Taxi Tales from Paris

by Nicky Gentil

  *

  A few days later, thanks indeed to the prescribed course of antibiotics, my little patient was a lot better. And all I could think was how lucky we are to live in a country where this kind of treatment constitutes the norm.

  At the same time, so convinced was our cabdriver of the success rate of his recommended ‘medicine’ that I do sometimes wonder what would have happened had I actually dared to test his weird cocktail of honey and olive oil …

  The Considerate Dad

  It was the night of the annual dance show and my son and I were running incredibly late. Worse still, it was the one year when it was extremely important for us to get there on time because my daughter was already terribly disappointed that my better half, i.e. her father, couldn’t make it due to a business trip in the States.

  Given the time of day, we decided the quickest way to go there would be by public transport. But that night, as luck would have it, due to a technical problem our métro line was quite suddenly closed down.

  Emerging from the métro station back into the street, we were thus extremely relieved to spot a taxi approaching. Sadly, though, our relief was to be short-lived because barely had I announced the address of our destination when the cabdriver replied:

  ‘I’m sorry, Madame. I’ve just finished for the day and my wife and children are in a hurry for me to get home. Had you been going somewhere that was on my way, I would happily have taken you. But sadly it’s not the case. I’m going in completely the opposite direction!’

  ‘Oh no, that’s all we needed!’ I exclaimed, before going on to apologise. ‘I’m so sorry. This is not your problem. I totally understand that you’re in a hurry to get home. It’s simply that we’re trying to get to my daughter’s dance show and we’re already really late. But, like I said, it’s not your problem. Au revoir, Monsieur.’

  The cabdriver thanked me for my understanding, started the car, and continued on his way.

  He had only driven a few yards, however, when he stopped and gestured for us to approach him, whereupon he said:

  ‘Go on get in. I’ll take you. I know how disappointed my own daughter would be if I were to arrive late for one of her shows.’

  His kindness was duly rewarded.

  Miraculously, for a Saturday evening in Paris, there were no traffic jams. Consequently, just ten minutes later, the cabdriver dropped us off right in front of the main entrance of the Théâtre de Neuilly.

  Against all logical expectations, we thus arrived somewhat early for the show!

  As for the considerate family man who had driven us there, given the surprising lack of traffic that night, he still looked set to make it home on time.

  All’s well that ends well!

  The Considerate Passenger

  On that cold winter’s night, as the family gathering drew to a close, my husband offered to drive his parents home. Naturally our children wanted to go too, which meant there wasn’t enough space in the car for me.

  Thus it was that I found myself taking a taxi to go home, on my own.

  *

  Barely had I arrived in our flat when my husband called me from the car, on our landline, to announce somewhat enigmatically:

  ‘You don’t have your mobile phone with you.’

  ‘I don’t understand. What do you mean?’

  ‘You no longer have your mobile phone with you.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about? Why do you keep mentioning my mobile phone?’

  ‘Take a look in your handbag.’

  He was right. My phone was nowhere to be seen – and with good reason as it happened. I had apparently left it behind on the seat of the taxi!

  Thankfully, the next passenger had found it and had had the good sense to call the last person I’d called who just happened to be my husband.

  Better still, it turned out that this young man was a waiter in a local restaurant, really near where we live, and he had obligingly told my husband that I could drop by in the morning to retrieve my lost object.

  *

  The next day, seeing that I was busy, my husband offered to go and pick the phone up on my behalf – an offer I duly accepted − and just as he was leaving, I handed him an envelope containing a bit of money to give to the waiter as a token of my gratitude.

  Poor guy. When I think how kind and considerate he’d been. Yet, in addition to my small financial reward, he was about to receive a major ‘punishment’ for his altruistic act.

  Imagine, for one instant, the merciless teasing that ensued when my husband entered the restaurant and said to the young waiter, at the top of his voice, for all to hear:

  ‘Hello. I believe you have my wife’s mobile phone.’

  Another Considerate Cabdriver!

  Spring was upon us and the delightful prospect of a four-day bank holiday weekend was fast approaching. As we weighed up our options as to how to spend it, with our son away at school in the UK, my husband finally decided to spit it out and tell us what he really wanted. Deep down, he was hankering after a few days in Normandy where he would be able to do some really hard-core sailing with a bunch of like-minded friends. In order to render his maritime plans acceptable he had – credit where it’s due – a most appealing suggestion to make to my daughter and me, an offer we couldn’t refuse that came in the form of an all-expenses paid trip to Italy! Frankly, we didn’t require much convincing. It took us mere nanoseconds to select a swanky hotel in the sumptuous setting of Lake Maggiore.

  *

  On the morning of our departure, as we announced our destination – Charles de Gaulle airport – the cabdriver said:

  ‘So, we’re off on a girls’ trip are we?’

  ‘Absolutely!’

  ‘Okay, let’s go through the list. Do you have your passports with you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your mobile phones?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your money?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you locked your front door? Madame, do you have your keys with you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well then, we’re good to go aren’t we? You can now set off without a care in the world!’

  Not for the first time, I found myself thinking: This could only happen in France.

  Our jovial, upbeat cabdriver really made us laugh with his fun checklist and, thanks to him, from the moment we got in the cab we were already in a great holiday mood!

  The Business Lawyer

  (Also, as it turned out, an extremely considerate man.)

  With a view to ending on a high note – at least I hope so (!) – to conclude, I have chosen this tale, one of my absolute favourites.

  It doesn’t take place in a taxi itself, but rather in a queue at a cab rank. Be that as it may, I decided to include it here because the exchange that follows touched me to such an extent that I have never forgotten it.

  *

  It was the beginning of August.

  Barring tourists, Paris tends to be a rather empty city during this particular month so I was surprised to see a long queue as I approached the cab rank.

  It didn’t really matter though. I was in no particular hurry. The weather was gorgeous and I was happy to be outside.

  A few minutes later, several taxis arrived all at the same time with the result that, suddenly, there was only one person left waiting in front of me: a handsome, forty-something man elegantly dressed in a black suit, a crisp white shirt and a pink silk tie.

  *

  For a good while now, the forty-something man had been nervously alternating his eyes between the long avenue stretching out before us, where he was clearly hoping to spot a taxi, and me.

  Then, finally, letting out a large sigh while at the same time alluding to my huge balloon of a stomach, he said:

  ‘Madame I know I really shoul
d let you go first, but the thing is I’m extremely late for my meeting.’

  I was indeed heavily pregnant. ‘About to pop’ as they say. And I had just left a bookshop clutching a bag full of newly purchased books, for I was harbouring the ridiculous notion that I would actually have time to read (!) during my five day stay in the maternity clinic.

  I happen to like reading books in French just as much as in English. That day, however, I had chosen to go to one of Paris’ few English bookshops with a particular purchase in mind: Adam Gopnik’s Paris to the Moon. Although I had read this book many years previously, I could no longer lay my hands on my copy of it and I really wanted to read it again. More specifically, I wanted to find the passage explaining the meaning of the expression ‘le choix du roi’ because I myself was about to make the ‘king’ very happy indeed. Yes, you’ve guessed it, as the proud mother of a lovely little boy I was now preparing to welcome a baby girl into the world!

  In order to put the anxious man currently standing before me at ease, I replied:

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s really not a problem. I’m happy to be outside, in the sun.’

  Relief appeared to wash over him as he explained:

  ‘Thank you so much, I appreciate it. You see, the thing is… well, I can’t really expect you to understand but… I happen to be a business lawyer and I’m very late for my meeting. And, the fact of the matter is, this meeting is absolutely crucial for my career.’

  Flashing him a wide smile, I replied:

  ‘On the contrary, I quite understand. My husband is a business lawyer too. I know how it is.’

  *

  A few minutes later, the lawyer let out another deep sigh and then said:

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t do it. I just can’t do this to you. Even if you don’t mind waiting, I have no choice but to give up my place.’

  ‘You know, I really do mean it when I say it’s absolutely, totally not a problem. I was under strict orders to spend a large part of this pregnancy resting. You’ve no idea how delighted I am to be standing up at long last.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you to say so. But, you see, it’s also out of respect for my wife and children.’

  In a touching tone of voice, he went on to explain:

  ‘I wouldn’t want someone to do this to my wife. I expect people to treat her decently; the same goes for my children. And, in light of that, the least I can do is treat other people decently. So I must give up my place. I simply don’t have the choice.’

  This sensitive man’s desire to do the right thing by me and, by extension, his family left me feeling extremely moved and keen to reassure him further:

  ‘I do appreciate your considerate words, truly I do. But please understand that when I say I’m delighted to be standing up, I mean it. Believe you me, enforced rest is not easy but it has all been worth it. Apparently everything is looking good now. And, as I’m practically at full-term, the doctor has said I can do anything I want… Well, apart from bungee jumping that is!’

  My attempt to defuse the situation with humour did little to convince him, so I decided to adopt another tactic.

  ‘Maybe we could share the next cab that arrives? That way, you’ll be reassured to see me sitting down and you’ll avoid any further delay. Where are you going?’

  ‘Bercy.’

  As luck would have it, his destination was at the complete opposite end of Paris to mine. And when I told him that, the poor guy looked more frustrated than ever.

  In order to reassure this most considerate man, once and for all, I would have loved to be able to explain to him much more precisely why, on the contrary, I really, truly, wanted to wait; the mere act of standing up – a simple undertaking for others – was, in my case, proof that a seemingly endless personal struggle was at long last, finally, coming to an end. Consequently, I was actually savouring this banal act as if it were some kind of rare, exotic pleasure!

  But how an earth could I possibly make him understand that? To do so, I would have had to turn back the clock, a very long way indeed …

  *

  I once heard an expression in a film that goes something like this: ‘If you want to give God a good laugh, tell him about your future plans.’

  On that basis, when we got married, I think the good Lord quite probably had tears of laughter streaming down his face!

  As young newlyweds we had a plan: our dream was to have three or four children, very close together. And I felt particularly lucky in that my husband already loved babies – something some of my female friends really envied – so much so that he didn’t take any convincing about making the leap into parenthood.

  Naturally, we could not possibly know that it would take us four difficult years, riddled with major complications, to bring our first child into the world.

  I simply do not have the words to describe the depths of our despair during that period. All I can say is this: never before had we felt so alone and isolated. Throughout those long drawn-out years, we lived as if in some kind of exile, publicly sharing the joy of all those around us − as they successfully started their families − while privately weeping our tears of grief.

  To make matters worse, as if our despair were not already bad enough, we also found ourselves having to put up with an absolute ocean of tactless comments. There were those who regularly granted themselves the luxury of complaining about their parental status, so very envied by us: ‘I’ve just had a terrible weekend. I didn’t sleep a wink. Our son has an ear infection!’ Then there were those who had the temerity to suggest that the problem was purely psychological (this despite the fact that during those years I had to undergo several operations to correct various clinically identified physical problems) and, therefore, my fault: ‘Don’t go getting obsessed about it, now. If you think about it too much, you’ll never have a baby!’ And finally, the worst ones, the show-offs: ‘You know this has never been my problem. Me, well… I only have to look at my husband and I’m pregnant!’ Understandably, I found comments such as these particularly hard to hear.

  In short, prior to those desperate years I did not know that such tactlessness was actually possible. At the same time, these reactions taught me that we were experiencing a quite particular kind of grief, of an atypical, misunderstood nature. The couple that struggles to have a child constantly carries within them an intense feeling of loss. Permanently, they miss someone. Yet that someone is a person they have never actually known. How could anyone possibly understand that if they haven’t experienced it themselves? The vast majority of people are able to understand that to lose a close friend or family member causes intense grief. But the fact that such grief can be felt for the absence of a person who has never even existed, remains a notion that is quite simply incomprehensible to that very same majority.

  And if today, twenty years later, I have finally mustered up the courage to write, here, about this particular form of suffering, it is because (in addition to this being, as I said, one of my favourite taxi tales) my hope is that by sharing my story I might just help other people, currently experiencing the same despair, to feel less alone.

  Although this period of our life was indeed fraught with sadness and disappointment, I must say all was not negative. I shall never forget those who were willing to support me, among whom two particular examples spring to mind. I am indebted to one of my husband’s colleagues who stepped in at the last minute to replace him at a meeting in Rio de Janeiro, so that I was not alone when I suffered an ectopic pregnancy. And then there was one of our best friends who, one day when I was at the depths of despair, gallantly accepted to accompany me on what is today etched in our minds as being a ‘legendary’ walk in the Bois de Boulogne. It was a walk during which I poured out every last detail of my grief to him, therefore requiring us to do several laps of the Grand Lac!

  Neither will I forget the team of doctors – in my eyes true geni
uses – who treated me during those long years, without whom we would never have had children.

  *

  When finally I found myself expecting our son, this pregnancy – my third, deemed to be something of a miracle by our doctors (!) – brought its own new batch of complications. However, these complications were easier to bear for the simple reason that everyone − the medical team and my husband and I alike – was under the impression that this baby was here to stay.

  Naturally, given our track record, things were complicated right to the end.

  And even for some time afterwards…

  When, at last, our son was born, he looked absolutely perfect to us: a tiny, little, beautifully formed being.

  That said, the deafening silence in the delivery room informed us that something was wrong.

  Then came the verdict: he was much too small for the term.

  I just didn’t want to believe it. He looked so very normal. He was, moreover, looking up at me with one eye closed and the other open, as if to give me a little wink of complicity that appeared to say: ‘They’re all panicking. But don’t worry Mummy. You and I both know that it’s all going to be okay.’

  Sadly, shortly after his birth, our son had to be transferred to a special care baby unit. We just could not believe it. We’d waited so long to get him and already, we were deprived of him! I couldn’t stop thinking about the Biblical story of the judgment of Solomon in which the biological mother ultimately accepts to let her newborn go but only because she realises it is her sole chance of saving him.

  The period that followed saw us on a constant pendulum swing between a dream fulfilled − that of, at long last, having our very own baby − and the nightmarish thought that we might at any moment lose him.