Perfidia | Page 6

of any stray graphite before handing it to me.
"Enchant??," I said, reading it, and offered my hand. "My name is Frank. Frank Delacorte."
He gave me a firm handshake. "Come back on Monday, in the afternoon. I will find out what I can."
*
It was already getting dark when I came out of the Metro at Place de Clichy. I called the States on my cell and arranged to have the Jacques Brel bootleg expressed to Philippe. When I was done, a wave of fatigue hit me so hard I nearly passed out. I knew if I went back to the hotel I'd be asleep within minutes, so I walked down the Boulevard des Batignolles to Le Mont Leban, my favorite neighborhood restaurant. I'd never had the heart to tell them how wonderfully inept the English translations in their menu were: "Net of raw lamb, spied on," "Chicken liver fits in the lemon," and my favorite, "Girl pizza in meat, tomatoes."
They put me at a two-top in the window. I was thinking about a time right after college when I'd been working ridiculous hours at an electronics firm. I'd liked eating alone then, but now that I was pushing fifty, three years on from the breakup of a long marriage, it seemed more of a stigma. I liked my job, especially when I was busy enough to feel like I was reversing entropy in a substantial way. But I also knew I wasn't bringing anything new into the world. No new music, no kids, no world-changing inventions. A life like mine would have been plenty for my father; he'd been a soldier and then a salesman, paid his debts, and was going to leave the world a better place for who he'd been. And I was generally happy enough. What I missed was a sense of significance, which may have only been another way of saying I wished I had somebody to share it with.
I feasted on Foul Moudamas, Moutabal, Falafel, and Moujaddara ("Puree of lens with the rice in the lebanese way") and thought about how much my father would have loved the place. We'd traveled to Europe twice when I was a teenager, and my father had attacked each native cuisine with curiosity and appreciation, while my mother had nibbled Saltines and begged for a plain hamburger.
The memory made me impatient to talk to him, so I paid the bill and went out into the night. The locals were walking their dogs, or hurrying toward the Metro in evening clothes, or headed back to their apartments with a bottle of wine or a paper-wrapped baguette. The subtle differences from home--the melody of the barely audible voices in the background, the tint of the streetlights, the signs in the windows of the shops--were liberating, intoxicating.
I showered and got in bed and called the hospital. My father sounded weak but cheerful, and Ann tried very hard not to sound put upon. I was too tired to react, and I fell asleep within seconds of hanging up.
*
It felt odd to have come so far and not be in pursuit of my mission on Sunday. My alarm woke me at seven and I took the number 13 Metro line all the way across town to Porte de Vanves and spent the morning in the flea market there. I didn't find anything for myself, but picked up some wine labels for my father, who had been trying to develop pretensions in that direction ever since he retired.
By one PM the antique dealers were packing and the new clothing vendors were setting up. The sun had burned holes through the morning's ragged clouds and I gave in to a sudden urge for the Seine and the Ile de la Cit??.
Cynics say it's only a myth that Paris is full of lovers, but I saw them everywhere. A girl on the Metro to Saint-Michel had her arms around her boyfriend's neck and leaned forward to kiss him between every few words. I had to make myself look away, and when I did I saw a woman across from me watching them too. She was about forty, with very short blonde hair and a weathered, pretty face. She smiled at me in embarrassed acknowledgement and then looked down at her lap.
The sun was fully out on the Boulevard Saint-Michel, and locals had crammed in next to the tourists at the tiny caf?? tables. I crossed over to the Ile de la Cit?? and saw more windblown couples holding hands in the gardens along the south side of Notre Dame, where the leaves were just starting to turn.
I wandered out onto the Pont Saint-Louis, which was closed to cars on Sundays, and stopped to hear a clarinetist and pianist who'd rolled a small upright piano out onto the bridge.