JEAN-PAUL MAILLARD LIMPS THROUGH the gate of the small city park, as invisible as the air.
Two old men sit on a bench, a chessboard perched between them. They are hunched over the pieces, two small Rodins, each with a cigarette hanging from one corner of their mouths. They do not look up at the uneven crunch of Jean-Paul’s footsteps on the gravel. A flock of pigeons swarms across the pathway in front of him, the birds’ heads a bobbing sea of hopeful pecks. They ignore him as he approaches, and he does not want to disturb their frantic hunt for food; he maneuvers around them. Mothers stand sentry on the periphery of the well-manicured lawn, too busy watching their children play on the grass to notice Jean-Paul’s heavy progress past the blooming banks of bougainvillea.
This is how he likes to live his life; to see, rather than to be seen.
There is a bandstand in the middle of the park. Jean-Paul has never heard music performed there. It is where he likes to sit. He chooses one of the empty metal chairs and arranges it just so. He lights a cigarette and pulls the smoke gratefully into his lungs. From his elevated perspective he can see most of what he wants to see—the benches, the grassy area, and the ornamental lake beyond, its surface a dark mirror.
It is early. He can still taste the coffee he slung back at the zinc of the small café on Rue de Bretagne. He’s been coming here so long that he no longer needs to order; his espresso is already brewing by the time he sits down at the counter. It is strong and bitter on his tongue.
Jean-Paul knows this quartier well. The military sanitarium is two streets away. The place had been an elementary school before the war began. For six days he stared at the same patch of wall, dodging the bullets and bombs that were still exploding inside his head. Iron beds were packed together where children’s desks had once been, the air thick with the cries of the wounded. A teacher had written the words “TROIS CHEVRES” in chalk in the top left-hand corner of the blackboard at the front of the room, the legacy of a final, long-ago lesson. Those three goats saved Jean-Paul’s life while he convalesced. For hours every day he pictured them gamboling peacefully together on a green hillside, somewhere far away from the blood-soaked fields of Verdun.
Today there are children everywhere, delighted with this new summer’s morning. Jean-Paul sits back in his chair and surveys the scene before him. He and Anaïs used to come here every Sunday after Elodie was born. He liked to sit on the wooden benches and watch the world go by, dazzled by the baby sleeping in his arms. Now his eyes roam up and down the pathways, watching, searching, hoping.
There is a group of young girls playing jump rope. They laugh and chant and clap hands as they take turns to hop in and out of the rope’s looping orbit. Jean-Paul looks at the face of every girl. Their games become faster, louder, more joyful. He finishes his cigarette, and then smokes another.
After a while he pulls his eyes away from the children and reaches into his coat pocket. He pulls out a black notebook, opens it at random, and begins to read. He knows every word by heart. The notebook contains the story of a life unlived, resurrected from the ashes of despair. Its telling was an act of love, of desperation, and of survival.
There were not enough memories to be had, and so Jean-Paul created more.
With a sigh, he closes the notebook and contemplates the day ahead. A month previously, France was gripped by Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic. Over a hundred thousand Parisians swarmed to Le Bourget to greet the Spirit of St. Louis when it landed. Roads around the aerodrome were gridlocked for hours. The following morning Jean-Paul stood among the excited crowd of cheering Frenchmen as Lindbergh appeared briefly on the balcony of the American embassy. They stayed for hours after the famous pilot had disappeared, chanting his name and waving their hats in the air. Jean-Paul realized that he was not the only one of his countrymen who was obsessed with the United States. The idea came to him then: a series of profiles of American expatriates now living in Paris. He made a list of potential subjects, and pitched the idea to his editor, who agreed to it at once. Today he has two interviews. He hopes his English will be up to the job.
He glances at his wristwatch. It is time to leave for his first appointment, but he does not want to quit his post just yet—there’s no knowing when his hopeful vigilance might be rewarded. He sits back and watches the children play for a few moments more.
Jean-Paul does not even know the face he is looking for, but he is sure that when he sees it, he will recognize it at once.