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After the critique group, Philippe walked to l’Hôtel de Ville Metro stop and took the 1 train west to the Champs Elysées station, then the 13 south to his rented house in a suburb just outside the Périphérique, the frantic highway that encircled and marked the limits of Paris proper. In Roman times and the Middle Ages, walls had defined the city limits. Now they were defined by a wall of cars.
As the Metro rocked him, he reflected that he’d grown up in a suburb, in New Jersey. His parents spoke French at home, and they talked about life in their Huguenot village. Of French country life in general. The peace of it. The delicious croissants and baguettes. The cheese. The foie gras and the duck confit and the comfort of a cassoulet on a winter’s evening.
And he’d decided young that he wanted to live in France, wherever he could find a spot. And here he was. In Paris, not a Huguenot village. But that was okay. He was married to a lovely French woman who made him cassoulet for winter evenings. And he had a daughter who’d started on wine and was now so addicted to alcohol, she was loosing all good judgment. She was making bad choices, ones that would haunt her entire life.
He was six stops from Malakoff, in a car with all its windows open since there was no air conditioning, of course, when he realized he’d left his jacket at the café. He had to retrace all the distance he’d come.
Philippe had been a wild man growing up, and he’d cussed non-stop. Now he was trying to be a different man, trying to fill a special role, but sometimes a swear word was the only satisfying response to a situation.
“Merde,” he muttered, picturing the long ride back to retrieve his forgotten jacket. He got off at the next stop. He followed the stairs up and then back down to the other side of the tracks. He had been 10 minutes from home, but now he wouldn’t be home for another hour, at the earliest. He sighed as the train approached. He hated having to go back.
He took his seat in a fog of weariness. Then he smelled something raunchy. He looked up to see a man near him on the train, a bum who smelled so bad that even the women upwind of him had their noses buried in their scarves. His blue jeans were stained almost entirely brown and were so low on his hips, they would fall off and totally reveal his filthy underwear—if he had any—if he stood up. A drip hung from the end of his nose and hovered over his huge beard, splayed over his chest. He appeared to be asleep, slumped in his seat.
As the Metro rumbled along, Philippe thought, a mother once lifted him as a baby to her lips and kissed and kissed him. Now he was a wreck. What if Meredith followed this path? A baby once kissed from head to toe becoming a shambles.
The Metro jolted into the Varenne station. Outside the train’s window, a replica of Rodin’s black statue of Balzac leaned perilously backward, in danger of falling. Philippe thought he’d give this fallen human near him a good look, to acknowledge his humanity. He wasn’t going to give him money, however, and he wasn’t going to take him home, feed him, give him a shower or fresh clothes. The man couldn’t be trusted around his wife, in his home. He was hopeless. He would say a prayer for him. What a great Christian he was.
At the café, he picked up the jacket. Going home he missed a train by five seconds. The doors closed as he descended the Metro stairs, and the train moved inevitably out of the station—without him. The helpful sign hanging from the ceiling said the next train wasn’t for ten minutes. At eleven thirty at night, when I’m exhausted, ten minutes is an eternity, he thought. The only thing that can express my disappointment is to say, “Shit!”
He thought, if people who knew I’m a Christian were to overhear me, they’d be shocked and disappointed in me. I know it. But to relieve my negative feelings with an expletive seems to be irresistible to me.
“Shit” and “merde” both stand for ugly, stinking stuff, he thought. But considering my troubles with Meredith and how much I’ve prayed for her to no avail—it stands.
