Lives Paris Took

by Rachael Wright

  “That’s settled,” David said to Rick and then raising his voice so that the rest of the group could hear. “All right, Air France will store your luggage until your next flight. Please take your bags to the wonderful young woman at the counter.”

  David’s declaration was met with many cheers and hearty rounds of thanks. It was a few minutes before he could extricate Rick from the throng. They set off a long corridor, blinking every so often in the reflected sunlight from the many parked planes.

  “What did you say to her?” Rick asked with a look akin to wonder.

  “You look lovely today,” David replied.

  “ONE OF THE FINEST cafes in Paris,” David said, an hour later as he and Rick entered the café.

  Madame Jeanne smiled and shook her head as she led them to a corner table. David watched as Rick sat down. He smiled at the way his nephew’s face lit up with the smell of coffee and croissants and the sound of butter melting in a frying pan. The visitor to Paris reinvigorated every Parisian; it made them see the city again, made them savor the food, and to listen as street musicians belting out old songs and new.

  “So what did you actually say to the woman in the airport?” Rick asked again through a mouth full of bouillabaisse and croissant.

  “The truth.”

  “And that was?” Rick asked, leaning back in his chair and surveying David with suspicious eyes.

  “That you are a group of missionaries on your way to Africa and this is your one chance to see Paris and how could they possibly deny so many young Americans this. We must ensure that they return to the United States with glowing reports of our manners and bring more tourism with them.”

  “And?” Rick said as David took a sip of his coffee.

  “And what?”

  “What else? That can’t have been it. And you aren’t French.”

  David rolled his eyes.

  “I might have also told her that my former employer at the Université de Paris is a stakeholder in Air France and would be most interested to hear about a certain representative’s uncooperative nature and lack of customer service.”

  He looked flatly back at Rick–nothing was untrue. Pierre St Claire did hold stock in Air France, just not anywhere near enough to fire anyone.

  “I’m sure they are all very thankful,” Rick said.

  David could sense his disapproval, however slight it might be.

  “Paris shouldn’t be missed,” David said, feeling his mind drift off toward those hidden gems of Paris and the memories that lay in wait there.

  “It’s great to be back. How are you? The business? Tell me.”

  Rick leaned back exactly the same way his father, Robert, used to. David smiled, caught up in the memory of Robert and Delbert alone in the fields tossing hay bales between themselves. Rick cleared his throat on the pretense of getting past a large piece of shellfish, but David knew what the boy was after. It wasn’t difficult, to lie. How long had he’d done it? How long had he carefully sidestepped any personal questions? It was second nature now. Not that he enjoyed it. Sometimes he ached for another person to confide in. The trouble was, that person wasn’t an eighteen-year-old boy.

  “We have so many clients now that most of my day is spent making them happy. They want to prepare for this trip or that trip or such and such client from Germany whose English is better than theirs. Some days it seems all my life consists of is work,” David said with a flippant wave of his hand.

  The bistro twitched and undulated around them, the steam poured from the espresso machines and off the sizzling food like a scene from an opera where the main character is moments away from his doom, and the orchestra is a cacophony of sound.

  But even the pretty Parisian picture could not hide the fact that he was propping up a charade and praying fervently for it to be believed. And yet, a flicker in his heart, a short burst of a coup, he wanted to tell Rick all. He wanted to spill every secret he’d kept, to find one shining moment of peace where he could be himself. It weighted heavily on his conscience. He was no longer David, but a farce, a shadow of the man.

  “I’m sure you have some free time to yourself. You’d be skin and bones if you didn’t.”

  “I live above a bistro, boy. I work so much to keep the weight off.”

  The two men laughed. Rick was free in his laughter, holding his sides as though they might split open. It must be wonderful to be that free with one’s emotions.

  “What about you, Rick? What about the girl you were eyeing at the airport?”

  Rick flushed and pulled at his collar, but his smile was free and unhampered by secrets.

  “I’m well. Before I left, some of the family came, a reunion of sorts. Uncle Delbert, Aunt Marilee, and the boys came up from Colorado. You would have enjoyed it, Uncle David.”

  “Delbert …” David said, his voiced trailing off.

  His brother was now only a memory, the kindly face and the soft voice. Delbert called now and then, but David knew he disapproved. Delbert’s disapproval was the silent sort, a quiet disappointment. It was worse, by far, than Lois’ shouting.

  “He spoke of you. My father complained, saying he wished you wrote more,” Rick said.

  “Yes, well, with family hither and thither, splayed out all over the globe, it’s hard to keep track.”

  The conversation lulled as both men turned their attention to the window. Men bustled in and out of office buildings and women pushed past them with prams, they were a fraction of Paris’ normal traffic. Anyone of means had fled the city in their biannual pilgrimage to the sea or country.

  “Your thoughts seem somewhere else, Uncle David.”

  David looked up and swallowed everything he wished to say.

  “I was debating about what to do with you. Shall we be full tourists or back alley natives?”

  Rick looked like he too was swallowing a thousand questions, but he smiled politely and said he’d like to play the tourist this time. Rick waited outside as David approached Jeanne to pay the bill.

  “Does he know, David?”

  David bowed his head, hiding his face from Jeanne under the pretense of searching his pockets for francs.

  “Know what?”

  “About Catherine.”

  “My family isn’t Parisian, Madame Jeanne,” David said, handing over the francs.

  “That boy loves you. Be honest, cherie. You can’t hide forever.”

  “I’m not hiding. She’s gone. There’s nothing to hide.”

  “I know better than anyone what it feels like to lose someone you love. You’ll lose them all if you aren’t careful.”

  The whisper was so low that David strained to hear it over the melody of sound in the kitchen behind her. She looked fierce, her eyes glistening with tears, her small hands bunched into fists. Leaning across the space between them she whispered, “please,” before drawing back and watching him walk out the door.

  He tried to put on a brave face. But every time Rick turned away to take in the city, David’s mouth dropped and his back hunched in defeat. It was wearisome, this extroverted behavior. He longed for his cool apartment, but he soldiered on, eager to keep the smile on his nephew’s face. They blazed through Parisian landmarks. Rick was a good companion; he even spoke French well enough to draw smiles from some dark-haired beauties that were eating grapes and cheese on the grass and sipping wine along the banks of the Seine.

  It was late evening when he hailed a taxi from outside the airport. Into the warm leather seat he collapsed, wrinkling his nose at the strange odor that permeated the car’s interior, smoke mingled with chewing gum and vomit. The ferrety looking driver barked out, and David answered wearily with his address.

  It seemed that only moments later, he paid the cabman, and watched him tear off down Rue Saint-Jacques. David climbed the stairs to his apartment; his shoulders slumped forward in exhaustion, his shoes scuffing against the smooth wood. The smell of croissants and warm milk floated on the air, dispelling the last trails of stale
vomit from the cab. David put his key into the lock, but rather than listening to the grating drawback of the bolt, it joyfully sprang into place. David tried the door. Locked. He turned the key back again and thrust the door open with a bang.

  HE STOOD ON THE threshold, seething. His eyes darted across the apartment, certain he’d walk in on an intruder. But only the gauzy white curtains moved, swaying in the breeze from an open window. The bedroom was empty. The click of his boots echoed off the whitewashed walls, the sound of his breath pounded in his ears. Even the open windows could not tempt the raucous streets of Paris to give up any gaiety.

  In the torturous silence, life crashed in waves over his mind. It had been a week since he’d seen or heard from Catherine. Almost two weeks of Pierre’s vanishing act. Clients began “divesting themselves of his services”. The fabric of his Parisian tapestry was unraveling, or it was being ripped apart, he couldn’t tell the difference.

  He fell against the kitchen counter and collapsed on to the floor in a manner a Hollywood starlet would have envied. There he lay, staring at the underbelly of the cabinets, crusted with years of grime where no one thought, or could even reach, to clean.

  “David?” a quiet inquiring voice drifted from the doorway.

  He lifted his head, sure that the voice was only his imagination. She had vowed never to come again. Yet, even as he turned toward the door, a hint of Chanel perfume drifted around the room, dispelling the darkness.

  There she stood; her dark hair billowed around the shoulders of her trench coat. Her eyes were bright lamps above her pink cheeks. He was keenly aware of his ridiculous position on the floor. He stood up, but too quickly, lost his balance, and hit the corner of the kitchen counter with his hip. Catherine locked him in her gaze. She didn’t move.

  “Catherine, what a pleasant surprise.”

  She raised her eyebrows. It sounded ridiculous.

  “I’ll just sit, shall I?”

  David shuffled closer to her and hesitated on the patch of floor in front of the sofa. After casting him another look, she patted the cushion beside her. Minute after minute passed by as the former lovers sat side by side, staring at the fireplace. He wanted to break the terrible silence, but he couldn’t move past the barrier in his mind. The moments ticked by and he sat, silent, watching her in his peripheral vision.

  “I didn’t mean to barge in like this.”

  He almost said “what”? Her voice was so low, so strained, that it took a moment for his brain to process what she had said.

  “I don’t mind,” he replied

  “How do you live, seeing the one you love every day and then the next there is no one to see? I feel that now we match.”

  “What do you mean?” David asked, frowning.

  “That I too have lost a limb, now that we have lost each other,” she said, pressing a white handkerchief to her eyes.

  “Catherine.”

  She lifted her eyes and he saw for the first time how red they were. Dark circles marred her features, dark circles that had never been there before.

  “I have to tell you something,” she said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Stop interrupting,” she said with a snarl. “I must say it now before I lose my nerve, before I think better of my decision, before I fear your response. Je suis enceinte…” she said with a great heaving breath. When David did not react she repeated in English. “I’m pregnant.”

  David stared. It was no matter that he spoke French fluently, and had for over half his life. The words washed over him, and though he understood their individual meaning he could not fathom the entire phrase. It was only when she said it in English that he understood.

  How strange was it that a single small sentence could create such confusion. He couldn’t form a response, could hardly marshal his thoughts. The world had suddenly come to a screeching halt and he was thrown wide. “Pregnant” couldn’t just happen. It couldn’t breeze through the doorway of his apartment and flutter down on his couch and come out in polite, if pained, conversation.

  “Say something,” she rasped.

  “You tried to tell me before,” he said.

  His unfocused eyes bored into the wall beyond her dark head.

  “What?”

  “When it ended. You said you had only come to tell me and then you stopped and ran out. This is what you were trying to say?”

  Large tears fell thick and fast into her lap. He knew he had failed her; he had somehow missed a mile marker, something that should have told him what to say and when to say it. He’d become one of “those men”. The men who made their women cry, who ruined their hopes and dreams, and trod over them like wilted grass in a city park. David was sickened. Sickened by his callousness, by his inability to be anything other than a selfish cad.

  “Yes, that’s why I was here,” she said. “I didn’t tell you then because I wanted to give you a chance to fight for me. I didn’t want to entrap you. I didn’t want you to choose to change just because we have created a child.”

  “You were scared.”

  Catherine’s eyes flashed.

  “Bon sang! Of course I was scared: my parents, my job, my future, my restaurant. It is all changed now and I lost you. What have you lost? How has this affected your life, David? You can continue on as if nothing has changed. To be unmarried! To be pregnant. You have no idea how this feels.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “What are you going to do?” She was no longer slumped over or dabbing at her eyes with a soaking handkerchief. Her back was rigid and her hands looked like they were glued to her hips. As he looked beyond the stiffness, there was strength coursing through her. She was ferocious but determined, unmoved by his long silence.

  The answer rose to his lips and he hated himself for the answer. He swallowed: perhaps by postponing the moment, it might never happen, because as soon as his lips opened, everything would change.

  “I can’t … I told you before.”

  She left. She didn’t take out her anger with an open hand. She stood up serenely, smiled sadly, said ‘au revoir’ with her delicate hand wrapped on the handle and disappeared. The door did not slam.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  August 1979

  DAVID HARDLEY EVEN WENT into the office. Georges was taking on more and more of the clients, he was also secretly funneling money into David’s account, but it couldn’t continue forever. David was losing hair and had been so plagued by insomnia the last five months that he had permanent dark circles under his eyes.

  “David, cher.”

  Jeanne appeared behind him on the stairs, as though she had been listening for his step on the landing.

  “Yes?”

  “David, excusez moi for saying this, but your check …” she halted and took a deep breath as though readying herself. “Your check, for this month’s rent, it didn’t clear the bank. It came back denied.” Her face fell as she spoke, and her gaze dropped to her twisting fingers.

  “I don’t know what to say. My apologies for the inconvenience. I’ll stop by my bank tomorrow and make sure you’re paid,” David said, hoisting smile on his face.

  “David, if you’re in trouble, you needn’t worry about the rent,” she walked close to him, laid her hand on his arm and patted it. “You’ve been here so long, I think of you as my son.”

  “Jeanne, you’re too kind.”

  When she finally let him go, David trudged up the stairs, turned the key in the lock, and collapsed against the door as soon as it was shut again.

  The universe, or his father’s God, or whatever it was, was playing out a horrifying joke: first Catherine, then Gilbert’s scam, and now this. His carefully constructed life was collapsing around his ears and his reflexes weren’t quick enough to catch the pieces. What did the bounced check mean? What was the next horror? Little as he wanted to know, David rushed to the phone.

  “Yes, I’m calling about account number, 3352378.”

  “Oui, one moment pleas
e,” a female voice said.

  He stood, frozen by fear, reverting to his old ways; hanging on precipices, quite unable to move.

  A male voice squeaked over the line, “Monsieur?”

  “Oui.”

  “There seems to be an issue with your account. Would you be able to stop by the bank tomorrow morning at ten?”

  “Oui.”

  “Wonderful. Bonsoir.”

  The receiver was clutched to his ear, though the line had long gone dead, sweat rolled down his forehead, pooling onto his collar. Why did he say yes? He’d wanted to know then, not asked to traipse around Paris looking for answers.

  He stood at the window, overlooking the street with unseeing eyes. Standing there, separated from the world, he was reminded of animals in the zoo. Shut behind bars and glass, living on fake grass and lying on fabricated rock. He stood at the window for so long that the apartment was dark before he moved to the bed and collapsed fully clothed.

  David tossed and turned the entire night, unable to squirm into a spot that offered the solace of sleep. He rose, more than once, to walk around the apartment and drink a glass of water. The lack of sleep was addling his mind. Sobs rose to his throat, scratching and clawing. Sleep. It was all he wanted. And finally when he drifted off, Catherine stood in his dream pointing fingers and Gilbert read out poems of his mistakes.

  He woke, soaking wet, his mind reeling.

  “Welcome,” the banker said.

  The suited man motioned David to a chair, in the same squeaky voice he’d had on the phone. He was older, perhaps mid-sixties, with kind eyes and a large black mole on his left cheek.

  “I must admit I’m worried. What you said yesterday …”

  “I am sorry to have to tell you this, but the business account has been liquidated. The payment from that account to your personal account didn’t go through and it’s why there weren’t enough available funds for the check which failed to clear this week.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. I have multiple clients paying per week; the account had thousands of francs in it. I would have known if it had been liquidated. Where has the money gone?”