Nanette Hayes: Rhode Island Red Part 21

"What did he say?" I asked. "Did Viv write to him too?"

"Yes. But he doesn't want to know anything about Vivian. Says he tore the card up without reading it. It's a sin. I told him I hoped one day he would be hurting in the same way and when he reached out for help-well, never mind. I told him I think it's a sin, that's all."

I shook my head. "Wow. This is so weird. What are you going to do? You don't have any money to send her, and if Pop won't do it-"

"He wouldn't give it to her, but I managed to shame him into giving me something for you."

"Me? What do you mean?"

She pulled out a chair for herself then and sat down in it before answering. "Listen, Nan."

"What?"

"I don't have any money to spare. But-well, I do have it, but it's not mine. As a matter of fact it's Vivian's money."

"What are you talking about, Mother?"

"I mean I actually do have some money for Vivian-especially for her. When your grandfather died he left most of what he had to your daddy, naturally. And you got enough to take that beautiful trip. But you know how he was. He feuded with Viv just like your father did, but at the end he wanted to come to some kind of peace with her. n.o.body even knew where Vivian was at the time. So he left her some money, and gave it to me to keep for her. It's in a special account. Waiting. There must be close to ten thousand in it by now."

"Ten thousand dollars! That sure sounds like enough to bail her out of trouble. And you mean you've had this money all along?"

"Yes. I knew sooner or later we'd hear from her again."

"But not like this," I said.

"No. Not like this. And so..." She glanced away from me then.

"What is it?"

"I know it's a lot to ask, Nan. You haven't seen Viv since you were a kid. I just know she's over there drinking, broke, stranded somewhere. Maybe even sick. I wouldn't know where to begin to help her. I don't know how I'd even get out of the airport over there. But I thought-since you've been there so many times-I thought maybe you could go over there and help her-take this money to her and help her get home. Like I said, I managed to shame your father into giving me enough for your expenses."

Expenses?

"What are you saying, Mother? You want me to go to Paris!"

"Yes. Would you do it? If-I mean, only if you could take the time from work. You're going to be on spring vacation soon, aren't you?"

"It started yesterday, Mom. No problem."

A lot to ask.! Holy- I felt a kick right then. Right on the shin. I knew who that was: my conscience, Ernestine. I just kicked the b.i.t.c.h right back. Yes, I'm a liar, I told her; a deceiver, a coldhearted Air France s.l.u.t. I was thinking not of my Aunt Viv in a French drunk tank but of the braised rabbit in that bistro on the rue Monsieur le Prince.

A lot to ask? Coq au vin, here I come!

CHAPTER 2.

Can't We Be Friends?

I know I'm a fool. A sentimentalist. A sucker for a sad song. The same old hokey things undo me every time.

I was crying so hard I could barely see out the window of the taxi, one of those workhorse Renaults with a driver who smoked Gitanes, a beautifully dappled Dalmatian asleep beside him on the front seat. It was April and the trees were budding and we had just pa.s.sed the Arc de Triomphe and it was tearing my heart out.

It helped a lot that I had sucked down about fifty gla.s.ses of Veuve Clicquot on the flight over and been hit on big time by both an African diplomat in a vintage Armani and a sublimely big-nosed Frenchman.

Drying my eyes, I recalled that first time I saw Paris, from the window of a train. I was still a student and traveling on the cheap. I took a charter flight into Amsterdam, where I met up with a couple of cla.s.smates and their European boyfriends. After a couple of days of museum going and smoking pot till I was pixillated, I took the train into Paris. That first sight of the roof of the Gare de Nord, alive with pigeons, had produced the same kind of waterworks.

By the time the cab deposited me at the picturesque little square in the 5th arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, I was working on one h.e.l.l of a hangover. The address on Vivian's postcard turned out to be a clean but decidedly unglamorous little hotel at the top of a rise in the pavement. Their one-star rating was not mere modesty-nothing fancy about the place. I set my valise down and walked over to the reception.

There was no such American madame as Vivian Hayes registered at the hotel, the well-fed gentleman behind the desk reported. Perhaps my friend was at the small hotel at the other end of the square? No, I said, checking the postcard again, this was the address given. It occurred to me then that Aunt Viv might be using either of two-or was it three?-married names. So I began to describe her, thinking even as I did so that she had probably changed so much since our last meeting that the description might be worthless. I was just about to dig into my bag for a twenty-year-old snapshot of Vivian, when the monsieur suddenly realized who I was seeking.

A sneer pulled at his lips. "Oh yes. I recall your friend now." I waited for him to go on. "This Madame Hayes," he said contemptuously, had checked out more than ten days ago.

"Checked out" was not exactly the phrase he used to describe her departure. Apparently Vivian had left without paying the last week's rent, abandoning her suitcase and clothing and personal items. She had simply gone out one afternoon and never returned.

Not good.

I had counted on some kind of trouble. Still, I didn't have to hit the panic b.u.t.ton yet. I might have to mount a search for her. On the other hand, she might be able to raise a few dollars from somewhere, in which case she would show up again to pay her bill and collect her things.

But I couldn't think about that at the moment. My head was pounding and I needed some sleep-real sleep, not airplane nodding. This hotel was not exactly what I'd had in mind as a base of operations, but it would do for now. h.e.l.l, dowdy French hotels short on amenities but rich in character had been the sites of some of my most delightful adventures.

I asked for a room and, to forestall any problems, paid for a few days in advance. I pulled the envelope with the Thomas Cook money orders earmarked for Aunt Vivian out of my carry-on bag and committed it to the hotel safe. Mom had asked if it wouldn't be better to buy traveler's checks in my own name, but I wanted to guarantee I wouldn't be tempted to start dipping into those funds for my own use. In Vivian's place, I don't think I would've appreciated any messenger messing about with my inheritance, even if it was a totally unexpected gift from heaven.

I splurged on the best room in the house. Even so, the toilet was down the hall. The bidet had been cracked and repaired half a dozen times. The bureau smelled faintly of mildew. But the room was a good size, and the view wasn't bad. Not bad at all: my room, on the sixth floor, looked out over the busy square with its ancient copper fountain. I put in five minutes at the open window just looking at the people, pulling the air into my chest-and thinking about Aunt Vivian, somewhere out there. I didn't know yet what kind of shape I'd find her in. But I did know she wouldn't be high stepping in her designer jeans and smart black pumps. She wouldn't be laughing her tantalizing laugh that put lights in her clear brown eyes. She wouldn't be young anymore.

I thought, too, of my first trip to Paris and all the subsequent ones; of the friends I'd once had here, all dispersed to other places, other lives, now; of my summer in Provence; the meals, the men; the just plain fun. I'd been happy, ecstatic, in Paris-drunk on it-and yet I'd also known that peculiar tristesse that could fasten around your heart like a vise, for no particular reason, and suddenly make you feel so very alone.

Tiredness overtook me then. I closed the shutters tight. I turned back the covers on the creaky iron bed and slipped between the ironed white sheets. And then-darkness.

The trick is not to let yourself sleep too long lest you fall victim to jet lag. It was the only travel tip I could ever remember. You've got to crash and allow the old ankles to lose the swelling that results from sitting constricted in one place for so long. Nap, yes. But you mustn't sleep too long, or you'll be on the way back home before your body clock is running right again.

I was groggy when I pulled myself out of dreamland-and ravenous. I opened the metal shutters. Pam! Night had fallen. Those inimitable lights were all around me, and, down below, the canopies of a thousand cafes. I went and cleaned up quickly in the communal shower room and then jumped into some black trousers and a leotard. I threw my long raincoat over that and I was ready to roll.

I did a quick turn around the Pantheon, where I had often gone in the dark of night to sit and think and sometimes consume a couple of boules of rich ice cream purchased at one of the carts dotting the landscape. Then I headed back across the square and the boulevard St. Michel, pulsating with young people.

I hit boulevard St. Germain, or rather it hit me. It was Friday night and the street was hopping. Traffic was the predictable nightmare. I took a deep breath and ran, snaked, bullied my way across the street, heedless of the color of the traffic lights. I headed north then, away from the worst of the crowds. I had decided to eat at the Cafe Cloche, which was on the pricey side, but my mouth was watering for a couple of their beautiful spring lamb chops. I remembered that they didn't take reservations-the only reason I had for believing I'd get a table on a Friday night. The cross streets were beginning to look familiar now. Yes, this was the block. The cafe was near.

Except it wasn't. It was not there. The Cafe Cloche, where I'd once been seduced by a chain-smoking academic from Toulouse over a fine daube of beef, was no more. I stared stupidly, dejected, at the darkened window of the boutique that had replaced the restaurant.

Well, what was the big deal? Things change. So I'd find someplace else to eat dinner. A restaurant closing was a small thing, yet, inexplicably, it unsettled me. I walked back slowly into the heart of the crowd and found a friendly looking if undistinguished place where I ordered foie gras and then went on to langoustines and a half bottle of white wine. Afterward, I browsed somnolently through a few of the late-night bookstores on St. Michel, buying nothing, and found my way back to the hotel.

I got into my nightgown almost immediately. It was cool in the room but I opened the window wide and let the low night sky fall in on me. Another one of those singular Paris moments. The lights on the Pantheon were silver blue and I watched them for a long time, wondering how many others were doing the same thing, their hearts moving in their chest. But, curiously enough, I had stopped crying.

I made a bet with myself as I called downstairs to order breakfast. At every hotel I'd ever lived in on this side of the Seine, the maid's name was Josette. I figured that would never change.

I lost. Marise bid me good morning in her musical colonial accent-was she from Antigua? maybe St. Croix?-and set the wooden tray bearing my soupy black coffee and croissants down at the foot of the bed.

I spent the late morning and all afternoon checking out the really low-rent hotels on streets like Gay Lussac, thinking that Vivian might have got her hands on a few bucks to live on, but not enough to go back to the hotel in the Square. The next day, I figured, I'd go another rung down on the ladder and try Pigalle and the parts of Bastille that had not yet been gentrified. Then, if I didn't turn up any leads, I'd head out to the edge of the city, b.u.t.tes Chaumont or someplace, where I'd probably be mugged and left for dead somewhere.

I put in a full day. Nothing. At six o'clock I returned to the hotel and put in a call to my mother, reporting on my progress, or rather lack of progress.

I took a long soak in the pay-per-bath room down the hall and changed into something slightly slinky. There was a fabulous wine bar on the rue du Cherche Midi that I loved. It had been the scene of two or three major flirting triumphs.

They sold lighting fixtures there now. I stood on the pavement watching the clerk clear the register and begin to close up for the evening. I could have cried.

I wandered down into the metro and took the train to Pont Marie, on the right bank. Surely the much more staid wine bar that a friend's father had once taken us to would still be there. And it was. But it was obvious there would be no lighthearted seductions taking place that evening. Oh no. No sharing a steak frites with a cute translator and then a nightcap at some avant garde jazz loft. No and no. Average age of the patrons at this stately establishment: 55 by my calculations. Successful businessmen and their co-workers, or their Chanel-clad ladies. I put away two lovely gla.s.ses of Medoc and was on my way.

I walked along the Seine in the twilight, feet hurting in my strappy heels. The magazine/postcards/junk stands on the quai were all closed now. Here and there I could hear voices down below, along the water. I had to smile. One thing you never forget, your first kiss on the banks of the Seine. I just know it's one of those pictures that go flying across your vision as you lay dying.

I had had nothing to eat except the breakfast croissant and a yogurt taken on the run midday. I was starving but I hated the thought of eating alone again.

What choice did I have, though? I went to Au Pactole, a perfectly nice place on St. Germain, just the tiniest bit stuffy, up the block from a hotel I'd once lived in-the Hotel de Lima. It was almost pleasurable to behave so formally with the maitre d', like playing a role, or wearing a disguise. Hmmm-she is black and French speaking. Must be an immigrant. Spinster on vacation from the provinces, I could almost hear the young waiter thinking. Trying to dress Parisian. Not bad looking. Needs to get laid, though. I was the only solo table in the good-sized room, which was awash in fresh white flowers and skysc.r.a.per-tall candles. After an already too heavy meal, I pigged on goat cheese and a big-time dessert.

The thing is, I mused during my meandering walk home along the quai, the main thing is: the police have to be avoided.

If nothing happened with my search for Vivian in the next day or so, I might have to contact the American emba.s.sy. But not the French police. It was half instinctual cop-o-phobia and half worry that maybe Vivian had wandered into something not on the up and up; then there was the plain gut-clenching terror based on the Gallic mind-set. Guilty until proven innocent was not a metaphor over here, it was the law. You just did not f.u.c.k with cops in this country-not even traffic cops.

What does a foreigner do when he or she is broke, in trouble-no friends, no resources? I didn't know. True, I had b.u.mmed around Europe before, hitchhiked with companions, smoked dope with kids I met at discos, and so on. But I had never been anything like stranded or in trouble with the law. I always had a return ticket in my pocket, and help was a collect call away. I thought about the a.s.shole white boys who thought they were slick enough to get away with smuggling hashish out of Turkey. I found myself shuddering.

The Herald Tribune? What about placing an ad there-"Aunt Viv: You're richer than you think. Call home. All is forgiven." Something to that effect.

Not a likely venue. Vivian had lived in Paris before. She had enough French that if she read the newspapers at all, she'd read a French one.

I was at the Pont Neuf. s.h.i.t, I had been so lost in my thoughts that I'd overshot the hotel. I was beat, my toes crying out for release.

Give me your tired, your poor...your Manolo Blahniks...your tart tatin.

Not just tired now. I was slappy. Maybe I hadn't escaped the jet lag after all. I stood on the quai for a few minutes more. Well, good night, old Notre Dame. And if it's not too much trouble, help me find Aunt Viv before I have to go to the 19th. Amen.

I visited at least fifteen fleabag hotels and hostels the next day. I was seeing the side of Paris they don't print up on the picture postcards. The homeless, the druggies, the bag ladies, the nut jobs were nowhere near as numerous, as filthy, or as desperate as their New York cousins, but they did nothing for tourism either.

Just to make myself feel less like a mendicant, I went and had lunch in an overpriced, overdecorated restaurant in Montmartre and then took the funicular up to Sacre Coeur. I looked out over the city while the shutterbugs swarmed all around me. Maybe there is a heaven, I thought, and it's nothing more than these rooftops.

As long as I was doing the American in Paris bit, I figured I'd go to American Express, on the very remote chance that Vivian had left a message there. Of course, she'd have to know I was in Paris. But what did I have to lose? Perhaps she had spoken to my mother by now.

No such luck. And now I was stuck in the busy 9th, clogged with crazed shoppers and sightseers, the traffic like a million killer bees. I had to admit, the Opera was looking a great deal spiffier than the last time I'd been in Paris. Choking on exhaust and too weary to do any window shopping of my own, I zigzagged across the boulevard des Capucines and went down into the metro station.

Home at last, thank the baby Jesus. The alert, generous-bosomed madame who seemed to rule at the hotel was having her afternoon tisane when I stopped at the desk for my key. I must have looked about as frazzled as I felt, because she offered me a cup.

French businesswomen are about the least homey human beings imaginable. Anybody would be scared of them. I know I am. This one, however, told me she had noticed my saxophone, and wondered if I was in Paris to play an engagement somewhere. She had always admired le jazz, she said, and at the time of their wedding anniversary each year, she and her husband enjoyed making an evening of it at the music club just off St. Germain des Pre. You know-the one with the likeness of Satchmo in black plaster in the entryway.

I told the madame, in as little detail as possible, about my search for Aunt Viv. She was sympathetic-genuinely so, I believed-and when she offered further a.s.sistance, I jumped on it.

The madame's husband relieved her at the desk while the two of us climbed into the taxi she had ordered. We were going to La Pitie Salptriere, a giant medical complex in the 13th arrondiss.e.m.e.nt that also housed the city morgue. It made sense, didn't it, to check there first? Oh yes, it was quite sensible, my companion agreed. After all, if, heaven forbid, Vivian was at La Pitie, then there was little point in canva.s.sing the hospitals and the emergency rooms and hospices and so on-our search would be over.

The office where we waited had a beautiful view of the Jardin des Plantes. As the lady from the administrative office led us along the corridors the worst kinds of morbid one-liners were running through my brain. I couldn't help it. It was like whistling in the graveyard.

Back in the fresh air, I went weak with relief, happy to know that Viv was not one of the bodies in those human filing cabinets. The madame and I rested for a few moments on a bench in the Jardin des Plantes and then caught another cab home.

Back at the hotel we worked out a fair way of computing the phone charges I was racking up calling the appropriate munic.i.p.al offices to determine if anyone fitting my aunt's general description had been admitted to a Paris hospital. It seemed only right, I told her gratefully, that I also pay the week's rent that my aunt had skipped on. That was most responsible of me, she said. Would I like to pay that now, or should she add that sum to my own bill at the end of my stay?

None of the hospitals had any mysterious amnesiacs in residence who might be my poor aunt. So, as far as we knew, Aunt Vivian was still alive, somewhere out there. She had to be. If she was broke, how was she going to get out of Paris? I was going to have to bite the bullet and go to the emba.s.sy soon, it seemed.

It was time for me to clear out of Madame's way and let her get her dinner started. I thanked her for all her efforts-the tea and sympathy not the least of them-and went upstairs.

About seven o'clock I put on a fresh shirt and jeans and left the hotel, with no particular destination.

I wound up at one of the revival cinemas near the place everybody referred to as the Beat Hotel, a dump with character over on the rue Git le Coeur, which I had checked out the previous day. Its reputation had been made by William Burroughs and his crowd in the fifties, and I guess its legend was still going strong. Not a single vacancy.

The street was clogged with kids of all nations, hanging out, playing guitars, smoking reefer, dry humping in doorways, eating frites and souvlaki, and just glorying in being alive and young and stupid. A few paces away was perhaps the world's narrowest, shortest street, which I had searched for years ago, on my first visit to the city, because its name was so intriguing: rue de Chat-Qui-Peche. The Cat Who Fishes? What the h.e.l.l was the point of that? Right after finding it, I had had an even bigger disappointment. I had wandered over to the rue Mouffetard, where, I had been told, a lot of cute third world students ate cheap Middle Eastern meals. I was promptly groped and nearly kidnaped by a tobacconist with hideous b.o., and had never again set foot on that street.

At least the movie was no disappointment. How many times had I seen Children of Paradise since my college roommate and I first caught it on campus? Too many to count. I cried again anyway.

Lord, what a beautiful night. There was no way I was going to dinner alone again. Maybe I should turn into the first bar I saw and make a fool of myself by begging some stranger to come eat with me-or perhaps I should just pick up a sandwich someplace and call it a night.

I went for the sandwich. I would not have been good company for anybody.

After coffee the next morning an idea came to me. No, I hadn't yet thought of my next move for locating Vivian. It was something a lot goofier than that.

In fact, it was probably about the goofiest idea that had ever come my way: I decided to take my sax down into the metro and play for change. Reckless. Silly. Ill-considered. Preposterous.

Formidable, I'd do it.

It was the stuff of fantasy. Maybe I didn't have the chops a lot of my fellow street musicians back in Manhattan had, but at least I'd be able to say I played in Paris. I got cleaned up and dressed in a hurry. I wanted to get out of the room and down into the metro before I had a chance to wimp out.

I got a polite bonjour along with an indulgent smile from the old monsieur behind the reception desk as I tripped past him, my instrument case festooned with an old India print scarf I often use as a strap for the sax.

I bought a booklet of metro tickets and pa.s.sed through the turnstile. It was an act of supreme hubris to set up shop at Odeon, one of the busier stops in the city. What with the number of hip Parisians who lived in or pa.s.sed through the neighborhood every day-students, intellectuals, musicians, jazzaholics of all stripes-I was betting half of them had heard better horns than mine before they'd finished their morning coffee.

But what the h.e.l.l. I wasn't playing to pay the rent; I was living out a fantasy. I settled myself at the mouth of the pa.s.sageway connecting the Clignancourt line to the Austerlitz, took a deep breath, and started to blow. I began with "How Deep Is the Ocean." Hardly anyone took notice of me. That was okay, because my playing was a lot rustier than my French. I didn't sound so great.

Still, I pressed on. I chose "With a Song in My Heart" next. Not bad, if I do say so myself. And indeed, a cool-looking man in an expensive trench coat stood there attentively until I'd finished, and then began to dig into his pocket for change. The sound of the francs. .h.i.tting the bottom of the case made my heart soar. I gave the guy a big s.h.i.t-eating grin and immediately launched into "Lover Man." I felt so good, anything seemed possible. Maybe even a certifiable miracle. Maybe I'd see Viv bustling along the tunnel, running to catch a train.

The late morning crowd was replaced by the noontime one, people bustling along to lunch appointments, or going to do their shopping, or heading home for a leisurely meal and maybe some quick nooky-or vice versa-before returning to work.

I had to chuckle at the idea I'd had earlier in the morning-that if I kept at it all day, maybe I could make enough in tips to buy Moms and Aubrey some nice perfume. Ha. I barely made enough to buy a Big Mac. It really didn't bother me, though. I was having a good time.

I went above ground about two o'clock and found a cart that had nice-looking crepes. I strolled along the Seine as I ate, and then turned into a beautiful old tabac on the Quai Voltaire, where I had a grand cafe and b.u.mmed a cigarette from a waiter who was tall enough for the NBA and weighed about ten pounds.

I couldn't wait to get back to my post in the subway. And when I did, I hit the ground running. I had never managed to make "It Never Entered My Mind" sound like that before in my life. And my "Green Dolphin Street" ran a close second. I even got a nice round of applause from a group of older women with folding umbrellas.

Don't ever get too comfortable. It's just one of a thousand lessons that I have never truly taken in. My mother has been cautioning me about it since I was old enough to crawl. And Ernestine, my conscience, never tires of saying it. But I always forget.

It was about five-thirty. I got through a couple of bars of "You Took Advantage of Me" before I realized something strange was up. I was hearing the same licks being played-note for note-not twenty feet away. On a violin, of all things. It startled the s.h.i.t out of me. In fact, for a moment I thought I was hallucinating. I looked into the pa.s.sageway and saw a long-legged, light-skinned black man with demure dreadlocks and wire-rim spectacles gazing directly, defiantly into my eyes while he bowed absentmindedly.