Read Chapter 7: NORA

Nora Benali was developing photographs in the basement darkroom when Élise found her.

Under red light, her face looked carved from clay. Prints floated in chemical trays: abandoned suburban shopping centers, women waiting at bus stops, a demolished municipal pool.

“You’re Moreau,” Nora said without looking up.

“Elise.”

“The scholarship girl who got adopted by princes.”

Élise winced. “That’s not what happened.”

“Of course not.”

“I saw your Necker portfolio.”

That made Nora turn.

“How?”

Élise had rehearsed three lies on the stairs. All of them vanished.

“Orphée.”

Nora’s expression became still.

“What about them?”

“They asked me to rank anonymous applications.”

“And you recognized mine?”

“No. I ranked you first. I found out after the shortlist.”

Nora laughed once, bitterly. “Congratulations on your integrity.”

“I’m telling you because I think the process was tilted.”

“You think?”

“I don’t know enough yet.”

“That is what everyone says when knowing would cost them something.”

The sentence stayed with Élise.

Nora lifted a print with tongs. “My proposal was rejected last year too. Professor Maret told me it needed stronger institutional framing. This year I changed it. Then I heard Delmas had drinks with the foundation’s program officer two weeks before the deadline.”

“Hugo isn’t shortlisted.”

“No, but he knows who is. Favors circulate.”

“Why didn’t you complain?”

“To become what? The angry Arab girl who lost a grant and blamed the rich kids?” Nora met her eyes. “Institutions love diversity until diversity keeps records.”

Élise thought of her sketchbook.

“Would you show me your proposal?”

“Why?”

“I want to compare it with the shortlist.”

“Still working for them?”

“No.”

“Working against them?”

Élise hesitated.

Nora gave a humorless smile. “Exactly.”

She nevertheless handed over a copy.

That evening Élise read every public Necker proposal she could find in the library archive. She compared language, references, budgets. Nora’s was not brilliant, but neither were two shortlisted submissions. One of them used phrases Élise had heard Solène repeat during an Orphée meeting: “material memory,” “transnational craft,” “institutional visibility.”

The next day she confronted Lucien on the roof terrace.

He was smoking despite the school ban.

“Did Orphée edit Solène’s Necker proposal?”

He exhaled toward the gray sky. “Probably.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Who did?”

“Maxime. Maybe Professor Leclerc informally.”

“A juror helped an applicant?”

“Leclerc is not on the final jury this year.”

“But he knows them.”

“Everyone knows everyone.”

“That is not a defense.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

Élise took the cigarette from his fingers and crushed it in the metal ashtray.

He looked at her hand. “You could have asked.”

“You would have said no.”

“True.”

“Do you ever care about anything without turning it into theater?”

His face closed.

“Yes.”

She had expected irony. The directness unsettled her.

“Then care about this.”

“I do.”

“You benefit from it.”

“Yes.”

“And you stay.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He rested both hands on the stone parapet.

“Because leaving Orphée does not destroy Orphée. It only means someone worse decides what it becomes.”

“That is the oldest excuse for staying inside power.”

“And smashing power from outside is the oldest fantasy of people who have not watched institutions survive scandal.”

They stood facing each other in cold wind.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“Tell me everything.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know what you’ll do with it.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“I trust you to act according to your principles. I do not yet trust your principles to keep anyone alive.”

She stared at him.

“Metaphorically?”

“Mostly.”

He walked toward the stairwell, then turned.

“The Necker final interviews are next Thursday. Nora is not on the list, but one shortlisted student is withdrawing. If the alternate is selected, Nora can still enter.”

“How do you know?”

“Information.”

“Who is the alternate?”

“Nora.”

Élise’s pulse jumped.

“Why are you telling me?”

“Because you asked me to care.”

Then he left.

By the following morning, the withdrawing student had formally stepped down.

Nora received an interview invitation at 8:12 a.m.

At 8:19, she texted Élise two words.

What happened?

Élise looked across Studio C at Lucien.

He did not look up from his canvas.

She typed back:

I don’t know yet.

It was the first lie she told Nora.