Lost Footsteps

by Bel Mooney

  She nodded.

  ‘Come with me – we have an apartment just down there.’

  He picked up the hub cap, and they walked back down Passage Rousseau to where his car was parked. She saw a sign jutting out from the small end building, which bore the words, LE CHAT MINCE, above a humorous painting of an emaciated creature playing a guitar. Ana assumed it was another shop, and thought no more about it, since the man was standing by an open door that led into a narrow hall and up a flight of stairs, as if it led to an apartment over the end shop.

  ‘Please – come in,’ he said.

  She hung back and shook her head. ‘I will wait,’ she said quietly. ‘Thank you.’

  He knew she did not trust him, and regretted it. Paul Denis had reached his forties with his ideals intact, despite the proof of human weakness which assailed him daily. Wickedness, not weakness, Monique said, and in his heart he agreed. He saw the way they were selling out, all of them, colluding with the Right, and thought how justifed they had been in the sixties to assert revolution as the only solution. But the workers had gone back to the factories, the students to their libraries and a prospect (not so long afterwards) of unemployment, de Gaulle had continued to reign, and nothing had changed. Paul still kept his posters of protest and revolution on his walls, at home and in the restaurant, although they were now in frames. Sometimes people offered him money for them too, since such ephemera were now collectors’ items.

  Ana saw his shrug as he turned to go upstairs, and thought, for a moment, of following him. He had a good face; there were deep lines of amusement around his mouth and eyes, and yet … It would be a mistake to follow this stranger, knowing nothing about him. In the end, she knew, she would have to go to the police, if the next two days, she calculated, or maybe even one, brought nothing. Yesterday, as she was walking, she thought about it more and more – realizing that her defeat was to see authority as a refuge, countering all experience. You grew tired, no matter how strong … But no one outside, studying the facts of her case, would have understood her compulsion to walk the streets, searching for her son – when, after all, in Western democracy, there were those who surely would have tried to help. Like a pilgrim, she was doing penance: she had sent him away and her duty was to find him, and the loneliness of the physical journey only served to confirm what she knew of the soul.

  As she waited she noticed a child’s bicycle leaning against the wall in the hall, and near it, standing on one end, a skateboard. When Paul Denis came downstairs again, carrying a small carton of juice, and half a baguette into which he had stuffed some cheese, he found her staring at these objects with peculiar intensity.

  ‘Please’ he said, deciding to try again, ‘won’t you have some coffee, upstairs?’

  ‘You have a child?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I think it is a boy? How old is he?’

  ‘Yes … he is eleven.’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. Ah … what is his name?’

  ‘Jean … Jean-Paul. I am Paul.’

  They avoided each other’s eyes. Then Paul held out a piece of paper. ‘Look, the name of a place where you could stay. It is very cheap – a hostel. And our name here is on the top. If you need some help …’

  She took it and put it in her pocket without looking down. He felt unaccountably offended by such indifference, after he had bothered to look up the hostel near the Cité Universitaire, and wrapped her sandwich. He decided she must have run away from a violent husband, just for a night to teach him a lesson, and would go back to more of the same, as women usually did. The thought dampened his interest.

  He decided he would go upstairs and make crepes for breakfast, because it always pleased them. They would be up soon.

  ‘You are very kind,’ she said dully, and turned away.

  As Ana reached the end of Passage Rousseau, and turned right she saw two young men walking towards her along the street, almost empty at this hour. Both were short and slight with black hair; they were Asian, and deeply engaged in conversation – so that they did not even notice the woman who walked slowly towards them, unwrapping a sandwich. Ana glanced at them as they passed, thinking again how many foreign people there were in Paris. Turks, Greeks, North Africans, Asians, Jews, and so many Chinese … The city might be intimidating, she thought, but it absorbed them all.

  It was nearly midday before a paralysing ennui overcame her. The words of her query jumbled in her head; she no longer knew what language she was speaking, or whom she sought, or even where she was. The sense of pointlessness drove out disappointment; there was no longer room for despair. It was as if the greyness of the morning had entered her brain, neutralizing everything. She wondered how many people there were in the world, like her: uprooted and searching for somebody lost. The people in the streets, whom yesterday she had seen as representing most precisely themselves, the fortunate ones, now seemed to be floating like ghosts from dark to dark, and she knew no way of telling them apart, whatever their nationality. For whoever they were, blessed or damned, were they not all doomed to loss, at some stage?

  Perhaps we are the truly fortunate who know this, and who therefore expect nothing else.

  She allowed herself to stop for a large coffee, and sat watching the men at the next table pass around cigarettes, experiencing a craving stronger than she had felt for days. She inhaled their smoke, closing her eyes and thrusting her hands deep into her pockets as she leaned back. Her fingers met Ion’s picture, and with it the piece of paper the man in the cul-de-sac had given her. Idly she took it out and looked at it – with no real interest, for she knew she could not afford a hostel, and that tonight she would have to sleep out again.

  It was not the scribbled address and telephone number that caught her attention, it was the printed logo at the top of the small piece of paper, like a receipt. It said, Restaurant LE CHAT MINCE, Passage Rousseau, 20ème. She half-remembered the emaciated animal playing an instrument, which she had thought to be a shop sign. There had been a restaurant at the end of that alley, and the man must have been its owner. Ana slapped the table in irritation, making the men look across curiously. She had failed to show him the photograph; she would have to return. She must miss nothing …

  As she rose the tall Tunisian in the group leaned over and offered her his pack of Disque Bleu. He had seen her looking at the cigarettes, and half-thought to ask her to join them. She was a pretty woman … But it was too late. With a hasty merci she almost snatched the cigarette, and left. A few minutes later the waiter arrived and shook his head, muttering imprecations against tourists who sneak off without settling the bill, even such a small one.

  Ana found her way back to the turning, and walked to the end of the alley. A man was stuffing flattened cardboard into industrial sacks; a middle-aged couple peered into the window of a shop selling ceramics in bright: primary colours. Ana stood in front of the tiny bistro – a place of which only aficionados would know. The window was half-curtained with red and white checked fabric; the same cat motif was painted on it in garish reds and yellows; the restaurant entrance was to the right of the window, and bore a calligraphed sign saying Bienvenu. The small frontage had been blocked by Paul Denis’s car when Ana stood waiting by the door to the apartment. This was separated from the restaurant by a brick archway (so that it was not immediately obvious they were connected at all) and down the narrow passage beneath the arch Ana saw what was obviously the tradesmen’s entrance and kitchen door. She smelt garlic.

  At that moment a noisy group of young people came striding along the alley, about ten of them, some of them shouldering rough knapsacks, others swinging bags decorated with elaborate patterns of embroidery and mirrors – all laughing and chaffing and pushing, their voices echoing off the old walls. They looked like students – with that insouciant disregard and self-absorption Ana remembered from Timişoara. They disappeared inside the bistro, seeming to fill its interior, and forci
ng Ana to hold back, because she knew it would be the wrong time to approach with her query.

  On an impulse she walked into the passage, and stopped by the kitchen door. Clouds of steam came from a vent in the wall. By the door there was a window, and through its mist she could see a man at a sink. She stared in, and thought she recognized him as one of the two young men she had seen walking along the road that morning. He was Asian; perhaps he was Tamil, but she could not be sure. Something told her to hesitate; she could not bear to be disappointed again.

  At last she knocked on the door. Nobody came, so she knocked more loudly, and finally tried the handle. It opened easily, and the young man she had seen through the window looked up in surprise. There were two other people in the small kitchen, which hissed with the sound of frying – but Ana did not look at them. She heard somebody say, ‘Oui?’, and stepped towards the young man, who she now saw was little more than a boy – a teenage of (she guessed) sixteen or seventeen. ‘Excusez-moi – je cherche ce garcín,’ she said, holding out Ion’s photograph.

  The effect was immediate. He stared at it, then at her, and an incomprehensible expression crossed his face: half-fear, half-amazement. He reached out and snatched the picture from her, turning to speak quickly to the other man, this one somewhat older, who now stood by his side. Together they stared at the picture, then at Ana. The expression on the older man’s face was hostile, and he asked, ‘Pourquoi? Qui étes-vous?’

  ‘Je suis … il est mon fils,’ she said.

  Please let them know him, please let them know him, please, please, please …

  Without taking his eyes from her face, the teenager whispered an exclamation she could not understand. He looked down at the photograph itself, then slowly held it out to her, his eyes swimming in a face turned stupid in shock.

  She said softly, ‘You have seen him, haven’t you?’

  She felt quite calm now – as if a storm had been raging all around her, but she was lodged at its eye, and nothing could touch her. All three men were staring at her – the two Tamils and the cook, who looked North African, and had come to stand beside them. From the swing door that divided the kitchen from the restaurant came a noise of laughter, and all the time there was the hissing of food – until the cook cried, ‘Merde!’ and rushed back to his stove.

  The older of the two Tamils spoke to the young one quickly, glancing at her from time to time. Ana heard the name ‘Franklin’, and held on to the sink for support. It was as if the teenager was drugged; his movements were slow, he shook his head from side to side like a beast tormented by a fly. At last, clearly bidden by the other man, he walked past her out of the kitchen door, saying simply, ‘Come.’

  She followed his back along the passage, and the few metres along to the blue door by which she had waited so early that morning. They passed the bicycle and the skateboard and climbed the brown staircase, lined with posters. Ana saw the colours on the walls; she felt each stair beneath her feet, heard it creak, still smelt food in her nostrils, and soon heard the sound of a radio or television set. The iron rail was rough and cold beneath her hand, burning into her skin. It seemed that her senses waved about her like the fronds of a sea anemone, vulnerable to any passing enemy. Everything was external, moving, vivid. Only her heart had stopped.

  At the top of the stairs was a small landing. She saw a boy’s denim jacket hanging on the rack, next to it a woman’s coat – vivid green. Through the front door, they were in a short hall, lined with books. Her guide did not glance behind, he walked ahead of her, then paused by a door on the right. It was slightly ajar; Ana could hear a tinny, hysterical jabber from within: Wheew … crash … ker-plunk – and then a child, laughing.

  Franklin stared at her, and nodded. His eyes were still wide with fear, although Ana could not understand why he should be afraid. There was nothing to be afraid of anymore – she wanted to tell him that, wanted suddenly to reach out and lay a hand on his head, for comfort. He pushed open the door, silently, and stood to one side, letting Ana stand on the threshold.

  She saw a high room which opened to a beamed gallery. It was filled with objects: lamps, books, strange sculptures made from twisted wood, low chairs covered in mirrored and woven fabrics, rugs in bright colours, brass trays and bowls. There was a faint smell of incense. Immediately in front of the door was the back of a sofa; in front of this was the flashing colour of a huge television set, and the noise: Eeeeeek … crrrrump …

  She glimpsed a grey cat being run over by a truck; two seconds and he was a pattern in the road: flat and astonished. Then, very slowly, he eased himself up, still flattened, waving like a shirt hung out to dry, transformed yet still himself – in the cartoon world where resurrection takes many forms.

  And the child was laughing, secretly and alone, his back to her, attention fixed on the screen. There was a second of pure stasis. The room blurred at the edges. Ana focussed on the small, dark head, and that sound, drowning the set now – because it was so strange. Ion had never laughed like that. His laughter was rare. He had laughed on his birthday.

  ‘Ionica!’

  Her voice sounded cracked and dry, rasping like a rusty key in a lock. She stood, still holding her bag, one hand frozen on the doorhandle.

  ‘Ion?’ she called again, and he turned. She saw his hair, spiky in a strange new style, and the checked western shirt, and the blue corduroy jeans, as he jumped up, his face white with terror.

  Franklin looked from one to the other, sadness in his eyes, as the television chattered manically. Then he could bear the noise no longer, and as they stared at each other without moving, he strode across the room – and punched off the television set. Then he stood behind Ion, his hands on his shoulders, looking at Ana as if in apology. It seemed to her that he gave Ion a small push, but she could not be sure. The world seemed shrunk to those two sets of eyes, fixed on her face, waiting …

  ‘Ionica – unde mi-aifost, Ionica? Te caut …’

  His mouth opened, but he made no noise. Then he took a step forwards, away from Franklin’s hands – not running as she had always imagined, but walking slowly towards her, his mouth a small dark hole in a snowy waste. At last he stood in front of her, moved a hand as if to reach out and touch her, then changed his mind and dropped it back at his side. They stood three feet apart, looking at each other.

  ‘Hallo, Ion,’ Ana whispered.

  Then at last, a sound came out of his mouth. ‘Mamă?’ he asked.

  Forty-Two

  The woman was staring at her coldly, glancing from time to time from Ana’s face to Ion’s, as if to reassure herself of the relationship.

  Monique Denis had said little since she came in, escorted by Franklin; she had shaken Ana’s hand automatically, then placed herself on the sofa in front of the television. Ana sat on the one at right-angles to it. Ion looked from one woman to the other, his face pale and sombre, then squatted on the floor by the silent set, fiddling with the marbles in a glass bowl on the low Indian table. The faint tinkle and clash of glass was the undercurrent to their conversation.

  ‘My husband is told, but he must stay in the restaurant now. It is a busy time.’

  ‘I understand. I … There are many things to explain. I want to hear …’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Monique Denis was tall and thin, with long reddish hair cut in a fringe, and caught up roughly at the sides with two combs. She wore purple trousers and a dark purple and black tunic; dangling silver earrings chimed slightly as she moved her head, and her hands were heavy with silver rings. She was beautiful in a hawkish way, and made Ana feel short and dowdy.

  ‘How did Ion arrive here?’ asked Ana, timidly.

  ‘Franklin’s cousin, Nada, works for us, in the kitchen. It has always been our … idea … to give jobs to refugees. And we ask no questions, you understand? Somebody has to help these people; it is not so easy in France now … But when the boys arrived in Paris, they were brought to us. A child …’ She glanced at Ion, then
back at Ana, as if in reproach. ‘It made for a problem. We did not know what to do. If we told the police …’ She shrugged. ‘Who knows? He would certainly have been taken away … to a home for children. Or maybe sent back to Germany.’

  ‘Why to Germany?’

  ‘It is the policy, I think. The first place they came. It was safe for Franklin to use his cousin’s address and register formally as a refugee. Here we understand about the problems of Sri Lanka. Franklin will probably be allowed to stay. But for Jean …’ She shook her head.

  ‘So … you kept him with you?’

  Monique stared at Ana for a few seconds before replying. ‘We are breaking the law – but we think people are more important than the law. I was a teacher, some years ago, and so I said to my husband – we will tell anyone who asks this is a relative visiting us. A cousin’s child – an orphan, or something like that. Nobody need find out the truth. And I will teach him at home. The child was lost, you know? If they put him in a home with strange people he would maybe be lost forever. That is what we thought.’

  ‘You are very, very kind,’ Ana murmured, looking down at her hands.

  ‘No, that is not true,’ said the other woman sharply. ‘I did what I wanted to do. There are reasons …’

  Ion was staring at them as they talked, his eyes moving from one to the other like a spectator at a tennis match. Ana wanted to be alone with him, she wanted to embrace him and talk to him, but he showed no signs of wanting that himself. Just the grave, pale face, and the glass marbles running through his fingers, over and over again …