Isabelle in the Afternoon Read online

  I pushed open the door. I found myself in an identical version of my own room, albeit one where the tenant had taken up full-time residence. Seated in the bentwood chair was a guy in his mid-twenties. Shoulder-length blond hair, round steel glasses, a cigarette between his teeth, a fogged-in smile.

  ‘You my neighbor?’ he asked. ‘Should I be doing this in bad French?’

  ‘English works.’

  ‘Is the typing keeping you awake?’

  ‘I don’t sleep in my coat.’

  ‘So you saw my door open … and just decided to say hello?’

  ‘I can leave.’

  ‘You can also sit down.’

  This is how I met Paul Most.

  ‘Yeah I write. No, I have not published a word. No, I am not going to tell you what this novel is all about – which shows great restraint on my part. Yes, I am a New Yorker. Yes, I have just enough of a trust fund to ruin me.’

  He was a refugee from an authoritarian father. An investment banker. White shoe. Connected. Park Avenue. High Church Episcopalian.

  ‘The whole prep school/Ivy League trajectory. I got into Harvard. I got thrown out of Harvard. Lack of interest in work. Two years in the Merchant Marine. Hey, it worked for Eugene O’Neill. I got back into Harvard. Daddy connections. I scraped through. I spent a Peace Corps year teaching the hopeless cases of Upper Volta. I worked my way through gonorrhea, syphilis, trichomoniasis. I exchanged Ouagadougou for Paris fifteen months ago. I found this hotel. I negotiated a deal. Here I sit, typing into the night.’

  ‘Your father hasn’t tried to force you back home and onto Wall Street?’

  ‘Daddy has written me off. While in Upper Volta, and having a deranged moment brought on by dengue fever, I wrote the Harvard Magazine in response to a request for Class Notes. And what words did I send them? “Paul Most, Class of ’74, lives in West Africa with a permanent case of the clap.” Well, I thought it witty.’

  ‘Did it make it into print?’

  ‘Hardly. But Ivy walls have ears. Papa wrote to me care of American Express in Paris telling me I was now on my own, without his largesse in the big bad world. Of course, he knew he could not stop me benefiting from a trust set up by his father for his five grandchildren. My share of the interest of the principal became payable to me as of my twenty-fifth birthday … which happened to be seven months ago. Right about the time that Papa defenestrated me. I now have a nice and tidy monthly allowance of eight hundred dollars. Considering that I have negotiated the management of this scruffy establishment down to twenty-five francs a night, I have my little sliver of bed space in Paris for just over one hundred dollars a month. And they even change the sheets twice a week.’

  He then asked me where I’d grown up. I told him. His reply:

  ‘What a dull little place to call home.’

  I pointed to the eau de vie. A Vieille Prune. He poured me a glass. I took one of his Camels. He asked where I went to college. I gave him the information demanded.

  ‘My word, aren’t you Mr State U.? And now? Are you having the budget grand European tour before heading back to join Daddy’s agrarian insurance practice?’

  ‘I enter Harvard Law in September.’

  That got his attention.

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Seriously.’

  ‘Chapeaux. A fellow Harvard man.’

  And one who didn’t get there courtesy of Daddy.

  But that subtext remained unarticulated.

  He changed the subject, never once asking a further question about my life.

  But two cigarettes and three eaux de vie later, he offered this observation:

  ‘I know why you stood outside my door tonight. The agony of Paris. The city is cruel to anyone on their own. You see everyone intertwined and it points up your little-boy-lost status. And the fact that you are returning home to an empty bed in a cheap hotel.’

  ‘That makes two of us.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve got someone. Just not here tonight. But you’re flying solo. And unable to connect.’

  I wanted to contradict this. Wanted to protest. Wanted to slap down his cruelty. But I knew that would send me down a defensive street. Which was where he wanted me to end up. I could see the snare he was setting. So I said:

  ‘Guilty as charged.’

  ‘My, my – an honest man.’

  ‘Any thoughts how I can become less lonely here?’ I asked.

  ‘I presume you speak little or no French.’

  ‘It’s very basic. Far from conversational.’

  ‘I could invite you to a party tomorrow night. A book-launch thing. A friend of Sabine’s.’

  ‘Who’s Sabine?’

  ‘The woman who should be here tonight. Don’t ask me to explain.’

  ‘Why would I ask that?’

  ‘A farm boy with teeth.’

  ‘I wasn’t raised on a farm.’

  His reply was a smirk.

  ‘If I invite you, I must warn you: I will not act as your chaperone. Nor will I introduce you to anyone.’

  ‘Then why invite me?’

  ‘Because you said you were lonely. Call it an act of mercy.’

  He reached for a notepad and scribbled out an address.

  ‘Tomorrow night at seven.’

  He eyed up my flared gray denims, my brown crew-neck sweater, my blue button-down shirt.

  ‘It’s Paris. You might want to wear black.’

  *

  I returned to the army surplus store. The same boxer-faced man served me. I told him what I needed. I indicated my budget was limited. He looked me over, taking in my size. ‘Skinny boy.’ Then he went scavenging through the shelves. He pulled out a black wool turtleneck for thirty-five francs and a pair of black wool trousers for forty-five francs. He had to shake the dust off before I tried them on. They both fit me just fine.

  ‘I have black winter boots from la Légion étrangère. Soft leather. Already broken in. Warm but not heavy – and with a good sole. Perfect for Paris. Sixty francs.’

  I tried them on. They worked.

  ‘Give me one hundred and ten francs for everything,’ he said. ‘And now you are une symphonie en noir.’

  ‘You look like you just walked off the USS East Village.’

  Paul Most’s greeting to me before I made my way into the bookshop.

  ‘You told me to change my style.’

  ‘And indeed you did, Sailor.’

  The bookshop was called La Hune. Most was standing outside it, a Camel on the go. A woman was with him. Rail thin, frizzy hair, a biker jacker, a black silk scarf.

  ‘Meet Sabine,’ he said.

  I extended my hand. Sabine regarded this action with amusement. She leaned over and gave me a kiss on each cheek.

  ‘My greenhorn friend here has no idea of local protocol,’ Most said.

  Sabine’s response came out as a verbal slap.

  ‘Tu sais que je refuse de parler en anglais.’

  Most responded with a flood of fast French, an aggressive tone creeping in. Sabine pouted, barking back at him:

  ‘T’es un con.’

  She’d just called him an asshole. Appropriate.

  ‘See what you caused?’ Most said to me, all smiles.

  He motioned to the door.

  ‘Catch you at the bar.’

  The bookshop was not a big space. There were brimming shelves everywhere. Books piled high. A dense crowd. I sought out the bar and reached for red wine. I backed into a bookshelf, above which was a sign: PHILO. I glanced down and found myself staring into a cliff face of volumes: de Beauvoir, Deleuze, de Maistre, Democritus, De Morgan, Derrida, Descartes, Diderot, Dworkin …

  ‘Êtes-vous obsédé par les philosophes dont le nom commence par “D”?’

  The voice: quiet, resonant, teasing. I spun round. I found myself facing a woman. An abundance of wavy red hair. Deep green eyes: pellucid, ever observant, witty. Her face soft, freckled, open. Her dress black and tight. Black stockings. Black boots. A cigarette betwe
en long fingers, the cuticles somewhat chewed, a band of gold on her left ring finger. My first thought: vulnerable. My second thought: beautiful. My third thought: I am smitten. My fourth thought: that damn wedding ring.

  ‘American?’ she said.

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘No need to be embarrassed about that.’

  Her English was flawless.

  ‘I am embarrassed about my lack of French. Why is your English so good?’

  ‘Practice. I lived in New York for two years. I should have stayed. I didn’t.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now I live here.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  Another amused smile.

  ‘You like to interrogate. Are you a criminal lawyer?’

  ‘I’m heading that way. But let me guess. You’re a professor?’

  ‘Why are you so determined to find out what I do?’

  ‘My natural need to pose questions.’

  ‘Curiosity is commendable. I am a translator.’

  ‘English to French?’

  ‘German to French as well. Both ways round.’

  ‘You’re fluent in three languages?’

  ‘Four. My Italian is reasonable.’

  ‘Now I do feel like a rube.’

  ‘There’s a word I don’t know – “rube”.’

  ‘Someone from the sticks. A hayseed. A yokel.’

  ‘And let me guess – the inventor of this “argot” was from New York?’

  ‘No doubt.’

  She reached into the small black leather bag suspended from her shoulder and brought out a small black notebook and silver pen.

  ‘How do you spell “yokel”?’

  I told her.

  ‘I love argot. It is the true local color of all languages.’

  ‘Give me an example of Parisian argot.’

  ‘Grave de chez grave.’

  ‘Grave is “serious”, right?’

  ‘I am impressed – for someone who says he has no French.’

  I explained my daily vocabulary discipline.

  ‘Such diligence. Then you are definitely not grave de chez grave, which means “stupid”.’

  ‘Sometimes I feel that way – stupid.’

  ‘In general, or just here in Paris?’

  ‘Here. Now. In this bookshop. With all these smart, worldly people.’

  ‘And you telling yourself I’m just a “rube” – have I pronounced that right? – from the sticks?’

  ‘You pick up argot quickly.’

  ‘When you are a translator words are everything.’

  ‘So you are curious too.’

  ‘Ever curious.’

  She lightly touched my arm, letting her fingers linger there for a moment. I smiled at her. She smiled back.

  ‘I’m Isabelle.’

  ‘I’m Sam. Funny you asking me that question about philosophers. I looked at all those names on the spines of the books – all the D’s – and thought: I know so little.’

  ‘But acknowledging that you have gaps in your knowledge – that you want to venture into intellectual places you’ve avoided until now – is wonderful. For me curiosity is all. So stop telling yourself you are a “rube”. You found your way here tonight. You walked into an event so absurdly Parisian. Do you know the book being launched? The author?’

  ‘I’m a gatecrasher.’

  ‘I admire you even more for that. Look over there at the rather petite woman with the wild curls. That’s Jeanne Rocheferand. Philosophe. Normalienne. She will be an académicienne before the end of the decade.’

  She was tiny. In her sixties. Beyond thin. Leopard-skin print pants. Leopard-skin top. Big black hair. Hovering next to her a guy around twenty-eight. French biker type. Green aviator shades. Bored with the talk. His hand on her ass.

  ‘I understand none of those terms,’ I said.

  ‘And why would you? They mean a great deal in our own world here. Stay here long enough, learn the language, it will all make sense.’

  ‘I only have a few months over here. And I might move on.’

  ‘Then you won’t learn much – which perhaps is not the idea here.’

  ‘I have no idea what the goal is.’

  ‘“Goal”. Such an American word and notion.’

  ‘Is that a problem?’

  Another light brush of her fingers across my arm.

  ‘It’s sweet. Here no one will ever speak of objectives, goals. We are all being far too theoretical. Dazzling ourselves with our cerebral verbiage. But everything in life is about permitting ourselves that which we want. Or creating limitations, frontiers for ourselves.’

  ‘Are you a free person?’

  ‘Yes and no. And yes, I permit myself certain things, and stop myself from crossing over into places where more freedom might just be found. The usual risks and compromises inherent in a certain kind of metropolitan life.’

  ‘I am not metropolitan.’

  ‘You are here. It is a start.’

  A glance at her watch.

  ‘The time, the time. I have a dinner …’

  Without thought or premeditation I took her hand in mine. Her eyes closed. Then opened. Her fingers loosened. She stepped back.

  ‘A pleasure, Sam.’

  ‘A pleasure, Isabelle.’

  Silence.

  She broke it. ‘So ask me for my number.’

  ‘May I please have your phone number?’

  She met my gaze.

  ‘You may.’

  A quick dive into her bag, the emergence of a single small card.

  ‘Here it is. I am at this number most mornings and afternoons.’

  She leaned over and kissed me on each cheek. I felt a charge of longing for someone I had only just met. She sensed it. She smiled.

  ‘À bientôt.’

  And she was gone.

  I stood there, holding the card. I stared down at its simple black typeface:

  ISABELLE de MONSAMBERT

  Traductrice

  9 rue Bernard Palissy

  75006 Paris

  01 489 62 33

  I pulled out my wallet. I put the card in a small slot. I wanted to believe I would make that call in the next day or so.

  ‘So you got Isabelle’s phone number.’

  Paul Most talking. Paul Most now by my side, a bottle of wine in his hand.

  ‘How do you know her name?’

  ‘Met her at another book thing last week. We got talking. I asked for her number. She didn’t give it to me. Looks like you’re the chosen one, fella. If you choose to be chosen. You’ve been given the card. The question now is: can you play it?’

  Most disappeared with Sabine the Petulant. I nodded at the writer – a hail and farewell. She smiled. The biker boyfriend scowled. I looked around. The party was breaking up. I headed out into the black Paris night. I glanced at the menu of the Café de Flore. Beyond my means. I wandered back into the 5th and found a cheap brasserie where I ate a croque monsieur and drank two glasses of vin ordinaire while replaying the conversation with Isabelle. I opened my wallet. I looked again at her card. I kept thinking about the wedding band on her left ring finger. Her invitation. ‘À bientôt.’ If I chose to make the call.

  I pulled out an aerogramme – scored at a local post office – and my fountain pen. I wrote my father a simple note telling him I was alive and flourishing, that Paris was ‘interesting’ (he preferred understatement), that I was looking forward to my summer with the judge and Harvard thereafter. I threw in that last bit to reassure him that I was definitely going to do the right thing and come home. Because I still needed to answer to that voice of authority he represented. Had Dad been a completely removed man it might have been easier to compartmentalize his detachment from me. But the fact that he was never arctic with me, but also never there … it just augmented the guilt; the sense that something within me was responsible for his endless reticence.

  I signed off the letter Love, Sam. I finished my last glass of wine,
smoking down a Gauloise before heading back to the hotel. Isabelle’s card got transferred from my wallet to a corner of the table I had turned into a desk. I placed it under a notebook. It sat there untouched for two days. I did my daily breakfast thing, my daily cinema thing, my daily drifting-around-town thing. I knocked once on Paul Most’s door, in search of company. No answer. I filled more pages in my notebook. I saw two Westerns in a cinema on the rue Champollion where I was the only patron in the theater. I found Chinatown in the 13th arrondissement and ate Szechuan pig’s feet for no better reason than to eat Szechuan pig’s feet. I slept in fitful bursts. I kept telling myself: pick up the card, make the phone call. I imagined her amused voice letting me know: ‘I am hardly interested in a yokel like you.’

  Late that night, around three, I heard the couple next door fighting again. The man hectoring her. The woman crying. Trying to supplicate him. Suing for peace. It didn’t matter that Serbo-Croat was a Martian language to me. The vernacular of rage expressed by a couple needs no translation. Whether uttered in a flood of reproachful words or evinced through lengthy silences at a dinner table (my parents’ preferred form of message transmission), that sense of contempt is unmistakable. Contempt: was that the underlying sentiment which marked the endgame for most intimate relationships? I got out of bed and poured myself a glass of wine from the liter bottle of fifteen-franc rouge I’d bought yesterday. It was drinkable, cheap. I lit a cigarette. I listened as the fight hit a crescendo – the woman now lashing out, berating her man, submerging him in her disdain. Now it was his turn to sob and plead. I reached over and turned on the little transistor radio that had crossed the Atlantic with me. I found a jazz station on the FM dial and heard a woman sing in a melancholic mezzo of her search for ‘someone to watch over me’. That universal yearning … even though, at this early juncture in my life, I was beginning to fathom: everyone is, at heart, out on their own in the mess of life.

  I drank more of the wine. The singer continued to catch, with syncopated longing, the search for that elusive soulmate. Next door some object was hurled. It smashed. Screams ensued. Doors opened. Voices were raised in complaint. I turned up the jazz, finished my cigarette. I fingered the card half lodged under my notebook and resolved to call Isabelle when day overtook this dark night.