The Paris Key (8 page)

The owner is a short, balding man named Pablo who wears a white apron over an impressive belly. He greets the artists with boisterous affection and ushers them into a back room with low ceilings made of arched brick groin vaults, like an old wine cellar. The walls are lined with wire shelves crammed with quotidian restaurant supplies: paper towels, napkins, tablecloths, unlabeled cardboard boxes. A massive, sturdy wooden table sits in the center of the room.

Thibeaux, Xabi, and Michelle grab plates and silverware and proceed to set the table. A basket of bread appears, a dish of creamy butter. Two platters dressed with pâté, sliced tomatoes, and tiny cornichons.

“No one has any money, of course,” explains Thibeaux, “but this way Pablo gets art for his place, and we are fed. This isn't bad, is it?”

Pablo bustles in with steaming bowls of food that he sets on the table, family style. Stewed rabbit, potatoes, vegetables simmered in a buttery sauce. Some sort of meat dish. Pasta with tomato sauce. A hodgepodge unlike the carefully orchestrated dinners Angela is used to at Pasquale's table, or on the rare occasion when she has eaten at Parisian restaurants.

There are several bottles of wine without labels, and they use small jam jars as glasses instead of stemware.

After Pablo goes back to work and they are eating and drinking, conversation is intense. They have been joined by a few others, Chileans and French and Basque. They speak in a mix of French and Spanish and another odd language Angela doesn't recognize, with a very occasional translation provided by Michelle or Thibeaux.

Angela doesn't mind letting the vast majority of the foreign words flow over her. She is fascinated, watching them debate with passion and certainty and occasional flares of anger and bursts of laughter. It is as though she is watching a play.

Only she and Xabi remain mute. After dinner he removes himself from the crowded table, taking a seat on a barrel in the corner, crossing his arms over his broad chest. He looks like a painting, surrounded as he is by wine bottles and the low brick ceiling.

Finally there is a lull in the conversation.

“What is your opinion, from the land of Ronald Reagan?” Xabi asks, gesturing toward Angela with his chin.

“Don't blame me. I didn't vote for him,” she holds up her hands, as though surrendering. “I try to stay out of politics.”

“This is not possible.”

She shrugs, smiles, and drinks a little more wine from her jam jar as the conversation swells with talk about the Reagan administration.

Angela forces herself, for several minutes, not to look at Xabi. When she finally does, she finds his brooding stare upon her. She meets his eyes; he does not look away. The intensity in his gaze makes her catch her breath.

Catch her breath!

She is breathing.

Breathing.

L
ater, Genevieve would wonder how to say “mortified” in French.

Both men reacted as men so often do to women's tears: They were immediately intent on quelling them. They escorted her into the rear apartment and sat her down at the dining table. Though Killian tried to go, Philippe insisted on running for the coffee and croissant, saying he knew a good place right around the corner and could ensure fast service.

Killian scooted out a chair, sat, and leaned toward her. “Can't I help in some way? Isn't there something I can do?”

“I'm just . . . I just flew in from California last night, and I think it's the lack of sleep. I'm getting a headache—a migraine; I get them sometimes. I'm hoping to head it off with coffee and chocolate—the caffeine helps.”

He smiled. “And chocolate's the best medicine anyway, eh?”

Genevieve tried to return his smile but failed.

“Do you have any medicine I could get you?” Killian offered.

“Um, yes, Excedrin—” Genevieve started to stand, but he placed a hand on her shoulder to urge her to stay.

“Where?”

“The red canvas bag, in the bedroom on the left.”

He brought the bag to her, and she rooted through for the jumbo bottle while Killian got her a huge glass and a bottle of Perrier. She shook three white pellets into her hand, then tossed them to the back of her throat and chased them down with a full glass of mineral water.

He handed her a wet washcloth. It felt like heaven on her hot brow.

“Better?” Killian asked.

“Not quite yet, but I hope I caught it in time.”

“I'd be happy to run to the pharmacy. You know how hypochondriacal the French are. I'm sure I could come up with an armful of herbal tinctures and various
digestifs
. In my experience the French are convinced just about anything can be cured with a good stiff drink.”

She smiled, remembering her uncle giving her “medicine” for a stomachache that turned out to be an alcoholic fruit cordial of some kind, followed by an herbal chaser.

“No need, there's a whole cupboard full of such remedies right here. But I'll stick with caffeine. I'm . . . I'm very sorry I cried. I'm so embarrassed.”

“Why would you be embarrassed? My mum always said a good cry was good for the soul. So, locksmith Dave, of the sign . . . he was your father?”

“My uncle,” she said, tearing up again. She hadn't cried for Dave until right this moment. Now, in front of strangers, surrounded by the smell of his pipe, the rust of his old keys, she could feel the loss. Crying not just for his recent death but for all the years that had passed. All that time she hadn't come back, had hardly reached out. Long ago Genevieve had played tug-o'-war at a school picnic, and she still remembered the shocking sensation of the rough rope being violently wrenched through her hands, leaving her palms scraped raw. Dave's loss felt like that: an abrupt, stinging pain, followed by a long, lingering burn.

“I'm new in the neighborhood myself,” said Killian. “Though I've been living in Paris for some time now, over in the ninth arrondissement.”

“I didn't think anyone used those things anymore,” said Genevieve, gesturing to the clunky camera hanging around his neck. She was hoping to get her mind off Dave, her discomfort, her desire to curl up in a ball in the corner, to wail like she had as a child.

He lifted the camera off his chest. “You mean this? I know—I'm old-school. Don't care much for phone cameras.”

“What do you take pictures of?”

“I like to think of myself as an urban explorer, I'd say. Truth is, I go for the gritty, the manky.”

“Manky?”

He gave her a lopsided grin. “Dirty, grimy. Abandoned, even better. D'ya ever see the photos of the ghost towns of Ireland?”

Philippe tottered back in, a white paper bag already stained with grease in one hand, a cardboard coffee cup in the other, and his cane looped over his arm.

“
Ça va?
You are feeling better?”

When Genevieve didn't answer immediately, Killian said something in French so rapid she couldn't understand. He ended with: “She'll be better soon.”

“I'll be okay in a few minutes, I think,” she said. “Thank you so much for the coffee.”

“Okay, okay!” Philippe responded. “Then you will open this man's door, and come to my house?”

She took another deep breath and then released it slowly, starting to feel the effects of the medicine dulling the edges of the pain.

“Monsieur D'Artavel—,” she began, but he waved a hand in the air.

“Philippe. Please! When a beautiful young woman calls me ‘Philippe' it makes me feel like a man,
n'est-ce pas
?” He seemed to address this last to Killian, who smiled and nodded.

“Philippe, then,” Genevieve said. “I will look through my uncle's things and see what I can find. But, just to be clear: I practice sometimes, just for fun, but I haven't really worked with locks since I used to follow my uncle around as a kid. Besides, I just arrived from California a few hours ago. Could you give me a few days to try to find your information and settle in?”

“Of course. You are a good girl, Genevieve. Dave always says this. I will wait, and you will come in a few days, okay?” He held out an old-fashioned calling card, the kind with his name and address and phone number.

“Vicomte?”
she asked, reading the title before his name.

Philippe laughed and waved his hand in the air. “Just a little bit royal, perhaps not enough even to have my head off in the Revolution! I only include that so the people will treat me well at the
boulangerie
.” He winked. “My house, she is not far, only two miles. Dave, always he walked.”

“Today is Sunday, right?”

He nodded.

“All right, let me see what I can find out from my uncle's papers, and I will come on Wednesday if I find the file, the
dossier
.
Mercredi.
”

“Come on
mercredi
even if you don't find the
dossier
. We will have lunch.”

“Lunch isn't necessary, thank you,” Genevieve said, tucking her hair behind her ear, wondering if she looked as unkempt as she feared. She still felt headachy, and awkward in front of these two men. All she really wanted right now was to take a shower, to be left alone. “I'll just come and finish the locks, if I can.”

“I have many doors at my house,” said Philippe, waggling a finger. “You will see. We will need to eat lunch first.”

“There's really no need,” Genevieve continued. “I—”

A smiling Killian interrupted: “I think you're going to have to give up on this one, Genevieve. The French take invitations to lunch seriously.”

Genevieve blew out a breath. She had dreamed of a new life as a locksmith in Paris, so why was she pulling back now? “All right, Philippe, thank you. I will see you for lunch on Wednesday.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay!” Another round of kisses, and he tottered off.

Killian raised one eyebrow. “You're willing to give my door a go?”

Genevieve nodded, grabbed her uncle's tool bag—an old black leather satchel—and followed Killian across the street.

1997

T
he morning after Uncle Dave picked up Genevieve from the airport at Roissy, she awoke bleary-eyed and out of sorts. Catharine was reading in bed, big ugly glasses perched on her nose.

When she saw Genevieve stir, she yelled out:
“Elle est prête!”

Then, in a softer voice, she asked, “
As-tu bien dormi?
Did you sleep well?”

Tante Pasquale hustled in then, a tray in her hands, asking the same thing.

Genevieve nodded, mute. She had never been a morning person; even as a baby, her mother used to say, she woke up crying and combative, unhappy to release the bonds of sleep, to start her day. Making her mother miserable from day one, she supposed.

Pasquale set the tray on a little bedside table. There was a pot of hot chocolate; a cup and saucer; and a plate holding a baguette, a
pain au chocolat
, and a huge croissant. Beside these were two tiny pots of preserves: one orange marmalade, the other raspberry jam.

Genevieve had always associated hot chocolate with special events: the occasional camping trip or going to get a Christmas tree. Someone would pour hot water into powder, and if you were super-lucky they'd add a couple of marshmallows. Too impatient to let it cool, Genevieve always tried to drink it while scalding, burning her mouth. The anticipation of sweet liquid chocolate was now forever entangled with the memory of that searing sensation on her tongue.

“Eat, eat!” Tante Pasquale said. “And then you must go with your uncle, to make a little visit. And be sure to go by the
boulangerie
on your way home—you must remind your uncle, as he forgets and comes home without baguettes!”

“What a scandal,” said Catharine in a sarcastic tone.
“Quelle horreur.”

The hot chocolate was in a tiny white pitcher, and there was an oversized cup, as big as a bowl, sitting on the saucer. It was as if things had changed places, Genevieve thought. Like in a dollhouse where things were out of proportion, but you pretended everything was normal-sized anyway because you absolutely needed Barbie to have a cup of coffee or an apple, or whatever.

The entire room filled with the scent of rich cocoa. Genevieve sat on the side of her bed and tried to pour the chocolate into the cup. Instead of pouring like milk, it had a sludgy, slow quality as it drizzled into the cup. It was darker than she was used to as well, not the light brown of camping trips but a deep, rich brown closer to coffee. She began to wonder if Pasquale had merely melted down a candy bar.

She blew on it, sipped cautiously. It was the perfect temperature, not too hot at all. The thick liquid coated her mouth. Her entire soul was now wrapped in the divine substance: chocolate.

“Good, huh?” Catharine's loud voice interrupted her reverie.

“Um, yeah,” Genevieve replied, suddenly embarrassed at her show of pleasure.

Catharine rolled her eyes slightly. “My
maman
, she is . . . how you say? Indulgent. Don't get used to it.”

“Why?”

“Do you see a tray for me? She is doing this because it is your first morning here. It's not typical. I'm just saying.” Catharine's English, though subtly accented, was excellent; Dave spoke to her in English, and she read a steady stream of American comics and novels.

Genevieve didn't reply, losing herself again in the chocolate.

“You dip the bread in the chocolate.”

“All of them?”

“No, you choose. Whichever one you want.”

Genevieve didn't want to be a pig, so she tore off a bit of the baguette and dunked it in the hot liquid, coating it with a thick brown glaze. She put the bit in her mouth. The crisp, chewy doughiness of the bread combined with the heavy sweetness of the chocolate to create an entirely new taste.

Genevieve started to feel overwhelmed. She hadn't even gotten out of bed yet on her first real day in Paris, and already things were so . . .
different
. The chocolate was fantastic, but foreign, nothing like the Hershey's chocolate bar she and Nick were very occasionally allowed to eat in s'mores when friends came for sleepovers. And she had never, not once in her life, been served breakfast in bed. Genevieve had a sudden visual of the morning light streaming into her room at home. She thought of the raucous call of their old rooster, Roscoe, whom they had to get rid of last year when the housing development encroached on their old working farm and the new neighbors started to complain. Knowing she had to check the chickens for eggs before school, even the mean old spotted one that always tried to peck at her. The familiar dread of having to face her classmates at school. And her mother, knocking on the door, yelling at her not to be late, carpool would be there in half an hour.

How Genevieve used to detest her mother in that moment, the bearer of such unwelcome news, standing in her doorway silhouetted in the morning light.

The memory of her mother brought the sting of unwelcome tears to her eyes. She bit her tongue, hard, loath to cry in front of Catharine. Homesickness sucked at her, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

She pushed the rich chocolate away, wanting nothing more than to pull the covers back over her head and fall back to sleep. She felt a deep, dank yearning; a hollow, bleak, nauseating sense of disconnectedness, of being cast adrift. Abandoned.

“You have to get up,” said Catharine with a snort. “They're going to drag you around to see tourist things. Notre-Dame, probably, and the
Tour Ee-FELL
.”

“The what?” Genevieve asked.

“The
Tour Ee-FELL
!” Catharine repeated in a louder voice, as though increasing the volume would help.

At Genevieve's blank look, she finally rolled her eyes again and said in exaggerated English, “The
EYE-ful
Tower. Is that what you say?”

“Oh. I don't care about the Eiffel Tower.”

“Well, he'll take you there anyway. You're an American in Paris; you have to do all those things. I remember your mother loved the gargoyles at Notre-Dame. And there's the Louvre, and the Champs-Élysées. Get your camera ready. Click, click, go the Americans!” She shrugged and turned her attention back to her book.
“C'est la vie. Ça va.”