Antanas Sileika - Underground

Even though a full two hours had passed since they entered the café, the men were not happy at first when he wanted to leave them. They had intended to drink with him all night. But they had become French in one way: when he said a woman was waiting for him, they understood immediately and released him from any further obligation.

Lukas lurched back down the rue St-Paul but did not find Monika at the kitchen door of the school. The whole building was locked up. He walked out guiltily to the rue Sully, where he found her on a bench near the metro station. She had a book on her lap but was looking at the trees that lined the river.

“I’m sorry,” said Lukas. “It was very hard to get away.”

“That’s all right. I expected as much and I was enjoying the day.” She looked at him as he flopped into place beside her. “Did the legionnaires do you in with their beers?”

“I’m a little drunk,” he admitted.

“Maybe we should go for a walk. It might clear your head.”

“Good idea. Just let me smoke a cigarette first.”

“I don’t remember you smoking when I saw you in Germany.”

“No. I smoked sporadically back home. I’ve taken it up again here. I think it helps me to relax and reflect, and it helps to pass the time.”

“I thought you were frightfully busy.”

“I am, but it’s a strange kind of busyness. Back in Lithuania, even though I handled the newspapers, I was in constant movement when the weather permitted it. Here, I’m sitting all the time. It makes me restless. Sometimes I feel as if I’m going to explode.”

“You just need exercise. Come on, let’s walk. It will sober you up, too.”

Monika was slightly maternal in this way, taking care of him, and he enjoyed being in her care more than he liked to admit. It was too soon to permit himself these types of feelings.

He butted the cigarette, rose, felt a little dizzy from the beer and then steadied himself.

They crossed the street and walked along the quay of the right bank, passing the bookstalls in the dappled light. The quay was full of people doing the same as they were. It all appeared so normal, so pleasant, as if the war had never happened. None of the buildings had any bomb damage. To Lukas it seemed both wonderful and slightly unjust that one place should be so lucky. Cities as well as people had destinies, and Paris was one of the lucky ones.

“What was it like when you arrived here?” Lukas asked.

“It was all excitement and light, even though the war was still on, but I don’t think about it very much anymore. When I was young I always wanted to visit Paris because my uncle was here and he seemed so sophisticated. He brought us Eiffel Tower souvenirs, and I kept one on my bookcase all through school. When I first got here I wanted to drink in every moment, but now it’s fallen into the background. Sometimes life here is very hard, for all the beautiful buildings.”

“Paris was the dream of a whole different class from the one I grew up in,” said Lukas. “I came from a farm, and Kaunas was already as big a dream as I ever imagined.”

“It’s important not to feel intimidated by Paris.”

“How is it possible not to be intimidated? Just look at this place.”

“Places aren’t as important as the people who live in them.”

“That’s right, but the two are linked. The people grow out of the place. They belong to it.”

“If that were true, no one would ever migrate. The Indians would still rule America.”

Lukas laughed. “I know I don’t make much sense, but some people have a stronger affinity to the land than others.”

“Are you homesick?”

“A little, but not as much as you’d think. I feel a sense of responsibility. I’m like a soldier whose leave has ended but who can’t get back to his unit.”

“But you’re in Paris—you should enjoy yourself a little.”

“I think I’m doing that. What’s your life like here?”

“I live with my mother and sister. I’m going to school at the Alliance Française in the evening to improve my French, and I have a new job in a pharmaceutical laboratory as a cleaner, rinsing the test tubes. I’ve applied to study nursing, and for that my French must be impeccable.”

“What do you like best about living here?”

“The slowness of things. Where we come from, the men drink vodka in shots, and once you sit down to eat you fall upon the food all at once. But everything in Paris is about lingering, about squeezing pleasure out of every moment. People sip their wine. The food comes in a stately procession, even if there isn’t very much of it and it isn’t very good. I like the way a cup of coffee can last an afternoon.”

“The Latin temperament. It’s all a bit new to me.”

She caught the undertone, the northerner’s belief that the Latin’s way of life was decadent. “I used to think that the Germans were industrious, but now I wonder what good it did them and who cares about their industry. I’m not talking about laziness. Look, the working people in this city put in long hours. I work full-time and study nights to make some kind of life for my mother and myself. But my free time is very sweet, especially now, when the weather is fine.”

They walked for a long time, past the islands in the Seine and the Louvre, and were coming up to the Tuileries park.

“I could go for one of those afternoon-long cups of coffee you talked about,” said Lukas.

“The café in the park here is very expensive. Maybe we should go to some student place by the École des Beaux-Arts, across the river.”

“The legionnaires were stuffing francs into my pocket. I think we can afford a cup of coffee in a fine setting, just this once.”

The scene in the park was like something out of a painting, the French children sailing boats in the fountain, the older couples walking in their stately manner, arm in arm, the lovers passing time on the benches. Lukas found it, as Monika had said, very pleasant. The café in the shade of the trees was agreeable too, with a waiter in a white apron who brought them the two cups of coffee with all the flourishes. The cost was the same as two meals in a workers’ restaurant, but some expenses were worth it.

“How is your head now?” Monika asked.

“Clearing at last.”

“And what do you plan to do next?”

He didn’t know.

He had passed up the chance to go back to Lithuania with Lozorius and was feeling a little sorry now that he had. The émigré government was supposed to be approaching the Americans about supporting his return to Lithuania, but he didn’t know anything about that. His lecture tour to America itself had been cancelled because he could not get a visa. There was no way to get in touch with the partisans in Lithuania except through a letter drop in Poland, and that avenue of communication worked very slowly. He had heard nothing from Lithuania since his arrival in Sweden. If he chose to go back to Stockholm, he would need to renew his residency papers there as they were only issued for three months at a time.

“I’m stateless, with two more talks to give this week and no plans after that. In the long run I’ll go back to Lithuania, but I don’t know what I’ll be doing a week from now.”

“You could stay here for a while longer.”

Monika was studying the children with their sailboats in the fountain and he looked at her in profile—the fineness of her chin, the fullness of her lips. She was like a part of the city, a human manifestation of ease and beauty. How was it possible that a city made a woman even more beautiful in this way? The French had the best sense of douceur de vivre , the sweetness of life.

“I would like to stay here, but I don’t know how it would be possible.”