Lives Paris Took

by Rachael Wright

  He was going to be sick. How could Gilbert do this? The timing couldn’t be worse. David hung his head, sorely wishing he wouldn’t have stopped, that he could have gone on holiday without this looming over him.

  “I shan’t tell him,” Georges whispered.

  “No. Don’t tell him. Under any circumstance,” David said, hitching a smile on his face in false bravado.

  Georges shook, his hands trembled at his sides.

  “Georges, are you quite all right?” David asked, reaching around to the older man and gripping his shoulder.

  “I … I just remembered … “

  “David?” a voice called out.

  The door to the office opened and the two men froze. Dark spots gathered, obscuring David’s view of the door. His head felt too warm, too heavy for his body. It lolled back and he could feel his knees giving out-even as he willed them straight.

  It was Catherine. She walked through into the office smiling at the paintings at the wall. Georges stood up, brushing his shirt and straightened his tie. David watched in astonishment as the man in front of him transformed, in a moment, from a broken and terrified man, into a gentleman ready to greet a lady. David could barely wipe the sweat from his own forehead.

  “Bonjour, Georges,” Catherine said, a brilliant smile broke across her face.

  “Bonjour, madame, I am sorry to have kept him.”

  “We should get going, David, if we don’t want to miss the train. Did you get what you came in for?”

  David couldn’t take his eyes off of Georges.

  “David?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m coming.”

  “Good. It was wonderful to see you again, Georges. Please come over for dinner after we are back from Rome, au revoir,” she said.

  Georges kissed the air above her hand, smiled, and gave a throaty “au revoir”.

  “We will talk more when I get back. Any trouble and call me directly at the hotel. You have all of the information,” David whispered as Catherine walked out.

  Georges swallowed hard; his face fell back into deep lines of misery.

  “Of course.”

  “Are you going to be all right?”

  “Quite all right, Sir.”

  “Georges …”

  “Yes?”

  “Enough with the “Sir”.”

  “Of course.”

  David turned to follow Catherine but paused at the door.

  “Georges, I couldn’t do any of this without you. I’m terribly glad we met all those years ago.”

  A small smile broke Georges’ stoic face.

  “If I remember correctly, you tripped over me.”

  “However it happened, I am glad that it did.”

  David left the office, allowing Catherine to wrap her arm in his and lead him back to the taxi, with a still fabricated smile on his face. As the cab pulled from the curb and wound its way around the city, he was sure he was making a terrible mistake.

  A single image burned into his mind. All he could see was Georges’ petrified face–the look of a man cornered, trapped by a foe. But David didn’t get out of the car. He didn’t return to save Georges. He didn’t fight the beast responsible. He was driven to a train station and left for Rome.

  “I’LL BE RIGHT BACK!” David shouted. He skirted around Catherine and past the teeming hoard of holiday-goers.

  “Where are you going? The train will be here!” she shouted at his back.

  David didn’t turn, but made his way in the direction of the restrooms. Once he was out of her sight he made for the nearest phone and hastily dialed Gilbert’s number. He tapped his feet in time to the music playing over the loud speaker. The phone rang and rang. Typical, he thought. The answering machine beeped before he was ready.

  “Gilbert, it’s David, Catherine and I are on our way to Rome. I know you’re probably busy. I thought we might go over taxes when we are both back in town. Leave a note with my landlady if you stop by. Call if there’s an issue.”

  The whole message sounded ridiculous. What was he trying to accomplish? All he knew was that it had become impossible to extricate Georges’ terrified face from his mind. He had left his only friend in a pit with a viper. David stared at the far wall, but his gaze fell on the man standing next to him. As David looked the man suddenly morphed into Georges, his face, his demeanor, the small smile: a smile of misery, disappointment, and pain. David recoiled, gave a hasty smile, and backed away in fear.

  “Where have you been?” Catherine asked as he sat down beside her, his face sweaty and his heart racing.

  “I have to tell you something.”

  David heaved a breath and began, the eerie details that Georges had revealed to him, he now told Catherine.

  “I can’t get his face out of my mind. He was terrified, Catherine. There’s no other way to explain it. What have I done? I’m in business with a crook, a liar, and who knows what else. It’s a nightmare,” he said wearily.

  “Have you talked to him?”

  David looked sideways at her, amazed at her calm tone and bored eyes.

  “Of course I haven’t. I don’t want him to terminate Georges.”

  “Would he?”

  “Without a second thought. He’s never approved of Georges. Gilbert thinks he’s better than everyone else, of course that includes a man who used to be homeless?”

  “Why was Georges so terrified?”

  “Losing his position.”

  “But why?” she asked, leaning over and resting her hand on the bench between them. “You would hire him back in a moment.”

  “It isn’t that simple. Gilbert would see that the money was being taken out of the accounts.”

  “Isn’t that exactly what he’s doing now?”

  “Yes.”

  “So … ” she said, but was interrupted as their train was called.

  David bent down and gathered what bags he could. The crowd pushed this way and that as they met in a large scram at the doors. Catherine was almost bowled over by a beefy father who was too busy barking orders at his young children to notice where he was going. David plopped down on the plush carriage bench and heaved a sigh. Catherine rubbed the spot on her back where the bumbling father had elbowed her.

  “Why haven’t you confronted Gilbert?” Catherine tisked, raised her eyebrows, and gave him a level stare.

  “I only heard about this an hour ago.”

  “I know you. You aren’t going to confront him. You’re going to let him get away with this; all the while he holds an axe over Georges’ head. Do you really think that’s fair to the poor man?”

  David sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What can I do, Catherine? He owns half of the business. I don’t have the money to buy him out. What would I do if he took the clients and left? I’m not all that valuable. We’ve spent seven years building a brand and now it’s complete, he doesn’t need to advertise that one of the owners is an American who taught for a decade at the Université de Paris. Everyone already knows this.”

  “You ought to do something.”

  “If you have any ideas, please don’t hesitate to tell me.”

  Catherine huffed, leaned back, and crossed her arms.

  “I know you. You’ll let him walk all over you and Georges.”

  David opened his mouth, ready to shout her down. He wanted to tell her that life was never so simple and that he couldn’t endanger Georges any more than he already had. The money wasn’t, after all, such an issue that it couldn’t be overlooked.

  He couldn’t tell Catherine that a cloud of doom and unease grew in his mind, drawing ever closer over the four of them: Georges, Gilbert, Catherine, and himself. Gnawing anxiety grew every day and it wrecked havoc with its appetite. He didn’t know what had brought it on, but he knew quite well what kind of man Gilbert was now, even if he had been taken for a fool in the beginning. Nevertheless, the look on Georges’ face remained, and with Catherine’s stony silence, it was all he could concentrate on.

  R
ome was dark when they arrived: dark and humid, the old stone streets expelling the heat of the day. Catherine asked, with no great enthusiasm, if they should go out for dinner but David shook his head, anxious for the relief that sleep would bring.

  They lay in bed, later that night, the windows thrown open to tempt a breeze; the thin wailing of scooters became more and more infrequent as the night drew on. Under the thin cotton sheets, David took turns staring at the ceiling, the wall, and Catherine. She looked so peaceful, the ivory satin of her pajamas laying on her curves like a second skin.

  He cast his mind back to their first night, back to when it felt as if every moment without her was a half-life. Had they been that alive, that happy? Was there a time when nothing else mattered? How did they get here? How did they fall into such heavy silence? Memories and dreams pooled in his mind until the two were indistinguishable, and he couldn’t tell when he finally drifted away into the dark recesses of sleep.

  “YOU’RE STILL HERE.”

  DAVID blinked. The room was so bright he had to turn his head into his pillow, covering his eyes. It gave him a head ache to think about arguing this early in the morning. A great clattering was drifting up from the street below, cars and scooters alike blaring their horns. Romans cackled with laughter as they opened their stalls and stores for the day. How could he have slept through it? Now that he was awake, the noise was deafening.

  “Where else would I be?”

  “You’re prone to running off.”

  “Touché,” he said, prizing himself from the clutches of the bed and heading into the bathroom.

  “Don’t be too long. I want to see everything.”

  He looked back. Catherine was standing by the window, arms crossed over her chest. In her thin nightgown and bare feet and with the sun shining behind her, she glowed–she had always glowed. It was hard to believe that a woman so spectacularly beautiful had chosen to cast her lot with him. Every part of him wanted her, desire flooded his mind like a drug. His mouth opened and words, unbidden flew to his lips.

  He choked them back, saying instead, “Come in with me.”

  She cocked her head and stared at him, and he thought she might refuse, but she pulled the thin straps from her shoulders; let the nightgown slide over her body, and pool on the floor.

  “THAT WAS LOVELY,” SAID Catherine. Her arm was looped through his and they strolled out of the hotel, smiling in the sun.

  David grinned, enjoying the images Catherine’s words had conjured, but the moment of madness, as he was now calling it, worried him. He’d made it clear for years now that marriage wasn’t an option. Catherine had always agreed, though David thought she was just waiting for him to change his mind. It wasn’t her fault that marriage wasn’t a possibility. It was his fault. Something stopped him, stopped him from giving in, and he hated himself for it.

  It was easier in Rome, than back home in Paris, to forget. As they made their way down the busy streets of Rome toward St. Peter’s Basilica, David simply let the guilt fall away. Perhaps it would stay here in Rome and get trampled underfoot by many thousands of tourists.

  They walked on; the sun beat down on the back of their exposed necks, turning skin red. They paused to eat a pizza, before entering Vatican City. David slunk down in the seat, grateful for the relief that the shade of the awning offered. They hardly spoke over pizza and white wine and David took to staring out over the street, watching people as they strode by.

  The towering site of the basilica loomed into view. Catherine grew somber, her eyes wide with wonder and joy. It was difficult not to be moved as they walked across the vast columned Piazza San Pietro. Catherine stopped abruptly, David almost running into her, to gaze at the towering obelisk in the center of the piazza. She looked up and began to cry.

  “Catherine …”

  “Don’t mind me,” she said, pushing past him.

  He maintained a respectful distance as she entered the basilica. She peeled off, following a smaller line of tourists. When she didn’t reappear after a few minutes, David wandered the vast cathedral, staring often in wonder at the opulence. It certainly had a way of reminding the soul of the glory of God and the magnanimity of the church.

  David left the basilica an hour later in deep contemplation. He plopped wearily down on the vast steps leading back down into the piazza and stared across its vastness. Rome was wider, grander, and deeper than Paris. The heart of Christendom on earth met strangely with ancient paganism. It was more than one person could take in one day. His mind overflowed with paintings, statues, and great works of art. He couldn’t begin to comprehend it all. But the art, St. Peter’s itself, called to him with strange voices, whispering.

  “There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”

  David looked up, shading his eyes. Catherine stood above him, affixing her hat more securely to her thick brown curls. She sniffled a bit as she fumbled with the hatpin.

  “I wanted you to have peace.”

  “I did. Thank you.”

  “Why did you go outside?” Catherine said, tripping on a discarded Pepsi can.

  “To process.”

  “Your mind is quite wonderful,” Catherine said, beaming at him. “Most people would just continue on, unseeing, unfeeling in the face of it all. That has never been you. I’m quite in awe.”

  David blushed, quite unable to speak, too embarrassed to tell her what the paintings had whispered. Catherine led them through the streets, her Italian was much better than his own, and soon she found a gem of a restaurant, tucked away from the pooling crowds of tourists.

  “I HAVE SOMETHING TO tell you,” she said.

  They were seated at metal tables inside the bustling restaurant, close to where the windows spilled out onto the street. All around them, Italian couples and small families were at their meals, chatting merrily away and helping themselves to platters of bread and mountains of pasta while the wine flowed.

  “What is it?”

  Catherine wiped her mouth with the black napkin, making a chore of placing it just perfectly on her lap. A lively violinist played in the corner and two children clapped along.

  “The restaurant is almost fully funded.”

  David blinked, then blinked again. Catherine grinned in a nervous sort of way. For some terrible reason, jealousy or worry, her words laid scattered in his mind, as though she had flung them.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that,” he said.

  Catherine’s face grew hard, her brown eyes almost black.

  “I have almost all the funding I need for my restaurant.”

  “Why that’s … marvelous. Simply marvelous and after all this time.”

  She softened, her shoulders relaxed, but something remained behind her eyes, a kind of resignation.

  “I’m glad you’re pleased. It’s come primarily from investors. I’ll have to perform well. I refused to get a bank loan … you know how tricky those can be, and there’s no telling whether the restaurant will be a success. There seem to be so many of them now.”

  David reached for his glass of wine and took a long swig.

  “I had no idea you were so close.”

  “You’ve been so busy lately and issues with Gilbert seem to come up every week. I decided it was best to wait to tell you until things were settled.”

  “It’s wonderful for you.”

  “I’ll be gone for a few weeks in the fall. I have vendors from across France who I need to finalize contracts with, and I will also meet personally with the larger investors before I open.”

  He watched, with deep-seeded worry, as Catherine’s face grew more animated.

  “A few weeks?”

  “Yes. The menu … oh I can’t wait for you to try it. It’s so diverse that I need specialty ingredients. Thankfully I don’t have to travel to Russia. I’m sourcing specialty wine from Alsace and Burgundy; I want to visit the wineries where each wine is made. I want to have a connection with my vendors, to know their families, their business, and th
eir way of life. I want my customers to know what they are eating and where it is from.”

  “Perhaps, I should come with you.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t ask that of you. I don’t know when exactly I’ll get back, and it will be a whirlwind trip. I wouldn’t want you to be neglected while I have meetings all day. Plus, you have more clients than you can manage,” she said, reaching across the table to cradle his hand in hers.

  David watched her closely. When she smiled, he smiled and when she took a drink, he drank as well. It was strange, this inability to form his thoughts into coherent sentences. It was frightening to think of Catherine being unavailable.

  Their relationship, apart from summer holidays, was largely spontaneous, rare nights when they weren’t working or busy with clients or mornings when David didn’t have a meeting. But with Catherine gone it would be a return to the first ten years of his life in Paris. There would be no one to see, nothing to do. Everyone he knew, he knew because Catherine had first introduced them. There was no one outside of her. Even Georges had his circle of Army friends, whom he’d tracked down over the past few years.

  “Please say you’re glad for me,” she whispered.

  He looked up, unaware that his gaze had drifted to the hardwood floor, the noise of the restaurant faded away.

  “I am glad, terribly glad. You know I’ll miss you.”

  “Yes, but think of what I’ll be doing! And soon we will be able to view the properties I have in mind. My mind is whirling with all the possibilities: furniture, the paint, and the stain of the wood, the white plates, the crystal goblets, and the silverware. My heart feels as though it might burst, I am so happy.”

  “What did you have in mind?” he asked.

  David clung to her description of the restaurant like a lifeline. Perhaps if he could get her talking about it, she would talk all through dinner and he wouldn’t have to try and bully his mind into cooperating. He reeled from the idea of Catherine gone. It wasn’t so much that he needed her everyday but that she was there, somewhere in the city.

  “Classic beauty but not ostentatious, elegant but approachable. Perhaps like home on Christmas Day when your mother has set the table with the finest china and goblets and the silver candlesticks and the whole house smells of childhood and love and memories. A place where it is only possible to smile and laugh.”