by Sarah Jio
“I know I must seem a little nuts,” I say, “given my accident and memory loss. I’m trying to make sense of…everything, I guess. Like how I came to live here.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you there.”
I nod, considering whether I should tell him about the letters or not, and I decide against it—for now, at least. What if he demands I turn them over to him, or the landlord, before I have a chance to read them?
“The other night, I noticed that there’s something different about the bedroom at the end of the hall. The apartment has been remodeled, but that bedroom is literally untouched. Anyway, I thought you might know why, or have some information about the history of the apartment.”
“History?” he scoffs. “All of Paris is history.”
“Of course,” I say, turning to the door. “I’m sorry.” If he knows anything of importance, he has little interest in sharing it with me. And, in his defense, why should he? I haven’t earned his trust in these past years.
“Your apartment remained vacant after the war for years, even after I came to work here,” he finally says. He looks out to the street for a long moment, perhaps deliberating about whether I deserve any further explanation. The wrinkles on his face are amplified by the morning light, and it occurs to me that he is quite advanced in age—at least seventy, perhaps even seventy-five.
“Nobody could ever understand why such a remarkable residence in one of the finest buildings in Paris would remain locked up and empty all those years,” he continues, eying the lines of the ceiling with admiration. I can tell that his devotion to these walls runs deeper than a mere paycheck. “But I understood.”
“Understood what?”
“Then, about fifteen years ago, the apartment came on the market. A nice young couple fell in love with it. I tried to warn them, but it was no use. After all, I’m just a doorman.”
“Warn them of what?”
He continues on in his own way, revealing only what he chooses. “They were going to raise a family there. But…” He pauses and shakes his head. “That never happened. Partway through the remodel, they sold it to a rental agency.”
“I don’t understand. I thought you said they loved the apartment.”
“It’s hard to love a place where evil has lurked,” he says, glancing up at the ceiling as if he can see straight into my apartment.
I shiver. “What do you mean by evil?”
“Like I said, I’m just a doorman. If the apartment suits you, that is good. But I’d never live there.”
My eyes narrow. “Why?”
“With all due respect, mademoiselle,” he says coldly, turning his attention to the mailroom door, “I don’t have the time to indulge you any further.”
“Yes,” I say, taking a step back. “Yes of course.”
* * *
—
VICTOR STUDIES ME quizzically as I walk into Bistro Jeanty forty-five minutes later. My cheeks flush when I remember leaving with Jean-Paul the night before. I’m a little out of breath from my brisk walk. When I notice how pretty one of the waitresses looks in her fitted black dress and carefully applied lipstick, I make a self-conscious, and futile, effort to improve my appearance by wiping the sweat from my brow and readjusting my ponytail.
“Have fun last night?” he asks with a coy smile.
“Sure,” I say, avoiding his gaze. “He walked me home and that was that.” I nod to myself, then rub my forehead. “My only real mistake was thinking that three martinis was a good idea.”
Victor grins. “Four martinis.”
I groan. “What was his name again?”
“Jean-Paul.”
“Right. And he talked about himself incessantly.”
Victor’s smile disappears. “I want to apologize.”
“For what?”
“For not walking you home myself.”
My cheeks feel warm.
“I should have insisted. I shouldn’t have let you leave, in your state, with, well, anyone.”
“Well, nothing happened, and you don’t need to—”
“Just the same, will you forgive me?”
I study his face carefully. “Why do you care? You don’t even know me.”
He stares at me for a long moment. “I care about all my customers.” He pauses, then waves to a pretty woman in her late twenties who has just been seated at a nearby table.
I nod. “Of course.”
Victor takes a deep breath, glancing toward the kitchen. “Will it be quiche today?”
“Yes, please,” I say, turning to my usual table in the corner, then stopping suddenly. “You know, I was just thinking, maybe I could sit closer to the window? The sunlight feels so good.”
“As you wish,” Victor replies with a playful smile, setting a menu on a particularly sunny table by the window.
As I wait for breakfast, I quietly watch the hostess, Margot. She seems anxious, repeatedly glancing at her phone, then sighing.
“Excuse me,” I say, approaching her cautiously. “I couldn’t help but notice that you seem a little…worried. Are you okay?”
She squares her shoulders and straightens her posture, lifting her chin higher. “Everything is fine,” she says in an icy voice. Her eyes are red. I can tell she’s been crying, but it’s obvious I’m the last person she’d dream of sharing her concerns with.
I nod, heading back to my table. When my breakfast arrives, I devour every bite, then order a second espresso. I wonder what the old me thought of this place. Did she take comfort in the hum of plates shuttling in and out of the kitchen, cutlery clinking, savory scents drifting in the air, friends greeting each other with double-cheek kisses? Or did she simply sit in her dark corner table, eat, and rush out? What was she hiding from? And why on earth was she so sad?
A fleck of color in the distance catches my eye, on the side wall leading to the kitchen. It looks like a painting, but when I notice a little brass knob, I see that it’s some sort of cabinet built in the wall. I leave my coffee and walk over to have a look. As I crouch to pry the little door open, Victor rounds the corner from the kitchen.
“Shall I notify the police that we have a thief?”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know what came over me. I just noticed this little compartment and I couldn’t help but have a look inside.”
“No harm,” he says. “It’s pretty special, isn’t it?”
I nod, examining the words painted on the door: La vie est un sommeil, l’amour en est le rêve.
“Most people don’t even notice it.” He kneels down to point out the intricate detailing on the miniature door, with painted circus animals and a hot-air balloon.
“What is it?”
“One of the many mysteries of this place,” he says. “It was here when I was a boy. Rumor has it that Monsieur Jeanty himself made it for his son, something fun for a child who spent his entire life in a restaurant, no doubt. Anyway, it always piqued my curiosity when I was young, and one time when my mother wasn’t looking, I snuck over and opened it. I thought I might find treasure inside.”
“Did you?”
“Yes,” he says, eyes sparkling. “I found a chocolate. After that, I kept looking, and each week, there would be another, and another.”
“Who left them there?”
“Maybe one of the servers,” he says with a shrug. “Maybe Monsieur Jeanty himself. I’ll never know. But for a boy of nine, it was…magic.”
I smile.
“You could ask Monsieur Ballard to tell you more. He used to work here as a boy, back when Madame Jeanty herself ran the place.”
I recall Victor telling me about the history of the restaurant. After Madame Jeanty’s death in the 1950s, her son took the reins until the mideighties, when he succumbed to cancer. A distant cousin picked things up from there
, a time that Victor calls the restaurant’s “dark age.” Beloved menu items were changed or removed altogether, and while customers remained loyal, a part of the restaurant’s soul had been deeply wounded.
Victor seems to have brought it back to life, however, to the delight of its long-standing customers, Monsieur Ballard included.
“His memory is fading a bit,” Victor continues, pointing to the old man at a table by the window.
“That makes two of us,” I say with a grin.
“Even so, he knows this place better than anyone. He comes in for breakfast every morning and every night for dinner. Breakfast varies, but dinner is always the same. A steak and salad and bottle of good Bordeaux. Here, let me introduce you.”
I wish I could have gone home to shower and change before meeting the restaurant’s oldest patron, but I follow Victor anyway, to a table where the elderly man sits with a newspaper and coffee. A well-worn cane is draped over the side of his left leg.
“Monsieur Ballard, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
He looks up at Victor, then at me. He’s in his late seventies, perhaps even older. His eyes look as tired as they do wise, but I can also detect a spark of youth that never died out. At once, I imagine him as a rosy-cheeked boy of seven standing beside his mother at the restaurant, or a few years later, as a teenager, polishing glassware and shuttling hot plates out to customers, balancing a tray of wineglasses, and then as a young man, with the world at his feet.
I open my mouth to speak, but Monsieur Ballard does first. “I’ve seen you here for years,” he says. “It’s about time you said hello.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t—”
“Don’t apologize,” he interjects. “We all have our reasons.”
I explain my accident and lost memories. “I don’t really know much about myself right now.” I smile. “But last night, I found a man’s shirt folded up in the back of a drawer in my bedroom.”
“Wait, what?” Victor interjects. “What sort of shirt?”
“It’s terrible, actually, one of those loud tropical-print shirts you buy at tourist shops on vacation.”
“That’s funny,” he says.
Monsieur Ballard clears his throat. “Your illness is as much a gift as it is a curse. There are parts of my life I’d rather forget.”
My eyes meet Victor’s, and recognizing the old man’s discomfort, he steers the conversation in another direction. “I was just telling Caroline that you used to work here, as a boy in the nineteen forties.”
Monsieur Ballard’s eyes are clouded with memories, which he begins to share. “That’s correct. I was just eleven when I came to work here. My parents needed the money, so I did odd jobs. Peeled potatoes after school. Washed dishes. Swept up at night. I had a lot of odd jobs like that during the occupation.”
My eyes widen.
“I made deliveries for a nearby bakery, a local flower shop, too. But I loved being here the most, always have. There is no place like Jeanty.”
I point across the room to where Victor and I were just standing. “That little cabinet over there, do you know how it…came to be?”
“I do,” he says. “Do you know about yin and yang?”
“Yes, I mean, I guess I do.”
“Opposite and yet compatible forces,” he says. “You might say that the Jeantys, Monsieur and Madame, were like that. Monsieur Jeanty was all heart. He’d have given away free dinners all night were it not for his wife. Madame was just the opposite. All business, no play. Very strict. When her husband died, a lot of the whimsy died with him. But that cabinet…it remained. He made it for their son, Luc, who stored his wooden figurines inside.”
“Luc,” I say, remembering the letters I’d discovered last night addressed to someone of the same name. I want to ask him more about his wartime experiences, but he stands abruptly, setting his napkin on the table.
“Forgive me, but I must be going now,” he says. “Good day to you both.”
After he’s gone, I tell Victor about the letters I’d found in the apartment and the conversation I’d had with the concierge, Monsieur de Goff. “What do you think?”
“I think he’s just trying to scare you off,” he says. “He’s probably one of those old snobs who doesn’t like Americans.”
I nod. “But the letters I found. Why would they be in my apartment? I just feel like there has to be more to the story.”
“Listen, you could find a story in every apartment in Paris if you wanted to,” he says. “I hate to say it like this, but don’t you already have enough on your plate trying to piece together the story of your own life?”
“True,” I say. “But I have to admit, it’s rather comforting to take my mind off my own problems.”
“I see your point. Maybe it would be therapeutic to delve deeper, learn a bit more about this letter writer, or at least, whatever you can find.”
I nod. “Thank you—for being a friend to me.”
He smiles. “How about this: since you’re sort of discovering Paris for the first time, why don’t I show you around tomorrow? The kitchen will be well staffed, so I can break away. We could…walk around Montmartre, find a grassy spot somewhere and have a picnic. I’ll be your own private guide.” He grins expectantly.
I love the idea, but before I can respond, he interjects. “That was a stupid idea. I’m sorry, I—”
I reach out and touch his strong forearm. “No, it’s not stupid at all. It’s a wonderful idea. And I’d love nothing more than for you to show me around.”
His face brightens. “Good. Let’s meet here at noon and we can go from there.”
He looks at me for a long moment, then shakes his head as if snapping out of a trance.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he says with a smile.
I look at him quizzically.
“I’ll…see you tomorrow.”
“Yes, see you tomorrow.”
* * *
—
I FEEL RATHER light and fluttery as I leave the restaurant and begin my walk home. Victor. I smile to myself, then immediately repress the thoughts that follow. This is silly. I am in no place to develop feelings for any man until I find out who I am. I sigh. What if I have a terrible past? What if I am a horrible, unlovable person? What if I’m…married? Yes, Victor would be my friend, and nothing more. Besides, he’s much too handsome to ever be interested in me. I notice the way women look at him at the restaurant. Surely he could have his pick of Paris. And that’s fine; we are merely embarking on a friendship.
I stop suddenly in front of a shop window not far from my apartment, where a painting of a palm tree hangs inside. It’s an art studio of some sort; about a dozen people sit at easels. Le Studio des Fleurs, the sign above reads. THE STUDIO OF FLOWERS. I smile. And the text beneath: SPÉCIALISÉ EN ART-THÉRAPIE POUR LA GUÉRISON: specializing in art therapy for healing.
Art therapy? Healing? I venture inside as if pulled by a magnet.
“Bonjour,” I say to the dark-haired woman at the desk. She’s a little older than I am, and very beautiful, with big blue eyes and pale-pink lips. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I was just passing by and saw…well, I was just curious. What’s art therapy?”
She extends her hand out to the small studio. Soft jazz music plays in the background. “This is art therapy.”
“I guess I don’t understand,” I continue. “Aren’t they just painting?”
“Yes, but they are painting their troubles away.”
“Can you really…do that?”
She smiles. “Yes, and it really works. Maybe you’d like to try?”
I step back. “I don’t know. I’m not really artistic.”
“Everybody’s artistic, in their own way,” she says, walking over to an easel with a blank canvas, beside an empty stool. She g
estures to me. “Here, why don’t you try a free session?”
I take a seat, cautiously. I’m skeptical and regret poking my head in the door, but when she hands me a paintbrush, I feel a shift deep inside.
“There are no mistakes, and only two rules,” she says. “You must tune everything else out and create from your heart.”
I nod, dipping my brush in red acrylic, then white, before mixing the paints on the palette until they form a perfect pink.
I paint a peony, and then another. I somehow recall a garden, far away from here, where there were (are?) peonies. I remember the way the blossoms are so heavy that they flounce over, and I reach for another brush and dip it into green to get the stems just right.
I don’t notice when the session has ended and the other students have gone. I don’t notice my hunger pangs when lunchtime comes and goes or hear the church bells chiming. I am wholly consumed with this painting.
“How are things coming?” the dark-haired woman asks, placing her hand on my shoulder.
I gasp, as if being released from a trance or a session of hypnosis.
“This is really beautiful,” she says, looking over my canvas. “In fact, it’s extraordinary.”
To my surprise, I agree. It’s actually…good.
“Have you painted before?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Not that I recall.”
“Well, then you must do more of it.”
I smile.
“How do you feel?”
“Tired,” I say.
“Like you’ve just run a marathon?”
“Or something like that.” I reach for my bag.
“Good,” she says. “That’s how the healing happens. I hope you’ll come back again, at least to pick up your work once it’s dry. You’re welcome here anytime.”
I nod, still stunned that something so beautiful could come out of me. “You must be the owner?”
She nods. “My family has had this building for as long as I can remember. I finally convinced my mother that I could put it to good use.”
