Mme. Landlord informed me that she was
having a guest over in April and thus she must have her apartment ready by then. She was not in Paris in the month of January,
so I assumed there would be no painting during the cold winter months. I decided to have my mother flown from Japan into
Paris to my new room. I should have done
so sooner considering her advanced age, her fragileness precipitated by four
operations, but I had to delay it thanks to the restaurant from Hell below who made
my former apartment a hell to live. Not the
environment for my fragile mother. February
was not exactly the ideal month for a visit, but Paris is mesmerizing at any
time of the year.
The first 10 days with my mother was
wonderful. She needed my assistance all
the time, but she loved every minute of it.
Then…it happened. Mme. Landlord
returned all of sudden to Paris and ordered me to resume the painting of her apartment
to repay her for her kindness. I
explained that my mother was here with me for just another 10 days and there
would be a plenty of time before her guest arrived in 2 months. But non, Mme. Landlord was going away on
holidays in March and she could not fully relax and enjoy it if her apartment was
not done. She was going away with her
grandson that I should know the importance of family. I wrote to her that my mother was my family
too and this was probably going to be her last chance to see Europe if her
pending eye operation was not successful.
Mme. Landlord completely ignored this and still insisted.
I realized then that the kindness to
migrants was costly and that migrants’ family clearly came secondary to the
French family. I could not abandon my
mother, but then she fell ill. She told
me to go fulfill my promise while she rested in peace. I knew my mother’s keen sense of obligation
would suffer if I violated it, so I sadly went up the stairs to Mme. Landlord’s
apartment on the top floor. The hyena looked
satisfied that her free help came. She stayed
around for a while to give me tons of instruction but left because the room was
too cold. She told me that her heater
was still not fixed, and the toilet was still broken. Needless to say, Mme. Landlord had no words
of sympathy for my mother who had fallen ill.
Instead, she bang on my door loudly to wake my sick mother up so she could
use my toilet. Economizing on toilet
paper was more important than the health of an aged migrant to Mme. Landlord. I hope that no other French women are this vulgar.
I continued to finish the painting because
coldness made me numb, body and mind. I
was too sad to confront the reality that my sincerely had been exploited. Days after I was finally cleaning up having
finished the job. The cold water numbed
my wrist for the last time. I said ‘last’
because the tap snapped as I turned it. I
realized with horror that I had broken Mme. Landlord’s tap and the mobility of
my wrist was gone.
My readers would know that which one of us
demanded compensation. To be continued.

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