The Art of Regret

by Mary Fleming

  What was I doing, sitting in the back of the shop, with compliments gurgling about in my head? By now you would agree unrestricted praise was not my thing. Maybe, I reasoned, it was just because she’d listened to me sympathetically without laughing or running away in horror. Or making me feel exposed, like Jacqueline. Maybe this was just a temporary rush of gratitude that would be gone by tomorrow. But when I considered the possibility that she might not be thinking happy thoughts about me, that she might be regretting every minute of the evening, I felt desperate.

  Tired of sitting in an empty, dead shop, I closed early and set off to Piotr’s, where I was invited for lunch.

  He and Wanda lived in a tiny studio between the place de la Nation and the Père Lachaise Cemetery. They had resourcefully made the most of not much. Shelves and cupboards built by Piotr lined the walls, which reduced the space but meant that everything had a place. The table was a board that pulled down from the wall, the bathroom a miracle of economy, and the kitchen only big enough for one person at a time. The bed, I guessed, pulled out from the Ikea-style sofa that was tucked under the one window. I knew from an earlier visit on a cooler day that the window looked onto a large, light but noisy courtyard. Today the sun would have been streaming in obtrusively, but it was softened by the white cloth shade they had put up. The small space on the fourth floor would also have been stifling, but—as Piotr showed me, proudly pulling up and down on the cord—they had installed a ceiling fan. Its blades just missed the walls as they swished around.

  Wanda greeted me with three Slavic kisses, her face swishing around mine with the same flourish as the ceiling fan. She was trim and tidy, dressed in slim-fitting jeans and a cotton pullover, a gold cross hanging around her neck. Her movements were brisk and able, and she never sat still for more than a minute or two. But there was something frustrated about all this efficiency, as if it needed more than these fifteen square meters to survive.

  Except for the shaved spot behind his ear, Piotr looked recovered from his run-in. He had his usual air of half apology, the large hands dangling at his side, the head slightly lowered. Perhaps he looked paler than usual, though there was little color to drain from his white face in the first place.

  They both greeted Cassie, who one minute lurched from corner to corner, assessing the place in her own canine fashion, and the next fussed around Piotr as if their separation had lasted several years instead of a week. She mostly ignored Wanda, which seemed to further put her out.

  “She’s a bit shy of people she doesn’t know,” I apologized, but Cassie’s neglect still ratcheted up one more notch the existing tension in the small room. Tension that I assumed sprouted from the Poland Question, on which Piotr was holding firm.

  “I thought we’d eat straight away,” Wanda said. Her French was much better than Piotr’s, covering the whole range of verb tenses and a more accurate use of idiom. “If that’s okay.”

  “Just fine,” I said cheerily.

  The laminated wood board that served as the table was pulled down and set with three white plates, a wine and a water glass, and very shiny stainless steel, a mauve paper napkin folded under each fork. A plate of sliced cucumber and tomatoes in vinaigrette, with bits of thyme and feta cheese sprinkled on the top, sat in the middle of the table. A bottle of red wine was open, a jug of water already poured. “Please. Sit,” said Wanda as she pushed her sleeves up to her elbows, straightened her watch. We took our places, and she passed the salad. “I made you some potato dumplings for the main course,” she said. “I remember you liked those at the wedding.” That recollection at least brought a wan smile to her face.

  During the meal, Wanda watched every sip of wine Piotr took, as if readying herself for the moment when she would swoop in and snatch his glass away. Piotr seemed oblivious as he retold the story of his accident and his stay in the hospital. He also ignored her frequent interruptions to correct his French and did not amend a single one of his truncated sentences. Finally I said: “Don’t worry. I’m used to it,” and that only made her look more put out.

  Over a dessert of a Polish-style cheesecake, Wanda asked me about my mother, but of course there wasn’t much to say, except that she was dying, and by coffee the conversation had evaporated. For Piotr and me, silence was the norm. We spent hours without exchanging a word. But here at the table, with Wanda, it was awkward. The cups clicked on the saucers, children shouted, and a ball bounced in the courtyard. Though the ceiling fan helped, it was hot and stuffy, certainly too hot for a heavy lunch and red wine. But Wanda, who had eaten very little and drunk no wine, was still brisk and efficient. As she stood to clear the table, she once again pushed her sleeves up to her elbows and straightened her watch.

  “Wanda still wants moving for Poland,” Piotr said. Though he didn’t have many words, he wasn’t one to mince what he had available. Or to pretend that the tension I’d felt the moment I walked in—every bit as heavy as those potato dumplings—and now this ponderous silence, wasn’t there.

  “But you’re going for July and August,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic. In fact, with Mother’s illness, I’d begun to wonder how I’d manage without Piotr in July; August the shop would at least be closed anyway.

  “The future here is a dead end,” she said, face tightening while she stacked the dessert plates.

  “And Poland?” said Piotr.

  “Things are changing there. My sister told me so.”

  “A little, she said. A very little.” Piotr folded his arms and looked at the white-shaded window. “It is a bigger dead end there.”

  “You’ve got a job here, at least,” I said to Wanda.

  She stopped fussing with the table and, standing straight as a bowling pin, said: “I had a job.” She stared at me defiantly: “One night two weeks ago, I stayed late to help with a dinner party. While I worked for them in the kitchen, they talked about how we immigrants first drain the social security system, then take advantage of the unemployment benefits. One guest said: ‘Even those Eastern Europeans—they just don’t have the same culture, the same values, as we have here in France.’ My employer answered: ‘I know what you mean.’ That’s what they think about the person who takes care of their house and their children? I quit the next day. They can hire a French person. I’m only too happy to leave this arrogant country.”

  “Not everyone thinks like that,” I said softly. “And maybe your employer was just saying that to placate the guest. She hired you, after all.”

  “Every day she condescended to me, and I wasn’t going to put up with that,” she said, stabbing her finger to her chest, making the gold cross jump on its chain. “I’ve had it up to here with this place.” Her hand now flew above her head as she disappeared into the tiny kitchen. Piotr and I exchanged glances as she blew her nose loudly over the sink.

  In a more limited way, he too had been exposed to xenophobic remarks, but he managed to remain unwounded by the animosity. He shrugged it off, saying people were stupid. Sometimes his lack of reaction made people like him, in spite of themselves. Michel, for example, didn’t like immigrants even before he stabbed the Ukrainian, but he made an exception of Piotr. And of course, it was easier for Piotr to remain untouched by prejudice because he didn’t work for a xenophobe, just a cranky misfit.

  Anyway, I wanted to be able to give them advice, to provide a solution that would bring back that hopeful smile Wanda wore when she first came to France. But what could I offer? What did I know about marital affairs or patriotism? I used to have enough opinions on everything and everyone to span the globe, but if I had learned one thing over the last five years, it was that I had been full of shit.

  As I was about to leave a grim Piotr and a brittle Wanda in their small, hot room, I did not have any answers, but I felt sorry for them. So I told Wanda to come to the shop on Tuesday morning. “The place needs a good clean,” I said. “And I’ll try and think of some other tasks to keep you busy.”

  When I got back to the rue des Martyr
s, the room was unbearably stuffy. I opened the windows, turned on the fan, filled Cassie’s food and water bowls, poured myself a glass of water, and sat down on my one hard chair. After a moment, with beating heart, I fished in my pocket for the crumpled scrap of paper with Piotr’s angular numbers. I picked up the phone with its exposed wires gingerly and dialed, waiting impatiently for the dial to click back to the starting point. The phone rang. And rang. Not even an answering machine. I pictured the studio, the cold, solid wax fixed on the sides of the wine bottles, the smell of oil paint and the stacks of canvases. I hung up and dialed again, on the chance that I’d misdialed the first time.

  Where could she be the Sunday afternoon of a holiday weekend? I told her I’d call, and she hadn’t mentioned going out. She hadn’t tried to dodge or dissuade me. And now she hadn’t even put on her answering machine. This was a great disappointment. I wanted more than anything in the world to talk to Béa Fairbank. I wanted to go see her again that hot, stuffy evening, despite my exhaustion. Because like a bunch of brightly colored balloons, she had buoyed me through the entire day. Through a tedious morning at the shop, and then through the heavy, tense lunch with Piotr and Wanda. She had countered the painful thoughts of my mother, which surged and resurged in my head as I walked home. And I’d imagined telling Béa about everything I was seeing, every photo I’d wished I were taking, had I not stupidly forgotten my camera. She, in fact, made the prospect of taking those photos at all seem more urgent.

  With the gentle air of the fan blowing over me, I lay down on my mattress and thought more about this woman and how lonely I suddenly felt without her. I imagined others on this holiday evening. Edward and Anne-Sophie, who had gone to Bordeaux for a reunion of her large family, I pictured in a huge house, surrounded by a crowd of people. Cédric and Viviane were probably in the garden at Hautebranche, fussing over their little Russian and talking in low but excited voices about what it would be like when the other baby was born, while the shafts of sunlight slanted lower and lower over the apple orchard. Then I thought of Mother and Edmond, and that was less idyllic. But at least for whatever time was left, they had each other. Tomorrow I was supposed to visit Mother. It was all arranged; she was expecting me, and I was determined to break the silence, no matter who interrupted us, no matter how tired she might be.

  But where was Béa?

  PART III

  ONE

  I WAS WOKEN up at six that Pentecost Monday by Cassie’s tongue in my ear. Sometime during my pensive stare at the white ceiling I must have dozed off. Cassie backed off and took my shoe in her mouth. She fixed her eyes on me expectantly, ears cocked, tail wagging rhythmically. Having missed her late evening walk, she was requesting, urgently, to go out. I sat up. The air had cleared, the temperature had dropped, and I hadn’t slept so long and so well in ages. It gave me a whiff of boyhood, of Connecticut, and of waking up before the rest of the house.

  I remembered my plan for the day. The shop would be shut and I was going to see Mother. There was hope of being strong enough to talk, since no one would have visited this weekend. But last night’s resolve seemed less certain, my plan more daunting in the light of day. What if I couldn’t summon the courage to speak? Cassie had no patience for my inner struggles and started nudging me with her nose, so I put on some fresh clothes and left. The early morning calm, the bright sun and cool air, and Sacré Coeur lily white against the deep blue sky forced hope and energy on me. Cassie and I were the only living souls on the terraces of the Tuileries. I let her sniff around, while I tried to catch the light slanting through the powerful green of late spring, to transmit its essence on film, but I wasn’t happy with what I imagined the results to be, and wondered, in fact, just what I was doing behind a camera anyway.

  Le Relais was very quiet.

  “You open today?” Alain said, giving the table a wipe.

  “No. I’m just going to catch up on some paperwork,” I fudged.

  “The usual?” he said, starting to walk away.

  “No. This morning I’ll have that English breakfast you offer. You know, with the eggs and bacon. I’ll have scrambled eggs.”

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have an omelette? Nicole makes a great omelette.”

  “No. I want scrambled.” My father’s best eggs were scrambled. When he fried them, he often broke the yolk. He didn’t do omelettes. I wanted scrambled.

  Once their special “English breake-fast” came, it tasted nothing like my Connecticut memory. The bacon was meatier, the toasted pain de mie slightly sweet. I nudged Cassie, who was at my feet. She wagged her tail without looking up from the bone she’d begged from Nicole. Lucky dog, untroubled by disappointed memories of earlier bones.

  As I walked to Mélo-Vélo that quiet morning, I saw it in a different light. The metal grille was pulled down over the front. The sign, on top of the old Poissonnerie sign, looked out of date and forlorn, particularly in the company of the new Italian restaurant across the street. Its facade, all sleek lines and muted tones, bore no trace of the old cheese shop it had once been. The derelict end of the street, which had attracted me here five years earlier, was being buffed up and modernized, regenerated.

  I pulled the grille up just far enough to let myself and the dog in, then pulled it back down behind me. Inside, it was eerily still—even Cassie sensed it—and instead of lying on her bed as she usually did, she stood at my side with her “so now what are we going to do?” look. “Nothing,” I said to her. “Nothing at all.”

  What I wanted to do was phone Béa again, but it was only just after nine. I could do the books, always the wretched books. I could finish the repairs I hadn’t done the day before. I could sweep the dirty floor, straighten a shelf, or put away tools, but then Wanda would have nothing to do tomorrow. Instead, I sat at my desk and picked up a book of photographs by Eugène Atget that Edmond had given me. It was just a small sampling of his Paris photos, and he had slipped it into my hand one day at the apartment, a small peace offering.

  Looking at it carefully for the first time, I became completely absorbed. Atget’s photos captured a disappearing nineteenth-century Paris. There was a cobbled street, empty but for one old cart, the building facades peeling and sooty; a dim entry with an elegant, neglected staircase; a street seller laden with baskets. The images jumped out of the page at me. He had created a quiet, eerie ambiance that avoided sentimentality because the photos were as much historical record as aesthetic composition. Indeed, I learned from the text at the back that Atget considered himself, or wanted to be considered, an actor. He thought of the photos mostly as documents attesting to a vanishing age and a source of funding for his acting.

  The documentation idea was what I had been working on all those years ago at Bercy, where I had wanted to leave a visual memory of the wine warehouses before they were ripped out and replaced by a park and a shopping mall, a sports stadium and a new Ministry of Finance. And really what unofficially I’d never stopped doing as the twentieth century turned over to the twenty-first, whether it was capturing the interior of the old Mélo-Vélo when the early evening sun slanted through the window or photographing the Tante Louise sign, before the phone company stripped it off. Put this way—photography as a record, a document, rather than as art—seemed a much more compelling reason to pursue it.

  It was almost eleven. I could phone Béa. By now I knew the number by heart and quickly punched it on the modern, wireless shop phone. It rang and rang and there was still no answer. Where could she be? I asked as I picked up the keys and Cassie’s leash and got ready to go the rue de Verneuil.

  Since it was a holiday and Lisette had the day off, Edmond answered the door. It was only as I stepped over the threshold that I realized I hadn’t shaved since Saturday or combed my hair, which even I admitted was in need of cutting. Edmond, of course, despite his increasing disarray from impending grief, was dressed impeccably: a checked cotton shirt and grey flannels, tortoiseshell reading glasses in one hand, the weekend Figaro
in the other. Mother would hate the fact I hadn’t that morning used the shaving brush and bowl she had once given me for my birthday: “I thought you should at least be properly equipped.”

  “She’s been having terrible nightmares. Visions,” Edmond said, not seeming to notice my appearance.

  “The nurse told me morphine can have that effect,” I said, omitting the other half of what Solange had said, that morphine often caused nightmarish visions “in people who are not at peace.”

  “It’s frightful. She says she has seen snakes coming out of the desk in her room. They slither right over to the bed and stretch their heads up toward her. Another time it was a large bird, like an eagle, that was swooping down to grab her head with its talons. She hears scratching in the walls. I don’t know what to do to help her.”

  I followed Edmond back to the bedroom. Just as we were about to enter, he whispered: “She might be a bit drowsy.”

  Indeed, Mother opened her eyes slowly, taking a minute to focus and recall who was there. “Hello,” finally emerged, as if through water.

  “Hello, Mother,” I said, bending down to kiss her forehead. Her eyes closed again.

  “She doesn’t speak French anymore,” Edmond whispered, quickly adding, “But she understands me.”

  “Do you think she’ll wake up?” I asked.

  “You’re a little early. She told the nurse who just left to plan the drugs so that they’d be wearing off when you got here. Give her another quarter of an hour,” he said, looking at his watch. “Do you want to wait in the salon? Can I get you something to drink?”