Paris Adieu

by Rozsa Gaston

  Our eyes met, his large, warm, and greenish-brown today. I didn’t doubt the gold in them would return later. I’d make sure it did.

  As he kissed me hello, a fresh pine scent filled my nostrils as well as the sandalwood I’d smelled the night before. He’d apparently used shower gel, a product Jean-Michel had disdained, along with deodorant.

  I was dealing with a whole new animal here. On the surface, domesticated; underneath, I rather hoped not.

  We sat down and ordered drinks. Pascal suggested a kir for me, ordering pressions – draft beers – for himself and Gerard. Feeling safe enough with the men to drink a small amount of alcohol that evening, I agreed. The kir was a refreshing combination of white wine and crème de cassis, black currant liqueur, a classic lady’s drink. I was glad he hadn’t suggested a beer for me too, because the aftertaste would have interfered with my fantasies of returning his kisses later – not the once-on-either-cheek kinds either.

  We basked in the sun, Gerard keeping an eye out for a potential audience to entertain, and Pascal and I pretending not to be electrically aware of each other. There was something about Gerard’s presence that heightened the excitement of the dance Pascal and I were now engaged in. It was as if having a chaperone was giving us permission to explore our attraction to each other that we wouldn’t have had if I’d been a lone female protecting herself in the face of an advancing, unknown male.

  After a lazy hour of watching the crowds, as well as each other’s responses to Gerard’s antics, we departed for the restaurant Pascal had mentioned. In no rush, we stopped to enjoy street performers along the way. Paris was at her best that evening. We applauded a magic show, impressed by a dog riding a unicycle. Then, we came upon some fire swallowers, just setting up for the evening. Gerard studied them intently, no doubt thinking of future revenue streams.

  After another twenty minutes, we walked past the Cluny Museum at the corner of Boulevard Saint Michel and Boulevard Saint Germain. I pictured the tapestries of ladies with unicorns inside that had fascinated me ever since I’d first laid eyes on them in an art history book. Woven in the Middle Ages, there were six in all; depicting the joys of the five senses.

  At the moment, all five of my senses were engaged. I imagined myself the lady in the tapestry, the star of a medieval tableau, courted by a minor knight of the court. We’d be chaperoned by the court jester who had been paid off by the knight to make himself scarce when the right moment arrived. It was an ancient rite we’d enact, one sanctioned by Paris, the City of Love as well as Light, the late spring night, and choruses of worldly angels singing suggestively to us from both heaven and Earth.

  Unsure if Pascal was familiar with the Cluny tapestries, I kept my thoughts to myself. The European history I’d spent the past four years majoring in was present right here and now, not only in the ancient building that housed the Cluny Museum, but in the thoughts and desires of two people outside on its sidewalk, who might begin a history together that very night. My college education fell into place at that moment, my major perfectly chosen for the grown up adventure I was contemplating.

  “Are you cold?” Pascal asked, noticing me shiver as we passed the ancient, thick walls of the Cluny fortress.

  “No, I’m fine.” I liked the way he tuned into my details.

  If only he knew the swirl of excitement I felt at the combination of awe in the face of history and pleasure at being a part of it. No European could possibly understand the impact upon an American of walking past a fifteenth-century building and thinking of all the souls and all the stories that make up its past.

  In another half hour, we arrived at the restaurant. Our long walk there had given me an appetite. Gerard opened the door for us, bowing as I passed. Again, I felt as if I was in a medieval tableau, a mystical rite playing out that evening in which each player knew his part and each savored the anticipation of its inevitable outcome.

  The restaurant was provincial in style, dark and richly paneled in rough-hewn wood. It smelled of apple cider.

  We were seated. At the Café Saint Michel, both the evening before and earlier that day, Gerard had sat next to me, with Pascal across the table. But this time, Pascal took the initiative, shouldering Gerard out of the way as he slid into the wood banquette seat next to me. Bravo.

  “Would you like to try some Breton cider?” he asked.

  “Pourquoi pas?” “Why not?” I agreed. I had no recollection of cider as an accompaniment to the crêpes I’d served as a waitress at the crêperie restaurant back in Hartford, Connecticut. But I was in France now, not New England. It was time to try something new.

  Looking around, I took in the homey and rustic decor, like the maritime culture of Bretagne or Brittany, next to the north-Atlantic Ocean. It reminded me of Maine.

  “What kind of fillings do you like in your crêpes?” Pascal asked.

  I hesitated. There had been the crêpes back at the restaurant in Hartford, filled with ratatouille and shredded cheese. I hadn’t liked most of them, truth be told. Then, there were the crêpes on the streets of Paris, which I’d practically survived on four years earlier, when I’d been an au pair. The cheapest ones had been sweet, with sugar and butter inside, or chocolate and coconut if I splurged. I loved those crêpes, but they hadn’t loved me, especially not my hips.

  “I’m not sure. I haven’t really eaten a lot of crêpes,” I lied. Fake it till you make it, my conscience reassured me. Or was it my id?

  “Do you like cheese?” Pascal asked.

  “Yes. Very much.”

  “Smelly cheese or mild?” Gerard chipped in.

  “Smelly,” I replied, thinking back to the cheeses I’d enjoyed eating with Jean-Michel. Chaumes had been my favorite. It had been orangeish, runny, and deliciously stinky.

  Pascal poured me a glass from the large pitcher of cider the waiter set before us. I drank deeply.

  “How’s the cider?”

  “Hard,” I said, pleased with the taste. It was nothing like apple cider back in New England. This cider had a bite. It tasted robust, not too sweet, and most definitely alcoholic.

  “Hard? What do you mean?” Now, it was Pascal’s turn to be confused.

  “I mean it has alcohol in it.”

  “Of course.” This was France, after all.

  “Not too much. But a little,” he added, quaffing from his own glass.

  I nodded as I took a longer swallow. It was delicious.

  The waiter came over.

  “Vous-desirez, Mademoiselle?”

  I turned to Pascal. “Tell him I want a crêpe with the smelliest cheese in it he’s got.”

  “Très bien,” Pascal smiled approvingly. Then, he ordered two smelly cheese crêpes. One for me and one for him. Gerard chose a classic jambon gruyère, or ham and cheese, for himself.

  Dinner arrived. It was delicious. Everything about our evening was zesty and zingy, like the Breton cider.

  Pascal wasn’t exactly a conversationalist, but he was attentive. Gerard chattered on, interspersed with occasional breaks while he perused the room. I felt warm, coddled by Pascal and reassured by the resonance of the decor with my childhood summers in Maine.

  Dinner ended with espressos and shots of calvados, a fortifying apple liqueur from Basse-Normandie, near where the Allies landed in 1944.

  After settling the bill, which Pascal paid, waving away my money, we spilled out onto the street. As we turned onto the Rue de Grenelle from the Boulevard Raspail, it was almost a straight shot home. This time, I didn’t mind being accompanied. We linked arms, with me in the middle, swinging them as we walked. As we passed the grand open space of Napoleon’s Tomb, known as Les Invalides, Gerard struck up a French song in a pleasant baritone, Pascal joining in on the choruses. On the far side of Les Invalides, we entered the quiet, well-appointed neighborhood of the Griffiths, the seventh arrondissement, a far cry from the Latin Quarter.

  We lowered our voices. This was the neighborhood where well-to-do Parisians who preferred the more
artsy Left Bank lived. That would include the Griffiths. I didn’t want to bump into any of their friends in the company of my two new acquaintances, happy though I was with them. Mrs. Griffith already thought I had very bad taste in men.

  “Where do you take the train to get back to Saint Denis?” I asked Pascal, wondering if their train station was anywhere nearby.

  “We take it from Saint Michel,” he replied, looked at his watch. He frowned, then mumbled something to Gerard.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “Everything’s fine,” he reassured me.

  A quarter hour later, we stood at the entrance to my building. The concierge’s light was off, to my relief. Time had flown. It was past midnight.

  “Are you going to walk back to Saint Michel now?” I asked, wondering why I was worrying about them. They were two adult men, not children. But there was something so childlike about Gerard – he elicited my maternal instincts, different from the ones Pascal stirred.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Pascal shrugged.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s too late. The last train is just after midnight. We missed it,” Gerard explained.

  “What will you do?”

  “Don’t worry, cherie, we’ll manage,” Gerard said, giving an identical shrug to Pascal’s of a moment before.

  “Okay then.” I shrugged back. They could take care of themselves. “Thank you for dinner. It was really fun.”

  Pascal’s eyes bored into me.

  “Shall we come up?” he asked.

  I’d been expecting that. Only I hadn’t expected what happened next.

  “If you’d like. My place is small though.”

  Who said that? Not the me I used to be. I prayed I was making a good decision. It wasn’t a wise one, but I’d become fond of them both, and they had nowhere to go until the first train of the following day began.

  “It’s okay. I don’t mind,” Pascal said, holding the heavy outer door for me as I led them through the service entrance to the elevator to the top floor where my room was located.

  I’d never seen what my room looked like with three people in it at once. It was very small indeed. Pascal and Gerard took off their shoes at the door, and we all sat cross-legged on the floor, Pascal and I propped against my bed, Gerard facing us, against the tiny desk.

  A cool, night breeze drifted in the one, small window on the far wall. I had a few bottles of mineral water on hand, so I poured some for everyone. Unfortunately, Gerard showed no signs of sleepiness, but Pascal was beginning to doze off. I pulled out blankets for both of them, then went to use the Turkish toilet in the hall.

  When I returned, I was disappointed to see Pascal wrapped in a blanket on the floor next to the door. Gerard was stretched out in the middle of the floor, closer to the bed. That hadn’t been my plan, but it was a safe one. There was no way I wanted to explore closer relations with Pascal with Gerard on hand.

  I sat at my desk, next to Pascal on the floor, to take off my sandals and brush my hair. Finally, Gerard got up and left to use the hallway facilities. The second the door closed behind him, Pascal sprang to life. Sitting up in his blankets, he rose on one knee.

  “Ava,” he whispered, putting his hands on my forearms.

  “Yes?” His hands on my arms were dry, firm, the fingers pressing into my flesh. He was quick on the mark when action was warranted.

  “Come to my place for dinner tomorrow.”

  “How do I get there?” I asked, rather inanely.

  “Just come back with us tomorrow. You’ll enjoy it.”

  I was sure I would. It would be fun to see a suburb outside of Paris, fun to have yet another Frenchman cook for me, and fun, most of all, to get rid of Gerard at some point the following evening.

  I nodded as his hands pulled my face down to his. We kissed hurriedly, urgently. Then, the door handle jostled, and Gerard was back.

  It was Pascal’s turn to leave. Ignoring Gerard, I found my pajamas then climbed into bed.

  By the time he returned, Gerard’s eyes had closed. Pascal’s gleaming, gold, tiger eyes met mine over his friend’s inert body. As if he’d touched my mouth, I felt my lower face muscles form into a sly smile.

  “Tomorrow,” he whispered.

  I nodded, indicating that he should turn off the light switch next to his head. In the dark, I wrestled with putting on my pajamas under my bed sheets, Girl Scout camp style. Fortunately, Gerard appeared to have drifted off. He was like a small boy, incessantly moving and talking until his head hit the pillow. Then he conked out.

  The sound of Pascal’s heavy breathing reassured me. Tomorrow, he seemed to exhale. Tomorrow, I silently exhaled back. In a minute, I drifted off to sleep.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Anna Karenina Understood

  The next day, I awoke to Pascal’s sleepy eyes upon me. Gerard was still asleep. We looked at each other steadily, as I imagined waking up with him without Gerard between us.

  “Tu as bien dormi? Have you slept well?” Pascal asked.

  “Yes. Very well. And you?”

  “Très bien.” He should be, considering he was waking up in my room, if not in my arms. The golden ring was in sight.

  In a minute, Gerard was up, and we all went out to greet the day. It was comical to see their drowsy, early morning faces. Gerard’s eyes were puffy, with dark rings under them. Pascal’s usually large, round eyes had taken on a slanted shape – exotic and sly. I didn’t doubt his thoughts were both, his eyes on the prey.

  Bypassing my usual boulangerie, as well as the patisserie shop, I led us to the working man’s café on the corner of the Rue de Grenelle where I’d frequently stopped for a large cup of café crème on my way to French classes at the Sorbonne.

  We had our coffees at the counter, and Pascal introduced me to a new custom. I’d often wondered why eggs were displayed on a vertical stand on café countertops, especially in the mornings. Now, I watched as he plucked three eggs from the stand, peeled, and salted one then handed it to me. The hard-boiled egg was fresh and delicious.

  My English girlfriend, Charlotte, came to mind. I’d met her in Tokyo, where I taught English the summer between sophomore and junior years. She was ten years older, wildly sophisticated, with a penchant for black American Japanese major league baseball players; a male genre which enjoyed superstar status in Japan. Pretty, tall, and willowy, her complexion was as delicate as an English rain shower.

  Her eating habits had been as carefully controlled as her love life had not. She was discipline personified. I’d soaked up everything she did, worshiping at the altar of her self-control. Every morning, she’d eat either one hard-boiled or soft-boiled egg with a piece of unbuttered whole wheat toast. She’d wash this down with a few cups of tea. I never saw her vary from this routine once. After we’d parted ways in Tokyo, she came to Yale one spring to visit me. At breakfast in the chaos of my residential college dining hall, surrounded by undergraduates wolfing down doughnuts, bowls of granola, plates of pancakes, eggs and bacon, she maintained her strict regimen by carefully unpeeling her hard-boiled egg and toasting her lone piece of bread. My girlfriends and I were in awe.

  A good number of the girls in my class were anywhere from five to fifteen pounds overweight, except for the ones who were anorexic, bulimic, or naturally slim. My female colleagues and I sucked in our breaths as Charlotte rose from the table after breakfasting, her stomach flat, hip bones jutting out fashionably under her thin, flowered dress, with long slim legs ending in ankles you could wrap your fingers around. Everything about her showed us up. After dark, she was capable of drinking like a fish, another British character trait my Yale colleagues and I found impressive.

  As I stood at the counter, enjoying my salted, hard-boiled egg, I connected up the dots. Pascal was showing me how to do something Charlotte had known how to do her entire adult life: carefully control her blood sugar in the morning so she didn’t become enslaved to it for the rest of the day.


  Finishing the egg, I washed it down with strong coffee with foaming milk in it. Suddenly the display case of flaky croissants farther down the counter had no power over me. If the counterman had slid it down to my end, taken off the top, and wafted the tray under my nose, I wouldn’t have flinched. My one hard-boiled egg with coffee was enough. For the first time in my life, I felt like a Frenchwoman.

  “You’ll come back to Saint Denis with us, no?” Pascal asked.

  “I have some things I need to do,” I hedged. Like take a shower. Then I remembered I couldn’t, because the Griffith’s apartment was locked up for the summer. The thought of taking a cold-water sponge bath in the sink outside my room held little appeal.

  “Why don’t you bring everything you need, and you can do whatever you want at my place?” he asked.

  Hmm. It was an idea. I could do lots of things in a fully-equipped apartment that I couldn’t do in my room: take a hot shower, wash my hair, and shave my legs, rinse out, and re-insert my diaphragm… It sounded like a plan.

  “I need about twenty minutes to get my stuff.”

  “We’ll wait here for you,” Pascal agreed.

  Gerard was over near the pinball machines eyeballing another man having coffee at the other end of the bar. His fashionable haircut told me he might be on Gerard’s wavelength. Secretly, I applauded Pascal for having limited fashion sense. Even Jean-Michel would have sniffed at Pascal’s scuffed, dusty workman’s shoes. But I liked them. They reassured me that they were holding up a standard-issue, heterosexual man.

  I left the café and hurried back to my room. At the entrance to the building, the concierge was out on the sidewalk, sweeping.

  “Bonjour, Mademoiselle,” she said automatically, not even looking up as I passed. I sensed she’d seen nothing of my two companions of the night before.

  “Bonjour, Madame,” I rejoined, heading for the service entrance.

  I wondered what Saint Denis would be like. Not having explored anything outside of Paris other than the posh suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, I was excited. Perhaps the suburbs were very different from the city. I wouldn’t wear my high-heeled boots. Thus far, spending time with Pascal and Gerard had involved a lot of walking. Hanging out with them made me feel fit, fresh, and on fire – the last with exclusive respect to Pascal.