Next to my bed is the red-and-blue plaid book satchel. Opening it, I smell the newness of my primary tablet; I slide open the pristine pencilbox which came with two finely sharpened yellow pencils, one virgin gum eraser, a red pocket pencil sharpener, and a strange instrument with an ice-pick point that makes perfect circles.
After breakfast my mother comes into my room. I think she is going to tell me that I should be leaving now, but she doesn’t. What she wants is to fix my hair. Her way. But I won’t allow it because it’s already fixed my way. So I take my prize book satchel and run out the door. And just as I am beginning to believe in the safety of the public sidewalks, she calls after me.
“Don’t expect any of the first graders to like you, Patricia Ann, ’cause they won’t! And don’t expect Miss Blackwell to like you either, ’cause she won’t! They’re all going to take one look at the plain way you’ve combed your hair and they’re not going to like you! Not a single one of them is ever going to like you!”
As I watched the taxi travel a boulevard shaded on both sides by aging chestnut trees, I closed my eyes. Even so, it felt as though Arlene and the not-to-be-seen Paris sun were making me a present of their warmth.
16
AS THEY MOVED with an almost mechanical gait toward me, the growing crescent of my townspeople chanted, “Jew Nazi lover ... Jew Nazi lover ... Jew Nazi lover.” I moved away while calling back to them, explaining that really Anton was never, NEVER in his whole life a Nazi! Only a not-very-brave man who was too decent to kill and too scared to die for the fatherland.
But it wasn’t until now, now when I could see the tightness of their lips—“Jew Nazi lover! Jew Nazi lover! Jew Nazi lover!”—and the narrowing of their eyes that I came to understand that I was soon to die because not even one of them would ever allow himself to listen. And I was going to die in a way that nobody would ever describe as merciful.
When the crescent moved to encircle, I felt a damp, astringent blast from their collective breaths as they shouted with an absolute on-the-beat precision, “JEW NAZI LOVER! JEW NAZI LOVER! JEW NAZI LOVER!”
My eyes jerked open to gaze upon the Hotel Vaucluse’s paint-is-a-peeling ceiling and older-than-thou wallpaper featuring tiny garlands of no longer fresh pink flowers strung together with whimsical blue ribbons.
“Nobody’s going to hurt me,” I whispered to my rapidly beating heart. “I’m not there ... there in Jenkinsville anymore. I’m here. Here safe in Paris, France.”
But all of my bad dream wasn’t only a dream because outside on the street there was real commotion, real chanting going on: “Legumes du jardin ... bon marché! Legumes du jardin ... bon marché!”
Slowly shifting my reclining body into a sitting position on this strange, soft-as-a-pillow mattress, I looked at my watch. Only quarter to six. Morning had been a long time coming, but still I felt comforted that I had, in some fashion, made it through the night.
I spread the curtains apart and threw open the almost floor-to-ceiling French-windows to look out upon a day that hadn’t as yet been completely lit by the sun. Two stories below, a triangle of intersecting streets was coming alive with open-air stalls and pushcarts being loaded with small mountains of primary-colored fruits and vegetables. Practically all of them were roofed by a slant of weather-worn tarpaulin, but here and there a fringed bi-colored beach umbrella crowned the enterprise.
A street smell of incredible sweetness wafted up. Cantaloupe! I searched the marketplace to match the olfactory with the visual, but the closest I could come to matching was a barechested man unloading boxes of bananas from a battered farm truck.
As I systematically searched the mounds of produce for those elusive melons, my eyes stalled on a row of bloody white rabbits and a single dun-colored lamb dangling in eternal serenity on meat hooks in front of the store-a large sign announced “Boucherie.”
Then close, but unseen, cathedral bells began ringing so celestially that my first thought was that something momentous must have happened. A pope had died? Or been born? But my second thought was to check my watch. Precisely six o’clock. Nothing even semi-momentous about that.
The blue haze of morning was slowly being replaced by pale yellow sunshine, but because it emanated from the earth’s edge, the carts and even the people seemed to throw especially long and searching shadows.
There were perceptibly more people now—mostly women wearing Cuban heels and carrying net or cloth shopping bags in their hands, who began moving around and about the stalls and carts of the marketplace. “Legumes du jardin ... bon marché ... legumes du jardin ... bon marché!”
When the soles of my still bare feet felt as though they were being impaled on the warped wooden floor slats, I sat down on my narrow wrought-iron balcony to watch a heavy-bodied woman wearing a lavender smock wash windows opening out to her own third floor balcony.
I wondered how many queens in how many kingdoms ever had such a front row center seat upon their world.
There was knocking at my door. Automatically I called out, “Who is it?” before I remembered the perfectly obvious. Neither the Hotel Vaucluse lady—here they call her the concièrge—nor her husband seems to understand a single word of English.
The door opened. From the keyhole, Madame Lucier pulled out a brass key connected to a long brass chain that terminated at a diaper pin attached to her more than ample waistband.
“Bonjour, mam’selle,” she sang out with a kind of all embracing cheerfulness. “Voilà, votre petit déjeuner.”
“Bonjour, madame. Merci,” I answered while thinking at least two almost simultaneous things. First, I had just given forth with two sentences comprising three words which were roughly fifty percent of my entire French vocabulary. And second, exactly how silly did I look sitting here on this iron balcony in my nightgown?
Madame’s work, though, seemed to have equipped her not only with simple efficiency, but also with exemplary discretion, for she gave not even a hint that one of her guests might have possibly strayed beyond acceptable limits.
She went right on with her job of setting out my breakfast. There were two obviously hot pitchers, a cup and saucer rimmed with chrysanthemums, and a plate rimmed with violets on which there were two crescent moons of flaky bread, two curls of what looked like butter, and a small crystal dish filled with what had to be marmalade.
As I tried to come up with something in English that I could translate into my minimal French, something that might salvage a bit of dignity lost, she turned and headed toward the door while calling out, “Bon appetit, mam’selle.”
“Au revoir, madame, and merci a lot.”
As soon as the door closed behind her, I put on a blue circular skirt and a white blouse with an open collar and forgot all about my dignity, but I did wonder what possible combination of words I had used with Madame yesterday to give her the impression that I wanted breakfast. And room serviced, no less!
From my father, I had once heard about room service—how expensive and all it is. Once when he was at the Chase Hotel in St. Louis on one of his semi-annual buying trips, he decided to “save a little time,” so he ordered up a couple of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee and for that he had to pay a buck sixty-five. And that didn’t even include the tip!
Well, I guess it’s like what the folks back home say. “Them that dances got to pay the fiddler.” Guess it’s the same for those who eat via room service except it’s Madame la Concièrge that must be paid. I told myself that at least I wouldn’t allow room service prices (no matter how high) to interfere with my ability to enjoy my breakfast. Just the opposite!
I slid the little round table over to my window-on-the world, clasped the warm pitcher of milk with one hand and the even hotter pitcher of coffee (as dark as the very richest earth of the Arkansas deltalands) with the other. And rising on that steam (breathe in deeply, take it all in) was the undiluted aroma of coffee strong and pure.
Without having yet tasted it, I knew that it was nothing like
what old Mr. Joe C. Thomas (everybody back home calls him Mr. Josie) pours from his big round urn down at the Victory Cafe. And the Vaucluse brew was even further removed from that powdery instant stuff that my mother spoons into her cup.
I poured part coffee and part hot milk into my cup, stirred, and took a long thoughtful drink. It wasn’t bitter and yet at this incredible strength it could have easily become so. A minute more brewing or a second reheating.
After only one sip, I wasn’t even completely certain that I liked it—yet I could never easily forget it.
Maybe it was because, in a way, this coffee reminds me of something. Maybe ... maybe only a philosopher or a mad man would make this connection, but it’s a little like life. I mean it’s powerful going down and that doesn’t even take into account the aftertaste, which really takes getting used to.
17
JUST INSIDE the baronial front doors of the Alliance Française was the office of le Directeur. A woman of middle years, wearing what back home is referred to as a “porch” dress (too good to do housework in, not really good enough to go to town in, but just about the right thing to wear when you’re sitting out catching the evening breezes), was cutting stencils in the smallish outer office of le Directeur.
“Bonjour, madame.”
“Bonjour, mademoiselle.”
I felt as though I must be the only person in France who couldn’t speak the language. “... Well, uh.” And helplessly presumptuous, for I had no right to expect her to understand my language. “I would like to enroll in your beginning French class.”
“Mais oui, mademoiselle, à dix heures pour les debutants. Lundi et mercredi.”
“Well, you see, I don’t speak at all. Not even a little bit.”
“Je comprends,” she said, handing me an application blank that looked as though it had been cut from one of her stencils.
And with a little understanding and a little more guesswork, I began filling in the blanks:
When she finally looked up from her stencil, I smiled while handing over my application. She accepted it (along with five thousand francs) and gave me a schedule and a Carte d’Étudiant, but not once within our multiminuted exchange did she ever return my smile. Well, let her keep it. Good luck to her!
If only I could have spoken French for a minute, I’d have used my ability to remind Madame la Stencil Cutter that without people like me, she’d have nobody to cut stencils for.
Also, I’d get the fact across that if she has to feel contempt for my ignorance then she should, at the very least, temper it with the demonstrable fact that I’m now trying to overcome this deficiency. Shouldn’t I get a little credit for that?
Then as I approached the door, I heard her call after me, “Au revoir, mademoiselle.” But as I turned to overenthusiastically respond, she was already back at work on her stencil, so in my best-sounding French, I told her goodbye too.
The very next moment I get some free thinking time, I’m going to sit right down and try once and for all to figure it out. I mean, why is it I’m always so quick to believe that people are thinking ... believing the worst about me?
As I walked back down the corridor, I passed two women who seemed to be sharing something special in their adoptive tongue. One wore a wind-taunting sari while her friend was wearing a colorfully striped caftan that couldn’t have come from anyplace but Africa.
Then suddenly their heads dropped backward and the women were laughing. That laugh—was it shared French laughter, or did they each unbeknownst to the other find their timbre and pitch by returning to their ancestral tongues?
But just as soon as the question was posed, I understood where and how I erred, and why it is that a laugh, like a cry, doesn’t ever need translation.
I fingered my pale green student identification card while experiencing an emotion that seemed fresh, at least to me. I felt pride ... pride at being accepted here. Did I need to remind myself that it’s one of life’s few certainties that nobody with five thousand francs had ever been turned away by Madame la Stencil Cutter?
No, I didn’t need a reminder and yet the pride never budged because I could never forget that the real getting here hadn’t been easy. Not easy at all.
I felt my eyes blur with what are called “tears of happiness.” That’s what they may call them, but that’s not what they are—not really! Because even if there is now a view of happiness before me, I can only see it through eyes long conditioned by pain.
Can’t I even now congratulate myself? I have reached the first part of a difficult objective. So why can’t I just focus on that instead of standing here in the middle of an empty corridor with my “tears of happiness” flowing as unrelentingly as flood water? Because the joy of accomplishment is not all that I’m feeling.
I’m also feeling the price I have paid to get here. “V’yisgadal ... Yisgadal ...” Is my father really reciting the prayers of the dead for me?
Let him, let him, let him! What do I care about his losses? I can’t help him. I wish I could help him with his, but I can’t even help me with mine.
With my father—with both of my parents—I had experienced our separation long before this sitting shiva thing. Who knows, maybe at one time they really did like me ... but it must have been a very long time ago because I don’t remember that.
The only real difference is that my father has now made the loss official and so I can no longer pretend that things aren’t all that bad. That this is only a temporary phase that we’re all just plodding through. Losing my pretend, is that what I’m really crying about?
Well, it’s not the only thing. There’s you, Anton. You who began the process that made me realize that my world could be vaster and more varied than that tiny town in the northeast corner of Arkansas. And it certainly wasn’t I, Anton, who preached the glorious doctrine of “feelings are good for sharing.”
Well, I’ve been a really great practitioner of your teachings. Boy, you could hardly find a better practitioner than me! And now maybe it’s time that you listened: because for all my struggle, I’m not sure what I’ve gained. Or if my life is better for all you’ve taught me. I’m smarter all right and my vision is sharper, but still sometimes I think, so what is that to me?
Seeing, knowing, feeling are things that have to be paid for. How come you never told me ... how come you never even hinted at the expense? And please tell me why I can’t ever seem to find my way back to pretend?
But don’t go thinking that I’m critical of you, Anton, because really I’m not. Not a bit! It’s just that you’re not here. I’m alone and I’m frightened and you’re not here. And you’re not ever going to be here for me.
I’m sorry to say this, but I don’t believe you should run around starting projects that you’re not going to finish. It’s not fair to go around abandoning things ... abandoning people. Telling me what a great person—a person of value—I am. You told me that, remember? Just before you left to go get yourself killed. And I begged you not to go, but you knew too much to listen to me.
Then I asked you to take me with you, to please, please, just take me with you, but still you wouldn’t listen! I guess the problem was I had no way to convince you of something that I already understood: I would have never permitted your death. Even with the FBI’s bullets tearing through your head, I don’t think you would have died because I would have held you so closely that you could never have slipped off.
Don’t you understand? Even now? That for as long as I lived, I would have been like a massive anchor, firmly securing you to this earth.
18
“PARDON, MADEMOISELLE, you need assistance?”
“What?”
“You have been standing on that spot for some while. I thought you might need some help? Directions? Information?”
“Oh, well, no thanks,” I said, sneaking my first real look at his face which was a young face, only a shade above or below the twenty-five-year mark. It struck me—maybe it was only because he was smiling a teasi
ng, yet honest smile—that here at last was a face that hid few secrets.
“I was just standing here,” I answered, already wishing I could erase that remark, “because I’ve already found the director’s office.”
He introduced himself with a smoothness that bypassed my awkwardness. His name was Roger David Auberon and he taught two French classes a week at the Alliance Française. “And you,” he asked, “tell me what is your name and what are you doing so far from the states?”
“I came to explore your beautiful city. My name is Patty Bergen and—and you knew I was an American,” I said, allowing it to dawn upon me that he had addressed me in English. “You knew that before I had ever said a word.”
“Naturally.”
“How?”
“Easy.”
“Yes, but how?”
“Well, Africans look like Africans, Frenchmen resemble Frenchmen, and Americans appear remarkably like—”
“Americans,” I said in conjunction with Roger Auberon. Then together we laughed, as together we had already walked out the front door of the Alliance Française.
“Also,” he said, “it helps if you have a good eye and ... I have a good eye.”
“Do you?” I asked, not because I doubted it for a moment, but because I hoped that my response would encourage him to elaborate. And it did.
“But of course. Chefs have good noses, musicians good ears, and photographers—I’m a photographer—have to possess the good eye. N’est-ce pas?”
“Yes, but I thought—you just finished telling me that you were a teacher here at the Alliance Française.”
“But how else can I afford my darkroom supplies? Film for my camera? Rent? Bread? A glass or two of vin ordinaire?”
“You mean to tell me that you don’t charge your customers?”
He breathed in deep and that breath seemed to elongate his thin body. Even so, he wasn’t very tall. Not more than three or four inches taller than me. Maybe five feet seven or eight at the most. “You think I’m a mere commercial taker of pictures? Smile! Snap! Five hundred francs, please.”