Coq, page 12
By the time I haul myself up after him, Felix is gone. Ducked into a café, slipped away into the underground. Church bells like fog horns mark the hour: four o’clock. We’re late. A group of protestors with noisemakers and whistles moves towards us. They carry white banners with bloody letters and sloppy globes. ALERTE! Sauvons la TERRE. They’re forced to go around us. They stare at our wet clothes and cuffed hands as if we too are in protest, in demonstration. They look for signs of what we’re trying to save.
Glen drops the key again. It clinks against the manhole cover, but doesn’t fall. This time I retrieve it, poke it deep into my pocket with my mother’s ring, and head toward the Arc. Glen lags behind. I can’t see, but I can tell he’s looking back, looking for Felix. The reedy lament of an accordion plays in some distant café and my poked eye weeps.
“Wait,” Glen calls.
We’ve caught up to the protestors, drumming, chanting. Glen ducks under a drooping sign fixed to a pair of dowels and leads me into a dark cobbled sidestreet that seems too narrow for cars, too narrow for us.
“Claudia,” he says, holding my face, the small plastic chain of the cuffs — grey, not silver—dangling between us. I study the links. If I pull hard enough, they’ll break.
“Everyone’s waiting for us.”
“Us,” he repeats.
I fumble for the key. “Me. They’re waiting for me. This whole trip is supposed to be about my family, my mom. We’re supposed to be remembering her. Do you have any idea what the past ten years have been like? First you leave and then Mom. She had a lover here — in Paris! — and I didn’t even know. There’s so much I don’t know about her and she’s gone and it’s too late and instead of remembering her, I’m remembering us. I don’t want to remember us!”
“Fine!” Glen shouts. “Forget us.” He shakes our cuffed hands, jerking me away from the building I’m using to hold myself up. Water drips from shuttered windows and leafy plants. At the far end of the street, another couple, young and unshackled, stumble into the alley. They are laughing, throwing their heads back, tasting the rain. When they see us, they retreat as though we’re an omen. A premonition. As though we are them. We are them. Were.
“Give me the key,” Glen says, beckoning with his free hand. His eyes are hard now. Serious. As though he’s said give me the gun. And that’s what it feels like, the key in my hand. Lethal. It’s barely out of my pocket, when Glen snatches it, jams it into the keyhole, and starts twisting. His hands are trembling.
“I came all this way,” he says through gritted teeth.
“You also left.”
The key breaks. I shove his hand out of the way, hoping my French manicured nails will be long enough to pinch the broken shaft. They aren’t.
“On three,” Glen says, grasping at his cuffed wrist and bracing himself against the wall.
We count, perfectly in sync, and pull. The cuffs snap. I’m left with the chain.
“There,” he says, staggering, breathing as if the cuffs were made of something much heavier: granite or lead or regret. “You got what you want.” He fiddles with the remaining plastic looped around his wrist. He looks back toward the Champs, still bustling with tourists and Parisians, despite the rain, and then toward the end of the narrow street.
This is the direction he goes. Glen, leaving. He blows by back doors, a smoking chef, a tiny set of stairs that leads nowhere. The street bends and his footsteps lengthen. He reaches the spot where the couple just stood.
“Wait!” I call after him.
He doesn’t wait, doesn’t look back. The chef blows a smoke ring. I watch it rise, bloom, shift, disappear. It’s now quarter after four. My phone buzzes from my pocket.
Wes: where r u?
I type I’m coming.
“Pardon,” I say to the chef, lifting my cuffed wrist over my head. “M’aidez?” Mayday.
The chef, aproned and weary, sucks another drag from his cigarette, crushes the butt under a clogged foot and waves me over. The door is small and we have to duck to get inside. The corridor is dank and narrow, the walls cracked as if they’ve been shot up. He leads me to the edge of a bustling kitchen and grabs a knife from a prep table. He takes my wrist with such tenderness that I start to cry. Curious kitchen staff glare.
When I’m free, he dangles the broken cuff over a garbage can heaping with vegetable peels. I shake my head, take it from him and bury it in my purse. A souvenir. “Merci,” I say, massaging my arm. I turn to go, and then pause. “How do you get to the top of the Arc? You can go up there?”
“You need a ticket,” he says. “Many steps. Beaucoup, beau-coup.”
I nod, skid down the restaurant’s crumbled doorstep and head back to the main road. There are beaucoup de people. I see the placards of the protestors waving in the distance. Schoolgirls, a basketball team? A wave of Chinese tourists. I stare up at the Arc and think I see Dad’s umbrella, Mona’s hair, a beacon.
I reach the roundabout. Impossible. Cars and buses enter and exit at a dizzying pace. Where the hell are the steps? I follow a tour group that’s edging its way around the circle. The guide holds a quaint red megaphone. She walks efficiently, barks short melodic orders, hustles everyone to a set of stairs leading to an underground passageway. I follow, overtake the shuffling tourists, climb the steps to the other side, and there he is. The goddamned mime.
twenty-three
When the mime sees me, he makes a face. Quelle surprise!
Quelle fuck off.
I run. Back down the stairs, through the tour group with their matching red lanyards and jolly faces, and up the steps. I turn mid-flight to see if the mime’s following. He is, was. The tour group is now mauling him. The guide can’t believe her luck.
When I get back outside, I find the least busy street corner and call Dan from a bus stop.
“We’re all waiting for you,” my brother says, irritated. “It’s raining up here.”
“A mime is chasing me.”
Is that Claudia? Dad in the background. Why isn’t she here? We said four o’clock. She’s the one who decided on that time. We’re getting soaked. Why would a grown man dye his hair purple? I need to take my medication. I think those people are protesting something. Mona? What do their signs say? Is it about the roundabout? There’s no way to cross! Damn near got us killed.
“You hear that?” Dan says. “Plus, he got his pants wet and forced Liam to hold his legs up to a hand dryer in a public washroom. Hurry up.”
“There he is!”
“Who?” Dan replies.
“The mime.”
“I think Dad needs his knees replaced. Or his hips. We’ve done way too many stairs today. He’s moving like a stilt walker. I think maybe we should rent him a scooter. I thought he had a referral to see an orthopedic surgeon.”
“Can you just get everybody back to the hotel? Glen and I got into a fight.”
“What about dinner? The kids are starving.”
“We can order in or eat at the hotel. I don’t care. I just need to get away from the mime. Can you see him from up there?”
“New plan,” Dan yells, slightly muffled. “Claudia’s ditching us. We’re going back to the hotel.”
But what about the Eiffel Tower? Dad complains.
I hang up the phone, tuck behind a bus and cross the street. I land at a café with wicker chairs, and tables adorned with chunky glass ashtrays. Pots of weighty red geraniums crowd the entrance.
“Pour un,” I say, lifting a sad digit, the cuff marks on my wrist still a shameful hot pink. “À l’intérieur.” I want to be unseen. The host guides me to a table in the corner near the kitchen. It’s dark and damp. I rub my arms to get warm while an Edith Piaf ballad trickles like rainwater from a ceiling speaker. It’s a bit gloomy. An unlove song. From the kitchen, invisible cooks sing along to Aerosmith.
I order a glass of Burgundy and a hot chocolate. There are mostly tourists here: families sprawled across chairs, knees touching, shopping bags clustered at their feet, phones in hand. American couples, foreign students, a foursome of women in their sixties on a trip of a lifetime. One of them could be my mom. I feel both my aloneness, and the consequences of my choices. Work over love. Playgroups over friend groups. Glen over Felix. My mother’s choices: love over work, mostly. Gerald over friends. Gerald, over Paris. Gerald over easy, over everything, over her. I move my chair closer to the women.
The server brings me a small basket of bread even though I haven’t ordered food. I dip a piece in the hot chocolate because Paris wants me to fall apart. I’m halfway through my wine and a second basket of bread when Dan texts from the hotel.
Joan and I are going out for steak. Dad and Mona are ordering room service and having Emma for a sleepover. Liam wants sushi. Told him he could go without me as long as he goes with Wes.
Okay, I reply, wondering why he’s telling me this. I don’t mind if Wes goes for sushi. I gave him money earlier. He should still have enough.
K, well tell him to hurry. Liam’s hungry.
I put my phone down for a minute. What does he mean by tell him to hurry? Why can’t Dan tell him that himself? Or Liam?
I take too big a sip of wine and it dribbles down my chin. The foursome of ladies is holding hands like they’re about to conduct a séance. The one across from me has her eyes closed. After a few seconds she bursts into reckless laughter. The others follow. I smile. Why don’t you just tell him? I text back.
He’s not answering his texts.
The waiter refills my glass.
Then go to his room.
Can you just ask him please??? I promised Joan we’d go in five minutes. I don’t think you give her enough iron.
My brother, who hasn’t homecooked a meal since Allison-Jean left, giving me nutritional advice. The ladies have ordered fondue and I watch them take turns swirling their elongated forks in the cheese. Behind them, a couple practically sits on top of each other at a single tiny table end. They eat nothing. Then it occurs to me: Dan thinks Wes is with me. It’s the kind of lie Wes would tell. The kind of lie you tell when you’re young and desperately in love and you have to see someone. A life-or-death have to. A never-love-again have to. Such a gorgeous and dangerous feeling. How I felt on the plane with Felix, how I feel with Glen even when I simultaneously hate him. For a moment, as I stare at the couple across from me, their undrunk wine and touching bodies, I feel a tinge of envy more than outrage. But only for a moment.
I down my hot chocolate, which is nearly solid, and text Wes: where are you??
I stare at my phone screen, watch the familiar blinking ellipses that indicates a response is in progress, and wait.
And wait.
And wait.
One of the ladies has proposed a toast and the women hold their glasses up in anticipation. The waiter, about to dump another serving of bread on their cluttered table, pauses theatrically, a hand behind his back. I can’t hear what or who is being toasted. A new beginning? An end? Maybe nothing. Perhaps they are raising a glass to all the moments that make up a life in between: the messy commutes, stitched lips, and disheveled relationships, the miracles and mistakes, the Hail Marys, the bad haircuts, the hail.
After a few minutes, the ellipses vanish. Wes never replies. He is there, here, but also not.
Hello??? I type, hoping he’ll reconsider, but this time, nothing.
The toast is over and the women all slurp their wine. I hastily pick up my glass and mimic them, splashing Burgundy on my phone. To missing children, I think as I motion to the waiter for my bill. I dab my screen with a napkin and log in to the find-my-phone app. I will track Wes, scold him, ground him, take a picture of him and Célestine and then drag him back to the hotel by his heart. Except his device is not on the find-my-phone app. Glen bought him a new one in August and I forgot to register it.
I pay for my “meal” and send one more text to Wes: just tell me you’re safe.
He replies with a thumbs-up emoji.
No response when I ask: where are you?
Of course I know where he is. The Eiffel Tower. Where we’d planned to go this evening. Travel bloggers recommended going at night when it’s all lit up. Wes would have told Célestine our plan. He wouldn’t have told her it changed.
Outside it’s dusky and warm, the sky still dense with rain-clouds and crows and the longings of a thousand strangers navigating the city’s grey sidewalks. Garbage trucks careen through narrow streets. The only children are tourists, overtired and practically dressed. Half-eaten bags of cotton candy spill from stroller crevasses. The soft coo of a pigeon sooths the growing tension in my neck. In the distance, more protestors and the flash of a yellow coat. Felix is all I think. The look on his face when he held up Glen’s shoe. Something on the spectrum of hope and despair.
I don’t even know what arrondissement I’m in. I follow a crowd down the stairs of the nearest entrance to the Metro and check the wall map. Without asking, a man halts beside me, taps at the Eiffel Tower stop on the line, Champ de Mars, and then carries on. I never see his face. I know I don’t look French in my faded romper but I hate that I look so stereotypical.
It takes me five minutes to buy a ticket, on account of trying to swipe my Tim Horton’s Rewards card instead of my Visa. Rattled, I blunder the turnstile, and clothesline myself. On the train, I tell Dan that Wes might be a while and suggest he take Liam with him to get steak because he too is probably iron-deficient.
The trip is short. Only three stops. I exit, walk along the river toward the unlit tower. The top third is blanketed in mist. In the glow of the surrounding streetlights, it looks robust and industrial. A worksite at night. Spectacular.
I search for Wes but am distracted by the air. It crackles with anticipation. It’s almost nine o’clock and people around the tower pace and shift, waiting for it to light up, their necks craned and hands squeezed. I squeeze my own hand, take my mother’s ring from my pocket and slip it on my finger. She would have loved this.
I break from the crowd and weave my way to the other side of the tower’s edge. The foursome of ladies from the restaurant is off to the side, sprawled on the grass, untroubled and unshoed. Their belongings are scattered around them, thoughtlessly. One uses her purse as a pillow, hands crossed over her stomach, gazing at the clouds. The four of them look like troops who’ve returned from battle and found pretty girls, candy bars and cigarettes in their tents. The grass is wet.
I check my phone. 8:59 p.m. The crowd is loud now. No words, just undiscernible noise. Like the ocean on a January morning. I spin, hopelessly searching for Wes between the rows of tour busses and patches of grass and squares of cool concrete.
I stop to catch my breath below the centre of the tower, when it lights up. The crowd ooohs. I gasp. It’s overwhelming and frenetic and there’s no one here to witness it with me. This seemingly benign fact breaks my heart and I find myself crying. “Oh, Mom,” I whisper, closing my eyes. I strain to feel her presence but sense only my pulse, the hot flare of tears on my cheeks and the tension in my jaw. The space around me.
I wipe my face, exhale, and resume searching for Wes. The tower lights continue to flicker, tourists stroll and then I see them: Wes and Célestine, standing face to face, holding hands in the light of a hot dog cart. My son, in love and nearly unrecognizable, softened like a sandcastle touched by the tide.
“Wes!” I holler.
Wes looks up, makes eye contact, looks at Célestine. They run.
twenty-four
My son, the romantic, fleeing with Célestine like some kind of schoolboy Casanova. Some kind of Glen. Some kind of asshole. My instinct is to call or text him. He’s not going to answer. He’s going to have one night in Paris and spend the rest of the trip paying for it. I have to call Glen.
I dial, half-jogging. A group of men whistle and catcall in some foreign language. I should be appalled. I should tell them to smile or frig off, but the truth is, I enjoy it. I need people to believe in me right now. Give me all the whistles.
Wes and Célestine get caught up in a group of seniors boarding a tour bus. A French woman in a fall coat yells at me, raising a wooden cane. Wes looks back and then disappears with Célestine behind a shiny black bus.
“Hello?” Glen answers.
“It’s me,” I say, huffing.
“I can’t talk right now.”
“Wes is making me chase him. He lied and said he was with me but he met this girl at the Cathedral and I caught them having a secret date near the Eiffel Tower. Just a second . . . Wes, stop! He’s not stopping. Oh, for fuck’s sake. They’re crossing a bridge. I need your help.”
In the background, a voice asks: is that her?
I stop in the middle of the street, plug my free ear, and listen. “Glen?”
Silence. A motorcycle rips around me, its driver bearded, leather-chapped and temperamental. He gestures with a gloved hand and I can’t tell if he wants to drive over my forehead or bend me over his bike. I cross the street toward the bridge.
“Glen, where are you?”
I hear her again in the background. Extra French, likely petite, probably not wearing a bra. She’s close enough to Glen’s phone I can distinguish her breath from his. Taut as a tightrope.
“I’m at a friend’s,” he says.
Do we have friends in Paris? Does Glen? And is she a friend as in friend or a friend as in “friend”?
“Did you even hear what I said? Wes is not answering his phone and he’s running around Paris like some lovesick criminal.”
“So, love is a crime now?”
Christ almighty. “I dunno, Glen. The handcuff mark on my wrist would suggest it is.”
There’s a long pause and I use the interval to search for Wes. The bridge isn’t as crowded as I expected. A few people linger along the ornate railing, but most are on the move, tall Europeans in the lead, puny travellers at the back, and a single wheelchair cruising up the midline.
“God, Claudia, you’ve changed. Just let Wes be. It’s one night of his life. Love that makes you crazy doesn’t come around that often. The last thing he needs right now is for you to wreck it for him.”
