A Fleeting Sorrow Read online

  II

  IT WAS THE END OF SEPTEMBER. The weather in Paris was lovely, a kind of Indian summer, with a light wind, accompanied by occasional gusts, that was still pleasantly warm. A wind that toyed with the clouds above, transforming a dark, narrow street into one drenched in bright sunlight, then back again, with disconcerting speed. Paris, Paul thought, was a zebra, a series of black and white stripes.

  Standing on the threshold of the porte cochére, Paul gazed out at the city — his city — which was caught in the thrall of autumn, and for the first time in his life he was irritated by its charm. His car was parked only a stone’s throw away, and he dashed toward it with his head lowered, as if the passersby could somehow have detected, beyond the sport coat and the thick lock of bobbing hair, the face of a man condemned to death. The indecent, embarrassing, pitiful face of a man only half alive. He had to rid himself of this shame, this brand-new feeling of guilt that was suffocating him, that was affecting him to such a degree that it took him a good ten seconds to get his car key into the ignition. He started the car, then gunned the motor and sped off with a screech of tires on pavement; the car, unused to such rough treatment, roared, coughed, and stalled. Paul laid his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. More than anything else, he had to rid himself of this nausea. This impression of emptiness, of internal fragility, the idea that his bones could — no, would — crumble beneath the weight of his body, crumble and turn to dust, this about-face of both mind and body (in sync, for once, through a combination of panic and nostalgia) was unbearable. How much he already missed his beloved Paris! . . . not, though, without a nagging feeling of spite, as if someone had taken it from him. . . . But who? Paul had long ago ceased to believe in God, and in fact had no regrets about his loss of faith — except when he ran into real trouble, as he had today. No, it was not a god — Catholic or Protestant or whatever — nor was it fate or anything or anyone else that had suddenly stripped him of all his worldly goods and possessions. Paul had never believed in anything beyond the natural affinity between himself and his existence. He was a happy-go-lucky, naturally positive person, and his innate cheerfulness, like his fits of anger and the way he related to other people, was contagious. Yes, he had been blessed with more brains and ability than most of his friends, but today all those talents and gifts had fallen away, leaving him alone, naked, and ill in the eyes of the rest of the world. But — and he was sure of this — those who had loved him or looked up to him till now, some for as long as thirty years — whether they were his friends, his lovers, or merely some passing fancy — every one of those who had willingly, and gratefully, followed in the wake of his vitality and energy would, as soon as they knew he was sick, start avoiding him, as if he had been misleading them all these years. They would feel sorry for him, of course, but they would also shy away from him. And at this point how could he change everything, think of his life as anything other than the long, continuous gift it had always been? Of course, the feeling, the sensation of life — of his life — had never left him for very long, but he had never known, never been able to figure out, what “to live” and “to expect from life” really meant in their magnificent, precarious fragility. No one had ever been able to understand that. And no one ever would.

  He drove along the quais of the Seine, free of tourists now that autumn was here, past the Portes d’Asnières and Gennevilliers. There were a number of dilapidated barges, several half-sunken boats, a smattering of makeshift huts; the islands in the Seine in this part of Paris were a real shambles, half abandoned, a wasteland fast becoming a real slum. He saw some fishermen lackadaisically holding their lines; some people, warmed by the September sun, were lolling on the new-mown grass reading their newspapers. Somewhat to his surprise he did not envy them, and yet he knew that next fall they would still be there, they would see the leaves turn orange and red, and he would not. But that was a notion he found impossible to comprehend. And if his own inner motor was sputtering, that of his car was still going strong. It was a powerful motor that purred reassuringly, and when he had bought the car not long before, the salesman had told him with a laugh that the motor was so good it would probably outlast him. Funny he should remember that. They had both had a good laugh, amused and incredulous at the thought, the way we often laugh at something without thinking. Now the remark seemed more like a prediction than a joke.

  It was past noon, and Robert would have gone out for lunch if he didn’t get a move on. Robert would tell him what to do. He was a man, a friend. Someone who was surely going to help him one way or another. Unlike Helen, who found Robert egotistical, or Sonia, who simply found him vulgar, Paul thought of Robert Gaubert not just as his best friend but as his only friend. It was not in Paul’s makeup to dwell overly on his relationships with men, but in the case of Robert, yes. He knew he could count on Robert for strength and support.

  Gaubert’s offices overlooked the Seine, just this side of the Port de Paris. Paul and Robert never went to see each other in their respective offices, and Paul’s arrival seemed to upset Robert more than it pleased him.

  “He’s been on the phone all morning,” his secretary murmured. “London, New York, Hamburg . . .” Her tone seemed a mixture of pride and concern, as if she felt personally responsible for the phone company’s technical prowess that enabled her boss to call all over the world, but at the same time worried that she would somehow be held accountable for the considerable bills he was running up as well.

  When he entered Robert’s office, Robert motioned for him to have a seat. Robert and Paul could have passed for brothers, or perhaps cousins: similar builds, the same way of carrying themselves. But Robert was less muscular, less athletic, and he had less success with women than Paul did. Paul’s jokes about Robert-the-womanizer had never struck Robert as very funny. Helen, though she pretended to like him, was malicious and jealous, and a poor judge of her husband’s male friends. Gaubert was one of the few she allowed to slip past her guardhouse.

  Paul, sitting across the desk from Robert, could not refrain from noting, as he always did each time he came here, how pretentiously modern this office was. A great time to be dwelling on aesthetic details!

  “A rare treat! So tell me what brings you here.” Robert smiled. “In need of an alibi?”

  “No,” Paul said. “The fact is, I’ve just had a lousy bit of news.”

  “You in love?”

  The telephone rang, and Gaubert picked up the receiver. “Excuse me a second. Yes? All right.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece and said, “It’s London.” And with that he started speaking fairly fluent English. The man’s made progress, Paul thought. In all sorts of areas . . . Of course, he had learned English using the latest book-and-tape method — Helen had listened to some of the tapes and found them hilarious — but the fact remained that now Robert spoke passable English whereas he, Paul, still stumbled and stammered. This said, he was glad he hadn’t wasted his precious evenings learning English, however helpful it might have been in the long run. Now what good would it have done him? To he, or not to be: that is the question. Indeed, that was the question. . . .

  Gaubert hung up. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I’m in the midst of negotiating an exclusivity with CBS for all of Europe. How about that, Robert? The entire European continent. No small potatoes, eh?”

  “Great,” Paul said. He gave a deep sigh. “That’s really great.”

  Robert leaned across the desk, in his best businesslike manner. “I have a feeling your heart wasn’t in your congratulations,” he said. “What’s the matter?”

  “I went to see a doctor this morning,” Paul said. “I have . . . a thing in my lungs. He tells me I have six months, give or take.”

  Gaubert slumped back into his seat, his face suddenly dead serious, even, Paul thought to himself, marmorean. The face of a stoic Roman hero beset by problems who refuses to show any distress. “Actually,” thought Robert, and he found the notion almost funny, “it’s my distr
ess he’s not showing.”

  “Okay, let’s have the details, please. What did they do to you? X-rays? What about a CAT scan? Is your doctor any good? Who is he anyway?”

  “He’s Dr. Jouffroy’s replacement. I’ve been with Jouffroy for years. This new guy’s a total jerk, but he’s a good doctor, yes.”

  The phone rang again and Gaubert picked it up, his face still expressionless. “Sorry, my friend. Will you forgive me again?” he said, but his tone was more imperious than begging. And again he launched into fluent English, glancing sternly from time to time in Paul’s direction, before he lost his temper with the party on the other end, turned unpleasant, and hung up without so much as saying good-bye.

  “They think they can do anything they goddamn well please, these Americans!” Robert fulminated. “They think they own Europe! . . . But back to you. How can you trust a doctor you don’t even know, for Chrissake? A replacement doctor! You must be joking. Paul. You’re going to outlive us all, of that I’m sure. Want to bet?”

  Damn sure bet, that one, Paul thought ironically, but he decided not to dwell on it.

  “I had all the fancy tests,” Paul said. “CAT scans included. Several, in fact.”

  He heard a low moan emerge from his lips and hated himself. He was horrified and ashamed.

  The phone rang again, and Gaubert swore as he grabbed it. “Can’t they leave me in peace for a few goddamn moments?” He closed his eyes in exasperation, then punctuated the remarks on the other end with an occasional comment: “Yes, okay, I prefer that. I said, I prefer that! But at what price? Okay, okay! What? I am listening to you! Yes, yes, I’ll pick you up at Roissy airport on Friday. What time is your plane coming in? Three-thirty. I’ll be there. . . .” He lifted his eyes and stared at the wall above Paul’s head, then raised his fist in a sign of victory. “That seems fair enough. Right. Right. See you Friday.” And he hung up.

  “Really . . . I can’t believe these people. If they think they can . . . Oh, sorry, Paul. I’m going to tell them that if this guy calls back I’m not in.” He picked up the phone and instructed the receptionist to hold all calls, no matter how urgent. “And that includes the pope,” he said, thereby proving no doubt that he was ready to risk excommunication in the name of their friendship.

  “Let’s get back to what’s important. Now listen to me, pal, and listen to me carefully. You’re upset — that’s not a strong enough word, but you know what I mean — which is only normal. I mean, there’s good reason, God knows. But I frankly don’t believe you. If a Dr. Barondess or Lingrès or some other top specialist comes up with the same diagnosis, then of course . . . But today you were in the hands of some second-rate quack, I guarantee. . . . Where are you going?”

  Paul was on his feet. He wanted to get out of there, for no rhyme or reason. This fancy office was getting more and more on his nerves.

  “I have to run,” he said.

  “Above all, not a word to your family,” Gaubert suggested. “Or you’ll have to answer to me.”

  He smiled at Paul, who noted that Robert’s face was slightly flushed. As he accompanied Paul to the door, Robert gave him a hearty slap on the back, as if to make sure that the body — and therefore his remarks — was still solid.

  “You’ll see,” he said. “You’ll see that I’m right. You’re not the sick type. In fact, I’ve never even seen you slow down, much less call in sick. If you have trouble getting an appointment to see Barondess, give me a call. My sister-in-law and Barondess’s wife are like this” — and he joined his thumb and forefinger. Then, contradicting his words of optimism and encouragement, he knocked on the nearest piece of wood. Robert’s parting words — “Call me right away! Call me the minute you have the results!” — echoed in Paul’s ears as he fled down the hallway, fleeing what exactly he didn’t know.

  He climbed into his car and drove away. He couldn’t fathom Robert’s reaction to the news, and found it impossible to understand how or what he felt. Poor Robert: his cancer couldn’t have surfaced at a worse time, not only for himself but for Robert as well.

  He had apparently left the car radio on the whole time, and he leaned down to turn it off, his reactions too slow apparently, for the blare of the horn seemed to explode inside his head. A truck had just exited the warehouse on his right and turned onto the boulevard. He saw Paul barreling toward him, going too fast, too fast to avoid an accident, he was sure, and the truck driver hit the horn with all his might. Paul jammed on the brakes and swung the steering wheel hard right, which bounced him up onto the sidewalk, then hard left, which took him onto the divider between the two lanes of the boulevard, which, miraculously, was empty; at that point he somehow managed to maneuver the car back onto the roadway. He had come within a hair of having an accident, a serious accident, and in his rearview mirror he could see the truck, which had stopped, and several people looking and pointing in his direction. He hadn’t run over anyone. He hadn’t killed anyone. And here he was running away, fleeing the scene of the crime. Man, had that been close! His legs were jelly, as they always were after an accident or a near accident, and for a brief moment he congratulated himself on the fact that his reflexes were still intact, when all of a sudden he slammed his fist hard against the steering wheel. Damn! Damn! Damn! What a complete ass he was! He had just been presented, on a silver platter, the gift of a lifetime, the solution to all the endless days and nights of agony and suffering that lay ahead. He hadn’t sought it, he hadn’t asked for it, but there it had been offered him. But no, he had to be smart, he had to be clever, he had to call on his good old reflexes to avoid the inevitable accident, the only thing that could have saved him from hurting those he cared about: a clean, quick, unintentional death. And with his legs still shaking, his mind in a state of absolute fury, he stepped on the gas and roared away, as if another miracle might lie just down the road, another chance to die a swift and flaming death might once more be offered him on a silver platter.

  He was still furious with himself as he crossed the Saint-Cloud bridge, nor did his anger subside during the several minutes it took him to drive through the park. There wasn’t another car in sight, and he noted that here the leaves had not yet begun to turn. He pulled over and stopped, turned off the ignition, stepped out of the car, and leaned against the door on the driver’s side, feeling the warm metal press into his back. He took a deep breath, stretched, and gazed around at the peaceful setting — without deriving one iota of satisfaction from its beauty. Ah, there was the rub. For several weeks no doubt he would be able to go about his life normally — even happily — but there would always come a moment when some detail would be lacking, something would be askew, and the whole house of cards would come tumbling down. He left the car and walked through the park for a good five minutes, then lay down on the grass beneath a tree. It was strictly forbidden to walk on the grass, much less lie down on it, but there was no cop — in fact, no other human being — anywhere in sight. His head was nestled against the tree trunk, his legs stretched out in front of him. He watched the playful movement of the leaves at the top of the tree, way up there, and tried to figure out whether it was a chestnut, a beech, or an elm. And he realized that he really couldn’t tell one tree from another. The elms, he knew, were dying in droves this year, the victims here as in other countries around the world of Dutch elm disease. It was like their cancer. This year’s statistics would show that so many people had died of cancer, and so many elm trees had yielded to the dread disease. He, Paul, like this tree above (if indeed it was an elm) would be classified as a victim of this year’s — or maybe next year’s — death toll.

  And men, like the elm trees, struck down in the fall, Grew thinner and thinner and did not attend the ball. . . .

  He enjoyed making up nonsense verses, doggerel. Now there was a word he loved: “doggerel.” Doggerel verses had the same ability to move him that certain songs on the radio did, conjuring up some unexpected memory. He had more or less classified his memories into three
distinct categories: those that moved him or affected him deeply; those that amused him; and those that left him feeling guilty or made him want to run away. He thought he had tagged them all. Where, then, did the memory that now flooded his mind emanate from? A memory of morning, an open window overlooking the village square, he and his grandmother in the window, she holding his hand, and his boyish voice asking the village orchestra to play over and over again the same tune, filled with flourishes and drumrolls, which delighted him. And the other memory of a little red-faced boy who recited poems — doggerel verses, according to his father? And he, Paul — before he had wanted to grow up and become a fireman, an electrician, a jet pilot, an actor — had aspired to be a poet, a troubadour who would go from town to town and village to village reciting verses.’ “My little troubadour,” his grandmother used to call him as she hugged him, during those long winter days when his parents had packed him off to stay with her in her huge old house. Five years later he had been ashamed of her, and of himself. And when he was fifteen he had been ashamed of his parents. How brief our lives are, he thought, how fragile little old ladies, and how ungrateful little boys.

  He no longer saw the shimmering green leaves above him as so many separate entities but as one blurred green mass. One continuous, uninterrupted wave of warm, green water that he let flow gently over his cheeks in this deserted park. Probably the tears of the troubadour.

  III

  IT WAS ONE OF THOSE CLASSIC, old-time Paris cafes that doubled as tobacco shops. They had fallen out of fashion, and were few and far between these days, but Paul always enjoyed them. Their clientele was inevitably a mixture of regulars who lived in the neighborhood, plus a smattering of people who were either out of work or had nothing better to do with their time than sit in a cafe staring out the window. The owner, standing behind his zinc bar, flanked by his cash register on one side and the tall ranks of cigarettes on the other, looked for all the world like a tyrant surveying his kingdom, as jealous as a Jesuit monk, and he looked at Paul, the newcomer, with a large measure of suspicion and distrust, which for a moment almost threw Paul off balance. Paul nonetheless approached the bar, leaned on it, ordered a glass of white wine, and in a moment of spontaneity, ordered “drinks all around.” Paul hadn’t set foot, much less spent time, in a cafe like this for a long time. And a whole world, a whole atmosphere, made up of an uneven mixture of drinks, of friends and acquaintances, of penny-arcade games, of arguments, of silly bets made after the third or fourth drink, bets that would never be remembered and never paid off, came flooding back to him, as a real-life fairy tale: unreal, unreal and pleasant.