"Let me buy you a souvenir." He leads Lena into the Dior shop a block before the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Two Dior-clad attendants greet them at the door. Clothing, purses, scarves, belts, key chains, and shoes-sometimes one or two to a display case-and more fill the store. "Or we can go across the street." With an outstretched hand, he subtly directs her eye to the tall gla.s.s window of the Louis Vuitton boutique.
"Neither. I have everything I need, and what I need can"t be bought. Except for that." Lena tugs at Harmon"s hand and leads him in the direction of the window of the famous candy maker Laduree; green and pink square boxes are stacked like a tiered wedding cake and tied with an engraved satin bow. "A box of candy. Maybe two."
The interior of the store is delicate and cla.s.sy: wood-paneled walls and gla.s.s display cases that look like they should contain precious jewels instead of the mounds of confectionary disks and squares inside them. The presentations are perfect. A gloved woman at the front of the line thoughtfully makes her selection, while others in line ponder their choices: to eat the candy then and there or to take a seat in the parlor beyond and enjoy, instead, a cup of thick hot chocolate.
Outside again on the rue Jacob, Lena touches a chocolate to Harmon"s lips and waits for him to take a bite. She places her hands, like blinders, beside his eyes, and steers him away from the tempting boutiques. "I want to visit the Marais. It"s beautiful. We can start at the Pica.s.so museum and afterward we can walk through the Place des Vosges to the statue that commemorates the Bastille."
She nudges him: past Dior, past Louis Vuitton, past a gray stone church, past the ancient authors" haunt-Les Deux Magots-and the tourists lingering over coffee in the ubiquitous checkered cafe chairs. The wide Boulevard Saint-Germain runs to the left and right in front of them. Side streets converge diagonally, like spokes on a half-wagon wheel, at the busy intersection; magazine stands, banks, ATMs, more cafes, bookstores, boutique windows full of s.e.xy, trim mannequins.
At the top of the Metro stairs, Lena removes her hands from Harmon"s eyes and leads him into the underbelly of Paris. A map four feet wide and as tall as the wall lines all the routes, streets, and stops of the Metro trains. The city is criss-crossed with four lines: yellow, red, blue, and green intersecting at various points, leading north, south, east, and west.
"This is how you tell the direction-by the last stop on the line: Clignancourt, Clichy, Pont Neuf." Lena runs her fingers over the map until she finds the street they seek.
"Nope. If you"ve been there before, you can"t go again." Harmon points to a tiled white corridor and walks in the direction of one of the four turnstiles beyond the map. "Choose." Lena points to the one on the far left.
Saint-Germain is a multilayered station, less complicated than many of the others. They take the stairs to the tracks and wait with the Parisians for the rumble beneath their feet to stop. Within minutes a speeding train comes to a rackety halt in front of them. Lena and Harmon board the middle car; people of all colors rush around them, cram through the automatic doors, shopping bags or briefcases in hand.
Each station"s interior, where the trains connect, is covered in white oblong tiles; black tiles form station names in block letters: Odeon, Place Monge, St-Michel. After many stops, starts, and transfers at stations that strongly resemble one another, Lena and Harmon get off the train and follow the crowd up one twisting staircase and down another before they reach the Avenue des Gobelins. The buildings in the fifth arrondiss.e.m.e.nt are reminiscent of those on rue des Beaux-Arts and rue Jacob in feeling, not style. Retail shops, full of nicely arranged but what appears to be less expensive merchandise. Like the rest of France, signs and words resemble English: pharmacie, hotel, cinema, liqueurs, saint, boulevard, restaurant. pharmacie, hotel, cinema, liqueurs, saint, boulevard, restaurant.
"It"s noisy. Buses, cars, the honking horns. If I closed my eyes, we could be in Oakland. I love that this feels like home."
"This is where we"re meant to be. Let"s pretend like we came here to..." Harmon points to the next intersection; the left side of the street is modern, angular. Across the way the change is abrupt. Old Paris, older Paris.
"To find antiques... for your apartment..."
"Maybe... our our apartment." apartment."
In the brief instant that Harmon squeezes her hand, Lena believes the world is full of new possibilities. They take in the wide streets, the balconies, the striped awnings. Their stride is even. They take in the ordinariness of the neighborhood: a store with advertising posters stuck to its windows, a bookstore table full of used books lined in haphazard rows. A rainbow population runs errands, moves in and out of the Metro, takes care of life"s day-to-day tasks; Africans identifiable by yards of homeland fabric wound around women"s heads and bodies, men in dashikis and long flowing tops; black, brown, and browner faces, eyes round and hooded are difficult for Lena to identify-Paris is a world of new possibilities, too.
"We"re on Avenue des Gobelins in the fifth." Harmon nods at a shiny white-lettered sign with a blue background and green border fastened to the side of a building. "That one says rue Mouffetard. Where"s your camera? Let"s take a picture by the sign."
"No!" Oversized sungla.s.ses slide down Lena"s nose when she shakes her disagreement. "The light"s better over there." She points to an outdoor market directly in front of a large cafe: white tents line both sides of the street.
The air is full with the scent of the street: exhaust fumes, the occasional ripe gutter, a scraggly rose bush beside the cafe, spit-roasted meat, brewing coffee, skinny baguettes. Women scan paper tubs of frilly-capped mushrooms, Italian watermelons bulge at the bottom of loosely woven shopping bags, men with weathered faces lug carts of bright tomatoes, stippled oranges, heads of dark green lettuce, and heaps of paper sacks.
Beside the market a gate-enclosed patch of gra.s.s and trees border an undersized cement-block church. Curlicues of wrought iron overlay the weather-beaten wooden door. It squeaks when Harmon heaves, as if they are the first to enter the church in a hundred years. The inside is bigger than the exterior hints. The church is plain; it smells of incense and smoking candlewicks. The immense, whitish marble altar begs to all who enter: pray. Four arched niches on either side of the main aisle frame alcoves enclosing a statue and a votive candle table.
"This is the second church we"ve visited together." Two times more than Lena has been in church in years. Sermons fail to touch her, focus too much on turning the other cheek. She prefers spontaneous prayer uttered between moments of her life-taking pictures, daydreaming, washing clothes, stopping at a red light, marveling at a gibbous moon.
"If you"re not religious, Harmon, why are we here, or does this have something to do with your theory of fate?" Lena distinctly remembers a discussion about religion when his ex-wife put their twins in Catholic school. She thought he was against it, thought he said he didn"t want his boys brainwashed or beleaguered with guilt.
"It has everything to do with fate. And architecture. I love these buildings. See this? Harmon"s finger follows the line of the long central hall of the church. "The interior of this church is cross shaped. We"re standing in the nave, where the congregation sits." He points to the pews around them. "I remember you like words, right? So here"s one for you."
Harmon"s recollection of this small detail makes her want to do a little dance inside this blessed place, but she refuses to break the spell. She relaxes against him and lets her eyes follow Harmon"s finger to the gallery of arches above the side aisles.
"See how the arches vault the nave? That"s called a triforium. This church is probably three or four hundred years old." Harmon"s face is as serious and sincere as a professor teaching ancient history to college freshmen.
"Nice word. You make a good tour guide." Lena holds her cheeks to keep a straight face. "So, the... triforium is the ultimate architectural example of this church"s fate fate-to live out man"s obsession with immortality." She pokes him gently in the ribs.
"And conceit. The effort to control fate by building structures intended to last forever, even if man can"t. Somehow in constructing them man reasons that he can control what fate holds. The completion of the edifice, if nothing else."
The edges of the oak pews are smooth, the seats darkened from years of use. The kneeler is a bare plank screwed onto the back of the pew in front of her, and Lena wonders how anyone could pray on it, especially during a lengthy service. She kneels and blesses herself with the sign of the cross. "These churches are like us. Useful in the old days. Monuments to the past."
"You talking about me, us, or the world getting older?" Harmon teases, kneeling beside her. "Or, us knowing each other before?"
"Both, although these buildings grow better with age. They"re eternal. You and me?... we"re... temporary."
"Haven"t you enjoyed being with me?"
"If I didn"t, I wouldn"t be here."
A priest, dressed in a ca.s.sock covered by a floor-length white alb and cinched at the waist with a long cord, walks past the pew and nods at them before hanging a narrow confessional stole around his shoulders.
"Pardon," Harmon calls out to the priest and asks, in halting French, if he would give them his blessing. The priest pulls his hands from the full sleeves of his ca.s.sock. He makes the sign of the cross over both of them speaking in, what Lena recalls from all of her years in church, Latin. He bows deeply, then disappears into the middle section of a shadowy booth in the far corner where a queue of women and children wait to confess their sins.
"Where do you want fate to take you, Lena?" Harmon asks the question she won"t ask herself.
"This trip to Paris sidetracked my fate." Randall distracted her with his agenda; friends distracted her from real conversation with lunches and shopping and spa visits and gossip. Lena slaps her hands against her thighs; she dislikes herself for accepting the detours. "My fate used to be predictable." She supposes that fate occupies itself with longer periods of time. "Like clockwork, I knew what came next, day in and day out. Even those days that weren"t predictable still were. An unplanned vacation was always to a warm destination. A spontaneous dinner was always with the same couples, always at the same Mexican restaurant. Fate is simpler these days because there"s only me to worry about, and I take my days one by one."
"That"s the past." Harmon"s eyes crinkle, his back straightens. The professorial demeanor is gone, replaced by the inquisitive litigator. "Where do you want fate to lead you now? Today."
"My life makes me feel weak. Weak like my knees will be if I keep kneeling on these hard boards that pa.s.s for genuflectors. Let"s get out of here."
Beyond the church garden, farmers sell stalks of celery bound with rubber bands, golden potatoes crowded in a huge wire bin, and strawberries that fill the air from the street to the church"s garden and back.
"Think it through. The Lena I knew couldn"t have been anything less than a good wife and mother." Harmon wraps his arms around Lena. She inhales the scented soap from his morning shower, amazed at how wonderful he smells.
"I was more determined then." Lena pulls away from his embrace. "The strawberries smell sweet. Let"s take some back to the hotel."
Harmon repeats his question as if she is a witness on a courtroom stand. His query spins around and around her brain like the pinball Vernon described rolling toward the one flipper that will move it on to score more points. Push. "Sooner or later you"re going to have to answer. You know that don"t you, woman?" Harmon takes Lena"s hand, kisses it, kisses her as they make their way to the market and past an old man with a pointed, gray beard, a beret tilted to the side.
"L"amour," the old man fusses. "Tout le monde s"embra.s.se a Paris. Paris est pour les amants."
"He said," Harmon translates, kissing Lena again, this time on her cheek, "something about love, lovers, and kissing in Paris."
Behind the stands, proprietors of hardware stores, pastry shops, and restaurants linger in doorways, beckon them to partake of their goods, too. A farmer winks when she stops in front of his stand. He pa.s.ses a box of bright red strawberries across his table. "You must have these, and champagne, pour... l"amour, eh?"
Lena winks back and tucks the fragile fruit into her tote, not wishing to disabuse the friendly fruit seller of his romantic notion. "Tina Turner"s strength helped me-fate holds her in my future. Rebuilding my relationship with Camille and Kendrick-that"s my future, too. That"s about all I can cope with now. That and my everyday, run-of-the-mill life."
"And what about me?"
The Randall question again.
"We only have so many opportunities. I want our fates to be connected, yours and mine," Harmon finishes.
Lena admires a vendor"s attention to detail: a box of thick-stalked, albino asparagus tied with string; apples, oranges, figs, and onions sheathed in smooth orangish skin carefully lined in neat, color-coordinated rows, a presentation for the eyes and nose. Patrons patiently wait in line for the vendors to select the ripest and the best. In Paris the vendors bag and weigh the produce for their appreciative customers.
"That"s the weirdest looking asparagus I"ve ever seen." Lena looks at the vendor, points to the asparagus, then to her camera and smiles.
"Oui, oui," the vendor says, holding the pale vegetable in front of him. Lena snaps his picture. Standing almost on top of the asparagus, she photographs the stalks from above.
The shoulder strap cuts across Lena"s chest and Harmon adjusts it. She hasn"t taken a picture in days; Harmon has distracted her from Tina and from photographing France. But now the desire stimulates her brain, the synaptic memory commands her fingertips: the uneven cobblestones, the cloudy sky, the artful display some proprietor has taken the time to arrange-flower petals strewn on the street, a perfect row of chocolate truffles.
She shoots picture after picture: purple hydrangeas atop a whitewashed chair, a broken door hinge, a rusted bicycle leaning against a lamppost. Fingers warm against camera"s metal, eyelashes flit against the viewfinder. Whir. Click. Whir. Click. To see what others cannot; light, shading, innuendo. Capturing time. Memories alter with time, but photos never will. Their permanence is to her as fate is to Harmon: preordained. To see what others cannot; light, shading, innuendo. Capturing time. Memories alter with time, but photos never will. Their permanence is to her as fate is to Harmon: preordained.
"This is my fate." Lifting her camera to the sky, she spins in a circle, presses the shutter release so that the camera whirs, clicks, and snaps pictures in all directions. Her dream lodged in the back of her brain, covered itself with Randall"s rejection and Harmon"s consideration. "A keen eye. A connection to what others want to see. Creating art. Sharing it."
"And me, Lena, let fate bless you with me, too."
Lena stumbles with the realization of Vernon"s prediction and kisses Harmon-long, slow, hungry, hard. This old friend has helped her to understand, to put what she wants into words.
Chapter 30.
Harmon and Lena run at a steady pace alongside the Seine before the bookinistes bookinistes open their stands filled with antique leather-bound books and twenties-style postcards wrapped in cellophane, before the damp streets overflow with tourists and working Parisians, before the shuttered windows of the ubiquitous apartments open to the dreary sky. It may not be true that Americans are the only people jogging these uneven streets this early in the morning, Lena thinks, but every other voice that greets them carries a distinctive, American tw.a.n.g. open their stands filled with antique leather-bound books and twenties-style postcards wrapped in cellophane, before the damp streets overflow with tourists and working Parisians, before the shuttered windows of the ubiquitous apartments open to the dreary sky. It may not be true that Americans are the only people jogging these uneven streets this early in the morning, Lena thinks, but every other voice that greets them carries a distinctive, American tw.a.n.g.
Like they have each of the three days they"ve been in Paris, Harmon and Lena slow their pace as they approach rue Buci. In the evenings this street"s sidewalks are full of music and people dining contentedly under extended awnings. Mornings, the stands are stocked with lemons, plump tomatoes, strawberries, white hydrangeas, red roses, and bread.
"ca va?" Harmon slaps high five-in the manner of men who have known each other for years-with the African who sells the biggest, flakiest croissants on the street from a cart stacked with tarnished baking trays.
"Tout va bien, mon frere." The African adds an extra croissant to Lena"s already full paper sack. "Pour votre amie."
"A perk," Harmon calls this generosity, "of being a brother in Paris with a pretty woman by his side."
The street from the rue Buci back to the hotel has become a cla.s.sroom. They practice everyday French: le cordonnier le cordonnier at the shoemaker"s repair shop, at the shoemaker"s repair shop, nettoyage a sec nettoyage a sec at the smell of the dry-cleaning chemicals, at the smell of the dry-cleaning chemicals, poissonnerie poissonnerie at the window where empty aluminum trays will later be filled with fresh fish, at the window where empty aluminum trays will later be filled with fresh fish, le tabac le tabac. "The fun," Harmon says, "is to figure out what the words mean by looking in the windows."
"Bonjour, monsieur. Madame." The hotel receptionist greets them as they enter the lobby.
"Bonjour!" Lena replies. So much for the myth of French aloofness. Every morning the bellman, the receptionist, the doorman greet them in the same warm way. Is it because their black skin makes them so easily identifiable, Lena wonders, or is it because they look like they"re in love?
"Let"s see what the kids are up to." Harmon punches the elevator b.u.t.ton for Bruce"s floor one above theirs.
"What"s the plan?" Harmon asks when Bruce opens the door. The question has become both mantra and joke. Beyond Bruce"s terry-robed back, a footed silver serving tray sits atop the king-sized bed with two full-bloomed white roses, a silver coffee carafe, the Herald Tribune, Herald Tribune, and a porcelain pitcher artfully loaded on top. and a porcelain pitcher artfully loaded on top.
"Montmartre," Cheryl shouts from the bathroom.
"It"s hilly up there," Lena shouts back. "You sure?"
After exploring the rue Mouffetard, Lena and Harmon returned to the hotel to meet Cheryl and Bruce. Like first-time tourists, the four rushed through the upstairs gallery of the Musee d"Orsay so Lena could see Gauguin"s Tahitian studies; took two Metro trains to the first arrondiss.e.m.e.nt and strolled the Champs-elysees; walked under the Arc de Triomphe and climbed the interior steps, until Bruce refused to go any farther. From the Metro they wandered past city hall, past bridge after bridge to the golden statue that marks where the Bastille stood before the French Revolution.
Bruce was in charge of food and surprisingly serendipitous in his dinner choice: he peeked into a restaurant that intrigued him and chatted, in broken French and hand signals, with the chef about his food. The cozy bra.s.serie served the best foie gras and pate de campagne any of them had ever eaten, and the chef, after many compliments from Bruce, concocted an original chocolate dessert for them.
Dialing the concierge, Bruce"s words are final: "Today, we"re taking a taxi."
"That is the most beautiful thing I"ve ever seen." Cheryl sticks her head out the taxi window and squints to get a better look at Sacre-Coeur. The seven domes visible from the front of the stark, white church end in long pointed tubes, like spiked pith helmets. "But, there is no way is the most beautiful thing I"ve ever seen." Cheryl sticks her head out the taxi window and squints to get a better look at Sacre-Coeur. The seven domes visible from the front of the stark, white church end in long pointed tubes, like spiked pith helmets. "But, there is no way this this girl is climbing girl is climbing those those steps." steps."
The taxi slows at the foot of the funicular and points to a rail car as if he understands. "Six cent escaliers, madame." The motion of the crowd working its way mostly down, not up the flights of steps, is like a winding river of upright bodies flowing away from the highest point in Paris after the Eiffel Tower.
"Six hundred stairs." a.s.suming the role of tour guide, Harmon steps onto the crowded sidewalk. "We can walk down that street and weave our way past the street where Pica.s.so once lived and back to the top. That way we"ll get a two for one tour: neighborhoods and Sacre-Coeur."
Shops surround the base of the stairs, each wooden stall crammed with souvenirs: scarves on hangers flutter in the breeze, postcards spin on wobbly racks, and handsized replicas of the church beckon from the shelves. Harmon picks up a liquid-filled globe with plastic snow that tumbles onto a miniature Sacre-Coeur inside when he turns it upside down. "You"ll accept this, won"t you?" He pa.s.ses the souvenir to Lena. The look on his face is devilish, like the old Harmon, who was as funny as he was serious.
"With pleasure."
Harmon and Lena weave past a circular park and stone-colored buildings. Cheryl and Bruce"s huffs are audible and labored behind them. The hilly area is the kind of neighborhood Americans understand: a man washes his car in the driveway of a house that could be a mansion or an apartment building, garages attached to houses with gardens, front porches and picture windows, children playing on the sidewalk.
"Give me that guidebook." Bruce takes the green guidebook from Harmon"s hand and sits at a rest stop with benches and a dog run behind it. Across the street, a reddish building and its faded sign peek from behind an overgrown bush and a rickety, green-tipped fence. "You walk. I"ll find a good place for lunch."
"Rest a minute." Cheryl hooks her elbow into Lena"s and leads her across the street. "I want to take a closer look at that building."
Tourists with guidebooks and cameras gather around the brick building and point to the sign: "Au Lapin Agile." Cheryl tells Lena that she suspects that this is the famous cabaret of artists and writers that Pica.s.so memorialized in his 1905 painting. Instead of singing for his supper, Cheryl tells Lena, he painted for it.
Harmon waves from the other side of the street. A dog, no bigger than Cheryl"s tote bag, on a long leash held by a frail-looking older woman, sniffs around the men"s feet. Harmon is attentive; his smile is constant, and the older woman looks as if she is ready to hand her diminutive pet over to him.
"Well," Cheryl says, "this is a different trip from what we planned."
Lena examines the worn plaque bolted onto the building"s side. It repeats the same information that Cheryl has just shared with her. "I love this detour, but I should know where Tina Turner lives by now. I hoped I might run into her."
"Listen," Cheryl says. "When Harmon and Bruce knew they"d had enough of Nice and decided to follow their plan to come to Paris, Harmon explained to his buddy how he feels about you." Cheryl condenses what Bruce told her in between shopping sprees. In a small wine-tasting bar, twenty-four full bottles in front of them, Bruce and Harmon tried to decide which wines they would send back to Chicago while Harmon confessed that he wanted to be with Lena. That she is a good combination of what he likes in a woman: smart, s.e.xy, and easy to be around. He didn"t want to lose that. He had pa.s.sed the notion of making up for past sins.
"Bruce says Harmon doesn"t focus on the past. That when he saw you, something clicked. He knew it was right."
Bruce listened before offering advice. Harmon confessed that Lena"s sadness offered an opening and that was what smart litigators look for. "Man, what did you expect? It"s like the exclamation point on your d.a.m.n theory of fate."
"When we first started this trip, Lena, you were sad. Sad face, sad eyes, sad aura. Now you"re different. Have you asked yourself why?"
"Because this is Paris! Because I don"t have to think about divorce or my kids hating me or my direction-I"m going to see Tina."
"Harmon has a lot more to do with your being happy than you give him credit for."
"I can"t deny that he has something to do with it, but my happiness comes from me, from inside." Lena points to Bruce and Harmon. The two men tease the small dog, seemingly content to wait for Lena and Cheryl to decide what comes next.
"Love comes from inside. Go for it. Women like you always end up s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g for love anyway." Arm in arm, Cheryl and Lena move away from the old cabaret. "We haven"t had the chance to spend much time together," Cheryl says. "I miss catching up like old times. What do you say to going to the Matisse exhibit at the Luxembourg? Just you and me."
"Deal."
From this location a partial view of Paris spreads out before them in an orderly fashion: flat, no hills between Montmartre and a hilly ma.s.s of green on the far side of the city. There are pointed rooftops of varying heights. Notre Dame stands out, as does the ile de la Cite, the island some call the true heart of Paris.
"Richard Wright, Chester Himes, and James Baldwin wrote in Paris. The next time we come"-Harmon looks at Lena who holds his gaze-"we"ll take one of the black tours. Every one knows Josephine Baker, but there was a big jazz following here-Sidney Bichet had a nightclub. Black soldiers were here during both World Wars. I wish we had time to see it all."