by Finny (v5)
“We can walk right through this,” Earl said. “It’s a shortcut. The Pont Neuf is on the other side.”
They walked down another short street, and came out by the river. Holding hands, they walked onto the bridge, over the wide water. Because of their long walk, Finny didn’t feel cold anymore. She squeezed Earl and made him pose with her for a picture along the railing of the bridge, which another American tourist ended up taking for them. Earl pointed out some of the sights: the Louvre, the Tuileries, the Orsay, Ile de la Cité and the buttresses of Notre Dame at its far end. They planned some places to visit. Earl told her about the bateaux-mouches you could take a ride on at night, and how the rich people who lived on the Seine complained about the lights from the tour boats shining in their windows.
They spent the first part of the afternoon walking around some Left Bank neighborhoods, which Earl said he liked better than the Right Bank. He took Finny to a café where Gertrude Stein used to come for parlor sessions with her writer friends. They stopped at a fancy ice cream shop on Ile Saint-Louis, with brass tables and counters. Finny tried a flavor with chocolate and orange and hazelnuts, and when Earl asked if she was ready to go, she considered getting another scoop, but decided not to spoil her dinner. He took her to a little Picasso museum in the Marais, which he said was one of his favorite museums in Paris. He taught her some useful expressions, like “Où est le métro?” and “C’est combien?” which Finny then proceeded to butcher with her abominable French accent. Earl laughed, then tried to correct her and ended up bungling it himself, which made Finny laugh. They were practically falling over by the time Finny learned to say “I would like to order the steak.”
They got back to Earl’s apartment building around seven. Finny was exhausted, so Mona suggested they stay in for dinner. They made a meal of baguette and cheese, salami, some rabbit pâté Mona had picked up at the farmers’ market held every week on her street. Mona walked them to the door of Earl’s room, then said to Finny and Earl, “You two must have some catching up to do. You can relax, give each other massages, talk dirty if you like. I’ll plug my ears.”
“Mom,” Earl said. “Please.”
“Sorry,” Mona said.
Then they all said good night.
After Finny had washed for bed, they made up the red cushions for themselves, and Finny lay down on them while Earl was getting ready. She must have closed her eyes at some point, because the next thing she knew she was blinking awake in a shower of sunlight from the high window. Earl was asleep, and Finny got up on a chair to look out the window. She heard voices below, and when she looked into the street, she saw children congregating in front of an iron gate. Since it was the holidays, Finny imagined they must have been friends meeting up for some outing. One very big child pushed a small one into the road and laughed. Cars honked at them. Finny got down off the chair, and she saw that Earl was now awake.
“Sorry I fell asleep,” Finny said. She wasn’t sure if he was disappointed they hadn’t had sex. “I guess I was more tired than I thought.”
But if Earl was disappointed, he didn’t show it. “Come here,” he said to Finny, holding out his arms, and she got back in bed with him. They hugged each other under the warm covers, and for some reason it put Finny in mind of chickens in an oven.
“We’re roasting,” she said.
It would be what they’d always call this morning time together, when they held each other under the covers. It was Finny’s favorite part of the day. On this particular morning, though, as Mona had predicted, it led to more than just holding. Soon they were kissing, undressing, and Finny was scrambling into the cold air to find a condom in her bag. Earl laughed at the sight of her running naked through his room. Then she was back under the covers, and they were moving through all the familiar, warm routines they’d established that weekend in New York. They moved slowly, and it took a long time, but by the end they were both breathless. What a wonderful way to begin their vacation together! What a perfect morning in Paris!
It became the way they started every morning. Too tired for love—and usually a little drunk—when they returned at night, they went straight to sleep. But in the mornings they lingered, roasted, made love, sometimes fell back asleep for a while longer. Then they’d eat cereal, or else go to the corner for an espresso and a croissant. (Finny always got chocolate.) They didn’t make a lot of plans, but they always had enough to fill a day. There were exhibits they wanted to see, restaurants they wanted to try, walks they wanted to take. They went to Angelina on the Rue de Rivoli to drink chocolat africain. Finny bought postcards, chocolates, key chains for her friends and family. In the evenings they told Mona about their days, and she relished every detail. She licked her lips when Finny described the hot chocolate. Earl showed Finny a little square in Montmartre with a bust of a French actress in it, surrounded by some lovely old houses that had been converted into apartments. There were a few park benches, a circle of lawn, some walls draped with ivy, a fat oak tree. He said this was where he’d choose to live in Paris, if he ever had the money.
That evening—it was the first week of January, a scoured winter smell in the air—Earl and Finny ate crêpes in a piano bar and listened to a man play Billy Joel songs for tips. Afterward, walking down the slope of the Rue de Maubeuge, they saw a prostitute who was clearly a man—though he was wearing heavy makeup and a fur boa—pick up a client in a business suit. The couple walked into an alley, whispering and laughing. The man behind Finny and Earl—who walked with a noticeable limp, and kept wriggling inside his overcoat, as if his clothes didn’t fit properly—shrugged at the couple who walked off together. Finny laughed.
“You know, I like the way people are about sex here,” Finny said. “They treat it like it’s slightly funny. Which it is, if you think about it. I mean, in a certain way. I could get used to that.”
“Used to what?” Earl said.
“Being here, I guess.”
“Really? You could live here?”
“I think so. Why?”
Earl shrugged. “It’s just good to know. Since I’m not sure where I’m going to be.”
Finny felt a bubble of anxiety expand in her chest. What was he telling her? She looked at Earl, and caught a glimpse of the limping man behind them, who seemed unable to control his pace on the steep hill. He kept wriggling in his coat, as if he were trying to shrug it off. His feet made a quickening rhythm on the pavement—du-duk, du-duk, du-duk—and Finny thought of asking if he needed a hand.
But first she said to Earl, “You mean you think you might want to live here for good?”
“I’m not sure about for good,” Earl said. “It’s just, right now, I feel like I should be with my mom. She needs me more than my dad. He’s got Poplan.”
“But what am I going to do?” Finny burst out. “I can’t drop out of school. I just started. We just started. Now you’re telling me we’re going to have to put it all on hold again?”
“I’m just saying everything’s up in the air. We haven’t even talked about being a couple. We don’t even know if this is going to work out.”
“What?” Just this morning she’d been planning their life together. Though now, and suddenly, like a thunderclap on a clear afternoon, another thought struck her. “You’re not seeing other people, are you?”
“What do you mean?” Earl asked. Which told her everything she needed to know. She saw it in his face, in the scurrying confusion in his eyes, the familiar glow in his cheeks. She didn’t need to push on, and yet, against every good instinct, she did.
“I mean,” Finny said, summoning her old bluntness, “have you had sex with anyone besides me since we met at Judith’s party? Is that clear enough?”
But Earl didn’t want to fight anymore. “Yes,” he said. “I have.”
“Who?”
“A girl I knew from high school. Camille. It wasn’t serious. I didn’t realize I couldn’t—”
“It’s not about couldn’t.”
�
�You’re on a different continent, Finny. I don’t see how we can—”
But she stopped him. She felt the bubble of her emotion bursting, a hot flood in her lungs, and she said to Earl, “You can’t do this to me. You can’t, Earl. I can’t live that way.” She was practically screaming. They’d become one of those unhappy pairs who fought in the street—something she’d told herself they’d never be.
Before Earl had a chance to answer, though, they were interrupted. The limping man, whose pace had quickened even more, bumped into Earl with his shoulder. All Finny saw of him was his bristly jaw, like some overused hairbrush. At first, she thought the man was falling, but when she reached out to grab him, he tore her purse off her arm and started to run down the street, no longer limping at all. Earl was on the ground.
“Oh my God,” Finny said, and leaned down to help Earl up. But Earl got up on his own. He started down the street, chasing the purse-snatcher.
“Hey!” Earl screamed. “Stop! Connard!”
“No!” Finny screamed at Earl. “Come back!”
But he wouldn’t stop. The two men rounded the corner at full speed, and Finny had to run to keep up. Earl was still screaming at the man, and Finny wanted to tell him she didn’t care about her purse. But Earl was too far away, and yelling too loudly to hear. She’d seen the look in Earl’s eyes when he’d gotten up from the pavement, a kind of blind outrage, and she knew that nothing she could say would stop him. For the first time she’d glimpsed something reckless and impulsive in Earl, a piece of him she hadn’t known existed, and she found she was running as much away from that vision, those raging eyes, as toward Earl and the thief.
“Please!” Finny shouted. “Please come back!”
She followed them down the street, Earl chasing the thief, yelling, “Mais quel connard! Thief!” and Finny calling after Earl to come back. All of a sudden the man darted into an alleyway off the Rue de Maubeuge. “Don’t!” Finny yelled to Earl. But Earl kept going, into the dark side street. Finny had no choice but to follow.
When she made the turn, it was at first difficult to see anything. She could hear Earl’s footsteps ahead of her, and more distantly, the thief’s. She kept running toward Earl, her own feet smacking the pavement. None of them were screaming any longer; there were no other people around to hear them. The alleyway must have been made of cobblestone, because Finny’s feet kept getting turned between stones, her ankles strained. But she was a good runner; she wasn’t going to give up. She passed a dumpster. She could make out the shadows of the men ahead of her.
Farther down the alley was a small light, encased in what looked like the head of an old-fashioned streetlamp. It illuminated an orb of alleyway, and Finny could see that the street dead-ended just beyond the light, at a cement wall with some graffiti on it. She knew now that they were headed for a face-off with the criminal. Earl was gaining on him. The man was slowing his pace. There was nowhere else to run.
The man was nearly to the lit-up spot at the end of the alleyway. Finny heard the tok-tok of his shoes on the pavement, echoing in the tight space between the buildings. Then, suddenly, the man opened a door that Finny hadn’t seen, next to the light, and ran inside.
“Okay!” Finny screamed to Earl. “Okay!” It was all she could think of, and she was too out of breath to get out more than a couple of syllables. She figured that here Earl would have to give up.
But instead Earl yanked open the door that the man had disappeared behind. He ran into the building, still chasing the man.
Finny was coming up on the lighted patch herself. She considered giving up, going back. Why risk herself? But she couldn’t leave Earl that way. It would be too much to bear if something happened.
The door was painted red, and it squealed when Finny opened it. Above the lintel there was a tiny sign, which you couldn’t have seen if you hadn’t known exactly where the door was. In bright red letters the sign said: La Maison des Fantaisies. A brothel, Finny thought as she went inside.
The first room she entered was square, about the size of the dining room and kitchen in her mother’s house. The room was painted the same red color as the sign outside the door. It was very warm, and there was an odor of burnt almonds. There were chairs and couches of various shades of red, and six or eight people were sitting reading magazines like in a doctor’s office. The people—both men and women, which made Finny question her idea that it was a brothel—looked normal enough. They wore dresses and suits, leggings for the women, scarves or earmuffs piled in the seats next to them. One man had on a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up. Finny saw Earl darting past a door on the far side of the room. He was yelling “Au voleur! Stop!” but no one seemed to be paying attention.
Finny ran through the room, then down the hallway Earl had run down. The hallway was painted white, and had a tile floor like in a hospital. Here there was an astringent smell, as of bleach or some cleaning product. Earl ducked into one of the rooms, where he must have seen the thief running, and in a moment Finny followed.
But when she got there, Earl had already moved on. It was a cream-colored room that seemed to be set up like a classroom. There was a portable blackboard in one corner, stocked with chalk and erasers. A woman in a too-large tweed coat stood at the board asking questions of a very small man—he could have been a midget—who was seated at a child’s desk in front of the board. The man was wearing a schoolboy outfit, short pants and a starched shirt. He had a satchel tucked under his chair.
“Quelle est la capitale du Nicaragua?” the woman questioned, tapping a piece of chalk against the board so that the tip crumbled.
“Bogotá?” the man answered.
“Non!” the woman screeched. Then she slapped the man across the face.
“Huit moins cinq,” the woman said.
“Quatre?” the man answered.
“Non!” the woman screamed, and knocked him out of his chair with a blow to his shoulder. The woman looked pleased by the result. “Vous êtes un mauvais élève!” she said. She kicked him in the ribs, and he moaned with satisfaction. Neither glanced in Finny’s direction. A pickpocket would never get caught here, in the confusion of these rooms.
Finny ran back into the white hallway. She heard scuffling in a room ahead of her, to the right. “Earl?” she said. “Earl!” She was afraid he’d caught up with the thief, that they were fighting, or maybe the criminal’s friends were attacking Earl. She just wanted to get him out of this crazy place. She ran to the room where the sounds seemed to be coming from and she opened the door.
Inside the room, a very pale young woman was lying naked on the floor, her arms and legs splayed like she was making a snow angel. She lay on a rug the color of a fresh wound. She was almost sickly thin, her stomach sucked under a pronounced rib cage, her arms as brittle-looking as twigs. She had something like bread crumbs dusting her chest. And next to her—the part that Finny could hardly believe—was a live swan. The bird was enormous, probably four feet tall with its neck extended, and brilliantly white. Its eyes were encircled with black, giving it an angry, determined look. The swan craned its neck and nibbled a few bread crumbs off the woman’s chest. It didn’t walk toward her, and Finny saw that there was a small collar on the bird’s neck, fixing it in place. When the swan’s beak touched the woman, she giggled like a small child.
“Oh my God,” Finny said, hardly believing what was happening. She felt as if she were in some kind of demented dream.
She stumbled into the hall. For a moment she did nothing but breathe, look at the floor, and try to collect her thoughts. And then she looked up. Ahead of her, unbelievably, she saw the man who had taken her purse. He was running toward her. She realized now that he was only a boy—fifteen or sixteen, maybe—with some early stubble on his chin. The limping must have been an act he’d perfected to catch people off guard. He had wide, excited brown eyes, and he was breathing heavily, as if he couldn’t get enough air.
“It’s okay!” Finny called to him. It was the first t
hing that popped into her mind. She didn’t even realize that he probably didn’t understand her, probably spoke only French. She just had the urge to comfort, assuage.
In a second Earl was coming around the corner, chasing the boy. They were both headed right toward Finny. She didn’t know what to do. Should she put her arms out and stop the boy? Or scream, which didn’t seem to have much effect in this place. Or should she just let him go and grab hold of Earl, make him stop? But before she had a chance to make a decision, the boy kicked open a door in the hallway marked Sortie in green letters, and ran into the street. Earl chased him. Finny followed Earl.
Outside it was cold again. She was in another alley. This was a different door from the one they’d come in. Finny saw her breath in the cold air. Ahead of them was a major street, Finny wasn’t sure which. There was some kind of street fair or celebration going on. A swarm of people moved along the road, which was too crowded for cars to pass. Music was playing, drums and horns. The people were eating sweets out of paper bags. Finny knew that if the boy made it to the crowd, they’d never find him.
But here something else unexpected happened. The boy simply tossed the bag onto the pavement, waved to Earl with both hands as if to say, Okay, you got me, then jogged off into the crowd. Finny let out a long breath, relieved that their chase had ended. She almost hoped the boy had taken some money for his trouble.
Earl was picking the bag up off the pavement when Finny reached him.
“What just happened?” Finny asked. She was out of breath. Sweat ran down her sides. Her throat was dry and felt scratched, like she’d swallowed a mouthful of steel wool.
“That was the craziest place I’ve ever seen,” Earl said as they stood there in the alleyway, panting. Then Earl said, “Check to make sure everything’s there.”
Finny opened the bag. Money, keys, credit card, passport. It was all there.
“Nothing’s missing,” Finny said.
Earl had a small grin on his face.
“Jesus,” Finny said.
