“Push!”
“What?”
“Push!”
No way, I’m thinking. This dude is gonna get my shit in his car, get me behind it to ‘push’ and leave me standing in a cloud of french smoke. I began to reconsider his pathetically bourgeois plan to ‘see America’. This’ll be cool. I can be ripped off less than, hmmm, 100 seconds after arriving in Paris. Might be some kind of record . . . .
I wasn’t really buying his story about working in computers anyway. It’s the same sort of crap people say in the states when they mean unemployed. It’s always something about ‘exploring new opportunities.’ He was your basic french-looking dude, asymmetrical and dichromic, more like somebody I’d suspect than somebody I’d talk to, and he dropped in the cabin I’d picked on the train. I’d started in Stuttgart talking to this oddly LA-looking Austrian who taught French at a high- school in Brussels, but I watched her disappear into the sunset at the border crossing.
Just before the french police came through demanding, “Billets et passports!” he’d proudly proclaimed the seat across from me to be his, such information being embossed on his ticket. I have found the image of the ever-helpful friendly police to exist all over the world, where-ever police are, and these were no exception. They first thought he was hassling me. Obviously he felt I was questioning his right to such a claim, or so I thought by the way they’d thrown him into his seat. They began a spirited discussion of which my meager grasp of French allowed me little insight. Basically they wanted to see his ID, quickly. He objected to something so the police offered him the seat across the cabin, up close. He picked himself up off of the floor babbling and pointing at me, which I judged to be a poor development – and wholly inappropriate, since I didn’t like him already.
The obviously bitter officer started with German, apparently she’d not yet realized my rebel heritage. All I understood was she wanted to know why I was mowing this man’s refrigerator. So I stammered my first real conversation in a foreign language… two actually “Bitte, bitte, ich nicht bin der duescht-lander. Je suis Américainne, et mon français n’est pas très bien. Vous prenez mes billets et fichez-mois la paix.”
I thought I was being polite, but the dead silence that followed that statement would’ve impressed E. F. Hutton. I swear I think the train actually stopped dead on the tracks. I actually considered how I might squeeze through that little vent window and leap from the train to freedom. After an interminable period of watching them staring at each other I said, “S’il vous plaît?”
At this point the laughter began. I do mean began. The big really ugly cop started pointing at me and bending over like he had a bad gastrointestinal problem while his partner slapped his back. It was truly embarrassing. The commotion brought out the porter, then the snack’n’soda boy, then the folks in the cabin behind us, then the folks in the cabin in front of us, then the engineer . . .
The bitter cop looked like her face was going to break she was smiling so wide. She pushed me back down in my seat and said, “Study your French, American,” and turned laughing to the porter, between what I can only describe as rather unflattering imitations of my attempt at foreign language.
Meanwhile this guy grabs my hand and begins introducing himself and we’re all laughing and smiling at each other and everybody’s happy and there’s no trace of the brawl that started the thing in the first place.
“Xavier, my name is Xavier Chicken,” he said, “how are you?”
( I should point out that not only is my grasp of language bedsides English is rather limited but it seems to be a recurring source of entertainment for me and others. Please bear with me.)
“Chicken?” say I.
“What?”
He looked more confused than I. “You said, ‘Poulet,’ right?” I asked.
“No, no, no, not poo-lay, it is puh-lay, like the small-wheel.”
“Like pulley?”
“NO! Puh-ley, Puh-LEY!”
“OK there, dude, settle down, eh?”
I saw him watch the police who were guffawing and backslapping their way out the door disappear down the hall as he asked, “Do you know America well?”
I didn’t answer. He turned to face me across the cabin and smiled. “They wanted to inspect our passports. Almost no one tries to ride without tickets. They try to see where you come from last. Have you been to Holland?”
I had presumed that my neo-hippy long-haired vagrant look carried its own connotations for Europeans, but I wasn’t sure what it was. My best guess was that they would presume my american-ness since no one dressed this poorly in Europe would bathe regularly. Such was not the case. The consensus instead seemed to be that I must be descended of landowner stock, floating about on some sort of independently wealthy soul-quest, and nobody seemed to care at all where I might have been raised. Nevertheless, this Xavier seemed to be making assumptions about me, and extremely accurate ones at that.
I smiled and gave my best bullshit southern chuckle, the one that goes with the big-smiley handshake.
“I thought so,” he said. His tone then changed and he asked, “This is not your first trip to Paris?”
“No, I was here last week,” I smiled as I thought back, “and I had to go back to see if it was really as nice as I thought it was the first time.”
He looked amused. “You liked Paris very much then.”
“Yes, very much.” I laughed and said, “I suppose though everyone who sees Paris loves it at first.”
“Not really no. Actually, even the tourists hate Paris. They usually think it is old and dirty and crowded.”
He pulled a blue trimmed pack of cigarettes from inside his coat. As he fingered an outside pocket he<
pointed at my half-spent Monte Cristo and mumbled, “Do you ever light your cigars?”
“No,” I replied, “I quit smoking last year. I only picked this up when someone gave me my first Cuban last week.”
I’m constantly looking for something to do with my hands and these perfectly-rolled cigars are the real deal. They still avail me a dramatic pause when I can’t think of anything to say, and provide a wonderful bit to gnaw when I need to not say what I’m thinking.
“That is bad for me,” he said, “I do not have a match it seems.”
“No smoking anyway.” I pointed to the sign by the cabin door. It showed the two sets of three seats as they faced each other, all but one labeled unreserved, and read no smoking in four languages.
“Bastards,” he says.
“Yeah, can’t smoke anywhere in the states except in your bedroom closet, and even then you’ve gotta lock the door.” He looked extremely concerned. When I saw his surprise I said, “Not really. It‘s a joke.”
“It is a dream of mine to go to the United States,” he said, which of course sounded like a joke to me.
It wasn’t. He actually had me scrawl a map of the states on the back of an old set list. Then I labeled the steps of your basic New York-to-Las Vegas sort of tourist thing. After spending a good deal of time convincing him that he needed a car to travel America and that he could definitely have a blast for 24 days with $10g’s, I had to convince him that Disneyworld, New York and Las Vegas were most certainly not America.
Back in the streets.
If you were using a Java-enabled browser, you would see my clickable pocket map of Paris. It looks like this:
The car lurched and choked as I dived into the front seat. It was a little red Citroën of some type, but it seemed eager to run. It belched that cloud of french diesel and roared out with a clatter of valves and gears. As I righted myself in the seat Xavier floored the throttle and the door slammed shut.
“Do you know where you are going?” he asked.
“Well, you said Cluny, right?” I asked digging for my pocket map o’Paris.
“Yes, I know, but do you know Le Quartier Latin?” he said as his smile grew.
“Well, uh yeah… sort of,” was my unconvincing reply.
“You will like it. The nightlife is veerrryy different. And your hotel is very near.” I knew I didn’t like look in his eye then.
“Wait a minute,” I said, ” this isn’t a gay-thing is it? I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just –”
“Oh, mais oui, people are very happy there-”
“No, not gay-happy, man, I mean gay-poof, you know… I mean I didn’t come here to-”
“Poof? Ah–, no, no,” he said, “but you should be careful. An american in Paris can find trouble easily.”
There was a twist in his expression I wasn’t sure about, but the smile behind it looked… well, scary I suppose.
Gare du Nord I was scouring my map for a street called rue du Sommerade . It simply wasn’t there. When they made the map they drew the street but neglected to name it or to include it in the index on the back or something. I didn’t know this until after I was already in the hotel. All I knew was I needed to call the hotel and find out what metro-rail station I needed to go to, but I wasn’t looking forward to trying to extract information from the night clerk at any Paris hotel which I could afford. At the time I assumed I must’ve looked lost, because Xavier offered his assistance out of the kindness of his heart – which is something that makes me suspicious no matter whose heart it is.
“I will call for you,” he announced as he took the travel agent’s little ‘reservation reminder’ from me. He stepped off the platform, dropped some shrapnel into a phone and started blah-blah-blahing his way through directions to the hotel. Two minutes later I’ve agreed to help him push his car because it ‘might’ need a roll start. I’d wager that car never had a starter, at least not one that required electricity. It was small though, and it rolled quite easily with two of us pushing it.
The lights of Paris zipped past the little Citroën like a star-shower, each one stealing my attention from another I’d seen long enough to study. I found myself hanging wide-eyed out the window of this buggy that Xavier was driving like a ride at the fair.
As we drove he gave me a free tour of Paris, from the Gare de l’Est westward through town, around the Arc de Triomphe , past the Louvre and across the pont du Carousel (which I marked on my map) to the fabled Rive Gauche. I’d wanted to stay near the heart of the museum district and asked my travel agent to find me a nice safe refuge for my stay. Nonetheless, when he stopped the car in front of a place with, “Best Western” on its big yellow sign and announced, “Le Jardin de Cluny,” I couldn’t have cared less about where it was.
I bounded out of the little bug car and without thinking ran around to the driver’s side of the car to thank my native guide. As I rounded the trunk I heard the engine rev and got one of those awful sinking feelings. I was out, my stuff was in. As I ran to the window I saw Xavier laughing.
“Easy trouble,” he chuckled. “You should have left your money home American.” The engine revved again and he screeched away down the street. But just after I lost all hope for the goodness of humanity the little car stopped. It whirred and swerved and came screeching back toward me. Xavier flipped the window latch and opened the little split window. His head popped out the opening and he laughed, “But tonight you’re my guest.”
He let the engine settle and turned the key off with the car sitting in the middle of the street. The door flew open and he jumped out.
“And,” he said proudly, “it just so happens that your host is … an old acquaintance of mine.” The trunk thunked loudly as he spun the key. He reached in for one of my bags as I grabbed the other. “Just ask Henri at the desk here where you can find Valaire, and tell him Xavier said, ‘Hello,'” he said, looking quite amused.
I threw my other shoulder under my backpack and reached to shake his outstretched hand.
“Thanks for all your help, Xavier” I said, “I couldn’t have done it without you.” He let my hand go and I grabbed my trusty laptop out of the trunk. I’d started to turn to go when I asked, “But tell me… who’s Valaire?”
“Thank you for all your help, American. I will see you again.” he said, ignoring my question. He turned and jumped in the little red car and wound it up to run. Then he stopped, rolled down the window and said, “And don’t tell her where you are staying.” Then the car coughed and sputtered and he rolled off down the street, around the corner and was gone.
As I strolled up to the lobby of the hotel I could see the night clerk peering anxiously through the curtains. The street was quiet after the rattly Citroën rounded the corner; he had certainly heard us arrive. There was a hint of apprehension in his expression. His thin figure moving behind the desk looked palsy, his features angular and gaunt. He smiled weakly and held his right hand by the wrist as he offered it for shaking.
“How do you do?” he asked as he shook my hand and retreated behind his counter. He fumbled with a pile of paperwork, muttering in french. ” Voilà,” he said, extracting one of those room cards with the little holes in it.
He began scribbling on a small white card as he handed me my key.
“Chambre…. cinq-cent treize,” he motioned away from the street, “take the elevator to five one three. Breakfast downstairs, uh 6 to 10…”
He placed the key into my hand as I stared. He noticed my distress but just shook my hand while he continued writing with his left.
“Is there a problem?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied, “Yes, maybe. I’ve yet to put down my bag, let alone prove who I am, and you….”
“Are you not the american friend of Monsieur Pullet? I saw him deliver you.”
“Yes, but I…”
“Monsieur Pullet said to have your room ready, and you will be arranging your bill later.” He stepped around the counter and reached for my bag, the big one I always check when I’m on the airlines. I snagged it away just before he reached it. He looked up and shrugged. “As you wish.
Bonsoir.”
“You must be Henri.” I said, turning under my bag, struggling to carry it to the elevator.
“Most definitely, I am.” He stood up tall and straight, an action that certainly caused his curved spine no end of pain.
“Très bien, Henri. Au revoir.”
“Oui, oui.” he replied.
I walked to the elevator, pressed the up button and began the long wait on the elevator. Nothing happened for a couple of minutes until Henri walked up and showed me the elevators needed a room key to make the call buttons work. Eventually it arrived and I squeezed myself in it. It really resembled an dumb-waiter inside. It was just large enough for me and my two pieces of luggage. Just barely. Then the little light marked “5 ” lit and the door opened.
Nothing there. It was totally black, except for a small patch of floor where the interior light for the elevator lit a bit of black carpeting. Ever the brave one, I tossed my big bag across the elevator door. Apparently there was a motion switch there, as the hallway lit up when my bag hit the floor.
I slid the key in and out of the door, it clicked co-operatively and the door opened. My room was equipped with the same detectors, lighting as the door opened. It was very small, about the size of an elevator, with one window, a small toilette and shower, a small TV, a small bed, and a small desk, complete with a small “Gideon’s Bible”. The window had a view of the other rooms on my floor. We were all built around a square viewing the tiny ten foot by ten foot garden/courtyard below.
I’d boarded the train six or seven hours earlier and had developed quite an appetite since then. I decided to ask Henri where I could eat. I looked at my watch. It was twenty ‘til midnight in Paris and I wanted pizza. Time being of the utmost importance I grabbed my wallet and stepped out the door, looking back in the room just in time to see my room key disappear behind my locked door. No problem, I thought, I’ll just get another from Henri. Except that it was dark in the hallway. And I had no key with which to call the elevator. The light worked with the elevator door. After a bit of groping about I found what I suspected to be a stairwell door and turned the knob.