THREE VACATIONS

Desirous to spend some time in the neigh­bor­hood where Ner­val hanged him­self, I looked into rent­ing a room in Mont­martre. A friend of mine, a suc­cess­ful pho­tog­ra­ph­er, put me in touch with an acquain­tance of hers, Éti­enne Car­roll, who lived there but who would be vaca­tion­ing dur­ing the month of August. He prompt­ly respond­ed to my inquiries, and after a few polite emails, a price and dates were agreed upon. Since my friend, Armelle, would also be vaca­tion­ing dur­ing my stay – at a 16th cen­tu­ry manor house inher­it­ed by her partner’s fam­i­ly in the coun­try­side – I would trav­el direct­ly to Étienne’s apart­ment on the Rue des Abbèss­es, where he would be wait­ing for me at nine a.m. on August first.

He was there, as promised. Mud­dled by jet­lag, I let my hand be vig­or­ous­ly shak­en. Even at this ear­ly hour, his face – which was nar­row, rodent-like, near­ly chin­less – was bathed in sweat. He took my valise and led me up the nar­row stair­case. The apart­ment was superb – spa­cious, clean, with a bal­cony offer­ing a view of the rooftops descend­ing toward the Seine. I was, how­ev­er, dis­tract­ed from my appre­ci­a­tion of the res­i­dence by the odd man­ner­isms of its own­er. His speech was rushed, despite my demon­strat­ed clum­si­ness with the lan­guage, and his gaze flit­ted about rest­less­ly. He con­tin­ued to sweat, even though the apart­ment was cool and shad­owy. He rubbed his palms along his thighs, as if mas­sag­ing per­sis­tent cramps. Instead of invit­ing me to sit in one of the two arm­chairs in his salon, he ges­tured toward the foot of his bed. He sat there beside me. Thus, while he dis­joint­ed­ly explained var­i­ous aspects of the apart­ment, we sat near­ly shoul­der to shoul­der, both fac­ing the bed­room win­dow; I nod­ded occa­sion­al­ly. I con­clud­ed that he had ingest­ed some sort of amphet­a­mine before my arrival, per­haps cocaine. Sud­den­ly he clapped his hands once, stood up, and exclaimed, in Eng­lish: “Well! Now I take my vaca­tion!” Hand­ing me the keys, he pumped my hand again before grab­bing his own suit­case, which was wait­ing in the hall­way, and hasti­ly descend­ed the stairs, shout­ing well wish­es over his shoul­der. “By the way,” I called after him, “I nev­er asked: where are you trav­el­ing?” “To the Ori­ent!” he replied, and scrunched up his face in what might have been a wink before fur­ther descend­ing into the shad­ows of the stairwell. 

““Your friend is strange,” I said to Armelle on the phone that after­noon, after a nap made tur­bu­lent by dreams in which I was crawl­ing through damp, nar­row tun­nels; a storm was pelt­ing the silos of the pas­ture­land above me, and drown­ing was a dan­ger; my father was under­ground some­where. Armelle cor­rect­ed me: “Éti­enne is not real­ly my friend. He and Glen were room­mates once, but they don’t spend much time togeth­er these days.” Glen was her part­ner. “I think he was on drugs this morn­ing,” I said. “It’s pos­si­ble,” she replied, laugh­ing. I asked if wild boars could be heard grunt­ing in the wood­land thick­ets out­side her win­dow. She said yes.

Show­ered and refreshed, though still dis­ori­ent­ed, I strolled that evening around the neigh­bor­hood, accli­mat­ing myself to the new envi­ron­ment. So many peo­ple in the streets! So dif­fer­ent from the town where I lived. I tried not to gawk, even though this was not my first time in the city. After din­ing at a lan­guid street­side café, I decid­ed to take my pipe to the Sacré Coeur and absorb the sun­set. Look­ing out over the city, I was struck by its time­less­ness; every­thing sunk sus­pend­ed into night, as if the grav­i­ty of his­to­ry retard­ed – or even reversed – the accel­er­a­tion of time, which afflict­ed non-Euro­pean cities. I felt the cool lances of the first stars caress­ing my neck. Descend­ing the hill I noticed a famil­iar-look­ing fig­ure among a group of rev­el­ers in front of me. He was small and nar­row and jit­tery. I tried to get a look at his face while remain­ing undis­cov­ered, but the evening light pre­vent­ed me. I let the mat­ter drop, afloat as I was on cool cur­rents of rosé. Nev­er­the­less, I would have wagered upon his identity.

I awoke well before the sun and paced the dark­ened apart­ment in a Moroc­can robe, dis­tract­ed­ly han­dling the exot­ic trin­kets, throw­ing open the shut­ters to the mur­mured protest of roost­ing pigeons. The lights of arriv­ing inter­na­tion­al flights winked in the soft­en­ing sky. I grasped the damp rail­ing of the bal­cony with two hands, as if to steady myself against the blows of some unimag­in­able grief. Two lovers in evening dress stag­gered loud­ly home along the cob­ble­stones below me, lean­ing heav­i­ly on each oth­er. Tears streaked my cheeks. There would be no get­ting back to sleep.

Armelle sound­ed grog­gy and less than enthu­si­as­tic about my sec­ond phone call in as many days. Per­haps I should have wait­ed until lat­er in the day. It was, after all, her vaca­tion. “When did Éti­enne tell you he was leav­ing?” I asked. “Right after your arrival.” “The day of?” I pur­sued. “I assume so, but I’m not sure. Why does it mat­ter?” “I swear I saw him last night by the funic­u­lar with a band of mer­ry­mak­ers. If it was him – and I think it was – he didn’t appear to be about to depart for vaca­tion. And where did he tell you he was going? He told me ‘the Ori­ent.’ How oblique. Could he be any more pre­ten­tious?” “Joseph, I’m not his con­fi­dant. I have no idea. Glen says he has a broth­er in Egypt. Maybe that’s where he meant.” “Is Egypt the Ori­ent?” “Any­where east of you is the Ori­ent, dum­my. I have to go. Pho­to shoot in the woods today.” We hung up.

Need­ing to get out, I had break­fast at a café around the cor­ner and then set out for a day of strolling. First I found the back alley where Ner­val expired. No longer Rue de la Vieille Lanterne. There was a lit­tle plaque on a wall at the head of the street. That was all. A larg­er shrine was devot­ed to a pop star who had lived near­by, and who had also offed her­self. What did I expect? That he would still be there, dan­gling but not yet dead, that I would lift him down and cra­dle his dis­tressed, bul­bous brow to my chest, coax­ing him back into exis­tence? And that he would wel­come my inter­ven­tion? Yes. I expect­ed that. And now what? I made my way down to the quays and some rare book deal­ers I knew of, hop­ing to find some­thing of his I had not yet dis­cov­ered. No luck.

I con­tin­ued to wan­der, heavy in the chest. A street vendor’s cart was burst­ing with daz­zling bou­quets. Enthralled, I bought one. I dined in the Marais, the bou­quet lying on the chair oppo­site me, smol­der­ing fra­grant­ly in the dusk. Climb­ing the hill toward the apart­ment, in bet­ter spir­its, even whistling soft­ly, I was struck by the radi­ant face of a brunette descend­ing the oppo­site side of the street. I dashed across and offered her the flow­ers. Her mouth opened in amaze­ment. She grabbed the bou­quet from me and ran off, dis­ap­pear­ing among the throng before I could gath­er myself. I did my best to laugh and shrug off the inci­dent before the gaze of the star­tled onlookers. 

It was dark when I returned, and so were my spir­its. My train of thought was divert­ed, how­ev­er, by some­thing I noticed in the apart­ment: the toi­let bowl had urine in it. I nev­er leave a dwelling, my own or anyone’s, with­out flush­ing the toilet.

Sure­ly I must have been respon­si­ble, I rea­soned with myself, attribut­ing my neg­li­gence to jet­lag and dis­trac­tion. But a ker­nel of doubt remained. I smoked a cig­a­rette on the bal­cony and helped myself to a tum­bler of Étienne’s scotch. Sleep came in fits; dreams were tur­bu­lent and sat­u­rat­ed with pan­ic: earth­quakes in a Caribbean city, my father, a rash on his face, exco­ri­at­ing me in front of my fam­i­ly, who hung their heads in shame, me hur­ry­ing to the sea, push­ing a wheel­bar­row full of dead wrens…

Was I in love with Armelle? Prob­a­bly, but she could not have helped me, let alone have returned my affec­tion. It took much strength to refrain from call­ing her the next day. I lin­gered in the apart­ment and tried to read, wait­ing for the intrud­er. Chastis­ing myself and unable to con­cen­trate, I left in the after­noon and made my way to the Lux­em­bourg gar­dens. A butch­er from Cler­mont-sur-Oise shared a bench with me. I thought our con­ver­sa­tion was pro­ceed­ing ami­ca­bly enough, but he begged his leave sud­den­ly, with a trou­bled expres­sion. Check­ing my face in a restau­rant mir­ror, I noticed an invol­un­tary twitch­ing around my left eye. I couldn’t feel it, but there it was. 

Some­one had def­i­nite­ly been in the apart­ment that day. The bed was made more slop­pi­ly than I make beds, and there was a faint smell of cof­fee in the kitchen. And there were grounds in the trash. I don’t drink cof­fee. I didn’t sleep at all. 

““What is he try­ing to do? Is this his idea of a joke?” I asked Armelle on the phone in the morn­ing, my voice trem­bling. “So he had to come back for some­thing, saw you weren’t there, and just went in and got it. So what?” she replied. “And then took a nap? And made some cof­fee?” “It is his apart­ment, Joseph.” “You don’t think it’s strange at all? What kind of per­son rents his apart­ment out, says he’s going on vaca­tion, and then lingers, sneak­ing back into his own place? That’s crazy.” “Éti­enne is a friend. And you don’t know that he was sneak­ing.” “I thought you said he wasn’t your friend.” “He’s our friend.” Her voice was flat. “You’re on vaca­tion, Joseph. Don’t you have a writ­ing project to work on? Enjoy your­self. Who cares what he does?” It was use­less. I hung up the phone.

I con­sid­ered check­ing myself into a hotel, but I had already paid Éti­enne and my funds were lim­it­ed. I knew no one else in the city. I decid­ed to call him that afternoon. 

To my aston­ish­ment, he answered. He was as high-strung as when we met. He asked me how my vaca­tion was going. “Excel­lent, excel­lent,” I said. “I just want­ed to thank you again. The place is love­ly. I’ve been get­ting a lot done. I hope you don’t mind, I helped myself to a bit of your scotch.” “No wor­ries!” he exclaimed, laugh­ing. “And how about you?” I asked, “How is your vaca­tion? Where are you?” “Egypt. It’s amaz­ing. We toured Cairo yes­ter­day and are just get­ting back from the spas…” As he con­tin­ued in a rushed, exu­ber­ant voice, I went to the bal­cony. Here is what hap­pened: a police car was pass­ing on the street below, its siren spi­ral­ing into the after­noon. And as Éti­enne spoke, behind his voice I heard the same siren, quite loud­ly. Hor­ri­fied, I gazed up and down the crowd­ed side­walks below me. I could not see him. I thanked him again and did my best to sup­press my qua­ver­ing voice as we said our goodbyes. 

In a sweat, I raced down the stairs and out to the street. I prowled past the cafés and boulan­geries, scan­ning every side street, inspect­ing the crowds of lan­guish­ing cit­i­zens. The air was hot and fra­grant, the chests of men, the legs of women were bared to the after­noon sun. I could not find him. Very well, then, I thought: I will wait for you. I found an emp­ty out­door table at a crowd­ed brasserie slight­ly down­hill from the apart­ment entrance. 

I ordered a carafe of wine and at the bot­tom of it I dis­cov­ered the desire for anoth­er one. If I was weep­ing slight­ly, no one seemed to mind, which is why I love this city. The day deep­ened into dusk. I ordered a meal. I pock­et­ed the knife that came with my filet. As the street­lights flick­ered on and the unshaven musi­cians in their tat­tered vests and fedo­ras appeared as if out of the air to make their rounds of the out­door din­ers, I saw what I was
wait­ing for, and more. Clear­er minds will point to the dark­ness, the dis­tance, the alco­holic fumes in my head, but I could not be more cer­tain of what I saw: Éti­enne descend­ing the street, his head thrown back in laugh­ter, his arm around the very woman to whom I had offered the flow­ers two days before. They stopped before the apart­ment, he looked around, shook some keys from his pock­et, and they entered. 

I paid my bill and stag­gered up the street. Despite the heat, the back of my neck felt cool, pierced as it was by a par­tic­u­lar star in the cor­ner of the ear­ly evening sky. I let myself in and bound­ed up the stairs, bellowing.

The police inter­rupt­ed my search for the lovers. I had stabbed the mat­tress mul­ti­ple times, and my voice was hoarse from yelling. And yet, they had slipped away somehow. 

Joe Fletch­er is the author of two chap­books of poet­ry: Already It Is Dusk (Brook­lyn Arts Press) and Sleigh Ride (Fac­to­ry Hol­low Press). Oth­er work can be found in jubi­lat, Octo­pus, Slope, Puer­to Del Sol, Paint­ed Bride Quar­ter­ly, Hobo­eye, and else­where. He lives in Car­rboro, NC.