CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Matthew sits at his desk with his head bent and his forehead resting on his fists. Occasionally he bounces his knuckles against his head, hoping to jar loose some words, no matter how inadequate. Anything to get started. Brent, it must be said, was not impressed with the pages Matthew had sent him.
“This is it?” he had said. “Some story about a dead chick? In all these weeks? Tell me, tell me, Matthew, that you have more than this. Tell me you are playing a sick little joke on old Brent? Tell me this, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Okay, what the fuck?”
“There’s more. That was just a sample.”
“Matthew. How much are you drinking?”
“Not enough, apparently.”
“I’m laughing. Hear my mirth.”
Silence. Long. The sort of silence that was no doubt engineered to elicit a response.
Brent sighs. “So, there is more?”
“Sure.”
“I want to see at least a hundred pages in my office by the end of the month. Clear?”
And so here Matthew sits. On page three.
He shuffles his feet under the desk and dislodges a small tumbleweed of dust and hair from its grip on the somewhat gummy floor. He looks around and sees the apartment for what it is, a temporary cell, like a third-rate motel. The furniture is cheap, the sofa hard and armless, the chair wobbly. The shade on the overhead light is chipped. Dead flies and moths lie at the bottom of the glass bowl. He drinks coffee from a cracked cup. There is no comfort here.
When he was with Kate, she lit candles every morning for breakfast, white candles that smelled of rain. The snowy sheets were always pressed and inviting. They ate mangoes and drank wine lying on those sheets. Every Saturday morning she polished the wood with lemon oil and the apartment smelled of that and ginger muffins. She painted her toenails the colour of pale iridescent shell. He loved to run his hand along the arch of her instep, the fine bones of her ankle …
The phone rings.
“What are you doing?”
“Jack?”
“I got a bottle. Thought I’d come over. Shoot the shit.”
The memory of Kate’s toes dissolves and Matthew sees only the pages before him. “I was thinking about going across the street for some Lebanese food. Want to join me?”
“I’m coming over.”
Half an hour later Matthew hears Jack thumping up the stairs. The footsteps, like battering rams, cannot be mistaken for anyone else’s. Matthew shakes his head. It is a wonder Jack survived in the jungles of Vietnam, where Matthew thinks of stealth as a necessity. He opens the door as Jack hauls himself up the last few steps. He wears the jeans, jean jacket, black T-shirt and heavy boots that seem to be his uniform, no matter what the weather. He is sweaty and he screws his face up against the smoke trailing from the cigarette dangling between his lips.
“Hey,” says Matthew.
Jack takes the cigarette out of his mouth, coughs and grinds the butt under his heel. “I gotta give these fucking things up,” he says as Matthew steps back to let him in.
“You want to come in, or get something to eat?”
Jack hands Matthew a bottle of good scotch. “I’m starving. Put that someplace, we’ll drink it later.”
At Chez Elias they take a table by the back door so Jack can sit with his back to the wall. They share a bowl of pickled pink turnips, olives and a stack of warm pita bread with their beer. Matthew notices Joseph hovering hopefully near the counter and waves him over.
“Jack, this is Joseph,” Matthew says and indicates the boy can sit down if he likes. He explains that Joseph is Ramzi’s nephew and Saida’s son.
Jack looks at Saida, who is in the kitchen. A bright blue scarf ties back her long hair. “Your mother’s a pretty woman,” says Jack.
“You Canadian, too?” asks Joseph.
“Hell, no,” Jack laughs. “I’m American.”
“You a reporter, like Matthew? You from New York?”
“Not far from there. I’m a photographer, among other things.”
They order chich taouk, chicken marinated in lemon, and falafel and taboulé. When Joseph asks Jack if he is visiting Paris, Jack says, “I kinda go where the winds blow me.”
“I would like to travel.”
“You should travel. See the world. Have some adventures before you settle down.”
“I want to go to Algeria. I have friends, and they have family there I can stay with.”
“I’ve been there,” says Jack. “Interesting place.”
“Yeah? Where?” Joseph leans forward.
“Algiers. Biskra. El Golea. All over.”
“What were you doing there?”
“This and that. How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
A small smile, no more than stretched skin under Jack’s moustache, stains his eyes with something resembling loss. “I’ve got a son about your age,” he says.
“You do?” says Matthew. Considering that this important fact is something Jack has so far withheld, it occurs to Matthew that, other than the war stories and battle scars, he does not know much about Jack. It has not seemed important before, this question of pasts and attachments.
“He is here?” says Joseph.
“No. Back in the States with his mom.” Jack knocks a cigarette out of his pack. “Want one?” he says to Joseph. Joseph shakes his head and rolls his eyes toward his mother.
Matthew glances up and catches Saida watching them. The expression on her face is hard to read. He smiles at her and nods. She nods back but her smile is economical.
Jack lights his cigarette and blows smoke toward the ceiling. “Yeah, my kid’s name’s Jack, Jr. Maybe I’ll bring him to Paris one day. Summer vacation or something. You think he’d like that?”
“Sure. I guess.”
“You know, when I was in Algeria, there was this family, lived in a—what do you call it—a town built of earth?”
“Ksar,” says Joseph.
“Yeah. A ksar. We lived with them for a month or so. Nice people.”
“We? You took your son there?”
“Naw. Just some guys I was travelling with at the time. Stopped off there on the way to Libya. Now that was a hell of a dirty little secret war.”
“Jack, maybe you should leave it,” Matthew says.
“Why? Some people hired us, is all, to do some cleanup work for them. Lot of garbage lying around.”
Saida brings their food over and says something to Joseph in Arabic. The boy shrugs and shakes his head. “She thinks I’m bothering you,” he says as she brings a plate of katfa to another table.
The food smells wonderful. Lemons and olives and cheese. Matthew’s mouth waters as he picks up a pita and breaks off a piece, shovelling it full of hummus. He looks at Jack, his cigarette in one hand, a forkful of chicken in the other, and considers what sort of father Jack would make. “You’re not bothering us,” Matthew says to Joseph. “But maybe your mother needs some help?”
“My uncle’s helping. If she needs me, she tells me.” He turns to Jack. “Anyway, you were working—you work in construction, like that?”
“More like de-construction, if you know what I mean.” Jack taps the side of his nose with his finger.
Matthew watches the light switch click on in Joseph’s head and his suspicions that he is a bright boy are confirmed. Joseph looks admiringly at Jack, as though Rambo has suddenly materialized in his very own café.
“Merde,” he says, and whistles low. “It’s true?”
“For Christ’s sake, Jack.”
“What? ‘Course it’s true.”
Matthew is almost amused to find a little rat of jealousy scratching at the inside of his stomach. Amused to discover he would like Joseph to look at him with the same hero-worship.
Jack talks of travelling through the Sahara. Of a one-eyed man who led them in a convoy of camels and jeeps into the Sudan, of how he lay his head against the dunes a
t night and when Jack asked him what he was listening to, he said the music of the djinn.
They finish dinner with Joseph hanging on every word. He wants to bring his friends around, wants to introduce them to Jack. He wants to take Jack, and Matthew, he adds, into Barbès to see la Goutte d’Or neighbourhood, what he calls the real Paris.
Saida has been travelling in ever-decreasing circles, making sure she is near their table as often as possible. When Matthew meets her eye she glares at him and he winces, wishing he hadn’t brought Jack along.
When the bill comes, Jack makes no move for his wallet so Matthew pays for them both, figuring Jack’s bottle of Glenfiddich will even the score.
As they leave, Jack promises Joseph he’ll come back sometime soon. “And maybe you can introduce me to some of your pals.” They shake hands and as they do, Jack pulls the boy close and whispers something in his ear.
Joseph blinks and then smiles. “Sure,” he says. “I can do that. Sure.”
“What was that about?” Matthew says when they’re on the street.
“What?”
“That bit at the end. What did you say to Joseph?”
“Nosey, aren’t ya? I just told him not to let his mother catch him smoking.”
Back in the apartment, Jack settles himself in the chair by the window as if he has been there before.
“Listen,” says Jack. “Thanks for letting me crash on you like this.”
“Not a problem.”
Matthew waits for Jack to continue.
“Bad day, you know what I mean. One of those my-mind’s-a-dangerous-place-better-not-to-go-in-alone days. You know.”
Yes, Matthew knows. Jack sits with his arms folded and his hands under his armpits. His head is down and nodding, as though there is a conversation going on in his mind that Matthew cannot hear.
“Guess that’s why I was telling the kid all those stories. Lots of memories today.”
Matthew starts, unsettled by the fragility in Jack’s voice. His own memories begin to twitter at him from the darkened corners of the room. Ah, to hell with the rest of the world, he thinks. Civilians. “You need a drink,” he says.
“A truer word was never spoken.”
Matthew opens the bottle.
“That’s a pretty nice place, that restaurant. Nice people,” says Jack.
“Joseph’s a good kid,” Matthew says.
“Seems to be.”
“A bit troubled, maybe. His father’s dead. Stepfather was a son of a bitch.”
“Most are. Mother’s pretty good-looking, if you don’t mind the scars. You like the kid, huh? You acting big brother?”
“Just think he’s impressionable, is all. Any more stories like tonight and he’s going to want to go off and join the foreign legion.”
“There are worse things.” Jack reaches over and picks up a photo from the table. “Nice. Who is she?”
“Kate,” Matthew says, on his way to the kitchen for glasses. He does not have to look; there is only one photo in the apartment.
“Who’s Kate?”
“She’s a lawyer. Lives in Washington.”
“Right.”
Matthew hands Jack a glass. He laughs and peels a price sticker off the bottom. “Guess you don’t have many guests.”
“Nope. Not many.”
Jack nods and looks at Kate’s picture again. “I was married once. I ever tell you that?”
“Not that I recall, but then you never mentioned you had a son, either.” Matthew pours two healthy shots from the triangular green bottle.
Jack takes a deep gulp of scotch. “Judy. She’s back in Arizona, in Sedona, land of the loony-tune, home of the harmonic convergence. She runs a place that sells tarot cards and books on angels and channelling and fake Zuni jewellery. She’s Jack, Jr.’s mother. He’s seventeen and already had some run-ins with the law. Chip off the old block, unfortunately.”
“You see him much?”
“Haven’t seen him in about a year, I guess.” Jack pours himself more scotch and rolls the glass around in his palms.
“Miss him?”
“Hell, sure I miss him. I guess.” The scowl on his face tells Matthew he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.
“How are things going at the hostel?” he says.
“Monday nights, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, Thursday nights. Some extra cash to pay for those little luxuries the state declines to provide for. Cigarette money. Not much more. Not enough more. Might have to find something else.”
“Hmm.”
“Has its benefits, though.” He grins. “I believe part of my mandate is to make sure the little princesses out to seek adventure come to no harm. And there are plenty of eighteen-year-olds grateful for a big old lug like me to protect their beauty sleep. Forty-seven’s not so bad. Nothing like experience.” He chuckles and looks smug, the words sounding hollow in the bottom of his glass as he tips it to his mouth.
“There was this one little girl. Vietnamese of all fucking things. Said her name was Hang. Said it meant Angel in the Full Moon. Can you believe that shit? I mean, what can you do but fall in love with a girl who’s got a name like that? She had size-three feet. Had to buy her shoes in the children’s department. She was something else, man. You know, she was into all this kinky sex. She was a student at NYU, studying marketing or advertising or something. Travelling around Europe on her summer break. She had a website of her own and showed me. Pictures of her like you wouldn’t believe.” Jack runs his fingers over his moustache and stares off into the distance. “Tied up, man. Really tied up, so she couldn’t wiggle a toe. Silk rope wrapped around her like a cocoon or something. She never would tell me who tied her up or who took the pictures, just that they sold real well. Said it was a Japanese erotic practice. It was her idea that I tie her up.” Jack slides off the chair onto the floor. He lies on his back, a glass of scotch balanced on his stomach. “I thought those girls Anthony knew … I thought they were Vietnamese. He said they were.”
“You looking for somebody to tie up again?” Matthew chuckles, makes a point of chuckling because as soon as the words have left his mouth he sees how imprudent they are. They would not have been spoken had he been completely sober.
“Fuck that. I’m looking for somebody who makes me stop thinking about tying them up.” Jack laughs bitterly, then looks at Matthew. “Joke. It’s a joke.”
“How are things with you and Suzi?”
“Me and Suzi?”
“Yeah. I sort of figured you two might be starting something.”
“She’s a fucking hooker.”
“So?”
“Yeah. I guess. So what.” Then suddenly he throws his head back and roars, startling Matthew enough that he spills some of his drink. “I mean what the fuck am I? A fucking catch? Sure, for a deranged-Vet-ex-con-war-junkie with a drinking problem! Speaking of which. More please.” He holds out his glass and Matthew obliges, and then refills his own.
“To Suzi. Belle of the ball,” says Jack, raising his glass.
“To Suzi.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Evening falls and outside Matthew’s window the place du Dublin is nearly deserted. A couple enter Le Primavera Bistro. An old woman walks her dog. A young girl strides along purposefully, a cigarette in one hand, a cell phone in the other. Matthew sits and stares out at the square, but his mind is on Suzi and how she looked that night at Anthony’s. She reminded him of Edith Piaf, almost, or at least a Piaf in the making. She smelled of roses and lemons. He thinks of her breasts, of how they had looked under that T-shirt while she was so close to him in the bathroom, bandaging his hand. It has been a long time since he slept with a woman. Since before Hebron.
In his mind’s eye, he sees himself walking across the room, dialling a number in Washington. Hearing Kate’s voice on the other end. She would probably be sleeping now, one foot dangling outside the covers, for she always got too hot. She would pick up the phone, her voice velvet with sleep. She would say he
llo. Maybe he would hear hope in her voice, hope that it might be him, or hope that it would not be. He cannot imagine what he would say to her. He shakes the idea out of his head.
He considers going down to the Bok-Bok, and then dismisses it. If he is looking for a woman, better not to look there. Suzi is, apart from being a hooker, obviously shooting dope. Not to mention that she and Jack seem to be … something, although what is not exactly clear.
No. Not the Bok-Bok. But out, somewhere, where there are people.
Victoria Short. Every expat who passes through Paris hears about Victoria sooner or later. She has an apartment on rue Saint-André-des-Arts that she converts once every week to a salon, admission one hundred francs, which includes a buffet dinner, all the cheap wine you can drink, a poetry reading, or lecture on James Baldwin, or Bricktop, or Langston Hughes, or Miles Davis, and a few introductions. Victoria disguises the tang of sex with the perfume of jazz and literature. A black American journalist with whom he had been attending a conference on chemical warfare had first taken Matthew there seven years ago. Matthew had been back several times since, whenever he passed through and had a free Friday, and he usually bumped into someone he knew. Victoria’s is a sort of informal meeting spot for the journalists who regularly pass through Paris.
An hour later Matthew climbs the stairs to the fifth-floor apartment, up a circular stairwell so steep and narrow he is dizzy by the time he reaches the top. Victoria’s door, the only one on the floor, is open and she stands at the threshold.
“I know you! Matthew, if I remember right? Good to see you. Did I know you were in Paris? I thought you were in the Middle East. Yes, last I heard. Someone told me. Didn’t I hear you got shot? Something heroic? Did you let me know you were coming? I ask everyone to reserve.” Victoria is a large woman, with a barrel chest and imposing shoulders. Her wig, a somewhat ratty pageboy, fools no one. She runs her finger along a list of names. “People really must reserve in advance. Did you?”
“Nope. Last-minute decision.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Something of a celebrity now. Still.”
Matthew pulls two fifty-franc notes out of his pocket and holds them out to her. She is just about to take them when he jerks them away. “Listen, Victoria, do me a favour, will you? Can the celebrity shit. Seriously. Deal?”
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