Justin Go - The Steady Running of the Hour

— Take it, she says. Take it.

We climb the steps of Montmartre in the thick morning fog. I walk behind Mireille, gripping the handrail to keep up, following the back of her upturned coat collar. Mireille turns right onto a cobblestone street, then makes an abrupt left.

— Do you know where we’re going?

— It’s possible.

— But you’re no Parisian.

— No.

We walk through winding streets and climb stone staircases, passing from the shadow of apartment buildings into a field on a hillside. The sky opens above us. Through a wire fence I see neat rows of plants and we walk along the fence until we reach the gate. Mireille tugs at the low doorknob.

— It’s locked, she says.

— What’s inside?

— A vineyard. The Montmartre vineyard. They have a festival once a year where you can drink the wine.

Her hand slips from the doorknob.

— It’s bad wine anyway. Give me your camera, I’ll take a picture of you. Then you’ll have that at least.

I unsling my camera and hand it to her, standing awkwardly in front of the gate. Mireille laughs.

— Tristan, you have to smile. It wasn’t such a bad night.

I laugh and Mireille snaps the picture. We start back down the hill toward the place des Abbesses.

— Do you need to sleep before your train?

I nod. — I should probably go back to the hostel.

— Of course. We’re not too far from the métro—

Mireille looks down at the cobblestones, walking with her hands in her pockets. She looks up at me.

— I wanted to ask you. What you told me in the bar, about the lawyers in England and the inheritance. You weren’t joking?

— No.

— And the English soldier and his lover. The letters you found in Sweden. It’s all true?

— It’s all true.

Mireille nods. — I wasn’t sure if you were serious.

We walk for a few blocks in silence. Then Mireille says, — I hope you find what you’re looking for in Picardie.

We reach the place des Abbesses. The square is empty, the sycamores shedding leaves in the breeze. A carousel is stored under its plastic covering. I’m thirsty from the night of drinking and I cup my hands under a cast-iron fountain, pulling out gulps of water that spill onto my shoes. As I drink Mireille wanders the square, pausing beside a trash can. She reaches into it and when she comes back she is holding a newspaper triumphantly, the pages still crisply folded. She hands it to me.

— Un journal en anglais , she says. It’s yesterday’s, but that’s fine.

Mireille leads me under the gate into the métro, the glowing Art Nouveau letters above spelling Abbesses . We go down a long spiral staircase to a broad landing. From here the steps lead on each side to different platforms, one for trains bound for Porte de la Chapelle, one for Mairie d’Issy.

— I’m going the other way, Mireille says.

A faint smile comes over her face.

— Do you have something to write on?

She writes her phone number on the flyleaf of my notebook in red ink. Her elaborate cursive is hard to read.

— Is this number an eight? If I can’t read this—

A train roars in below us. Mireille sighs and shakes her head. She looks at me, waiting for the rumbling to stop.

— What if we go to Picardie together? I was going to leave on Friday, but I can miss a few classes. Then you can stay with me at my grandfather’s house, you won’t have to go to a hostel.

I look at Mireille. She shuts my notebook and hands it back to me.

— I was thinking about it all night, she says. But I’d drunk a lot, so I didn’t trust myself, and I knew if Claire heard she’d kill me. So I waited to tell you, but I’m sure now. We can take your train to Amiens, we just go a few more stops.

I write down the time of my train, then I tear off the page and hand it to Mireille.

— I’ll meet you on the platform, she says.

I go down to the Mairie d’Issy platform and sit on a bench, opening my notebook to look at Mireille’s handwriting on the flyleaf. I smile and shut my notebook. A current of warm air shifts through the station. I look up and see Mireille sitting on the bench across the tracks from me, her face turned to the empty tunnel. My train comes screeching in and I get on, checking my map to see where I change for line 8. I notice that the trains from Mireille’s platform don’t go toward her apartment, only toward northern Paris. To get home she should have gone one stop with me and changed at Pigalle. Unless she didn’t want to ride with me.

I put the map back in my pocket. I’m not going to worry about it.

My dorm room at the hostel is locked up for cleaning, but the desk clerk lets me in to get my backpack. I sleep for a couple hours in the luggage room on a pile of old mattresses stacked in the corner.

I reach the Gare du Nord half an hour before my train. At a bakery inside the station I buy a pair of croissants and two paper cups of café au lait. I take the newspaper that Mireille gave me from my bag, the International Herald Tribune . The headlines all look familiar: the upcoming American elections; a state of emergency in the Gaza Strip; a suicide attack in Iraq.

I fold the newspaper under my elbow and look up at the station’s enormous black signboard. The plastic letters flip from the center with blinding speed, spelling out the destinations letter by letter. To pass the time I try to guess at the cities as the letters arrive, but I’m usually wrong.

BRUXELLES-MIDI ROTTERDAM AMSTERDAM. LONDON WATERLOO. LONGUEAU AMIENS ABBEVILLE ETAPLES BOULOGNE.

I walk to my train’s platform, searching up and down its length. Mireille isn’t here. It’s three minutes until one. I jog along the platform peering into the train’s windows until the conductor waves at me and blows his whistle. I board the train and pass down the aisles of each car. In the last second-class car I find Mireille sitting beside the window, her legs propped against the opposite seat, a sketchbook in her lap. She lifts her pencil and looks at me.

— You thought I wasn’t coming.

I take the seat across from her, handing her the lukewarm cup of coffee and one of the croissants in its paper wrapper.

— That’s so kind, she says. I guess this is breakfast time for us, isn’t it? I’m sorry I was late, I almost missed the train.

— Didn’t you get on in the wrong direction this morning?

Mireille smiles. — I told you I’m no Parisian. I felt drunk all morning, and I had to do a million things before leaving town. I went to see one of my professors about my project. When I told him I was going to Picardie we had an argument in front of the whole class. Tristan, I was almost crying, it was so embarrassing—

The train starts to move forward. Mireille closes her sketchbook.

— And that’s not the worst part. After class he asked to see me in his office and he said, I know about your past, Mireille, I know you’re different from the other students. But we have to treat you the same. You might be a good artist, but that doesn’t matter, because you’re immature, and you’ll have to grow up to get anywhere in the world.

I stifle a laugh. Mireille looks at me.

— Do you think it’s true?

— You’re plenty mature. You’re divorced, for one thing. And you know fifteen ways to cook a sack of potatoes—

— Seventeen.

Mireille smiles. The conductor is coming down the aisle checking tickets. I reach into my pocket.

— My ticket’s only to Amiens. Do I need to buy an extension?