Rue des Rosiers

by Rhea Tregebov

  As she eats her crêpe, Sarah watches the next orders being prepared, enjoying the banter between the customers and the guy cooking. One customer is an elegant middle-aged woman who reminds Sarah a bit of Mrs. M. The man prepares the woman a lovely, fat jambon et fromage. But then the woman seems to be having trouble paying, even though her French sounds good, despite the English accent Sarah can easily detect. But the crêpe was five francs, no? And she had given him a 20 franc note, yes? She needs her change, then. Sarah watches as the young man disdainfully hands the woman five francs. But the crêpe was, as she said just now, only five francs, the woman insists, and so then she is still owed another ten francs from her 20, no? patiently but stubbornly refusing to be short-changed. His face gone blank, the man hands her the final ten francs. Despite her politeness, her held-back annoyance, there’s something dejected about the woman’s posture as she turns away, solemnly nibbling at her crêpe.

  Where rue François Miron is about to spill into rue Saint-Antoine, Sarah can see the red rectangle with its ‘Métro’ marker just up ahead. Finishing off her crêpe, she walks first past an old-fashioned kiddie carousel, rather forlorn looking, draped in plastic, sans kids of any sort, then past one of those classic green newspaper kiosks with a fancy scalloped edge to its roof line and a little green dome, its stands cluttered with postcards and cheap souvenirs. Beside the Métro entrance a few trees are trapped in little metal cages, lindens, she looked them up, they’re definitely lindens, like the ones in Place des Vosges. Around each tree is a miserable-looking square of exposed soil that’s defended by a steel grate. A few weeds pop through the grate, opportunists, beggars collecting spare droplets of water provided for the legitimate plants that the city approves of.

  Sarah starts down the grubby concrete steps of the entrance where she captures a suddenly familiar whiff of the dank, unbreathable air. She remembers this smell. Something overhead catches her eye. A dark scribble on the stone – is it limestone? – that frames three sides of the entrance, just below the green metal railings of the fence that encloses the stairs. The words stop her. The light of the day caught in them. Words in French she can’t understand. She can’t go past the second step, lets the annoyed crowds push by her. Three words. Mort aux juifs. Then the English comes to her: Death to the Jews. She finds herself gripping the metal handrail, staring at the white tiles on the wall, the bright silver frame at the bottom. That flash of silver, what’s it for? Maybe it’s a gate that shuts when the Métro closes after the last train, keeping what’s not wanted out. She looks at the words again, looks around. No one else looks up. Maybe she’s got it wrong. Mort aux juifs. Can it spell anything else? No. No, she’s sure that’s what it means. Every muscle in her body pulls itself tight. Someone bumps into her, a man in a dark coat goes by, his face sad. She lets go of the railing. She has something she has to do, somewhere she’s supposed to go. She takes the stairs down into the stale, caustic air of the Métro.

  ~

  When Sarah gets home, Michael is back from the office in La Défense, remarkably unwrinkled, given his long day. He’s neatly cutting a demi-baguette into thin, slanted slices. It’ll be 8:00 before they sit down to eat, but his colleague Laura has made it clear that proper Parisians never ever eat dinner before 8:00, so they’re okay. Whatever this person Laura says, Sarah is starving, and she doesn’t bother waiting to dig into the pâté and cornichons he’s already set out, Laura be damned.

  They’ve glanced at the Herald-Tribune Sarah picked up at the kiosk, its front-page photo of an Israeli demonstration against the invasion of Lebanon, 50,000 protesters in Tel Aviv, the largest since the war began. Now Michael is filling Sarah in on his project, the snags they’re running into, some difficult personalities interfering with the negotiations. There’s definitely a different character type in French law offices, not to mention the developers they have to deal with, Canadian and French. And then there are the architects.

  Sarah watches as Michael pours them each another half-glass of wine. He’s already in his life here: he has something to do, somewhere he’s supposed to go, someone he’s supposed to be. Meanwhile she had trouble making it through the doorway of Fauchon, those glass counters of impossibly perfect tiny fruits and vegetables, all exotic, all exquisite. Fantastically expensive bottles of wine, extravagant pâtés and cheeses. A sales clerk escorted her through the store and plucked items off the shelves for her to view – no touching the merchandise. Then he sent Sarah off to pay the cashier, whereupon Sarah was allowed to retrieve the purchases he had wrapped. Sarah presents her loot to Michael: three perfect little wooden trays with the words Caves Fauchon in a banner around a drawing of the Madeleine’s façade. One for them, and one each for Gail and Rose. Buying Gail a present is another bargain, a promise to herself that the fight will fade, they’ll go back to being sisters.

  Michael hefts one of the trays. “Nice. Great stuff. Did you have any trouble getting there on the Métro?”

  The Métro. She takes a last slice of baguette, spreads more pâté. “Michael.”

  He looks up.

  “There was something there…”

  “Something where?”

  “At Saint-Paul station, where I went into the subway. There was some graffiti. It said mort aux juifs.”

  He pauses, frowning. “What does that mean?”

  “Death to the Jews.”

  He’s taking another bite of the baguette spread thickly with pâté. He swallows, wipes his mouth with a napkin. He’s starting to go red. “That’s revolting.” He reminds her of Abe when he’s angry. “How can, how could anyone write something like that? Who could write that? Where did you say it was?”

  “Our Métro station, Saint-Paul. Just above the stairway.”

  “Right here?” He clenches, unclenches his fists. Pulls her against him. “I’m sorry. I hate this. They’ll take it down. I bet it’ll be gone tomorrow.” He pulls her tighter. “And if it isn’t, I’ll get my own can of spray paint and cover it over. No jury would convict me. But the city will look after it.”

  Probably. If this were Toronto, how long would the words stay up? Would there be outraged letters to the Globe & Mail the very next day, statements by the Anti-Defamation League of the B’Nai Brith? Or maybe no one would even notice it, it would be removed that quickly.

  Or maybe no one would bother to object. It’s just words. How much can a few words scrawled on stone mean, what harm can they do? She doesn’t know what to make of it, doesn’t know whether it means something or nothing.

  “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s go visit the Pretzel,” Michael says, going to the stove. “I’ll get started on the sole. Hope you haven’t filled up on hors d’oeuvres.”

  Sarah loves to watch Michael cook, the practised movements of his hands as he chops an onion, minces garlic. He put himself through law school working as a cook. “What’s the Pretzel?” she asks. He’s flouring the sole now as the butter begins to foam and brown in the saucepan. Cooking in their kitchen, the kitchen they share, for now.

  “The historic centre of the Marais. Just around the corner from here. There’re supposed to be all sorts of Jewish shops, bakeries, falafel joints, a real deli-type restaurant.”

  He wants to make it up to her, offer this consolation as compensation for the graffiti. Find her a place where she belongs: Winnipeg’s North End stuck in the middle of Paris. Sarah tries to picture how the dusty little shops, crammed delis, would fit into a Parisian street, the smell of cinnamon buns infiltrating the croissant smell, the smell of galoshes and wet wool …

  “We should check it out, get some home cooking,” Michael says.

  Home cooking. Something in her cringes. She looks at the remains of the baguette and pâté on the table, the little dish of cornichons and Dijon mustard beside them. Michael’s assembling a salad that’s made only of some new kind of lettuce called mâche, a delicate thing made of tiny leaves like paws. No vulgar tomatoes or cucumbers for this salad.

  And then she think
s of her Baba B.’s home cooking: thick soups with clumps of fat clinging to the chunks of pale beef, wan carrots and limp celery strands. Home-made gefilte fish patties sprinkled with gag-worthy bits of bone. She doesn’t want to contaminate her new life here with her narrow life back there.

  “I didn’t come to Paris to eat bad Jewish food.”

  He laughs. “Let’s just go take a look, maybe get some bagels.”

  “Do you think they really know how to make bagels in Paris?”

  “Sarah, you can’t complain that you don’t want to eat Jewish food, and then grumble about how the Jewish food here can’t possibly be good enough.” He laughs again.

  But she doesn’t want to see only the Paris that can be seen through a Jewish filter. She wants the real Paris, all of it. Because if being Jewish defines her, if it’s everything that she is, then it’s all that she is. And she wants to be more than one thing. This is the place where she can be more.

  “Seriously, Sarah, let’s visit this Pretzel place. It’s only a five minute walk from here.”

  “It can’t be called the Pretzel. That doesn’t sound right. We can ask Laura.”

  He turns from the stove, waves the spatula at her. “Yes. Indeed. We will ask Laura, from whom all answers flow. You’re going to like Laura.”

  If Laura turns out to be a know-it-all, Sarah’s not sure she will like her.

  She goes to the window. She’s had three days living with Michael in the same apartment. Three nights beside him. Three nights without waking, without waking nightmares. She touches the glass. Looking out the window is like looking in a mirror, a long window in the building across the street echoing their window. Yesterday evening she watched a woman stand at some sort of counter, working intently at something just out of Sarah’s line of sight. It must have taken Sarah five minutes of watching the ritual of the woman’s careful gestures before she realized she was washing dishes. The simplest thing. Tonight Sarah can see the silhouette of a man behind a gauzy curtain. As she watches, he stoops down, and she can see then that he’s lifting something, someone – it’s a toddler he’s raising to his chest. The child clings to him, head pressed hard against the man’s shirt, and they’re both still for a moment. The man moves away from the window.

  ~

  She knows something is wrong, can feel something wrong in the room. Someone, something on the other side of the door of this room, which is but is not her room. She doesn’t know where she is, someplace far away. Someone or thing at the door coming to take them. She’s awake but isn’t awake. Her eyes open, but she can’t move: something at the door, something pressing on her chest so that she can’t breathe. Something in the room with her that she almost sees, and it wants her. They want her. She can’t move, can’t do anything to save herself. Where is she? She can hear a car mutter along the street beside the room, why is the car so close to their room. Somehow she knows it’s Michael beside her in bed and now she’s awake enough to remember. Paris. She’s in Paris with Michael beside her. What’s wrong, then? Is it Michael, is it wrong that he’s there beside her? She feels the pulse in her wrists, her heartbeat rapid in her chest. The door doesn’t save her, something right here in the room with her. She has to do something. Her eyes are open but she can’t move. Streetlight leaks through the tall shuttered windows, she can see the outline of the wardrobe, the whiteness of their little kitchen. She can hear footsteps on the street, a few quiet words in French. She’s in Paris. The footsteps pause, then retreat. Her eyes are open. She’s lying on her side, Michael’s back against hers. She has to turn to see it, she has to move.

  With a jerk she sits up. She’s done it. She feels the pace of her pulse, her heartbeat. She can move. The nothing, the something, in the room is gone but she can’t be here. She can feel the fear receding but she can’t be here. As quietly as she can, she gets out of the bed, puts on her jeans, a t-shirt. Palms the penny, slips the key into her pocket. That leak of light from the street showing her the door. Down and down the two flights of stairs, round the hairpin turns. Out the front door. What is this place? Follow me. There’s no one to follow, but penny says left, so she turns towards the Hôtel de Ville, away from the Métro entrance and the ugly words that are or aren’t still there. It’s night, no one on the street, no one here to see her. The city for this moment hers, but she has nowhere to go. She doesn’t know what time it is. She can feel the river off to her left, a few blocks down, smell it. She could walk there, cross the Seine on the Pont Louis Phillipe. The air is mild and the city is almost silent, the odd car or van at a distance. Maybe there will be people in the bakeries, beginning their work on the morning’s bread. She has nowhere to go, but the city is hers. The sidewalk widens, rises into steps that open into a narrow pedestrian street. Rue des Barres the little street sign says. Towards the far end of the street she sees someone, a thin old woman walking a little dog, some sort of little spaniel whose floppy ears seem to have tints of grey against its white fur, a colour Sarah hasn’t seen in a dog. The woman is too far away to be much more than a silhouette, but Sarah can hear her crooning to the dog. The woman is very thin, seems frail, but the dog offers her something, its feathery white tail wagging in a fever, its front paws paddling eagerly at her knees. A gift. The woman sinks to her knees and at first Sarah’s afraid she’s had a fall, but then she sees she’s picking the little dog up, bending her face to its face, which it licks again and again, its body writhing in such joy the woman can barely keep it in her arms.

  ~

  CLOSERIE DES LILAS

  “I bought you something.” Michael is grinning, something small hidden in his hand. No p’tit paquet cadeau this time, but he does have another present for her. They’re getting all dressed up to go out for dinner. They’ve been in Paris a week and Michael is eager for Sarah to meet Laura, who’s eager to meet her, so they’re getting together at some fancy restaurant. Sarah hopes she’s fancy enough for Laura, who seems like a very fancy person.

  “Just a sec,” he says, “hang on.” He turns away from her, but he’s clearly fiddling with something fussy. “Okay, I’ve got it now.” He steps in front of her, a slim chain of some sort, silver, winking between his fingers. “Here.”

  He’s so tall he’s all she sees. She feels the arc as his hands reach over her head, a gift, but when the little nubs of the links rub against the back of her neck there’s a weight to it. She puts her hand to her throat. Small, but it’s heavy against her neck.

  Michael leads her to the bathroom mirror, hand in the small of her back. “See? D’you like it?” A delicate silver Star of David sits below the hollow of her throat. It’s a pretty design, each side slightly torqued so that the two triangles seem woven into each other. She’s never worn a Star of David, never wanted that badge: This is me, this is who I am, Jew. Jewess. The word swollen to swallow her up, as if she’s only Jew. Who she is annihilated by what she is. She wants to be more than one thing.

  “I saw this at a little jewellery shop on rue de Rivoli and I thought you’d like it. Chain looks a little long, though, d’you want me to have a few links taken out?” He wants to help. He wants to save her.

  Sarah touches the star where it’s resting against her throat. “Thanks, Michael. It’s lovely. Don’t worry about the chain, it’s fine. Should I wear it tonight?”

  He kisses her on the mouth, a long sweet kiss. “Sure. Do you really like it?”

  Yes. No. “Of course.”

  He kisses her again, checks his watch, tells her they should get going.

  She knows Michael means well. Mort aux juifs and here’s her declaration, Michael’s declaration to her, showing her he knows what side she’s on and, more than that, that he’s on her side.

  The graffiti is still there. Every time she goes down into the station, she has to walk under the words, feel their weight. Mort aux juifs. Masculine plural used to include male and female. If it were morte aux juives, it would be specific, death to Jewesses. And juif, juive means Jewish, also, gendered adj
ectives as well as nouns. She’s looked it up. Manger en juif means to eat by oneself without sharing. Le petit juif is what they call the funny bone in French, though she doesn’t know why, isn’t sure she wants to know. Mort aux juifs. No one pays any mind.

  Somebody wrote those words; the city didn’t just produce them by itself. And what made them want to, what is it about life in this city that made them write those words? What would the old man drunk on the bench in Place des Vosges think about the graffiti, the man raking the sand, the concierge in their building? Would the word Jew, juif, be enough, would it tell them everything they needed to know? Would they agree, or would they just be tired of seeing the subway walls, chairs, public telephones all smeared over with words no one wants to read?

  When they went down into the subway this morning Michael coloured when he saw the graffiti, his neck going rigid. He muttered something about a midnight raid with a bucket of whitewash. Maybe he’ll do it. Maybe she wants him to do it. Someone to do something. Maybe it’s easier for Michael to be angry because he doesn’t have to mix in any shame – this is everything you are and it is nothing – with his anger. Lucky Michael. They were visiting the Carnavalet Museum. Michael was tired, he’s been working long hours despite, or perhaps because of, the French penchant for two-hour lunch breaks. He stretched himself out on one of the chilly benches in the museum, his head on her lap, hands across his chest, and, in an instant, he was asleep. On the hard bench. On her lap. An act of faith, to fall asleep like that, exposed, in a public space. To trust the world that much. A guard came up to her, Mademoiselle, sleeping in the museum is not permitted. Sarah gently shook Michael’s arm. He woke relaxed; not startled, not afraid.