You Can Call Me Chauncey

“And here is the famed Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo da Vinci sometime between fifteen-oh-three and fifteen-nineteen.”

A tour group, the fifth one today, comes around the corner. And for the fifth time today, I stare at the woman leading the group.

She’s only wearing the black top and pants required for museum employees, but it doesn’t make her any less striking. Her dark hair is pinned back in a braid, and her equally dark skin is flawless. Her teeth are impossibly white, but not in a surgically altered way. She’s not very tall, her shoulder only reaching half-way up the painting hung a meter and a half off the floor, but she’s not short either. She says something funny, and laughter ripples through her group. When she resumes speaking, her words are clear and precise, with a musical lilt to them courtesy of a French accent. Then she’s moving on, whisking the group away into the room beyond.

I remain sitting on my bench, staring at the painting opposite me. It’s La Vierge et l’enfant, by Bartolomé Esteban. My eyes trace the outline of the woman in the picture, settling on the baby in her arms. A pang of sadness strikes me, and it feels like the smoke is choking me all over again, and I’m screaming, fighting my way through the flames, only to watch as the roof collapses, helpless as my wife, my daughter, scream…

I blink rapidly, trying to erase the memory from my mind. I cradle my head in my hands, breathing deep.

I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting like this before a small voice pipes up beside me.

“Monsieur, why do you look so sad?”

I turn my head to find a small girl, no more than six, standing next to me. I’m momentarily ghosted by the vision of my own daughter before I focus properly on the girl beside me. She’s dressed in a white flowered dress with black stockings and black leather shoes. Her dark poofy hair is swept away from her face, pinned back with a flower clip that matches her dress. Her chocolate skin glows with youth and her head is cocked to the side in confusion. She furrows her brows and waits for me to answer.

“I’m just thinking, Mademoiselle.” I reply.

“Was it a bad memory?” She asks.

I stare at her incredulously. I answer slowly, beginning to think she may be psychic.

“Uh, yes. How did you know?”

“Maman looks like that sometimes. When I ask her what’s wrong. she always says that it’s just a bad memory. I think they’re about my Papa.” She says matter-of-factly.

“I see. Speaking of that, where is your Maman?” I look around the room in an attempt to find who she may belong to.

“Maman is working here. I’m meant to be with Madame Simone, but she’s always on her phone.” She points over to an older woman with greying hair standing in a corner, fixated on her phone. The woman’s phone rings, and she picks it up, walking into the other room, all babysitting duties forgotten. Somehow, I know placing the young girl beside me back in that woman’s care is going to be useless.

“Come on. I’ll help you find your Maman. My name is Claude. But you can call me Chauncey if you want. All my friends do.” I stand, offering the young girl my hand and leading her away in search of her mother.

“And you can call me Louisa, if you want. All my friends do.” She says with a smile.

The feel of her own soft tiny hand in my own rough one causes distant, painful memories to resurface.

As we walk, the girl points out certain paintings to me, reciting a fact about them or just telling me what she likes about them. She stops me in front of a painting of flowers on a lake. The small, printed label beneath it reads Monet, 1919.

“I really like the flowers. Look! He has the same name as you! Claude!” Louisa exclaims happily.

“So he does. Come on, we need to find your Maman.” I pull her away from the painting.

After another ten minutes or so of walking, we emerge in the lobby of the Louvre. I cross to the reception desk with Louisa, getting the attention of the man with a bushy silver beard behind it.

“Excuse me. I need help finding this little girl’s mother.” I say. “Could you help?”

The man stands up, leaning over the counter to see Louisa. His eyes widen in recognition.

“Louisa! Aren’t you supposed to be with Claire? I mean, Madame Simone?” The man says with a deep voice. “Where did you find her?”

“Well, she sort of found me, Monsieur. I brought her here to find her mother.” I say.

“Well, Neisha isn’t-” A cry cut’s the man off.

“Louisa!”

My breath catches momentarily when I turn to find the woman from the tour group sprinting across the lobby, panic all over her face.

“Maman!” Louisa says.

“Oh Louisa!” The woman snatches her from me, wrapping her arms tight around her daughter. She turns to me, eyes alight with anger. “What are you doing with my daughter, hmm? Saw a young girl wandering around and thought she was yours for the taking? Well, creep?” She spits impatiently.

“Neisha!” The man behind the desk hisses. “He came here to help find you. She was lost! Be polite!”

The woman’s - Neisha, the man said her name was - cheeks flush, but she doesn’t get rid of the accusatory look in her eyes when she turns to her daughter.

“Louisa, is what Monsieur Roux said true? That you were lost and this man helped you?” She asks slowly.

“Oui! Madame Simone walked off, and Chauncey said he would help me find you.” Louisa answered.

“Merde! Je vais tuer Colette!” Neisha spits. She thanks the man behind the desk before turning to me sheepishly. ‘I apologise, Monsieur. Thank you for helping my daughter. My shift just ended. Please, let me get you a coffee.”

“Sure.” I say and follow Neisha to the cafe on the other side of the lobby. As we wait in the line, Neisha introduces herself.

“My name is Neisha Meyers. I assume you know my daughter, Louisa.” She says, extending her arm.

“Claude Laurent. I prefer Chauncey, though.” I reply, shaking her hand.

We make eye contact and Neisha smiles, and it is only after Louisa giggles that I realise I have been grasping her hand for too long. I break off eye contact and withdraw my hand.

We find ourselves at the front of the line, and Neisha orders a coffee for herself and a hot chocolate for Louisa. She turns to me and asks what I could like.

“Same as you, that’s fine.” I say.

After a few minutes, we pick up our order.

“Would you like to walk through the museum?” Neisha asks. “Unless you’ve already seen it. Then we can go somewhere else.”

“Uh, no. I would love to walk through the museum. But surely you’ve already seen it all. I’d hate to bore you.” I say.

“No! I may work here, but I don’t really have much time to admire the art myself. In fact, the new Van Gogh exhibit is here, and I don’t get to tour it because I only do general admission tours. But I can get us in for free because I’m an employee.” Neisha leads me to the doors to the right of the cafe, massive signs advertising the works of Van Gogh draping either side of them.

Neisha scans the lanyard secured to her the waistband of her pants, unlocking the doors.

Inside, the lighting is dimmer than outside in the lobby. A hush descends on us, involuntary, as if the silence is an unspoken rule. Louisa scurries off, but not far enough to stray from her mother’s eyesight.

“Thank you, again, for helping Louisa.” Neisha says in a low voice. “And I am very sorry for accusing you before. It’s been brought to my attention more than once that I can be - uh - a tad protective and harsh.”

“No!” I flinch at the volume of my voice and lower it. “No, it’s okay. I understand. And if I’m completely honest, she was the one that found me. She started talking to me, and the Madame Simone who was taking care of her was on her phone and wandered off to take a call. I figured I could have returned Louisa to her, but I thought the woman would go off again and Louisa would end up properly lost.”

“Thank you, Monsieur Laurent.” Neisha says again. “It’s not the first time Claire has neglected Louisa like that. Part of the reason I did get protective was because the last time it happened, someone tried to do away with Louisa and I only just managed to get her before they left the museum. Also, I’m very sorry if she interrupted you. Louisa has a habit of being…overly friendly.” Neisha adds.

“It’s fine. It…it was nice, to be spoken to in such a friendly way. Kids have a way of being so nice and nonjudgmental. I haven’t been able to have such a simple, polite conversation like that since…” I trail off, not knowing how to say what I was planning to say.

“Since when?” Neisha presses, oblivious to the emotional torment inside me.

“Eight years ago, my wife, my little girl…” I cough to clear my throat of the thickness building there. “There was a fire. I’d had a business trip to the Netherlands and had just gotten home when my neighbour called to…to tell me…” I stop again physically unable to continue.

“Mon dieu…” Neisha whispers, her voice barely audible. “I-I’m so sorry Monsieur Laurent. I can’t imagine…I could never…mon dieu.”

“Maman! Come look at this painting!” Comes Louisa’s voice from around the corner.

“Coming, mon amour!” Neisha calls back without taking her eyes off mine.

We eventually join Louisa, the conversation between ceased. I chastise myself internally for creating this seemingly unbridgeable void between Neisha and me. But what could I have done? It would have felt like an insult to lie about the fates of my late wife and daughter.

We loop around until we are at the doors we entered the exhibit through. We deposit our empty coffee cups in a bin and make for the museums exit.

“Well, thank you, for the, uh, coffee. And the walk.” I say awkwardly.

“No worries! And…again, I’m so very sorry for what you’ve been through.” Neisha says, biting her lip.

“Please, don’t. If I knew my wife, she wouldn’t have wanted me to stay miserable.” I laugh as I say the next bit. “She probably would have expected me to have remarried by now. She even sat me down the night we married and told me if she died and I stayed sad for more than five years, she would find a way to reach through the void and slap me.”

“Oh!” Neisha says slightly surprised. I cringe internally, thinking what I said might have been weird. But then a bright smile spreads across her face. “Well, in that case, maybe it wouldn’t be too weird if I gave you my number?”

“No, of course not!” I say reassuringly.

Neisha grins and withdraws a slip of paper with her number and name on it. She must have written it when I wasn’t looking.

“Thanks.” I return her smile.

“No worries.” Neisha replies. Then she turns to Louisa. “Say thank you to Monsieur Laurent for helping you today, Louisa.”

“Thank you, Chauncey!” Louisa says brightly. I smile at her use of my nickname.

“Louisa, call him Monsieur. It’s polite.” Neisha chastises.

“It’s fine. I told her to call me that. You can call me that is you like as well.” I say, brushing it off.

“Oh. Okay then, Chauncey.” Neisha says playfully. “Come on Louisa. We have to go.”

We say goodbye, then Neisha takes Louisa by the hand and leads her out of the museum.

As the doors slide shut behind them, I feel something blossoming in my chest. It takes me a minute or two to place it, and when I realise what it is, the voice in my mind sounds exactly like my wife’s.

You’re in love, it says.

I’m in love, I repeat.