by Jeremy Bates
I was listening but not listening. My thoughts were a thousand miles away, fast-forwarding through the years I had spent with her. How good she had been to me. How she had stuck by me when nobody else had. How much I had loved her. How I would have done anything for her.
How could she be engaged with someone else and pregnant with his child?
She was mine. She had always been mine.
I was back on my feet. Anger churned within me, burning me up from the inside out. My jaw was clenched, my free fist pumped open, closed, open, closed. I wanted to throw the phone as far as I could out the window.
Instead I shut my eyes and tilted my head back. I took a silent breath. What was my problem? Fuck, I had slept with Danièle just the other night. Bridgette had every right to do the same with someone else. She hadn’t planned on getting pregnant. It happened. So what did I want her to do? Have an abortion? Stop seeing the guy? What would any of that accomplish? We were done.
But we weren’t. I was going to come back. We were going to start over…
“Will?” Bridgette said. “Are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“I know how all this must sound…”
“I understand. And…congratulations. I’m happy for you.”
She didn’t say anything. The line hissed with long-distance static interference.
Then: “Thank you, Will.” Her voice was croaky, and I thought she might be crying. “That means a lot to me.”
A chorus of voices sounded in the background.
“I should go,” she said.
I didn’t protest. There was nothing more to say.
“Will?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you. I always will.”
“I love you too.”
I didn’t hang up immediately. Apparently she didn’t either, because the line noise continued for another five seconds.
Then silence, perfect silence.
She was gone.
Sometime later, as the late dusk settled and shadows lengthened outside my window, I started packing a bag.
Chapter 3
The name of the pub Danièle had written on the napkin earlier was La Cave. The façade was nondescript, and I walked straight past the wooden door and small neon sign on my first pass down rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud.
The interior had all the intimacy, intrigue, and secrecy of a speakeasy. Red cone lamps suspended from the barrel-vault ceiling cast butterscotch light over the button-tufted sofas and armchairs and low wood tables. The bar was tucked into one corner. Behind the fumed-oak counter a chalkboard listed a variety of cocktails. In another corner sat a white claw-footed bathtub, filled with ice and green bottles of what looked to be home-made beer. Good-natured old-timers schmoozed next to crowds of younger hipsters, voices and laughter raised in a cacophony of merriment.
I didn’t see Danièle anywhere and checked my wristwatch, a six hundred dollar Hamilton that Bridgette had splurged on for my twenty-fourth birthday.
It was a quarter past eight. Danièle had said she would be here between eight and nine. Had she changed her mind and left early?
“Excuse me?” I said to a waiter wiping down a recently vacated tabled. He was a clean-cut guy with a back-in-fashion mullet, rolled-up cuffs, and a black apron. “Have you seen a woman, short black hair, a lot of mascara?”
“Why don’t you use your eyes and look for her yourself?” he snapped, turning away from me.
I stared at his back, pissed off, but letting it go. People say the French are rude, but I’ve found that stereotype mostly applied to the service class, who could act as hoity-toity as pop stars; they certainly had no regard for the Anglo-Saxon maxim, “He who pays the piper calls the tune.”
I continued searching for Danièle, and after five minutes without success, I was about to give up and leave when I spotted a staircase that descended to a basement level. I went down a set of steep, narrow steps that emerged in an expansive area styled similar to the first floor, only the walls were brick instead of paneled wood and there were no windows. I immediately spotted Danièle and Pascal and a third guy off by themselves, at a corner table.
“Will!” Danièle said, springing to her feet when she saw me approach. We did the air kiss thing, then she turned to the others to make introductions. “You remember Pascal?”
“Hey,” I said, sticking out my hand.
Pascal shook, but didn’t stand. He was a handsome guy, dark-complected, with thick eyebrows, brooding eyes, and long brown hair. He had gone chic-bum with a wrinkled linen T-shirt and a tweed jacket with brown elbow patches. The tee was wide-necked and showed off too much hairless chest which a loosely knotted scarf failed to conceal. It was the kind of overthought getup you saw aged rock stars don to prove they still had their thumb on the pulse of the times. He was wearing the same black wool-knit cap he had on at Danièle’s birthday party.
“And Will,” Danièle said, “this is Robert.”
“Just Rob, boss,” Rob told me, standing and shaking. He was a short bulldog-looking guy whose body was not only compact but tightly muscular, like a college wrestler’s. He had a spray of freckles that hadn’t faded over time as mothers always promised would, lively gray eyes, and a balding crown shaved close to the scalp. I guessed he was the oldest in our motley crew, maybe thirty.
“You’re American?” I said. Pascal’s silent greeting had made me feel unwelcome, and it was nice to know I wasn’t the only outsider.
“Nah, Canadian, but what the fuck, right?”
“We have just ordered,” Danièle told me. “But do not worry. There is enough for you.”
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
“You should still eat. You will not get another chance until morning.”
“I brought some snacks.”
“Okay, Will, do not eat, but sit down.”
I took a seat beside her, across from Rob and Pascal.
“So Danny says you’re a travel writer or something?” Rob said. He had a husky voice, as if his throat were corroded with rust. “How you like the frogs?”
“Why do you say that, Rob?” Danièle demanded. “We are not frogs. Where did that come from? I never understand that.”
“You eat frog legs, don’t you?”
“Maybe I should call you ‘rosbif?’”
“Ross what?”
“Roast beef?” I offered.
Danièle nodded. “Yes, because you Canadians and Americans eat so much red meat—and you are all so fat, like cows.”
This cracked Rob up. He jumped to his feet and crouched-walked around the table, carrying in his hands an invisible belly, which he began thrusting at Danièle from behind. The action resembled a stubby stripper grinding a pole.
“Get away!” Danièle said, swatting him. “You are so gross. Stop it!”
Still laughing, Rob sat back down. “Fucking French,” he said. “Can’t take a joke. Got assholes so tight they squeak when they fart.”
“Where’re you from?” I asked him.
“Quebec City.”
“The French-speaking part?”
“Quebec’s a province, bro. Quebec City’s a small city in that province. But, yeah, the French-speaking part. Moved to Toronto when I was ten. Actually, moved to Mississauga. But nobody knows where the fuck that is, so I just say Toronto.”
“What are you doing over here?”
“I’m a translator, sort of. I do the subtitles for movies.”
“Hollywood stuff?”
“Other way around. I translate French films to English. You’ve probably never seen any of the ones I’ve done—because French films suck.”
“They do not suck,” Danièle said.
“If you like pretentious art house crap.”
“Pascal, why did you invite Rosbif? He is so annoying sometimes. Did you forget we have to spend nearly ten hours with him?”
Pascal said something in French, paused, then added something more, making a curlicue gesture with his
hand. Rob nodded and shot back a reply.
“Do you speak English?” I asked Pascal.
He leveled his gaze at me. “Do you speak French?”
Mr. Mullet appeared with a huge tray of food. We had to clear the condiments from the center of the table so everything could fit: oysters, soufflé, pork belly, garlic sausage, and a platter of cheese.
While everyone ate, and I nibbled, Danièle said, “So this is the plan, Will. We will arrive at the entrance to the catacombs around ten o’clock. We will continued for four hours, then rest for one. Then it is another two hours or so to the spot where the camera was found.” She consulted Pascal. “Is that right?”
He nodded without looking up from his food.
“Which means we finish around 7 a.m.,” she added. “Still enough time to get to work.”
I was surprised. “Work?”
“You must work tomorrow, yes?”
“I figured I’d write the day off.”
“Then you do not need to worry.”
“You’re working tomorrow?”
“Of course. But I do not start until nine.”
“Lucky you,” Rob said, sawing a piece of pork. “I start at eight.”
I did Danièle’s math in my head. “If we start at ten, walk for four hours, rest for one, walk for another two, that’s seven hours in total. That will take us to five in the morning. Seven hours back, it won’t be noon until we resurface.”
“No, Will,” Danièle said. “Pascal knows a different exit close to where we will rest. We will leave that way.”
I looked at her, wondering if I had to state the obvious. Apparently I did, and said, “Why don’t we just enter through that exit?”
“Because that is not what we do,” she stated. “The catacombs, it is an experience, every time, even for Pascal and me. It is not something to rush through. You and Robert will see. You will understand.”
Chapter 4
ROB
Rob Stratton cast another passing glance across the table at Danièle’s friend Will, trying to get a read on him. He wasn’t your typical American expat, not loud, not wanting to be the center of attention. Not all American expats were like that, of course; they ran the spectrum like expats from any nationality did. But Yanks could be loud. Yanks, then Aussies, then Spaniards—especially the senoritas. That’s how he’d rank them all on the loud meter. The worst of the lot weren’t only loud but didn’t adapt. They brought their native country with them wherever they went.
Rob was thinking about a friend of a friend in particular, a Texan in the import-export business who’d made a fortune selling Chinese junk to the French bourgeoisie. He didn’t wear a cowboy hat around, that would have made him the laughing-stock of Paris, but he did wear these fancy-ass pointed-toe cowhide boots. You could hear the Cuban heels click-clack across the cobblestone streets from a block away. And if this fashion faux pas wasn’t bad enough, the sad fuck shouted everything he said. “Y’all” this and “I’m fixin’ tuh” that. It made you want to smack him one.
Anyway, generalizations aside, Rob wanted to like Will, he was trying to, but it was tough, knowing how much angst—albeit unintentional—his presence was causing poor Pascal, who’d held a flame for Danny for as long as Rob had known him.
If Rob were Pascal, he probably would have popped Will one right in the kisser by now. But Pascal was a lover, a romantic, whatever you called dudes with more heart than testosterone. He didn’t have it in him to hurt a fly.
When Pascal rang Rob two days ago, and explained the pathetic situation, he had been trying to act blasé about the whole deal, but it was obvious he was crushed. Initially Rob declined his invitation to come along; he knew Pascal was only asking because he didn’t want to be the third wheel at his own party; also, the wife had some work thing, and Rob had promised to watch the girls.
Nevertheless, the little bugger wouldn’t let up, even offered to pay for a babysitter, and Rob finally relented. Why not? he’d thought. Pascal and Danny had been going on about the catacombs for years now, and he figured it was about time to find out what all the fuss was about.
Chapter 5
PASCAL
Pascal Gayet slurped an oyster from the wide end of the shell, doing his best to ignore Danièle and the American Will. He still couldn’t believe he’d missed out on his chance to hook up with Danièle yet again. He’d wanted to ask her out ever since they’d first met years earlier at Le Mines. However, he’d been in a relationship then, and by the time he got out of it, she was in one. Ever since, it’d been the same thing: whenever she was single, he wasn’t, and vice versa. Eventually she’d gotten serious with a tattoo artist named Marcel, and for the next three years he had to listen to Danièle complain about what an asshole the guy was to her. Pascal told her repeatedly to dump him, but she never listened. Then, a few months ago, he dumped her for a TV actress who had a part in some kid’s show about a family trying to run a Bed and Breakfast. Pascal figured this was finally his chance. He and Danièle were both single. He’d give her a couple weeks to get over Marcel, then he’d tell her how he felt about her.
Before he could do this, however, she began going on about this American she was doing language exchange lessons with. She obviously liked him. She didn’t shut up about him: Why doesn’t he like me? Do you think he’s gay? Do you think he has a girlfriend? Should I ask him out? Do American women do that? By the time of her birthday party Friday evening Pascal had expected some Fabio-type to stroll through the door with her. To his satisfaction, Will was no Fabio. He had short scruffy black hair, seemed to be in good shape, girls probably found him attractive. But Fabio? Not a chance.
Still, that didn’t stop Danièle from fawning over him. At one point she hopped right onto his lap, her arms hooked around his neck, throwing her head back, laughing. Eventually Pascal couldn’t stand it anymore and left the pub with Danièle’s friend Fanny. She wasn’t attractive, he didn’t have sex with her, he didn’t want to. He just wanted company—that, and he wanted Danièle to find out, though if she did, she never mentioned it.
Across the table Danièle was sitting ramrod straight, her hand out before her, fingers splayed, as she told of the time she had met the Russian ambassador to France at Place de la Bastille. She was up to the point when she had pretended to be Russian to gain access to the VIP room, where all the diplomats were knocking back free champagne during the ballet’s intermission. Obviously she was trying to impress Will, who was listening stoically beside her, staring into the beer he’d ordered.
Pascal slurped a second oyster from the shell and entertained himself for a bit with all the different ways the American could meet a grisly demise in the catacombs tonight.
Chapter 6
Outside the restaurant, rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud was alive with lights and bustle and noise. We walked two blocks, turned down a side street, and walked another half block before arriving at Pascal’s ride: an old, beat-up Volkswagen campervan. Pascal and Rob got in the front while Daniel and I climbed in the back through the sliding side door. We sat next to one another on a bench seat that I suspected folded down into a bed.
Was this Pascal’s Lovemobile? I wondered. Did he drive girls to the top of Montmartre, booze them up, then shag them back here?
To my left was a long counter with knobs protruding vertically from the surface. I lifted one, which raised a section of countertop, and discovered a sink beneath.
As Pascal pulled onto the street and made a tight U-turn, Rob swiveled the front passenger seat around so he was facing us and opened a cupboard below the counter, revealing a mini fridge. He snagged three Belgium beers and tossed one to Danièle and one to me. “To the catacombs fuckers!” he rasped.
We popped the tabs, toasted.
Rob swiveled forward again and turned up Bob Dylan on the stereo.
“So this is fun, right?” Danièle said to me, leaning close to be heard.
“Sure,” I said.
I peeled back the tatty chintz cur
tain and looked out the window. I had never traveled Paris by car, and as we rattled down a wide avenue lined with chestnuts, I watched the stream of closed shops float past.
Nearly everyone had a similar idealized image of Paris in their heads. A mecca of culture and history populated by beautiful architecture, stylish women clad in Gautier or Givenchy, and mustachioed mimes carrying easels under one arm and baguettes under the other. I guess this was sort of true—aside from the mustachioed mimes—but already the gloss had begun to wear off for me, and it had become just another steel-skied, rambling city.
“What are you looking at?” Danièle asked me.
I dropped the curtain. “I’ve never been this way before.”
“You have not seen much of Paris, have you?”
“Just the bars and clubs, mostly,” I said.
“Why not sightsee more?”
“I haven’t gotten around to it.”
“You know, Will, you are a hermit crab.”
“A hermit crab?”
“You like to be by yourself.”
I thought about tweaking her analogy, but didn’t.
A hermit crab. Fuck. I sort of liked it.
I said, “What’s wrong with being a hermit crab?”
“What made you change your mind tonight?”
“About coming out?”
“Yes, you were so against this idea.”
“I still am.”
“Then why are you here?”
Because the alternative was sitting around my apartment all night thinking about Bridgette and her cop boyfriend and their yet-to-be child…
“I wanted to hang out with you,” I said—and this was true. I hadn’t wanted to be alone, and I’d always felt comfortable around Danièle.
She stared at me for a long moment. I waited for a sarcastic zinger. In the front Rob and Pascal were joking back and forth in French. Dylan was warbling about how the times were a-changin’.
