by Kirk Farber
After the money confusion, I decide to skip the tube system for now. I head out on foot, cruise the streets, keep my eyes open for Big Ben, Parliament, a post office. I feel suddenly more alive than ever before because I am completely out of place. Everything is new: the cobble of the sidewalks, the reversed flow of traffic, the big red double-decker buses. The coins in my pocket are heavy; they don’t jingle as much as knock together. I’m fascinated by their weight, and I wonder why we Americans have such light money.
Down one street, I see several restaurants and a grocery. A man sits on a blanket in front of the grocery, a cup open and empty before him, waiting for donations. I walk over and drop my heavy coins—three of them—into the cup. They make an amazing thunking noise. He smiles up at me, then taps a sign he’s made out of cardboard and marker. BE GRATEFUL, it says. I drop two more into the cup. What a great sound.
It’s good advice: be grateful. I try to review my list of blessings as often as I can. My parents taught me to do that. Today I’m grateful I have a home, and food, and enough coins in my pocket to give away. Sometimes the list works. Sometimes it doesn’t.
Sometimes I feel this ache inside over Zoe, and it won’t go away. I imagine her sitting down to write these postcards and taking the time to stamp them and carry them off to a post office somewhere in a foreign land. I like to think of her in a cheesy souvenir shop, spinning the postcard towers around in circles, picking out the perfect one just for me—the one she knows will make me smile, the one that will make me think of her.
I create a new gratitude list:
I’m thankful I have lungs.
I’m thankful I can see.
I’m thankful for my dog.
And I am thankful for the postcards, but I still can’t understand why Zoe left, why she won’t call, why I can’t find her, and how to make this ache go away.
The ache sometimes sits inside my rib cage. It feels like I took a cheap shot in a fight. Some days it will creep north and lodge itself in my throat, where it burns and swells. That’s when I’m especially vulnerable, when even if I’m thinking happy thoughts or feeling hopeful, the burning lump makes itself known, a tangible reminder of something missing. A missing part. A missing person. Today I’m grateful the ache is sitting low under my ribs.
I gather up my courage and try out the tube subway system. It’s not as complicated as I thought it would be, and with all the posted maps, I don’t have to worry about anyone yelling and pointing at me. A recorded omnipresent voice reminds me to “mind the gap,” which I am trying very hard to do. A busker plays a Beatles song, and while everyone else on the train seems annoyed, I find it comforting.
I visit the places I think Zoe might have gone. Piccadilly Circus isn’t unlike Times Square with all its flashing lights and noise. There is a Chinatown here too, but it’s not the same, it’s smaller, it’s all wrong. I spend some time in St James’s Park, and buy a hot dog from a vendor. Zoe wouldn’t let me buy any when we went to Central Park. She would hate that I’m eating meat from a cart.
chapter 19
Inside the phone booth it smells like soup. I’m afraid that the stench is emanating from the receiver, that the last person to use the phone was sick or a messy eater. I do my best to hover the phone a few inches from my face. This makes hearing more difficult on an already faded connection.
“Are you in a tunnel?” Natalie asks. Her voice, oddly enough, sounds like she could be in a tunnel. I picture her talking from one and wonder why she would think I was doing the same.
“Yes, I’m in a tunnel,” I say sarcastically.
“It sounds like you’re in a tunnel,” she says, insistent.
“How’s Zero?”
“He’s fine. I think he misses you.”
“Really?”
“He whines a lot.”
“Sorry.”
“He stares at me sometimes like he’s waiting for something.”
“He likes it when you talk to him.”
“Do you ever give him treats?”
“Sometimes. I give him people food sometimes.”
“That’s terrible for dogs, you know. It’s bad for their hearts.”
“I know.”
“Have you taken him to the vet for his annual? You should make sure he’s got all his shots.”
“Yeah, I gotta do that.”
Natalie is silent for a moment, as if she’s working something out in her head. “When did you get this dog again? I don’t remember when you got the dog.” The way she asks me, it sounds like she already knows the answer, like she’s not concerned about the shots but something else.
“I don’t know.”
“No?”
I think about it for a moment. “He’s been with me for a while, I don’t know the exact date.”
“Well that’s okay if you can’t remember.”
“Did you hear back from the CAT-scan people yet?” I ask.
“They’ll call you soon. Are you still feeling funny?”
“No change, really.”
“Hm.”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
“No, that noise you made. Hm. You said hm. Why’d you say that?”
“It was a nothing noise. It meant nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” she says.
“Okay.”
“Are you sure you’re not in a tunnel?”
“No tunnel. Listen, I’ll be home soon. I’ll call you later. Say hi to Zero for me.”
I quickly hang up before she can say anything because I don’t like the six-stage good-byes: talk to you soon, have a good night, take it easy, good night, bye, good-bye. A Buddhist friend of mine from college never said good-bye to anyone because he believed that saying it meant saying good-bye to their spirit. He was always ending phone conversations abruptly or leaving unexpectedly. You only say good-bye when someone dies, he told me, so their spirit can leave and be at peace.
chapter 20
My feet are tired and my body achy from all the walking in this cooler, damp weather. The hotel’s front lobby isn’t much warmer, and neither is the woman behind the front desk, although she is terribly apologetic.
“Sorry?” she says, or asks, I’m not sure which. She’s a short little pear of a thing, with three perfect wrinkle lines running parallel across her forehead. “Sorry?” she says again, tilting her head at strange angles toward me. I realize I’m not speaking loud enough, and that’s her way of asking me to increase my volume.
“If I wanted to send a postcard to someone,” I ask, louder, “how would I do that?”
“You can leave it right here with us at the front desk,” she says, and smiles. The three lines smooth away, revealing a broad, velvety forehead. Her skin is like some exotic fruit, ready to be eaten. I think I’m hungry from all my exercise.
“Leave it right here?” I ask.
“Yes, that’s correct, sir. We take the post out twice daily.”
Tucked away on the back counter is a basket filled with letters. They look like they’ve been there awhile. “So where does it go from here?”
“Sorry?”
“Where,” I say even louder, “does it go from here?”
“I can hear you, sir, I just don’t understand your question.”
“I mean, does it go to a post office?”
Her smile remains constant, her voice pleasant and professional. I really like her demeanor. She reminds me of Gerald, the postmaster back home.
“Right, sir, it goes through the Royal Mail.”
The Royal Mail. That sounds serious. Trustworthy. A place to get answers. “And where would I find a Royal Mail office?”
The three little lines on her forehead return, darker than before. “Did you have a problem or concern?” she asks. “Did we mishandle a parcel of yours?”
“Not exactly. I’d just like to visit this Royal Mail.”
“Right, sir. Well, there are over forty-five offices in
London. Which would you prefer?”
When she mentions the large number of locations, a tingling pain surges up my feet. I imagine bumbling along more cold, uneven sidewalks and realize I don’t have the energy for any more travels today. “I’ll get back to you on that,” I say, and take the elevator up to my room, where I draw a hot bath and submerge myself. Pure healing. I soak with my ears below the water line, feeling no gravity and hearing nothing but my grateful lungs moving in and out underwater. I think about how I got here, in this English bathtub, alone in a hotel room on another continent.
Relaxed. Floating. I do something I do a lot. I replay the events of the day that first French postcard came.
It was a sunny afternoon, six months ago. A warm breeze was blowing, and I was innocently retrieving the mail.
“What you got there?” squeaked a voice from across the street. It was Mary Jo, Mailbox Monitor. She had her hands on top of her mailbox and her feet at the bottom post, curving her back to form a giant letter D.
“Excuse me?” I asked.
Mary Jo squinted back. “What’d you get in the mail?”
I looked at the pastoral view on the postcard: a field of daisies. Bonjour! it read. Have a Nice Day. Ridiculous. “Nothing.”
Mary Jo sat down and lay back on her lawn, her feet still touching the mailbox, a giant letter L. “L is for lawn. I’m on the lawn!” She laughed hard at this, couldn’t stop laughing. She was really laughing away.
I walked back toward the house, detouring to the trash can in my driveway. “L is for lost,” I said, lifting the lid off the trash can and tossing the postcard in the garbage. Later, when Mary Jo had gone inside, I went back out and retrieved it.
The French postcards: Nice, Lyon, Paris. They had come right in a row. She was on a regular Tour de France. My “I See London I See France” vacation package from work (#15) only allows a trip to London and Paris. So, technically, it should be called “I See London I See Paris,” but I guess that isn’t as catchy. I could look into visiting the other cities in France, but right now the altered state of sensory deprivation in my hotel bathtub is something I don’t want to interrupt. I soak for another hour, and then cocoon myself in the bed under heavy hotel blankets. I’m lost under their weight, my body falling fast asleep in a heady fog of linen and cheap soap.
The next day I wake up late. After noon, to be precise, and that means I’m not making it to the Royal Mail because I need to get to Heathrow to catch my flight to Paris. And that’s okay because France is really where I think things will come together.
chapter 21
I’m not loud and I’m not rude, so I don’t necessarily stand out as the quintessential Obnoxious American Tourist, but this French postmaster is clearly messing with me.
“Ah-lo!” he yells, then waves at me. “Ah-lo?”
He looks an awful lot like Gerald. His uniform is a darker blue than its American counterpart, as if he might take himself more seriously than Gerald, if that’s possible. But he’s got the same slate skin-tone and those spooky gray eyes. I wonder if postmasters are part of something larger, like some Jungian archetype of Messenger—a man created by the collective thoughts of humanity to deliver all written communication between all the souls of eternity.
He snaps his fingers in the air, like I’m a dog.
I stare into his creepy eyes. “I’m here,” I say.
He squints after registering my American accent, then points at my hands. “Qu’est-ce que c’est?”
What’s funny is that I heard him have a perfectly coherent conversation in English as I was waiting in line, and now that I’m directly in front of him, he’s forgotten the language altogether. I decide to humor him.
“Sorry, I don’t speak French,” I offer. “Do you speak English?”
He nods, and says, “Mm.” He studies me for a few moments, considering my clothes, my haircut, my willingness to wait for his answer. “What eez zeese?” he finally asks, and glances down at my hands again.
“It’s a postcard collection,” I say.
He pushes out his lips. “Je ne comprends pas.”
“Post. Card,” I say to him, loud and slow. I spread them out on the counter. I point at a postmark dated a year ago. Now I’m the yeller-pointer. “Can you explain this to me? The date?”
He picks up the card. “Zeese eez from one year ago,” slipping into almost perfect English at the end. He shrugs, put off by the lack of challenge in my query. Nothing like Gerald. “Zeese eez all you need?”
“Why did it take a year for me to receive these?”
He studies me for a moment, looks behind me, and seems disappointed that nobody is waiting. He nods, backs up a step, and reaches for something under his counter. He pulls out a world map and unfolds it on the counter before me. “Voilà,” he says, and taps it to show me this is the answer to my question. “You zee? You zee zeese?”
“Yes,” I say.
“What eez zeese?”
“It’s the world.”
“Oui. Le monde!”
“Le monde,” I say, trying out my best accent. I’ve heard that if you at least attempt to speak the language, foreigners appreciate your humility, regardless of your fluidity. It works. He leans in closer.
“Your postcard, eet travels le monde, no?”
“Sí, it travels le monde,” I say.
“Oui,” he corrects.
“Wee,” I say.
He frowns. “But you with zee postcards, you are not so happy zeese cards are from anozzer time, no?”
I’m starting to think that while the French postmaster may be a little unconventional in his tactics, he may have some useful information. I forgive his flamboyant performance and listen intently.
“You with zee postcards from anozzer time are wondering why zay arrive late to your home, oui?”
“Wee,” I say. “Yes indeed.”
“Mm.” He raises an eyebrow, purses his lips over this predicament. It’s obvious that he wants to share something, but for some reason feels it necessary to act out this little drama. “Yez, yez, yez,” he says, then taps the map again. “Many cities have zee same name in all zee world. You know where eez Rome?”
“Italy.”
“Oui! Eet eez een l’Italie,” he says and smiles.
He points at the map again, this time at the Midwestern United States. “You know where eez zeese?” he asks.
“Wisconsin.”
“Rome,” he says, and quickly points to northern Europe.
“Finland?”
“Rome,” he says, then lands on Italy.
“Rome?” I guess.
He points at me. “Yez. You zee?” He points to the sky to celebrate my revelation. “Rome eez een all different places een zee world—all of zem are Rome, but none of zem are zee same. But still, zee same name. Ah?”
“I don’t get it,” I say.
“You with zee postcards from anozzer time who does not get eet. Psh.”
I study the map again to see if I can make better sense of it all.
“Eet eez zee problem avec zee postal codes,” he says deeply. “Eef you write only zee city on a card as zee address, eet maybe goes to Canada even zough you want l’Italie or zee America. So zeese postcard, eet travels around zee world looking for you, and finally eet finds you, but eet eez much later zan zee expected time.” He glances down at the Have a Nice Day card and notices something peculiar. “Zee? Zees one also goes to Barcelone. Eet travels zee world, zees postcard of yours. Eet eez stamped twice.”
“I thought skip was illegal,” I tell him.
“Who eez Skeep?”
I push the postcard toward him. “Are you telling me this one came from Barcelona?”
“Oui. Maybe eet was sent par Paris? Or maybe eet was purchased here, and sent from Barcelone?” He leans in closer. “Zee postcards do not care how zay arrive,” he whispers. “Zay are only tiny pieces of papier.”
I take back my card. This Barcelona possibility is the most infinitesimal c
lue imaginable, but I am filled with hope. “Thank you,” I say. “I understand it much better now.”
“Vous ne comprenez rien,” he says accusingly.
And as I gather up the postcards and shuffle them together, I can’t help but think: Maybe I don’t understand a thing.
chapter 22
In my hotel room, I turn on the television and I can’t believe what’s on. It’s John the TV psychic, but he’s overdubbed in French. What makes it even stranger is that there are English subtitles. John describes the process of translating his messages from those who’ve passed over. He actually says that it’s like trying to translate English to French—sometimes there are words that don’t mean the same thing, and you need to find a different way to express the message. Sometimes you can’t get across exactly what needs to be said. Ever.
I wonder what I’m missing out on with the overdubs, what the network is leaving out in this translation. I wonder how much I’m missing out in general.
I decide I’d better check in with Natalie. She needs to know I’ll be home later than planned, but she does not need to know it’s because I ordered the “See Sexy Spain” overnight vacation add-on from Wanderlust. I’m not really one for club-hopping and discos, but it was the cheapest way to get to Barcelona. The pattern of her number on the touch pad makes the shape of half a house. She picks up. Zero barks in the background. He sounds anxious.
“How is everything?” I ask.
“Fine. Everything’s fine.”
“Is that Zero barking?”
A muffled sound and then clear air again. “Oh, he’s just playing with Simon.”
“Playing?” Last I remember, cats and dogs don’t play together. Terrorize maybe. “So you’re keeping him at your house?” That wasn’t part of the deal, I want to say, but realize we didn’t exactly write up a contract.
“Just for a little while. I’ll take him back home tonight. What’s up?”
“Just checking in.”
“How are your friends doing? Catching anything?”