French Women Always Know What to Say

French Women Always Know What to Say

I was Hemingway-crazed in those days. Freshly minted divorce decree: quit claim deed; unemployment under review, but today was a sunny day. Lifted a tulip from the tall, generous vase by the geraniums at Eglantine Fleurs. Around the corner strafed every kiosk for an English printing of Moveable Feast. La Nef des Fous was wedged onto rue Ste-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie at the edge of the Marais, my adopted arrondissement. Little wonder every book was French; salty irony it’s a love boutique today. I assigned myself, unfettered, to a footstool in the corner with a French translation of Pigeon Feathers. 

The proprietress wore Elvis Costello frames, dark frames, dark as her silky black tog slung capriciously off-shoulder. It was the tog brought me back today, my primer for French translations.

 “I don’t want to talk,” she said. “I don’t want to talk, today.” 

The proprietress did not look up from her magazine but must have spied me glancing. Marlboro vented in sodden, bluish plumes. 

Another woman entered the threshold at what sounded, at first, to be the continuation of an argument. She and the proprietress conducted a buoyant exchange of keys. Both were attractive sporting Parisian vogue. The entrant, gifted in her cotton white blouse, was quick with their personal business. After about ten minutes a third less empowered woman entered the fray. The trio piped along with alacrity, then kissed each other on the lips. I remained hunkered down in the back corner failing my tenth-grade French mid-term. 

After launching peeks and garcons into my orbit, the moveable lesbians withdrew jangling keys. Unknown if they were observing lesbians but being razzed rolled my futility into an open gutter. My fraudulent transformation from suitor to customer required verbal skills I need not provide. 

I lay the French translations of Pigeon Feathers and, for the hell of it, Of Mice and Men on the counter. She was in the middle of lighting another cigarette. When she exhaled, she picked up the books and kept turning them over and over.

“Finally, you’ve chosen?” 

She pursed her lips, forming the sudden imprimatur of scandal. 

A 10f coin dropped from my clutch of cash, across the counter, and onto her black silky lap.

“There’s the sly one, no?” 

Her blood-red nails slid the coin to my edge of the counter.

“Here’s another ten.” I handed her a 10f bill; then in the manner of magma gas venting through the ocean floor I emitted, “What are the chances you would have café with me?”

She made change and then shuffled through a short stack of bookmarks cut from old black and white postcards of the Eiffel Tower and Moulin Rouge. She placed one in each of my books and handed them to me.

“Zero,” she said. “Not at all.”

“Zero Americans?”

“Hardly at all.”

“That’s an improvement,” I said, stepping sideways to the door. “Maybe you should, more often.”

“Who knows what I might do,” she said. “My sisters think you find no amusement in Paris. Spending all your days in a kiosk of books.” 

She let smoke indulge her cherry-red lips into a smile.

“Thanks for being honest.”

“Thanks for asking.”

--------------------------------

Like I said, tables were set for lunch. 

A few were clear. 

Where we stood, the bar was clear. 

An elderly woman was sitting near the bar.

She spoke in her language that we were supposed to sit down.

We could not be sure, but her manner was clear. 

I gestured café au lait, and he nodded café noir. 

For a moment nothing happened. 

I was admiring the bar. 

The counter was varnished oak, bluffing sawdust for an instant, in place of the customary stainless steel and acrylic paneling,

It was a pleasant difference. 

I was beginning to like the bar. 

Beveled sunlit windows detailed Rue Payenne break from Rue de Parc Royal straight through a smoked glass partition of polished oak frame.

Light foot traffic animated the windows like a travelogue.

He turned to leave without saying anything and walked halfway across rue Payenne. 

I stood for another moment as though nothing had happened. 

No one was minding, except the woman sitting. 

She was an older woman with dentures that gave an equine configuration to her face. 

She did not trust Americans and the indignity had made her anxious. 

She pinched the handle of her demitasse once she replaced it to the saucer. 

There was no café au lait, and he was not visible through the window. 

I walked to the doorway so that I could see outside rue Payenne but stand inside the bar. 

He returned to the doorway and said that they weren’t going to serve us. 

He said he did not want to pay 20f to sit. 

I reminded him that we had ordered, but it made no difference. 

I looked at the woman who had spoken to us sitting by the bar. 

Our position by the door had partially restored her dignity. 

Still there was no café au lait, just the pending order. 

He was staying outside on the street. 

He may have been sensible, but this was a good bar, the solid oak had made the difference. 

Paying 20f for café au lait and sitting inside was worth the difference. 

I reminded him of the order again, but he shrugged his shoulders and turned up the street, toward Square Georges Cain and Flore et son char and the benches all in a wide circle, and the ancient columns and broken cornices that looked of Roman origin, and too old even for Paris. 

I followed him and ruined my return to this bar ever again. He was already across the street with peace talks suspended.

Things are more certain now so with uncertainty having fallen from your face, the truth is in collaboration with your lips and your eyes. I rely on direct contact to be certain and to leave a reminder for backup.  

In the laverie the two American women were unaccustomed to public laundry requirements or to stain treatments relevant to the bidet and the borrowed baking soda toothbrushes. This was why I fantasized about Parisienne women; their feline secrets were packaged to spill. It should be natural as savoring expresso and foie gras that all of my other senses benefit equally. What fairness is the aroma of croissants au beurre or the formal way the proprietress tenders a baguette in her natural voice if I can’t savor her smile and her custom of staying fit with equal justice to all receptors regardless of deficiencies?