Shadows of Paris

by Eric D. Lehman

  Boulangeries and bucheries appeared at every step. The Rue Montorgueil still had a flavor of the former Les Halles, and it was swarmed with people shopping for their New Year’s Day meals. A rotisserie at one shop spun several chickens dripping with juices; my wallet was out, and a capon in a bag before I knew what I was doing. I bought a loaf of peasant bread, a peppered sausage, and fromage de montagne. Returning to the apartment, the smells weakened my knees, and I barely made it up the five flights of stairs. Spreading the feast out on the coffee table, I began to gorge myself, taste buds exploding with savory goodness I hadn’t known for years. Finishing the entire chicken and half the loaf of bread, I continued reading in the slanted bed, falling fast asleep long before the New Year.

  A police siren woke me a few hours later, and I ran to the bathroom and vomited everything. Afterward, I collapsed back into bed, lying awake listening to the revelers in the streets below. Sirens continued to howl every few minutes, preventing sleep. My tortured mind turned over and over, remorseful and confused. The next morning, though, I had a small piece of cheese with my oatmeal.

  ****

  The new session began with the usual pranks from the students. I shrugged them off and told them that the top five students who scored on the “examination de William Shakespeare” would have a special prize. They seemed unimpressed and I launched weakly into A Winter’s Tale. I was more interested in reading Rimbaud and Baudelaire, who echoed the rebellious philosophies of my youth. It was an uncomfortable look in the mirror, but I was hooked nevertheless. Maybe the fact that a lovely bookstore maven had pressed them on me was helping me through. Or perhaps it was only an extension of my guilt to torture myself. Of course, I can look back and say that now, but at the time I think I was unaware of anything but my own misery and its impossible antithesis.

  The first week dragged, with only a few scattered words with Monsieur Cygne to break it up.

  “So…you like the Belly, Monsieur Byrnes?”

  “J’ai faim,” I said.

  He burst into a huge Gallic laugh, slapping my thin shoulder. “Oui! Now you will eat some foie gras with me after class one day?”

  “Oui,” I groaned.

  The examination on A Winter’s Tale was on Monday, and only three of the students passed. I picked two others that had been well-behaved in my grammar class, and on Wednesday afternoon two teenage girls, three boys, and I tramped into the city together. I had told them to bring a little money, since I was not worried that any would be poor. The students at the École Eustache came from rich families who had squirreled them away like gold heirlooms not meant to be worn.

  “Where are we?” asked the more precocious of the two girls.

  I assumed she was asking where we were going, but didn’t bother to correct her. “Une librairie, Emilie.”

  The two girls conferred, expressing delight, while I heard the three boys groan.

  “Une librairie très spéciale.”

  “Pornographie?” one of the boys muttered, and all laughed.

  I continued to lead them deep into the Marais, finding my destination with only one error this time. I pointed to the ancient black façade.

  “Anglais?” A boy groaned.

  I opened the door, and was greeted immediately by the sight of Lucy’s surprised gray eyes. “Monsieur Byrnes…I mean, William.”

  I motioned for silence, but the damage was done, the two girls had followed me into the store, and began a giggling fit, whispering in an indecipherable patois.

  “I have brought some of my students here to purchase some books, Madame Navarre.”

  She raised her eyebrows dramatically, trying to keep a straight face.

  I continued. “Do you have French translations of John Donne, Keats, or Tennyson?”

  Lucy’s mouth turned into an arch. “Monsieur…I am sorry, but we only have translations to English, not the other way around.”

  I immediately saw my mistake, and I am sure my face betrayed obvious humiliation.

  “But…” Lucy’s own face seemed to light up from within. “Perhaps I can help.” She began talking very fast in French to the five children. I gathered she was asking what their favorite French books were, and they answered too fast, though I caught one of the boys saying “Le Grand Meaulnes.” She bustled them to the hidden staircase, which they clattered down with expressions of alarm.

  Lucy returned to the counter, sitting primly on a wooden bar stool, a wool scarf folded over her shoulder. I stood awkwardly, leaning my gangly frame on the counter occasionally. We talked for a few minutes about the weather, my classes, and the recent street cleaner strike. The afternoon light was filtering through the thick window, and it illuminated her pale face, showing me for the first time a star-shaped scar on her throat. I recognized its origin instantly, and wondered.

  “It’s nice to speak in English again.” Lucy smiled. “Perhaps we can meet for lunch some time. After all, two old married folks like us should be able to challenge French notions of propriety.”

  “Sure,” I said, a little taken aback, my stomach beginning to turn. “Here’s where you can reach me at the École.”

  “You haven’t mentioned your wife.” Lucy tapped my ring finger, shocking me with both her question and her touch.

  “She’s not…no, I haven’t.” I said. “No.”

  Lucy’s steely, dagger eyes bored into me, and I felt again that Athena herself was measuring me, finding me lacking.

  “So, we can sit in a café, pretend we are experts on Balzac, and not discuss our marriages?” She chuckled.

  “Okay.” I smiled.

  Just then the two girls popped out of the cellar, followed closely by the boys. “Monsieur Byrnes, he try to touch me,” one of the girls squealed. I sighed, and a few minutes later led the little monsters back across the length of the fetid, ancient swamp.

  ****

  Meanwhile, I had begun to explore the markets of Rue Montorgueil more often, starting with the boulangers with their baguettes and loaves of fresh pain. I even had a croissant one day before class instead of oatmeal, feeling guilty about the buttery flakiness, and the delicious chocolate that nearly squirted onto my ironed white shirt.

  I avoided Cygne, not wanting to be bullied into further decadence. But although I had not hoped for it, a message from Lucy arrived. “10:00 Saturday morning, meet me at the Fontaine des Innocents.” But instead of chocolate happiness, I was filled with dread. I had not talked with…anyone…for years now, much less a woman with shoulder-length chestnut hair. What would I say? What if she asked me questions I didn’t want to answer? What if she brought up my ring again? I began to panic, going back to my diet of rice and oatmeal for a few days, spending hours unnecessarily preparing for class. But on Saturday morning after oatmeal, I angrily threw on my black wool overcoat and stormed down the Rue Saint Denis to the fountain. I walked around the four-sided Renaissance archway, watching the water cascade down a series of curved steps. But she wasn’t there, and I felt a sense of relief, until a clear American voice rang out behind me.

  “There you are! I brought us breakfast.” She handed me a cup of steaming coffee and a warm croissant. My nemesis. I took them in black gloves and avoided looking at her. “Merci.”

  “Let’s eat and walk. There is no better place to walk than Paris, even in the winter.” Her brown hair bounced away toward Les Halles. “And tell me about The Belly of Paris. I don’t remember it at all, if I even read it.”

  “If you read it?”

  “Well, when you work in a bookstore, it all sort of blends.”

  “Hmm…well, let me think.” We reached the iron pavilions that were left when the markets were torn down and wandered through the park. I told her of lush beds of cabbages, of tanks full of fresh turbots and eels, of butchers smoking and rolling meats into sausages. We walked down Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau, turned onto Saint-Honore, and reached the Comédie-Française while I regaled her with tales of the shopkeepers and market sellers living their
greedy little lives. I mentioned how the main character, Florent, is sent back to Devil’s Island for being one of the “thin” people.

  “Are you one of those?” Lucy poked my arm with a chuckle.

  “Maybe.” I tried to laugh.

  “Well, Monsieur Byrnes…I mean, William,” she inflected clearly, making a joke out of our informality. “We may have to work up an appetite today.”

  We did, walking under the colonnades of the Rue de Rivoli, past expensive stores and tourist traps, while Lucy questioned me about my teaching. I told her the same thing I told Cygne, but Lucy probed further.

  “What did American Lit mean to you?” She asked obliquely.

  “Uhm…freedom of the individual, I guess. The opportunity to exercise will, you know, the pioneer, the cowboy, the philosopher hobo riding the rails.”

  “Why switch to the Brits?”

  I sighed. “Those railroad myths stopped traveling so well.” I said, a prepared answer that I had given a job interviewer once.

  “Uh-huh. So, the dissolution of social structures appealed more?” Lucy pointed out the enormous obelisk in the Place de la Concorde before turning us along the Seine, giving me time to think.

  “In my opinion, they mostly write about how small errors lead to unhappiness.”

  “Interesting reading.” Lucy stopped on the Pont Alexandre III, peering through the fog. “We can barely see the tower today,” she pouted, then marched on towards the golden dome of the Invalides.

  I glanced at the shadow of the massive steel lightning rod that helped define Paris. I had barely paid attention to it before now, or any of the city, I realized.

  “Hey, let’s go see Napoleon,” Lucy suggested brightly. “I’ve never gone in there.” She pointed at the Invalides.

  “Sure.” I shrugged. “Does it cost money?”

  She gave me a withering look. “I’ll pay for starving teachers today.”

  “I didn’t mean…” I groaned. I was really coming across as a jerk. I reassured myself that Lucy had no interest in me anyway, and just wanted an American sound machine.

  We bought tickets and I followed the small woman up the steps of the central building and through security. I began to notice a certain odor, I wouldn’t call it a fragrance, that hung around her hair, splashing through the currents of space as she moved. What was it? I couldn’t place the scent.

  Lucy stopped at the railing and we leaned down at the enormous coffin of Finnish red porphyry. Napoleon’s gray coat and distinctive hat were inside glass nearby. Lucy squinted at them. “You know, I think Monsieur Bonaparte would have liked American Literature a lot.”

  I smiled uneasily. “I think you’re right.”

  We left Invalides, passing the Musée Rodin. Trying to follow her lead, I stopped in front of the glass doors. “Let’s go in here. I want to see The Thinker.”

  Instead, I saw the seemingly unflappable goddess flinch, with a look of pain. “No…not today. Besides, I’m getting hungry. Let’s go to a famous café. Or have you been to all the literary shrines already?”

  “Not one,” I said, looking back at the Rodin Museum with a shrug.

  “Really…” Lucy’s gray eyes slashed into me again, clearly recovered. “You’re a strange English teacher, Monsieur Byrnes.”

  “And you’re a strange…actually, what are you, for Keats’ sake?” The exclamation slipped out, as it often did, and she noticed.

  “I am a purveyor of fine translations, for future reference. And did you say for Keats’ sake?” She chuckled in that deep throaty way again

  “Yes,” I sighed, letting the minutes pass as we walked.

  “Well?”

  “My father used to say for Pete’s sake, and I guess I picked it up. But at some point I asked who is this Pete? And why are we worried about his state of being? So, I changed it to a more appropriate homophone, the poet who died so young.”

  Lucy’s chuckle became a cannonade of barks, going on and on as we walked. “I think I like your sense of humor. It took me a while to find it, though.” She stopped and I looked around at the busy intersection of Place St. Germain de Pres. “Take your pick.” My new friend pointed at the Brasserie Lipp, the Café de Flore, and Les Deux Magots.”

  “Les Deux Magots,” I said promptly. “It has a weird name.”

  Lucy’s chuckles began again. “You really don’t know your French, do you? Magots is treasures.”

  “I knew that,” I claimed, trying to look confident and failing utterly.

  “Let’s go.” She led me inside, tittering. I was greeted by wood paneled walls, sumptuous mirrors, and small plaques indicating the favorite seats of resident writers. We sat by Jean-Paul Sartre.

  “He used to come here with Simone Beauvoir and work out his philosophy.”

  “Oh, this is that place?”

  “This and the others…you know Sartre?”

  “Sure, a little.”

  “I thought you were coming to me for a French education? And now I find out you already have one?” She mocked a suspicious glare.

  “Monsieur Cygne at the École told me that Sartre and his crowd didn’t count.”

  “Really?” Lucy thought about this. “I don’t know, they seem very French to me. What about you?”

  “Well, they’re not like the other stuff I’ve been reading?”

  “How?”

  “The others have passion. Rimbaud, Baudelaire…it’s angry, but alive.”

  “Hmmm…” Lucy stroked an imaginary goatee. “Indeed. I would agree. But I must say that Monsieur Sartre and his crew are very popular with my husband, who of course is very French.”

  “Yes, well.” I said crossly. “I think that I will lump it in with American Literature as bad medicine.”

  “Medicine? I think the problem with all these books you don’t like is that it is easy for people to read them as models for behavior, rather than warnings.”

  I frowned, having a sudden paranoid fantasy that all these new people in my life were in some sort of conspiracy. So, I changed the subject. “Your very French husband. You must tell me how an American like yourself came to marry him.”

  “Oh!” Lucy seemed taken aback. “Well, that is a long story, but I’ll try to shorten it a bit.” She sipped a café crème that had arrived when I wasn’t paying attention. One had appeared in front of me, too, and my paranoia resurfaced. Had I been zoning out, or worse, gazing at her pale, pretty face like an idiot?

  “When I first came to Paris, well, let’s just say I was here for school, but was not going to attend in the spring. Nevertheless, I did not want to go back to America…I mean, who does when in Paris?”

  I tried not to shrug, and sipped my own coffee, which was simply miraculous.

  “So, money was running out and that’s when I met the Navarres.”

  “Your husband.”

  “No, his parents. They were affiliated with the school, and took me in, so to speak. They let me a little room above their fabulous English bookstore, and in return I worked the front desk, organized the merchandise, et cetera. Their son helped them, but he was away at school.”

  I thought something seemed missing from this account, but didn’t say anything. Lucy was close-mouthed about her past, it seemed. But who was I to complain?

  “The Navarres were so amazing, and I became the daughter they never had, according to them. And they…well, let’s just say that my own parents were not the most nurturing, and later, well, I couldn’t go back…” She trailed off, her concrete eyes glancing at me over her coffee glass.

  I pretended not to notice. “And then you met their son.”

  “Yes, Paul. He didn’t come back to Paris until June, and of course was very handsome, and charming, and French, so…” Lucy chuckled a little, and sipped the crème.

  “And you got married?”

  Her chuckle became a snort. “Not right away! What kind of girl do you think I am? We dated, as I might have called it in America, and he continued business scho
ol. Three years later, we were engaged, and the next summer married at the Navarres’ house near Orléans. It was quite lovely, and the Navarres were so wonderful, I almost felt like they were my parents, and that Paul, well.” She chuckled again. “My husband doesn’t get along with his parents very well.”

  And with you? I wanted to ask. But instead: “They sound like a gift from Paris to you.”

  “Yes!” Lucy smiled. “Exactly. And the librairie, well, you’ve seen it, what do you think?”

  “Oh, I think a lifetime spent there might not be long enough,” I said, half meaning it.

  “You’re joking, but it really is special. I can just open any book and lose myself, then another…” Lucy trailed off again. I may have been a fool in those years, but I was no dummy. This woman was just as secretive as Athena herself.

  We walked back across Pont Neuf, since Lucy said she had to be getting back to the store. “Ma mère, Navarre, I mean, will be getting restless. They come in on weekends, but I should really make them dinner tonight.”

  “I’d love to meet them some time.”

  Lucy looked at me inscrutably. “That would be…maybe…” She said, then, “How is your apartment? Rats and roaches?”

  I tried to smile. “I don’t think so, but it is filled with a collection of West African folk art.”

  “What? How funny.”

  “Yes, left there by another teacher, a Monsieur Ngoma, I’m told. But why he left them there is a mystery to me.”

  “Did you ask?”