Paris or Die

by Jayne Tuttle

  ‘Merci,’ I smile.

  ‘Bon appétit,’ call two workmen in unison, leaning against the post office wall.

  ‘Merci.’

  ‘Bon appétit,’ says the man outside the kebab stand opposite the Gare de l’Est.

  Oh. I get it. You don’t eat while you walk. I go back to the Récollets, close my door and stuff the rest down in front of my almost naked tree.

  Still no messages.

  La Patache

  ALMOST TWO WEEKS after I left the message for Adrien, my phone rings. I’m down in the park, playing in the nearly frozen sandpit with Miru.

  ‘Allô Jayne?’

  ‘Oui?’

  ‘C’est Adrien.’

  My heart starts to pound. I’d almost given up on him. ‘Oh! Salut Adrien.’

  Miru kicks cold sand in my eye. I grab him, trying to avoid the snot rivers down his front. Phone calls in French are hard, and I try to be cool but my words are spinning out of control and I keep saying oui over and over. I can make out that he has been somewhere, or something happened, and he wasn’t able to call me sooner.

  ‘Ce n’est pas grave,’ (it doesn’t matter) I say, grateful for that phrase at least.

  ‘Are you free tonight to take the apéro?’ he asks politely in English, perhaps sensing my hysteria.

  We arrange to meet at my favourite bar on the Canal Saint-Martin and I say, ‘See you there! J’attends avec impatience!’ The desperation of it: I’m waiting impatiently. Why can’t I figure out how to say a simple ‘looking forward to it’?

  Miru and I build a sand sculpture shaped like a fish – he likes sea creatures – then I take him back up to his room. Tatiana opens the door with a smile and thrusts me a twenty, which I hand back, but she jams it into my pocket and goes inside calling, ‘You have to take it!’

  Miru wraps his little arms around me and says, ‘Wait! Jun! I have cadeau for you.’ He runs inside and comes back out with a picture he did with crayons and watercolours at school. It’s a serpent girl with yellow dots all over her head, in a sea with a giant sun rising over it. She has very long eyelashes and a triangular dress and enormous boobs, though I’m an A-cup. In the sky is written Miru LOVE JUN.

  I hug him tight and kiss his soft little cheek. He farts deeply in my arms and maybe follows through, so I nudge him in through the doorway and pull it shut.

  Twenty minutes to sculpt myself into someone – who? The mirror reveals a hopeful face, young but old, lines in thinking places on my forehead. A pimple on its way out. A bit of basil in my front teeth. My blond hair has gone darker and I feel like dying it white, or perhaps bright red. Nobody in Paris seems to do crazy hair like that. There aren’t even very many blondes. My skin is less pale since I started eating meat. Cheeks flushed with excitement, the cold, the new iron levels in my blood. I pull my hair back off my face, smear on some foundation and then rub most of it off. A hint of pink lipstick. A touch of grey on the eyes. Special Dress? No, too special. Black dress, stockings, boots, a black cap – not the Russian flap hat. Mum’s trusty leather coat.

  Chantal, the directrice of the Récollets, intercepts me on the way out with a parcel from home. I rush back upstairs and rip it open: a selection of Australian sweets and a postcard of a taxidermy koala with my sister’s writing on the back. Stuff you. Come home. I put a few Sherbies and Clinkers in my pocket and slam the door shut.

  It’s freezing as I run out into the glaring winter sunset. The sky is so bright I have to shield my eyes along the Quai de Valmy. When I reach the bar it’s empty but for Adrien, who is sitting up the back, leaning against a wall with torn rose wallpaper on it. A single ray of sunlight slices him in two and he smiles when he sees me, pushing his hair back off his face. I move towards him and bend down, putting my face either side of his.

  ‘Hello,’ he says.

  ‘Bonjour,’ I say.

  I sit and take off a few of my layers.

  ‘I like this place,’ he says once I’m finally settled in. ‘C’est cosy.’

  La Patache is a run-down old bar full of rickety wooden tables and wooden bench seats with no cushions and bottles on shelves with prices written on them in chalk. Your butt gets sore after about an hour, which is why it’s perfect for apéro. It’s run by Monsieur Vito, a lovely old drunk with a big red nose who in my head I call Monsieur Vino. On a graffitied wall in the toilet are French words that translate as something like: If wine preserves, M. Vito will live to 1000. Long live Patache! Monsieur Vito has not been in the bar for several weeks, and I’m concerned the alcohol isn’t doing its job.

  Monsieur Vito’s son, Carlo, comes over and kisses me on both cheeks, which makes me feel like a local, and Adrien and I order two Affligem beers. The little oven is stoked and Carlo puts chestnuts on top of it to roast. My cheeks start to thaw out.

  Adrien says he’s never been to La Patache before but knows the area a bit. I discovered the bar when I met with Faye Ohio, who lives a few doors down, to discuss our autocours. I come here a lot, even on my own.

  Adrien digs his hands into his cream jumper; he is more casually dressed this time and looks relaxed, though I can tell he is shy. He pulls out a packet of cigarettes and we smoke and sip the beer from fishbowl glasses, flipping between English and French.

  ‘What’s a patache?’ I ask. I picture it as some kind of potato.

  He says he’s not quite sure but that it’s definitely not a potato – maybe a type of small ship. That makes sense, as the bar has a ship-cabin feel, in a storm. We order a plate of sliced meats, my first, and he shows me how to peel the skin off the edge of the dry sausage, though he eats the skin on his. He has large, thick hands, which he makes fun of, calling them mains de boucher, which I translate as butcher’s hands, and he reassures me that my French is fine. He tells me the canal was once used to bring food into the centre of the city; now it just ferries tourists through its murky waters in slow motion. I have watched these tourists and felt uncomfortable for them as they sat there waving, unable to run. I would hate to be on display like that. So would Adrien, I discover. Though we both like being on stage. That’s different, he says, we have the choice.

  Adrien has never wanted to run off stage, nor has he had moments, as I have, where he’s wanted to pull his pants down. He laughs when I say this, and a little bit of sausage comes out of his mouth but I pretend not to notice. He tells me he has just auditioned for a play and is waiting for the response. And that tonight he has his film-acting class so he can’t stay too long. The course is in English, he says, so he can perhaps go to America to work in film. We are talking more in English now; he seems to be making an effort to do this, perhaps because he’s on my terms, in my favourite bar.

  A Sherbie falls out of my pocket and Adrien asks what it is. I give it to him and he unwraps and eats it, eyes bulging in disbelief as the sugary foam fills his mouth. I tell him about other Australian sweets and my dad’s need to supply me with a steady stream of them, as if to remind me of all I’m missing back home. We keep drinking beer and Adrien smiles as I try to make him say Caramello Koala. He helps me say foie gras. I discover he’s younger than me and that’s a surprise, but it doesn’t matter and now things are blurred and my hand is quite close to his but I don’t dare touch him. We talk about winter and Kiki and language and travel and Jeunet-Caro films and the amazingness of the internet and I start to wonder how many steps there are between here and my studio, but then he has to leave. I insist on paying the bill. We share the last beer and I’m regretful it’s the last and I walk him to the métro at République, where he kisses me on both cheeks though I’m hoping he’ll go for the lips. But both kisses touch the skin. The hairs on my neck stand on end, as do my nipples deep in their winter layers. He says next time he will invite me to his favourite place, smiles, and disappears down the staircase.

  A small fire glows in my belly as I wander home via the boulevard de Magenta, making the air feel even colder. I tug my scarf up around my ears as I pass a man pissing in full
view over a pile of plastic bags, and wonder how his dick doesn’t snap off. In my distraction I step in spew – or is it curry – whatever it is, it’s slippery and I vow to never take my eyes off where I’m walking again, especially in the boulevard de Magenta.

  Window-licking

  KIKI TELLS ME to meet her in the section of the Galeries Lafayette with the plastic legs shooting up everywhere. When I arrive she’s in a corner with her hand wedged up inside a red-patterned stocking.

  ‘Bit slutty,’ I say, tugging at the lycra.

  ‘Perfect!’

  As the saleslady wraps up the stockings, we laugh at the word ‘gusset’, and Kiki pulls up her skirt and flashes me hers. I fall to my knees laughing like I’ve been kicked in the stomach, banging my head on the counter, which makes us laugh even more, though my head really hurts. The saleslady gives us a look of perfect disdain.

  ‘Did you know the French call window-shopping “window-licking”?’ I say as we make our way to the escalator, past the socks and sneezy perfume counters.

  But Kiki is only interested in hearing about the date at La Patache.

  ‘I thought it would just be a cool sex fling,’ she says after I’ve recounted the details.

  ‘Me too!’

  ‘Now,’ she says, leading me towards the coat section. ‘To the doodoonas.’

  ‘Oh, must we?’

  Doodoona is Kiki’s word for the dreaded doudoune. It’s like wearing a down quilt tied around your body, with equal sex appeal. They seem to me constrictive, numbing – I can’t imagine life with such a thick layer between myself and air. Kiki, having experienced many European winters, swears by hers. It is worn into her body now, so isn’t as boxy as many, but it does turn her into a deep-purple cheese puff.

  ‘We must,’ says Kiki, grabbing me by the elbow. She pulls a blue, ankle-length coat from a rack and holds it against me. ‘How about this little number?’

  ‘Lovely,’ I say, peeling it away and moving towards a striped top, gasping at the price tag. Kiki continues rifling through the rack of padded misery as I drift from ugly practicals to sexy unneccessaries.

  ‘I went to Disneyland with my dream guy last night,’ she says, examining a black monstrosity. Norbert is from Kiki’s dream class, not to be confused with the man of her dreams. He is a nice, corporate German man. Kiki has been examining what it’s like to be with someone she is not attracted to. Her data is complete, she tells me: good once. You feel yourself in a whole new light. Not twice.

  ‘He gave me two magnums of fancy champagne.’

  ‘Did you go on the teacups?’

  ‘It wasn’t in the fun park, it was in a conference centre.’

  ‘A conference centre in Disneyland?’

  ‘It’s a shame, his dreams were really out there.’

  ‘I can’t believe there’s a conference centre at a fun park.’

  ‘So, no more Norbert.’ She pauses a moment. ‘And more Zahir.’

  ‘Who’s Zahir?’

  Zahir is a Palestinian dancer who recently moved in to the Cité with his theatre troupe. He came to her studio the other night with friends and stayed last, drooling into her mouth while he was on top of her, which, she says, wasn’t disgusting.

  ‘Ew!’ I say, fondling a black silk dress.

  ‘If Norbert had done that …’

  ‘Nobody has ever drooled in my mouth, I don’t think,’ I say. ‘But I did have someone come in my eye once. It swelled up like I’d been punched. And I know a guy who accidentally came in his own mouth, as he jacked off on the couch. He was mortified.’

  Kiki does that laugh where she stops breathing and goes silent, which makes me laugh so hard I go silent too, tears dripping down my face.

  ‘Zahir’s got an incredible dick,’ she says after she’s pulled herself back together, taking a pair of thick winter pants off the rack and holding them up against herself. ‘It’s long and lithe, just like his dancer’s body. Dicks don’t always reflect the bodies they’re on, do they? But his looks just like him.’

  I think for a moment about the dicks I’ve seen. ‘It’s not always easy to assess. You don’t get much of a chance to look at them. And they have their different moods.’

  ‘I look at them a lot.’

  ‘I wonder if our boobs and lady parts look like us.’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘Look at this,’ I say, holding up the dress and moving it back and forth through the air, marvelling at the way it ripples and flows like water.

  ‘That won’t stop your tits turning into coins and sliding off,’ she says, but I’m already heading to the change rooms.

  It’s one of those terrifying ones with a communal mirror outside, which means you have to come out and parade yourself. As I stand in Dad’s pilled explorer socks, looking at my pasty reflection in front of a growing queue of impatient Parisiennes, a man with a nametag on his lapel saying Gaspard buzzes around me squealing, ‘Non non non, c’est moche!’

  The Parisiennes nod and murmur. Yes, yes, ugly ugly. Gaspard pulls and prods and swats and tuts and oh la la, non non nons with a look on his face like he just smelt off foie gras. But he is right, the dress is ugly on me. The front panels and straps are meant for a woman with boulders, not bee stings. Where it should fan Monroe-like, it just flops and sighs.

  ‘Merci,’ I whimper, and withdraw behind the velvet curtain. Though my cheeks are sizzling, I do appreciate his honesty. In Australia the salesgirl would have said it looked amazing and I would have brought it home, to do nothing but admire its coathanger majesty. I respect that, for Gaspard, the life of the dress is more important than his desire to make his quota.

  I slink back out, past the waiting ladies who have seen too much of me. Kiki is staring blank-faced at a fox-fur coat.

  ‘No go?’ she says.

  ‘No, ugly ugly.’ I lead her towards the escalators.

  ‘But – the doodoona!’ she protests, turning back.

  ‘Beauty is pain,’ I insist, and it truly is as we walk out into the icy wind. We ride the métro back to Pont Marie, talking about dicks and vaginas and beauty and practicality. Kiki suggests we go to her favourite little bistro on the riverbank near her place, and it’s so warm in there I take off three layers, to Kiki’s one. We order split-pea soup and afterwards a warm chocolate fondant with a dollop of cream on top.

  ‘I am really hungry all the time,’ I say after gulping down the pudding in about three mouthfuls and wondering if it would be acceptable to order another.

  ‘Well, it’s getting seriously cold outside, so your body, sensing no doodoona, is adding its own layer of seal blubber.’

  ‘Oh, well. I can’t imagine Coco Chanel in a doodoona.’

  Kiki smiles over her teacup.

  ‘No,’ I declare, ‘my mind is made up. I will weather this Paris winter in style.’

  ‘You’ll die –’

  ‘AND’, I interrupt, ‘Like the seal, come up clapping.’

  Kiki laughs. ‘Fair enough. I’ll make lots of cake.’

  We kiss goodbye on the freezing riverbank and I meander back through the Marais, buying a little pink glass bowl from a neon-lit shop called C’EST QUOI to drink coffee out of in the mornings, like the Florents used to do. I can’t afford the bowl – my small monthly stipend from the scholarship has to last another week – but it feels good to forget that for a moment. An icy breeze whips through me and I pull Mum’s coat tighter around me as I descend into the deserted métro cavern, grateful for its warm, stinky air.

  It’s too silent back in my room so I put on Cat Power loud while I pick at the ingrown hairs on my legs with a safety pin until they bleed. There’s some vodka left in the bottle on the windowsill so I drink the last of it with apple juice, like Kiki does. Then I eat a Caramello Koala, brush my teeth and climb up to the mezzanine, sending a message to Adrien on a whim: Hi Adrien, hope to see you soon, yesterday was tres agreeable.

  He writes back ten minutes later with the proper accents on his letters:
Très agréable for me too. I call you soon. Je t’embrasse.

  Je t’embrasse means ‘I kiss you’ and the thought of actually connecting with his lips gives me a little buzz. I think of the skin on his cheeks and his big butcher hands, the veins on the surface as he peeled a sausage. I wonder what his body is like beneath all those winter clothes. My own body stirs; my usual set of characters and scenes make way for Adrien’s hands, but he doesn’t hang around long – an Anaïs Nin scene I read recently in the back of a bookshop takes over and delivers me to the place I desire to go, then I drift off to sleep, hand in crotch, to dream of caravans in distant landscapes and the gypsy girls from the Gare de l’Est surrounding me, suffocating.

  Kiss by the Hôtel de Ville

  DAYS GO BY before Adrien calls and leaves a polite message saying hello, he hopes I’m well, and perhaps we could see each other soon. I sit on a stoop outside school to listen to his message, frustrated at the length of time between calls while enjoying what it is doing to my adrenaline levels. I listen to his message three more times, then, instead of calling straight back, stand and make my way up the street.

  Outside the Bollywood video shop a decrepit, alcohol-bloated man asks for coins but I say no. When I started school I gave money to every soul who asked on my way from the Récollets. Then, in danger of being late for school, I started prioritising, giving only to those with a physical ailment, or those with children. Now I play a lottery based on nothing but the moment. I am horrified at how hard I’ve become, and the drunk man’s defeated ‘Fuck I’m hungry’ behind my back makes me ill at myself. I run and break my twenty in the boulangerie but he’s long gone. The sadness over the man and the delight of Adrien’s message coagulate in my stomach and I carry the mixed feeling all the way up to Montmartre, where I aimlessly wander around the department store Tati for forty minutes.

  The shop is like an upmarket Festi Bazar but more organised, with junk of all kinds over two wondrous levels. I touch things, gaze at things, consider underpants and soap dishes, pick up a small wicker basket and buy it. A steady stream of lust pumps through my veins, like the druggy feeling of a first crush. I want to keep the feeling in my chest as long as possible, so to stall myself from calling back I walk out of Tati and up a cobblestoned street, where I discover a sprawling indoor fabric market called the Marché Saint-Pierre and spend an hour swimming through taffetas and silks and sequins.