One Star Awake

by Andrew Meehan

  Cheeks didn’t pull away, I’ll give her that much. Her eyes were open in astonishment. She made a sound like laughter, which I mimicked, before she handed me a strawberry tart

  —I offer this, she said.

  Taking a guess that Bristles was regular with her days off, I proposed the same day the following week for delivery. If Cheeks could arrange for it to be sent to the same address, the one she was holding in her hands, I would gladly pay for it right now. I kept away from any more intimacies but from the way she processed the rest of the order it was irrefutable that Cheeks thought this was all a lovely idea.

  Someone’s request for bread brought our conversation to a close. I got out of there as quickly as possible, calling goodbye with a mouthful of the strawberry tart—not bad, either.

  I ran as if I was being chased—this time my sprint along Chanzy brought on a feeling of joy, as if I had passed a test of initiation.

  Unstory

  June 28th 2011, Rue de Bac. It’s easier to have an affair in the summer. So long as you’re smart about it you can conduct your impetuous business out of doors and not feel seedier than you do already, which is not at all. I can’t remember whose idea it was to go to Buttes Chaumont, whose idea it was to make love in the bathroom of Rosa Bonheur. Last night was so humid and I don’t think we were the only couple in the park with that idea. The bathrooms there had caught my eye before so I suppose it was my idea, since I led us straight there. We were hardly furtive about it either. A mocking smile from the waitress who knew exactly what we were up to. 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10. Timber! All our troubles left us as we lapsed into noisiness. An actress’s gasp. Oh my and so on. I remember Jerome was making monstrous faces. So was I, I suppose. Growling. Howling. His knees went in the end, the little lamb. Afterwards we bought mercifully cold beers, tipped the waitress, and sprawled on the grass. It was quite some time before we were able to lumber down the hill and home.

  Of Course There’s Something

  Wrong with Her

  —Guess what? Daniel said. Ségo has some news.

  —What is it? I said, feeling agitated by some arrythmic drumming from Amadou’s radio.

  Daniel was taking the pins out of a brand-new work shirt—they arrived weekly wrapped in beautiful white tissue—while Ségo was removing the cheeks from a gallery of monkfish heads. She delivered the news in a kind of ecstasy.

  —A__ B__ is coming for lunch next week.

  —Is that good?

  Cooks, especially cooks like us, were supposed to be disciples of this man. Confident that Ségo and Daniel were excited enough for everyone, I tried my best to play along. It was perfectly normal for me to zone out during certain conversations. A__ B__, whoever he was, was the least of it. Ségo produced a picture on her phone—there he was in snug jeans and new cowboy boots and despite pretending otherwise I found him attractive. He had a look of elsewhere which I related to.

  Ségo’s next move was to list the menu for A__ B__’s visit. We would be cooking the same menu—odd offal, suckling pig—every day in preparation for his arrival, but I was more concerned that she was using up today’s valuable prep time. The monkfish, cross-eyed some of them, were staring at me in the way of gargoyles.

  —I want you to cook something for A__ B__.

  That was Ségo for you. She wanted everyone to be a part of it, whatever it was.

  Daniel gave me a beseeching look that said, be happier and, —How long have you worked here?

  —All week, I said. My brain tended towards such slippage.

  —Let’s say five, six months, Ségo said. Since November. It’s time to step up.

  It was a tempting offer. Never having experienced the real thing, washing pots every day felt like jetlag incurred from staying in one place for so long—finding potato peelings in my pockets, tending to the creeping rash on my crotch as though it was a love letter. Imagine cooking and not just cooking but cooking for—I had forgotten his name again.

  Tongues, lungs, tendons and what have you—I was getting a start on the menu for A__ B__ by skewering chicken hearts onto sharpened sticks of rosemary. Upon finishing the job I lined up the hearts so that they resembled ruby necklaces. Never having tasted offal, I decided to have some for myself. I was standing over a pan of frying hearts when I heard Ségo and Daniel talking. One of them was pushing, the other pulling.

  The topic—me.

  —She’s fixating on things. People. Random shit.

  Ségo’s reply was fierce. —It’s quite factual. She lost her mind. And she’s here.

  —I know why people reinvent themselves. I am, as you know, an asshole American in Paris.

  I banged a few pans to alert them of my presence but they continued talking.

  —You need to stop this, Ségo said. She is what she is.

  —She belongs at home.

  —Do you live at home? Do you belong there?

  —But I’m not fucking sick in the head. And if I was, I would hope my family would come for me.

  —Want me to call your parents? Have them come pick you up? Ségo said, to end the conversation.

  It was so hot at the stove that I spared myself an immediate answer to the questions. I tipped out the hearts without any appetite for them. What remained of the offal needed to be packed away. A few minutes tidying the walk-in fridge focused my mind. There the suckling pigs lay, side by side, as if in a morgue.

  My analysis of what I had just overheard from Ségo and Daniel was a level or two above panic. Daniel was (a) announcing himself of being tired of me—this was alarming, even though I would have been tired of me, too—and if I (b) wasn’t about to seem more excited about roasting a pig for an American celebrity I had never heard of, Ségo might (c) come around to his way of thinking and hand me over, nameless and everythingless, to the authorities.

  Daniel found me hanging around in the kitchen. Tidying the fridges and admiring my handiwork had become something of a hobby and I had stuffed the refuse bags so full—they were fat little bears. From an amassed memory of close to nothing, I knew one thing—I loved it here. The kitchen at Gravy wasn’t slick, it wasn’t clean, nor was it especially safe, but it was my home and I was happier there than anywhere else.

  Daniel would not hear of my plans to go to my apartment. I was beginning to confuse his attentions with intrusion. Not only had he begun to ask harsh questions, he would not tolerate any in return. Putting myself in his shoes, I tried to wonder why he devoted so much time to me, since there was always something else to demand his attention.

  —My place, he said.

  —I thought the only way to get into your building was to deliver pizza.

  Most of us lived near the restaurant, or further out, but Daniel lived on the marzipan-scented Left Bank. I assumed I was being invited there out of concern and pity. Not only that, it was also unlikely that I would run into Eagleback in the Luxembourg Gardens.

  He wondered why I asked to detour via Rue de Bac—but stalk this old street and, as sure as Daniel was Daniel, one thing would lead to another. I took a few minutes to search for Café Répulsion, or whatever it was called, but the long stretch of antique shops and cafés was just like any other street.

  —Do you know where you are? he said.

  —Not really.

  —Just exploring?

  I liked the sound of the word so I repeated it.

  —Exploring.

  —Such a pity, Daniel said. The seventh has become an American colony.

  I had hoped to see a familiar face, but no. The street’s indifference was startling. Rue de Bac held me in its gaze—as unimpressed with me as I was with it—and I concluded that, since the street hadn’t made much of an impression on me, it couldn’t have been home for very long.

  I was in any case much more interes
ted in seeing where Daniel lived. The lobby of his building, near the church on Saint Sulpice, resembled a sleek hotel bathroom. If ever I lived somewhere with a lobby I’d want it to be like that lobby. He would not accept this was in any way out of the ordinary or a million light years from my concrete bunker across town.

  The apartment’s hallway managed to accommodate several insolently closed doors—no indication as to what went on behind them as we rolled into the kitchen, which repeated many of the motifs of the lobby downstairs. The gleam on the tiles, for one thing, was no simple matter—I could only speculate at the upkeep. I was a cleaner by profession and couldn’t have delivered such a shine. You would always have been guaranteed a thumb print or two.

  Daniel described the army of staff who maintained the place.

  —The comic twist is that they earn more than I do, he said. Even the help has help.

  There was some shammy memorabilia—a collection of lacquered cigarette cases, including one that was supposed to have belonged to Marlene Dietrich. On a dining table lay a number of surgical looking wine gadgets and several encyclopaedias, wine again I assumed.

  A line of glasses—fastidiously arranged by type—were poured, filling the room with refracted diamond light. It may have been one of those ceremonies where you get a tune out of a procession of vessels filled to differing volumes. There was apparent skill in Daniel’s uniform meagre pours—the titillation on offer merely from the shine on the glasses.

  —What do you expect me to do with that?

  —Taste, he said. Unless you don’t want to?

  I held the glass reverently aloft in two hands—a votive candle. When I sipped the wine I said it tasted like grapes.

  —Hardly anyone mentions grapes, he said.

  Before I knew it there was more of it sloshing around and I was, for Daniel’s amusement, developing the nose of a wine writer—noticing cinnamon, star anise, furniture polish, tar, bursts of sap and the rare stench of canal mud.

  —Let’s quit being sommeliers, he said. I kind of thought tonight we could talk. What’s the story? Why Eagleback? Why Rue de Bac?

  —What story? I said.

  —Shall I ask you another way?

  —How do you mean? In a different voice?

  Daniel laughed. I was still good at evasion. I can’t remember what else he said or did not say, or what I said or failed to understand. I kept drinking whatever he poured, feeling progressively warm, dizzy, lazy, but never as content as I thought I would feel. All that wine did its work in me—little did I know the unpicking of a single thread had undone the entire seam. The next thing I knew I was hitting the floor with a sore bump. Daniel’s face refused to settle on one position, his Adam’s apple scurrying around his throat and the vein in his temple pulsing. I remember waving away an outstretched hand.

  Waking the following morning to a scatter of change on the kitchen floor is about all that comes back to me. Now Daniel was there, pacing and panting and gesticulating—it was hard to tell where his grunts ended and words began. The polished room had become murky and my chalky mouth was thick with a sour film. I had the skin of a pterodactyl and my hand was bleeding and, if truth was to be told, I felt horny. I hauled myself up and sat cross-legged. Even that was difficult and could have been an error.

  Ségo would love this one—the girl with no memory who couldn’t remember a thing.

  Daniel #2

  If you wanted to you could have called anything entertainment. Dogs fighting, midgets fucking, Daniel would have been all yours, but a beautiful woman whom he felt he loved flaying the wall with insults was not his idea of a fun evening. They did have their good moments; it was all shoo-be-do-lang-lang around about the two glass mark then the night descended into a brawl. Eva’s parents had been right about the booze. The bags under her eyes grew and she began to pace back and forth, spouting random numbers, an excited bookie. She was possessed, drinking from the bottle and from the tap.

  Daniel watched her, her eyes searching for someone. She began calling for this Jerome guy, sweetly, as if he was in the next room.

  —Come back, she said. Come here. Come on.

  Daniel tried to smooth things over and get her to bed and onto the next phase of the evening but she wasn’t having any of it. She would barely allow him to wipe the spittle from her face. Oh, and she dumped him, mid-sentence and without even drawing breath. Then it was the next morning and she was standing in the doorway, clenching and unclenching her jaw with the air of a hungry gull, her red eyes impassive.

  Daniel walked her home.

  —Did I say anything bad last night?

  —Not really.

  —Then please let me enjoy a few more seconds of blissful ignorance.

  At that point, it would’ve been so straightforward to reveal all, who she was, what Daniel knew, what he had been told. But every time he tried to tell Eva about herself his throat refused; swallowing and swallowing, his mouth as dry as velvet. The moment for that was passing, it had passed. He couldn’t tell her, because her parents asked him not to. And Daniel couldn’t tell her, because he liked Eva the way she was. He couldn’t tell her because he knew he might lose her if she knew.

  Her hell hole on Mathurin Moreau. From time to time there was a waggling hand at a window, not a sill without an overflowing ashtray. That was it as far as humanity was concerned.

  Daniel felt so guilty for leaving Eva there alone that he called Ségo. She had company, a good thing as far as he was concerned. Daniel hadn’t met them all, but he had seen enough to know that Ségo moved from one soulful sociopath to another. A parade of the unlikeliest assholes.

  When they first met, Ségo informed Daniel that she used to be one of those people who, when bored, would up and move to a new country. Now that she had employees and back taxes and this that and the other to worry about, moving house with hand luggage was no longer part of the plan. She woke up one morning, found she was the boss and that she liked it. She had also found herself one of the best little houses in the eleventh and all that remained was to find someone with whom to share it.

  It was Sunday, Gravy was closed, and there was a slow sarcasm in her voice when she answered. He got as far as asking Ségo if she had known anything about Jerome Cooper and there he got nothing. She didn’t know a thing. She asked him if he was stoned when he mentioned Eagleback. He’d researched Jerome and found he was the guy from Bertrand Rose, a thirty-year-old Australian who through family connections had lucked into a settled job teaching primary school. Fair to middling in the looks department. Sporty, once. A poet, too.

  —How was last night? she said.

  —Pro-tip: don’t waste Clos Rougeard on an amnesiac alcoholic.

  —I bet she didn’t care.

  —It was a 2003, a hot year. Mind you, those guys don’t have off-vintages.

  —I don’t give two fucks about the wine.

  —I’ll be straight with you. She looks cute when she freaks out. At first, but then she doesn’t. Oh, and she dumped me from a great height.

  Ségo thought this was funny.

  —If she was so drunk maybe she’ll forget that she dumped you.

  —Good point.

  —So she’ll take you back if you ask nicely.

  He knew Ségo wanted to get off the phone, but he didn’t want to let her go.

  —You know what I think? I think her life is a shitty hot dog that someone has spat in.

  —Why do you say that?

  —She has nothing.

  —She did have nothing. We are her safety net. Do you understand?

  —You should have seen what I saw last night. She needs proper help.

  Ségo was being very calm but Daniel had to assume that when it came to Eva she was somehow dishonest. That’s all he could say upfront. She didn’t know what he knew. And
she was acting as if Eva was all hers when he knew Eva was all his.

  —She’s spoken to Hippolyte, Ségo said. And I’ve taken care of it that she can talk to him whenever she wants.

  —Why did you hire her in in the first place?

  Ségo’s laugh sounded like a bridled horse.

  —Good fucking question. But she wasn’t for hire. She turned up and she needed a soft landing. I just took her in.

  —Just like that?

  —Comme ça. I gave her a job later on. I got her somewhere to live to get her out of the fucking vegetable store. Anyone would have done it. Remember what I said to you at the start. She needs a friend. Be her friend. Daniel, love is stupid, people are stupid for falling in love, you’re stupid, I’m stupid. And I’m gonna go, it’s a day of fucking rest.

  An Open Door, Go Into It

  Thursday was A__ B__ day so Gravy was best avoided. I had more or less given up on Daniel, too, since the night at his place. There hadn’t been a headache for days, not since the hangover, but the rest of me was in bad shape—lumps in my phlegm and a mucky mattress from a particularly heavy period. My hair was fine though.

  Eagleback was real—I was on my way to Bertrand Rose to find his address—but he would not be real if I had said anything about him to Daniel and he had repeated it to anyone else. But I knew what I was getting in to as soon as I turned onto Paul Bert.

  If Bristles was there, I would have to wait things out.

  I no longer thought of Bertrand Rose as a pâtisserie and hadn’t been much for cakes, or eating at all, lately. A man came out of the back shop to work the counter—for all the world an incurably beautiful count from an old novel about handsome royalty. This was Bertrand Rose himself. Dark, bouncy hair with eyebrows darker still. Everything had to be set out, the many tarts one by one, before he would speak to me. Between his meticulousness and my uncertainty I found myself becoming muddled. I’d been told that once upon a time cakes and bread were made in different places. A cake-maker was different from a bread-maker just as one person was different from another. Once upon a time but not any more. Now all the sweet and savoury got mixed in together. One thing I noticed—the baguettes were fat in the middle and pinched at one end. Bertrand Rose seemed to be dextrous when it came to sweet things but a galoot when it came to bread. These were the baguettes of an anxious man.