Lives Paris Took

by Rachael Wright

  “There is another signer on the account and it looks as though funds stopped being deposited into the account for the past two months. Reoccurring checks have been written out as salary for the signers thus the account was rapidly depleted.”

  The banker was calm. Too calm, David thought, for a man telling another man that all of his money was gone. David mulled over the situation: the funds, which stopped being deposited. It pointed to one place–Gilbert.

  “You have a savings account which hasn’t been touched. We can move those funds to your checking account which will enable you to clear checks.”

  “It’s savings. I thought I’d …”

  “Ah,” the banker fidgeted at his desk, his long thin fingers curling and uncurling around a black pen.

  “Transfer the funds,” David barked and barreled his way out of the bank.

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER HE stood in silence, staring at Gilbert’s apartment building. Anger seethed, feeding a fury as he walked unseeing from the bank.

  He mounted the stairs. Anger fed his resentment, and he was ready. Now would be the moment, he would hang Gilbert on his own cord. He stopped at the apartment door. Loud boisterous voices came through from the other side. With a shaking hand he pounded on the door. It echoed across the landing, and the voices beyond abruptly ceased.

  “David, old boy.” Gilbert leaned heavily on the door, peering at him with clouded, drunken eyes.

  “We need to talk,” David said pushing past Gilbert, and knocking him off balance.

  Gilbert ricocheted off the wall and began to laugh. Whipping around, David saw other men, dropped over couches and chairs, rolling in bottles of booze.

  “You finally figured it out.” Gilbert clutched his knees, and doubled over with laughter.

  David sneered. Drunk well before eleven am, this was a feat, even for Gilbert.

  “What have you done?”

  Watching Gilbert in his drunken mirth, David felt the full weight of the betrayal drop on him. The multiple trips to the bank, his constant absence from the office, his treatment of Georges, it was all for the same end. Gilbert straightened with a great deal of effort and looked David in the eye.

  “I’m amazed it took you this long to figure out, but then again I didn’t take into account your perfect timing in destroying your relationship with Catherine. That worked out nicely. You were too busy, too trusting, and then too heartbroken to care much about what I was doing. You really were the perfect mark.”

  David bristled as Gilbert walked in a slow circle around him, like a cat readying to pounce.

  “A young, naive, bruised American boy with no friends and no family. It was easy to mold you into my own pet. I brought you out of your pathetic self-absorption. I did all the work. You wouldn’t have ever thought of starting your own business without me. Taking the money, that was the easy part. You would still be at the Sorbonne, a balding, slightly pudgy, one armed old man teaching pensioners English.”

  Gilbert paused waiting for David’s reaction. But David stood dumbfounded. Every line he had prepared, every malediction, of what use was it now? Gilbert just continued his sycophantic laughter and lurched at a decanter on the sideboard.

  “Nothing to say? That’s right David, just stand there and let us take everything away from you. I could always count on you being a coward,” Gilbert said.

  “And what would you call a man who steals money from behind his business partner and friend’s back?”

  “I’d call him a genius, because you see, I didn’t just take the money. I took all the clients as well. You have nothing left.”

  “What?”

  Dark spots peppered David’s vision. His heart beat frantically–the loss, if it were true, would be insurmountable. He couldn’t fathom it. It wouldn’t move past the block in his mind.

  “Those clients, they are all connected in some way or another to me. My family connections worked well for this con. They wouldn’t dream of crossing me, of putting their social standing at risk–with what I could divulge. And of course, your name has been tainted, no one in a hundred mile radius will hire you. So you see, I don’t need you anymore. You’ve been made redundant. Now, I think it would be a good idea if you left so we can return to our celebrations,” Gilbert said. He flicked his hand at David as though he were a fly to flick out the window.

  “You can’t do this.”

  “I’ve already done it, David. It’s time to face up to what you are. Twenty years in Paris and you’re worse off than when you started. Go back home to the family that can’t stand you. Tell them you failed–as they knew you must.”

  Gilbert lurched forward again and pushed David to the door, shoving and drunkenly growling. At some point two of his guffawing cronies heaved themselves off the couch and began to help. David could no more fight them, than to regain everything he had lost during the course of the year. They hit him; sharp angry jabs at his ribs while he tried to beat them off. They deposited him shuddering and gasping for breath on the floor of the landing. The heavy door swung shut with a resounding crash and the drunken laughter resumed.

  He fled the landing and just managed to find a park before collapsing on a wrought iron bench. The world now bore witness to his shame, his embarrassment, and his failure. Tears fell on his miserable face, there was no one he hated more in the world than himself. Catherine was gone. Gilbert had swindled him. Georges must be back on the streets. And here he was on a park bench, crying because he’d ruined it all.

  He’d missed all the signs. He’d refused to allow Catherine a child, refused marriage. Yet he’d been perfectly happy to accept everything else from her. He’d used her: for sex, for love, for comfort, for advice, for care, for stroking his ego. And the one thing she asked for in return, he wouldn’t give. If this was life–if this was all he could ever expect, what point was there in living?

  DAVID PAID JEANNE. HE called the bank every day for a week to see if she had cashed the check. A month later, the check had never cleared the bank. Even with the charity from his landlady, David’s funds rapidly disappeared.

  At noon on September 1, bells from the cathedrals rang out over the city. Their notes echoed off the cobblestone streets and marble façades and inside David’s mind. People walked hither and thither about the city, smiling and laughing as the fallen leaves cracked like many bells underfoot. Mothers laid out blankets for picnics as bustling men in suits hurried toward nearby cafes to conduct business.

  During the lunch hour the city was vibrantly alive. But David gazed over the autumnal scene with unseeing eyes. Time had stopped, frozen in a strange limbo. David walked in a haze. He could hardly badger his battered mind into rational thought. He walked on, so absorbed in his own thoughts, in his own woes, that he didn’t hear the voice at first.

  “A few francs for a fellow man?” a gravely voice repeated.

  The voice was faint, as though coming from a great distance. David looked down and met the sad eyes of one of Paris’ clochards. He was short with long grey hair and a humorously small button nose. Pain seized David’s throat. How could he have forgotten to see Georges? He’d left him adrift in the office. The only person in the world he was responsible for and he’d let Georges suffer. Why would Catherine want anything to do with him? It was no wonder Gilbert had taken the business. I’m a complete wastrel, David thought as he pulled out his wallet.

  “I only have a few francs,” David said, wincing at the almost empty slot.

  “Il imports peu,” the tramp said, disappointed but refusing to beg further. He clutched his thin coat closer around him and began to shuffle off down the street.

  Though the October afternoon was cool, the man’s hands looked almost blue and he swayed as he rose to his feet. Not as Gilbert had swayed, but as a man famished and worn down by walking and sleeping in the cold.

  “Je suit désolé,” David said and put his hand out to stop the man. “I only meant that what is mine is yours. Café, Monsieur?” David motioned to the nearby bis
tro.

  “Patric,” the man said, pointing his finger at his chest.

  David smiled, introduced himself and led Patric across the park.

  “Magnifique,” Patric said minutes later as he popped a piece of croissant into his mouth and then turned his attention to the large bowl of soup in front of him.

  A deep content smile broke over Patric’s face. David swirled his coffee, much too nauseous to eat.

  “You look much more unhappy than you have any right to be, young man,” Patric said, in a deep guttural voice.

  David looked up and found Patric had abandoned the croissant, and was now staring intensely at him.

  “C’est la vie.”

  “Zat is wrong,” Patric said and shook his head, sending his long strands of grey hair swinging. “La vie is meant to be lived and enjoyed. Not mourned away.”

  “The woman I have loved for ten years has sent me away, my partner conned me out of my own business, and I have no money, nothing to show for all of my time here. I have failed and I have only myself to blame.”

  “Ach, but failure is ze choice to sit down and never get up. Zat is failure. You have not given up. Or else why take a smelly old man like me out for café? You care and you see what is before you with clear eyes. I was once a great man, but I too lost much. There is only one way to move and zat is forward.” Patric stood up and placed a comforting hand on David’s shoulder: a fatherly gesture.

  He looked at David with pity for a few moments, then, gathering up the remaining half of his croissant, he left the bistro. David watched him walk across the park, much more steady on his feet. It was such a strange, quick encounter that it almost couldn’t have been real, and yet, across the table was a white cup with a drop of coffee rolling down the side.

  David left the bistro not long after, setting off in the opposite direction of Patric. He could think of nothing but Georges: the man who had spent his life serving his country, only for it to turn its back on him. And now, Gilbert had done the same to both of them. They were thrown out like last night’s trash.

  DAVID WALKED FOR HOURS, even after a blister formed on the pinky toe of his right foot. Leaves swirled across the path, and the air grew cool, warning Parisians that winter was on its way. The smell of roasting chestnuts and baking bread assaulted him in front of a bakery, and then the dazzling odorous mix of lavender and roses and lilies and hydrangeas outside a florist.

  Paris was a city of contradictions: the bright glittering halls of Versailles against the backdrop of the slums of the outer arrondissements; the tourist attractions of the Louve, Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame and the cramped working quarters of the middle classes. The bright, clean marble of the historical city center and the streets that had not ever seen a wash. The morning debauchery of wealthy crooks and the cold starving totter of a clochard.

  He walked without purpose, cemented in his own mind. What had become of his dreams? What had happened to the boy who arrived here? Was he the man who plastered on a smile when family passed through town on their way to church assignments in Africa? Was he the weakling Gilbert and Catherine believed him to be? Was he really baggage too onerous to carry around?

  The afternoon walked by, moment-by-moment the sky cleared, the light from the setting sun cast a pale golden hue on the entire city. Light filtered through everything, as if it revealed some hidden celestial quality. Beams strode through the streets; he could hold out his hand and with his arm in shadow could cup a bit of radiance.

  He stood for so long, staring at his outstretched palm, that he drew the attention of a passing man: a tall well-built man with an olive complexion and dark hair. The stranger’s camel colored wool coat caught in the wind, drawing David’s eye to a large bunch of pink roses, wrapped in paper, in the man’s left hand. He looked quizzically at David for a moment, his thick eyebrows rose in acknowledgement, and he hurried across the street with a wide smile, moving with precision, even in his apparent haste.

  “David!” the voice rang out through the clear twilight.

  David shuddered back into reality. He recognized the voice and had turned around without conscious thought. His eyes bulged in their sockets and the hand that had so tenderly cupped golden rays was now clenched in fear.

  “David!” the man called once again.

  Her father.

  Catherine’s father.

  Ilya.

  David whirled around and caught sight of a bus, on the far side of the street. Three strides took him across the park and another four brought him on board. Ilya stood dumbfounded in the spot David had just vacated. In the moment before the bus drove off, David caught a glimpse of a square, red velvet jewelry case in Ilya’s other hand. He looked morosely at the departing bus.

  The look on Ilya’s face would haunt David for another decade. Ilya’s eyes were wide, pained, and as the bus drew around the corner, his head drooped and shook slightly from side to side.

  THE BUS PITCHED AND rolled in the opposite direction of his apartment. David fell against the worn seat, twitching to move away from the side where the metal supports had worn through the upholstery. Clutching his chest, he stared unseeing at the passing streets.

  His mind buzzed. Memories played on a never-ending loop. The moment he woke up from surgery when he was five, the first time his father had told him to stay inside because he’d be no use on the farm, the bullying at school, his mother’s emotional retreat when he left for Paris, Gilbert’s drunken laughing about cheating him out of the business, and the look in Catherine’s eyes when he refused a new family.

  The barrage of memories wore on and by the time the bus stopped in a far-flung arrondissement, he was numb. The pain of forty-five years weighed on him like a millstone. He walked for hours. He walked until his feet went numb. It had become a vicious cycle, wandering the streets of Paris. It happened so often that there was little left to tempt him out of his mind.

  In the dim glow of streetlights, David found himself next to the Seine. The black water swelled and pitched in the dim haze from the moon, and it looked like the very gates of hell. It was hypnotic, the shimmers of light glinting off the tips of each small wave. He was pulled onward, desperate to inch closer for a better view.

  The malformed reflection of a weary traveler looked back at him. What hope was there for life? Catherine’s last words to him spoke more truth than even she knew. He was a coward, a coward who hid behind the pain of his past and the disappointment he left in his wake. A victim for so long that now he actually believed that he was owed a measure of repayment. He had thrown away the only woman he loved, and would ever love. Was it fear? But then, did it matter? She was gone. They were gone. The future was gone.

  “I can’t,” David said to the sky and wept, longing for his mother, for the touch of her hand on his, for her strong will.

  The Seine called to him. A cold, watery grave of silence. If he jumped, the current would catch his ankle and pull down with irresistible force, his lungs would burn with a desire for air and he would take a breath. The water would rush in. In a matter of minutes, it would be over.

  A quick death was all that was left to him. There was no love, no hope for redemption. He walked to the edge, the toes of his leather boots hung over the bank, the pale orange glow of the lamps giving them an otherworldly look. Warmth seeped out of every pore until he felt as though he were drowning already. He looked once more at the river, which would soon swallow him and bear the pain away. As he inched forward, the soles of his loafers scrapped on the cobblestones. Tears welled in his eyes, and he blinked, trying to see. Then, in the distance, light glinted on the ground. A small beam of light. A quiet light.

  He turned his head, never understanding why. There was a small mass on the ground. One step, then two, then another, and David was right on top of it. It was dark, but the light of the lamps flickered off gold lettering. Fingers twitching, he leaned over, in a moment that seemed to last a lifetime, or rather the immeasurable distance between life and death. For he kn
ew what the shape was, knew from the moment he turned to its reflected light. It must have dropped off a booksellers cart; forgotten amidst the bustle of the day.

  The book was heavy and new. Its leather cover was still warm from the heat of the day. La Sainte Bible. Losing all feeling in his legs, David collapsed onto the riverbank. An invisible hand crushed his chest. A howl of misery broke the night air. He looked around, searching for the source, until he realized it was his mouth open. He screamed. Shuddering, he careened back from the edge of the river, scraping his hand on the rough paving stones. He hit his head with a crack on a metal bench. His chest heaved with fear, and he clutched the Bible as a life raft.

  Reality returned steadily from the cold concrete seeping into his bones. He stood up, shaking terribly, and began the long walk home. He took one last look at the Seine. A trembling broke over his mind at the thought of how close he’d come, of the strange feeling of it, teetering on the edge. He could not explain the Bible. It was … David didn’t have a word for it; the book was there and for some reason it was meant to be there.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  October 1979

  DAVID STOOD IN FRONT of Jeanne’s restaurant, reliving memories, before he pulled out an envelope, and slid it under the door to the office. It contained the last bit of rent, and a card thanking Jeanne for her unceasing friendship. If he experienced any guilt over closing the door on a twenty-year friendship with a card pushed under a door, he pushed those pangs away.

  He had tarried for longer than was wise. In the apartment, he sat on the grey couch, and stared at the Bible he’d found along the Seine. But now, he had no excuses. Almost every penny was spent.

  The place had been a home. The apartment had become a sentient being. In twenty years it had not changed at all. It called out in the creaking of the staircase, in the warm light filtering through the gauzy curtains, in the peeling white paint.

  For all the time he had spent here, for all the love in his heart, it was time to leave. With exhausted fingers and a worn-out mind, he reached for the suitcase above the wardrobe. His fingers brushed the heavy coat of dust, and the zippers protested loudly as he pulled them open.