Shadows of Paris Read online

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  Copyright © 2016 by Eric D. Lehman

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  Although I have never been a religious man, I began to walk to Notre Dame after class every day that December. I took a seat somewhere in the vast transept and put all thoughts of the little monsters I taught out of my head. There were other places I could have gone: the national library, the cafes frequented by famous writers, or the dozens of nearby museums. But somehow my lack of religious spirit made Notre Dame a refuge from thought, which is what I wanted, I suppose.

  As I approached from the Pont St. Louis, naked winter trees framed the flying buttresses like the fingers of underground giants. I often felt like one of the ancient Celts who settled the Ile de Cite millennia before, coming to a place beyond my own scope or imagination, completely baffled by both the artistry of its creation and the fervor behind it. I avoided the small park along the Seine that faced the Latin Quarter, which still unaccountably had purple pansies, even in the snapping wind. Inside, I would find a chair next to one of the stone pillars and lean on it, the vaulted roof and endless stained glass above me both austere and ornate. The murmur of the tourists and the piped-in plainsong always lulled me into reverie without memory, without any sense of my own future or past.

  Besides, it was close to the small private school in the Marais where I taught English, and I could walk to it quite readily at the end of a grueling day of verb conjugation. I had come to Paris a few months earlier, but not for the same reasons those dead writers came. The École Eustache near Les Halles had an opening, and I had taken it, out of desperation. That is, I was not desperate for a job, but for a convenient excuse.

  Four weeks into this daily vigil I sat and studied the iron chandeliers and the carved wooden pulpits, all decorated for a Christmas that had just passed me by. I had spent it in my small apartment on Rue Tiquetonne, cooking my usual meal of rice and English tea. I reread Jane Eyre, which I was teaching in the spring, when I would advance from grammar to my supposed specialty, British Literature. It had not been my specialty in graduate school, and it is not now, these many years later. But this is no surprise. I was a different person back then.

  There’s not much in saying that; I have been at least four or five people so far, and I’m sure I have a couple left. We are many people, students and teachers, sinners and saints. But sitting there on the day after Christmas in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, I was sure I did not belong on those picture windows.

  ****

  I had seen Monsieur Cygne in the halls of the École several times during the autumn semester, but we had never spoken. This was not unusual; I spoke abysmal French and had avoided everyone. When I stopped by the faculty offices to pick up some student folders on December 27, the large, red-cheeked ogre finally waylaid me in the lunchroom.

  “Bonjour, Monsieur Byrnes. Comment allez-vous?”

  “Bien, Monsieur…”

  “Cygne.” He switched to English. “I am the literature teacher here, and so you are technically…my employee?” The man held up a second wine glass and a bottle of Bordeaux. “Join me for a drink.”

  “Mais non. It’s a little early.” I glanced at the clock nervously.

  “Nonsense! Come here and begin your day correctly.” The man paused, tugging a red earlobe. “That is an order?”

  “Oui, merci.” I said, groaning. I had avoided this so far, because I had no wish to become entangled in office politics or join the senior faculty in their Friday night carousing. In October, the young Mathematics teacher, fresh from the Sorbonne, had made overtures which I had politely refused. In revenge I suspected she had spread word among the students that I was impotent. All this despite the platinum band on my left ring finger.

  “So, Monsieur Byrnes. How is it you come to us in Paris with such bad French?” He laughed and clinked his small glass against mine. “I do not say this to be rude, of course. I am merely…curious?”

  I tried to laugh and took a sniff of the smooth, blackberry nose of the wine. It had been a long time since I had anything but tea. “Well, Monsieur Cygne, I have to apologize for that error. I had no intention of coming to France until this July, when I answered the École ’s ad in the New York Times.”

  “And so you come to us despite having no French? You are very brave, Monsieur!” Cygne drained his glass and poured another. “The students here are, as you know, très mal.”

  I hesitated. “They are no worse than American students.”

  “Nonsense! These are the worst students in the entire world. I would stake my life on that.” Cygne turned and rummaged in the small refrigerator, pulling out a jar of black olives.

  I nodded agreeably, feeling the warm flush of wine hit me. “They are not easy to control with my bad French.”

  “Oui, oui…” Cygne seemed to fall into a stupor, popping olives into his mouth one by one and spitting the seeds into a metal trash bin.

  I filled the space. “Do I have you to thank for the literature class in the spring?”

  Cygne slapped a meaty hand on the table. “Yes! A man cannot only teach grammar. It is like living on water with no wine.”

  I avoided this pitfall. “It will be nice to return to my field.”

  “Ah, so you, an American, dedicate yourself to British Literature. This is a mystery?”

  I wasn’t sure if this was an actual question, given Cygne’s obvious habit of ending sentences with an inflection, but I answered anyway. “In college, uhm, university, I did study American Literature. But later it was not so appealing to me.”

  “Hmm…” Cygne looked at me, but did not follow up his question, perhaps finding the subject boring. “And French literature? In translation of course.” He puffed a laugh.

  “Well, in graduate school I read Sartre, Camus…”

  “Bah! That is not literature, that is philosophy. What of Balzac, Zola, Hugo?”

  “The Hunchback…” I said weakly.

  Cygne moved his huge head back and forth, as if shaking off water. “Mais non! I will give you…as your superior…an assignment?”

  I smiled uncertainly, hiding my face with my glass.

  “Yes, you must read something of the great ones.” He pulled a pad of the school’s letterhead from his black doctor’s bag and scribbled on it. “This is the address of a bookstore. An English bookstore, of course. We do not want to test your French skills. This bookstore, however, specializes in translations from the Spanish, the Russian, et cetera. And of course the French literature is of primary importance there.”

  “Okay.” I took the paper.

  “Okay? Yes, okay!” Cygne seemed to find great pleasure in the word. “Okay,” he stressed, “because there you will find the keys to Paris, the keys to literature, the keys to life!” He laughed warmly at his own exaggeration.

  ****

  My head swam with the Bordeaux as I walked down the Avenue Saint Denis, ignoring the tabacs and pharmacies. Forget those stupid keys! My own apartmen
t key seemed broken, and only after many minutes and much swearing was I able to force my way inside. I collapsed on the small couch and stared at the exposed wooden beams, cursing Gallic joie de vivre and my own indulgence.

  The apartment provided me by the École had previously been occupied for a long time by a Nigerian teacher, and he had left a collection of West African masks, prints, and decorative weapons. Handmade red curtains with intricate gold patterns hung down full-length windows, which would open in the summer to allow smokers and suicides easy access to the open air five stories above the cobbled street. Only two things ruined this cohesive interior. The first was a photo print of Louis Armstrong holding a cigarette and laughing uproariously. In October I had put it in the corner on the floor and turned it around, but the empty space still held the image in my mind. The other was an enormous African pot hunched between the windows, holding a gigantic sheaf of paper leaves, mimicking a vase, I assumed. It was hideous, and completely ruined the otherwise fascinating décor, which I liked for the same reason I liked Notre Dame, because I had no connection with it.

  Other than the unique furnishings, the apartment was dreadful, with inconsistent heating, tepid water, and terrible drafts. The bedroom was only slightly larger than the bed, and sloped into one corner, leaving me feeling like I was falling out of bed, even when I huddled on the far side. The kitchen was the size of a small closet, though for my purposes it was more than sufficient. My box of cheap tea bags, jar of oatmeal, and ten pound bag of rice fit snugly on the small shelf, and I used and reused the same pot, mug, and spoon, washing them immediately after use, and letting them dry on the thin wire rack.

  The built-in bookshelf in the main was filled with books, all en francais. I snorted, thinking back to my conversation with Cygne. Of course I should have learned French properly before presuming to teach in Paris. But they had given me the job knowing full well my weakness in that area. Three years of high school French fifteen years earlier, and a month-long immersion course were not enough. So be it, I thought crossly. What did I need with more French Literature? Sartre and Camus and their ilk had certainly not helped me in my early twenties and in fact…

  I stopped that line of thought and rose to make my daily pot of rice. The days before winter session began on January 4th would be endless. I had already planned my classes, and couldn’t spend ten hours a day in Notre Dame. I might as well try this bookstore. Cygne could go to hell, but I was not going to let him have the satisfaction of knowing I was a complete failure.

  ****

  The map of Paris provided by the École was spotty at best, and it took me nearly an hour to find the little cross-street and square at the eastern end of the Marais. The place was not large, with only a few sycamores, and no fountain. But on the opposite corner, where the old pre-Haussmann rue continued toward another broad avenue, the shop was framed by a black facade with simple red lettering: Librarie Anglais Rose. I hesitated, looking the sheet of letterhead. Cygne had written “Belly of Paris by Emile Zola. Commence!” next to the address. I knew a little about Zola, primarily his heroic involvement in the Dreyfus affair. It seemed a strange choice for Cygne to make. Why not a classic like Zola’s more famous Germinal or Hugo’s Les Miserables? These were books I’d always meant to read, or at least that’s what I told myself.

  I pushed open the front door and immediately the smell of books drowned me. Stepping in from the cold winter street, the sense of thick, warm closeness was overwhelming. A combination of musty old pages and crisply pressed bindings swirled into my nostrils and made me cough. I reached a steadying hand to the front counter by the register, then jerked it back as something moved there. It was only a black tabby, which stared at me with yellow eyes, and then leapt to the floor, looking back as if beckoning me to follow.

  I did, my black wool coat brushing the shelves on each side. At first there seemed to be no particular organization, with new paperbacks shelved next to ancient hardbound tomes. But as I moved I could see that at least the store was arranged by original language. I looked around for a French section, but couldn’t find one. With no one at the counter, the entire place seemed empty. I made two cycles around the cramped shelves, nearly tripping over another cat, a blue Persian that contemplated my boots with a sleepy nonchalance. Where had the other cat gone? Was there a secret passage? Finally, behind a wall of stacked books I found an opening leading down.

  Step by step I creaked down what I was sure was the oldest staircase in France, steadying myself on shelves of books by Moliere and Montaigne. Aha, the French “M” section! At the bottom of this dangerous chute, I saw the black cat, curling up on a thin table under a lamp. I reached out a hand to pet it, and almost knocked over the lamp when I realized a person was standing directly to my left.

  “Bonjour, Monsieur!” A cheery voice rang in my ear.

  Recovering my balance, I turned to see a woman step into the arc of the lamplight. She was about a head shorter than me, had mouse-brown hair, and wore a black dress that even to my fashion-ignorant eyes seemed a throwback to the last century. “Oh, bonjour. Emile Zola, s’il vous plaît?” I stammered.

  She looked at me with gray eyes that seemed to penetrate my head. Later I would think they were the color of the Seine after rain, or the winter sycamores of the Champ-de-Mars from a distance. They were the sort of eyes that a Greek goddess would have when she was masquerading as a librarian.

  “You are American?” She asked in a clear New England accent.

  “Yes, I’m sorry. My French is very bad.”

  “Mine was for the first year I spent in Paris, and now it is only acceptable, or at least that is what my husband tells me.”

  “Oh…” I said, brilliantly.

  “You are here on holiday?” She turned and began shelving books while still looking in my direction.

  “No,” I said, watching her pale hands unconcernedly shove books into thin cracks. “I teach at the École Eustache near Les Halles.”

  “English, I assume?”

  “No…I’m from Philadelphia,” I said.

  She laughed, something between a chuckle and a snort. “No, you teach English.”

  “Oh, right. Yes.” I stood there like a fool. Then, inspiration struck. “My name is William, William Byrnes.”

  “I’m Lucy, Lucy Navarre.” She imitated my inflection, chuckling away. I suddenly felt comfortable with this underground shade. She continued, “I mean, I’m a Doubleday from Massachusetts, but my husband’s last name is Navarre. It’s the reason I married him.” She considered. “That, and this fabulous store.”

  “Aha.” I said, and tried to regain a little ground. “So, you put that in your vows?”

  Again, the laugh, though this time it seemed a little forced. Maybe I had gone too far. “Anyway, I was sent here by a Monsieur Cygne, also from the École . He said you specialize in translations to English.”

  “Yes, indeed we do, though I am afraid I don’t remember your Monsieur Cygne. As you can see, we have so many customers.” She waved a hand, which I noticed was ringless.

  I laughed now, for the first time in what must have been many years. When I recovered, I saw her iron eyes focused intently on me. “Sorry…I…well, maybe I can change that this coming semester.”

  “For now perhaps I can help you find something else. What was it? Zola?”

  “Oui,” I said, then felt like a fool again. “Sorry, habit now…”

  “See,” she said brightly, “You are already becoming French, like me.”

  Whatever she was, it was not French, I thought, but said, “That is why I’m here, really. My French literature is quite poor.”

  “You really are a poisson out of water, Monsieur Byrnes.”

  “William,” I said, and instantly regretted it. “If you don’t mind.”

  “It will be a relief not to stand on ceremony.” She moved and I followed her oaky hair down an aisle almost too narrow for my shoulders. It’s a good thing I am so thin, I thought, and then near
ly stumbled into the woman around the corner, where she was bending over, peering at a low shelf.

  “What book was it?”

  “The Belly of Paris?” I asked, expressing my disbelief at the odd name.

  “Oh, of course! You are near Les Halles? That is the belly, or rather it was until the early seventies.” She handed me a hardback volume. “But surely that can’t be your only purchase today. If your French literature is as bad as you say.” The woman, Lucy I reminded myself, briskly moved through the shelves. “This, and this, and this.” She began to create a small stack in the crook of her left arm. “And this.” She stopped, seeing my horrified face. “Well, perhaps we’d better leave a few for your next visit.”

  My next visit? I tried not to read too much into that. She was another man’s wife, for Keats’ sake. And I was wearing a ring… I took the stack. “This will hold me, at least until the New Year.”

  Lucy laughed, hopping up the squeaking stairs. I took a moment to pet the black cat, and glanced back into the cellar flooded with literature, considering why someone had thought the musty labyrinth an incentive to marriage. There were worse reasons, I supposed.

  As I walked back along the endless Rue de Rivoli, I caught my reflection in a shop window. I was smiling broadly, and, shocked, I sat down on a bench by the Hotel De Ville, attacked by waves of nausea. I had no right to be smiling. Absolutely no right at all.

  ****

  I remained in a meditative gloom for three days, wondering about the fate of the African teacher who had abandoned all his relics. On New Year’s Eve I decided I should begin the Zola book, in case Cygne asked me about it when classes started. After my usual breakfast of oatmeal and strong tea, I arranged myself on the small couch, dangling long legs over the edge. As I entered the world of nineteenth-century Paris along with the exhausted Florent, I found familiar streets and landmarks. The old Les Halles seemed a decadent and strange place for the escaped prisoner from Devil’s Island, and completely alien to me. As I read page after page describing the bright vegetables and fresh fish, my frugal regime began to seem even more frugal. The salted meats of the Quenu butcher shop began to make my mouth water and my stomach ache. Rich butter, sizzling fat, crisp leaves of cabbages…the book went on and on. At three in the afternoon I tried to stifle the problem with a heaping bowl of rice, which I salted heavily. An hour later I was starving again. I cursed Cygne for recommending the book, for the torture I was now enduring. Finally, my boots rumbled out the door as the sun was going down.