Giovanni's Room (7 page)

Now the cabdriver asked us where we wanted to go, for we had arrived at the choked boulevards and impassable sidestreets of Les Halles. Leeks, onions, cabbages, oranges, apples, potatoes, cauliflowers, stood gleaming in mounds all over, on the sidewalks, in the streets, before great metal sheds. The sheds were blocks long and within the sheds were piled more fruit, more vegetables, in some sheds, fish, in some sheds, cheese, in some whole animals, lately slaughtered. It scarcely seemed possible that all of this could ever be eaten. But in a few hours it would all be gone and trucks would be arriving from all corners of France—and making their way, to the great profit of a beehive of middlemen, across the city of Paris—to feed the roaring multitude. Who were roaring now, at once wounding and charming the ear, before and behind, and on either side of our taxi—our taxi driver, and Giovanni, too, roared back. The multitude of Paris seems to be dressed in blue every day but Sunday, when, for the most part, they put on an unbelievably festive black. Here they were now, in blue, disputing, every inch, our passage, with their wagons, handtrucks, camions, their bursting baskets carried at an angle steeply self-confident on the back. A red-faced woman, burdened with fruit, shouted—to Giovanni, the driver, to the world—a particularly vivid
cochonnerie
, to which the
driver and Giovanni, at once, at the top of their lungs, responded, though the fruit lady had already passed beyond our sight and perhaps no longer even remembered her precisely obscene conjectures. We crawled along, for no one had yet told the driver where to stop, and Giovanni and the driver, who had, it appeared, immediately upon entering Les Halles, been transformed into brothers, exchanged speculations, unflattering in the extreme, concerning the hygiene, language, private parts, and habits, of the citizens of Paris. (Jacques and Guillaume were exchanging speculations, unspeakably less good-natured, concerning every passing male.) The pavements were slick with leavings, mainly cast-off, rotten leaves, flowers, fruit, and vegetables which had met with disaster natural and slow, or abrupt. And the walls and corners were combed with
pissoirs
, dull-burning, make-shift braziers, cafes, restaurants, and smoky yellow bistros—of these last, some so small that they were little more than diamond-shaped, enclosed corners holding bottles and a zinc-covered counter. At all these points, men, young, old, middle-aged, powerful, powerful even in the various fashions in which they had met, or were meeting, their various ruin; and women, more than making up in shrewdness and patience, in an ability to count and weigh—and shout—whatever they might lack in muscle; though they did not, really, seem to lack much. Nothing here reminded me of home, though Giovanni recognized, revelled in it all.

“I know a place,” he told the driver, “
très bon marché
”—and told the driver where it was. It developed that it was one of the driver's favorite rendezvous.

“Where is this place?” asked Jacques, petulantly. “I thought we were going to”—and he named another place.

“You are joking,” said Giovanni, with contempt. “That place is
very
bad and
very
expensive, it is only for tourists. We are not tourists,” and he added, to me, “When I first came to Paris I worked in
Les Halles—a long time, too.
Nom de Dieu, quel boulot!
I pray always never to do that again.” And he regarded the streets through which we passed with a sadness which was not less real for being a little theatrical and self-mocking.

Guillaume said, from his corner of the cab: “Tell him who rescued you.”

“Ah, yes,” said Giovanni, “behold my savior, my
patron
.” He was silent a moment. Then: “You do not regret it, do you? I have not done you any harm? You are pleased with my work?”

“
Mais oui
,” said Guillaume.

Giovanni sighed. “
Bien sûr.
” He looked out of the window again, again whistling. We came to a corner remarkably clear. The taxi stopped.

“
Ici
,” said the driver.

“
Ici
,” Giovanni echoed.

I reached for my wallet but Giovanni sharply caught my hand, conveying to me with an angry flick of his eyelash the intelligence that the least these dirty old men could do was
pay
. He opened the door and stepped out into the street. Guillaume had not reached for his wallet and Jacques paid for the cab.

“Ugh,” said Guillaume, staring at the door of the cafe before which we stood, “I am sure this place is infested with vermin. Do you want to poison us?”

“It's not the outside you're going to eat,” said Giovanni. “You are in much more danger of being poisoned in those dreadful, chic places you always go to, where they always have the face clean,
mais
,
mon Dieu
,
les fesses!
” He grinned. “
Fais-moi confiance
. Why would I want to poison you? Then I would have no job and I have only just found out that I want to live.”

He and Guillaume, Giovanni still smiling, exchanged a look which I would not have been able to read even if I had dared to try; and Jacques, pushing all of us before him as though we were his
chickens, said, with that grin: “We can't stand here in the cold and argue. If we can't eat inside, we can drink. Alcohol kills all microbes.”

And Guillaume brightened suddenly—he was really remarkable, as though he carried, hidden somewhere on his person, a needle filled with vitamins, which, automatically, at the blackening hour, discharged itself into his veins. “
Il y a les jeunes dedans
,” he said, and we went in.

Indeed there were young people, half a dozen at the zinc counter before glasses of red and white wine, along with others not young at all. A pockmarked boy and a very rough-looking girl were playing the pinball machine near the window. There were a few people sitting at the tables in the back, served by an astonishingly clean-looking waiter. In the gloom, the dirty walls, the sawdust-covered floor, his white jacket gleamed like snow. Behind these tables one caught a glimpse of the kitchen and the surly, obese cook. He lumbered about like one of those overloaded trucks outside, wearing one of those high, white hats, and with a dead cigar stuck between his lips.

Behind the counter sat one of those absolutely inimitable and indomitable ladies, produced only in the city of Paris, but produced there in great numbers, who would be as outrageous and unsettling in any other city as a mermaid on a mountaintop. All over Paris they sit behind their counters like a mother bird in a nest and brood over the cash register as though it were an egg. Nothing occurring under the circle of heaven where they sit escapes their eye, if they have ever been surprised by anything, it was only in a dream—a dream they long ago ceased having. They are neither ill- nor good-natured, though they have their days and styles, and they know, in the way, apparently, that other people know when they have to go to the bathroom, everything about everyone who enters their domain. Though some are white-haired and some not, some fat, some
thin, some grandmothers and some but lately virgins, they all have exactly the same, shrewd, vacant, all-registering eye; it is difficult to believe that they ever cried for milk or looked at the sun; it seems they must have come into the world hungry for banknotes, and squinting helplessly, unable to focus their eyes until they came to rest on a cash register.

This one's hair is black and grey, and she has a face which comes from Brittany; and she, like almost everyone else standing at the bar, knows Giovanni and, after her fashion, likes him. She has a big, deep bosom and she clasps Giovanni to it; and a big, deep voice.

“
Ah
,
mon pote!
”
she
cries. “
Tu es revenu!
You have come back at last!
Salaud!
Now that you are rich and have found rich friends, you never come to see us anymore!
Canaille!
”

And she beams at us, the “rich” friends, with a friendliness deliciously, deliberately vague; she would have no trouble reconstructing every instant of our biographies from the moment we were born until this morning. She knows exactly who is rich—and how rich—and she knows it isn't me. For this reason, perhaps, there was a click of speculation infinitesimally double behind her eyes when she looked at me. In a moment, however, she knows that she will understand it all.

“You know how it is,” says Giovanni, extricating himself and throwing back his hair, “when you work, when you become serious, you have no time to play.”

“
Tiens
,” says she, with mockery. “
Sans blague?
”

“But I assure you,” says Giovanni, “even when you are a young man like me, you get very tired”—she laughs—“and you go to sleep early”—she laughs again—“and
alone
,” says Giovanni, as though this proved everything, and she clicks her teeth in sympathy and laughs again.

“And now,” she says, “are you coming or going? Have you
come for breakfast or have you come for a nightcap?
Nom de Dieu
, you do not
look
very serious; I believe you need a drink.”

“
Bien sûr
,” says someone at the bar, “after such hard work he needs a bottle of white wine—and perhaps a few dozen oysters.”

Everybody laughs. Everybody, without seeming to, is looking at us and I am beginning to feel like part of a travelling circus. Everybody, also, seems very proud of Giovanni.

Giovanni turns to the voice at the bar. “An excellent idea, friend,” he says, “and exactly what I had in mind.” Now he turns to us. “You have not met my friends,” he says, looking at me, then at the woman. “This is Monsieur Guillaume,” he tells her, and with the most subtle flattening of his voice, “my
patron
. He can tell you if I am serious.”

“Ah,” she dares to say, “but I cannot tell if
he
is,” and covers this daring with a laugh.

Guillaume, raising his eyes with difficulty from the young men at the bar, stretches out his hand and smiles. “But you are right, Madame,” he says. “He is so much more serious than I am that I fear he will own my bar one day.”

He will when lions fly, she is thinking, but professes herself enchanted by him and shakes his hand with energy.

“And Monsieur Jacques,” says Giovanni, “one of our finest customers.”

“
Enchanté
,
Madame
,” says Jacques, with his most dazzling smile, of which she, in responding, produces the most artless parody.

“And this is
monsieur l'américain
,” says Giovanni, “otherwise known as:
Monsieur David. Madame Clothilde.
”

And he stands back slightly. Something is burning in his eyes and it lights up all his face, it is joy and pride.

“
Je suis ravie
,
monsieur
,” she tells me and looks at me and shakes my hand and smiles.

I am smiling too, I scarcely know why; everything in me is jumping up and down. Giovanni carelessly puts an arm around my shoulder. “What have you got good to eat?” he cried. “We are hungry.”

“But we must have a drink first!” cried Jacques.

“But we can drink sitting down,” said Giovanni, “no?”

“No,” said Guillaume, to whom leaving the bar, at the moment, would have seemed like being driven from the promised land, “let us first have a drink, here at the bar, with Madame.”

Guillaume's suggestion had the effect—but subtly, as though a wind had blown over everything or a light been imperceptibly intensified—of creating among the people at the bar, a
troupe
, who would now play various roles in a play they knew very well. Madame Clothilde would demur, as, indeed, she instantly did, but only for a moment; then she would accept, it would be something expensive; it turned out to be champagne. She would sip it, making the most noncommittal conversation, so that she could vanish out of it a split second before Guillaume had established contact with one of the boys at the bar. As for the boys at the bar, they were each invisibly preening, having already calculated how much money he and his
copain
would need for the next few days, having already appraised Guillaume to within a decimal of that figure, and having already estimated how long Guillaume, as a fountainhead, would last, and also how long they would be able to endure him. The only question left was whether they would be
vache
with him, or
chic
, but they knew that they would probably be
vache
. There was also Jacques, who might turn out to be a bonus, or merely a consolation prize. There was me, of course, another matter altogether, innocent of apartments, soft beds, or food, a candidate, therefore, for affection, but, as Giovanni's
môme
, out of honorable reach. Their only means, practically at least, of conveying their affection for Giovanni and me was to relieve us of these two old
men. So that there was added, to the roles they were about to play, a certain jolly aura of conviction and, to self-interest, an altruistic glow.

I ordered black coffee and a cognac, a large one. Giovanni was far from me, drinking
marc
between an old man, who looked like a receptacle of all the world's dirt and disease, and a young boy, a redhead, who would look like that man one day, if one could read, in the dullness of his eye, anything so real as a future. Now, however, he had something of a horse's dreadful beauty; some suggestion, too, of the storm trooper; covertly, he was watching Guillaume; he knew that both Guillaume and Jacques were watching him. Guillaume chatted, meanwhile, with Madame Clothilde; they were agreeing that business was awful, that all standards had been debased by the
nouveau riche
, and that the country needed de Gaulle. Luckily, they had both had this conversation so many times before that it ran, so to speak, all by itself, demanding of them nothing in the way of concentration. Jacques would shortly offer one of the boys a drink but, for the moment, he wished to play uncle to me.