by Lewis Shiner
She was lively and responsive, picking up my leads but also feeling the music, shifting effortlessly between six-count and eight-count patterns, never losing her smile. It was one of my favorite songs, and the sun sparkled on the river and gulls circled the bridge, crying out in pleasure, and I recognized it as one of those rare moments that you know are perfect even as they’re unfolding.
“I’m Frank,” I said, when the song ended. “You’re a great dancer.” Then I caught myself and asked, “Est-ce que tu parle anglais?”
“Sandy,” she said. “And I am English.”
“Manchester?”
“Originally. London now. Good on you—most Americans can’t tell Scots from Welsh. And you’re a good dancer, too.”
“Thanks.” The band laid into “Moonglow.” “You want to try again?”
After “Moonglow” they played “In the Mood,” maybe the Miller band’s most enduring hit.
“Why are you laughing?” Sandy asked.
“Glenn Miller,” I said. “I’ll tell you later.”
Two other couples were dancing now, and the musicians hammed it up for us, the clarinetist pointing his instrument straight up at the sky, the pianist kicking away his stool to play standing up. They stretched the song for extra solos, but I still wanted more. When they finished I dipped Sandy low and held her there for a second or two, and then we were all applauding, and I threw a five-Euro note in the clarinet case, and then they rolled the piano away and it was over.
“Wow,” Sandy said. “That was fantastic. Do you fancy a coffee or a drink or something?”
We crossed over to Ile Saint-Louis and I had to resist an impulse to take her hand. “What are you doing in Paris?” I asked.
“A week’s holiday. Ending tomorrow, sad to say. Then it’s the train and back to the Oxford Street Marks and Sparks.” She looked over at me. “That’s—”
“I know. Marks and Spencer. I’ve been in that very location.”
“You’re quite the world traveler, aren’t you? Here on business?”
I told her about the wire recorder and Glenn Miller while we stood on line for takeaway hot chocolate at a hopelessly crowded café. I was still feeling the intimacy of the dance and saw no harm in talking about it. When I got to the part about the prostitutes and the drunkenness, I could see her expression change.
“But that’s perfectly awful,” she said. “What do you mean to do with this thing?”
“Auction it off, probably.”
“Wouldn’t there be a scandal? I mean, the man was a war hero.”
My romantic fantasies were fishtailing away, and I was angry at myself for losing my head so easily, for assuming that moving well together meant anything more than that. “Our government lied about Glenn Miller, just like they lied about the weapons in Iraq.”
She shook her head. “I can’t abide hearing people talk about their leaders that way. It’s so disrespectful.”
I felt myself losing my temper. Political arguments always ended up reminding me of my own helplessness. What was my one vote compared to the power of PACs and big money special interest groups, to corporate campaign contributors and the media? I drank off my hot chocolate and threw the cup away.
“It was great dancing with you,” I said, and meant it. “I’ve got to go.”
I started to walk away, but she grabbed my arm, her fingers remarkably strong. “Wait.”
I stood with my hands shoved in my pockets. She ignored my defensive posture and put her arms around my waist and buried her face in my chest. I could smell the sweet scent of her hair.
She said, “I’ve got to go back to my miserable, dull life tomorrow and I don’t want this to be over yet. Please? Could we just go to dinner and pretend a little? Maybe go dancing? We don’t have to talk about politics or Glenn Miller or anything important. We could be two different people entirely, just for tonight. Couldn’t we?”
Without any conscious decision, my arms went around her. “Yes. Sure. Of course we can.”
She looked up at me with eager gray eyes and big smile and kissed me quickly, so sweetly and unexpectedly that it vaporized whatever will I might have had left.
She took me to the pet market at the entrance to the Cité Metro stop, where vendors were selling everything from hamsters and cockatiels to chinchillas and prairie dogs. True to the spirit of our bargain, I ignored any qualms I might have had about the cages and focused on her delight. From there, we crossed the Seine to the giant toy waterworks of the Pompidou Center where we watched a clown juggle fire on an enormous unicycle, then walked through the tiered gardens of Les Halles, holding hands as the sun set. We ate dinner at an Indian restaurant near my hotel, shying quickly away from topics that threatened to go sour, like our differing tastes in films, and struggling to stay with the ones that seemed harmless, like our distant pasts, or the places I’d been that she’d always wanted to go. The shared effort brought us closer, like a kind of training exercise.
When we stepped back into the street, the wind had picked up and the temperature had dropped. She nestled under my left arm for warmth and I opened my coat to bring her inside it, then turned her face up and kissed her. She tasted of cardamom and wine. Her lips were tense at first, then opened in surrender.
“Do you have someplace we can go?” she whispered.
“My hotel is just up the street.”
“And do you have, you know—”
“Condoms? Yes. I didn’t think I’d be using them, but—”
“But you never know.”
Once in my room the mood turned awkward again. There was nothing there but the full-sized bed, two small end tables, and a half-size refrigerator. The TV hung from the ceiling and the closet was small and without doors. I went to shut the window to the airshaft and Sandy said, “It’s freezing in here.”
“I know,” I said. “Sorry.” I shed my coat and took hers. “Get your shoes off and get into bed. I’ll warm you up.”
The plastic mattress cover under the sheets made crinkling noises as we got in. I pulled the covers over us and held her for a minute or two, fully clothed, without saying anything. I listened to the rhythm of her breathing, both alien and comforting, and felt the muscles of her back slowly begin to relax. I buried my nose in her neck, inhaling the warmth of her skin, and then I was kissing her neck, her ear, her mouth. We slowly worked our way out of our clothes and pushed them out onto the floor, and then I had a condom on and was kissing her breasts and their small, clenched nipples, and moving down to taste between her legs. It had been so very long.
“Mmmmm,” she said. “That feels wonderful, but if you’re trying to make me come, I should warn you it’s not going to happen.”
“No?”
“Not with a man. Not even with a man present, if that was going to be your next question. I appreciate your thoughtfulness, but you should carry on and enjoy yourself.”
“What’s in it for you?”
“Don’t fret, it feels lovely. Oh, don’t let’s talk. Just make love to me, will you?”
I had been seesawing between desire and irritation all night, but at that point I suspended all judgment and let my body have its way. As I entered her she said, “Yes. Oh, yes.”
Later, I asked her about the scar.
When she finally answered, it was in a firm, affectless voice. “I was coming home late from the clubs about four years ago and a man in a balaclava—what is it you call them?”
“Ski mask.”
“Yes, one of those. He had a broken bottle and he dragged me into a car park. I was so startled at first I didn’t think to scream until it was too late and he had the glass at my throat and was tearing my tights off. He never said a word, and when he was done he twisted the glass into my cheek, like he was disgusted with me.”
“Christ. I’m so sorry.”
“I had a mobile, and I called the police even as he was walking away. I was lucky—they caught him, and sent him up, though it was only for two years. That was whe
n I left Manchester. I know the odds of it happening again were no worse there than in London, but I just couldn’t feel safe there any more, you know?”
I didn’t know what to do or say. We were both still naked and it seemed wrong to hug her, so I took her hand instead.
“It’s easy to go from there to thinking men are just animals and all, but I didn’t want to be like that. So I had to box it up and put it someplace, like it happened to somebody else. And in a way it did, you know, I mean, I wasn’t part of it. And I know you’re anti-authoritarian and that, but I will always be grateful there were authorities that night.”
I resented her using her personal horror to score points in our ongoing hit and run political debate. She’d preemptively trumped anything I could say about the authorities having failed to prevent the assault in the first place, or their inability to keep her from living in fear afterwards. I hadn’t been there, after all; I wasn’t the one who suffered.
“And I don’t blame men in general,” she said. “There are nice things about them. Dancing. Sex, when it’s sweet, like with you. You just can’t trust them, that’s all.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s the sex thing. I mean, men cheat. It’s the way they are.”
“I don’t,” I said.
“Well. Perhaps you’re the exception.” She kissed my forehead in what seemed a very condescending way and turned her back to me.
I was still trying to find the words to answer her when she began to snore softly. I watched her for a while in the faint light from the airshaft and eventually I was able to work my way back to my first impression of her, one more lost and lonely traveler, not that different from me. I curled up against her back and felt her squirm slightly against me as she settled in, and then sleep took me too.
I woke at seven AM to Sandy sorting out her clothes in the half light. “You’re not going?” I asked.
“I must. I have to pack and catch a train.”
“Not just yet.” I reached for her hand and showed her what I had in mind.
“Oh,” she said. “Well...”
Afterwards, it felt as if we had wound the last eighteen hours back onto a reel and we were suddenly strangers again, with nothing to say to each other. She went to the bathroom, and then immediately began to dress.
“Can I come to the station with you?” I asked.
“I don’t want you to even get out of bed.” She bent to kiss my cheek and whispered, “Thank you. This was perfect.”
“What about your address, or phone number? How can I get hold of you?”
She started to say something, then thought better of it. She wrote a phone number on a scrap of lined paper from her purse and handed it to me. “Bye now,” she said, and slipped out the door.
I felt the way I did after a night of heavy drinking—back when I did that—minus the hangover. It was like I’d squandered something.
I tried to go back to sleep, but couldn’t find a comfortable place for my mind or my body. The rain had returned, cold and steady, but I had warm boots and an umbrella, so I ate the hotel’s continental breakfast and headed out to the Porte de Montreuil market, remembering to tuck a mini-cassette recorder in my pocket just in case.
The market was located in a faceless gray commercial neighborhood on the eastern edge of the city. It was mostly new clothing on Mondays, but deeper into the stalls there were always a few interesting antiques and collectables among the old tools and chipped plates. Nothing for me, though, not that morning.
I was nervous about going back to Vernaison. Philippe had meant well, I was sure, but too many times I’d come back to dealers like him and found only awkwardness and excuses. Once I’d turned around, though, I discovered I could hardly wait. I took the wet walk back to the Metro at nearly a run and hurried through two changes of trains.
When I finally got to Vernaison it was two in the afternoon and Philippe’s booth was open, but deserted. I waited five minutes, pacing the narrow alley, and when I was about to give up, I noticed him coming from the front of the complex, head down, a FedEx package in his hands. My timing, I realized, could not have been better. He saw me, held up the package, and smiled.
I followed him into his stall. “You will forgive me,” he said, and I waited while he carefully unwrapped the package, took out the record, and admired it. “Still sealed,” he said. “Remarkable.” He rubbed the edge of the album against the leg of his jeans with a practiced touch, parting the shrink wrap, and stopped to inhale the aroma of vinyl, cardboard, and glue before setting the record on the turntable and carefully cleaning it. I tried to picture him cooking a meal with the same deliberate speed, and imagined that he ate out a good deal.
The vinyl popped and hissed, an announcer made a brief introduction, and Brel began to sing, accompanying himself on guitar. “Et voilà,” Philippe said softly, then turned to me and said, in English, “I thank you so much for this gift.”
“You’re very welcome,” I said.
He took another index card from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to me. I liked that he’d had it ready before the package came. “This is the man who sold me the recorder,” he said in French. “Along with a lot of other things. He will see you this afternoon if you like.”
“Thank you. This is very kind of you. If you don’t mind, can you tell me what sort of other things you got from him?”
“They are mostly gone. A radio, a Victrola that our friend Madame B bought, some silverware. He had also some dishes and ladies’ clothes that did not interest me. He is in the real estate business, he tells me. He comes across things from time to time in the houses he buys, and lets me know.”
“He didn’t say where he got the recorder?”
“I think from some old house. Maybe the owner died.”
“Did you see the house?”
“The things were all in boxes, in the trunk of his car. I think maybe he lives in that car.” He looked at me over the top of his glasses. “Seriously.”
Just then a man in a black raincoat walked by. I didn’t think it was the same man I’d seen at Madame B’s on Saturday, but it made me unaccountably nervous. I thanked Philippe again and shook his hand, and as I left he was putting the needle back to the beginning of the album.
I called the name on the card, Vlad Dmitriev, from the street in front of the Vernaison. My nerves were still bad, and from the way I was looking around, people probably thought I was making a drug deal. I got a bad mobile connection and it took me a while to convince him that I was an antique collector and not trying to trap him into admitting anything. He finally agreed to meet me at the edge of the markets, where the Avenue Michelet met the access road for the loop. I was to look for a cream-colored Mercedes.
Half an hour later the car pulled into the swarm of traffic at that corner—pedestrians, bicycles, motorcycles, vans—and parted them like a killer whale. Vlad had his window down, yelling and shaking his fist at a gang of kids that had tried to cross in front of him. He was a bit younger than me, with long hair slicked straight back, a short beard, and a black leather jacket over a dress shirt and new blue jeans. He reached across to open the door for me and beckoned me inside.
“Where you going?” he asked. “I’ll drop you.” His French was slangy and heavily accented, and I could barely understand him. As I settled in, I noticed an open shoebox on the back seat that seemed to be full of American passports, and I had to fight off a moment of panic.
“I don’t know where I’m going next,” I said. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
“The stuff from that old house, it’s worth a lot, is it?”
“Only to a collector,” I said. He didn’t seem threatening, but things were getting a little out of control for my comfort.
He nodded, pulled into traffic. “It’s okay. I don’t do the detail work. I leave that to guys like you and Philippe. I’m strictly wholesale where junk is concerned.”
“This place, what was it?”
“Just an old apartment house in Montmartre. Place was a wreck. Crazy old lady ran the joint, couldn’t keep up with it anymore. I’m going to knock all the walls out, put in some offices.”
“The old lady, she’s still alive?”
“She’s alive, but I don’t think she’ll talk to you. She hates the whole world. Living in some crazy past that never really existed. Doesn’t sound like it was so great back then, either.”
“Have you talked to her much?”
“Not really. Business, mostly, you know. She says the place used to be a whorehouse during the war, and that she worked there. I think she’s making it up.”
“You’re talking about the Second World War?” Vlad nodded as if it were obvious. “I really need to meet this woman. I could pay for her time.”
“She doesn’t give a crap for money. Not like me. You say this is worth a lot?”
“If you’ve got a card or something, I promise I’ll send you some money if I get rich from it.”
He thought about it, then said, “No, it’s okay. I’ll take you to see her. Maybe she’ll talk. Who knows?”
We were headed south and west, toward the center of the city, winding our way uphill into the artsy Montmartre district, the highest point in Paris. Vlad slowed the car and leaned across me to point out a narrow red brick building sandwiched between two others just like it. “See that? That’s one of mine. You’re not looking for something like that, are you?”
“Sorry,” I said. “Just visiting.”
“Maybe when you sell your whatever-it-is and you’re rich, eh?”
The steep, narrow streets, the walled-in gardens, the parks and streetlight-lined stairways seemed both welcoming and saturated with history. It was easy to picture myself living there, looking out one of those bay windows as I fixed dinner, Mingus on the stereo. Maybe when Pop finally goes, I told myself.
We turned down a cobbled alley and pulled into a narrow parking space. The building was plaster and wood, in poor condition, and Vlad led me up three flights of stairs to a peeling green door, one of three on the landing. He knocked, waited, knocked again. After a minute or so I assumed he would give up, but he said, “She’s here, she’s just making sure we’re serious.”