One
Paris
The streets of Paris wound their way around Michel Bonnet as he walked to his small apartment in the 14th arrondissement. The evening sun was reluctant to descend, and the early summer heat clogged the air along with exhaust fumes, dust and garbage. The Seine was a deep green, and Michel stood on the bridge of Pont Neuf, watching it snake its way out of the city.
Small boats sluggishly cut a path through the water, as if it had thickened to soup, and people ambled along embankments, unaware of their watcher from above.
On one such embankment stood a husband and wife with their small daughter at their heels. Michel watched as the father picked up the child and held her high to see the river and beyond. Suddenly, the child waved, and Michel waved back until the family were out of sight. Michel leaned against the stone of the bridge, still warm from the day’s heat, feeling the chill of the river reaching him from the depths beneath, as dragonflies hummed and skipped over the heavy water, cooling themselves.
The broad blue sky was streaked with thin clouds and held no promise of rain. Michel hitched his bag further up his shoulder and continued his journey home, every now and then wiping the sweat away from the back of his neck with his red handkerchief.
The warm winds stirred up the dust on the pavements into mini tornadoes that raced towards his shoes, encasing them with a thin layer of city soot, reminding Michel of summers spent in the countryside as a child, when he would chase the dust as it danced down tracks edged with neatly ploughed soil and tall sunflowers. The winds stirred something in Michel too; a feeling akin to when his maman died, which had changed everything so deeply and quickly that Michel had still not realised the full force of it. Michel whispered to the wind to take his love to his mother, to say hello, and that he missed her. Yet the wind whipped by Michel, capturing only a few of his words, so that he was left wondering just what it was his maman would hear.
The city should have been busier this time of year – when schoolchildren usually clogged the pavements with their chatter and glee to be free for the summer, and tourists sat politely at cafés sipping iced drinks – yet the city was as dead as if August had come early and its occupants had sought holidays away from the oppressive heat. Michel noticed that the bars usually frequented by many a rich gentleman were empty, the lone bartender left to wipe away imaginary watermarks from the mahogany bar. Maître d’s stood with waiters, talking, and shaking their heads at the lack of wealthy customers, whilst the awnings of red, blue and yellow fluttered relentlessly in the breeze above them.
The bombs that had fallen just four days earlier had sent a ripple of fear across the city and now shop windows were taped and boarded up, air raid shelters were being stocked with provisions, and all around there was quiet – too much quiet.
Sandbags had arrived quickly to shore up doorways, and every now and then the hum of a military aircraft would drone overhead, causing those left in Paris to turn their faces to the sky to see if it was all really about to happen – would the City of Light really be taken from them? Michel stopped now and watched as another plane flew low through the skies. Behind him, two waiters ceased polishing already clean glasses.
‘I hear they crossed the River Meuse in only one day,’ one waiter said.
‘They have webbed feet; it’s no wonder they crossed that quickly,’ the other answered.
‘Webbed feet?’
‘How can they be human and get here so quickly? Must be webbed feet.’
‘You’re mad.’
‘They say a school was hit, you know. They killed schoolchildren.’
‘They kill everyone. Children. Old people. Everyone. They don’t care.’
‘There’s still smoke in the sky from those buildings – almost like it can’t escape Paris.’
‘It can’t. We can’t either.’
Michel turned away from the expensive restaurants and towards home, where coffee shops were still busy as people huddled close to radios to listen to the latest news. Soon he turned down a small cobbled lane where shops and small cafés sat cramped together in harmony; the flowers from one hanging basket escaping and joining the next, tables and chairs so cluttered that you were not sure which café you were sitting at, yet no one cared. Men sat and drank thick tumblers of beer, and women wore red lipstick and drank house wine, all of them talking about the bombs, about the time they had left.
‘If I’m going to go, I’m going with a beer in my hand and a full stomach,’ one man shouted to the people at the tables.
A joyous cheer rose up. ‘Best get the drinks in then!’ another retorted.
Michel noticed a few familiar faces but continued on, before stopping outside Arnoud’s boucherie, where the carcasses of cows and pigs hung from weighty hooks in a window that had been taped and secured, and where two stray dogs sat outside, waiting patiently for Arnoud to give them their daily scraps.
Michel patted one of the dogs on the head, but the animal took no notice, his eyes transfixed on the meaty shell of a cow. ‘Ah, not long now,’ he told the dogs. ‘Almost closing. I’ll get mine first, then it will be your turn.’
‘Is that you, Michel?’ Arnoud’s roar sailed out to Michel from inside the shop.
Michel walked inside and pulled his money from his breast pocket; a thin roll, barely a weight at all.
‘Ah, bonjour. Has it been a month already?’ Arnoud asked.
‘Not quite, but I got paid today.’ Michel handed over a few francs to cover the cost of some mutton and a couple of slices of ham.
‘Is that all you can afford? That gypsy does not pay you enough.’
‘He is gone.’
‘I’m not surprised. I told you he would leave. Not one to stick around – you shouldn’t either.’
‘You said the same thing last month.’
‘And I’ll say it again. He treated you like an old blind woman; made you depend on him but left your purse almost empty. You have been taking care of those horses, training them, feeding them, and what does he pay you? A pittance, that’s all. And now look. He’s gone.’
Arnoud’s moustache twitched and he fell silent as the thick, shining blade sliced down into the ham, cutting it so thinly that Michel swore he could see through it. ‘And I’ll keep saying it until you come to your senses.’
Suddenly the back door flew open and Estelle, Arnoud’s teenage daughter, appeared, her perfect young skin flushed from racing downstairs.
‘Michel!’ she greeted him, barely hiding her breathlessness.
Michel saw Arnoud turn to look at his daughter, shake his head, then move to wrap up the ham in paper.
‘Estelle. How are you?’ Michel asked.
‘I’m fine, thank you. You know, as fine as I can be. Every day I must come back here to help my father, but I am fine.’
‘You torment me every day, when you are not at that art school,’ Arnoud said. ‘That one that costs me money, yet I see nothing in return.’
‘Oh, Papa,’ Estelle kissed Arnoud on the cheek, ‘one day it will.’
‘She’s right, Arnoud. You just have to be patient,’ Michel said.
‘See! Michel understands. And, Michel, I am patient. As patient as…’ Estelle trailed off as she gazed out of the shop’s large window. ‘As patient as those stray dogs!’ She laughed. ‘I will wait just like them to get what I want.’