Radiant City

by Lauren B. Davis

  She snatches the notes and slips them into the pocket of the red tunic she wears. “Next time call me in advance. Come in, come in! Carol Pratchard is reading from her new collection. Iowa Writer’s School.”

  After adding his coat to the pile already heaped on the bed, Matthew makes his way through the crowd in the hall toward the living room. As he passes the tiny kitchen, he says hello to Eduardo, the Filipino chef who is everywhere Victoria is.

  “Hey, Matthew, long time!” Eduardo chops onions with lightning speed, and Matthew fears for the man’s stubby fingertips. Binko, Eduardo’s monkey, chatters from his lookout atop the refrigerator. “Matthew,” Eduardo says, “I hear about your trouble. You okay?”

  “Sure, Eduardo. Where’s the booze?”

  Eduardo nods. “Okay, you’re good. Take some wine—there.” He points behind Matthew to a countertop covered in plastic glasses half full of red wine. Matthew takes one and makes his way into the crowded living room. People sit on folding chairs, perch on the deep casement windowsills and cram onto the brown corduroy sofa. Voices reveal the crowd as mostly Americans, expats and tourists. Matthew scans the faces to see if he knows anyone. Two men stand together, one wearing a blue tie-dyed dashiki and kufi, the other in waist-length dreadlocks and black leather. A number of couples, mostly straight. A too-thin woman with dyed blond hair smiles enthusiastically at him. Her nails are long and her fingers covered in expensive rings. He looks at his watch, does not smile back, and hopes she will assume he is waiting for someone. She turns away.

  “Hey, stranger.”

  Matthew turns to find Denise Mumford grinning at him, her green eyes bright and fresh as spring’s first leaves.

  “Denise, you are a sight for sore eyes,” he says, kissing her on the cheek. Jasmine, maybe. Camellias? Minty breath. God, but women smell great, he thinks. “I thought you were in New York.”

  “I’ve done New York. Restless feet—you know the syndrome.”

  “You coming back to the news?”

  “Nope. As in never. Writing biographies suits me fine. I’m just here for a week or so, doing some research for the next project, a book about one of the big fashionistas.”

  “Looks like it suits you. You look real good, Denise.” She is almost as tall as Matthew is; her hair is jet-black and falls halfway down her back. She wears a pair of black, wide-legged pants and a white oversized shirt. It is loose, and most of the buttons are undone, revealing the curve of her breasts and the flash of white lace.

  “I’m just a girl getting by on my wits and a few pretty dresses.” She puts her arm through his. “You look more like Arthur Miller every time I see you.”

  “I don’t think that’s a compliment.”

  “Well, crossed with Sam Shepard. How’s that?”

  “I can live with that.”

  “Who’s reading tonight?”

  “Some bright young thing from Iowa.”

  They find a few square inches of wall to lean against just as Victoria makes her way to the front of the room to the bright young thing, who turns out to be a short, thin, earnest-looking girl who has just published a collection of short stories based on the life of Céleste Mogador, the nineteenth-century prostitute who transformed herself into a much-admired novelist and playwright.

  The girl reads in a voice so monotone Matthew has trouble figuring out where one sentence ends and the next begins. Denise presses her breast against his arm. He does not think he’ll have to sit through the whole reading.

  Denise is staying at the Raphael on avenue Kleber. Her suite has a red velvet chaise lounge in a separate sitting room, art nouveau—mirrored armoires and a four-poster bed.

  “Looks like the biography business is pretty good.”

  “You should see the bathroom.”

  “Only if you show it to me.”

  In the bathroom he says, “That’s a good-sized tub.”

  “Yup. And deep, too,” she says, unbuttoning her shirt. “You like bubbles?”

  “One of my favourite things.” He grins.

  When they are settled, each comfortably at opposite ends of the tub, her legs over his, she asks, “How do you like living in Paris?” and blows a fluff of bubbles off the ends of her fingers.

  “It’s as good as any place, I guess.” He massages her instep and she moans.

  “Is it? Then why choose here?”

  “Because it’s a good city to be fucked up in.” Matthew is surprised to hear the words come out of his mouth.

  “Why?” Denise moves her foot away from his chest. When he does not answer, she says, “Really, Matthew. Tell me. I felt that way about New York once. In fact I think I chose it for that very reason, after I lost the baby and Peter all in one year.”

  “He was a louse. He should have stayed with you.”

  “No. I couldn’t get over the miscarriage and he couldn’t get over me not getting over it. I think I knew then that we’d only been together because we wanted a family, and since that wasn’t going to happen …”

  “You could have had another baby.”

  “I couldn’t, actually.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right. Now.” She reaches out and traces a finger along the scar on his belly, making him shiver, then twists around in the tub so that she is leaning against him. “Come on, old friend. Tell me about being fucked up in Paris.”

  He runs his hands over her slippery breasts. They are very nice breasts, he thinks, with mauvish-pink nipples and spaced so that there is a lovely deep hollow in between. Maybe it is the warm water, the warm body relaxing him, or maybe it is that he has known Denise for so long that the familiarity feels like security, but he finds he wants to talk to her. “Parisians take depression as a sign of intelligence. There’s none of that phoney American jolliness, none of that British stiff-upper-lip crap. Parisians respect someone who’s figured out the world is a cesspool. They’ve built this visually perfect jewel of a city so that as you go down for the third time at least you have something beautiful to look at.”

  “Sounds like you’re more committed to staying sad than to healing.”

  “Healing? I’m just trying not to bleed to death.” He laughs and runs the palms of his hands over her hardening nipples.

  “I should have been in touch after Hebron. You’ve become a symbol, you know. The man who tried to single-handedly end the Middle East conflict.”

  “Hey, cut that shit out.”

  “I didn’t know what to say. I guess I still don’t.”

  “Then why say anything at all?” Matthew bends her neck back and kisses her and they say no more. Sometime later, they are entwined on the bed’s damp sheets.

  Sometimes sex is like pulling the string back on a bow so far that when the arrow launches skyward, there is no telling when or where it will stop. Denise arches her back and buries her face in Matthew’s shoulder just as his body stretches out and plunges into a toe-curling spasm of its own.

  He rolls off her and she puts her hands up to her hair.

  “My God, I haven’t come like that in years,” she sighs.

  Matthew is horrified to find tears welling up behind his eyelids.

  “Me either,” he says. “Be right back.”

  “You okay?”

  He makes it to the bathroom and turns on the shower fast, just as the sobs start. He has been in a multitude of bathrooms in his life, but never has he found one so ideally suited for weeping. The only light comes from a backlit alcove with glass shelves full of towels, giving the place the air of a marbled chapel or crypt. He grabs a towel the innocent colour and texture of sheep fleece. It perfectly muffles any sound not already drowned out by the rainstorm from the shower stall. He sits on the chair, a body-hugging padded wicker one next to the tub, buries his face and cries.

  In the part of his brain not consumed with this sudden onslaught of grief, he wonders what on earth it is all about. He can think of nothing in the hour immediately past that would account for this deluge. He
feels as though he is wrestling an ever-tightening net.

  “Matthew? Are you all right?”

  “Fine. Just taking a shower.”

  “Can I come in?”

  “I’ll be out in a second, Denise.”

  He steps into the shower stall and leans his forehead against the tiles. Oh, Christ, he thinks, you’ve got to get hold of yourself. The water is warm and the trembling in his legs and arms begins to subside. He tastes salt in his mouth. He places his palm on the white line that runs from his sternum to his belly button, then over to the nickel-sized pucker. What happens to a man when he doesn’t have a spleen anymore? A fit of non-spleen? A venting of non-spleen?

  He laughs some, through the tears, and then the tears are gone as quickly as they arrived. He imagines a line of grey, sleety squalls moving out to sea. It seems foolish to be standing in the shower alone when there is a warm friendly woman on the other side of the door. He dries himself and goes back to the bedroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. Denise sits in a chair by the window with a sheet draped around her, smoking.

  “What the hell was that about?” She looks angry.

  “I took a shower.”

  “You jumped out of bed as though I was some hooker you’d picked up.”

  Matthew sits on the edge of the bed. “You know me too well to think that,” he says.

  “Matthew, I don’t know you at all. You are a master at not being known. Even Kate used to say that.”

  He is unprepared to hear Kate’s name. “I just took a fucking shower.”

  Denise blows a smoke ring toward the ceiling. “What does papak mean?”

  “Papak? What are you talking about?”

  “You said it when you were in the bathroom. More than once.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  She grinds the cigarette out. “What does it mean, Matthew?”

  “Papci. Trotters, literally. It’s a Bosnian word. A papak is an oaf, a brute.”

  “Oh.” She looks unsure if she should believe him or not. “So, why were you saying it?

  “I wasn’t.” He looks around for his clothes. The room feels gaudy and oppressive. If Denise is going to go strange on him, he does not want to be there. He has enough trouble handling his own weirdness.

  “Fine. I just pulled the word out of the air.” She looks away, then back at him and her brown eyes show hurt. “I thought you were making remarks about me.”

  “About you? Why?”

  “I thought, well … jumping into bed like that… . Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do. Oh, never mind. It seems you’re leaving, so what difference does it make?” She turns her face to the window and pulls her arms and legs in tighter.

  Matthew puts his pants on a chair and crosses the room to her. He squats and takes her hand between his. “I can stay.”

  “Do me no favours.”

  “I’d never say anything bad about you, Denise. I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, although he finds he cannot completely believe this. “Look, it is possible I said some things in the bathroom. Perhaps I said papak, but if I did, it certainly wasn’t directed to you. Just leave it like that, all right?”

  “I was happy to see you. I thought we could have some fun. That’s all, really,” she says, slipping out of the chair, away from Matthew and into a white terry-cloth robe that dwarfs her.

  “Why don’t we have dinner tomorrow?” he says.

  “Can’t. Work.” It is her turn to head toward the bathroom.

  “Well, the next night, then,” he calls after her, thinking that he has always found women rather confusing.

  “You don’t need dinner, Matthew. You need a shrink.” She stops in the doorway. “What are you going to do with yourself?”

  “I’m writing a book.”

  “What sort of book?”

  “You know. Journalistic memoir.”

  “Oh, God, Matthew.” She turns and closes the bathroom door.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Saida scowls. Matthew’s friend, this ungentle giant Jack, throws his head back and laughs at something he’s said—laughter like the sound of a cannon being fired in a small stone room. Loud enough to break your eardrums. Even Joseph jumps, and sits staring wide-eyed at the big man.

  “I’m telling ya, he picked the eye up and it was glass, right? Glass!” Jack slaps his leg.

  It has been like this for two hours. Each story Jack tells is more lurid than the one before and his own part in the adventures more grandiose. Tales of fighting, of being a strong arm for hire, of battles in Afghanistan against the Russians, of scaling the perimeter of Somali fortresses, of Saigon, of Los Angeles prison cells. It is the stuff of James Bond movies—fantasy and testosterone.

  This is the third time Jack has been in the restaurant; when he is here it feels too small, and Saida feels unprotected. Even though he has done nothing but talk, she feels the danger in him. Why, she wonders, is Matthew such good friends with this hulk? The pride in Jack’s voice makes her wince.

  He talks now of women, and she says, “Alors, enough!” as she slams one of the cupboard doors. Matthew looks at her and says something quietly to Jack, who glances at her, and then drops his voice. Saida watches him tilt his head closer to Joseph’s, sees the eagerness in her son’s eye.

  Saida has had experience of men like this and has worked hard to forget. Jack stirs up her memories, like angry ants swarming out of a disturbed nest. She thinks, this man is a braggart, full of nothing but vicious wind.

  She brings a cup of coffee to her father, who sits alone at a table by the window. He listlessly turns the pages of a newspaper.

  “Are you tired, Abba?”

  “No. Well, perhaps a little.”

  “I’ll have Joseph take you home.”

  “And what will I do at home? I will wait until you are finished. We’ll go home all together when Ramzi gets back.”

  “If Ramzi gets back.”

  Elias blows on his coffee, and then sips. “What makes you think he’s not coming back?”

  Saida looks toward her rapt and fervent son. “If you won’t let Joseph take you home for your sake, then you take him home.”

  Her father follows her gaze and snorts. “Storyteller.”

  “I don’t like his stories. Joseph,” she calls, “come here.”

  Reluctantly, he shuffles over.

  “Take your grandfather home. He’s very tired and has a headache.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, of course now.”

  Joseph squats down and looks into his grandfather’s face. “You want to go home?”

  “Yes. I think I do.”

  Almost anything else, and Saida knows she might get an argument from Joseph, but not this. He cannot argue with his grandfather.

  “Okay. Five minutes, okay?”

  “Five minutes,” she says, and her father nods.

  “I’ll finish my coffee.”

  The big man Jack does not stay long after Joseph and his grandfather leave. As Jack exits he makes a great show of saying good-bye to her, of bowing, exaggeratedly, with laughter in his eyes. She does not smile at him.

  “I should get going, too,” says Matthew.

  “Wait,” she says, and he does, nodding his head as though he expected her to ask. She puts together a package of stuffed vine leaves for him to eat at home later, and as she approaches his table he stands, as though to face her. It is hard to hold her ground and look up at him and say what she has to say.

  “You are a good man, and I don’t want to be rude, Matthew, but maybe your friend should spend more time with his own son.”

  “He doesn’t mean any harm, Saida.”

  “Men like him never do. They just don’t care if harm gets done.” She will not smile, will not let her eyes fall.

  “I know he seems rough. But he’s all right.”

  Saida shrugs.

  “You just have to get to know him a little, to understand him. He and I are alike in a lot
of ways.”

  “I don’t like his talk.”

  “He’s just spinning yarns.”

  “What?”

  “You know, talking big. He likes Joseph, and Joseph’s good for him, I think.” Matthew runs his hand through his hair. “He had it very bad after Vietnam. I know that was a long time ago, but … he pretty much saved my life once, in Kosovo. It’s hard to explain. He’s been through a lot.”

  “Lots of people have been through bad things.”

  Matthew blushes. “Of course, sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything.”

  “I have to think of what is right for Joseph. What kind of man he should want to be. We have had enough of war in our family, Matthew. Enough losses, you understand? To hear him talk, and the way Joseph listens, as though they were good stories, well, I cannot have that.”

  “Okay, look, I understand.” Matthew squirms like an adolescent. “I just think Jack misses his own son, that’s all. Makes him feel good to be around Joseph.”

  “There is money, too. Joseph has suddenly more than he should have.”

  “Where do you think he’s getting it from?”

  “On the streets there are many ways to get money you should not have. Especially with encouragement.”

  “You think Jack has something to do with it?”

  “I think something is wrong. I don’t want him near Joseph.”

  “We’ll go somewhere else if you want.”

  “No, Matthew. You are always welcome here. Like family.” Her eyes drop then. “I hope you like the vine leaves.”

  After that, she waits with some apprehension for the big man to come back, but he does not. Matthew comes in every day, but alone. Joseph does not stay with him so much, but does not ask for Jack either. Saida thinks he will forget the big man, given the chance.

  It is early morning, before ten. Ramzi laughs with Matthew Bowles about something. The two sit at a table by the rain-streaked window and Saida watches them as she fills the napkin holders. Saida arranges pastries on a plate. It is good to have Matthew in the shop; it means her father and brother do not fight. Ramzi tells his dreams to Matthew and Matthew listens and discusses them seriously. A hotel in Ibiza. A chain of furniture stores catering to well-off Parisians who want their houses to look like Bedouin tents. A high-class restaurant in Montpellier.