Perestroika in Paris

by Jane Smiley

  “Beautiful dog,” said the man behind the counter. “I’ve seen her around here before. I think she might belong to a family who has an apartment down the Avenue d’Eylau, but I thought they went to Cannes for the winter. I can’t imagine that they would leave her here.”

  “Who would do such a thing?” said the first man. “André, she has a terrifically expressive face.”

  André set a bowl on the top of the counter. Frida could see steam rising off it. It was very fragrant. Beside it, he set a croissant, something she had shared with Jacques several times. He blew on the bowl. In the meantime, although there wasn’t very much space, Frida did a few of her tricks—she put her paw over her eye, she lay down, curled up, and rolled over, she offered Orlande her other paw. After these, as if reading her mind, he took some bread that he had torn out of a loaf and set it on her nose. She paused a moment, then flipped her nose, tossed the bread, and caught it. Both men laughed, and the first man applauded. Then he brought the bowl to her—it was full of chicken broth—and the croissant. She ate carefully, trying not to make a mess. The croissant was delicious.

  The view from inside the shop was most definitely different from the view outside—the windows were dark, and Frida herself was reflected in them; there was no surveying the landscape or seeing who might be coming. What with the talking of the two men, the banging of pots and pans, and the scraping noise when her new friend moved a table or a chair, she couldn’t hear much, either, and as for her most important and discerning sense, she felt rather as if she were being drowned in rich odors. Outside, there were plenty of smells—the damp in the air, the leaves, the trees, the birds and animals, the sharper scents of cars and trucks going by, the differing scents of humans (young boys—quite strong; women—almost nothing except occasionally the scent of a flower)—but they drifted past one or two at a time, always from a specific direction, easy to interpret, especially by a cautious dog such as herself. Being inside made her a little afraid to go back outside. It was, indeed, very very dark out there.

  Orlande set a dish of water on the floor, and Frida drank it. She was quite full, and warm, too.

  The door opened again, and four humans, two elegant young men and two young women in high heels, came in, laughing. André straightened up and began rearranging his offerings, and Orlande smiled, showed the four humans a table. They stepped around Frida without seeming to notice her. The next time the door opened, and another pair of humans entered, Frida slipped out as the door closed behind her.

  From the railing of the Métro staircase, Raoul called out, “Good thing you don’t have a long tail.”

  “I’ve often thought that,” said Frida. She walked away from the Pâtisserie Carette toward the entrance to the museum, which was dark and no doubt chilly, but faced away from the wind. Raoul wanted to say, “The word among the Aves is that this unpleasant accumulation of frozen precipitation will be gone by the end of the day tomorrow. I gather from passing flocks of Bombycilla garrulus—some may call them waxwings—that warm weather is on its way.” But, conscious of his recent moment of self-knowledge, all he said was “It’ll warm up.”

  Frida estimated that she might be able to curl up in the corner of the entrance to the museum, entirely out of the way, and protected, maybe, from guards and the gendarmerie for most of the night. As she lay down on the hard surface, Raoul landed and walked back and forth, continuing to chat. “You know, by the way, that Nancy has laid six eggs.” He wanted to say, “There could be more to come—mallards are a profligate bunch—but she seems to think she is finished. She seems content to be on her own, I must say. I might not have told you that I have a mate myself, and numerous offspring.” He thought of Imelda, her “very large and important family down around Vincennes.” Had Frida ever been to Vincennes? The question almost popped out. In Raoul’s opinion, the Corvus of Vincennes were only exceeded in their sense of self-importance by the Corvus of Tours. But he was coming to understand that all importance is really merely self-importance. Though the thoughts unrolled in his head, he pressed his beak shut. He said nothing more, and so Frida drifted off to sleep—full, indeed, and surprisingly warm.

  * * *

  NOT LONG AFTER THAT, Paras was lying in the grand salon in the dark, enjoying the stillness as well as her own full belly (Étienne had spent the late afternoon soaking a bag of split peas for her evening meal, which he served with shredded cabbage). The house was so quiet that Paras could swivel her ears and hear all sorts of things—the sound of cars skidding along the Avenue de la Bourdonnais, the ruffling snores of Madame de Mornay behind the door of her room, even, perhaps, the sound of Étienne in his room, turning the pages of his book. Paras had long, slender, mobile ears. She had always had good hearing—part of her skittishness. She could hear the rumbles of her own belly, which she knew was a good thing. Étienne had decided, at least for the time being, to rearrange the furniture of the grand salon so that, if Paras was lying down beside the back wall, a blind, deaf, ailing old woman might not be able to sense her there. Paras didn’t mind—it was rather like having a stall with a very high ceiling and very low walls.

  Paras was replaying in her mind her last race, her second win, over the hurdles at Auteuil. There had been not so many horses in the race. Her previous win, also at Auteuil, had been rather like a stampede, a rush over the hurdles that had made her so nervous that she simply had to get out in front of everyone and run away. The jumping part was the least of it. Hearing the pounding of hooves and the snorting and roaring of horses breathing behind her like a great wind had driven her forward so energetically that she had not really wanted to stop even after the last jump and the finish line, with the jockey sitting up and turning her. She hadn’t quite understood at that point what a “win” was. But when they did trot back to Delphine and Rania and Madeleine, and when the jockey gave her three exuberant slaps on the shoulder, and when she saw that all the other horses (in particular the gray filly who had come as far as her hip and faded back) looked glum and exhausted, while she felt pleased and full of energy, she saw what winning was and knew that it was good. That had been in warm weather, the course fragrant and green. Her recent win at Auteuil was a more modest and autumnal affair, late in the day, not many spectators, but she had galloped with pleasure, jumped with ease, and stayed two lengths ahead of the chestnut behind her. She was again a front-runner, but out of curiosity rather than fear—it was strange and enjoyable, the way one hurdle seemed to lead to another, not frightening, but only a great big stride and then onward to the next one. She knew that when she was older Delphine would put her in jump races, where the obstacles would be bigger and more solid than “hurdles” (she had heard her say that to Rania). Paras had looked forward to that, so why had she walked (well, trotted) away from it all? Curiosity was the only answer. Or, as she thought now, sheer ignorance. Paras blew some air out of her nose and stretched out flat on her side. At once, she heard another scratching sound, this one inside the wall, and then there was a rat—dark gray, almost black, fat, but rather small, its whiskers twitching—right in front of her nose. She snorted at the odor, and the rat stepped aside but did not run away. He said, “Welcome.”

  Paras had a good view of the rat out of her left eye, so she didn’t roll up onto her chest. She said, “ ‘Welcome’?”

  “Yes, this is our territory. My father is Conrad and I am Kurt. Our castle is in the walls, but, as you can see, we have several courtyards, of which this is the largest.”

  “Do all—” She thought “little,” but she said, “petite animals talk all the time about their property and importance?”

  Kurt’s whiskers twitched. He said, “In the first place, size is in the eye of the beholder, and in the second place, the only rats I know are myself and my father. All of the others who used to live around here, even the brown ones, have been killed or driven off by cats. There aren’t many birds around, either, for that matter.�
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  “What about your mother?” said Paras.

  “I don’t know,” said Kurt. “We don’t talk about that.”

  Paras, who had, as far as she was concerned, been separated from her own mother, Mapleton, far too soon (but no sooner than the other fillies—it was something the six of them who were turned out together had discussed endlessly), sighed in sympathy.

  Kurt said, “My father says that you are a horse. Actually, we both thought horses were mythical animals, so we are a little surprised to see you, but what is, is. Rats are down-to-earth realists. Life is short, tunnels are long.”

  Paras didn’t know what this meant, but horses also had their mottoes that were not all that understandable, like “Stay or go.” She ruffled her nostrils. Kurt must have felt comfortable, because he coiled up, twitched his whiskers again, and sighed. He said, “I like you.”

  Paras said, “You don’t know me.”

  Kurt said, “Your broadcast is calm.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, I see something with my eyes—that you are huge, reddish brown, furry, long-legged. I hear something with my ears—that your heart beats with a kind of roar. I smell something with my nostrils—that you have eaten split peas for your latest meal. I sense something with my paws—that, beneath where you lie, the floor sinks a little bit. And I receive something with my whiskers—that your global orientation is well adjusted.”

  “What is that?”

  “If you don’t know, I can’t tell you,” said Kurt.

  But maybe Paras did know—maybe that was how you ran down a racecourse and jumped the hurdles and felt the ground moving this way and that and were not bothered by it, but found it enjoyable. She said, “You should talk to my friend Raoul. He’s a raven.”

  Kurt shuddered. Silence descended, and Paras could hear rustling from Étienne’s room. Then the door opened. Just like that, Kurt was gone, and since she had good night vision, Paras could now see the hole that he disappeared into, half hidden behind the leg of a piece of furniture. She rolled up onto her chest. Étienne’s footsteps pattered around the couches, and he appeared. He immediately stroked her several times on the forehead and the neck. She knew it was time to go out.

  She stood up and followed him down the hall and into the cuisine. Her own hooves sounded very loud on the parquet floor. He gave her a drink of water in the sink, and opened the back door. She went.

  The snow was gone, the sky was clear, the moon was bright. Paras shook off the chill and walked around, enjoying the very act of moving. A gallop, she thought, would be nice, wouldn’t it? It was true that she hadn’t had a real gallop in a long time; thinking of her races had put her in the mood. Some racehorses saw galloping and racing as jobs they did, with food and shelter as the reward. Certain very good racehorses Paras had met seemed to be complainers, at least around the barn, always cocking a hoof or pinning their ears, dogging it to the practice course, needing a smack with the whip, then kicking out when they got one, but putting on the speed when they knew they had to, maybe so that they could lord it over everyone else and brag about their record. Others enjoyed it too much—everyone in the barn knew about horses who went out for a race and never came back, broken down. But there were those, and Paras considered herself one, for whom galloping was as natural as walking. Her problem had never been the gait—it had been her mix of curiosity and alertness. Delphine and Rania had been good with her, let her do it her way. And yet she had walked away from them. She lifted her nose and sniffed along the top of the fence—there was no looking over it—but she smelled nothing of Frida, nothing of Raoul. She was restless, and she kept walking. Étienne had closed the door—she could see his face in the window, and then she couldn’t, but the light stayed lit. She walked all along the fence, saw that there was a gate, but it was solid. When she kicked it or leaned against it, it didn’t move. She walked and walked. Since she was protected from the wind, she wasn’t cold, though her coat was fluffed up. She made several deposits and watered an old patch of asparagus.

  TEN

  The snow had presented Pierre, the head gardener, and his crew with plenty of extra work. They had to plow and shovel, though not cart away—Pierre knew that if he made paths the sun would do the rest. This was Paris! The sun in Paris was almost always cooperative. The fact that so few citizens came out early in the morning—using the snow as an excuse to stay home and relax—made his work all that much easier. Pierre didn’t mind snow at all—he in fact rather missed it. His grandparents had lived in Arvieux, and he had visited them often as a child, enjoying many winter sports.

  As he and his crew worked, he watched for Paras’s tracks; he had seen them heading east, then fading out in a long patch of ice. He could let some nice hay drop off the back of a truck or a snowplow not far from the pond where Paras and (he thought) that dog lurked about, which he had still not mentioned to Animal Control. Pierre kept his eye on the newspaper and the Internet—but he’d seen none of the advertisements Delphine had placed. Pierre was beginning to think that he had done the wrong thing in turning a blind eye to the animal, in admiring the appropriateness of a beautiful horse in the Champ de Mars, where armies and cavalries once drilled, carriage-horses and riding horses once trotted along.

  Could this be a horse who had escaped the slaughter truck? Pierre was not himself fond of horsemeat, but he knew old people who were. There were horsemeat purveyors here and there in Paris—one in Montmartre had neon-lit horse heads over the shop door. This horse was a beauty, though—lovely mover, prideful carriage, rich color, luxuriant mane and forelock, long, thick tail. If they were sending such horses to the abattoir these days, then times were even worse than he had thought.

  It was a busy and exhausting day, and Pierre only wondered about the horse every so often. It had to be said that he missed the horse. He kept his eye out for any sign of a mishap—horse carcass rolled up out of the way, broken leg from the ice or snow, starvation, anything else. When he quit work late that night, he was tired and blue. He’d had a wife for a while, but perhaps she had not been able to stand the four cats in the end. She was now living in Montpellier with a man ten years younger than she was who taught at the university. She’d sent Pierre a picture of her apartment—no animals, no plants, no cushions or pillows, and only a futon for a bed. He wished her well.

  As he headed for the École Militaire Métro station, he walked down the Rue Marinoni right when Paras was snuffling the top of the fence and pressing her shoulder against the gate. Paras had never seen Pierre except from a distance. She didn’t know that the occasional apple that appeared beside the pond was left by Pierre. Now she smelled him (sweat, grease, gasoline), but didn’t think anything of it. Pierre was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice that the gate in that fence he’d passed so many times was bowing outward, nor did he hear the breaths Paras blew as she investigated her new world. Pierre decided to put off thinking about whether to call Animal Control and what to say (would they themselves be inclined to send the horse to slaughter?) until morning. Meanwhile, Paras decided to go to the door and tap it with her hoof. When she did, Étienne let her right in, and they walked to the grand salon, where she went to her corner and settled herself like a dog. In the evening, when he went to bed, Étienne prayed to Saints George the Dragon Slayer (Etienne didn’t mind thinking about dragons—they were interesting to imagine and there didn’t seem to be any of them in Paris) and Éloi, who were, he had read, the patron saints of horses, though whether they took under their care horses sleeping in grand salons in Paris, he had no way of knowing.

  * * *

  RAOUL WAS SITTING on one of the struts of the great Tour, useless, as far as Raoul could see, to humans, but a wonderful convenience for Aves. A few young Corvi were watching him. He performed several ownership rituals—I know everything about this neighborhood, come to me for advice, I won’t kick you out if you are properly respectful
, only respect, that is all I demand, no, request—best not to insert the “demand” gesture. The group of ravens watched him, looked away. Raoul walked around the leg of the Tour that was nearest to him, dropped down into the shadows, and flew away quietly. Freedom was what he cared about, like most worldly creatures of his degree of maturity, but youth cared about power, always had, always would. He crossed the Avenue de Suffren, then the river. He made a tour of the Place du Trocadéro, circled the chilled and motionless statue of the man on the horse two times, flew rather close to a couple of windows just to look, but he didn’t see Frida inside or outside any shop. When he regained his territory above the head of Benjamin Franklin, he nestled there in a sort of resigned comfort—his morning sojourn had taken more out of him than he’d expected it to. He had seen himself in the window of the Pâtisserie Carette, a bit ragged, looking a bit blown-out. There was grooming to be done, and he had only himself to do it.

  * * *

  WHEN THE SUN WAS well up and she knew that it would be blazing through the great window that overlooked the grand salon on the southeast, Madame de Mornay hoisted herself to her feet and made her way to her lavatory, then to her door. She was too blind to really see the sun, except as a welcome brightness, but she could feel it on her arms and her head. She had lived in these rooms in this house for so long that she knew just how the warmth progressed about the place, and just where to go to receive some.