The Radiant City (13 page)

“A truer word was never spoken.”

Matthew opens the bottle.

“That’s a pretty nice place, that restaurant. Nice people,” says Jack.

“Joseph’s a good kid,” Matthew says.

“Seems to be.”

“A bit troubled, maybe. His father’s dead. Stepfather was a son of a bitch.”

“Most are. Mother’s pretty good-looking, if you don’t mind the scars. You like the kid, huh? You acting big brother?”

“Just think he’s impressionable, is all. Any more stories like tonight and he’s going to want to go off and join the foreign legion.”

“There are worse things.” Jack reaches over and picks up a photo from the table. “Nice. Who is she?”

“Kate,” Matthew says, on his way to the kitchen for glasses. He does not have to look; there is only one photo in the apartment.

“Who’s Kate?”

“She’s a lawyer. Lives in Washington.”

“Right.”

Matthew hands Jack a glass. He laughs and peels a price sticker off the bottom. “Guess you don’t have many guests.”

“Nope. Not many.”

Jack nods and looks at Kate’s picture again. “I was married once. I ever tell you that?”

“Not that I recall, but then you never mentioned you had a son, either.” Matthew pours two healthy shots from the triangular green bottle.

He takes a deep gulp of scotch. “Judy. She’s back in Arizona, in Sedona, land of the loony-tune, home of the harmonic convergence. She runs a place that sells tarot cards and books on angels and channelling and fake Zuni jewellery. She’s Jack Jr.’s mother. He’s seventeen and already had some run-ins with the law. Chip off the old block, unfortunately.”

“You see him much?”

“Haven’t seen him in about a year, I guess.” Jack pours himself more scotch and rolls the glass around in his palms.

“Miss him?”

“Hell, sure I miss him. I guess.” The scowl on his face tells Matthew he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.

“How are things going at the hostel?” he says.

“Monday nights, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, Thursday nights. Some extra cash to pay for those little luxuries the state declines to provide for. Cigarette money. Not much more. Not enough more. Might have to find something else.”

“Hmm.

“Has its benefits though.” He grins. “I believe part of my mandate is to make sure the little princesses out to seek adventure come to no harm. And there are plenty of eighteen year olds grateful for a big old lug like me to protect their beauty sleep. Forty-seven’s not so bad. Nothing like experience.” He chuckles and looks smug, the words hollow in the bottom of his glass as he tips it to his mouth.

“There was this one little girl. Vietnamese of all fucking things. Said her name was Hang. Said it meant Angel in the Full Moon. Can you believe that shit? I mean what can you do but fall in love with a girl who’s got a name like that? She had size three feet. Had to buy her shoes in the children’s department. She was something else, man. You know, she was into all this kinky sex. She was a student at NYU, studying marketing or advertising or something. Traveling around Europe on her summer break. She had a website of her own and showed me. Pictures of her like you wouldn’t believe.” Jack runs his fingers over his moustache and stares off into the distance. “Tied up, man. Really tied up, so she couldn’t wiggle a toe. Silk rope wrapped around her like a cocoon or something. She never would tell me who tied her up or who took the pictures, just that they sold real well. Said it was a Japanese erotic practice. It was her idea that I tie her up.” Jack slides off the chair onto the floor. He lies on his back, a glass of scotch balanced on his stomach. “I thought those girls Anthony knew. . . I thought they were Vietnamese. He said they were.”

“You looking for somebody to tie up again?” Matthew chuckles, makes a point of chuckling, because as soon as the words have left his mouth he sees how imprudent they are. They would not have been spoken had he been completely sober.

“Fuck that. I’m looking for somebody who makes me stop thinking about tying them up.” Jack laughs bitterly then looks at Matthew. “Joke. It’s a joke.”

“How are things with you and Suzi?”

“Me and Suzi?”

“Yeah. I sort of figured you two might be starting something.”

“She’s a fucking hooker.”

“So?”

“Yeah. I guess. So what.” Then suddenly he throws his head back and roars, startling Matthew enough that he spills some of his drink. “I mean what the fuck am I? A fucking catch? Sure, for a deranged-Vet-ex-con-war-junky with a drinking problem! Speaking of which. More please.” He holds out his glass and Matthew obliges, and then refills his own.

“To Suzi. Belle of the ball,” says Jack, raising his glass.

“To Suzi.”

Evening falls and outside Matthew’s window the place du Dublin is nearly deserted. A couple enter Le Primavera Bistro. An old woman walks her dog. A young girl strides along purposefully, a cigarette in one hand, a cell phone in the other. Matthew sits and stares out at the square, but his mind is on Suzi and how she looked that night at Anthony’s. She reminded him of Edith Piaf, almost, or at least a Piaf in the making. She smelled of roses and lemons. He thinks of her breasts, of how they had looked under that T-shirt while she was so close to him in the bathroom, bandaging his hand. It has been a long time since he slept with a woman. Since before Hebron.

In his mind’s eye, he sees himself walking across the room, dialling a number in Washington. Hearing Kate’s voice on the other end. She would probably be sleeping now, one foot dangling outside the covers, for she always got too hot. She would pick up the phone, her voice velvet with sleep. She would say hello. Maybe he would hear hope in her voice, hope that it might be him, or hope that it would not be. He cannot imagine what he would say to her. He shakes the idea out of his head.

He considers going down to the Bok-Bok, and then dismisses it. If he is looking for a woman, better not to look there. Suzi is, apart from being a hooker, obviously shooting dope. Not to mention that she and Jack seem to be. . . something, although what is not exactly clear.

No. Not the Bok-Bok. But out, somewhere, where there are people.

Victoria Short. Every ex-pat who passes through Paris hears about Victoria sooner or later. She has an apartment on rue Saint André -des-Arts that she converts once every week to a
salon
, admission one hundred francs, which includes a buffet dinner, all the cheap wine you can drink, a poetry reading, or lecture on James Baldwin, or Bricktop, or Langston Hughes, or Miles Davis, and a few introductions. Victoria disguises the tang of sex with the perfume of jazz and literature. A black American journalist with whom he had been attending a conference on chemical warfare had first taken Matthew there seven years ago. He had been back several times since, whenever he passed through and had a free Friday, and he usually bumped into someone he knew. Victoria’s is a sort of informal meeting spot for the journalists who regularly pass through Paris.

An hour later Matthew climbs the stairs to the fifth-floor apartment, up a circular stairwell so steep and narrow he is dizzy by the time he reaches the top. Victoria’s door, the only one on the floor, is open and she stands at the threshold.

“I know you! Matthew, if I remember right? Good to see you. Did I know you were in Paris? I thought you were in the Middle East. Yes, last I heard. Someone told me. Didn’t I hear you got shot? Something heroic? Did you let me know you were coming? I ask everyone to reserve.” Victoria is a large woman, with a barrel chest and imposing shoulders. Her wig, a somewhat ratty pageboy, fools no one. She runs her finger along a list of names. “People really must reserve in advance. Did you?”

“Nope. Last-minute decision.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Something of a celebrity now. Still.”

Matthew pulls two fifty-franc notes out of his pocket, and holds them out to her. She is just about to take them when he jerks them away. “Listen, Victoria, do me a favour will you? Can the celebrity shit. Seriously. Deal?”

She snatches the notes and slips them into the pocket of the red tunic she wears. “Next time call me in advance. Come in, come in! Carol Pratchard is reading from her new collection. Iowa Writer’s School.”

After adding his coat to the pile already heaped on the bed, Matthew he makes his way through the crowd in the hall toward the living room. As he passes the tiny kitchen, he says hello to Eduardo, the Filipino chef who is everywhere Victoria is.

“Hey, Matthew, long time!” Eduardo chops onions with lightning speed, and Matthew fears for the man’s stubby fingertips. Binko, Eduardo’s monkey, chatters from his lookout atop the refrigerator. “Matthew,” Eduardo says, “I hear about your trouble. You okay?”

“Sure, Eduardo. Where’s the booze?”

Eduardo nods. “Okay, you’re good. Take some wine—there.” He points behind Matthew onto a countertop covered in plastic glasses half-full of red wine. Matthew takes one and makes his way into the crowded living room. People sit on folding chairs, perch on the deep casement windowsills and cram onto the brown corduroy sofa. Voices reveal the crowd as mostly Americans, ex-pats and tourists. Matthew scans the faces to see if he knows anyone. Two men stand together, one wearing a blue tie-dyed
dashiki
and
kafi,
the other in waist-length dreadlocks and black leather. A number of couples, mostly straight. A too-thin woman with dyed blond hair smiles enthusiastically at him. Her nails are long and her fingers covered in expensive rings. He looks at his watch, does not smile back, and hopes she will assume he is waiting for someone. She turns away.

“Hey, stranger.”

Matthew turns to find Denise Mumford grinning at him, her green eyes bright and fresh as spring’s first leaves.

“Denise, you are a sight for sore eyes,” he says, kissing her on the cheek. Jasmine, maybe. Camellias? Minty breath. God, but women smell great, he thinks. “I thought you were in New York.”

“I’ve done New York. Restless feet—you know the syndrome.”

“You coming back to the news?”

“Nope. As in never. Writing biographies suits me fine. I’m just here for a week or so, doing some research for the next project, a book about one of the big
fashionistas
.”

“Looks like it suits you. You look real good, Denise.” She is almost as tall as Matthew is; her hair is jet-black and falls halfway down her back. She wears a pair of black, wide-legged pants and a white oversized shirt. It is loose, and most of the buttons are undone, revealing the curve of her breasts and the flash of white lace.

“I’m just a girl getting by on my wits and a few pretty dresses.” She puts her arm through his. “You look more like Arthur Miller every time I see you.”

“I don’t think that’s a compliment.”

“Well, crossed with Sam Shepard. How’s that?”

“I can live with that.”

“Who’s reading tonight?”

“Some bright young thing from Iowa.”

They find a few square inches of wall to lean against just as Victoria makes her way to the front of the room to the bright young thing, who turns out to be a short, thin, earnest-looking girl who has just published a collection of short stories based on the life of Céleste Mogador, the
nineteenth-century prostitute who transformed herself into a much-admired novelist and playwright.

The girl reads in a voice so monotone Matthew has trouble figuring out where one sentence ends and the next begins. Denise presses her breast against his arm. He does not think he’ll have to sit through the whole reading.

Denise is staying at the Raphael on avenue Kleber. Her suite has a red velvet chaise lounge in a separate sitting room, art nouveau-mirrored armoires and a four-poster bed.

“Looks like the biography business is pretty good.”

“You should see the bathroom.”

“Only if you show it to me.”

In the bathroom he says, “That’s a good-sized tub.”

“Yup. And deep, too,” she says, unbuttoning her shirt. “You like bubbles?”

“One of my favourite things,” he grins.

When they are settled, each comfortably at their own end of the tub, her legs over his, she asks, “How do you like living in Paris?” and blows a fluff of bubbles off the ends of her fingers.

“It’s as good as any place, I guess.” He massages her instep and she moans.

“Is it? Then why choose here?”

“Because it’s a good city to be fucked up in.” Matthew is surprised to hear the words come out of his mouth.

“Why?” Denise moves her foot away from his chest. When he does not answer she says, “Really, Matthew. Tell me. I felt that way about New York once. In fact I think I chose it for that very reason, after I lost the baby and Peter all in one year.”