One Star Awake

by Andrew Meehan

  I think Daniel figured something was the matter but I managed, in my own way, to keep all this to myself.

  In the Nord-Pinus’ churchy bathroom that night, a tiny vein in my breast was jumping. It was a feeling that I hated but wanted to hoard. I had once driven something from me. What was it that came out? A calf? A bat? Torn water. Filthy, sweet water and something—my soul?—in the bath. Someone? Hardly someone. Besides. Whatever had left me took a good part of me with it. Picasso and bullfighters and Warren Beatty and whatever.

  Daniel #4

  A funny thing happened when he went to pay the bill that morning. Eva had made a bed for herself in the cool of the bath, so it was just Daniel and the hotel’s owner, who didn’t mind one way or another when he settled up.

  —Now or later, she said.

  —Let’s take care of it now.

  —Or later?

  —Why not now?

  —If you are sure.

  Daniel knew the difference between friendly and not friendly and there was nothing to suggest that she made life easy for people. However, the early hour seemed to be working in his favour.

  The owner surprised him with a warm, inquisitive look when Daniel gave her Conrad Weston’s credit card.

  —Mister Weston? Can I offer you a coffee?

  It was still cool enough to sit on the terrace overlooking Place du Forum, but the terrace was not a good idea she said. There was something in particular that she wanted to discuss and she didn’t want to be overheard. She suggested the hotel’s bar, where she made a show of lighting the drowsy lamps and positioning Daniel at a tiny card table. The bar was stocked hopefully with rare vermouths and he surprised her by asking for a breakfast aperitif.

  She found some Suze then topped it off with beer; a first.

  —So you have enjoyed your trip? Of course, yes. Some people come here and they wonder what all the fuss is about but you understand us, I am sure of that.

  —I would definitely like to return another time, he said.

  —You will, I’m sure of it. And your friend, this is not her first time here.

  —I’m gathering that.

  —Did she enjoy her meal yesterday evening?

  —No, not really. But I don’t think either of us is responsible for that. I liked the place though. The owner guy, he’s a real dude.

  —A dude. Like that, exactly.

  Daniel’s interest in talking was dwindling. The dinner with Eva had not ended well and he didn’t care to reminisce about it so soon. He and the owner made out there were other topics for discussion; they talked about the size of the portions at La Boucherie and agreed that they were too much, then they discussed French food, the difference between restaurant food and the meals you had at home, at which point the conversation started to fall in on itself. She must have known before he did that they were getting to something. She left Daniel alone in the bar and when she reappeared she absentmindedly took a sip from his drink. She presented him with a silver plate bearing a folded piece of paper which seemed to hover into his hands: a doctor’s bill from Eva’s previous visit.

  Was there logic, maybe some kindness, to her presenting it to him on a plate? The bill was crammed with information that meant nothing to him. Daniel read it despairingly and without understanding. He knew the words but not what they amounted to. The owner took it for granted that he needed to know that the bill hadn’t been paid.

  —What is it for? he said.

  She replied with a low wolf whistle.

  —Talk with your friend? Now I will book your taxi for later.

  Daniel used all his cash to pay the doctor’s bill. They already had his card for the room. And he wasn’t charged for the drink.

  Eva hadn’t spoken since they left La Boucherie the night before. She didn’t speak in the cab to the station nor as the train pulled away from Arles. Not much, apart from pâté sweats, to show from their trip to Provence. It was even hotter than the day before but the carriage was air-conditioned and it was mostly empty. They sat with sticky forearms side by side. Her face flickered in and out of the light as she dabbed her sweaty forehead on the shoulder of Daniel’s T-shirt.

  Eva began to doze and he knew not to speak until they were approaching Paris. He woke her by resting a cool bottle of water on her cheek. He didn’t have the strength to mention the doctor’s bill.

  —Hi, he said.

  —Are you angry with me?

  —Not really. Not at all. But that was a weird trip. I don’t know what came over you last night. You were about ready to blow.

  —It was the heat.

  —The heat. And the fact that you need to start talking. I understand if you don’t want to talk to me. But you should talk with someone. Have you spoken with the doctor? Have you seen Eagleback?

  —Train is empty, she said. No one but you.

  The carriages swayed as they entered the station and they fell into another silence. They trickled along the platform, with her holding back, as though she wanted Daniel to go on without her. Having lost his nerve, he wanted to leave her alone, too. This trip was a mistake, from her point of view as well as his. If nothing else, it had confirmed the failure of Daniel’s project and his failure as a friend, when a friend was all Eva needed. They shared another bottle of water on the station concourse.

  —It’s a losing battle, Daniel said. Me, the heat.

  A wry look from Eva as he combed his fingers uselessly through her sweaty hair—and there would have been a time when he insisted they take refuge from the heat in Le Train Blue. There were very few problems that wouldn’t dissolve before a sodden baba au rhum.

  But Eva had read Daniel’s mind.

  —I don’t want food, she said.

  France was all well and good but was best put behind him. It was a harsh country, he didn’t know another way of putting it. Everything Daniel had seen of Arles made him long for Connecticut. He longed for air-conditioning as standard and cheerfulness. His blood moved at the thought of processed food. AT&T. Pâté fucking depressed him. Loïc depressed him, and Fanny. Eva depressed him. He went through the motions of inviting her back to his place and when she wrinkled her face he found her a cab. She stooped, as though she was being forced into the car. Eva had this awful way of appearing vulnerable when she wasn’t stretched to her full height. He pretended not to hear when she told the driver that she wanted to go to Ménilmontant.

  Daniel paid the fare and the car pulled away into the vastness of the city. Then, deciding that the only people who could help Eva were the people who knew her best, he searched his phone for Tony’s number.

  The Universe Adjusting

  Hippolyte was not surprised to see me—that there I was, ready to talk. It was nine in the evening but I presumed you could talk at any time. There was something specific I wanted to ask him. A circular kind of question that smothered everything else in my head whenever I considered it

  First Hippolyte disappeared into a room next to the one where he saw patients. I heard him lose his temper on the phone and then he was back. The air conditioning was on full so he handed me a shawl the weight of a paper tissue. No jelly beans this time, as far as I could tell.

  —So, he said. Here we are again.

  So was such a short word that I felt immediately indecisive. It put me in mind of ordering in a restaurant, something I hated to do. It was a while before I was able to speak—to say that there was something I needed to share but I didn’t know how to express it.

  —I am starting to remember, I said.

  Hippolyte smirked and at first I felt like he was making fun of me. Then I began to sense kindness in his impartiality, which was all I asked.

  —As you know, my memory is inadequate.

  —It’s not inadequate, he said. It’s incomplete. Everything
is incomplete. Your situation is just more pronounced. Has your body sent you any information lately?

  —Sorry?

  —This is how you put it before, he said. Headaches and so on.

  I was impressed that he was able to recall our previous conversations in such detail until I saw that he was referring to notes. I wondered if our conversation at Ségo’s house had made it into his notebook and whether that kind of thing was allowed.

  I told him that I was starting to remember things but their significance was unknown to me. I told him that I had been to Arles and I knew that something had happened there but I didn’t know what. I told him I thought I’d been in a crash and this had to have something to do with my memory.

  —That makes perfect sense, he said.

  He could write notes and listen at the same time. I was feeling worn out already but I had not yet made myself clear.

  —Let me give you an example, I said. I don’t remember my parents. But I know that I have parents, somewhere. And I also know that I don’t want to remember them. So that means I must remember something, if I know that I don’t want to remember it? Understand?

  Hippolyte understood.

  —You know more than you think you do, he said. Your memory is a wild bird. It can never be tamed. Never.

  I felt this not to be true but I didn’t want to quarrel with him, so I said, —Wild bird.

  —You understand what I mean?

  —Well, no. But some things become enlarged. And other things reduce. Until they are insignificant.

  I was referring to the diary, in which I was losing faith, whose contents had so infuriated me because they felt so distant—factual, yes, but no more than that. I told him what I had read—all the entries from Rose Bakery onwards—but nothing would please him. He seemed to want to focus on those areas, the point in the recollection where I became confused. He wanted me follow the lines of thought in which I had the least interest.

  I almost had to shout to make myself clear.

  —Don’t you see? This is why I am here. This is exactly what I don’t want to talk about.

  —Talking is the only way we will get anywhere.

  —You don’t understand what I’ve been saying. Is there a way I can not know all this?

  Hippolyte pouted, as if he had been insulted.

  —I don’t understand, he said.

  —How can I choose what I remember?

  —So you don’t experience any bad memories?

  —That kind of thing, yes. If I can’t remember something it can’t cause me any pain.

  —Short answer?

  —Yes please.

  —You can’t.

  I felt more than ever that I had done something wrong.

  —Is it a ridiculous idea?

  —No, it’s beautiful, but it’s impossible. You can’t choose.

  All this time I was conscious of the fact that, apart from the crash, I hadn’t mentioned Eagleback enough. And I thought I ought to. Out it all came.

  —The man in the car, in the crash, he is called Jerome. I think we were lovers. I know we were. I just don’t know when or anything. Or I do know when but not how.

  I could see Hippolyte registering the name. He recognised it, I knew it, but he wouldn’t say anything other than, —And?

  —And what?

  —Do you want to remember him? Or not?

  —I want to remember some things and not others. I just feel I would be better off if I knew everything that happened between us. It feels like we were in love. It feels like I should know more about being in love.

  —What if it was also something painful, are you prepared for that?

  —No idea. But I would like to choose what I remember.

  Hippolyte laughed, this time without any sarcasm.

  —Something tells me you have this process all figured out. Have you made contact with this man?

  —I know where he lives. I’ve made contact. A few times.

  Hippolyte hesitated. Had he decided this was a risk but didn’t want to say as much?

  —In that case, you must be prepared for anything. Are you prepared?

  The phone on his desk rang and he answered it, treating the call as an intrusion. Instead of massaging his fingers, as he usually did, now he was twiddling them. He hung up and apologised because he would have to deal with the person who had been on the phone.

  I responded to his question anyway.

  —You mean what if I find out what happened and it’s a bad memory?

  —Exactly. What if it’s bad?

  On the way back to Léon Frot, I stopped off at the tabac in Oberkampf to send more emails to Eagleback. It wasn’t that I was trying to persuade him of anything—it was just a reminder. It didn’t occur to me that he wouldn’t reply immediately.

  I stared at the screen, assuming there was something wrong. There was nothing except the reflection of my startled hair. With the next email, I mentioned that I had discovered some information from an ‘old friend’. I didn’t mention Ghislaine’s name, not yet, nor did I say anything about Arles, either. In the next email—this was twenty of them so far—I used the heading Crash. In the next one I sent only three kisses xxx.

  It was so hot at night. I was grateful for the algae-cool of the cellar. On the ceiling I saw nothing but glowing ice floes in the same frame as out-of-control refineries. Thunderstorms sending interrupted messages. Marauding tidal waves on their way to sweep me and Eagleback warmly away.

  A dreamy, dreamy sky the next morning. It was 8 a.m. and I had returned to the tabac. I asked for some water and whether the shop had a bathroom. I asked the Algerian guy at the counter if I could open the front door for some air, and when he refused I took a few minutes to stand outside. When I came back I circled the computer, refusing to be overtaken by fear or excitement or anything else, all before opening the email.

  Since I had met Eagleback—going to sleep every night, in the apartment, on Elias’ floor and in the cellar—I had hoped for one thing, that when I awoke in the morning life would be different and a chance meeting with someone from my past would change the direction of my life.

  Now he had replied, matter-of-factly, to one of my messages. For a second I thought he had used my name, but he was referring to the other Ghislaine. His wife, of course.

  I read the mail again. His tone was this side of cold and I had to read it another few times before I took in what he was saying. Ghislaine would be away, he said. He was promising to meet me that night, if he could get away. At seven I would go to an Indian restaurant near Gare du Nord. It would be just the two of us.

  I typed my reply carefully.

  Okay, I wrote.

  When I returned to Léon Frot, Elias was there in the courtyard, shirtlessly strimming weeds—the exertion looked as if it was about to trigger a heart-attack.

  He tipped his head back and laughed when, just to keep things simple, I told him that I was back for good. I wasn’t going to mention the poster if he wasn’t. He embraced me—and, have mercy on us all, I felt his hairy, sticky skin on mine. I sat on the wall as he distributed weed killer all over the gardens without ever looking my way.

  —Roohi, he was saying. Ya roohi.

  I chatted as he shook out the can of poison before chopping all the shrubbery—deliberately—into blunt, ugly shapes. An unlit cigarette stayed in his mouth the entire time.

  I was wearing my clean clothes but Levis and kitchen hand-me-downs weren’t the right kind of look for my evening with Eagleback. I took off on a little shopping trip, just to see what I could find.

  I stepped into the glare of American Apparel on Vieille du Temple and ran through it without breathing. The shop was so crowded and the changing rooms were too dark to see. Someone had smashed a mirror. As far as I
could tell, the first outfit—something cropped and black—made me seem gaunt, or in grief. I wondered if my chef’s whites would have to do after all. In the men’s section I saw—it poured over me—a T-shirt with an eagle on it. I could have bought one to wear as a dress, but I stole something at random—shorts, and the green T-shirt with the black zig-zags which wasn’t my style exactly—and I saw my evening coming together.

  I Would Have Chosen Somewhere

  Else To Meet

  The men in Grandmère Indienne wondered what I was doing there. They had made the room more festive with a mural of a shining sun but the place felt like it had once been submerged and then excavated, like a pond or a pit. There were the smells of stale fat, tangy sweat and nicotine—reminders, I thought, of idleness and the pointlessness of male company.

  The tables in the dining room were packed so tightly that I became acquainted with the shiny backsides of the men coming and going from the tables alongside mine. No doubting, though, why Eagleback had chosen this location. As soon as he got here I would suggest to him that we go someplace else.

  The waiter kept on saying, —Krpaya aur bred deejie.

  I think they wanted me to order something.

  I stopped watching the door after a while and kept my hands under the table to avoid playing with them. When the waiter offered me some poppodums, I wanted to extend the conversation—soccer or hair gel or something. The chutney they offered me tasted strange. I savoured it slowly, since Eagleback was so late. Soon they began to treat me with devotion, as if they saw in my eyes that I was lonelier and more eager than the other diners. I was brought water, I got fresh ice without asking for it. I spent as long as possible with the menu, looking at the photographs and languidly turning the laminated pages. I even started on the wine list before pretending to be struck by the dried flowers. I needed the bathroom but I was scared to go in case Eagleback came and went in my absence.