Joan Silber - Fools - Stories

And was she really in school? Sort of. She said she was reading for exams without going to classes anymore. This gave her plenty of time to lie in bed listening to the radio after we made love, and she was free all that week to drink aperitifs in the lobby of my hotel or in cafés where she knew people. Her friends were perky waifs of women (they bubbled at me in what English they had) and two or three males who looked a little too amused by me.

It was a few days before I remembered to check at American Express for any word from my parents. Indeed there was a telegram waiting with my name on it. ASHAMED AND DISAPPOINTED. LETTER TO FOLLOW. MOM DAD.

I had not expected such a violent response and this suggested — strongly — that they had discovered the thefts, which I really had not thought they would do. A wave of horrified surprise came over me, as I walked outside clutching my piece of yellow paper. What made me think I could fool anyone ever? What wool did I think I’d pulled over the eyes of my parents, of all people? Then a Frenchman whose way I was blocking said something brusque to me and I said, “ Je m’excuse ,” not nicely, and the sound of my own voice made me remember: Well, I’m here and they’re there .

Liliane was waiting when I got home, and in bed I was a little more reckless that day. I moved in a trance of interesting suggestions, which she fell right into, laughing and expressing what I hoped was gasping admiration. The room was dark by the time we were done. Out the window I could see a strip of purple dusk. Liliane said, “My crazy boy. Wake up. Don’t sleep now.” She got up and made us what I called cowboy coffee, boiled in a saucepan and poured through a strainer. It made a streaky mess in her chipped sink but it smelled delicious. It was the first time she had done anything domestic.

It reminded me I wasn’t going home to America anytime soon. I wasn’t about to live with Liliane — it was too hard to imagine ever truly getting to know her — but I might settle in one of those hotels people stayed in for years. Some place homey and reasonable, where nobody minded if I had guests. Maybe Liliane knew of such a place?

“Ooof,” Liliane said, making faces at her own coffee. “Too burnt. Yes, many, many places. Only you to tell me when you are ready.”

That night we went out late to meet her friends, and she reintroduced me as the new Parisian, fresh citizen of the world’s greatest city.

“How long you stay?” someone asked.

“Forever,” I said. “I’m going to cash in my ticket.” I thought of this just then.

They all applauded. “A beautiful thing,” Liliane said. I had not expected that — a table of people clapping for me. They told me I’d get good money for the ticket on the black market, better than any refund. One of the women knew a guy who would help. They toasted — squat tumblers of wine held before their faces. Paris forever. Sometimes, I thought, things fall into place very easily.

And Liliane took me to a hotel I liked right away, or pretty much liked, a place in Montparnasse that had very good rates by the month. The room had yellowing wallpaper and a sorry-looking bidet in the corner, but I was charmed (I could be charmed) by the old dark wooden bed and a beautiful little writing desk, and the window opened to what felt like a secret courtyard. Liliane helped me move — we stacked my two valises in a taxi, along with a huge rubber plant I’d bought in a moment of alcoholic enthusiasm. One of the valises was actually full of cash, since I’d brought over my funds in the most literal, bulky way. I carried my clarinet on my lap. “You are Mr. Benny Goodman?” Liliane said.

“I’m much hipper,” I said. And when we got to the hotel, after we ascended in that rickety cage of an elevator, I sat on the bed and played “Till There Was You” for her on the clarinet. I tried to sound like Jimmy Giuffre. It was a simple, tenderly plaintive tune and some feeling in it survived my amateurish playing.

“Is that for me?” she said. “I thank you for that.”

I was suddenly thankful to Liliane herself. Without her, where would I be? In her offhand way, she had helped me into a different life.

We drank shots of some very decent cognac, sharing the room’s one water glass. We took a nap, and woke as the light from the window was fading. A motorcycle seemed to be revving up in the courtyard right outside. Liliane said, “When I first come to Paris, I thought was so noisy. But now I don’t hear noise.” I’d always thought she was from Paris. And where did she come from? From a small town in Normandy with farms around it. “Very ugly town,” she said. I saw she must have been smart, to get herself to a Paris university, though I didn’t think of her as smart.

“Was it too boring there?” I said.

“I don’t like there,” she said.

“You won’t go back?”

“Oh, of course,” she said. “To see my family. I go sometimes.”

I remembered my own family then, whom I thought about surprisingly little. I was still waiting for the letter-to-follow, but then I hadn’t checked the American Express office since the telegram, had I? I sort of hoped they were forgetting me too. Other people could do my job — Millie in the office, or Luís, the front desk manager — my parents were nothing if not practical. What if I never went home? I would tell them where I was, I would always do that. This resolve made me feel better, insofar as I needed to feel anything.

I went to American Express the next day to send home the address at the hotel. My current digs, I said in the telegram. Write me here. And there was a letter, yes, held for me under my name. I saw the envelope with the hotel’s logo of a red palm tree. Oh, Anthony , my mother had written. They had fired Luís, a very dignified guy with many children and grandchildren, for stealing from the intake. That was before they discovered the truth. Imagine having to tell everyone what kind of son they had. What were you thinking? my mother wrote. Forget I asked. I don’t want to know. Right now I don’t want to know you. Love, Mom.

I hadn’t been thinking, not in the ordinary sense of that term. I had seen a way to proceed, through a few brief steps, and none of them had been what you’d call difficult. At the time it surprised me that I hadn’t done such a thing before. So easy. Luís had taught me to ride a bike, he’d worked at the hotel for years. No one told me they would blame you , I wanted to say. I couldn’t keep from saying it on and on in my head.

That night I told Liliane that Palm Beach was a town of beautiful houses and handsome beaches, but my family did not treat its workers very well. I’d quarreled with them over this, and that was why I left. “You are not like them, then,” she said.

“I guess not,” I said. “My sisters are more like them than I am.”

“You are more generous,” she said.

“Well, anyone is,” I said.

“They don’t have unions in America?”

“We have them.”

“Here we have big strikes,” she said. “Some people don’t like them but I like them.”

“You just like people making trouble,” I said.

“No, no,” she said. “I am for unions.”

“A strike isn’t a party,” I said.

She gave me an insulted look. It made her mouth tight and her eyes oddly bright.

“France is not afraid of strikes,” she said. “Better than America, I think.”

“Why don’t you just go give your new coat to the workers if that’s how you feel?” I said.

“I think you are drinking too much,” she said.

I actually wanted to smack her. I’d never known I was a person who could want such a thing. Was this what I’d come all this way to learn? That notion was so depressing I couldn’t move, except to close my eyes.