We'll Always Have Paris Read online

  Listening, tears came into her eyes and, listening, the same thing happened to him.

  ‘I can’t stand this,’ he said. ‘I’m going to get up and get something to eat.’

  ‘No, no,’ she said, and took his hand and held it. ‘Be very quiet and listen. Maybe we’ll get answers.’

  He lay back and held her hand and tried to shut his eyes, but could not.

  They both lay in bed and the wind continued murmuring, and the leaves shook outside the window.

  A long way off, a great distance off, the sound of weeping went on and on.

  ‘Who could that be?’ she said. ‘What could that be? It won’t stop. It makes me so sad. Is it asking to be let in?’

  ‘Let in?’ he said.

  ‘To live. It’s not dead, it’s never lived, but it wants to live. Do you think—’ She hesitated.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Do you think the way we talked a month ago…?’

  ‘What talk was that?’ he said.

  ‘About the future. About our not having a family. No family. No children.’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ he said.

  ‘Try to,’ she said. ‘We promised each other no family, no children.’ She hesitated and then added, ‘No babies.’

  ‘No children. No babies?’

  ‘Do you think—’ She raised her head and listened to the crying outside the window, far away, through the trees, across the country. ‘Can it be that—’

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that I know a way to stop that crying.’

  He waited for her to continue.

  ‘I think that maybe—’

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘Maybe you should come over on this side of the bed.’

  ‘Are you asking me over?’

  ‘I am, yes, please, come over.’

  He turned and looked at her and finally rolled completely over toward her. A long way off the town clock struck three-fifteen, then three-thirty, then three forty-five, then four o’clock.

  Then they both lay, listening.

  ‘Do you hear?’ she said.

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘The crying.’

  ‘It’s stopped,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. That ghost, that child, that baby, that crying, thank God it stopped.’

  He held her hand, turned his face toward her, and said, ‘We stopped it.’

  ‘We did,’ she said. ‘Oh yes, thank God, we stopped it.’

  The night was very quiet. The wind began to die. The leaves on the trees outside stopped trembling.

  And they lay in the night, hand in hand, listening to the silence, the wonderful silence, and waited for the dawn.

  We’ll Always Have Paris

  It was a hot Saturday night in July in Paris, near midnight, when I prepared to head out and walk around the city, my favorite pastime, starting at Notre Dame and ending, sometimes, at the Eiffel Tower.

  My wife had gone to bed at nine o’clock and as I stood by the door she said, ‘No matter how late, bring back some pizza.’

  ‘One pizza coming up,’ I said, and stepped out into the hall.

  I walked from the hotel across the river and along to Notre Dame and then stopped in at the Shakespeare Bookstore and headed back along the Boul Miche to stop at Les Deux Magots, the outdoor café where Hemingway, more than a generation ago, had regaled his friends with Pernod, grappa, and Africa.

  I sat there for a while watching the Parisians, of which there was a multitude, had myself a Pernod and a beer, and then headed back toward the river.

  The street leading away from Les Deux Magots was no more than an alley lined with antiques stores and art galleries.

  I walked along, almost alone, and was nearing the Seine when a peculiar thing happened, the strangest thing that had ever happened in my life.

  I realized I was being followed. But it was a strange kind of following.

  I looked behind me and no one was there. I looked ahead about forty yards and saw a young man in a summer suit.

  At first I didn’t realize what he was doing. But when I stopped to look in a window and glanced up, I saw that he had stopped eighty or ninety feet ahead of me and was looking back, watching me.

  As soon as he saw my glance he walked away, farther on up the street, where he stopped again and looked back.

  After a few more of these silent exchanges, it came to me what was going on. Instead of following me from behind, he was following me by leading the way and looking back to make sure that I came along.

  The process continued for an entire city block and then finally, at last, I came to an intersection and found him waiting for me.

  He was tall and slender and blond and quite handsome and seemed, somehow, to be French; he looked athletic, perhaps a tennis player or a swimmer.

  I didn’t know quite how I felt about the situation. Was I pleased, was I flattered, was I embarrassed?

  Suddenly, confronted with him, I stood at the intersection and said something in English and he shook his head.

  He said something in French and I shook my head and then both of us laughed.

  ‘No French?’ he said.

  I shook my head.

  ‘No English?’ I said, and he shook his head and, again, we both laughed because here we were, past midnight in Paris, at an intersection, unable to talk to each other and not quite knowing what we were doing there.

  At last, he lifted one hand and pointed off down a side street.

  He said a name and I thought it was the name of someone: ‘Jim.’ I shook my head in confusion.

  He repeated himself, and then clarified the word. ‘Gymnasium,’ he said as he pointed again, stepped off the walk into the street, and turned to see if I was following.

  Hesitant, I waited as he walked full across the street to the far curb and then turned again and looked at me.

  I stepped off the curb and followed, thinking, What am I doing here? And then, again, What the hell am I doing here? A strange young man at midnight, in hot weather, in Paris, going where? To some strange gymnasium? What if I never come back? I mean, in the middle of a strange city, how come I had the nerve to follow where someone else was leading?

  I followed.

  In the middle of the next block I found him waiting for me.

  He nodded to a nearby building and repeated the word gymnasium. I watched as he started down some steps at the side of the building, and ran to follow. Down we went to a basement door that he unlocked and nodded me into the darkness.

  I saw that we were indeed in a small gym with all the equipment that such facilities have: workout machines and block horses and mats.

  Most peculiar, I thought, and stepped forward as he closed the door.

  From the ceiling above I heard distant music and voices speaking and the next thing I knew I felt my shirt being unbuttoned.

  I stood in the dark with perspiration running down my arms and off the tip of my nose. I could hear the sounds of his taking off his clothes in the dark as we stood there at midnight in Paris, not moving, not speaking.

  Again I thought, What the hell am I doing here?

  He took a step forward and almost touched me when suddenly there was the sound of a door opening somewhere nearby, a burst of laughter, another door opening and shutting, and footsteps and people talking very loudly from above.

  I jumped at the noise and stood there, trembling.

  He must have felt my movement, for he put out his hands, placing one on my left shoulder, one on my right.

  Both of us seemed not to know what to do next, but we stood there, facing each other, after midnight, in Paris, like two actors onstage who had forgotten their lines.

  From above there was laughter and music and I thought I heard the popping of a cork.

  In the dim light I saw a single bead of perspiration slide down and fall off the tip of his nose.

  I felt the perspiration slip down my arms and d
rip off the ends of my fingers.

  We stood there for a long time, not moving, when at last he shrugged a French shrug and I shrugged, too, and then we both laughed quietly again.

  He bent forward, took my chin in one hand, and planted a quiet kiss in the middle of my brow. Then he stepped back and reached out and put my shirt around my shoulders.

  ‘Bonne chance,’ I thought I heard him murmur.

  And then we moved quietly to the door and he put his finger to his lips and said, ‘Shhhh,’ and we both went out into the street.

  We walked together back up to the narrow avenue that led in one direction to Les Deux Magots, and in the other direction to the river, the Louvre, and my hotel.

  ‘My God,’ I said quietly. ‘We’ve been together a half hour and we don’t even know each other’s name.’

  He looked at me inquiringly and some inspiration caused me to lift my hand and jab at his chest with my finger.

  ‘You Jane, me Tarzan,’ I said.

  This caused him to explode with laughter and repeat what I had said: ‘Me Jane, you Tarzan.’

  And for the first time since we met, we both relaxed and laughed.

  Again he leaned forward and planted another quiet kiss in the middle of my brow, then turned and walked away.

  When he was three or four yards off, without turning he said, in halting English, ‘Sorry.’

  I replied, ‘Very sorry.’

  ‘Next time?’ he said.

  ‘Next,’ I replied.

  And then he was gone down the narrow street, no longer leading me.

  I turned back toward the river, walked on past the Louvre, and to my hotel.

  It was two o’clock in the morning, still very hot, and as I stood inside the door to the suite I heard the bedclothes rustle and my wife said, ‘I forgot to ask earlier, did you get the tickets?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘The Concorde, noon flight to New York, next Tuesday.’

  I heard my wife relax and then she sighed and said, ‘My God, I love Paris. I hope we can come back next year.’

  ‘Next year,’ I said.

  I undressed and sat on the edge of the bed. From the far side my wife said, ‘Did you remember the pizza?’

  ‘The pizza?’ I said.

  ‘How could you have forgotten the pizza?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  I felt a peculiar quiet itch in the middle of my forehead and put my hand up to touch the place where that strange young man who had followed me by leading had kissed me good night.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘how I could have forgotten. Damned if I know.’

  Ma Perkins Comes to Stay

  Joe Tiller entered the apartment and was removing his hat when he saw the middle-aged, plump woman facing him, shelling peas.

  ‘Come in,’ she said to his startled face. ‘Annie’s out fetchin’ supper. Set down.’

  ‘But who—’ He looked at her.

  ‘I’m Ma Perkins.’ She laughed, rocking. It was not a rocking chair, but somehow she imparted the sense of rocking to it. Tiller felt giddy. ‘Just call me Ma,’ she said airily.

  ‘The name is familiar, but—’

  ‘Never you mind, son. You’ll get to know me. I’m staying on a year or so, just visitin’. And here she laughed comfortably and shelled a green pea.

  Tiller rushed out to the kitchen and confronted his wife.

  ‘Who in the hell is she, that nasty nice old woman?!’ he cried.

  ‘On the radio.’ His wife smiled. ‘You know. Ma Perkins.’

  ‘Well, what’s she doing here?’ he shouted.

  ‘Shh. She’s come to help.’

  ‘Help what?’ He glared toward the other room.

  ‘Things,’ said his wife indefinitely.

  ‘Where’ll we put her, damn it? She has to sleep, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Anna, his wife, sweetly. ‘But the radio’s right there. At night she just sort of–well–“goes back.”’

  ‘Why did she come? Did you write to her? You never told me you knew her,’ exclaimed the husband wildly.

  ‘Oh, I’ve listened to her for years,’ said Anna.

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘No. I’ve always felt I knew Ma better almost than I know–you,’ said his wife.

  He stood confounded. Ten years, he thought. Ten years alone in this chintz cell with her warm radio humming, the pink silver tubes burning, voices murmuring. Ten secret years of monastic conspiracy, radio and women, while he was holding his exploding business together. He decided to be very jovial and reasonable.

  ‘What I want to know is’–he took her hand–‘did you write “Ma” or call her up? How did she get here?’

  ‘She’s been here ten years.’

  ‘Like hell she has!’

  ‘Well today is special,’ admitted his wife. ‘Today’s the first time she’s ever “stayed.”’

  He took his wife to the parlor to confront the old woman. ‘Get out,’ he said.

  Ma looked up from dicing some pink carrots and showed her teeth. ‘Land, I can’t. It’s up to Annie, there. You’ll have to ask her.’

  He whirled. ‘Well?’ he said to his wife.

  His wife’s face was cold and remote. ‘Let’s all sit down to supper.’ She turned and left the room.

  Joe stood defeated.

  Ma said, ‘Now there’s a girl with spunk.’

  He arose at midnight and searched the parlor.

  The room was empty.

  The radio was still on, warm. Faintly, inside it, like a tiny mosquito’s voice, he heard someone, far away saying, ‘Land sakes, land sakes, land sakes, land o’ Goshen!’

  The room was cold. He shivered. The radio was warm with his ear against it.

  ‘Land sakes, land o’ Goshen, land sakes—’

  He cut it off.

  His wife heard him sink into bed.

  ‘She’s gone,’ he said.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Until tomorrow at ten.’

  He did not question this.

  ‘Good night, baby,’ he said.

  The living room was filled only with sunlight at breakfast. He laughed out loud to see the emptiness. He felt relief, like a good drink of wine, in himself. He whistled on his way to the office.

  Ten o’clock was coffee time. Marching along the avenue, humming, he heard the radio playing in front of the electrical parts store.

  ‘Shuffle,’ said a voice. ‘Lands, I wish you wouldn’t track the house with your muddy shoes.’

  He stopped. He pivoted like a wax figure, turning on its slow, cold axis, in the street.

  He heard the voice.

  ‘Ma Perkins’s voice,’ he whispered.

  He listened.

  ‘It’s her voice,’ he said. ‘The woman who was at our house last night. I’m positive.’

  And yet, late last night, the empty parlor?

  But what about the radio, humming, warm, all alone in the room, and the faint faraway voice repeating and repeating, ‘Land sakes, land sakes, land sakes…’?

  He ran into a drugstore and dropped a nickel into the pay telephone slot.

  Three buzzes. A short wait.

  Click.

  ‘Hello, Annie?’ he said gaily.

  ‘No, this is Ma,’ said a voice.

  ‘Oh,’ he said.

  He dropped the phone back onto its hook.

  * * *

  He didn’t let himself think of it that afternoon. It was an impossible thing, a thing of some subtle and inferior horror. On his way home he purchased a bundle of fresh moist pink rosebuds for Anna. He had them in his right hand when he opened the door of his apartment. He had almost forgotten about Ma by then.

  He dropped the rosebuds on the floor and did not stoop to retrieve them. He only stared and continued to stare at Ma, who was seated in that chair that did not rock, rocking.

  Her sweet voice called cheerily. ‘Evenin’, Joe boy! Ain’t you thoughtful, fetchin’ home roses
!’