We exited in front of the Palais Royal. It had stopped raining, and the sun was radiant in the sky. My mother squinted at me and said she was starving. “Let’s get some fries. French fries,” she smiled, emphasizing the word French. “That’s funny, don’t you think?” I fought the lump rising in my throat. When she wanted to laugh, I wanted to cry. We were polar opposites. Resigned, I asked her where she wanted to go. “I can see the Arc de Triomphe,” she said, puffing her cheeks as she said it, drawing out the “f” sound, trying to make me laugh. “Let’s walk up the Champs-Élysées. I need some air. I’ve had about all the culture I can take.”
We merged with the Saturday crowd, strolling delightedly on the wide sidewalks of the grand avenue edged by chestnut trees. She smiled contentedly, sunshine brightening the fake blonde in her naturally brown hair. She started to sing. “April in Paris, chestnuts in blossom, holiday tables under the trees.” When I was younger, when friends came over and heard her singing from inside another room, they’d ask me if the radio was on. That’s how dulcet her singing voice was, and how very different from her everyday speaking voice, which boomed and was generally devoid of softness. So it should have comforted me. I had grown up listening to her break into song all my life—but that was the problem: I wanted my life to be different. It was singing at the wrong time, in the wrong place. It sounded the wrong note.
As we continued to meander up the “triumphal way,” as the French call it, we settled into an uneasy silence. Finally we neared the Arc de Triomphe. “I want you to take my picture,” she said. She positioned herself next to one of the avenue’s art nouveau streetlights. I had to step backwards into the advancing crowd to get her fully in the frame. She had climbed up onto the base of the light, standing head and shoulders above me, smiling giddily into the camera. “Pa-ree,” she said, instead of cheese.
We crossed to the other side of the Champs-Élysées, and I led her to Fouquet’s, almost as much of a Champs-Élysées landmark as the Arc de Triomphe. Its wine-red awning, with the celebrated bistro’s name etched in gold, shaded cane chairs, and small circular marble-topped tables lining an outdoor terrace. There were slim-hipped women with long, shiny hair, wearing large dark sunglasses as they gingerly sipped their espresso. They looked as if they had all the time in the world with which to indulge the time-honoured Paris ritual of sitting outdoors and watching the fashion parade stroll by.
An older gentleman with a tuft of gray hair and a periwinkle-blue suit was also on the terrace. He kept checking a gold watch that hung by a chain from his vest pocket. Time had run out for him. He stood up from his table and made a slight bow in the direction of my mother, who was obviously still a head-turner where men were concerned. I could see the allure. She was different from Parisian women, fuller through the hips and thighs, with an ample bosom and a bottom round as a pillow. “Madame,” he said, offering her his seat. She wiggled in his direction, sliding into the chair as he held it gallantly for her. “Merci,” she cooed. He walked away, disappearing into the crowd. My mother wiggled again, this time in her seat. “I can see why you like it here,” she said with a knowing smile and a twinkle in her eye. She was suddenly acting like a girlfriend, chattering away, touching my arm, light as a balloon.
I didn’t understand her, so concentrated instead on the waiters. They were familiar to me. They were the same men in white, full-body aprons, indentured to a life of service. I had encountered them the last time I was in Paris and every time before that. I was sure I would meet them time and again. They were one of the constants in Paris, and in the stolid way they carried on their time-honoured métier, carrying cups of coffee, wiping down tables, they seemed to shore up the city’s shifting emotional landscape with a sense of permanence.
Sitting and observing, not walking and talking like a tour guide, I absorbed the regulating rhythm of the facades, all uniformly white, an ordered idea of beauty. It didn’t matter what shape they were. Square, rectangle, or triangle—as was the case for those buildings that plowed into street corners like the noses of schooners out on the high seas—the multiplicity of buildings serving a variety of purposes, from residences to restaurants, united themselves behind a singular but massive architectural style.
Then I looked over at my mother relishing her hamburger and frites. I nursed a Perrier with lime and wondered if we could ever be similarly united. The word family never stuck well with us. There was little cementing us other than blood and personal history, however rocky. Is that what made us want to cleave, the mere fact of being mother and daughter? Other than that, what did we have in common, she in her blue jeans, me in my tight-fitting skirt? How would we bridge the gap that years of hurt and indifference had wedged between us?
Boom! A loud explosion. The pigeons rose and fell with the bang. When they hit the cement again they did a panicked circle dance, their necks craning, their eyes bugging out of their heads. They resembled us, or we them. No one knew what was going on. People were half standing up, half sitting down. Everyone was running for cover—except for the waiters. They were cleaning the tables, miffed that people had left without paying. Surly words. Gallic shrugs.
Panicked, I struggled for control. “Mother!” She had just seconds ago been enjoying a glass of red wine. “I think it’s a bomb!” I snapped. “Now stop your drinking! We have to make a run for it!”
My mother told me to take it easy. Or so I thought I heard her say. Her words were drowned out by the loud wail of sirens screaming up and down the Champs-Élysées. I grabbed her hand, aware that I hadn’t held it in a long time. I pulled her out of her chair and begged her to hurry.
We soon found out that the blast had occurred less than a block from where we had been sitting, in the Renault car dealership on the Champs-Élysées. People were running and yelling. A large crowd was forming close to where the blast had just occurred. My mother wanted to stop and take a look. She slipped from my grasp. I rushed after her. I saw shattered glass on the avenue and an upturned car. A woman was screaming, her face and hands covered in blood. An ambulance skidded to make a turn right in front of us, and I had to pull my mother back lest she become another casualty. Gendarmes in their soup-can caps whistled loudly at us, and other rubberneckers who had similarly stopped to look for signs of gore. They waved at us, hands quarantined behind white gloves, ordering us to move along. I didn’t understand what had happened. Had there been a bomb? Or a car crash? I heard the crowd saying, as if one, the word terroriste. I told my mother we would be better off taking the metro back to the hotel. I was trying mentally to change channels. “Sam’s picking us up at seven,” I said. “You’ll have just enough time to take a bath.”
WE STOOD, THE three of us, in front of Le Procope, the oldest coffeehouse in Paris, in Saint-Germain. We had wandered there after our meal at the Alsatian restaurant where Sam had made reservations. The food was heavy and northern, full of garlic sausages and oiled potatoes, not my favorite fare, but my mother enjoyed it. How had he known? We had been walking, to burn off the apple cake served with prune eau-de-vie. I had let them walk ahead, arm-in-arm. I saw how she looked at him, grinning. She had had few chances in life, I thought. There was a puddle in the street that my mother was about to step into, wearing her strappy gold sandals with the open toes. But Sam, at just the right moment, lifted her at the waist and carried her slightly aloft. She laughed out loud and seemed almost to dance in the air before touching back down on the cobblestone street. I was so genuinely happy in that moment, so deeply relieved. If Sam had thought that being nice to my mother would make me think more positively about him, he had calculated correctly. I liked him, liked his character. He was good; he treated my mother as something precious, something worthy. It was what I had wanted to do but couldn’t. Each time I thought of showing her affection, I tripped over and became entrapped by my hurt. He could enjoy her, and was the perfect gentleman.
THE NEXT DAY was my interview with Walter Wells. I hadn’t slept well because my mother and I had had
a fight. I spent the night sleeping in the bathtub. When I looked in the mirror, my eyes were puffy, my skin chalky. I was upset with my mother and already blaming her for sabotaging my big day.
The Tribune’s offices were in Neuilly, a Paris suburb, and housed in a plain modernist office tower that would have been more at home in Toronto or New York than in Paris. I took a deep breath as I pushed through the front doors. The lobby was hushed. But after exiting an elevator that took me up to Wells’s office, inside the newsroom I hit a wall of noise. The ricochet of fingers pounding on keyboards, phones ringing, radios blaring, voices exploding on the air. That morning another bomb had gone off in the city, outside a department store in a working-class neighborhood. Women and children had been hurt. Wells and his colleagues had their hands full cranking out the latest story about the attack on Paris.
I waited for nearly thirty minutes to see him. He eventually burst in on the waiting room, a blaze of energy, and apologized profusely for having kept me waiting. Ushering me into his office, he sat behind his desk and folded his hands before him, ready to give me his undivided attention. His eyes shone with kindness. He had a full head of wavy hair and a chin-hugging beard that lent him an avuncular air. I realized then that I had no reason to be nervous. He was a gentle and inquisitive man, full of courtesy and tact as he leafed through my articles, actually reading a few straight through, his perusal of them sometimes punctuated by a snort of a hmmm. I interpreted the noise as a sign of some kind of interest in me.
He leaned back in his chair when he was through. “I know of your paper,” he said. “Excellent reputation. A writers’ paper, is it not?”
I told him that I was surrounded by great writers, yes, but that I hoped to work now in Paris, where I believed my writing would improve—inspired, no doubt, by the city, itself.
Wells then told me about his wife, Patricia Wells, the noted food critic (I hadn’t realized until then that they were related), and allowed that I had a point. “Paris does inspire, and deeply. Pat says she has the best job in the world, writing about food and writing about food in the city where it is a religion. Trust me, I understand why you want to be here. I never want to leave.”
But, and this was the kicker, he didn’t hire writers. He bought their words on a contractual basis. And not often. The paper’s affiliation with the Chicago Tribune meant that he had free access to copy already paid for elsewhere.
I wondered to myself why he had asked me to come, then?
“Have you any experience copy editing?” he asked. “Your paper’s reputation lies with its editors. If you can edit, I might be able to offer you a desk job.”
I told him the truth. Not only did I not have any editing experience, I didn’t want to be an editor. “I can’t work behind the scenes,” I said. “I need the spotlight.” I hoped that he didn’t think me arrogant; I wasn’t trying to be. My desire was to express myself, make myself heard. Writing was my escape. Even a job offer in the city of my dreams couldn’t make me forgo that.
Wells offered me his hand and asked me to keep in touch. “Let me know if you ever change your mind.”
I left feeling despondent, but also strangely gratified. He had treated me as an equal. He had shown me respect. He had encouraged me, a stranger, as a peer on the international journalistic stage. He had allowed me my voice.
I decided to call Sam from inside the metro station. I was getting off at Concorde, the stop located near his offices, which were inside one of the stately mansions fronting the square decorated with baroque fountains commandeered by Neptune and his fat-cheeked water sprites. I doubted I would see him again, despite his saying that we would see each other more frequently once he was back in New York. I didn’t want another long-distance romance. I had called to say good-bye.
“I’m going to be selfish and say that I am glad you aren’t going to be working for the Trib,” Sam said. “Maybe what you should really be thinking about is working for The New York Times.”
“Perhaps,” I answered pensively. “Perhaps.”
I found my mother just where I had told her to find me, at Galignani, the English bookstore. I had arranged for us to meet there because if I was late, at least she could bide her time with some reading. She didn’t ask me about my interview. I knew from experience to submit to her need to talk, to dominate the conversation, which she did at that moment with enthusiasm. She had, while I was gone, purchased our tickets for the flight to Nice. We were leaving for the Côte d’Azur the next day. “I’m fair chuffed with myself,” she said, smiling broadly. “I got us booked in first class.” I was taken aback, as I was supposed to have arranged the flights. It was why we were on the Rue de Rivoli, a street lined with travel agencies and money changers and small stores hawking trinkets of Paris. I marvelled that she had gone to the trouble, but I could see that it had restored her equilibrium. The take-charge person was back in charge. I swallowed my wounded pride.
“Look what else I bought.” She pulled out a plastic bag with a white T-shirt emblazoned with a heart flanked on one side by “I” and on the other by “Paris.” “I ♥ Paris,” she roared with laughter. “The girls will love it!” She was referring to her large group of female friends back home in Toronto.
I sucked in my breath sharply, worried I’d say something that would ruin that all-too-rare moment of gaiety. But I couldn’t stop myself. I was jealous that she hadn’t bought anything for me. I said the T-shirt was tacky.
We left the bookstore and wandered back in the direction of Place de la Concorde. I wanted to show her the ornate excess of the fountains. I hadn’t done that yet. Traffic swirled madly from several directions, and we had to cross the road. There was no stopping the cars in their speedy circular drive, but I told my mother to make a run for it. Gamely she went first, and then it was my turn.
I made it across the road, but on the Place de la Concorde the heel of my shoe caught on a cobblestone, and the skirt I was wearing was far too tight to allow me to break my fall. I saw myself tumbling forward as if in slow motion, and could do nothing to stop myself. I fell directly onto my knees. The pain was sharp.
In an instant my mother was on top of me, yanking me to my feet. Supporting me, she led me over to one of the fountains. I stumbled and fell again, against her. I was in a daze. When I looked into her face, I saw that she was frantic. She was calling out my name, her mouth wide, her teeth exposed. I could tell by the strain on her face that she was shouting, but I couldn’t hear her. I couldn’t hear anything. Not the violent gurgling of the water that she was splashing furiously into my face, not the rev of the cars still motoring around us, oblivious to our tiny drama unfolding at the center of their circle of hell. I had gone deaf. I even tried saying my own name to myself. Silence, such as I had never experienced before, the deep dark hush of the sea. I thought I would faint. My mother shook me. I looked at her again, confused. Her mouth opened and closed; her eyes brimmed with fire and tears. I shifted my gaze to the dolphins carved into a baroque fantasia of curving lines, then went back to the face of my mother, with deeply etched lines of her own, fissures of worry. I felt the urge to throw up, and leaned over the fountain’s edge. My body heaved and my ears popped. In that instant, I could once more hear the shouting, the honking, the stop and start of the traffic. I could also hear my mother sobbing, drawing in great gulps of air as she slumped to the ground.
“Mother, mother. I’m okay. I’m okay.”
“If anything ever happened to you, I’d…”
She didn’t finish her sentence; she didn’t need to. We were both of us on our knees, desperately holding onto each other, accidentally reunited, supported by monuments of Paris.
She wiped away her tears with her sleeve and blew her nose loudly into a piece of napkin she had found in the pocket of her leather jacket. “You pierce my heart,” she said.
My falling, and the resulting shock, the reason for my temporary descent into deafness, had rocked her to the core, she said. It was as if I had drop
ped a bomb on her. “Look at you,” she sniffed, struggling to compose herself. “So elegant. And then you fall flat on your face.”
It was a strange way to discover that she did love me, after all, in return. Paris was my witness.
FIVE
Miss
Lonelyhearts
· 1990 ·
SOON AFTER I returned to Toronto, The Globe and Mail hired me as its full-time dance critic, then the newspaper’s highest-ranking writing category. It was a job I adored. I loved the challenge—criticism is hard, dance criticism harder still. Often I felt like an astronomer with a telescope, focusing on faraway detail through the narrowest of lenses, seeking out the last twinkle of phenomena no longer existing in real time. Dancers as exploding stars, gone in a twinkle of an eye, their incendiary presence more a memory of experience than experience itself. My task was to reconstruct the energy that had pushed them into being in the first place, to make their trajectories through space clear to the readers. After a performance I would pull away for the wider view, looking to connect a single source of starlight with the other brilliant dots studding the dance universe. I was also always looking for a narrative, a structure with which to tell their ephemeral stories.
You could say I was good at it. In any event, my professional peers acknowledged in me a talent for dance writing when in 1989 they nominated me for a National Newspaper Award in the category of feature writing. This category was normally the preserve of foreign correspondents and war reporters, writers of so-called hard stories. My nominated article was a piece of investigative reporting on the National Ballet of Canada. My editor at that time commended me, saying arts writing, considered soft—especially dance writing—had never before been so highly recognized. I didn’t win, but went home with a citation of excellence that my mother proudly framed to hang on her wall. It was my last moment of glory. Shortly afterward, the newspaper experienced a change of guard, and with that came a sharp reversal in my fortunes.
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