“Bonita Faye is a beautiful happy.”
“Oui, she is.”
I guess we’d agone on forever walking along the Seine holding hands, but one Monday when Claude was pretending to be angry because I wouldn’t try something different on the menu, and I was pretending to be angry because he was not bringing me my usual, he jumped and said, “Oncle Martin!”
Suddenly Claude and I both felt like the children we had been playing when a tall, stout man in a white apron walked up behind us. Red-faced, Claude introduced me to his uncle who smiled, took my hand and held it while he chattered at me in French. It was Uncle Martin who brought me my order on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, when I thought I would never see Claude again, both he and his uncle appeared at my table where I was writing my usual postcards. There was a tiny, gray-haired woman with them. Claude looked excited, but I couldn’t tell about what.
“Hello, my dear. I am Mrs. Blount. May I sit down?” the woman asked. In a surprisingly raspy voice, she spoke good English with only a trace of a French accent. Without waiting for my answer, Uncle Martin pulled out the other cane-backed chair at the table for her. He stood over us smiling and nodding. Claude put glasses of red wine in front of us. She went on. “Since neither Martin nor Claude speak English, they have asked me to talk to you. To be their translator.”
I nodded my understanding.
“I am French,” she said proudly raising her chin just a bit, “but I have lived in the United States for the past ten years. Martin Vermeillon and his family are old friends of mine.” Her head indicated the two men hanging over our table. “Martin wants me to tell you that no matter what young Claude has said or done, he really is quite a gentleman. Martin wants you to know that he is delighted for Claude to find such a nice young person from America to have as a friend.” More smiling and nodding from Uncle Martin.
“Claude’s sister, Simone, would like to meet you also. Unfortunately, her work keeps her away from Paris during the week. So the Vermeillons would like to invite you to be their guest at the Hotel Regina in Boulogne this weekend.” Mrs. Blount leaned forward, “I assure you, you will be well chaperoned.” She straightened up and turned to the men. “Alors. It is settled. Now we will drink our wine, Martin.”
Claude and I were going to be allowed to play together after all.
Before she left, Mrs. Blount gossiped to me about Claude’s family. I think it was the same story he’d been trying to tell me the day we’d first gone to the park. Since I started studying French words, I might of understood it now, but I was glad that the family’s old friend could and would tell it to me in English.
Claude’s parents, farmers on some land outside Boulogne, had some kinda link to the French Resistance. For his own protection they had told Claude nothing about their involvement with the underground and it had been a shock to the fourteen-year-old to return home from the market one day to find that his parents had been carted off by the Gestapo…along with three British soldiers who were hiding in the Vermeillons’ barn.
Simone was working in Paris…Mrs. Blount was vague with this information…and he had peddled all the way to the city to find her. At the Cafe Roy, his Uncle Martin had not blinked when an exhausted Claude told of the capture of his parents. Instead, he had sent the boy inside for some wine and bread, had taken off his white apron and disappeared. When Uncle Martin appeared again hours later, Simone had been with him. She kissed Claude on both cheeks, clutched him to her breast and tearfully told him their parents were dead.
Everyone knew the war was going to be over soon. And, in fact, it was only a few weeks later that the French and Americans liberated Paris.
When Mrs. Blount finished the story, I understood why Claude had cried so. Only a few more weeks and Claude’s parents would have lived through the war and maybe have become heroes because of their part in the Resistance. More important, they would have been alive.
After that first time the lack of a translator never bothered me and Claude when we were alone. It just seemed like I knew what he was saying before he said it and he always understood what I was saying. When he stopped by for me after work on Friday, we were so excited we could hardly stand it. When he came up to get my suitcase he nervously wandered around the high-ceilinged room and opened doors and pulled out drawers. Seriously he indicated that the Hotel Regina was not as grand as the one I was staying in, but, and his face brightened, the Regina was clean and comfortable and that he, Claude, would be there. He grabbed my suitcase from the floor and we left after I locked the big white door to my room.
I had walked unnecessary miles around Paris, because I was too scared to ride on the Paris Metro and I couldn’t always find a taxi. The subway ride to Boulogne with Claude at my side was easy and I was mad at myself for not trying the subway before then.
As the car rushed and rattled through the dark tunnels, I saw a different side of Paris. Above ground, in the museums, at my hotel and in the restaurants I had mostly seen rich people, the ones who were catered to by folks I now saw riding the subway, men and women dressed in the dark, sturdy clothes associated with hard work. Their faces looked tired and pinched, but as the car raced away from Paris, their workday behind them and a weekend ahead, they began to relax and call teasingly to one another across the aisle.
I think Claude and I came in for our share of the jokes, but I didn’t understand and Claude just sat unaccustomedly sullen and silent. When I asked him what they were saying, he just shrugged and said it didn’t matter. The subways are faster now, but then it took more than a half-hour to get to Marcel-Sembat, our Metro stop to the Hotel Regina. The aboveground exit literally dumped us out at the door of the Regina.
I loved Boulogne. After three weeks of living in Paris, it was a welcome relief to be in a small town again. Now Boulogne is bigger than Poteau, Oklahoma, by a long shot, but it still has that small town feeling of everyone knowing everybody and all their business. Claude had three people “howdy” him before we walked the few yards to the hotel entrance.
Inside the small lobby, there was a polished cherrywood registration desk and behind it stood the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She came around the counter to greet us, taking my face in her hands and kissing me on both cheeks. In heavy accented English she said, “So, this is Bonita Faye. Claude didn’t tell me how pretty you are. Welcome to our hotel. We are going to have a good time. Ooh la la.”
FIFTEEN
Having been a wife and a murderer, I figured I had enough experience in life to know who had been around the block and who hadn’t. And Simone Vermeillon had definitely circled the village square a few times in her life. Her face was smooth, white complexion with the same natural high red color in her cheeks that Claude had, and her hair was a shiny blonde, almost white. Her voice was clear and her good manners told me a lot about her dead mother, but it was the pain in her china blue eyes that told me her story.
I saw that same look in my mirror every morning.
While she was welcoming me, saying all the right things for Claude’s benefit, our eyes were carrying on a private conversation.
“I see you know me. That’s all right. You are welcome here as long as you don’t betray me to Claude.”
And I answered her in the same silent communion. “Let me be. Let me stay. Like you, I need time to rest. Time to forget. I won’t hurt Claude.” This exchange was necessary for Simone Vermeillon also knew one when she saw one. No matter how similar or different our sins had been, we recognized one another. We were both survivors. And we both knew what that meant.
The war had altered the course of life for others and I couldn’t begin to imagine what dreadful decisions she had been forced to make in a country that was ruled by an enemy. One of those choices was immediately evident. Neither Mrs. Blount nor Claude had said Simone was married, but when a young, sturdy boy with pale blue eyes and a shock of blonde white hair slipped from around the high
counter and shied up to Simone’s backside, she pulled him close to her and said, “This is my son, Michel.” She pronounced it “Me-shell.”
The boy was smiling a timid welcome to me when he saw Claude. With a whoop he rushed between his mother and me and jumped into Claude’s arms. They were obviously big buddies and had their own established ritual of greeting. Claude swung the boy around in a circle and the toes of the child’s scuffed black shoes barely missed hitting me. Then Claude sat the boy down and kissed him on both his flushed cheeks.
“I tell Claude and I tell Claude that Michel is getting too big to climb all over him. Soon Michel will be swinging Claude around.” Simone translated to Claude and we all laughed. “Come,” she said to me. “Claude will show you your room. Then we will have coffee.”
Simone went around the desk, looked through the boxed pigeonholes behind it, and produced a brass key attached to a large porcelain knob. “Number 324, Claude. I am sorry about the stairs, Bonita Faye, but you will be cooler at night if you are up high. I will not worry about you in the daytime. Claude wants to show you many sights. Anyway, it’s not so hot this year and a few stairs never bother the young.”
When we reached what I thought was the third floor, Claude kept going on up. Then I remembered that Europeans didn’t count the ground floor. They just called it “ground floor.” Claude was opening the door of room 324 when I caught up with him on what any American would have called the fourth floor.
I didn’t have to fake anything to relieve his anxiety about the room. It was small and narrow, painted a blue so deep that it was almost green. A single wooden bedstead, its headboard painted the same unusual color, was in one corner. Next to it was a simple bed stand with a brass lamp shaped like a candlestick. A rose-patterned armchair and chest of drawers completed the furnishings. There was no closet. Instead a row of painted pegs projected from a board on the wall.
I sat down on the white cotton bedspread, my body sinking into the soft mattress. Claude put down my suitcase and crossed to the room’s only window and opened it. All I could see was French sky.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Very, very okay. In fact, it’s downright bon.”
Claude opened the door and showed me that the bathroom was across the hall by miming handwashing. Then he pointed to himself and then downstairs. He held up five fingers. I took it that he would meet me down in the lobby in five minutes. Or at five o’clock. Or in five hours. One of us was going to have to learn the other’s language.
After hanging my few clothes on the pegs and putting some underwear in the drawers, I snapped the suitcase shut and shoved it under the bed. Grabbing the heavy key ring, I skipped down the stairs, my hand lightly tracing the smooth wooden railing.
Claude was leaning against the wall in the lobby, his arms folded, one foot crossed over the other. A scowl on his face and tap on his watch meant I had taken too long. I shook my head and held up three fingers. He shook his and held up six. Then we laughed and he grabbed my hand. I looked around for Simone.
“Come,” he said after taking my key and returning it to the box.
Ah, English at last.
At the end of the small lobby was another staircase. With Claude pulling on my hand, we bounded down the stairs.
Simone and Michel were waiting for us in the basement dining room. There were flowers, cakes and cups on one table. Michel pulled his mother’s head down and whispered nervously to her. She held his head and said something in his ear, then she pushed him forward a bit.
“It is party,” he said in English. “It is Bonita Faye’s party.”
No one in my whole life had ever given me a party.
While I was exchanging pretty noises with Michel, Simone and Claude were deep in an animated discussion. Still not accustomed to the French way of exclaiming over a pan of dirty dishwater like it was champagne, I was relieved that it was only a discussion of how I liked my room. It made me wonder how excited they would get if a car ever drove through the lobby.
“Claude tells me that you like our Van Gogh room.”
“Yes, thank you. I do like the room, but who is Vango? Is he a relative, too?”
“No, cherie, Van Gogh was a famous Dutch artist. He once lived in a little room in Arles, France, like the one you’re in. He painted a picture of it and sent it to his brother Theo, to show him where he was living. Now it’s a most famous painting and one of my favorites. The room is my impression of how the painting looks. I will find you a reproduction so you can compare.”
“I’d like that. I don’t know an awful lot about art, but I’ve sure been learning since I’ve been in Paris.”
After the party, Claude and I walked around Boulogne. Since it was after closing time, we peeked through shop windows and he taught me the French words for the wares sold in each. Then I would say it to him in English.
Supper was served in the dining room downstairs. Some of the other hotel guests were at different tables around the room. A small sign with numbers on it indicated which roomers sat at which table. I ate with the family at the table nearest the door. Everyone knew everyone else and there was lots of talking back and forth between the tables. And, of course, I had to be introduced as Claude’s little friend from America to each one of them, even the neighbors who came in for dinner.
Fresh vegetables, cheese and long sticks of bread made up the meal.
“From Claude’s farm,” said Claude as he pointed at the potatoes, lettuce and beans. His English was improving.
“Oh, do you still have the farm?” I turned to Simone for the answer. It coulda been bothersome for her to answer all of our questions and give the answers, but she seemed amused by our company and not to mind the translating.
“Oui, the house is burned, but the barn is, how you say, strong. Always we have the garden. It was only food we had in war. Now neighbors do the garden and we share in food and profit. Hotel makes some money, but is not so much. We do many things to make the extra. Everything helps.”
It was a wholesome, carefree evening with friends, “family” and lots of laughter in a relaxed atmosphere. I’d never been a part of this kind of experience before and later in my room, as I idly fondled the pink tea rose I had found on my pillow, I wondered why this was so.
Mama had certainly loved me. I had no doubt about that. She had even been affectionate to me in her way, giving me what she could when she had it, and telling me “no never mind” when she didn’t. But she had been so busy surviving, keeping me and her alive, that we hadn’t had the luxury of the secure, relaxed relationships I’d seen downstairs.
She had taught me to clean, to cook and to be as honest as she knew how. But, as I had found out tonight, she had cheated us both. Mama had never taught me how to get along when things were good. I had always thought my life took the turn it did ‘cause of what that step-man did to me; now I could see that it probably woulda ended up the same way anyhow.
As a natural-born survivor—and me being birthed by a lifelong sufferer—we were neither prepared for what to do when the edge we lived on was no longer a dangerous summit.
I wished that she was there with me right then. I’d hug her neck and give her my sweet-smelling rose. I’d settle her back in the downy pillows of my feather bed where I could see her tired face in the pink glow of the low-wattage bulb in the electric candlelight and I’d say, “Mama, we’re safe here. You can stop your running and stop your scrabbling. Come on out of the hen house ‘cause there ain’t no weasels in France.”
Well, Mama was dead, had died and left me with the biggest weasel of them all. But with her training and her instincts, I had known what to do when I had been cornered in the woodpile. Now, on my own, I had to discover what to do when the chicken yard was free of varmints and the gate was left open.
For the first time in my life, I had to decide what to do next based on what I wanted to do, not wh
at I had to do. The first step had been to buy that ticket to Paris, France. I had started to say that it had been when I made love to Harmon in my living room in Poteau the day after he became a hero, but even that act was inevitable. And if there hadn’t been no Korea for him to go to, I knew where I’d be right this very minute; in my kitchen fixing chicken-fried steak for Harmon, trying not to see the corner of an unused airline ticket sticking up from my orange Fiestaware pitcher.
My coming to France had been my first thought-out, carried-through decision.
SIXTEEN
I decided to stay in Boulogne. It wasn’t Paris itself, but since I’ve always had a cockeyed view of everything anyway, slightly left to center, it wasn’t that far off for me.
I asked Simone before I told Claude. I knew who the decision maker was around this place. We were having some of that godawful coffee in the dining room. “So you see, Simone, it would be cheaper and I could stay longer if I made the move here. Besides I love my room and I feel more at home here, more welcome, with you and Claude and Michel. So what do you think?”
I said it that way ‘cause I wasn’t ready to say, “The Regina feels like home to me. And I want to be a part of a family long enough to know what a family means past just a word I can point to in my dictionary.”
“Stay as long as you like, cherie. Do what you have to do.” Somehow I had known Simone would understand.
My next decisive act was to take my coffee cup over to the serving area and add hot water from the kettle that was always kept going for those who preferred to brew a cup of tea. I took a sip of the diluted French roast and smiled, “Now that’s real coffee.”
For a Frenchman, Claude was curiously quiet when I told him I was going to stay on. But he was only searching for the right words, “Claude is come over,” he finally declared. It took me awhile to figure out he was saying he was “overcome,” a word I had used to tell Simone how I felt about my Van Gogh room.
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