The true horror stories in modern Paris part 66

A French lawyer would naturally be biased as I was his client, but still the genuine shock on his face was enough proof that Mme. Landlord had behaved without honour according to the French standards.  My French lawyer was indignant that an aged woman who was a grandmother of many grandchildren should have chosen to exploit a migrant young enough to be her daughter.  

My lawyer suspected Mme. Landlord would repeat her antics with me, so his legal letter to her covered many grounds.   My painting labour alone would have cost Mme. Landlord 5000 euros had she employed a professional.  My lawyer halved it out of good faith.  He wished to demand her for the injury on my wrist because it has affected my career and would continue to do so in future, but as I left France immediately after the injury to accompany my fragile mother back to Japan, it would be difficult to prove the liability of Mme. Landlord. 

While he was finalizing his legal letter, Mme. Landlord bombarded me with her emails demanding me to do the right thing and observe the harmony among the neighbours.  Her hypocritical words resembled that of Mme. Harmonie of the restaurant from Hell.  No wonder Mme. Landlord detested her.  They were birds of a feather.  

Mme. Landlord spread the slander about me and had the nerve to send me the emails she had exchanged with her friends accusing me of wrongdoings.  The man who knew nothing about the sacrifice my mother had to make so that I would paint the apartment of Mme. Landlord, he advised her to act harshly with me in his email.  Did she not think that giving me his email address was a bad idea?  I duly sent him the copy of my legal letter.  Of course, Mme. Landlord would insist that it was all lie, but the legal fee in France is steep.  No one has that kind of money to spend on lies.  At least, I did not hear his advice again.

I am not angry because her French friends do not fare so well either.  I remember the time when Mme. Landlord made me and a man (another gullible fan of hers) move a discarded mattress that had been laid in the garbage room for weeks, to the guest room of her apartment.  I was horrified.  ‘You are not going to let your guest sleep on it?  The rats were seen there running around!’  She was not fazed at all.  ‘A clean sheet would hide it.’  Then I knew she would lie to her French friend that she went out of her way to purchase the mattress for him.’   Probably the same man who advised her to be harsh with me.

It was sort of good to know that Mme. Landlord was oddly egalitarian, being insincere to both the non-French and the French people too.

To be continued.

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