Bastille Day, page 8
We were bouncing trough to trough in a speedboat across that lake, then speeding under a highway bridge. Rebecca’s boyfriend was driving, fast and a little sloppy, since he was sloppy drunk, and I was lying across the back seat, swimsuit on, shirt off, ready to jump for my life if necessary.
“You two make such a beautiful couple,” Rebecca was saying to Kelly, who was nodding.
“I know, right? Look at that face. Look at those abs.” She smiled, indicated herself. “Look at these boobs. State of the art.”
“I know,” Rebecca said. “You have got to set me up with your surgeon.” She shouted across at me. “Calvin!” For she was a little toasted as well. She had rented a margarita machine for the back deck, and I had seen her make a steady series of pilgrimages there before we set out. “Calvin!”
“Present,” I said.
“When are you going to pop the question to this beautiful lady?”
A whoop came from the front of the boat, Rebecca’s boyfriend veered hard to the side to avoid a buoy that somehow he had not noticed until the last moment and then veered back, we sort of all fell into the floor in a heap, and the prospect of impending death rescued me from an answer.
But afterwards, in our room looking out over the water, as I looked at those quite impressive breasts and I suppose she was taking in my not-unimpressive abs—I did my best—I couldn’t help speaking what felt like some truth.
“You know that’s not love,” I said, indicating the two of us with a hand. “Matching body parts. Attractive couples.”
“Cal,” she snorted. “What does that matter? We look good together. We are good together. We don’t expect too much. And the sex is good.” She took my hand, put it on one of those breasts.
“The sex is good,” I said. And we didn’t expect too much. Those things, at least, I could assent to.
Now I looked around Harry’s New York Bar on a Paris afternoon.
“The things that break us make it hard to see past them,” I murmured, now. “How real happiness might be possible.” I didn’t mean for Frederick to overhear, but he was nodding.
“I do not know you well, Monsieur. But I see things. I know that you both are afraid that there is no more than what you have seen and felt up to now.” He picked up another glass, another bottle, began to pour. “I am only a bartender. But, as I say, I see much from this spot.” He indicated the bar, himself. “I see that this hard life is also full of possibility for those who will stop being afraid.”
This hard life.
I thought of Khalid, my friend, my lifeline, disappearing in a flash of light. Of my father dying in the midst of his boys, who afterward wept and fired their M-4s toward all the points of the compass in the tiny hope they might inflict some pain on somebody with some connection to that murderous device.
I thought of DPD Officer James Reynolds, who bled out beneath my very fingertips.
And I thought of possibility.
Ten years ago, Rob had sat across from me in Killeen, Texas, and challenged me to go on living, just as this bartender, this whisky priest Frederick was doing now.
“I do not know your story, my friend,” he said. “But I do know that now is the time when it could change.” He shook his head. “Life does not offer us many such chances.”
Maybe only one or two in a lifetime.
I nodded, and I was decided.
“I will try to be brave,” I said.
He nodded, then smiled broadly. “Do more than that, Monsieur Cal,” he said. “Take a shower. Meet this woman for dinner. Make her happy.” He began washing the dirty glassware. There was a lot of it now. Rob and I had not been Frederick’s sole customers, although we had been his best. “Maybe the world changes. Here. Now.”
“And if not?” I said. “What if this really is as good as it’s ever going to be?”
He laughed and indicated the shelves behind him with his head. “Then it is good to know that there is always something to drink at Harry’s Bar. And that you know a bartender.”
“True that,” I said. I got to my feet. It was time to try something new.
Inshallah.
7.
Paris
July 13, 2016
Wednesday
I stood under the water in my tiny shower for a long long time, trying to get a little bit more sober and to get the Seine off me and to wash the stench of my fear down the drain. The water went from hot to warm to lukewarm to cold, and yet I stood while Mumford & Sons played loud in my living room—“And I’ll find strength in pain”—one song after another about living with courage and coming out of your cage and facing the ghosts of your past, damn them.
Okay. Okay. I get it. I do not require an entire book full of attempts to get me to eat green eggs and ham. I’m convinced. I will eat them on a boat. And I will eat them with a goat.
And then my phone rang from the bathroom sink: Rock the Casbah. I turned off the water, reached out, checked the caller. Rob.
“Hey,” he said. “Are you at dinner?”
“No,” I said. “We’re meeting at 8:30. Are things okay over there? Did you tell her?” I threw a towel around myself to at least slow down the dripping.
“No. And yes. She is pissed, Cal. She is so angry at me. She’s in the bedroom crying. Right now. I can hear her.” Then he went into whispers—real whispers, as opposed to drunk stage whispers. “Cal, what if I lose her? I should never have told her. Oh my God. This was a terrible decision.”
“Could you live with yourself?” I paused to listen. “If you didn’t tell her?”
There was silence on his end.
“Brigid loves you,” I said. I could see that the other night, the way she looked at him, the way they finished each other’s sentences. “She loves you and she admires you. And yes, she is pissed as hell right now. She was always going to be.”
My phone buzzed. Grand Central Station. Please take a number.
My Uncle Jack on the other line. I shot him a canned text: “Can I call you back?”
“Stay strong,” I said. “Listen to some Mumford and Sons.”
“What? What does that even mean? Cal, help me. She’s crying like I’ve never heard her cry before. Like someone died. Like I broke something precious.” I could hear the terror and despair in his voice. If he lost this, if he lost her, what would he be?
I didn’t even want to think about a world with a hopeless Rob in it. I even thought about saying a prayer.
Then there was a voice in the background—Brigid.
“It’s Cal,” Rob said. Something I couldn’t hear. But with an edge to it. “No. He told me to tell you.”
There was a moment, maybe a scuffle. The phone being handed over. Or ripped loose.
“Cal,” Brigid wailed. She did sound like she had been crying. I envisioned her eyes red, her face puffy. “Did you know this? Have you always known?”
“No,” I said. “I found out today. Just like you did.” I took a deep breath. “But I know the same man you know. The one who saved my life when I was trying to step off the planet. The man I will always love and admire.”
There was a sniff, then a full-blown sob on the other end.
“Brigid,” I went on, “you know Rob better than anyone else. But I know him too. He’s my dearest friend. And the most honest man I’ve ever known. He’s got more integrity in his little finger than I have in my whole body.” I paused, tried to think about how to put this. “I don’t think what happened in Iraq was about betraying you. It was about thanking someone who rescued him.”
“You do not have to say thank you with your dick,” she wailed, then caught herself. “Forgive me.”
Well. There is that.
But.
“Brigid,” I said. “Sometimes the only way to say thank you is with the most precious thing you have. That woman saved him for you, and for me, and for the world.” I looked at myself in the mirror, dripping, my hair a mess. I needed to be at Fontaine de Mars in mere minutes. But I doubled down: sometimes the hard truth is the only medicine that will heal.
“Do you believe that he loves you and only you?”
There was a small groan from her end of the line.
“Do you believe that Rob is a person who seeks to do what is right?”
Silence.
“Do you know how much courage it took to tell you this thing that he could have kept from you forever?”
Nothing. From the living room, Mumford & Sons sang: “I really fucked it up this time, didn’t I, my dear?”
“Brigid,” I went on. “I cannot tell you not to be angry. I was surprised when Rob told me today, but I got my head around it. It has not changed the way I think about him. I came across the Atlantic to work for him because he is the finest human being I have ever known. That’s all. He still is.”
She sobbed. I waited. It slowed. I could hear her trying to stop.
“You are a good friend,” she said. “Of course you will defend him.”
“Brigid,” I said, “it’s more than that. Without Rob I would not be on the planet. You know that. And I have to believe that my being here is a good thing, somehow.”
“Of course it is,” she said.
There was a long pause.
She sniffed. Then she decided.
“He is sleeping on the couch tonight,” she said.
“Okay,” I said. I could accept that. “Will I see you tomorrow at the Cathedral?”
“Yes,” she said. “He said you are going to bring a girl. Your girl. This Nadia.”
“Jesus,” I said. “He told you that she’s my girl?”
“Don’t blaspheme. Rob said you need to do this. That you have not loved anyone in too long.” I could hear that she still preferred Allison, although I was sure that was low on her current list of issues.
“Do you believe him when he says such things?” I asked.
There was a moment’s silence, then a sniff. “Yes,” she said. “Of course I do.”
“Please put him back on,” I said. “I’ve got to go meet her. This Nadia.”
“Cal,” he said. I could tell he’d been crying too. “What did you say to her?”
“Just the truth,” I said. “Get a comfortable pillow. You may be on the couch for a while.”
He laughed. Actually laughed. “You should get going. You’re headed to the restaurant, right?”
“Yes,” I lied. “You okay?”
“No,” he said. “But maybe I will be. Thank you.”
“De nada,” I said. “Or whatever the French version of that might be. I’ll see you.”
I hung up. Uncle Jack had texted me back: “Call me when you can.”
After I brushed my hair and my teeth, I put on deodorant and a spritz or two of Spicebomb, this cologne in a black grenade bottle that Kelly McNair had gotten me for Christmas. Despite the packaging, I liked it. It was bracing. I tugged on a nice pair of khakis, a crisp blue button-down shirt, a striped Repp tie, a black blazer. I slid my feet into some nice black Oxfords I usually wore with a suit. They were polished to a sheen—I could see myself in them.
Then I walked down the stairs and over a few blocks to the restaurant. I checked in with the maître d’ and looked around. No Nadia. We still had a few minutes before our reservation time.
“I can seat you now, Monsieur Jones,” the maître d’ said, “if you wish. I have zis outdoor table for you.”
“Very good,” I said. Now that I was here, I was suddenly short of breath. I could feel the sweat dripping down my spine. What if she didn’t come? What if I was now ready to climb the mountain—and the mountain could not be found?
I was seated in front of the restaurant on the sidewalk. The pedestrian traffic was substantial—lots of people in town for le 14 juillet, which Frederick had informed me is what French people call Bastille Day. My waiter checked in with me, and asked in French whether I wanted French or English menus. I hesitated, which was all the information he needed. “I will get zose right out,” he said in English. “Would you like anything to drink?”
“Kir Royale,” I said, and he went off to put that order in.
I surreptitiously checked my watch. She was late. 8:40.
I looked back up the street behind me, checked the traffic. A sanitation truck was coming down the street. 8:45.
She wasn’t coming.
Oh well, I thought. I was willing to try, at least. Maybe that proved something.
“Calvin?” came the soft voice from behind me.
I turned. “Nadia?”
She nodded, put her hand briefly on my shoulder, slid into the seat across from me. She was wearing a navy skirt, a white blouse. She looked like an old-time movie star.
Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. Backlit. Luminous.
Stunning.
Of all the gin joints in all the world …
I didn’t say it.
She had a small metallic silver clutch that she slid onto her side of the table. “I’m so sorry,” she said. She took a deep breath, let it out. “I was sitting in the bar at the Four Seasons. Time got away from me.” She looked down at the red-checked table, then across at me. “I don’t know why I thought I needed a drink.” She smiled.
“Maybe you were nervous,” I said. “Or scared, even.”
She looked across at me sharply. “Of course I’m scared,” she said. “What person jumps into the Seine who isn’t scared?”
I picked up a fork, turned it left and right. “I just—” I set it back on the table. “Well.” I raised my hands. “Frederick—at Harry’s—he told me we were both scared.” I shrugged, smiled, ready to move on if this didn’t land.
“Frederick? The bartender?” She smiled. “He stands there so quietly.”
I shrugged. “But he sees everything.”
She shrugged in turn. “I thought about not coming. About just eating at the Four Seasons bar,” she said. “Ali can certainly afford it. But my mind rebelled at the prices. Did you know that their Club Sandwich was 86 euros?”
“Holy shit,” I said. “Sorry. I do like a good club sandwich. But isn’t that, like, $100 American?”
“Exactly,” she said. “I could not do it.” She sighed. “What is wrong with me? Maybe I’ll get used to conspicuous consumption. Maybe I’ll eat hundred-dollar sandwiches every day.”
Maybe she would. I looked away. All right, then. I felt a gate in my head swing shut with a clang.
Okay. I pulled out my pad, clicked my pen. “So. Let’s get started. When was the last time that you saw your father?”
“Hmmm,” she said. She pursed her lips. “I think it is many years now. The last time—I was in prep school. At Phillips Exeter. He drove up from New York. He was in the States for a meeting with some American petroleum engineers.”
“Did he say anything about what he had planned for your future?”
“Then?” She shook her head. “But I knew. I had friends from Saudi who had been sent to Cornell, Baylor, Vanderbilt. They expected that they would wind up back in Saudi eventually, married to someone very rich. I don’t know that they were disturbed by that as I was. Let’s just say that they had different goals.”
“Could you have told your father that you did not want to marry someone you did not love?”
She shook her head, looked at me gently. “That isn’t done in my culture,” she said. “I am intelligent, and I have opinions and desires. There are things I hope to accomplish. But in Saudi Arabia, family is everything, and the man is the man. A man decides if you can work, if you can travel. A man makes every important decision. And most of the unimportant ones.” She looked into the street, where the garbage truck was collecting trash right next to us, and then back at me. “What about your parents, Calvin? When did you last see your father?”
“Almost ten years,” I said.
“Ten years?”
“He died in Fallujah,” I said. “On Bastille Day, 2007.”
“I’m sorry. He was a soldier, then?”
Oh yes,” I said. “To the core.”
“Do you miss him?”
I watched the garbage truck from my angle, looked down at the table, across at her. I could not say yes or no to that.
“We left many things unfinished,” I said.
“And your mother?”
“Dead before that,” I said. “A long time before that. She was lovely. I think.”
“Oh, Calvin,” she said. “I am sorry for all of that.” She looked up from the table and into my eyes. She had beautiful brown eyes.
“Well,” I said. “At least they aren’t around to try and force me to marry someone. Although my aunt and uncle kindly would like to do that.”
“Kindly?”
“It’s a true Texan expression,” I said. “Instead of ‘kind of,’ I guess.”
“Kindly,” she repeated to herself. “I did not learn this at Rice. So your aunt and uncle would kindly like for you to marry the society girlfriend?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Kelly McNair. She is beautiful. Perfect. And cold as the grave. I don’t know what she thinks or what she wants or what she loves.” I sighed. “And I guess she’d say the same about me.” I shook my head, shook all the cobwebs loose, turned back to my list of questions. “How long have you known that your father intended to marry you to a wealthy Saudi?”
She looked down at her red nails. “Is all this really what you want to ask me?”
“I thought we were here to talk about your arranged marriage.” I indicated my pad. I actually did have questions. “Not mine.”
“Is that why you invited me tonight? Why you put on your nice shoes?” She actually smirked a little, her nose twitching. “Why you sprayed yourself with cheap aftershave?”
I put my pen down. I was having a hard time keeping a straight face.
“It’s cologne,” I said. “And I have it on very good report that it is not cheap.”
“Is that why you pulled me out of the water today, Calvin?” she persisted. “Because I was a story? A subject for you to interrogate?”
