Foreign Tongue

by Vanina Marsot

  I Googled Romain Chesnier. He and Estelle had gotten married two months after the Figaro Madame article, and sure enough, he’d been married before, to an Italian news reporter. In his younger days, he’d been handsome, but from the recent photos I’d seen and the brief TV news clip, I knew he’d put on a paunch, and his eyes seemed to sink behind his glasses. I read that his father, a prominent businessman, had died of a heart attack, so heart disease ran in the family.

  He’d written a half dozen books on ancient Gaul, including a forward to an anniversary edition of the Astérix and Obélix comic books, but none of them were published by Les Editions Pas de Mule. His most famous book, Vercingétorix à Alésia, had been translated into twelve languages. Like nearly every other French politician, he’d been to ENA, the Ecole Nationale d’Administration, France’s elite school for senior civil servants, but he’d also read history at Cambridge.

  I looked at the rough draft one more time, made one correction, and hit Print. As the pages spewed out, I kept seeing Chesnier’s face. Before, the author had been a shadowy presence, lurking somewhere beyond my reach but vibrant, a radio station transmitting a voice I could hear but not see. Now that I knew what he looked like, it was hard to picture him as my author. He was just an identity pasted onto a page, a passport photo superimposed on my text.

  I put the translation in my bag, next to the Figaro Madame. I showered and searched my closet for something stylish but sobre. I ended up in black, as if handing in the last chapter meant I was going to a funeral.

  When I got to the bookstore, there was a young, pixielike woman with light brown hair sitting behind his desk, chewing on a pencil as she studied an old book.

  “Il n’est pas là, monsieur Laveau?” I asked.

  She looked up. “Il sera de retour dans quelques minutes, madame,” she said. I tried not to flinch. To Bernard, I was always “mademoiselle.” It felt as if I’d aged overnight.

  “Ah, bon,” I said. “Parce que j’ai amené une traduction…” I explained, pointing to the envelope in my hand. She smiled, revealing a gap in her front teeth.

  “You are the translator?” she asked in accented English. “My uncle told me you would come. He will arrive very soon. Would you like a coffee?”

  “No, thank you,” I said firmly. I would drink my café with Bernard.

  “Are you sure? It’s very good,” she said. “Very high-tech,” she added. Turning, I saw the old espresso machine was gone. In its place was a playful yellow contraption with chrome knobs and buttons, an ap pliance from the Teletubbies’ kitchen. “Please let me make you one,” she said. I nodded and sat down.

  “What are you reading?” I asked, glancing at the desk.

  “Traité d’anatomie et de physiologie,” she said. “It’s an antique book. The illustrations are quite wonderful.” I glanced at the open page. It showed an intricately crosshatched diagram of the foot muscles. She placed a cup of coffee in front of me.

  “I am at the Ecole des Beaux Arts,” she explained. “We are studying la morphologie, so my uncle found me some books.”

  “You’re an artist,” I stated, trying to picture Bernard as a doting uncle, picking out books for his niece.

  “One day, I think. Yes.” She nodded happily. “Ah, le voilà!” she exclaimed as Bernard came in. “Ils sont géniaux,” she said, pointing to the pile of books. She bounded up to him and kissed him on both cheeks. “Je te remercie.” His face softened, his eyes dancing with pleasure. It was a look I hadn’t seen before, and I felt a twinge of envy.

  “Elodie, tu nous laisses deux minutes?” he asked. She left, closing the door.

  “Alors, mademoiselle,” he said, turning to me. “You have the final chapter! Let me write your check,” he said. He sat heavily, not removing his coat, and took his checkbook from the desk.

  “Uh, Bernard…since it’s the last chapter, I was sort of hoping,” I began. He didn’t look up. “I was hoping we could go to lunch, or something.”

  His hairline moved back as he raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Je suis désolé, mademoiselle. I am having lunch with my niece,” he said apologetically. “But perhaps you would care to join us?” he added. The offer was phrased with just enough enthusiasm that I couldn’t tell whether it was genuine or excellent manners. I was too embarrassed by his look of surprise to accept.

  “No, no, I wouldn’t dream of imposing. But perhaps you’ll be available another day,” I ventured. I had manners, too. I knew enough to say this, even though “another day” sounded a lot like a euphemism for “never.”

  “Mais bien sûr,” he said. “It would be my pleasure. I will be in touch about future developments,” he said, cocking a significant eyebrow. I stood up.

  “Ce fut un plaisir, monsieur.” It has been a pleasure. I held out my hand.

  “Et pour moi, mademoiselle,” he said, shaking my hand, his lips twitching with a small smile, either at my solemn tone or my use of the simple past. I turned and left the office, walking as if I were on liquid sand, striding away from the ocean while the water receded, not sure whether I was going forward or backward as I moved through the bookstore and out the door, ringing the cowbell for what was, perhaps, the last time.

  I put distance between me and Editions Laveau, me and Bernard, me and the translation, the author, the minister, Estelle, Olivier, everything, away from me. I walked east, not slowing until I got to the end of Saint-Germain, as the pink-gold light of the setting sun faded.

  Later, in the métro, I overshot my stop. I got out at the Gare du Nord. As I trudged down a long, tiled hallway, I saw a man in a gray suit distributing pale blue cards with shiny navy letters. I picked one off the floor for my collection and read: “Maître Seydi, marabout Africain.” The card promised results in less than twenty-four hours, with a specialty in deliverance from all manner of ghosts, evil spirits, and bad dreams. CAUCHEMARS was printed in bold, all caps.

  He came over to me. “You don’t need that, mademoiselle.” I looked up at him. Tall, with tired, brown eyes, he smiled and reached for the card, but I held on to it. Something in my face must have startled him, because his expression changed. “If you do need help, my brother is a very wise man. Il n’est pas comme les autres,” he said. His gaze was gentle, despite formidable raised scars on his cheeks, and I didn’t want to stop looking at him. “Tell him Souaré sent you. You won’t have to wait.”

  I walked home along the canals, watching the wind whip the water against the concrete banks. A seagull squawked, circling overhead. I picked my way over the uneven cobblestones and sat on a bench. Under a darkening sky, I stared at the water, bending the blue card back and forth between my fingers.

  I made an appointment for the next day.

  40

  So that no one may forget how fine it would be if, for each sea that awaits us, there were a river, for us. And someone—a father, a lover, someone—capable of taking us by the hand and finding that river—imagining it, inventing it—and placing us on its flow with the buoyancy of a single word, adieu.

  —ALESSANDRO BARICCO, Ocean Sea

  The next day, I met Bunny in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont. Up on a sunny hill not far from the folly, with a sweeping view of the city. I told him about my nightmares and my appointment with Maître Seydi.

  “A witch doctor? Are you kidding me?” He folded his arms across his chest and glared at me. The cold wind whistled through the air. “Mumbo jumbo,” he said, his mouth twisting. “Though I suppose it explains why you’ve been acting so strange lately.”

  “I have not been acting strange!” I protested. He slid me a sideways look.

  “And you think this marabout can cure you?”

  I tilted my head and looked at him. “It’s worth a shot.”

  He was silent for a moment. “You want me to walk with you?” he asked. I nodded. He picked up his WHSmith bag, and we walked toward the avenue de Laumière.

  At number thirty-nine, I punched in the building code and pushed the door open. Bun
ny stood, stubbing the sidewalk with the tip of his running shoe.

  “I’m not coming in,” he said.

  “Fine,” I said, exasperated. He squinted, looking down the street.

  “I may not be here when you come out,” he added.

  “What do you mean, you might not be here? Why can’t you wait for me there?” I asked, pointing to the café on the corner, Le Carambolage.

  “I don’t know, I have stuff to do,” he said, wrinkling his nose with a cross look.

  “But—”

  “I don’t know this neighborhood, and who knows how long you’ll be. Plus, I’m tired and it’s cold,” he said, playing his trump card. I couldn’t argue with that, and he knew it. I looked at his face, the wrinkled skin and watery eyes.

  “You’ll be okay, kid. You know where to find me,” he said. “You always do.” He bent his head to whisper in my ear. “You’ll be okay.”

  I climbed four flights of stairs to Maître Seydi’s apartment, wondering what I would find. What if it was mumbo jumbo or voodoo? Or dangerous? I paced the landing, scenes of zombie movies flashing before my eyes, but then the fragrant aroma of onions and garlic sautéing in butter wafted through the air, and it reassured me.

  Maître Seydi opened the door. He was a small, slight man, whose meticulously pressed olive green suit looked baggy, as if he’d lost some weight, perhaps due to illness. His cheeks sagged as well, but unlike his brother’s, they weren’t scarred. He had short gray hair, wore mirrored aviator sunglasses, and spoke French with a singsongy accent.

  “Bienvenue chez nous, mademoiselle,” he said, opening his arms wide in welcome. Was I supposed to hug him?

  “Merci, maître,” I said.

  He took my arm above the elbow. “Venez, venez,” he said, pulling me into a small room. It was painted yellow, the paint peeling at the baseboards, with ikat-covered chairs surrounding a round table. A vase filled with wilting yellow roses sat on the table. An Elgar suite played in the background, a piece I knew.

  “S’il vous plaît,” he said, pointing to a chair. He pinched the pleats in his pants and sat next to me. He asked me a series of questions, about my background, my marital status, profession, and health. Then he got up and turned off the music. When he sat down again, he stretched out his hand. I placed mine in it. It was warm and dry.

  “Alors, parlez-moi de votre problème,” he said. As I told him about my bad dreams, the disasters and claustrophobia, he nodded and made small clicking noises.

  “You say car crashes, explosions?” he asked. I nodded. “Yes?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Sometimes a woman’s voice, weeping, maybe Italian or Spanish.”

  “Every night?”

  “No, but a lot of nights quand-même,” I said.

  “You’re lucky you found me,” he said matter-of-factly. He squeezed my hand. I let out a sigh of relief. “Of course you are not crazy,” he said, reading my thoughts. “Someone is trying to tell you something. How long has this been going on?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Weeks.”

  He whistled. “Weeks! It is a long time to sleep with such dreams.”

  “I got used to it, I guess.”

  “This is because you are unmarried and have no children,” he declared, shaking his head. My faith in Maître Seydi took a nosedive. I made a noncommittal hum.

  “Don’t pretend to agree with me!” he rebuked, shaking my hand. “I am trying to understand. You did not come here to tell me stories!” He looked fierce as he furrowed his forehead, his mouth grim below the motorcycle cop shades.

  Des histoires. I had lots of stories. Eve’s story, Monsieur X’s story, which was also Monsieur le Ministre’s story. I was, in fact, surrounded by story.

  “Sometimes, the world is too much to bear,” he said. “This pain, it can take up residence in the hidden part of your mind, your dreams.”

  “Huh?” I didn’t follow. He grimaced, two dimples appearing by his mouth.

  “Your skin, it is a membrane that protects your body from disease. In a similar way, your being must protect itself. It must filter, reason, understand, feel, of course, but with perspective, moderation.”

  I blinked.

  “But now, it must stop! You must make it stop,” he said and, turning to face me, gripped my hands. “Concentrate,” he said.

  A distant memory came to me: holding a friend’s hands in second grade, two little girls spinning around on the playground.

  “Il faut surmonter la souffrance, pas vivre dans son ombre,” he said. You must surmount suffering, not live in its shadow. “Close your eyes.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “Stop thinking so much,” he snapped.

  I shut my eyes. The room spun, and for a moment, as if from far off, I heard a couple of piano notes and a rustle of wind, as if they were coming from a TV next door.

  “Breathe!” Maître Seydi barked, startling me. My eyes flew open and I sucked in air, not knowing I’d been holding it. “Again,” he said. I closed my eyes again, but now all I could think about was the shape of his fingers, the odd intimacy of holding hands with a stranger. I opened one eye to peek at him.

  “No, no. You are not serious,” he said, his mouth curling. He let go of my hands and leaned back. He was sweating, and something told me he was working harder at this than I was. He shook his head. “Come back another time.”

  “But—”

  “You must concentrate, then move out of the way. I cannot do everything. Ce n’est pas sérieux.” He waved his hand in the air, as if to sweep me away, and pulled a cell phone out of his jacket pocket. His gravity was bracing. I didn’t want to give up; I didn’t want him to give up on me.

  “Maître,” I said, “the first time, I remembered something from my childhood, and I heard laughter. This is strange for me, but I want to try again.” To my surprise, my voice cracked.

  I couldn’t tell what was going on behind the mirrored glasses, but he tucked the phone away and held out his hands. I placed mine in them. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, picturing myself asleep. He tightened his grip, and, like the slow dance of a merry-go-round, the room began to spin again.

  It was dark, but in the distance, I saw something small and bright, like an illuminated scene in a snow globe. The snow globe grew larger, until I saw myself, younger this time, maybe five or six, wearing a pinafore and white shoes, hiding in the corner of a garden. I was clutching a small stuffed animal, its long, floppy, torn ear in one hand, and crying my little heart out. I walked closer.

  She looked up at me, her face swollen and red. I reached down and drew her into my arms. There was an ache in the air, the sweetest, saddest piano music mixed with the scent of roses, the smell of freshly mowed lawn, and me and my little childhood self. It echoed inside me, that aching, sweet sadness, fitting itself to me like a lover.

  I don’t know how long I sat with her, with me, her hand tucked into mine. The wind kicked up. She stood and wiped her face. The sun was setting, and up above, the sky was turning a deeper blue. I felt minuscule and frozen, as if I were watching the world from inside a glass marble which got smaller and smaller. I started to panic, but I heard a familiar voice, and I pulled myself on it, a rope in a storm.

  “You’ll be okay, kid.”

  My eyes snapped open. Only Maître Seydi’s grip kept me from toppling over. For the second time in my life, I saw stars, only this time they looked like silent insects, doing cartwheels through my peripheral vision before they disappeared.

  I didn’t speak as I got my bearings. My face was wet, and I blew my nose. I noticed a tall wood sculpture in the corner of the room, a white cane beside it. Maître Seydi removed his sunglasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. His eyes were a pale, milky blue, and I saw he was blind. He cleaned his glasses with a white linen handkerchief, a gesture that seemed both absurd and touching, and put them back on.

  “I didn’t know. How sad she was,” I said in a small voice.

  He pu
lled a cigarette from a silver case and lit it with a matching lighter. It felt like he was watching me from behind those glasses. When he exhaled through his nose, the two escaping plumes of smoke made me think of a dragon. One thin, blue stream of smoke curled itself into a question mark, hung in the air between us, and dissipated.

  My mouth was suddenly dry, and my eyes stung. Maître Seydi cleared his throat.

  “But you know, there’s nothing I can do about your ghost, ma petite.” He said it in the kindest voice, so gently I almost didn’t understand. “The tall one, your rabbit friend.”

  My legs wobbled beneath me as I went down the four flights of stairs. Outside, it was bright and sunny. The sidewalks seemed to sparkle with bits of glass and broken jewelry. I was a little unsteady, but I walked through the unfamiliar neighborhood, passing a traiteur advertising fresh terrine de lapin. I walked all the way to Père Lachaise, entering the cemetery behind a group of American college students looking for Jim Morrison’s grave.

  I meandered down the dappled alleys, amazed, as always, by the variety of names, headstones, sculptures, and urns. I continued up the hill to the columbarium beyond the narrow, white smokestack rising above the cemetery heights. I walked down the stone steps to the second floor and made a left, my feet taking me, the rest of me just following. Inside, the air was cold and moist. I stopped when I found it: a small, shiny onyx square with bright gilt letters. There, in the dark, I sighed, and knelt my forehead against Bunny’s name.

  I found a spot with a view under some rustling trees. In front of me, Paris stretched out under a blue sky with cotton-candy clouds. There’d been a phone call, weeks ago, in the middle of the night, the one I didn’t want to hear, the strange woman’s voice, the woman who’d gotten my number out of his book, telling me about Bunny’s car crash on the Italian auto-strada. It had been so easy to press the wrong button in the morning.