Someone is moving in next door. Two women. Movers sweat in the heat wave. From his window, Rémi has eyes only for the little redhead on the moving crew.
“You should come see this—a handsome little specimen feeling the heat.”
Victor says nothing, busy solving the puzzle before him. The computer plays a New Age melody.
“I can’t figure out the combination to the lock.”
Rémi does not offer to help. This sort of game does not appeal to him much.
“I wouldn’t mind having a go at his lock…”
“The older you get, the more you lay it on. Ah! There, that was it,” Victor says to himself.
Rémi hears a door open and the music grow louder. Victor has solved the mystery, but another one must lie behind it, because Rémi hears him swear.
One of the women is blind and has taken a seat on the balcony while the other, younger woman directs operations with a man who turns out to be her boyfriend. From time to time, they approach the blind woman. They laugh and speak another language. It sounds like German, for what little Rémi knows of it. The blind woman is rather pretty. Behind her dark glasses, she could be rich and immobile, waiting for the workers to finish putting everything away before entering her new home. Rémi describes the scene to Victor.
Rémi is naked. Victor scolds him and tells him to put some clothes on. Rémi shrugs. It is too hot. Besides, no one can see them from this floor. Even so, the redhead glances up at him from time to time. It amuses Rémi, nothing more. It is almost too easy, which makes it tedious. Instead, he does a few push-ups, then goes down to the kitchen. He feels like making bread and offering the neighbours a loaf.