly.

The previous evening, those sentences had belonged to the cold air, the railing, that zone that wasn’t entirely hers or mine.

Here, they became presentable.

Shareable.

Liora’s mother looked at me gently.

“That’s a beautiful idea.”

“It isn’t really an idea,” I said too quickly. “I draw first, then try to understand why.”

She nodded.

“That is often the order it happens in.”

Her father picked up his cup again.

“And does your family live in the area?”

“No.”

“Do they support your work?”

A normal question.

Again.

I felt the answer approaching like a fragile section of floor he was inevitably going to step on.

“They aren’t against it.”

A magnificent sentence.

Very convincing.

Liora looked at me.

So did her mother.

Her father put down his cup.

“That is not always the same thing.”

“No.”

“They would have preferred a more conventional path?”

I had intended to stop there.

Really.

But the tired atmosphere of the living room, or the questions, or Liora’s presence on the couch loosened something.

“They mostly want me to do something. Like everyone, I suppose.”

Her father nodded.

“That’s normal.”

Normal.

The word had a strange effect.

Normal to ask whether it was stable.

Normal to want guarantees.

Normal to prefer a path that could be clearly read.

And I, with my irregular commissions, my sketchbooks, my unpaid exhibition, my repeat-offender cat, and my files saved three times, wasn’t entirely sure what category I occupied.

Not shameful.

Only fragile.

Liora leaned forward.

“He isn’t irresponsible. He works constantly. He thinks about everything, too much, even. He takes better care of his animals than many people take care of themselves. And he came to the stadium even though he looked like he was having an existential crisis in the bleachers.”

“Liora,” her father said.

Not harsh.

Serious.

“Aurèl can answer for himself.”

Silence.

He was right.

And the worst part was that I didn’t want him to be right.

Part of me wanted to let her continue.

A shameful part, relieved to be defended with such certainty.

Another part wanted to leave immediately.

I didn’t want to be someone who needed explaining.

Especially not in front of her parents.

Especially not in front of her.

Liora understood one second too late.

Her face closed slightly.

“I know.”

Her mother briefly placed a hand on her knee.

Her father looked at me.

“I wasn’t trying to make you uncomfortable.”

That was probably true.

That was the problem.

“I know.”

“I tend to ask practical questions. It isn’t directed against you.”

“I know.”

This time, the words weren’t completely empty.

I knew that his way of looking at the world passed through fittings, income, social contributions, allergy risks, and cats finding ways around barriers.

I also knew that my own doubts already spoke that language.

He didn’t need to attack.

All he had to do was place the words on the table.

The rest happened by itself.

Liora’s mother continued gently.

“You seem to be holding a great deal together in very little space, Aurèl.”

I looked at her.

“Sorry?”

“Your studio. Your work. Your animals. Your drawings. That’s a lot inside one small place.”

The sentence did not ask for proof.

It observed differently.

“Yes.”

Brilliant.

She smiled.

“That is a kind of stability too.”

Liora’s father turned his head slightly toward her.

Not in disagreement.

More surprised by the shift.

Liora looked at her mother with quiet gratitude.

Her father continued:

“I can come by tomorrow at the end of the day. We’ll install the panel.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Six o’clock?”

“Fine.”

“You’ll need to be there.”

“I work from home.”

“Exactly.”

I couldn’t tell whether that was a clarification or a joke.

His face didn’t help.

Liora smiled.

“That was almost funny, Dad.”

“I can be funny.”

“That remains under debate.”

The tension loosened slightly.

Not completely.

It had left a trace.

I finished my tea, the only clear action available.

Then stood.

“I should let you get on.”

Liora stood too.

Too quickly.

“I’ll walk you out.”

“The door is twenty feet away.”

“Critical distance.”

Her father folded his notebook.

“Thank you for coming over, Aurèl.”

“Thank you for the tea.”

Her mother smiled.

“You’ll come back when we aren’t discussing mesh.”

Liora turned toward her.

“Mom.”

“What?”

Had she gone red?

Maybe it was the living-room light.

Very bad lighting.

I replied with something like:

“Yes, thank you.”

Which meant nothing.

In the entryway, Liora remained beside me while I put my shoes back on.

An unnecessarily vulnerable activity.

There was no perfectly dignified way to put on your shoes beneath the gaze of someone who had defended you too quickly in front of her father.

I straightened.

“Sorry,” she said.

Quietly.

She was staring at the door handle.

“For what?”

“I spoke for you.”

I didn’t answer immediately.

The family hallway continued living behind her.

Her mother was probably putting away the cups.

Her father might already have been flipping through his notebook.

A pipe vibrated somewhere.

“You were trying to help.”

“Yes.”

“I know.”

She looked up.

“But?”

There.

She could hear missing sentences now.

A very bad development.

“But I don’t want to look like someone who needs defending.”

She remained open.

Not offended.

Hurt, perhaps.

“That isn’t how I see you.”

“I know.”

“Really.”

“I know, Liora.”

This time, maybe she heard that I knew.

And that it didn’t fix everything.

She nodded.

More slowly than usual.

“Okay.”

Then she added:

“My father does this with everyone. Neighbors, delivery people, my friends, my coaches. Once, he asked a doctor whether he’d slept properly before examining me.”

“Had he?”

“No.”

“So...”

“Don’t take his side.”

I smiled.

A little.

So did she.

“And I’m still coming to the exhibition.”

“Even after the family presentation of my complete lack of a retirement plan?”

“Especially after that. You need someone in the audience who won’t ask whether the paintings are profitable while standing in front of them.”

“There may be worse people there.”

“Impossible. My father is professional level.”

A laugh escaped through my nose.

She seemed relieved.

So was I.

She opened the door.

The shared hallway appeared.

Almost my territory.

The landing.

My door opposite hers.

A few yards.

A distance I knew.

“See you tomorrow for Operation Anti-Eugène,” she said.

“Don’t call it that in front of him.”

“Does he understand French?”

“Not yet. But he interprets tone.”

“Like you.”

I looked at her.

She smiled.

Not too brightly.

“Have a good evening, Aurèl.”

“You too.”

I crossed the hallway and unlocked my door.

Eugène was waiting behind it.

Of course.

He looked toward Liora’s apartment and attempted to move forward.

I blocked him with my foot.

“No. You are literally the subject of a security plan.”

Liora laughed softly on the other side.

I went in.

The studio welcomed me with its usual quiet, size, and disorder.

The desk.
The lamp.
The sketchbooks.
The cables.
The guitar.
Demitrius’s corner.
The couch too close to everything.
The open kitchen that didn’t have enough space to be called a kitchen without some degree of real-estate optimism.

After Liora’s apartment, its smallness seemed more visible.

As though I had returned to a reduced version of my life with someone else’s gaze still attached to me.

Eugène sniffed my pants.

“Yes, I went to their apartment.”

He looked at me.

“Without you.”

He turned away.

Offended.

Demitrius raised one ear.

“At least you don’t ask questions about my social contributions.”

He chewed.

Quiet support.

I returned to my desk.

The exhibition folder was still open.

The five images lined up.

The artist statement I had begun the previous evening.

“I draw places after people have passed through them.”

I reread the sentence.

Then the questions returned.

How long have you been doing it?

Is it stable?

Is it paid?

Does your family support you?

They weren’t attacks.

Maybe that was what made them difficult to forget.

You could reject an attack.

A normal question entered without breaking down the door.

It sat down.

It quickly found where you had stored the doubts.

I opened my income spreadsheet.

Bad idea.

I knew before doing it.

I did it anyway.

Decent month.
Less decent month.
Good month.
Catastrophic month rescued by a commission that arrived too late.

An acceptable annual total, provided no one examined the details too closely.

Like Liora’s five hours of sleep.

I closed the spreadsheet.

Stability.

For me, the word looked like something cobbled together from files, follow-up emails, compromises, invoices paid just in time, and months that were denser than others.

For her father, it appeared to mean something else.

Guarantees.

Counted steps.

A Plexiglas panel properly secured so a cat couldn’t find a way around it.

Eugène jumped onto the desk and sat in front of the screen.

A familiar obstacle.

Massive.

Reassuring despite himself.

I placed one hand on his back.

He began purring immediately.

Opportunist.

I looked around the studio.

Small, yes.

Fragile, perhaps.

But real.

The commissions.
The sketchbooks.
The animals.
The guitar.
The drawings.
The rooms that weren’t empty.

All of it held together.

Not elegantly.

Not with perfect guarantees.

But it held.

I was annoyed that I had to ask myself the question as though the answer belonged to someone else.

As though stability had changed definition because a square-shouldered, protective man who was probably highly competent with a drill had said the word inside his living room.

I wasn’t a file waiting for approval.

I repeated the sentence mentally.

It didn’t sound entirely convinced.

Fine.

We would begin there.

On the other side of the wall, I heard Liora speaking with her mother.

Not the words.

Only the voices.

I wondered whether they were talking about me.

An immediately unbearable thought.

I petted Eugène to pretend I had something to do.

He purred more loudly.

“Don’t get used to it.”

He lay down on my sketchbook.

Of course.

Knowing Liora wasn’t only running into her in the hallway, talking on a balcony, watching her practice, or recognizing her laugh behind a wall.

It was entering the apartment next door.

Seeing her photographs.

Drinking her mother’s tea.

Receiving her father’s questions.

Being seen by the people who had loved her before I was there.

I reopened the artist statement.

The cursor blinked after the final sentence.

I typed:

“What remains inside a room is not always visible at first glance.”

I looked at the sentence.

It was about drawings.

It was also about something else.

A very bad sign.

I saved.

Once.

Twice.

I stopped.

Looked at Eugène.

“Do you think twice is enough?”

He stared at me.

No confidence whatsoever.

I saved a third time.

There was no reason to confuse self-assertion with technical recklessness.

On the other side of the wall, Liora laughed briefly.

Then nothing.

I remained in front of the screen with her father’s questions still arranged badly inside my head.

They weren’t attacks.

Not even warnings.

They were simply there.