by Toby Barlow
The old woman gave it a blank look. “What do I want with a clock?”
Zoya shrugged. “I thought you’d like it. Look…” She pointed to the small golden swan perched on the top. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Like the treasures from the palace.”
Elga said nothing but took the clock out of Zoya’s hands and shoved it atop a cockeyed stack on the shelf. The old woman had always been impossible to predict—Zoya had seen her cackle and hop with joy at the gift of a simple sugar cube—but these past few days her mood seemed even more erratic and dark.
The old woman sat down on the floor, shelling sunflower seeds, while Zoya lay back on the couch. A squeaking in the room kept her awake. Zoya opened her eyes and watched the scrawny black rat finally emerge from beneath the couch to chew at the corner of the rug. “Don’t let Max bother you,” grunted Elga. “I will send him out on his errands soon.”
Zoya nodded and shut her eyes again. She felt as if she had been drugged, but she knew it was the spell that had drained her. Also, she always hated being without her own bed and her own room, wherever that might be. Being a guest always left her ill at ease, especially with Elga. Their journeys always brought them together for a handful of days, a full cycle of a moon, or even at times for years, but then they eventually diverged again, Zoya to the arms of another warm patron and Elga back to her busy stews.
When Zoya woke again from her nap the old woman was sitting across the room, her pudgy feet propped up on the cold woodstove, leafing through the pages of Figaro. “There’s nothing in here about your Leon. I guess all they could say is, what? His wife is sad and the policemen are still snooping around.”
Elga balled the newspaper up and threw it into the stove. Trudging over to the couch, she squatted beside Zoya. The old woman lowered her head and nodded, muttering to herself. Zoya waited. The room was silent, even the rat was finally still. When Elga looked up, it was as if she had come to a firm decision.
With one fierce stroke she slapped Zoya across the face so hard that the shriek was torn from the girl’s lips. The old woman grabbed Zoya’s hair, pulled her close, and stuck her red bug eyes up into the girl’s terrified face. “There wasn’t a train he could fall in front of?” she hissed. “Is poison too slow? You have always been too showy, too stupid, such an awful and tiresome creature. Mistakes can be avoided. They must be avoided. My god, you can disgust me.” She slapped her again, harder this time.
Zoya’s words fell out through her tears. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I panicked. He had noticed, Elga. I was frightened.”
Elga let go of her hair and got up. “So what, he notices? Suck a man’s cock and he forgets so much. It’s easier than sticking his head onto a spike.” She went back to her chair, leaving the girl curled up in a weeping ball. “Bah. Fine. Pull yourself together.” She took a box of matches off the shelf and leaned over to light the stove, not even looking at Zoya anymore. “You make things too unsafe. Police sniff-sniffing around. We will have to leave town and begin again. Why do I want to waddle these bones of mine for you? I am fine here alone without you showing up and ruining it all.”
“No, Elga, it’s fine. I’ll go. I won’t bother you.”
“Fine. Go soon. You make it hard for me to think, and the neighbors will notice you. I don’t need their questions. So yes, go.”
A little less than an hour later, Zoya was packed up to leave, relieved to be going. With no kindness in her gesture, the old woman shoved a grocer’s bag filled with carrots, red potatoes, and a handful of leek sprouts into her hands and then tucked a pair of small white eggs into her pockets. Zoya thought Elga might offer a kind word too—not an apology, but perhaps some phrase laced with tenderness—but all the old woman said was, “Don’t come here again. If I move, I’ll let you know, but don’t come back. If you need help, well, keep an eye out for Max. He’ll be close. Now go.” The girl looked down at the rat, which sat watching from the corner. She nodded to herself, her mouth set firm and determined. Elga was right, it was time. She had probably rested enough, and her injured eye’s swelling had receded; there was now only a dark streak, more a smudge than a bruise, that made her look like a sooty chimney waif.
The old woman followed her out to the stoop and then stood watching as Zoya walked off down the cobblestone street. A nausea itched in Elga’s guts. The girl boiled her blood. For so many years she had needed Zoya, leaned on her, used her to find safe harbor as they were pitched about the brutal landscape. It had been a tiresome journey for them both, from the far-off country quiet of long vanished woodlands through the black billowing exhaust and shrill screech of steel railway wheels as they made their way on, station to station, ducking and stepping between the dueling engines of empire wars and burgeoning progress. Civilization was ever encroaching, barreling down upon them, crowding them and clouding their path with the gunpowder haze and steam-engine smoke, pressing and pushing them down narrow lanes toward dead-end corners, forcing tricks from their hands and curses from their lips as they found a way to leap free over and again.
But things were peaceful now, now she did not see the girl for weeks at a time, even months, and never missed her. There was no need. The continent was as quiet as a sleeping lamb, and the two of them had settled down with it. The papers called it a “cold war” but that seemed an odd phrase to Elga, she knew cold wars, they were the ones where hatchets and knives wielded by frostbitten fingers chopped solid meat sides off frozen stallion corpses. Those true cold wars had nothing in common with what she found in the newspapers now, but it was certainly an easier time, and as the din died down, she found the pretty dark-haired girl with the slender hips and the fulsome bosom to be growing tiresome. Each time she saw Zoya it bothered her more, like some silly farmer’s song you hate hearing but are forced to endure a thousand times until it claws at your ears. She could not place a reason for the irritation, but the feeling was so strong it felt almost cystic inside her. Time to cut it out, she thought, and good riddance.
The wind kicked up and she sniffed at it. Coal soot, sea salt, ham, yeast, and dog hair, nothing new, nothing to worry about. She stood there, distracted, random words tumbling round in her mind, until a neighbor noisily emerged with a crate of empty milk bottles. Broken from her daydream, Elga waddled back into her flat, shutting the door hard behind her.
V
The tuxedoed jazz trio was playing a bouncy tune he didn’t know, there was no one in the black-tie crowd who he recognized, and the average age of the women there was somewhere north of fifty. But Will stayed on, seduced by the charms of an open bar. The event was ostensibly a book party for a Parisian politician’s wife, but the chatty guests didn’t look very bookish to Will. It seemed more like an up-and-coming chapter of Paris’s down-market society crowd. The men’s suits all seemed a size off, and the women’s dresses were either drab and dull or taffeta loud. Beside him, an ancient pair of grandes dames wearing outfits that looked like they were cut from wallpaper samples prattled on about summer shopping in Monte Carlo. One of them caught Will listening and abruptly asked, “Êtes-vous un critique?”
“No,” he answered politely, “I am only here for the cocktails.”
The women both laughed, a little too loud. “Of course, we are too,” said the one in blue. With their excessive makeup and painted eyebrows, they both looked like wax figurines caught melting in the sun.
“Are you British?” one asked.
“American,” Will said.
“Ah!” The women both beamed at this news. “Are you a writer? An artist?” asked the red dress.
“Are you from New York?” the blue dress chimed in.
Will shook his head to both questions. “Actually, I’m from Detroit. I work for an advertising agency here.”
At this news, both women made a funny face, as if they had each simultaneously bitten into a disagreeable dish. Will was unsure if it was the word “advertising” or “Detroit” that had ruined their high spirits, though he suspected both. He excused
himself with a polite nod and began working his way across the crowd until he found a more peaceful corner by the table where the books were piled up. He lit a cigarette, listened for a bit to the jazz, and began leafing through a copy. According to the cover, Rendezvous at Saint-Cloud was a memoir of forbidden love in the French resistance. He was flipping through it, looking for pictures, when a voice speaking in a distinctively Brahmin American accent interrupted him from behind.
“A pretty piece of fiction, don’t you think?”
Will turned to see a tall, thin man with sandy blond hair eyeing the book stacks with a slight grin.
“Excuse me?” Will asked.
“Their so-called underground resistance,” said the man, gesturing toward the books. “Totally charming nonsense, absurd, nothing more than a collective hallucination, really.”
Will was a bit taken aback and looked around nervously. “Well, I’m not sure I would go so far as to—”
“You know”—the man picked up the book and studied the cover—“I once met a former GI who had parachuted in here during the height of the Occupation. By the time I met him, this fellow was one hell of a drunk, the sort with the grand gin-blossomed beak that scares off small children, but in his prime he must have had real guts. He told me about how the OSS dropped him in with a crate packed with Browning rifles, revolvers, grenades, a couple of Thompsons, a veritable cornucopia really, all gifts for our friends in the underground. The problem was, once he landed he couldn’t find a soul willing to take the stuff off his hands. Wandered around the city for weeks, and all he ran into were your usual run of perfidious black marketeers, reprobate collaborators, and more than a few fast Nazi bullets he had to dodge. In the end, he buried the guns on the southwestern side of town, down someplace in the catacombs, and then skedaddled back across the Channel. He and I had quite the chatty night at the Algonquin. He even gave me a map he’d sketched out of where his stash was hidden.” The man placed the book back on the top of the stack. “Care to see if we can dig it up?”
“Excuse me? Dig up what?” Will felt a little confused.
The man smiled. “The guns, of course. They’re out there somewhere.”
Will was not clear if he was being kidded or not. “No, that’s okay.”
“Another time perhaps.” The man took a sip of his drink and patted his lapel. “I do always carry his map here in my wallet on the off chance I ever find myself in need of a Thompson. Seems prudent, don’t you think?”
Will looked around, nobody else seemed to be noticing this curious man with the strange ideas. The fellow stuck out his hand. “Hullo there, sorry. Oliver Pierce Ames.”
“Will Van Wyck.”
“‘Van Wyck,’ yes, like that new expressway back in New York. I hear it’s marvelous. Say, what kind of cigarettes do you have on you?”
“Chesterfields. Want one?”
“Ah, yes please. God bless you. I can’t stand to smoke any more of that nag hay they sell over here.” Oliver managed to take the cigarette and light it without pausing in his speech. He was a talkative fellow. “You know, I saw you walk in and knew in a snap you were a Yank. You’re too broad-shouldered to be French. And such American teeth. So what brings you to this corner tonight?”
“A friend gave me a ticket.”
“A friend? What sort of friend sends you to a party like this?”
“Well, actually, it was a colleague; he got stuck with a ticket. Brandon must have thought it was going to be a different kind of party.”
“Well, you never know with book parties. The better ones can be outrageously good.” Oliver gave him a curious look. “Actually, when I first saw you I thought you might have been escorting those two grandes dames over there.”
Will laughed. “No, no. I came alone.”
Oliver sipped his drink again and looked around the room. “Brandon, you say? Wouldn’t be Bob Brandon, would it?”
“Yes. I sort of know him through work. You know him?”
“Only slightly. It’s a small town for Americans, you know. Seems like a good man. You work at the agency?”
“Yes, I do. I was transferred over from the States two years ago.”
“Really?” Oliver said. “So what do you do there?”
“Not a lot these days,” said Will. “I used to manage a lot of different things, but it’s gotten kind of quiet.”
“Yes, well.” Oliver sipped his drink. “Can’t say I know much about how the agency works. No reason to, I suppose. Golly, nothing’s more boring than shoptalk, is it?” Oliver gave him a quick, curious look. “Though I am curious why on God’s green earth Brandon ever thought this would be fun for you.”
“Like I said, must have been some sort of mix-up.”
“Either that or your friend has a bit of a cruel streak, throwing you out like fresh carrion for all these dusty dowagers to descend upon.”
Will smiled. “How come you’re here?”
“I know the publisher, we play belote now and again. I’d hoped to find some real writers here, but they are such an elusive bunch.” Oliver looked at his watch. “Actually, I’m supposed to be meeting up with a couple of girls right around the corner in a bit. At Taillevent, ever been?”
Will shook his head no.
“There are two girls and only one of me. So perhaps you should join? The restaurant’s a touch stuffy but the food’s fabulous, and their crab remoulade is beyond words. Please, come. It’s always nice to have a fourth.”
Will felt a little uncertain if he should say yes. Oliver looked him in the eye and smiled.
Five hours later, Will lay stone drunk on a bench below the Pont Neuf, blearily gazing at the lights playing across the dancing surface of the night-blackened river. A few feet away, Oliver was humming a waltz tune as he slow-danced with the young brunette named Juliette. She was wearing a short white dress with matching pearls. The other girl, more beautiful than Juliette, and far too lovely for Will, had found a taxi home hours before. The yellow moon was verging on full and the stars up in the sky looked blurred and undefined, as if someone had splashed water across them before their ink could dry. Will tried to recall what day it was and prayed it was Saturday or Sunday. The sun would be up soon and he was in no condition for work.
The dinner had been enjoyable. Oliver had introduced Will as an old friend from America and the two French girls had quickly complimented him on his fluency. He explained how his mother’s family had emigrated down from French Canada to Detroit (“Ah, Detroit!” exclaimed Oliver, “the Paris of the Midwest!”) and so he had grown up with a rough-hewn colonial version of French bouncing around the house. It had grown more refined in his time in Paris, though it was far from perfect (“Absolument!” the girls laughed. “C’est pas du tout parfait!”). He was going to tell them more, but Oliver interrupted with one long anecdote that spilled into another, and as the evening progressed, that turned out to be just about all Will had a chance to say. Instead, he and the girls listened on while the seemingly ever-present sommelier popped bottle after bottle of ’47 Clos Saint Jean’s and Oliver bubbled over with gossip, rumors, anecdotes, and broad, flirtatious innuendos that made the girls blush and giggle into their napkins. Will did not mind, Oliver seemed to be both fascinating and humorously silly as, over the course of the evening, he described swamping his mother’s vintage Jordan roadster in the Connecticut River, sang them a smattering of old Phillips Exeter fight songs, butchered some Keats verse in a slightly slurred attempt at oration, and then drunkenly reenacted the march he had made entering Rome with the American army.
“You were in the infantry?” asked Will, now a bit tipsy too.
“Yes, nothing very brave, mostly clerical work. Supply-line stuff. My father, of course, harbored much greater ambitions for me, firstborn son and all that, but it turns out the dreamy, poetic types make for rather poor officer material.”
“Well, he must have been proud of you, you did your part.”
“Oh, in the end he was proud enoug
h. I sent him a photo of me with Patton. That positively thrilled the old man,” Oliver said, refilling his own glass. “What about you? You look too young to have served then, did you do Korea?”
“No…” Will hesitated, feeling a little self-conscious. Coming out of a working-class family, he knew he had been fortunate not to have been drafted, and an academic scholarship had kept him from having to sign up to cover the costs of school. But he never felt lucky about it, especially when he was talking to a veteran like Oliver. It was one of the reasons he liked living abroad in France, he felt less surrounded by those pressures. The subject rarely came up; people in Paris tended to be quiet about what they did during the war.
“Well, maybe you didn’t serve then, but you certainly serve now, don’t you?” Oliver said, leaning over with a knowing smile. “We all serve.”
The line puzzled Will and he was about to ask what Oliver meant, but instead his friend plucked up two spoons and made them dance the cancan, which again got their dates giggling and the moment passed, dissolving into various chocolate and meringue desserts served with fruit brandies and followed by more servings of Oliver’s effervescent chatter, this time about a conspiracy he was obsessed with, a cover-up involving a silver flying saucer that had been found somewhere in the deserts of New Mexico. Everyone laughed at his imitation of a little green man from Mars.
The two girls began asking Oliver’s opinion on various topics, and Will realized he should know a bit more about the range of subjects they touched upon, the fashionable filmmakers like Chabrol and Truffaut and the new authors he had never heard of—Robbe-Grillet, Butor, and Duras. He knew a little about current events, the situation in Algiers and the return of de Gaulle, but only what the headlines told him, not enough to have anything resembling an informed opinion. Listening on as the subjects went by, one by one, like train cars clattering along through the night, Will was aware again of how, despite the time spent here and all the things he had done, Paris remained vast and impermeably foreign to him. For the first time since that heady season when he was literally fresh off the boat, the city once again felt exotic.
