Lives Paris Took

by Rachael Wright

  “Who’s that again?” I asked.

  My father looked up. His face cleared as his eyes slid over his father’s eighteen year old face. “David. He was the youngest. Died young.”

  “When did he die?”

  “Just after you were born. 1988. Why?” He sipped his Bordeaux while seeming to consider where the questions would lead.

  “He was much younger than Papa.”

  “By 15 years, I believe.”

  “And his arm …” I said.

  “It was amputated, right before World War II. Dad said it was bone cancer. Very dangerous work in 1939.”

  “No one talks about him. There weren’t any letters from him in any of the boxes I looked through today.”

  My father took a long gulp of his wine. His dark brown eyes glazed over, and he peered out through the darkness at the fields beyond.

  “Uncle David led a strange life. My parents rarely spoke of him.” He proceeded to talk for an hour about what he remembered of David and what rumors about the man had circulated among the family. My father spoke of a man that he felt a connection with beyond mere kinship. “Both black sheep,” he said with a smile.

  In a tiny kitchen of a small ranch house on a large plot of land, a dead man sprung to life, a man who flouted rules and desperately tried to find a place where he could build his own life, a man who was impossibly quiet, reserved, and secretive, a man who had never opened his heart to anyone, a man who had been the center of family gossip for decades, a man who had died far too young.

  I went to bed, in the former porch turned smallest bedroom imaginable, I had as a child. The bed had changed. My mural: painted over. My mother did not stand, sneering from the next room. The schoolbooks and boxed Lord of the Rings set were long gone. My Saint Bernard didn’t jump up outside and rest his paws on the windowsill. But the carpet was the same as were the sounds of the crickets and cottonwoods blowing in the wind and the occasional stately hoot of a great horned owl.

  I heard her voice, my mother’s, screeching at me she could “spit nails” and the utter disappointment I was. She screamed in my ear while I stared, unblinking, at the ceiling.

  It reverberated in my mind. Our broken family—literally arguing over a deathbed. I wanted anything … something … to distract me, to take away the pain of her betrayal.

  I tossed and turned and tried to find a comfortable spot on the twin mattress. I reached out to touch him, my steadfast husband; but my fingers only curled around empty sheets. I buried my head in the pillow, soaking the cotton with my homesickness. I needed him with me, but he was busy taking care of our new life—our child—while I walked through the boxes, full of memories, of my old one in the closet of my mind.

  I yearned for sleep, for that blessed relief from reality. My mind drifted over the sonorous words of my father; how he described his uncle. David was cut from the fabric of the family, they who valued ‘decent Christian folk’ and quiet lives lived within the rules. David had yearned for and needed more. And he had paid desperately for it.

  My father’s own story, of his youthful indiscretions and how they had trailed him for years, swirled in my mind. And I, trying to forge my own path and find the balance between faith and feminism and responsibility, found a point where I could relate. But what about David? If I found out whom the letter was to, if I understood him … would he break his silence … for me?

  I woke to one of those momentary bouts of amnesia, unable to comprehend where I was. The room spun around me. The bed was empty, but for my tightly curled body, and the house was an unfamiliar quiet at 8 a.m. when it should have been full of the sounds of my daughter’s laughter. Then, like the unwelcome scream of a siren too early in the morning, the past week with the sharp, brewing pain of my grandmother’s passing.

  The pale sunlight filtered through the kitchen window as I pulled a gray sweatshirt over my head and clunked a Starbucks Edinburgh mug down on the counter in front of the coffee pot.

  “Sorry, I haven’t started it yet,” my father said coming in through the back door. He was wearing a neoprene jacket over a thick wool sweater. His red eyes were sunken underneath black circles of too many sleepless nights.

  “That’s all right, I can manage.”

  He walked over to the table and sat down heavily, staring out, yet again, at his fields, his face a mask of pain.

  “We were talking about David yesterday,” I began, thinking guiltily of the letter tucked into the bottom of my suitcase.

  “Yeah, what else do you want to know?”

  “I’m just curious. What happened to him? Why didn’t anyone—I mean family—ever talk about him?”

  My father leaned back and contemplated the wall behind me before sneaking a glance at the coffee maker.

  “David was a hard nut to crack. I don’t think that he ever felt as strongly about the Christian faith as the rest of his family did and that was difficult for him. And then, of course, he left, to teach English in Paris. One of the universities, I’m not sure which,” he trailed off.

  “What—wow.”

  “Mmmhmm,” he said absently, and sighed as the thick black liquid swirled around his mug. “David left after college, and—reading between the lines—it didn’t go over well with his family.”

  “He taught English?”

  “He had a degree in English and French, spoke it fluently.” He trailed off; his mind seemingly stuck in another place and time. Then he turned to the stove and started breakfast.

  After a silent meal, I tugged on my peacoat and went outside. I hopped down the sandstone path, avoiding the mud. It was startling, the changes that had taken place so quickly after my mother moved out. Gone were the weeds that surrounded a wasp-infested wreck of a tree. Gone was the freezer that froze nothing and sat like an abandoned warehouse next to the garage. Gone were the horses and the sun bleached tack. She had cluttered our lives with her trash and broken vestiges of sanity and now it was all being cleared away … swept up and taken to the dump where it belonged.

  I walked around the cottonwood, so wide ten people couldn’t link arms around it. My dog was buried underneath it. I used to sit here as a child, completely hidden from view, nestled into the bark arms of the tree where bald eagles and owls nested.

  The naked fields lay stretched out before me, their grasses not more than three inches tall, chewed down by herds of ever ravenous cows. Winter is the strangest time on a farm. The fields are frozen. The animals just want to huddle together. The troughs freeze, and sometimes you have to take an ax to the ice. It’s like a long weekend, a chance to regroup and heal overworking, ageing bones, before work begins again.

  But that part of my life had ended. I don’t work fields anymore or birth lambs or use bailing twine to fix dilapidated fences. I live in a house overlooking the ocean. My life is calm. I don’t live in a storm anymore. But my grandparents … they are both gone and I ache for them.

  Did they really sweep David under the rug? Did they really try to hide who he was and what he did with his life? I lean farther back, listening the stomp of heavy boots, as my father loads hay into a wooden wheelbarrow to feed the horses.

  If I squeeze myself in a fold of the tree, I’m practically invisible. I’ve spent most of my life being invisible, invisible within the framework of my family. I know what it’s like, to have people whispering about you, to constantly worry that you’re in their good books. Can I change that for David? Can I answer those questions? Can I find that invisible person and stand beside him and say, ‘I know what it’s like’?

  It was inevitable, I suppose, what happened next. I pried myself out of the tree and stomped my cramped legs and dialed my husband.

  “Jared,” I said, still stomping, “how would I trace someone who worked fifty-five years ago at a university in Paris?” A long silence met me.

  “I … uh, what?”

  “I suppose I could call them all,” I said, pausing. “Do you think they have records that go back that far?”
/>   “What happened?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  He chuckled, his laugh sounding like a dozen little marbles falling on a floor. “I can tell in your voice, you’re up to something.”

  “I found … well I’m not sure what I found, but I haven’t told Dad. I want to figure out what it means before I do.”

  “Are you going to tell me?” he asked.

  “It’s a letter. But I have no idea who it’s actually to.”

  “I don’t even have to ask,” he said. Over the line our daughter yelled out for her daddy.

  “Tell her I miss her, and I love her.”

  “I will.” And the line went silent.

  I trudged back to the house and took my laptop out to the deck, a white wool scarf wrapped thickly around my neck. It took an hour, but I managed to track down the phone numbers. They sat in front of me like gatekeepers in their neat rows. It took another hour to track down the right person in the right department at the right time to finally get a “non” to David’s past employment. On and on through my list I plowed. It was almost too late to call Paris. Then, even though there’s no statistical probability upholding the notion that you’ll find what you’re looking for in the last place you try—for me, that’s just where it was.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Rachael – October 2015

  “ALLÔ?”

  “BONJOUR MADAME. PARLEZ-vous anglais?” I asked. The woman’s voice on the other end was clipped but welcoming.

  “Oui. How may I help you?”

  “I received your number from the records department. My name is Rachael Golike and I’m looking for a former employee of yours, David Golike. He would have worked in the early sixties.”

  “I would have to look in ze archives.”

  “I don’t mind waiting,” I said eagerly. I could almost see her smile across the thousands of miles and the ocean and the language that separated us.

  “What did he do here?”

  “He taught English.”

  “Ah …” she said, then, “I will go check, un moment.”

  The line went quiet. The sounds of birds, the mooing of cows, and the crunch of gravel on the road as a truck flew past,a solemn reminder that I was not in Paris. The minutes ticked by and an image of the archives at the Université de Paris came unbidden into my mind: a long tunnel like room, a woman rising from her cream colored desk and walking down an aisle, its floor covered in soft chinks of window light, that illuminated an occasional pair of feet that padded by–all places so filled with history must be spiritual.

  “Madame?”

  “Yes?”

  “Golike, G-O-L-I-K-E?”

  As she spelled out the name, I slowly forgot how to breathe.

  “Yes.”

  “He was employed and taught at the Sorbonne. If you give me your email address, I can send over the documents.”

  “Yes … merci,” I stammer.

  “Je vous en prie,” she said and barely a minute later I hang up, disconnecting from a different universe–the archives department France’s best university.

  “Whom were you talking to?”

  My mind seized up. I hid the phone behind my back and scooted up in the chair.

  “Hey, Dad.” He smiled and threw his keys down on the table. “No one. It’s not important.”

  “You were speaking French.”

  “Oh, just someone from school.” I smiled.

  It wasn’t entirely untrue. He frowned, a very parental stare crossing his face.

  “You’ve been talking to other people about David.” It’s not a question.

  “I have …” I started, “just family though, some of your cousins.”

  “What’s brought all this on?”

  I fiddled with my hands and tried to make it seem as though I were just rubbing warmth into them.

  “I’m curious. He was so different. No one in our entire family has ever done what he did. It’s almost impossible to do now: live off the family grid. Why was that so important to him? Was he hiding something?”

  “I think it’s more than just curiosity.”

  “What do you mean?” He stared at me for a long moment, considering his thoughts.

  “Your grandmother just died, you mother and I are divorcing, and I think you’re searching for something else to occupy your mind so you don’t have to think about it. Or moving. Or the fact your husband and daughter aren’t here.”

  “Don’t you want to know?” I asked as I leaned across the table. His tired eyes closed and he gave a little huff.

  “Of course, I’d like to know. I just don’t know whether I should know.”

  “But …”

  “Rachael, he was an immensely private person.”

  “I have this … feeling that there’s more to it—more to the story.”

  “I don’t think you should.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because some things are best left undisturbed.”

  “You’re worried about what I’ll find?”

  He bit his lip, “He … died a really strange death. He was alone. He didn’t speak to anyone.”

  “So a strange death means I should stop?” I said slowly.

  “You’re missing the point.”

  “You’re obfuscating,” I said doggedly.

  “I think he died of AIDS,” he said with the air of dropping a bombshell.

  “So?”

  “I don’t think that’s something that you need to dig up.”

  “If he died of AIDS, it’s a tragedy. He was still a person, still a member of our family, and he didn’t deserve to be disowned because of it.”

  “It was a different generation, a different way of thinking,” he said.

  “It sounds like you still think that way,” I said icily.

  He puffed up like a balloon, his anger rose inside of him, coloring his cheeks. I knew we were headed for an argument. I put up my hands in surrender and walked away. The door to the house closed not long after and I set off down the road, left with only my thoughts out in the cold, watching the grass sway in the icy winter breeze and the clouds spreading across the horizon like a dull gray sheet.

  January 1970

  “NEXT WEEK WE WILL begin role playing. This is an exceptional way to improve your fluidity while speaking. On my desk are handouts with words and phrases I’d like you to work on when you are speaking with your partner. Practice is only one key to perfection—the other is challenge. Challenge yourself and you won’t be disappointed. Good evening and have a good weekend,” David waved a hand adieu.

  One by one the students picked up their papers and filed out of the room. Many of them were older than he was, but they thanked him for the lesson with smiles on their faces nonetheless. He bent over to pick up his briefcase from the floor.

  “Good lesson, professor,” said a throaty voice from above.

  “Gilbert, I thought you left.” David stood, careful to give the French pronunciation of the name, and smoothed his hair. His cheeks reddened as Gilbert’s gaze drifted across his left shoulder.

  “I wanted a quiet word.”

  Gilbert de Granville was tall, muscular without being overly large, and possessed the easy grace of a self-assured man who could charm anyone he met.

  “Please,” David said, motioning for Gilbert to continue. Gilbert perched on the side of the desk one hand mussing his dark hair.

  “How long have you been in Paris?”

  “Ten years, almost to the day.”

  “Still in the little apartment?”

  “Yes.” David looked at Gilbert from the corner of his eye. The man was always impeccably dressed in couture suits and soft leather shoes. But Gilbert’s English was perfect, he really had no use for further lessons. Beyond Gilbert’s obvious wealth, David was dubious about his sudden interest and found the small talk exhausting.

  “I saw you at the opera last month. I didn’t peg you as a music lover.”

  “Indeed,
” David said, closing his satchel with a snap. “Is there anything else?”

  “Calm down, cowboy,” Gilbert said, smiling crookedly. “This is only an invitation for you to come to a club in Paris. You won’t find anything like it, anywhere else …” When David stared in confusion, Gilbert rushed on, “It’s called Black Paris. An underground jazz club, a leftover from the 20s, with the prettiest women, the best drinks, and, of course, the world’s best music.”

  “Black Paris …”

  “Go there. Get out of your apartment and this university. Go find life. When you’ve done that you can thank me.”

  “You won’t be coming?” David said, as though the question weren’t really of any consequence.

  “I failed in my estimation of you as an opera lover but, if you’ll excuse my inadvertent rudeness, you are a lonesome sod. Drop the wallflower persona—and forget about that,” Gilbert said, waving in the general direction of David’s missing arm.

  “Exactly how should I ‘forget about that’?”

  There was something underneath Gilbert’s self-possession. Perhaps it was the way he looked now, almost gleeful at to have someone to order around. David leaned away, Gilbert closing the new space between them.

  “You aren’t dying, you are educated and you are in Paris. Who let an amputation stop them from enjoying Paris?” Gilbert narrowed his eyes, thrusting his finger at David’s chest. His eyes blazed and David recoiled even further.

  “Here are instructions for getting to the club. Go tonight. I’ll meet you Saturday night. The bartender’s name is Louis, he knows who I am,” Gilbert said, his tone softening, but he still thrust the sheet of paper at David rather hard.

  “Why on earth do you care if I don’t have a life?” David shouted.

  Gilbert said nothing but sauntered from the room, the crooked grin still in place.

  David stood where he was, paper in hand, listening to the cadence of Gilbert’s step as it echoed down the deserted corridor. Beyond the small room where he taught English, sounds of life could be heard—laughter and deep sighs of frustration. Gilbert’s face swam in his mind, the sneer in his eyes, the outright disgust at David’s introversion.