Philomène Rattier

Philomène Rattier is 52 and has cleaned a foreign embassy for nine years. Born in a Normandy village, the daughter of washerwomen, she came to Paris at 19 with a shawl and a cousin's address, married, was widowed early and raised a daughter who now works in a button factory. She is paid by the embassy to sweep and by the counterespionage section to deliver the attaché's trash, and is proud to serve her country by sweeping the enemy's house.

She lives in a minuscule apartment on the top floor of a workers' building in Belleville, with an iron bed, a pine wardrobe, a window facing the rooftops and an eleven-year-old granddaughter who sleeps on a mat at the foot of the bed. In the morning she queues at the bakery, in the afternoon she washes the neighbors' laundry for a few pennies and at night she leaves for the embassy with her lantern lit, whatever the weather.

She is short and sturdy, with a broad, ruddy face, thick red hands and gray hair tucked under a white cap. She wears a worn black wool dress, a gray apron and a brown knitted shawl over her shoulders, which she made herself. She speaks in proverbs, distrusts those who smile too much and answers an indirect question with a direct one that leaves the other person awkward.

About her work, her account is that of a practical employee: she cleans the embassy at night, after the attaché leaves, and empties the baskets into a sack that she delivers to the section every two weeks, in a sacristysacristy A room in a church where vestments and sacred objects are kept. in the neighborhood. That day she delivered it at 9 p.m., in the rain. She describes the attaché as a clock, arriving at 9 and leaving at 6, and thinks sweeping is not a crime.

Philomène knows the woman who carries an embassy's trash to the ministry, with a sack kept at home for days, is the first anyone doubts when a torn paper turns up. When the detective says she works for both sides, she replies that she works for one and the other pays her to clean up his mess. It could be the stubborn loyalty of a simple woman. It could be someone hiding behind proverbs to avoid a question. The detective will have to decide which.