The true horror stories in modern Paris Part 29

After the successful opening party of the previous night Mme. Empathy stood there glowing.  However when Mme. Landlord and I entered the restaurant Mme. Empathy looked at us as if we were vermin. 

Mme. Landlord politely explained the situation, but was rudely interrupted.  Mme. Empathy glared at me and spoke to me in English to my surprise.  She insisted that I did not hear anything.  If I did then it was me being oversensitive.  She then turned to Mme. Landlord and said in French ‘You should pay for the insulation, not me.’  Not knowing this, I naively begged Mme. Empathy to at least refrain from using the dishwasher after midnight.  She looked me straight in my eyes and said, ‘we have no dishwasher.’  I could see one in the kitchen and pointed at it.  ‘Oh, that is not it’.  Without even  once flickering in eye.  I realized that I was dealing with a pathological liar.  Logical thing would be for me to walk away, but her command of English puzzled me.  It was too good for a French.  It turned out that Mme. Empathy was French only by national.  It was a typical case of immigrants dumping on other immigrants.

I observed Mme. Landlord as we walked out the restaurant.  She was looking fragile every day because of her age.  She was a good French lady, very sympathetic to immigrants.  What would it make me if I abandoned her after all the compassion she had shown me?  Another ungrateful immigrant, of course and I refused to go down that path.  We Japanese maybe many thing, but ungrateful is not one of them.  So I opted to stay above the restaurant from Hell and fight with Mme. Landlord.  

Together we headed for PASU, the authority that approved the infrastructure of the restaurant.  Mme. Landlord was sure that Mme. Empathy had lied to the authority.  To be continued.