by Colin Meloy
The street intersected with Rue des trois Mages, just a few yards beyond the bookshop, and a hectic flow of traffic made for a tricky crossing. The white-shirted boy managed it expertly, threading the buzzing scooters and Peugeot Coupes like a toreador dodging through a stampede of bulls. His pursuers had neither his agility nor his size, and one policeman collided noisily with a pair of boys on a Vespa. The machine went clattering across the pavement, and the air was awash with the sound of squealing brakes as the traffic came to a stuttering halt.
“Pardon, pardon,” said Charlie politely, as he braved the crossing. A consul general’s son, he did have a kind of reputation to uphold. For his troubles, he received a barrage of abuse so loud and frenetic he was thankful his knowledge of French was as limited as it was. Reaching the safety of the sidewalk, he saw that the two policemen had managed to catch the boy. One officer had him by the collar of his shirt; the other was busy patting down his pockets.
The police were yelling angrily in French; the boy was waving his hands and saying, “No parlez français!” over and over. They’d just produced a pen, Charlie’s pen, from the thief’s front pants pocket and were waving it in the boy’s face when Charlie arrived at the scene.
“Where are zee billfolds?” demanded one of the policemen in heavily accented English. “What else do yoo have?”
“Nothing, I swear!” shouted the boy. “I just nicked the pen, that’s all.”
Breathless and excited, Charlie put in, “It’s my pen!”
The tableau froze and all three of the people in front of Charlie swiveled their heads to look at the newcomer.
“Verry good,” said one of the policemen with an air of stuffy pride. “We have zee victim.”
This was when Charlie said something that he himself did not fully see coming. He said, “He’s not a thief.”
“’E’s what?” asked one of the policemen.
“I said, he’s not a thief,” responded Charlie.
“’E most certainly is,” said the other policeman.
Charlie took a deep breath and said, “I gave it to him. I gave him the pen.”
The other officer, still holding the boy by his shirt, sneered at Charlie and said, “Yoo gave it to ’eem?” His upper lip was marked by a thin splash of mustache.
“It was a gift,” said Charlie. “Please let him go.”
The policemen kept hold of the boy, though their attention was now entirely devoted to Charlie.
“’Oo are yoo?” asked one of the officers.
This might be a good place to pause for a moment and assure the reader that in every instance in which English is spoken in a French accent in this story, it will not be in the kind of ham-fisted attempt at portraying a French accent like the preceding few lines of dialogue. That is the last instance in which it will occur. Let us assume that when the text states that a person speaks English in a French accent, it is done as it might be by someone who is really doing his level best to speak a tongue that is not his own. I believe your imagination is ample enough to supply that detail.
Charlie answered, “I’m Charlie Fisher.” He then pointed to the barrel of the pen, where his name was etched in a tasteful cursive script.
Slowly, reluctantly, the policemen relaxed their grips on the boy’s shirt collar. The boy fell away and took a few steps backward, shaking his shoulders. He, too, was staring at Charlie in disbelief. He was so stunned, in fact, that he had a hard time coming up with an answer when one of the policemen asked him, “Is that true?”
“Y-yeah,” the boy stammered. “Sure enough. That’s the truth.” He looked down at the pen, as if seeing it for the first time. “Thank you very much. For this pen.”
Charlie smiled. “My pleasure. I hope you use it well.” He then looked at the two officers and, steeling himself, said, “You can go. Everything’s just fine here.”
The two policemen exchanged a long, confused look. One of them began to say something, but Charlie waved away his objection. “Honestly, officers,” he said. “Surely you have better things to do.”
“Very well,” one of the policemen said, finally. “If that is the truth.”
“It is,” confirmed Charlie.
“Well, then . . . ,” said the other officer.
“Good day, gentlemen!” said Charlie loudly.
The policemen each stood for a moment, studying the two children as if committing their every freckle to memory. One grumbled something in French, the other laughed under his breath, and the two together strode off.
Once they’d gone, the boy in the white shirt looked at Charlie from between the strands of his brown hair, which had fallen over his eyes during the commotion. He glanced down at the pen, which he still had clutched in his hand. “Can I really have it?” was the first thing he said.
Charlie laughed. “You can. On one condition,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“You show me how you did it.”
The boy’s name was Amir and he hailed from Lebanon—or that was how he introduced himself. He’d announced his name and birthplace with the kind of confidence that only invited suspicion. He did not give his last name, and Charlie didn’t press him for it. He said he hadn’t meant to take the pen, that he figured Charlie didn’t deserve to have his pen taken from him, but after he’d seen Charlie use it and he’d seen the words it’d created, he was suddenly very desirous of it. As if it, the pen, were the source of the strange stories that Charlie was creating out of thin air.
“So I took it. Simple as that.”
They’d walked some blocks off and found the curb of a fountain a welcome place to sit. Charlie eyed his companion in disbelief, saying, “It doesn’t seem very simple. I mean, I had the pen in my hand.”
“I don’t know how to tell you. You did have the pen in your hand, yeah. But you were looking off, weren’t you? You weren’t paying no attention to the pen.”
“But I don’t have to be looking at it to know that it’s in my hand.”
The boy made a face, one that suggested that further contradiction would only be impolite.
Charlie smiled. “Here, give me the pen.”
“The pen?” The boy frowned and looked down his chin at the tip of the Sheaffer Imperial. It was sticking out of his shirt pocket.
“I’ll give it back, don’t worry.”
The pen and the stick (which Charlie had kept as a souvenir of the theft) transferred possession for the second time that day. Charlie held the pen in his right hand, gripping it as if he were writing.
“Do it again,” he said, nodding down at the stick in the boy’s hand.
Amir laughed. “Well, I can’t now, can I?”
“And why not?”
“Well, you’re rumbled, so to speak.”
“Rumbled?” asked Charlie.
“It means you’re onto me. You know I’m fixing to pinch it.” The boy licked his lips; he had the slightest trace of a beard on his chin, and his two front teeth hung slightly askew in their gums.
“Very well,” said Charlie. “I shall act like I don’t know.”
The boy seemed to be open to the idea. He said, “Do as you were. Like, when you was writing.”
“Oh, right,” said Charlie, producing his notebook from beneath his arm. “I’ll do that.” He opened the book to a clean page and held the pen over it as if he were about to write. He waited, his eye straying occasionally to the boy who sat by his side. The boy hadn’t moved.
“Well, you’ve got to write something,” said Amir.
“Oh,” said Charlie. “Okay.”
He began to write his name: Charles Fish—
SCRITCH! A gash of ink scarred the page as Amir reached over and inelegantly yanked the pen out of Charlie’s hand. Charlie flinched and glared at his companion. “Not like that,” he protested.
Amir laughed, deeply, heartily. “That’s the easiest way,” he said, twisting the pen through his fingers playfully. “The clout and lam, like a proper rough tool.”
“Do it for real, the way you did, with the stick.”
“Okay, okay,” said Amir as he handed the pen back. “For real this time.”
The pen nib hovered over the paper once again, and Charlie began to write his name. To his great surprise, no ink appeared on the page. The nib scratched against the paper noisily but left no mark. Charlie studied the pen to confirm that it was not a stick, which it clearly was not. He then glanced over at Amir.
Amir was holding the ink cartridge.
“How did you . . . ,” gasped Charlie, now speaking into his chin more than ever. “I don’t believe it.”
The boy shrugged, as if he could take or leave Charlie’s statement. “Then don’t,” he said. “Can I have my pen back?”
Charlie wordlessly handed over the emptied pen shaft. Taking it, Amir unscrewed it and slid the cartridge back in place.
“Did you know the others? The pickpockets in the market?” asked Charlie, after a moment.
“Maybe,” responded the boy.
“You can tell me. I won’t say anything.”
The boy fiddled with the pen before saying, “Maybe I ask you a question first.”
“Fair enough,” said Charlie.
“Why didn’t you throw me?” asked Amir.
“Why didn’t I what?”
The boy clarified: “Why’d you cover for me, back there, with the police?”
“I was curious,” Charlie replied. “And you seem like a nice kid. You didn’t deserve to be arrested.”
“You didn’t know that then.”
“I had a hunch,” said Charlie, smiling.
“Maybe you are too nice, Charlie Fisher,” said Amir. “Maybe you don’t read people that good.”
“I think I’m a pretty decent judge.”
“I stole from you. That makes me a criminal.”
“But you’re a different kind. You can do something that not a lot of people can do.”
Amir shrugged indifferently.
“Teach me,” said Charlie. “Teach me to do what you do.”
The boy whistled between his teeth and shook his head. “I cannot, Charlie Fisher Jr., I am very sorry to say. We’re from two different places, you and me. You’re from the straight world. I’m a tool. It don’t mix.”
“A tool?”
“A cannon. A tout. On the whiz.”
“Still not following.”
“A pickpocket, Charlie. I’m a thief. You? You are a good American kid. A writer of stories. I think you should stay that way.”
Charlie was undeterred. “Then maybe,” he said, puffing out his chest, “maybe that is my pen after all. Perhaps I got my story mixed up with the police back there.”
“You wouldn’t,” said Amir.
“I would,” said Charlie. Two policemen could be seen, some yards away, directing traffic on a busy avenue. “Those two seem like they might be sympathetic.”
Silence reigned between them for a brief moment as the two boys locked eyes. The clatter of the Marseillais streets dinned around them. Amir continued to flip the pen between his agile fingers.
“You put me in a tight spot,” said Amir finally. He licked his lips and winced. “Very tight spot.”
Charlie shrugged. “C’mon,” he said.
“I’ll think about it,” said the boy in blue jeans, after a moment longer.
“Where? When?” chirped Charlie, barely letting Amir finish.
Amir shook his head disapprovingly. “This isn’t a usual thing. I have to see, I have to make sure. How ’bout this: tomorrow, I’ll come to your house. I’ll show you then. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Charlie, and he stuck out his hand to solemnize the deal. Amir shook it gamely. He then stood up and slipped his new pen into the pocket of his jeans.
“Thank you again for the gift, Charlie Fisher,” he said, bowing formally. “Till we meet again.” A streetcar, bursting with riders, clattered down its tracks on Cours Belsunce, and Amir ran to catch it. Leaping onto the sideboards and locking an arm around the railing, the boy turned and gave a final wave to Charlie before the tram rolled out of view.
Charlie watched him go, awed at the deftness of his every movement. If only he, Charlie, was gifted with such grace, he thought, if only he could enjoy that sort of easy confidence. What would such a life be like? But no: he was Charlie Fisher Jr., the friendless American. The scribbler of Avenue du Prado. Which made Charlie realize something:
“Wait!” he called after the long-gone streetcar. “You don’t know where I live!”
Chapter
THREE
So Charlie had been duped a second time. Served him right, he supposed, having attempted to curry favor from a seasoned thief. His father said he’d always looked for companionship in the wrong places; he’d warned his son that if he kept it up, he would likely be forever alone. His experience with the pickpocket only seemed to prove this theory. His father would be incensed that he’d given away the pen, something that had been gifted to him with the hope that it would be some generation-spanning heirloom. He’d barely had it for a year and now it was gone.
And so he sulked his way down Cours Belsunce to La Canebière and from there to where the busy street let out on the Vieux Port—the Old Port—where a virtual pine forest of boat masts floated over the sun-dappled water and the tourists huddled on the quays in the sun, waiting on interminable lines for the ferries to the islands. Charlie was late for his lunch date with his father; they’d agreed to meet at the Miramar, a quayside restaurant, at half past one. He instinctively kept his hands in his pockets, now that he’d had firsthand experience with that dark trade of the Marseille squares. Everyone was suddenly suspect. A woman with a plume of balloons that reached to the streetlights solicited Charlie as he walked by and he jumped, his hands crushing lower into his khaki pants. Even the harmless soap peddler, dressed as if he’d leapt from a Manet painting in his Breton stripes and a Phrygian cap, seemed suspicious to poor Charlie. His nerves were thoroughly rattled once he’d reached the outdoor tables of the restaurant, so much so that he had an especially difficult time pronouncing “Je cherche mon père” to the stuffy maître d’. Thankfully, the Fishers were known at the Miramar, and Charlie was waved inside with a brisk gesture midsentence. He was directed to a corner table where his father, the elder Fisher, was laying careful siege to a tower of seafood. As he walked, he made a silent resolution to simply not tell his father about the pen theft. It was better to risk the discovery, some months hence, than suffer the elder Fisher’s castigation.
“Sorry I’m late,” said Charlie, edging into the chair opposite his father. “I got held up.” He nervously grabbed his napkin and shoved it into his lap, nearly upsetting his water glass.
“Hmm,” said Charles Fisher Sr., who had, at that moment, slid a particularly large oyster into his gullet and was indisposed. He daubed the brine from his mustache with his napkin and was about to speak when his son abruptly interrupted him:
“I gave away my pen. The Sheaffer Imperial. I gave it away.” The words rushed out of Charlie like a cataract. So much for the plan of not telling. The confession, though, felt powerfully relieving.
Charles Sr. had forgotten what he was going to say. “You what?” he said, in its place.
“I gave away the pen. The one you gave to me.”
“The Sheaffer Imperial?”
“The one,” said Charlie.
“With your name on it.”
“Yes,” said Charlie.
“Well, in heaven’s name, why?” asked Charles Sr., in clear disbelief.
Charlie grabbed a prawn from the tower and popped it in his mouth, an activity that bought him enough time to consider the implications of either telling his father the whole truth or just keeping his mouth shut. By the time he’d swallowed his bite and had chased it with a drink of bubbly water, he’d made up his mind. “I gave it to someone who seemed like he needed it,” he said.
“Someone who needed it.”
“
Badly.”
“Needed it for what? To receive dictation? A phone number or something?”
“That was exactly what happened,” said Charlie, shoving another prawn in his mouth.
Charles Sr. was naturally skeptical. “Couldn’t you have just lent it to him?” he pressed.
A different tack was braved, once the second prawn had been chewed and swallowed: “You always told me to be charitable to the people not as good off.”
“Well,” began Charles Sr., aware of the cul-de-sac he’d just entered. “Well.” He, too, used a bivalve from the seafood tower to forestall his answer. “Well, I didn’t mean a fifty-dollar fountain pen. With one’s name engraved on it.” He gave a great sigh and said, “Charlie, that was a gift from me. Of great value. Who did you give it to?”
“A boy on the street. At the Place Jean Jaurès.”
“A boy on the street,” repeated his father. “And this boy needed it to write down a telephone number.”
“Yes.”
“And presumably many more telephone numbers. A lifetime of telephone numbers, in fact.”
Charlie Jr. grabbed another prawn, drowned it in cocktail sauce, and put it in his mouth. “Mmmr-rmmm,” was his answer.
“I’ll hazard a guess,” said Charles Sr. “This was a boy with whom you desired friendship.”
Charlie felt himself blush. Had that been the reason? “I suppose so, sir,” he said.
“I can tell you, you won’t get anywhere bribing people for their companionship. True friendship must be earned.” He was gesturing at Charlie with the tines of his cocktail fork. As you now know, Charles Sr. had a mustache. You should also know that his mustache was brown and steadily growing gray, as was his impeccably trimmed and pomaded hair. He was wearing a worsted gray suit jacket, his daily uniform, and a napkin, which he’d stuffed into his collar. His fifty-two years were showing at the corners of his eyes and the edges of his mouth, though the Mediterranean had done wonders for his complexion—a complexion that had suffered so long in his prior engagement as special consul to Dublin, Ireland. “Listen,” the elder Fisher continued. “There’s an event—”