Old Ways

by David Xavier

pocket. He walked until the Rue du Bac became smaller and the lanes narrowed. The buildings were streaked down the sides with the old rain and the street were cold. He could see his breath in front of him. He walked until he found the old familiar red wooden door at the top of the steps. Somebody had a window open and music playing. Music could not become wet. Rain or sun it played the same. He stood for a moment, blinking at the open window above.

  He stood in the hall to shake out his jacket and primped the rose to look better. He felt then the rose might be too much, it would be strange, and he felt bad but maybe the words were not important. Maybe the rose would be good. No, he knew the rose was not good but he kept it anyway. He hated himself for this moment but he knew it would be all right in the end. The words would feel good when they came again.

  Spain would be nice and he would be able to be quiet and observe without being upset and without the disruption of his own mess. He shook his jacket again and wiped his lips on his sleeve and he went up the dirty stairwell to the second floor. The carpet in the hall was worn, the walls scuffed, and the doors needed paint, and over it all the rain pattered on the rooftop. Down the hall at the right number, he pulled the key from his pocket and opened his door.

  “Is that you?” she asked. Her voice came from the kitchen and when she came around the corner it was her belly that he saw first and she held it with one hand.

  “It’s me,” he said. He held out the rose for her.

  “This is nice. How thoughtful of you.” She stood on her toes and leaned in to kiss him and he gave her the corner of his mouth.

  “Did you smoke?” she asked him.

  “Just one.”

  “Did you see the streets in the rain?” She took his jacket and put it over the rail at the door. He watched her carefully and she did not check his pockets.

  “I did,” he said. “I watched the river and the rain in the streets.”

  “Did it help?”

  “Yes. I think it did. I will want to write it this afternoon.”

  “Good. I like when you see it. You always feel so good when it works.”

  He rubbed his head and hair.

  “I made you some soup,” she said. “It’s hot now, but you know what I want right now?”

  “What do you want, my dear?” He knelt down and put his hands on her, his ear to her belly. She put her hand to the back of his head.

  “I want some of the baked bread from the café.”

  “Their baked bread is the best.”

  “Will you get some to go with the soup?”

  “Of course, I will.”

  He sat in the old couch. There was only the couch in the room and a table with a vase and a picture on the wall. The smell of the soup was seasoned just right and the vase was filled with long-stem roses, one healthier than the next. She leaned over the table and added the newest one to the vase and picked out the one that was most wilted.

  “The soup is ready,” she said. “You don’t have to get the bread, but it sounds good. We can eat without the bread.”

  “No, I will get it for you,” he told her. “If that is what you want, then I will get it for you.”

  When he did not move, she sat next to him and put her head on his shoulder. They talked about the stories that would not come and the stories that had already left. She told him he wrote well and that her favorite story was the one he had written last year about the boy with the dog who would not leave him.

  “How do you feel today?” he asked.

  “Good. He is healthy today and moving a lot more.”

  “He?”

  “Yes. I dreamed it was him.”

  He put his hand to her belly and felt but he could not feel anything. He took his hand away before he could. It would make it worse.

  “I want you to write while you have the words in your head,” she told him.

  “They will be there. Today was a good walk.”

  The smell from the kitchen was in the room and he stood and put his jacket back on and he gave her a kiss. She stood and followed him to the door.

  “You don’t have to go out again. We can do without the bread.”

  He pulled her in and kissed her again. She was away from him with her belly in between, but he wrapped around her and pulled her in as close as he could and kissed as well as he had ever kissed her.

  “Let me get the bread for you.”

  He went out and down the narrow stairwell to the door. The rain outside was the kind with big drops that felt like a hole on top of one’s head and it was strong. The sky was dark with it and it came down fast and hard with the wind behind it, and the street ran fast with water. He walked into it and held his head low with his collar up and his hands in his pockets. He called out to a carriage at the corner. The driver was wet under his slicker and hunched over a cigarette.

  “The metro,” he said to the driver.

  “Oui, monsieur.”

  He climbed into the empty carriage and they did not pick up any passengers all the way to the metro station. The train was late and he thought he should turn and go back to get the bread at the café. Words were not important. The bump of the cobbles, the dap and pat of the rain, the broken wet leaves falling and the swish. The driver humming to his horses, the clack of the boards. Yes, he could feel it coming back to him, and he did not turn back.

  It was raining hard and it was dry inside the station so he stood on the platform. He stood while the soup went cold behind him, until he could feel the vibration of the train. It slowed to a stop and the passengers came off. They walked by quickly with places to go, and they seemed to move by like ghosts, like figures in a window, disappearing one by one until he was the only one in the station. He stood as long as he could on the platform, hunkered low in his jacket, until the conductor sounded the bell to leave. Then he boarded and found an empty seat where he would not be bothered.

  The train car was empty but for a couple of lone passengers. An old man sat with his forehead against the cold window. In front of him a few seats down was a young woman who dressed well. She did not look French. She looked new and clean and held a tan, which was different.

  He sank into the seat and held his head low in the window as the train hissed in place. A man in a uniform came to him and punched his ticket, then moved along to the old man. He punched his ticket without a word, and moved to the young woman. He said something nice to her and she spoke back to him. Her voice sounded sweet.

  The bell sounded again and the train left the station and soon the rain poured down his window, making long streaks down the glass. The woman at the front turned in her seat and fumbled with her things. She was olive-skinned and had a nice nose and when she saw him she smiled to him. He smiled back, but soon after, he moved to the back of the train car.

  He fell asleep and did not see the rain disappear or the land change and turn green and hilly with deep canyons and bright sunny mountains. Then it turned dark when the sun sank, and when the train went through a tunnel, the sound became loud and hollow and he woke. The window was dark, he could see himself in it. He avoided his eyes. He put his head to the window, too close to see himself, and thought about how somewhere in the darkness outside the window it would be there for him and he would not mess it up this time. He would be free to write and there would be no interruptions in his thoughts. The rains would come fast and loud and the sun would be just right. The water would shimmer and he could put himself anywhere in his stories and not worry.

  The bell sounded and the conductor spoke French over the speakers, and a second man spoke Spanish after him. They pulled up slowly to the station platform. The rain was gone but it was dark outside. The brakes squealed to a stop, the hiss of the steam, the lurch of the final stop, and he went out the doors at the back of the train car. It smelled different at this station, like salt from the sea and splintered wood, and he breathed in deeply and felt bad ab
out everything except for his stories. He felt good about his stories.

  The young woman came down the steps at the front of the car, put her bag down, and pulled out a large folded paper, studying it carefully. She looked to him and he stood there. He thought he should walk away and find his room for the night and the next day he should look for a place to live near the water where he could hear the waves hit the beach and he could take long walks like the ones he used to take along the Seine. The ones that brought the words. But he stood there and waited and watched the young woman study her map. She looked at him again and smiled as if she recognized something in him, and picked up her bag to come close.

  “Es usted Americano?” she said.

  “Si.”

  She stepped closer and held the map to him.

  “I like Americans.”

  Thank you for taking the time with my short story, One Bird, Two Bird, Three. Please choose a free full-length literary fiction novel of your choice at my website:

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  Old Ways

  David Xavier Pico

  Copyright David Xavier Pico 2014

  This is a work of fiction. Any names or situations to real life are purely coincidental.

  Thank you for reading. Please take a moment to leave a review, or tell me what you thought @DavidXPico