Perfidia | Page 9

and sent him up, though it was only for two years. That was when I left Manchester. I know the odds of it happening again were no worse there than in London, but I just couldn't feel safe there any more, you know?"
I didn't know what to do or say. We were both still naked and it seemed wrong to hug her, so I took her hand instead.
"It's easy to go from there to thinking men are just animals and all, but I didn't want to be like that. So I had to box it up and put it someplace, like it happened to somebody else. And in a way it did, you know, I mean, I wasn't part of it. And I know you're anti-authoritarian and that, but I will always be grateful there were authorities that night."
I resented her using her personal horror to score points in our ongoing hit and run political debate. She'd preemptively trumped anything I could say about the authorities having failed to prevent the assault in the first place, or their inability to keep her from living in fear afterwards. I hadn't been there, after all; I wasn't the one who suffered.
"And I don't blame men in general," she said. "There are nice things about them. Dancing. Sex, when it's sweet, like with you. You just can't trust them, that's all."
"What do you mean?"
"It's the sex thing. I mean, men cheat. It's the way they are."
"I don't," I said.
"Well. Perhaps you're the exception." She kissed my forehead in what seemed a very condescending way and turned her back to me.
I was still trying to find the words to answer her when she began to snore softly. I watched her for a while in the faint light from the airshaft and eventually I was able to work my way back to my first impression of her, one more lost and lonely traveler, not that different from me. I curled up against her back and felt her squirm slightly against me as she settled in, and then sleep took me too.
*
I woke at seven AM to Sandy sorting out her clothes in the half light. "You're not going?" I asked.
"I must. I have to pack and catch a train."
"Not just yet." I reached for her hand and showed her what I had in mind.
"Oh," she said. "Well..."
Afterwards, it felt as if we had wound the last eighteen hours back onto a reel and we were suddenly strangers again, with nothing to say to each other. She went to the bathroom, and then immediately began to dress.
"Can I come to the station with you?" I asked.
"I don't want you to even get out of bed." She bent to kiss my cheek and whispered, "Thank you. This was perfect."
"What about your address, or phone number? How can I get hold of you?"
She started to say something, then thought better of it. She wrote a phone number on a scrap of lined paper from her purse and handed it to me. "Bye now," she said, and slipped out the door.
I felt the way I did after a night of heavy drinking--back when I did that--minus the hangover. It was like I'd squandered something.
I tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't find a comfortable place for my mind or my body. The rain had returned, cold and steady, but I had warm boots and an umbrella, so I ate the hotel's continental breakfast and headed out to the Porte de Montreuil market, remembering to tuck a mini-cassette recorder in my pocket just in case.
The market was located in a faceless gray commercial neighborhood on the eastern edge of the city. It was mostly new clothing on Mondays, but deeper into the stalls there were always a few interesting antiques and collectables among the old tools and chipped plates. Nothing for me, though, not that morning.
I was nervous about going back to Vernaison. Philippe had meant well, I was sure, but too many times I'd come back to dealers like him and found only awkwardness and excuses. Once I'd turned around, though, I discovered I could hardly wait. I took the wet walk back to the Metro at nearly a run and hurried through two changes of trains.
When I finally got to Vernaison it was two in the afternoon and Philippe's booth was open, but deserted. I waited five minutes, pacing the narrow alley, and when I was about to give up, I noticed him coming from the front of the complex, head down, a FedEx package in his hands. My timing, I realized, could not have been better. He saw me, held up the package, and smiled.
I followed him into his stall. "You will forgive me," he said, and I waited while he carefully unwrapped the package, took