Flashback (27 page)

“You okay?” Brian asked, looking over at me.

“Fine.” I shivered, my chest half-submerged.

“Don't think about the cold,” he said. “You're almost there.”

I nodded and closed my eyes briefly, my bare toes fumbling blindly ahead. But in truth I wasn't thinking about the cold. For the first time that I could remember, I was thinking about my past, about my mother, her face in the darkness above my bed at night, her pale, aqueous body suspended in the blue of an ocean, her arms and legs treading water. I was thinking about Paris as well, about the distance between us and the tearoom near St.-Julien-le-Pauvre, about what we would find when we got there. For the first time that I could remember, my own purpose seemed certain as the day to come.

When we finally staggered up onto the beach, Brian set his pack down and pulled what looked like a cell phone from the front pocket.

“GPS,” he explained. He hit a button, and the small screen phosphoresced. “The captain said there'd be a village not far from here, but I want to make sure.”

The last of the men from the boat crossed the sand in front of us and disappeared, fading into the darkness and scrub as if he had never existed. I brushed the sand from my feet and started to put on my boots.

“It looks like about five kilometers to Bolonia,” he said. “We can get a room and get cleaned up.”

I nodded, clamping my jaw shut to keep my teeth from chattering.

We climbed the bluff, then bushwacked for a kilometer or so. When we finally emerged onto the washed-out dirt road Brian's GPS map had promised, dawn was spreading upward fast, a stain of cool blue, seeping into the dark sky like bright ink into water. By the time we'd crested the last hill and started down into Bolonia, wan daylight illuminated the tiny village, revealing a cluster of whitewashed houses huddled around an alabaster beach. Beyond the town sat the wind-worn remnants of an ancient Roman seaport, crumbling columns and stone archways stark against the blue bay.

The little beach town was mostly closed for the winter, the first two hotels we came across shuttered against December's punishing wind. Finally, a bleary-eyed old man in slippers and a bathrobe opened the door to us at the Hostel Bellavista, his eyes narrowing as he surveyed our damp clothes, dirty faces, and scant luggage. It took a wad of euros, and Brian's confident Spanish, to salve his suspicions. Just two crazy Americans, Brian had said, laughing, shaking the man's hand, pulling bills from his pack. And two rooms, please, you know how the ladies can be. The man had glanced over at me, smiling at Brian as if to say, yes, I know. Then he tucked the money into the pocket of his bathrobe and led us upstairs.

My room was drafty, the radiator cold to the touch, but the shower was mercifully hot. I stripped myself of my clammy clothes and stood under the steaming water for a good half an hour, letting the feeling come back into my feet. I had just gotten out of the shower and climbed into bed when there was a tentative knock at the door.

“Eve?” It was Brian. “You up?” he whispered.

Swinging my feet to the floor, I wrapped the bedcover around myself and padded across the room.

“I hope you weren't asleep,” he said apologetically when I'd opened the door. He glanced down at the bedcover, and I thought I detected a hint of color rising to his cheeks.

“No,” I told him. “Not yet.”

“Sorry,” he offered sheepishly, nodding to indicate the breakfast tray he held in his hands. “I thought you might be hungry.”

“Starving,” I conceded, surveying the food. The tray held a plate of chocolate-dipped churros, two large pieces of bread with butter and marmalade, several slices of ham, and a pot of coffee and two cups.

“How did you manage that?” I asked, stepping aside to let him into the room.

He set the tray on the bedside table. “Our host can be quite accommodating when provided with enough incentive.” He smiled, producing a stack of folded clothes he'd tucked under his right arm. “His daughter's. I don't know how well they'll fit, but they're clean and dry.”

“You don't like this look?” I asked, pulling the bedcover tight around me.

“Cute, but I'm not sure it's practical.”

“Thank you,” I said. I took the clothes and set them aside.

Brian smiled. “Do you mind if I take a look at what's on that pen drive? Just to see if I recognize anyone. I've got my laptop.”

“Sure,” I told him, starting for my bag.

Brian went out into the hall, and I heard the door to his room open, then close. He reappeared with his laptop.

I handed him the pen drive and sat down on the bed. “If it's all right with you, I'd rather not watch it again.”

“Of course,” Brian said, moving to the far side of the room.

I drank my coffee and ate while Brian watched the video in silence. When he was finished, he closed the laptop and came over and poured himself a cup of coffee.

“Anyone look familiar?” I asked.

“I'm sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I'm so sorry.” He flexed his hands awkwardly at his sides and rocked almost imperceptibly on the balls of his feet, as if waiting for something, as if trying to decide how to navigate some great impediment between us.

“At the Continental,” he said, then hesitated. “You know I couldn't have … I didn't know.”

“You knew what you wanted to know,” I told him.

He turned away slightly, as if from a blow.

I shook my head, regretting what I'd said. He was here now, and that was all that should have mattered. “I shouldn't have said that,” I told him. “I know you wouldn't have hurt me.” But the truth was that neither of us knew.

I lifted my hand to his and pulled him toward me, letting the bedcover slip away. I felt almost giddy, drunk on exhaustion, and I didn't want to think about the Continental.

Brian got down on his knees and rested his head against my bare stomach. He'd showered, too, and his hair was still wet, cool and damp on my skin.

“It's okay,” I said again.

I lifted his face to mine and bent down and kissed him. No, I thought, we would never know. He might have killed me that night in Tangier, but for now I would choose to believe otherwise.

Moving carefully, I eased my hand under his sweater and lifted it over his head. His skin was hot, like a fire kindled from within. Outside, the wind kicked up, needling the windowpanes with fine sand, singing through the cracks in the old stone building. Brian put his hand on the side of my breast, and I shivered. Yes, I told myself, for now I would choose to believe him.

TWENTY-FOUR

We slept through the day and left early the next evening, heading toward Seville in an old Seat Brian had managed to talk the hotel owner into selling us. We'd paid almost twice what the car was worth, but it hadn't fazed Brian. When the old man had named a price, Brian had produced a roll of euros from his pack without flinching.
There's money here,
I remembered him saying on the boat.
Lots of it.
Evidently, he'd taken his share.

It took us a night of hard driving to cross Spain, with nothing but the vast Iberian landscape and the occasional looming silhouette of one of the massive Osborne bulls for company. We took turns at the wheel, pushing north through Cordova and Madrid, then up across the Cordillera Central to Burgos and San Sebastián. Some twelve hours after we'd left Bolonia and the coast, we crossed France's southern border.

Road-addled and red-eyed, we pulled into a truck stop outside Biarritz for breakfast and coffee, then headed out again, straight into Bordeaux's morning rush hour and on toward Paris. I was grateful to be taking the western route across the country, thankful not to have to see Burgundy again. But in the hazy winter daylight the bare vineyards of Bordeaux and the Loire Valley seemed too much like home.

It was midafternoon when we reached the southern suburbs of Paris. Brian was asleep in the passenger seat, and I shook him awake.

“Can you get us to the American church?” I asked.

He nodded reluctantly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “I think so.”

“Good.”

I followed his directions into the heart of the city, then followed the skeletal beacon of the Eiffel Tower toward the Seine.

I'd made one trip to Paris during my year at the convent, a brief visit during which I'd spent most of my time filling out paperwork at the U.S. Consulate. I'd only stayed two nights in the city, in one of the abbey's sister convents, in a hard-up neighborhood near the Bois de Vincennes, but in my spare few hours I'd crossed the Pont de l'Alma from the consulate and walked through the Champ de Mars.

It had been only a month or so after the sisters had taken me in, I remembered now as we headed along the Quai Branly, the Trocadero gardens on our left, the Eiffel Tower on our right. I had been slightly afraid as I wandered among the tourists on the park's elegant pea-graveled pathways, fearful that one of the doughy Americans in their running shoes and sun visors would recognize me. Afraid, and yet half hoping someone would.

We squeezed the Seat into a parking spot a few blocks off the Quai d'Orsay, then walked back toward the American church. It was a beautiful day, sunshine slanting through the bare trees, a nearly empty
bateau-mouche
gliding along the Seine. An old woman, a solitary birdlike silhouette led by a tiny black dog, shuffled along the quai, her feathered hat ruffling in the wind, her pumps picking their way across the graveled path. It was full-on winter here, colder even than when I'd left Burgundy, the mournful, diesel chill of a European city. I shivered in the canvas jacket the old Spaniard had thrown in with the car.

The church sat not far from the Pont de l'Alma, an immaculate gray stone structure tucked in among its high-rent neighbors, across from the hazy sprawl of the Triangle d'Or. A small, scattered crowd lingered on the sidewalk and steps out front, American backpackers fresh off the train, middle-aged Asian women in the neat attire of the would-be domestic worker, exchange students in loafers and pea coats.

“Excuse me,” I said, approaching two American girls on the steps. “Can you tell us where the bulletin board is?”

“Which one?” one of them asked.

“The one outside,” I told her, remembering what Helen had said.

“There.” She pointed with authority to the church's covered entryway.

“I'd like to post something. Do you know if there's a fee?”

She took a drag off her cigarette, looking far too young to be smoking. “You have to go inside to the office. It's a couple of euros, I think.”

“Thanks.”

We passed by the glass-fronted bulletin board on the way inside, and I stopped to take a look. It was neatly maintained, the notices written on index cards, arranged by category, a sort of clearinghouse for the expatriate community in Paris. You could, it seemed, find anything here, child care, domestic services, tutors, apartments, experienced dog walkers.

On the far side of the board was a space for miscellaneous messages. The communications were between travelers mostly, people looking to meet up with friends they'd lost along the way.

Julia on the train from Madrid to Seville. We talked about Capri. You said you'd be spending December in Paris. Am here until New Year's. Please leave a message saying where I can reach you. Michael.

Phillip from New Haven. Remember tacos at Jo's Bar in Prague? Do you still think Kafka is overrated? Please call. Jennifer.

“Do you think he'll call?” Brian asked as we headed inside.

“I hope not,” I said. “He sounds like a jerk to me.”

The office was on the first floor, at the end of a bright hallway plastered with church notices, invitations to the Bloom Where You're Planted women's coffee group, a schedule of yoga and aerobics classes offered in the church basement, a list of twelve-step meetings in English. It would be possible, I realized, reading the multicolored notices, to live for years in Paris without ever really leaving the United States.

“I bet someone here can tell you where to find cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving,” Brian remarked, as we neared the reception desk.

I smiled, conjuring up a scene from some movie, a well-dressed family, the sound of a football game in the background, and a long table groaning with food, turkey and mashed potatoes and some quivering red mass in a bowl.

A cheerful woman in a tastefully dull beige sweater set took my message, carefully transcribing it onto an index card, nodding approvingly at the mention of the Hotel George V.

“It'll go up today?” I asked.

She nodded, adding the card to a small pile of similar messages. “I post the new cards by five.”

*   *   *

“What now?” Brian asked as we walked back to the SEAT.

“I guess we should find somewhere to stay,” I said. “I don't meet Uncle Bill until tomorrow at four.”

“I know a place in Montparnasse,” Brian offered. “It's not the George Cinq, but I don't think anyone will look for us there.”

Brian was right: the sex shop–lined rue de la Gaîté was no Champs-Elysées, the fraying Hotel de l'Espérance about as far from the gilded Hotel George V as one could get. But there was no doubt this would be the last place in Paris anyone would think to find us. Thirty-five euros got us a room with a double bed and a private bath. The dead cockroach in the sink was complimentary.

We both showered, then went out for an early dinner at the grease-scented brasserie on the corner. By nine we were in bed, bathed in risqué red neon, dreaming the road behind us.

TWENTY-FIVE

It was just after three the next afternoon when Brian and I ascended from the metro under the gaze of St. Michael, his stone feet trampling the writhing form of evil.
And the great dragon was thrown down,
I thought, conjuring up the passage from Revelation,
that ancient serpent who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole earth.