Paris Is Always a Good Idea

by Nicolas Barreau

  She looked at him more closely. At the moment he seemed to be perfectly normal again. But appearances could be deceptive.

  “Should I … should I call someone to come and pick you up?”

  He shook his head again. “Not necessary. I’ll just take one of my dumb tablets, and then everything will be all right.”

  She thought for a moment. One of his dumb tablets? What did he mean by that? Psychotropic drugs? Perhaps it would be better to let someone know.

  “Do you live near here?”

  “No, no. I used to live in Paris … but that was a long time ago. I came by train.”

  Rosalie began to feel even more uneasy. This man had been strange from the very first second. She looked at him dubiously. You were always hearing about people with dementia who escaped and then wandered around the streets looking for their former homes.

  “Tell me, monsieur—what’s your name? I mean … can you remember your name?” she asked cautiously.

  He looked at her, somewhat surprised. And then he began to laugh.

  “Listen, mademoiselle, it’s not my head that’s giving me problems, but my back,” he explained with a grin, and Rosalie could feel herself blushing.

  “Forgive me for not introducing myself to you before.” He stretched out a hand, which she took with some hesitation. “Max Marchais.”

  Rosalie stared at him in amazement, becoming—if that were possible—even redder. “I don’t believe it,” she stammered. “You’re Max Marchais? I mean, the Max Marchais? The children’s writer? Who wrote Plum-Nose the Hare and The Little Ice Fairy?”

  “That’s exactly the one,” he said, smiling. “Would you by any chance like to illustrate my new children’s book, Mademoiselle Laurent?”

  Max Marchais had been the hero of her childhood. As a little girl Rosalie had read all his books avidly. She had loved the story of the little Ice Fairy and she knew the adventures of Plum-Nose the Hare almost by heart. The books, which she had so happily taken on holiday and taken to bed in the evenings, showed serious evidence of use: dog-ears, creases, and, yes, even some chocolate stains—and they were still there in the bookshelf in Rosalie’s old bedroom. But that she would one day meet Max Marchais in the flesh—that was beyond Rosalie’s wildest dream. And that she would one day be asked to illustrate one of his books—that, well, that bordered on the miraculous.

  Even if her first encounter with the famous children’s author had gone rather turbulently—not to say stormily—the rest of the day went very pleasantly.

  Max Marchais had told her about his publisher, a certain Montsignac, who moreover had become aware of Rosalie because his wife, Gabrielle, on an extensive shopping trip through Saint-Germain, had acquired not only a pretty purse from Sequoia in the rue du Vieux-Colombier and three pairs of shoes from Scarpa in the rue du Dragon but also some of Rosalie’s wishing cards.

  Without causing havoc in the store, however!

  After the initial shock had been forgotten and all misunderstandings cleared up, Rosalie had picked up the cards with a laugh and put them in their proper places in the store.

  Unfortunately her unexpected guest was unable to give her a hand in doing this, much as he would have liked to. Max Marchais had been unable to get up from his chair. In the end, Rosalie didn’t actually call the doctor, but she did telephone René.

  “Lumbago” had been René’s expert opinion, and he’d contacted Vincent Morat, a chiropractor whose practice was a few streets away. And that was where the groaning children’s author was sitting a short while later—or rather, he was lying. On a leather couch. Under the ministrations of Vincent Morat, which were as knowledgeable as they were hearty, the bones of his sacroiliac joint gave several audible cracks—and then Marchais left the practice both amazed and completely free of pain.

  He felt ten years younger and stepped out briskly with his stick as he returned to the rue du Dragon to invite the owner of the little postcard store and her boyfriend out for a meal. After all that had happened, that was the least he could do. And he noticed to his surprise that he was genuinely looking forward to it.

  He had a good feeling about Rosalie Laurent. And he was free of the pain in his back.

  That was what you called killing two birds with one stone.

  That night Rosalie could hardly sleep for excitement. Beside her, René was sleeping sweetly—after a jolly liquid evening with two bottles of red wine, an excellent coq au vin and one of the most calorie-rich crème brûlées he’d eaten in a long time, he’d fallen into bed like a stone and begun snoring softly. And behind the kitchen door, William Morris, exhausted by the excitement—he had not come out from under the store table for the rest of the day, eyeing the postcard stand suspiciously—lay asleep, his paws jerking.

  Rosalie stared at the ceiling and smiled. Before weariness finally conquered her, she took her blue notebook out from under the bed and made an entry.

  The worst moment of the day:

  An unfriendly old man comes to the store on my day off and knocks over the postcard stand.

  The best moment of the day:

  The unfriendly old man is MAX MARCHAIS! And I, Rosalie Laurent, am going to illustrate his new children’s book.

  Five

  A few days later, on a springlike day in April, the story of the blue tiger entered Rosalie Laurent’s life and changed it forever. Ultimately there is a story in every life that becomes the fulcrum about which it revolves—even if very few people recognize it at first.

  In the morning, when Rosalie opened the door of her store and, as usual, looked up, a porcelain sky arched over the rue du Dragon, as delicate and fresh as it can only be after an April shower in Paris. The cobbles in the street were still wet, two little birds were squabbling over a chunk of bread on the sidewalk, blinds were going up on the other side of the street, the odors of the morning wafted over Rosalie’s nose, and all at once she had the feeling that today was one of those days when something new was about to begin.

  Ever since Max Marchais’s extraordinary visit, she had been waiting for the promised mail. She still found it hard to believe that she was the one who was going to illustrate Marchais’s new book. She hoped she was not going to disappoint the illustrious author and his publisher. No matter what, she would give it her all. This was her big chance. “Illustrated by Rosalie Laurent.” She felt a boundless surge of pride. This would show her mother. Not to mention Aunt Paulette—oh, poor Aunt Paulette! What a pity she could no longer see anything.

  Nobody knew yet that she’d gotten the job. Apart from René, of course. “Cool,” he’d said. “Now you’re going to be really famous.” That was something she liked about René. He was happy when she achieved success and had never envied her anything. He wasn’t the kind of guy to compare himself to other people and that was—as well as all his sporting activity—the real reason he was so laid-back, even if he definitely never thought about it himself.

  When she went into the hallway, her heart gave a little leap of joy. Even from a distance she could see the big white envelope that was sticking halfway out of her mailbox and knew at once that it was Marchais’s manuscript.

  There were days that were so perfect that even the mailbox had only good things to offer! With thundering heart Rosalie pressed the envelope to her chest. She was burning with desire to read the story and hurried back to the store. But the fine weather this Saturday had tempted people out onto the streets quite early, and before Rosalie could even open the envelope a young woman came into the store. She wanted to buy a pen for her godchild and required a great deal of advice before she finally left with a dark-green marbled Waterman fountain pen.

  All day long the little stationery store was well patronized. Customers came and went, bought postcards and gift wrap, bookmarks and little music boxes or chocolates with quotations from famous writers. Some of them left orders for wishing cards. The little silver bell that hung over the door tinkled continuously and Rosalie had to curb her impatience until, t
oward evening, the last and youngest customer had left: a ten-year-old boy with red hair and freckles who wanted to buy his mother a paperweight for her birthday and simply could not make up his mind.

  “Should I take the rose heart? The cloverleaf? Or the sailing ship?” he kept asking, his eyes lingering covetously on the paperweight with the old three-master. “What do you think—would Maman like a sailing ship? That’s really something, isn’t it?”

  Rosalie had to smile when, at the last moment, he decided on the heart made of roses.

  “A good choice,” she said. “With hearts and roses you can’t go wrong where women are concerned.”

  At last everything was quiet in the store. Rosalie locked the door, lowered the grille, and emptied the till. Then she took the white envelope that had been lying on the softwood table the whole day and mounted the stairs to her own little kingdom. She went into the tiny kitchen, put on the kettle, and took her favorite cup from the shelf over the sink—it was from the l’oiseau bleu series by the Gien porcelain factory, and she’d snapped it up at a flea market.

  She sat down on her three-quarter bed, which was transformed into a sofa during the day by a blue-and-white-patterned throw with matching large and small cushions, switched on the floor lamp, and took a sip of thé au citron.

  Beside her, the white envelope gleamed, full of promise. Rosalie opened it carefully and took out the manuscript. There was a business card with a few handwritten lines stapled to it.

  Dear Mademoiselle Rosalie, I was delighted to make your acquaintance. Now here’s The Blue Tiger for you. I’m curious to see what you make of it, and eagerly await your suggestions.

  Best wishes, Max Marchais

  P.S. Give my regards to William Morris. I hope he’s recovered from the shock.

  Rosalie smiled. Nice of him to mention the dog. And then his mode of address: Mademoiselle Rosalie. So old-fashioned. Respectful and personal at the same time, she thought.

  She plumped up a couple of cushions and leaned back, the pages of the manuscript in her lap.

  And then she finally began to read.

  Max Marchais

  THE BLUE TIGER

  On Héloïse’s eighth birthday something extremely strange happened. Something that was hardly believable, and yet it happened just like that.

  Héloïse was a lively girl with blond hair and green eyes, a funny freckled nose, and a mouth that was slightly too large; like most little girls she had a vivid imagination and often thought up adventurous stories.

  She firmly believed that her stuffed animals secretly talked to each other at night and that there were little elves in the bluebells in the garden that were so tiny that the human eye could not see them. She was almost sure that you could fly on carpets if you only knew the magic word, and that when you had a bath you must be sure to get out of the bath before pulling out the plug so that the water spirits couldn’t pull you down the drain.

  Héloïse lived with her parents and their little dog Babu in a pretty white villa on the edge of Paris, very close to the bois de Boulogne, which is a massive, massive park—more of a forest, really. Héloïse often went there with her parents on Sundays for a picnic or a boat ride, but her favorite place was the parc de Bagatelle, an enchanting little park with a wonderful rose garden. How lovely it smelled there! Héloïse always breathed in very deeply when she went for a walk there.

  In the parc de Bagatelle there was also a little castle. It was painted the most delicate pink you could imagine, and Héloïse’s daddy had told her that long, long ago a young count had built it for a queen in only sixty-four days.

  Héloïse, who would also have very much liked to be a princess, found that very impressive. “When I grow up, I’ll only marry a man who can build a castle in sixty-four days for me, too,” she said, and her father laughed and said that it would probably be best to marry an architect.

  Now Héloïse didn’t know any architects, but she did know Maurice, a boy who lived with his mother at the end of the street in a little house surrounded by an overgrown garden with lots of apple trees.

  One day, as Héloïse was skipping along the street, Maurice was standing by the fence. “Would you like an apple?” he asked, and, with a shy smile, handed her a big red apple over the fence. Héloïse took the apple and took a bite out of it, then handed it back to the boy with the tousled blond hair, so that he could have a bite, too.

  From that day onward they were friends, and more than that: Maurice had promised Héloïse faithfully that he would later build her a little castle just like the one in the parc de Bagatelle, no problem! He’d even already secretly gotten hold of some bricks and hidden them in a corner of the garden, because Maurice, as you can well imagine, was deeply in love with the golden-haired girl who could tell such wonderful stories and loved laughing. If Héloïse had wanted the moon as a lamp for her room, Maurice would surely have become an astronaut so that he could get it down from the sky for her.

  On the morning of her eighth birthday Héloïse took a trip to the bois de Boulogne with her class. The birthday girl was allowed to choose exactly where the trip should go, and of course she picked the parc de Bagatelle. The sun was shining warmly and the teacher, Madame Bélanger, had said that the children should take their paint boxes and sketch pads, because they were going to paint in the open air that day. And while Madame Bélanger sat down in the shade of a tree with her biology book, the children sat on rugs or on the grass, enthusiastically painting birds, rosebushes, the little pink castle, or one of the magnificent peacocks that strode proudly over the lawns with nodding heads as if they owned the whole park.

  At first Héloïse couldn’t decide what she wanted to paint. And while the other children painted busily away on their pads, she lay on her rug and looked up at the blue sky where a thick cloud was drifting lazily past. It looked as if a friendly tiger were going for a walk up there, thought Héloïse. She sat up, got her paint box out of her bag, and dipped her brush in the water jar.

  Two hours later Madame Bélanger clapped her hands and asked all the children to show their pictures. When it was Héloïse’s turn, she proudly showed them a magnificent indigo-blue tiger with silver stripes and sky-blue eyes. She’d taken a lot of trouble over it and thought that it was one of the best pictures she’d ever painted.

  Some of the children nudged each other and began to laugh.

  “Ha ha ha, Héloïse, what on earth have you painted?” they shouted.

  “Tigers aren’t blue!”

  Héloïse went as red as a tomato. “Well mine is!” she said.

  “But a tiger is yellow and has black stripes—everybody knows that,” said Mathilde who was the best in the class and knew everything.

  “But my tiger is … a cloud tiger, and they are always blue with silver stripes, and that’s how it is,” replied Héloïse, and her lower lip began to tremble a little. How could she have forgotten that tigers were yellow?!

  Madame Bélanger smiled and raised her eyebrows very high.

  “Well,” she said. “There are polar bears and brown bears, green woodpeckers and blue foxes and snow leopards. But I’ve never heard of a blue cloud-tiger.”

  “But,” said Héloïse in embarrassment, “I’m sure there must be blue tigers somewhere.…”

  The other children rolled around in the grass in delight.

  “Yes, and pink elephants! And green zebras! Just go to the zoo, Héloïse!” they shouted.

  “That’s enough now, children,” said the teacher, raising her hand. “Even if there aren’t really any blue tigers, I think your picture is very pretty, Héloïse.”

  In the afternoon the guests arrived for the birthday party. There was a big chocolate cake, raspberry ice cream, and lemonade, and Héloïse played sack races, hide-and-seek and catch-the-ball in the garden with her friends. It was only after supper, when she’d already said good night to her parents and gone up to her room, that she noticed she’d left her bag with her painting things and the picture of the
blue tiger in the park. That was just too bad! Mommy would really scold her, because the watercolor paint box with the twenty-four colors was brand-new.

  Héloïse thought for a moment, and then climbed out of the window and crept off through the garden while her parents watched television in the living room.

  The sun was already low in the sky when she arrived a little later—out of breath—at the entrance to the parc de Bagatelle. She pushed firmly against the old iron gate, which fortunately was not locked, but just creaked a little. She ran past the pink castle, the rose beds, and the little waterfalls that gurgled over the rocks and soon came to the grassy glade where the whole class had sat painting that morning. She looked around, searching—and there, under the old tree where her teacher had been sitting earlier on, was her red cloth bag, and someone had propped her drawing block against the trunk of the tree.

  But the picture of the blue tiger had vanished. Had someone taken it?

  Or had the wind blown it away?

  Héloïse narrowed her eyes to be able to see better, and took a few steps in the direction of the white pavilion which perched like an aviary on the top of a little hill.

  Suddenly she heard a sighing sound, which seemed to be coming from the old grotto beneath the pavilion. It was called the Grotto of the Four Winds. Why it was called that, nobody could say, but Héloïse, who had hidden there before, was convinced that it was an enchanted place.

  If you stood in the middle of the stone vault, facing the waterfall that flowed into a lily pond behind the grotto, and whispered a wish, the wind would carry that wish to all four points of the compass and it would someday come true—Héloïse was convinced of it. Very carefully, she approached the entrance to the grotto, which was bathed in golden light by the last rays of the setting sun.

  She heard the sighing noise again—it now sounded more like a sorrowful growling. Very carefully, she approached the entrance to the grotto.

  “Hello?” she called. “Is anybody there?”

  Rustling, scrabbling, the patter of paws—and there he was in front of her.