“No.”
“She is always with me. Always. No one can see her but me. But, she is more real than anybody.”
“That’s good. Everyone can use one of them.”
“I know a secret.”
“So tell me the secret.”
“Only if you promise not to tell anybody.”
“Promise.”
“No, not just promise. Cross your heart on your mother’s neck! Promis, juré! ”
“Okay, promis, juré.”
“On your mother’s neck.”
“All right. On my mother’s neck.”
“Everyone else are ghosts. My fairy told me.”
“Even me?”
She shrugged her shoulders, cast me a coquettish glance. “You know any songs?” “Sure.”
“Well, sing me a song.”
... lundi matin, l’empereur sa femme et le petit prince sont venu chez moi, pour me serrer le pince comme j’ étais parti, le petit prince a dit puisque c’est ainsi, nous reviendrons mardi ...
A couple of hours later, we arrived in the old city of La Rochelle. I parked the car, and we walked inside the walls, Charlotte holding my hand, singing her songs. Somewhere back in the new land, a few other heirs to the Robinson genetic mix were preparing for their kick at the can. Their time would come. And best they navigate that road alone. I picked up a bouquet of Easter lilies. Muguets.
We entered the stairwell marked Escalier B, rode the cramped elevator together. I pulled back the wrought iron, grilled gate.
“Okay, Charlotte. The door is at the end of the hallway. When your mother answers, you hand her the flowers.”
“That door?”
“That’s right. That one.”
She walked a few steps down the hallway, turned around.
“That one?”
I waved her forward. As she arrived at the door, I closed the gate. Heard the door open.
“Charlotte, mais qu’est-ce que tu fais là?”
A couple of minutes later, I walked through the gates of the old city, and onto the beach area outlying the old harbour. Looking out at the Atlantic. For no particular reason, I recalled a book written by a German pacifist who fled Germany during the 1920s after being beaten to a pulp by brownshirt Nazis who had mistaken him for a Jew. Towards the end of the book, the hero, a monastic type known as a meister of an obscure game, stares out at the ocean, and walks into it, fully clothed. The water rises gradually, up to his knees, then past his hips and waist. He continues on into the water, as it gradually envelopes him. I never did figure out what that book was about.
I wondered what the hell had got into my mind, dragging an old world whore back to the junk yard of Montreal. Recalled her sitting in the old port, her garter belt and crotchless panties visible from beneath the trenchcoat, as she stared into the waters of the St. Lawrence seaway.
Do you see, Franck? It is what draws us together. The water, Franck.
A cold wind blowing, as the waves lapped onto the shore. We worked on magnetic principles and undercurrents which drew us towards the water, towards each other. I stepped into the water, felt the salty Atlantic water of the inner harbour seeping through my shoes, soaking my feet, lowering my body temperature a notch or two. Some people just walked into oceans or slit their throats, or put the barrels of hunting rifles into their mouths and pulled the trigger, responding to invisible fields of attraction, particles, induction fields. Others show up on time, pay their ta xes and expire quietly within the confines of their homes, surrounded by heirs, embalmers and clergymen. Nothing personal. Just attraction and repulsion, inversely proportional to the square root of the mass of the opposite body. Or something like that. Whatever. The old harbour was losing its charm. Everything around it had lost its charm. Even the word charm had lost its charm. I wanted to be free again. Fuck all these neo-templars and medieval whores. I knew some good people back at Wee Willie’s. It was over. No more Sheba and Franck. It was more than over. Time to return to Paris. Things would reassume their true proportions there. Paris the most powerful magnetic field of all. And Franck Robinson a free-floating particle, gravitating towards the bistros and bordellos. A neutral principle. Nothing more, nothing less. Fuck ‘em. I was Franck Robinson and I came from the New and Improved World. Whiter than white. We nuked people and then taught the sur vivors how to run franchises and postholocaust seminars. Then called that democracy.
PART III
I
I tended to gravitate towards Rue Lepic from time to time up in the 18th arrondissement, because it allowed me to lurk under the shadow of the old Moulin de la Galette, and because the 18th still had a bit more of the old Paris than the rest of the city. I’d been back for a few days, and found myself in front of a ba r nea r the Abbesses station watching a twig of lavender blow its way down an awning over the café. It was the music inside the café that had stopped me, a pianist doing a Michel Petrucciani retrospective. Hearing the music reminded me of Père la Chaise.
I stopped outside the Frou-Frou club on rue des Martyrs to light a cigarette. I was a traditionalist, when you came down to it. Cigarettes, alcohol and whores. A throwback to the past. A mulatto concierge was hosing refuse off the sidewalk in front of the club. She was young, pretty, shapely. And she was hosing down a sidewalk.
“You work at the Frou-Frou?” I asked. She laughed. There was Dom-Tom intonation to her laugh. It was a laugh without ulterior motives.
“I clean, m’sieur. The whole building. Every day. From top to bottom.”
“How much does that earn you?”
A primary level schoolgirl walked past us, thoroughly unconscious of our presence. She wore a small leather backpack with gold embroidery displaying the letters CD: a Dior imitation of the apparel worn by her elder counterparts.
Je cherche fortune Autour du Chat Noir Au Clair de la lune
A Montmartre The words came out easily, automatically, as if she used the tune to help her climb the hill on the way to wherever she was going.
“Not much, m’sieur.”
“How much, not much?” I pressed, smiling.
“The SMIC.”
“How much is the SMIC?”
“Une demi-brique. Cinq mille balles.”
“Tell you what. How would you like to earn a demibrique this afternoon. After taxes?”
Her smile was still there, just a little more wary.
“In exchange for what?”
“Not much. Just suck my cock. An afternoon pipe, then you’re half a brique to the good. Better than the lottery.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. Simple as opening your mouth, and whistling Dixie. Even if you’re tone deaf.” “Wait just a moment.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Take your time.”
She reached for her mop, a loose-tendrilled tool whose strands hung like a sea anemone. In one quick motion, she swung the mop around and struck me across the thigh.
“Salaud! Va te faire foutre! You think I am for sale?!”
“If you don’t like Pigalle, honey, there’s nineteen other arrondissements in the city.”
I looked across the street at a newspaper stand. An Asian man observing the scene from behind page 3 of
Tiercé-Magazine.
“Robinson! Robinson!”
Tranh crossed the street, approached the concierge.
“Madame.”
He executed an obsequious bow.
“I apologize for this gentleman’s inexplicable and execrable behaviour. He is clearly suffering from a form of mental distress.”
“Non, mais allez vous faire foutre, tous les deux!”
Tranh ushered me down the street.
“You are truly incorrigible, Robinson. Come with me. I am inviting you to the Chat Noir.”
“You see where altruism leads? I was offering her a month’s rent!”
“Of course! Of course!”
He examined me, head to toe.
“You look better, Robinson. Less edgy.”
“I have something to confess to you, Robinson. I have never understood America, and I chose you to be my teacher.”
“There’s nothing to understand.”
“Oh, but there is, there is. You recall Rhanya?”
“Sure, I remember her. The Piaf of the Maghreb, right?”
“How many flowers can she hope to sell in an evening, Robinson? Two? Three? She is in a chronic state of hysteria or drunkenness throughout her waking hours.
And look at you, on the other hand. Limitless capability, limitless options. Money, luck, friends, career. Yet you throw it all away. You are the quintessential American.
It is something we of the so-called Third World can never understand about you in the West. You have conquered the world. But you throw it all away. Do you know why?”
“Because we get it all through rape and plunder. Booty isn’t meant to be saved.”
“No, Franck. It is because you have no sense of destiny.”
We had arrived at the entrance of the Chat Noir. The bartender, a squat man with a walrus moustache, saluted us.
“The usual, monsieur Tranh?”
Tranh nodded. The waiter poured out t wo cognac glasses with a greenish, foggy liquid.
“Absinthe, Robinson. The drink of the shadow regions. You can still find it here. The founder of the former Chat Noir, the original club, was named Georges Salis. He created a marvellous form of theatre. The théâtre de l’ombre. Theatre of the netherworld. It produced the greatest occult productions of the end of the nineteenth century. Carnaval de Venise. Flagrant Délit. Classics from the underground. And sometimes, imagine Robinson, even religious and mystical themes. In the midst of a sewer of whores. Two of its most celebrated amateurs were Zola and Alphonse Daudet. The theatre supposedly died with Salis, but if you read between the lines, you can still see it.”
Tranh clinked his glass up against mine.
“I’m ver y pleased to see you. Where did you disappear to? People have been asking after you down at Le Tambour.”
“She’s gone, Tranh.”
“Of course. You miss her, don’t you?”
“Not exactly. It’s more like withdrawal.”
“It’s the warm body, isn’t it, Robinson? Love we can do without. But, we all need a warm body, don’t we? You just miss the warm body.”
“Listen, Tranh, I’m a little short this week. You wouldn’t mind fronting a little bridge loan?”
Tranh’s rodential laugh darting out of his mouth and into the closest sewer.
“Oh, no, not possible, absolutely not, so sorry, Robinson. But, good luck.”
It was about an hour’s walk to rue du Repos. Père Lachaise cemetery. I was walking towards the mausoleum, picked up a flower from one of the paths. A Bourse de Pasteur. She’d asked me to visit the place. In memory of me, Franck. I let her talk me into one last meeting. For old times sake. For a moment, she went off on a real tangent.
“You remember how I talked about harems all the time, Franck? Well, they have taken the idea one step further. Obedience schools, Franck. Des écoles de dressage.
And, once the girls have been prepared ... So we can have enough money forever. Pour aller jusqu’au bout.” Tears were sliding down her cheeks. They looked real. They looked like she might even believe they were real.
“ We have to settle down, Franck. Forget all this madness. Find ourselves a place and start up a family together.”
Then she had relented, smiled, realized the whole thing was futile. A brique’s worth makeup couldn’t mask the black eye swelling out of her face. It was just there.
A vaporous mist had descended over the cemetery. As if to provide cover for fugitives preparing a break-out. Then, for the last time: “What are you thinking, Franck?” “I’m thinking there’s a big space between human beings. That in the end we’re alone.”
“What attracted you to me, Franck?”
“You won’t take it personally?”
“Trust me, Franck.”
She smiled. We both laughed. I realized that it was one of the things we didn’t do too often. Some of the things we did just precluded laughing. Maybe it was that she usually smiled before she destroyed things.
“Your cunt.”
“So, it was just like with the others. I was nothing more than your little pute, is that it?”
“No, I don’t think that at all. You got sidelined, that’s all. Your life dream is more traditional. More like, you want a cozy little fireplace, get knocked up again, that sort of thing.”
I walked through the bric-à-brac of headstones, flat tombs, and cairns beneath the cenotaphs and shrines ringing the cemetery like contours of a mountain vineyard, the stones overgrown with thistles and vines. As if to mark the occasion, the day had turned dismal. I arrived at the vertical mausoleum and stepped inside.
The same etched inscription on two drawers.
Victor Levy Estelle Goldstein
Rachel Levy [1950-1970]
“a refuge for men in need”
An unsuccessful attempt had been made to remove the swastikas scrawled on the wall. The two sets of graffiti still intact. “Mort aux juifs.” “Juden verboten.” I recalled her words, as she showed me the door.
“In your own way, it cannot end well for someone like me. That would be a betrayal of what I am. Can you see that, Franck?”
“Why does it have to end badly?”
I wasn’t trying to stop her from doing anything. That was her business. But, I was curious, particularly since I didn’t have to stick around for the aftermath.
“Franck, there are things that are far worse than dying.”
It was a stupid question. Who does it end well for? At any rate, I’d done my part. She was free, in the same way that the rest of us were free. Which is to say, for the time being.
II
Dawn. Again. I entered the American bar on Mouffetard, where Sheba and I had spent our f irst evening together. I ordered a stand-up blackberry brandy and vodka martini. The place was half full or half empty depending on what time you arrived. A group of South American dykes slouched against a billiards table in the far end. Beside me, t wo couples perched on stools, engaged in a heated discussion while brandishing champagne flutes. She was wearing a fur coat over a rose-tinted blouse and a black miniskirt over black tights. Her left hand curled around three necklaces of lapis lazuli, copal and amber beads. Her right hand held a cigarette, which she was thrusting staccato in the direction of a blonde-haired, foppish boy-toy, in order to assert with considerable vehemence a fact she knew to be wrong. The French are like that. Nubians wearing see-through blouses pontificate blandly about the topography of the Massif Central. “Tu vas m’ écouter une fois pour tout, Fabrice. Rodez is not the capital of Aveyron.”
She tilted her head to the right, blew some smoke and ashes in the direction of the bartender. Butted out the cigarette. Pulled out another, without lighting it. The boy-toy watched her with an exasperated grimace.
“Rodez. Is. The capital of Aveyron.”
“No, it isn’t, espèce de nul,” she rebutted dismissively.
I leaned towards her, pushed a briquet in front of her face, lit her cigarette. Threw in my own two bits.
“Sainte Radegonde. The capital of Aveyron.”
“Sainte Radegonde. The capital of Aveyron!” the toyboy repeated incredulously.
“My uncle, a Jew, was shot at dawn there in 43 by the Nazis. I think there are still shells stuck in the South wall. Just beneath the statue of Our Lady of the Underworld.”
“I apologize. Je suis vraiment navré.”
&nbs
p; He extended his hand. I took it, keeping my eyes on the woman.
“Don’t worry about it.”
The woman smiled.
“Caroline.”
She passed me her card. Caroline Tiberi. Communications Agent. Committee for the Re-election of the President.
“M’sieur is a traveller?”
“Dr. Franck Thompson. But you can call me Franck.”
“Franck,” repeated Caroline, who obviously recognized a fellow philosopher from the school of relative truths.
“A pilgrim of sorts. With many sins to purge.”
I turned to the bartender. “Drinks for my friends.”
“I think m’sieur Franck wants someone to show him around Paris, non?”
“Paris,” I responded, “the capital of France.”
I passed her my business card, wrote down my telephone number, and left the café. I walked up rue Descartes, and along an abandoned stretch of rue Clovis, against the chalk walls of Lycée Henri IV. I stopped for a moment in front of Église Ste-Geneviève, recalling my first ride with Sheba, the front-wheel drive spinning out of control, Sheba downshifting into second, the car drifting into the wrought-iron rails surrounding the courtyard of the Pantheon. It was much later that she told me that she had done the whole thing deliberately.
To see how I would react.
On Sunday afternoons, Ducastin-Chanel and I usually went out for our Sunday walk. We had just crossed a bridge in the Bois de Boulogne, and were now strolling up the avenue du maréchal Lyautey, past a string of acnescarred, Rio de Janeiro pre-op transexuals, parked like Amazons on the asphalt. A storm had uprooted several thousand trees, many of which lay strewn in bric-à-brac piles along the trails of the park. Ducastin-Chanel shook her head disapprovingly as we walked past a six-foot Puerto Rican in a miniskirt.
“Look at this motley collection of she-males. In the middle of a residential district. They should respect the quartier. But it proves what I have always believed, Franck. Johns don’t like ordering escorts over the phone.
You need a sidewalk. Telephone escorts are just a dating service. It has to be a curbside contract, Franck, or it’s nothing. Intuitu personae. Two parties, vendor and purchaser, cutting a face-to-face, arms-length deal. Value given and received. Over the counter. De gré à gré.” Ducastin-Chanel stopped briefly, bent over, coughed up a gob of phlegm and spat it roughly onto the ground. “That’s enough for today, Franck. I can’t go a step further.”
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