Radiant City

by Lauren B. Davis

  Jack leads them to a crossroad near a restaurant where every path is filled and every tree root seems to writhe and moan. A sign on the restaurant advertises itself as a venue for conferences and wedding receptions. Jack points to the Pré Catalan Garden gates.

  “Through there,” he says.

  The gates are locked, but are not high and pose no major obstacle.

  The garden is serene, a circular parkland with a path leading around pristine lawns and flowerbeds. Weeping willows dip their branches into a stream to the right, and on the far side a small log house built to look like an alpine chalet nestles under beech and poplar trees. To their left, at the far edge of the grass circle, a huge, perfectly symmetrical tree grows, its branches a fan of black lace against the eggplant sky. There is not a sound here, as though all the furtive mumbles and moans of a few feet away are barred at the gate. The moon is a weird fairy-light as they amble along the path.

  “Quite a transition,” Matthew says. “You’d think this place would be more popular, even at night.”

  “Guess the hookers don’t see any reason to make their customers hop the gate when they’ve got the wide, wide woods to play in, and the homeless guys seem to prefer the deep forest. I guess it’s harder to roust them from there. Although I never have seen a cop in here.” Jack’s breath forms a soft cloud around his face.

  “You come here often?”

  “When I need to be alone. When I need to think.”

  A noise in the bush to their left makes Matthew’s heart thud. “What was that?”

  “You spook too easy.” Jack kicks the bush. There is a squawk and a chicken runs into the path. It is white with black spots and a red comb. It glares at Jack with an indignant eye.

  “What’s a chicken doing in here?” Matthew says.

  “Somebody probably had it as a pet and dumped it.”

  “A chicken?”

  Jack shrugs. “Some people think snakes make good pets.”

  The chicken pecks at the ground and takes a few steps toward them.

  “If it’s still there when we come back maybe I’ll take it home,” says Jack. “Maybe give it to Anthony. If we leave it here, one of the homeless guys’ll cook it.”

  Jack fumbles in his army surplus jacket, which seems to have a thousand pockets, until he finally produces a packet of crushed soup crackers. He tears it open and scatters crumbs for the bird, and it wastes no time. “Attila the Hen,” he says.

  They leave the chicken, which scuttles back under the bush as they continue along the path.

  “The air smells different here,” Matthew says, breathing deep. “Good. Clean.” He thinks of how snow smells—light and pure—and how it squeaks under your boots when the temperature is very low.

  Jack points to another gate at the curve of the path. “In there.”

  A small sign reads “Jardin de Shakespeare.” This gate is somewhat higher and they scramble up the rock wall to get footing. As they jump down on the other side, Matthew sucks the blood off his palm where he caught his hand on a jagged stone.

  “What do you think?” Jack looks as proud as if he had built the place himself.

  They stand at the entrance to a garden, which is a microcosm of the one outside. It is smaller, denser, and in the moonlight, undeniably magical. In front is another circle of grass, but sloping to either side lie banked flowerbeds with paths on two levels. The beds and paths gradually slant upwards until they meet at the far side of the grass over a stone hill with a flat space in front.

  “It’s a stage,” says Jack. “They put on plays during the summer. It gets better. Come on.”

  As they walk, Matthew realizes the garden is named after Shakespeare not only because they put plays on here, but also because the plantings are done on themes from the plays. They walk through Macbeth’s heather and twisted trees. There is a bronze plaque in the ground with words etched on it in both French and English. Matthew bends close to read it in the moonlight. The witches’ speech. “Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.” As they near a hill of stone they enter the Midsummer’s Night Dream, lush flowering plants slumbering now in deep midwinter. Jack steps down from the path onto a stone by a small pond. Matthew hears sounds—clinking and the rasp of metal—as Jack fiddles with something. A lock, he presumes. A loud clank and Jack disappears. For a second Matthew doesn’t know what has happened and then Jack’s great shaggy head reappears.

  “This is the best part. Come on in.” He shoves metal bits back in his pockets. Matthew can’t help but wonder what else is stored in the multitude of pouches and compartments and zippered sacs.

  He steps down and sees that the hill is actually a cave, used as a backstage area, no doubt, when plays are performed. As he ducks in he has to feel his way, then he hears Jack strike a match. He has produced a candle from his pocket and lit it. It is primitive—two men in a cave by a flickering light. Matthew thinks of Neanderthals, of smugglers’ caves, and foxes’ dens. Jack grins and his glasses gleam with flame. He holds the candle out and turns, showing Matthew his lair. There are several wooden crates, a spool of wire, a couple of two-by-fours, a rake, a green plastic garbage can, a shovel, a cane chair. There is a set of rough stairs.

  “There’s an opening up top.” Jack puts the candle in a nook in the stone wall and sits on the spool, gesturing that Matthew should take the chair. “Sometimes I come here and sit. I don’t know if you’ll get this. But it feels right to be here. Like it was made for me, sort of.”

  “How did you find it?”

  “I roam around. But I saw it, and right away I started thinking about what it would feel like to be inside here, looking out, with earth and stone behind me. I had a place like this in Arizona.

  Out in the old cliff dwellings. People said it was a shaman’s cave but all I knew was that there were times it was the only place I could be. Like this place. I think—you know—I could hold a place like this.”

  “What do you need to hold a place for? From what?”

  “Nothing. It’s just a feeling. Look, I know people think that we should get over it. I know that. They say, ‘The war’s been over for decades. Get over it. Move on.’ Well, it’s not something you move on from, it’s something you move on with—it’s memory but it’s more than memory—and sometimes finding a place like this, a landscape that suits you, no matter how weird, it’s like floating in saltwater. It takes the weight off, lets you feel lighter. You get that, right?”

  Jack’s eyes are fixed on Matthew, searching for something, and Matthew wishes he knew what it was so he might give it.

  “Get over it? I’d love to get over it,” Matthew says. “The things you see …”

  “The things you do …” says Jack and he hangs his head, his shoulders hunched and his hands dangling between his knees.

  Matthew turns away from Jack. It is fearful, this attraction to the underground, and yet at the same time it is an alluring slip out of rational skin, away from the brazen head of civilization. He looks out the barred entrance of the cave onto the garden beyond. The light is silver, the shadows deep. He hears a sound behind him, but does not turn to look.

  Later, Jack speaks of the Ho Bo woods and Cu Chi and Vietcong who lived for years, down below in the dark labyrinthine tunnels. How they seemed like ghosts to the Americans and Australians who searched for them. How he, being so large, couldn’t fit into the tiny entrances, but he stood guard for the small guys who volunteered to go down into the earth—the tunnel rats. The ones who came back told tales of bamboo punji spikes smeared with dung, of roots that might be tripwires, of Vietcong who waited in alcoves with a garrotte or a knife to lay against an outstretched throat, of tomb bats and spiders, fire ants, giant centipedes and booby-trap boxes full of dozens of scorpions, of bamboo vipers and kraits. Over time, he said, he came to appreciate the perilous, perverse beauty of it, appreciated the lure of underneath.

  When the moon has reached its apex and begun to slide, they emerge from the ca
ve. Jack clicks the lock back into place. They cross the boundary from inner garden to outer and when they reach the right spot Jack bends down and makes a clicking with his tongue. The chicken, however, does not appear.

  “Huh,” says Jack. “Dumb bird.”

  At the gate, the prostitutes are even more plentiful than before, the woods alive with sound and skin. Matthew leaves Jack, who, laughing, says he’s going to get himself some chicken yet. Matthew keeps his arm out, like a quarterback running for a long goal, fending off the invitations, the insistences, the taunts. Open mouths, wet tongues, open arms, red nails, the dark tangle of hair, the smell of perfume, of hairspray, the musky scent of sex mixed with mouldering leaves.

  He walks faster, wanting to break into a run but holding back, for he doesn’t want to look ridiculous. He is a boy again, lost in a sinister enchanted wood, full of dark magic, and he is convinced that if he hesitates for a moment, surrenders to the lure, he will be eternally ensnared. He follows his ears to the noise of the périphérique, is guided by the lights on the other side. When he steps out of the wood he is shaking.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  It is Saida’s birthday celebration. In her bedroom, she stands in bra, underwear and a new pair of black pantyhose. She chooses a skirt, orange wool with black embroidery around the hem. She holds it next to her body, trying to smooth it into something that will do, and then places it next to the other discarded items of clothing on the bed. She opens a drawer and pulls out a black long-sleeved T-shirt. It is no good. The neck is too low and she doesn’t have a scarf in the right colours to hide the scars. There is a rust-coloured turtleneck, but it clashes with the skirt.

  She presses her lips together in frustration and determination. It is the brasserie at the Hotel Lutetia she is going to, after all. The famous name conjures up images in her head of a Paris that dangles just outside the reach of her fingertips. A mirage that would melt away if she tried to grab it. Picasso, it is said, stayed at Lutetia. And Matisse, and de Gaulle on his honeymoon. Of course, it is not one of the spots that today’s fashionable crowd flocks to; it is a place past its best days. But still, she imagines the time when it was the gathering place of writers and painters who drank fine wine and wore chic black clothes.

  Yes, that’s it, she thinks. Something black, with which there can be no argument. A turtleneck, a skirt—the one with the little gold coins, fake of course, dangling from the hem. An old skirt, but it will do. Anatole bought it for her not long after they were married, but she mustn’t hold that against the skirt. She will wear gold earrings in her ears and put her hair in a simple braid and colour her lips red.

  “Imma, are you ready? Matthew will be here any minute.” Joseph’s voice is excited, although he scrambles it with annoyance.

  “I am almost ready.” She steps into her skirt, pulls the sweater over her head and works her fingers quickly through her hair. When it is done she looks in the mirror above her dresser. She looks like a gypsy in mourning. It will not do. She must not embarrass Joseph. She hears footsteps in the hall.

  “Imma!”

  “Yes, yes, I am coming. Let him in.” She twists her hair around her hand, uses combs and pins, and anchors it at the back of her neck, a great rope of braided hair that creates a complicated-looking twist, tendrils falling. She studies herself. It looks as though she has not gone to much trouble. Almost as if her stomach was not as knotted as her hair. She puts on lipstick and a little kohl around her eyes.

  “Wow,” says Matthew, as she steps into the living room. “You look great.”

  Joseph whistles, and she hides her smile behind her hand. “I will do?”

  “You are beautiful,” says her son.

  Matthew is in black pants and a charcoal sweater over a white shirt. Joseph wears his usual uniform of baggy pants and sweatshirt and running shoes. “Oh Joseph, is that what you want to wear?”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s fine,” says Matthew, and she can see he means it and is glad, because she doesn’t know what else Joseph has anyway. “Anthony’s going to meet us there. You ready?”

  She takes a deep breath. “Yes, ready.”

  They walk to the metro at Barbès and she tries to think of the last time she was in the 6th arrondissement. A walk through the

  Luxembourg Gardens last summer after church on Sunday? Or was it the summer before? She has never gone into the Bon Marché, never to buy herself so much as a pair of gloves, let alone a dress or blouse. Never gone into La Grande Épicerie attached to Bon Marché, with its windows crammed full of sparkling sapphire-blue bottles of water, boxes of chocolates in gold foil, and silver tins of tea from India. But now she will go to Lutetia, and eat a fancy dinner with her son and her friends, like Parisians do. No, like other Parisians do.

  As they wait on the raised outdoor platform for the train to come, three boys tumble up the stairs, their Algerian-accented voices loud. They smoke cigarettes even though smoking is not permitted in the station and slap each other’s palms, laughing. From the corner of her eye Saida notices Joseph take a step away. Not so far as to be too obvious, but far enough that it might be assumed he is not with her and Matthew. As the boys pass, they look her up and down and one of them sneers and spits onto the track. She knows that they mistakenly assume she is a Muslim woman, not Catholic, and that she is fallen from grace, little more than a prostitute in their eyes, by virtue of her proximity to this non-Arab, this non-Muslim man. They remind her of her ex-husband, Anatole, who called her a filthy Arab. They are opposite sides of the same coin. He abused her because she was too much like them; these boys despise her because she is too little like them. She holds her head high and arches a brow at them, daring them to speak. She has a mother’s look in her eye. They amble past in silence and when they are midway down the platform, she turns back to Matthew, picking up his words.

  “I hope you like this place,” he is saying. “The food’s quite good. Well, I haven’t been there in years. But it used to be good. We could have gone to the hotel’s gourmet restaurant—The Paris—instead of the brasserie, but to tell you the truth, I prefer the brasserie. The restaurant’s too formal and the food’s no better—it’s just snob value. Of course, we could go to the restaurant if you want. I’m sure they’d have room on a Sunday night. I could use the payphone and see.”

  “No, Matthew. I wouldn’t like the restaurant either. The brasserie is wonderful. I would not feel comfortable in the restaurant. It’s already far too generous of you.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he says. “I just meant I want you both to do what you want tonight.” And he puts his hand over his mouth as though that is not exactly what he means either.

  “We know what you mean,” says Saida, and it makes her relax a little, to see how nervous he is. “Don’t we, Joseph?”

  “Sure. It’s cool,” he says, his hands in his pockets. Saida and Matthew share a smile.

  The train comes and at Pigalle, just two stops, they change trains to the 12 line heading south across the river to the Left Bank. It is such a world away, a completely different Paris from that of Pigalle, or Barbès, or Belleville, a universe away from the banlieue, the concrete suburbs around Paris—the word that literally translates as the place of banishment.

  They come out of the metro at Sevrès-Babylone. Here in the 6th arrondissement there are chic shops and cafés full of pretty people and wide boulevards like Saint-Germain, with stores like Rodier, Gap, Max Mara, Crabtree & Evelyn and Burberry. It feels like Babylon, mythical and decadent. In Barbès, women tote plastic shopping bags. They wear scarves tied in knots around their heads and sandals on their swollen feet, even in the coldest weather. Here the women dangle Louis Vuitton handbags too small to carry anything of use. They dye their hair to look like they have spent the winter in the sun and wear high heels to make their legs look long and put a sexy sway in their backs. In Barbès the men sit on cement blocks on the corners, they smoke and argue about politics and why their
children live without hope of good jobs. In Saint-Germain the tourists wear expensive, sensible shoes, and take pictures with digital cameras of church spires and bridges, and search for Frenchmen on bicycles carrying baguettes.

  The Hotel Lutetia is on the corner; the entrance has a large striped awning and white planters with topiary puffball trees guard each side of the door. A red carpet covers the steps.

  “You want to take a look in the lobby?” says Matthew, and she nods.

  He takes her elbow and leads her up the stairs, chatting away to Joseph about the hotel. It was used, he says, to house the Jews who were brought back to France after surviving the concentration camps. At the entrance a man in a top hat holds the door open for them. His eyes skim smoothly over Saida, but trip slightly on Joseph.

  Inside the revolving doors, the lobby is a gleaming place, with black-and-white tiles on the floor, red velvet chairs, more potted trees entwined by white roses, highly polished wooden columns and gold-and-glass display cases full of jewellery, shoes, handbags and pens. The cases stretch out in a long hall to the left and it seems infinite to Saida, like a mirror facing another mirror. In front of them the imposing reception area beckons, a curving desk of mahogany in front of three sets of dual columns in some sort of pale burled wood. Lush orchids grace the tables.

  They walk past well-dressed men in dark suits and women who smell of expensive perfume. Two women stand near each other, talking into cell phones. None of these people pay them the slightest bit of attention. We might be anyone. We might belong here. Matthew leads them through the hotel bar, opulent with black-and-white carpet in an intricate mosaic design, and the same red velvet chairs. Groups of three and four sip cocktails and Saida notices a woman in jeans and black stiletto shoes with rhinestone buckles smoking a cigar. Joseph cranes his head to look at the ceiling, which is inlaid wood of different varieties and structured in such a way as to look almost three-dimensional. Mirrors in gold frames line the walls and soft lighting gives the room an air of quiet elegance and comfort provided. Joseph adjusts the collar of his jacket, turning it up around his ears, and looks sidelong in the mirror at the effect.