by J D Ventura
“Here is your home in Paris,” Clarice declared with a hint of triumph, as she unlocked the door to room No. 2 with a clink and a click.
The room was small and simple, but, like Clarice, was a fitting example of Paris’ undeniable charm. There were two bright yellow upholstered chairs on either side of a floor-to-ceiling window, draped with faded paisley curtains. The perfectly-square double bed was covered in a duvet that matched the window treatments, the sunny teardrops of the print faded but pressed neatly flat. Two cocoa-brown bolster cushions were fronted by two plain white sheeted squares, which were placed behind two golden throw pillows. Above a nondescript rectangular mahogany headboard hung a print, matted in a hand-carved wooden frame. In the painting, people celebrated and danced, but, as Claire looked closer, she saw the crowd encircled what looked like dead bodies.Two shaded wall lamps, on either side of the replica, made the scene hard to ignore.
“The room is lovely,” Claire said, her nose now practically touching the print.
“That is one of my favorites,” said Clarice, noticing her guest’s curiosity over the print. “Célébrant les Corps des Soldats Suisses. Dark, I know. But the history of this place, this city, must be remembered. At least this is what I think.”
“Is it the French revolution?” Sam asked.
“Oui. The artist is Johann Zoffany. He did not like the French and the revolution. It was meant to be a, what is the word, condem-”
“Condemnation?” Claire offered.
“Oui, it is a condemnation of the barbarism of the revolt. The evil of mens. That the peoples would celebrate over the bodies of King Louis’ guards. Of course, this from a German painter! If he had only lived to see what his people were capable of, non? L’histoire se répète. I think maybe we never learn. And yet, I think this shows how hungry they were for the freedoms. How they longed to rise above what oppressed them. A brutal triumph over fear. Yes?”
“Yes, merci,” said Sam, handing Clarice a few euros, which the innkeeper rightly took as a cue the couple wanted to settle in.
“For you, I will insist you both come for the bar before dinner and I give you champagne to celebrate that you still love your wife with all your heart. This is clear!”
“I’ll drink to that,” said Claire.
Of course, his name is Pierre, Claire thought, as the twenty-something bartender introduced himself, brushed his thick brown bangs away from his forehead and greeted the just-showered Americans with a dimpled smile and the promised flutes of champagne. “Zis is from Madame Picard. Clarice, yes? Joyeux anniversaire!”
“Yes, thank you very much,” Sam said, turning to Claire with a glass raised toward the copper ceiling above the bar. “To my beautiful wife, for entertaining her dreadfully boring husband’s occasional impulsivity.”
They clinked glasses and each took generous sips. “Sam, I still can’t believe we’re here. Twelve hours ago I was hoping for a good movie on demand and now, we’re in Paris! It really is as romantic as they say.”
“I agree. Do you know this hotel was built in the 17th century? Crazy to think of how different the city must be now. And yet three centuries aren’t a second on the universe’s timeline. We are at a tiny bar, in a tiny hotel, in a tiny city, on a tiny planet. And none of it is really all that old.”
“Uh oh. I fear this evening’s conversation is going to quickly turn into a thoughtful examination of the philosophical underpinnings of your profession.”
“It’s a field, not a profession,” he said, smiling. “Am I really that boring?”
“No,” said Claire, pushing his arm playfully. “But, since we are far away from all the spooky NASA nerds you work for, permission to speak freely?”
“Ah, but of course, madame.”
“Part of why I don’t like talking about your work, is because I know I am getting the edited version. It’s like watching a rated R movie on network television. I know you’re censoring yourself because of your security clearance, and knowing that makes it, I don’t know…”
“What?”
“Sometimes it feels like you’re lying to me.” Claire winced as she said it, but was glad she had.
Sam sighed and then flashed an exaggerated frown. “Okay, that’s fair. I’ll tell you what, you can ask me one probing question about my job and I promise to answer it as fully and truthfully as I can, without violating my clearance. What do you think?”
Claire rubbed her hands together, shutting her eyes in delicious deliberation. “I have it.”
“Wow, that was quick. Okay. Shoot.”
“You are a scientist?”
“Yes. Wow, that was easy.”
“Stop it!”
“Go, go. Sorry.”
“And all scientists want to discover something. So, my question is, what would be your ultimate discovery? You know, the culmination of your life’s work.”
“That’s an easy one. A habitable planet. Verifiably habitable.”
Pierre refilled their glasses and then went to greet another couple saddling up to the bar. Claire sipped from her second glass of champagne. “Well, I hate to burst your bubble over bubbly, my dear husband, but your life’s ambition is tragically flawed.”
“Oh really,” said Sam. “And how’s that?”
“Well, you finding a habitable planet would be like Christopher Columbus discovering America hundreds of years before boats were invented. As they say in the great state of Maine, ‘You can’t get there from here.’”
“Well, that analogy doesn’t quite work,” said Sam with a wink.
“Why is that?”
“Because Europeans in the 15th century had very different reasons for wanting to discover the New World. A quest for religious freedom, an escape from tyranny, plain-old greed, and the timeless desire for conquest. These are not what motivate my team at the space agency, my dear.”
“So what, pray tell, is your motivation for finding a planet we could live on, but can’t possibly get to in our lifetimes?”
“Because if we don’t, life as we know it will come to an end on this planet, which is dying at a staggering pace, Claire. There isn’t much time. To the universe, this hotel was built a nanosecond ago, and our planet has only a few more months to live. In a flash, we will be out of time. It would be nice to have a place to go when that happens. Don’t you agree?”
“Hey, you’re talking to the girl who thought a trip to Paris was crazy. Now you want me to go to Mars? No thanks. It’s fucked up, but I like it here.”
“Here won’t be here forever, and Mars is a barren shithole,” he replied. “Come on, let’s go for a walk.”
The night was clear but humid and, after a couple of champagnes, Claire felt just the slightest bit of perspiration along her hairline. The street had an old and ancient smell, earthy, like blood, as if the soil trapped beneath the buildings was bleeding through the centuries-old cobblestones. They held hands as they slowly strolled west, against traffic, down Rue de Lilled, before taking a right onto Rue du Bac, heading north toward the river. The headlights of oncoming cars turned the drivers into silhouettes, dark mysterious cutouts of people. Where were they all heading? Did they find the city as magical as Claire did at this moment? Of course, she knew that wasn’t the case. They were late for the night shift, or to pick their kids up from soccer practice. They were off to business dinners, most likely cursing the ambling tourists. But for now, obscured by the shifting light, they were pleasant extras cast in Claire’s romantic dreamscape.
It was Saturday night and they shared the sidewalk with the full range of human experience. Two young men also held hands, an air of casual, if unintended, defiance about them. As they passed, Claire heard them speaking Arabic and caught the probably unrelated English words “fuck” and “dude.” An old woman, wearing a crisp blue blazer and a pair of gray slacks, pushed a walker to which her cat was leashed. Th
e tabby followed along as faithfully as a dog, darting around her feet in a dance clearly choreographed over many years. It wore a rhinestone-studded collar that matched the old woman’s purse. A group of drunken college-aged Brits stumbled past, singing Happy Birthday. When the song concluded, she knew the birthday boy’s name was “Hugh” and he didn’t want to go to the “bloody Louvre.”
They crossed the river at the Royal bridge and the night air along the Seine was cool and both fragrant and, based on which direction the breeze was blowing, slightly foul. “Let’s take a left on Quai Francois Mitterand,” said Sam, trying to make his French sound casual, rather than pretentious.
“Nice pronunciation, you ugly American,” Claire chided, taking in the endless grandeur of the Seine’s tree-lined banks.
A few minutes later, she gasped as she stood before the three arches in front of the Place du Carousel. As they entered the vast open space in front of the Louvre, Claire’s eyes were immediately drawn to their right. The Pyramid du Louvre shimmered and glowed, surrounded by five massive fountains, from which shot bursts of water fifty feet into the air.
“Sam, oh my God! It’s more beautiful than I imagined.”
“You know, there was a lot of controversy when it was being built,” he said, as they both began approaching the massive structure, surrounded by hundreds of other visitors.
“Why?”
“A lot of reasons. People thought it was too modern and clashed with the French Renaissance architecture of the Louvre. Fair point if you ask me. Others thought it was essentially an Egyptian symbol of death, made possible by the enslavement of an entire people. There was even a brouhaha over the fact that the architect was Chinese-American. Not French enough, et cetera, et cetera.”
“I love the contrast between its modernity and the surrounding buildings,” gushed Claire. “It feels like progress to me, you know? That society has, I don’t know, somehow advanced from the days when the guillotine was a permanent fixture in this plaza. You know what I mean?”
Just then the crowd in front of the pyramid, now denser, shifted. People were walking decidedly in the opposite direction of Claire and Sam. A woman picked up her small daughter and called frantically, in English, for her husband. A police officer waved people back. What had sounded like a distant bark came into auditory focus. The dissonant, hollow reverb of a megaphone rose above the din of the crowd. Claire could just make out the words. “C’est notre maison! France pour les Francais! C’est notre maison! France pour les Francais!”
“Sam, what is it? A protest?”
He was standing on his tip toes, trying to see above the crowd, which was moving and shifting like a school of fish fleeing a shark. “Yes, looks like a few hundred people.”
“What are they shouting?”
“It’s an anti-immigration rally, I think. Just our luck, right?”
As the crowd parted their view improved. The protesters carried signs and were yelling at what Claire imagined must be counter protesters. Many of the women in that group wore hijabs. Several police officers were attempting to separate the two crowds, which seemed to be intersecting in a way that could only lead to violence. No sooner had she thought it possible, a man holding a sign that read “Les Terroristes Rentrent Chez Eux!” tried to pull off the head covering of a young Arab woman. He pulled at the hijab and she resisted, attempting to kick the man in the crotch. Two men standing behind the woman rushed to her defense and tackled the man with the sign. A policeman blew a whistle. Someone threw a beer bottle that barely missed Claire’s head.
“Jesus, okay, that’s it. We need to go,” Sam declared, grabbing Claire’s hand and moving toward a nearby line of taxis. He pushed by several other tourists who had gotten the same idea and soon they were in the back of a cab, stunned and winded.
“Hotel Bersolys,” said Sam. “S’il vous plait.”
As they pulled away, Claire searched the crowd for the woman who had been grabbed. She was kneeling on the wet pavement near one of the fountains, looking dazed. The pyramid rose before her, its beauty contrasting her horror-stricken face.
“So what were you saying about our planet going to shit again?” said Claire. “Fuck me.”
“Are you okay?” Sam asked her, pivoting to face her in the small backseat.
“I’m fine. That got ugly fast.”
“It’s been getting ugly for a while,” he said. “Sorry. That, I am afraid, was my best attempt at romance.”
They rode in silence on the short ride back to the hotel. The driver had the air conditioner cranked and the back windows were steaming up. In the darkness, she drew a heart in the window and within it wrote “C+S.”
Sam watched her do it.
“I love you, too, Claire. Forever.”
As the Toyota crested the hill leading to the Village, Claire tapped on Marcy’s right shoulder. “This is good, right here.”
Marcy shot her a confused look in the rearview mirror. “I can bring you right to your house, lady, it ain’t no trouble.”
“No, right here, please. Please pull over.”
Marcy pulled the car over. Claire thanked her and, fishing in her pocket, handed her a twenty-dollar bill. The gesture seemed to erase the driver’s doubts. She smiled broadly and handed Claire a business card. “If you need a ride back to your car tomorrow, you know, while you wait for the tow or whatever, give me a call, darlin’.” Claire nodded and exited through the back-left door and just stood on the side of the road until Marcy did a U-turn and drove back toward town.
Claire crossed the street. It was dusk. A group of crows feeding on a dead deer carcass cawed in protest at her approach, hopping away from the rotting carrion before flying to the overhead telephone wires to watch her arrival or await her departure. She walked to the edge of the woods and, hugging the tree line, made her way down the hill. She could see the Village’s wall now and the roof of the guard shack. She could also see the service ladder the boys had used to scale the development’s brick perimeter. Claire, this is crazy! You live here! What are you doing? What in the hell are you doing?
The metal ladder was bolted into the brick, its first step level to her chest. She grabbed the ladder’s frame above her head and, kicking off the wall, hoisted herself to the first step. As she pushed her body flush against the ladder, she looked right toward the guard shack. Through the open window she saw the guards, standing at the doorway of the hut, their backs to her. Now, Claire!
She scrambled up the ladder, pausing one more time before swinging over the top of the wall. Her hands were wet with sweat and, descending the other side, her foot slipped and her body banged loudly against the ladder’s frame. She dangled there for a moment, listening for what she imagined was the inevitable approach of the men. She heard only the crows, back on the ground, arguing over their spoils.
As she walked into her living room, she prayed for Sam to have returned early, but thought calling out his name was a bit too hopeful. Everything was as she had left it and she knew immediately he wasn’t back from D.C. Out of sheer habit, she made a beeline for the coriander jar before stopping herself by spinning around and diving headfirst onto the couch. You’re going to deny yourself serenity because your husband, who has dementia, declared you were pregnant by scribbling it on your arm while you were sleeping? Pick a side, Claire. Either you’re off the wagon and you’re not pregnant, or you’re back on the fucking wagon. You can’t have it both ways. Right?
She imagined sitting at the kitchen table, downing two Xanax and three glasses of wine in rapid succession. Her body needed it. Her mind craved it. Just one. Not three, Claire. One tiny little pill. She grabbed one from the jar and washed it down with a glass of white wine.
As she waited for the pill to kick in, she felt her anxiety level rising, like the temperature of an engine denied coolant. She was overcome with the urge to call someone, anyone to help her make sense of
what felt like a panic taking hold. Stephanie! Yes, she could trust Stephanie. Of course, she could. They had a connection. Stephanie understood the stress she was under. She is a true friend, Claire.Maybe there was an explanation for the relentless weirdness of the past few days. Maybe the objectivity of a clearer head would bring swift resolution to these seemingly inexplicable events. Yes, Stephanie would help her. She would tell Claire she was nuts and they would laugh and tomorrow Sam would call and everyone would have a good chuckle at Claire’s clumsy attempts at suburban living. You scaled the service ladder? What are you, nuts, Claire?Yes, it would all be very funny. Very funny indeed.
She took a long hot shower and managed to reach a near meditative state, staring at her feet and slowly breathing as the hot water cascaded down her back. She threw on a pair of jeans and a tee shirt, dried and brushed her hair and grabbed her house keys. She would plainly present the facts to Stephanie and then open her mind to her new best friend’s comforting interpretation and, better still, explanation of the undecipherable psychobabble running through Claire’s mind.
She rang the Halls’ doorbell several times but nobody answered. She walked down the stone walkway and peered through the garage windows. Both cars were parked inside. The pool, Claire. They must be at the pool. She followed the fence line around the side of the house to the gate. Just before she shouted a tentative “hello,” she caught herself. Voices. Stephanie and Marc were talking behind the fence. Not just talking, their voices were raised in argument. Claire froze, lowered her head, and listened.