What She Saw

by Gerard Stembridge

  Bad faith creates bad karma. Lana had never shaken off the belief that there was a terrible link between her behavior in Paris and her miscarriage two months later.

  The arrival of a cyclist interrupts these thoughts, which is fortunate, because by now she has the emotional equilibrium of an overpacked suitcase, ready to burst open at a touch. The guy makes her jump as he arrives behind her and brakes inches away. He grins, says pardon, and parks, rattling the bike to make sure it has locked properly. Then he heads toward the brown double doors. Lana steps after him immediately, but controls her excitement and holds back. The guy taps in the code. The door buzzes and Lana prays that he isn’t a Cautious Christophe who’ll stand waiting for it to shut. He disappears inside and instantly she runs . . . one, two, three, four, five . . . and stretches out a hand . . . six . . . and touches the brass handle. She holds it an inch from the lock and wedges her foot in. Hopefully the guy won’t notice that there has been no door slam. She presses an ear to the tiny gap, listening for the elevator. When it seems safe she pushes the door open, steps inside, and lets it click shut. She checks the mailboxes. Yes! There’s the name: N. Maunier. Slowly, quietly, with increasing heartbeats, she pads up to the fourth floor.

  Lifting a little finger to the doorbell is nerve-shredding, as if it had NE TOUCHE PAS! emblazoned on it. Five forlorn rattles go unanswered, which feels pretty anticlimactic. Either Nathan’s sleep is extraordinarily heavy, or he’s out, or not in Paris at all. Of course there’s a chance, and maybe a reasonable one, that he will be home shortly. Worth waiting to find out. Now that she’s inside there seems little point in returning to the lonely streets just yet.

  Lana sits on the steps leading to the next floor, not bothering to keep pressing the timer light switch. As she gazes through the gloom at the apartment door, their various comings and goings come back to her: the frenzied passion of their key-rattling arrivals, the languor and serene intimacy of their departures. On that last morning as she left to collect her belongings from the hotel he had presented her with a spare key. It was never used and was still in her purse when she got back to Seattle, where it stayed for several months, until one Saturday, finally, regretfully, Lake Union swallowed it up. At sunset.

  She is pacing the landing when the rumble of the elevator and laughing voices send her back up the stairs out of sight. Two voices, male and female. The elevator arrives. She peeks but the dark forms are unidentifiable. A hand presses the timer switch and, as the landing light blazes, Lana hugs the wall. The voices mutter and giggle. Clearly it’s been a fun night. A jingle of keys. She cautiously peeks again. It’s Nathan all right. Even from behind, the hair, the frame are unmistakable. The woman’s hair is satin-black, her thinness emphasized by a tight-fitting coat. Her high-gloss nails gleam crimson against his pale neck. How well do they know each other? How long?

  The situation is impossible. Lana knows already there’s no question of revealing herself to him with another woman there. The idea of lying in wait until morning, hoping that she’ll leave early, is equally futile. There’s nothing to do but let them go inside, then slink away. So near and yet so far.

  But Nathan’s gentlemanly manners offer Lana a last desperate whisper of a chance. When he pushes open the door he politely ushers the woman in first—a gesture that makes Lana think he might not know her so well after all—before stepping after her. She realizes that he will turn around as he closes the door. So, there being no time to think it through, she steps out onto the landing and whispers urgently.

  “Nathan!”

  The closing door stops dead. A startled pair of eyes flick and focus. His face framed in the gap registers shock for sure, but it is the shock of recognition. His mouth opens and seems about to say her name, but there is no sound. Then the timer light goes out.

  Then the door slams shut.

  3 AM

  If Lana has any inclination to rush at the apartment door and hammer on it screaming wildly, she doesn’t act on it. Painful though it is, she accepts that she’s got her answer and the answer is perfectly reasonable, given the shock of this strange sudden return after her even stranger departure and subsequent shameful years of silence. What was she to expect, ticker tape? “Darling, I waited and waited. I knew you’d come!” It’s time to leave the building. Quickly.

  Lana stares at the elevator. She wants to kick it, scream at it. At this moment it seems quite likely that she’ll never use one again. In fact, taking a solemn vow not to do so seems a perfectly reasonable attitude right now. Though bereft of energy, psychological or physical, she can still trust her own tired legs to keep her safe and take her wherever. Walking down four flights will at least be a dignified snub to this hunk of malevolent engineering.

  A few steps down, though, she hears his door lock click softly, followed by the muted squeak of a very cautious opening, followed by a voice whispering her name. When she turns back Nathan is already at the top of the stairs. It’s too dark to see the look on his face, but he doesn’t sound angry. On the other hand, he’s not tumbling down, arms outstretched for a delirious embrace, either.

  “So, it wasn’t a ghost.”

  “No. Although I’m not feeling very human, either.”

  His voice now takes on a pace and urgency that, in the melodrama of darkness, makes it feel like lives are at stake.

  “We haven’t much time, so I won’t even ask how you got in here. What brings you?”

  “There’s a lot to explain.”

  “Give me a headline.”

  “I’m in trouble. I’m alone in Paris and I’m in desperate trouble.”

  “Okay, you’ve got my attention. Any particular kind of trouble?”

  “Maybe. I’m not sure, but someone might be trying to kill me.”

  “Christ, how Lana Turner that sounds.”

  It’s a line right out of their past. The happy, jokey part. When she’d told him what her birth name was it had really made his day. He’d said it explained so much. From then on he used it to mark any moments of extravagance or melodrama. “What Lana Turner wants, Lana Turner gets.” “I wouldn’t do this for anyone else but you, Lana Turner.” “Now don’t go all Lana Turner on me.” And she allowed, even enjoyed this, because his teasing sounded affectionate and, in a curiously pleasing way, he actually made her feel more Lana Turner.

  “I know, but it’s happening and you’re the only person that . . . that I can trust.”

  “Trust?”

  There was overt surprise in his voice. Was he reminding her how little right she had to use that word?

  “Yes.”

  “You trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  The female voice from the apartment is a sharp reminder. Lana has no idea what she’s saying, but it has a question mark hanging on the end of it. Nathan barks a loud “Je viens” and then whispers quickly. “Wait up those stairs out of the way. This might not be pretty.”

  He goes back inside.

  Lana’s legs carry her very lightly up the stairs and she squats on a step out of sight, actually shaking now, relishing what she suspects Nathan is about to do and not caring much how the other woman will feel. Every second is agonizing. At first there are no sounds at all. Then, suddenly loud and clearly angry, a female voice. Far away first, then quickly closer and closer. Now Lana hears his voice, too, and knows immediately that, at such a moment, its calmness and evenness must be utterly enraging to the poor woman. The door opens. More accurately it’s ripped open, slamming against the wall. And the decibel levels soar. Lana thinks how appropriate that the French have the best word for the geyser of verbal rage that is now erupting on the landing: a tirade. And props to the woman, she’s giving it the full Sarah Bernhardt. Her delivery is so rapid-fire, her pitch so high, her tone so incandescent that Lana can’t recognize any single word or phrase, not that she needs to. Could American anger ever sound so operatic?

  Now from above another loud French voice joins in. Lana can’t make out a word, though the rage i
s perfectly clear. A neighbor has been disturbed and he’s not happy. What if he decides to come down for a confrontation? He will find her lurking on the stairs and expose her. Lana hears the unmistakable crack of hand on face. She leans out for a peek and catches a sweep of hair and a flash of swinging coat as the woman disappears into the elevator. She sees Nathan in profile, the mark of a hand pulsing on his cheek, gesturing for calm, trying to stem the flow but succeeding only in aggravating her more. Now the angry voice from above is getting closer and Lana hears footsteps pounding on the stairs. The elevator starts down, and the tirade continues, harmonizing with the clank and hum. At last Nathan hears the neighbor and, just as a large man in vest and boxer shorts appears around the turn of the stairs, grabs Lana’s hand and pulls her onto the landing. She sees the black sheen of hair sink into the gloom of the elevator shaft. Nathan steps up to forestall him and Lana hears a duet of practiced moaning and apologetic replies. Over and back it goes until at last the neighbor’s voice drifts upstairs in a fading cadenza of snorts and snarls. Nathan reappears and offers an odd combination of thin smile and shrug. On the floor above a door slams. Finally, improbably, silence.

  “I hope this is worth it.”

  And he walks back into his apartment. It’s not exactly “Alone at last, my darling” but he does leave the door open by way of invitation. She follows. Closing the door behind her feels like the most intensely relieving moment since her arrival in Paris. As if her car has swerved off the highway at speed, rattled down a ravine, and spun and tumbled and bounced before coming to rest and she finds herself miraculously still conscious, face buried in an air bag and relatively unhurt.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

  “I know you didn’t. Don’t worry about it. She was a bit too high-strung for my taste anyway—as you just heard.”

  Lana nods. Nathan kneels to clean up. Only now does she look around. The kitchen hasn’t changed at all. It might have been the same set of dishes piled in the little sink. This is comforting, though Lana’s not really sure why. Nathan dumps the shards of a coffee mug into the trash. His hair is ruffled, presumably the result of the woman’s angry attentions, but it instantly reminds her of how he always looked after sex.

  “Actually, I was feeling very guilty until this flew past my ear. Part of my favorite set too.”

  Now his smile turns into the one she remembers. The one that flows from his eyes. It makes everything okay.

  “Coffee?”

  “Do you have enough mugs?”

  “We’ll manage. Actually you know, you do look a bit . . . I don’t know.”

  “War-torn?”

  “Wild-eyed. Like you’ve been fighting off unwanted attacks. Have you been mugged?”

  “That’s probably the only thing that has not happened to me this evening.”

  “Do you want to—I despise the euphemism, but however—freshen up? Or just sit and relax?”

  “I’ll curl up if you don’t mind. Try to calm the wild eyes.”

  “Sure. This won’t take long. Kick off your shoes. Flop on the couch.”

  Lana goes into the living room, which is romantically lit with the old tripod standing lamp in a corner. Next to her, exactly where it had been three years ago, the little art deco banker’s lamp casts a green glow. The other woman had probably created this welcoming ambience while she and Nathan had been whispering on the landing. These are the breaks. The room is as pleasantly familiar as if she had sat in it the previous evening: the wide back wall at one end tapering to the tall corner window overlooking place St.-André at the other, the books overflowing in piles on the floor, and, dominating the room as before, the bulging brown leather behemoth of a couch, pre–World War II, scratched and discolored, but inviting as chocolate cake. Lana closes her eyes to see if she can remember what had hung on the walls. Wasn’t there a huge framed poster of Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers at roughly ten o’clock? She looks. Yes! And behind her, at five o’clock she’s sure, a repro of one of Gauguin’s Tahitian women next to some framed photos of Nathan on vacation with his parents and laughing group shots from his college days. She turns. Once again it’s all exactly as in her mind’s eye.

  There is no doubt that it feels odd, a little embarrassing somehow, to sink into the couch and remember, instantly and vividly, the activity that item of furniture had been such an accommodating part of those four wild days: the recollection of one distinctly electric moment makes Lana grin. This is definitely a very, very strange twist to the night. Nightmares are usually only broken by waking up, but it’s as if hers had suddenly, impossibly vaulted clean into a whole other kind of dream; turbulent, but not at all troubling. Quite sexy in fact.

  Was it strange that there’s been no whiff of any kind of anger from Nathan? Maybe he’s just holding it deep below the waterline and it will emerge eventually? He looks even better than what she’d presumed was an overromanticized memory of him. Hadn’t aged a day it seemed, still that year younger, of course, as he always would be. She should be telling herself that what appeared to be the miraculous evaporation of her troubles was just self-delusion. Maybe so, but wasn’t a little downtime due after the hellish shift she’d put in? Maybe this isn’t another dream after all. Maybe she has actually woken from the nightmare and is experiencing the relief of a warm bed—or in this case, couch—and the satisfaction that there are no actual terrors after all. Or, being here now might be the most foolish, dangerous dream. Oh shut it, Lana. Enjoy.

  Nathan brings a tray with coffee and Breton cookies. She can’t help thinking that he seems to stare briefly at her hand as she picks up a mug. A few seconds pass before it occurs to her that he may have noticed the absence of a wedding band. And why does he sit at the other end of the couch, leaving a pointed gap between them? He allows her a few warming sips before speaking.

  “So, who’s trying to kill you?”

  Lana sips again, not playing for time, simply needing the coffee. And it’s so good. As always.

  “Do you really want the end of the story first? No context?”

  “Fair point. Okay, start wherever you want to start?”

  A difficult one. For some reason she wants him to know that this is her first time back in Paris since that other time, but that might take the conversation somewhere else entirely, somewhere she’s not yet ready to go. And she doesn’t want to tell him about her medical condition, which isn’t needed to explain her behavior. To someone like Nathan, the Hopper exhibition is a perfectly good reason to come to Paris, so she can start the story from there.

  “Well, lucky it’s only three in the morning, we’ve plenty of time to kill. But are you going to tell me anything?”

  Her silence had clearly been longer than she realized.

  “Sorry, I just . . . it’s very complicated.”

  “So, throw me a dramatic opening line. Or something cryptic.”

  “Did you know the Hotel Chevalier has this amazing penthouse called the Suite Imperial?”

  “You’re going for cryptic then. No, I’d have to delve deep into my trivia archive for that one. It rings the vaguest of bells.”

  “Then you probably weren’t aware that the only access to it is by private elevator?”

  “Correct. That priceless information had passed me by. Mind you, such an arrangement doesn’t surprise me at Le Chevalier. Gotta keep the riffraff out.”

  Hearing him say it, Lana realizes that she had acquired the word from one of Nathan’s casual monologues. She remembers it now: his riff on riffraff.

  “It’s actually Old French, fifteenth century: riffler; rafle, to spoil and plunder. And of course the mindset, the worldview lurking beneath the word is so very French. Nowadays no intelligent person would dare use it except in a funny voice and ironic quotation marks, but don’t tell me that certain people don’t still look at certain others and think the word, feel it, believe in the idea of riffraff. In France, probably even more than in England, the colonial mindset, the myth of inna
te superiority is far from extinct. Sorry, boring?”

  When she used the word earlier, speaking to Claude, was Nathan already lurking in her head at that moment, despite herself? Is that how the subconscious works, making it more or less inevitable that she’d end up in his apartment regardless of the circumstances? Could it even be that she had deliberately behaved a certain way, created the circumstances, fueled this night’s fire to a point that allowed her an excuse to reach out to him? No. This is crazy thinking. Focus, she tells herself, focus on telling him what she saw. Genuinely, she needs his help, right?

  “Well, I arrived in Paris this evening and booked into the Chevalier—”

  “Ah, the Suite Imperial?”

  “No. A plain old junior suite; just for one night. I was going to the Hopper exhibition.”

  “Ah, very good. Still, I’m impressed. All the way from Seattle for Hopper.”

  “No . . . from Dublin.”

  The story is moving backward. Does she now have to explain the recent move to Dublin?

  “Let’s not worry about that; the point is, I’m staying in the Chevalier for a night and I find myself somewhere I’ve no right to be. I’m in this private elevator which goes direct to the Suite Imperial—don’t ask yet, just let me get through this part—I’m in the private elevator, I mean I’m not planning to, you know, use it because it can only be operated by whoever is staying in the suite. Anyway, suddenly the doors close and it starts to go up.”