Silent Bird (3 page)

My vocabulary left a lot to be desired, but toilet is toilet. So I got it. I saw the door with W/C on it—for Water Closet—and shook my head. No. Not doing it. Under the stairs in the lobby? Was that
a
toilet or
the
toilet?

Monsieur began to climb, confident I’d follow
.

I need a toilet only for me
, I wanted to say. Me want one toilet!

At the top, he wiggled the
oversized key into a door. I asked, “Pardon, one toilet?”

“
One, yes. Downstairs!” He briefly gestured in the direction of Hell. “But very nice studio here! For you.
Voilà
.”

I am sorry
, I thought. Je suis pardon, but moi no live here.

Then I entered that poor
misbegotten studio and squinted at two huge windows overlooking the café below—and my heart lifted.

The light.
The
light.

A poplar tree stuck like a flag in the center of the plaza
, throwing a quilt of leaf-shaped shadows onto the hardwood. At the window warmth curled itself like an old cat.

“
You like, yes?” said the man eagerly, as if he were offering himself along with the studio.

It had a bed already, single, tucked under all that luminescence.
And two built-in shelves with—
ta-da
—one small refrigerator! Poor Blondie. Maybe he could borrow mine?

And good Lord, the room also came with a bathtub!
And a hotplate for a stove. Talk about luxury!

Meanwhile, cutlery rang from the café below.
Voices rose up in laughter, in camaraderie and
joie de vivre
. Life: hectic, colorful. Me: part of it yet apart.

Hell,
I could draw here: that was all that mattered. I’d draw here and pee downstairs. Though I should actually
see
the toilet to make sure it had a seat. I’d heard rumors of Turkish toilets with holes in the floor and tread marks to stand on—and I didn’t think I could stand that (no pun intended).

T
he toilet did include a seat, thank God. It also included toilet paper as rough as cardboard. So I decided I’d buy the softest toilet paper on earth even if I had to order it special delivery and shipped Express. I would make this work. I would make
everything
work. Cézanne, here I come!

Monsieur Bernard DeCroix, as the rental agent was called, led me back
across the street where Blondie still waited.

“
Voilà
, your neighbor,” Monsieur DeCroix announced.

“
Jeannot Courbois,” Blondie said. “
E
nchanté
.”

“
Pilar Russell,” I said. “Hi.”

We shook. His hand was warm,
fingers slender and long. He smiled at me and briefly held on, and in his eyes I saw a flicker of that look that I’d never liked from men but always seemed to watch out for. He was handsome, this wholesome looking Frenchman, in a slightly off-beat way, as if he might be an artist too.

Monsieur DeCroix did count my money this time and ask for 100 francs more. He even asked for my passport though he barely looked at it. I filled out and signed an application I couldn’t read, using the hotel as my previous address. Ten minutes later, with a grand flourish of his pudgy hand, he held out the brass key.

It was mine. I accepted it, saying “
Merci,”
and was getting up to leave when a sharp pain in my toe caused me to cry out.

Startled, I slumped
into the chair.

“
Mademoiselle!” cried the two men.

I held up my han
d to tell them I was fine then slipped off my shoe. The offending toe was as big and red and puffy as a holiday balloon.

Everyone gasped.

“
You are sick!” Monsieur DeCroix exclaimed, or at least I thought he did.

Jeannot Courbois quickly left and returned with ice wrapped in a café napkin.
He placed it gently against my toe, squatting down so that his hairline was at my eye level; so that I could watch him studying the enraged digit and also glancing at my bare legs but being enough of a gentleman not to stare.

This office was not air-conditioned.
Beads of sweat dotted his forehead, and mine. His brows were dark blond, thick, and intense. He had one beauty mark, on the side of his neck. He smelled like little green apples. Shampoo?

The rental agent handed me a glass of warm water, which I drank gratefully.
The two of them were yakking back and forth as if I weren’t there. I felt like a mute. And I was tired. Dead tired. How was I going to schlep up and down from that new apartment to the bathroom with a swollen toe?

I’d have to get my money back.
Surely I’d be allowed to do that.

The ice seemed to help, though.
Not much, but enough. I didn’t want to get my money back. Finally saying goodbye to the two men, I grabbed my purse and hobbled toward the street to get started with the move.

Jeannot Courbois followed me outside to the plaza. “
Excusez-moi
, Mademoiselle,” he called, and added something that sounded like “assistance.” He was asking if I needed help, if he could go with me—a nice thing to do.

But I hesitated.
I did not know this man, after all. I had to be smart for a change; certainly smarter than I had been up till now. What if this pleasant-faced stranger turned out to be an axe murderer? I would just disappear from France, and it would take my mother a month to figure it out.

I stared into Jeannot’s chocolate-colored eyes
, deciding. I was here, in this new country. I had to trust
someone,
right? May as well be here and now, with Blondie.

Of course h
e wasn’t an axe murderer. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who could hold a grudge.

He dangled his car keys, and
I understood. “Yes,” I said. “Thank you.”

Jeannot’s car turned out to be small and French and parked on nearby sidewalk: an old blue Peugeot with dice hanging from the rear-view mirror.
He drove without talking, and I did little more than point the way. My toe was starting to hurt again. What the hell? Had something bitten me—a spider? I wondered if there were black widows or brown recluse spiders in France. Maybe the Hôtel de la Gare harbored bedbugs, or snakes…or the plague.

I packed quickly while Jeannot stood politely in the doorway
, waiting for me. Then he carried the suitcase downstairs. He would have carried my sack of art supplies too, if I’d let him. But I didn’t: my ability to accept help had limits.

An hour later my possessions and I were safely ensconced in the lovely room in the charming plaza I would now call home.
The sun was low in the sky. I sat on the bed and put up my feet.

Jeannot, squatting
on the floor with his back against the wall, asked me something incomprehensible. I shook my head sadly. We sat there without speaking. Eventually I closed my eyes. The room seemed to drift. I felt warm.

When I opened my eyes, the sun had set…almost but not quite.
Like a child who keeps saying “
One more minute!
” at bedtime, the Mediterranean sun seemed to postpone its rest, to dread the dark. Uncanny hues of golden-pink and dusky blue filled my new windows. Lights from the café twinkled just out of sight.

I squinted
at Jeannot just sitting there hoping to help. He was a nice guy.

“
Hi,” I said.

“
Hi.” He did not pronounce the “
h.”

I held up a finger—
Wait!
—and fished a small English-French dictionary out of my purse.

“
Light?” he asked, searching for a switch.

The room lit up.
He flicked on the ceiling fan too, which whirred noisily, barely fluffing the languid air.

My toe looked awful, bigger and redder than before.
I touched it and tried not to gasp.

Jeannot sat on the edge of the bed and peered down and whistled.
After consulting my dictionary, he said haltingly, “You…have…mushrooms.”

“
Mushrooms?” Sprouting from my toes? I leaned back against the lumpy mattress. Ugh, no pillow. I used my purse. “No, no mushrooms. An insect. A bug.”

Jeannot
frowned and laid a large cool palm on my forehead.

“
Docteur
,” he said. Then, in English: “Now.”

If I found it strange that Jeannot chose to drive to a town outside of the city instead of to a medical center
in
the city, I didn’t dwell on it. I was already breaking every single rule of safe traveling for American women alone in Europe—but I had a fever. And I trusted his guy, my new friend. Plus it’s harder to assert one’s independence if one’s toe falls off.

Dropping the urban landscape like a petticoat, we zoomed down one tree-lined road after another until reaching a hill.
On that hill a jumble of buildings perched, their lights flecking the darkness like so many stars.

“Villefranche sur Lez
,” Jeannot said with obvious pride. “My village.”

Tree shadows slid by as we crossed some kind of ancient donkey bridge. Down narrow, unlit streets we reached a lovely T-shaped villa with black iron gates and a massive stone chimney. The doctor—if indeed he
was
a doctor—opened the door wearing a cozy maroon velvet bathrobe. He cried out with pleasure at seeing Jeannot, hugged and kissed his cheeks three times, and shook my hand warmly, cradling it inside his two hands like an injured bird.

This
doctor knew no English. And I didn’t feel well enough to try much with French. So the whole incident unrolled like a silent film:
Old-world healer with knobby nose but loveable face cares for speechless young alien with swollen foot.

I sw
allowed aspirin, drank water, and accepted what looked like a tube of toothpaste. Jeannot explained about medicine and mornings. I nodded, and he thanked the doctor without paying him. Then we drove back to the city listening to the exotic thump of Brazilian samba—interesting choice for a French boy.

After parking somewhere ridiculous again, on a sidewalk or somebody’s driveway, Jeannot took my hand
and led me through our pretty plaza, which was still rocking with life.

A
t the junction between his building and mine, he hesitated.

“
What?” I said. “What is it?”

He did
n’t speak—what was the point?—but gently looked into my eyes as if asking permission.

I do
n’t know if I gave it to him. I must have, for he led me away from the building with the remote toilet toward the building with the Corinthian columns and balconies. Past the darkened rental office, up an elevator of all things, we entered Jeannot’s apartment.

It was spacious, neat, smelling of warm stone and distant cooking.
I noticed whitewashed walls, a piano; a marshmallow-cushioned couch. French doors opened to sounds of the café bubbling up happily. I glanced around the kitchen area for a refrigerator but didn’t find one.

“
Soon,” Jeannot said with a smile.

He served me water and told me to lie down on the couch.
Then he tapped the tube of foot cream with his finger. “
Ton médicament
,” he said.

“
My medicine,” I repeated in English. I yawned. “But no mushrooms. It’s called fungus.”

“Bad,” he said, and that worried me again.

What if this fungus thing went septic and I ended up in a foreign hospital without being able to talk? Would I know what kind of surgery I was having? Would I wake up with my toe missing and no way to ask where it was?

Jeannot began explaining something else, and I recognized the words “
matin
” and “
nuit
”—morning and night—and
non beaucoup
. He gestured toward his head as if telling me not to forget. After that he either told me to keep the area clean or keep it proper.

T
hat was the last thing I heard before conking out on this kind man’s couch.

When I awoke, the night was over. Luckily, so was the pain in my head.

The swelling in my toe had gone down; the sun had come up.
Jeannot had draped himself on the armchair across from me. He was drinking from a doll-sized coffee cup, staring out the window. He looked tired. His dark blond stubble was longer. What an interesting face, I thought. Aquiline nose. And those warm dark brown eyes, not so common with such blond hair.

“
Hi,” I said.

“
Bonjour
,” he said softly, smiling. “
Ca va?”

This
“
ç
a va” thing seemed both a question and an answer, so I repeated
“
ç
a va”
and that satisfied him. Then I riffled through the dictionary and said “
bon
,” which meant “good.”

That
seemed to work too. French!

Jeannot grinned happily.
I handed him the book and he took his turn riffling pages. After a moment he asked, “Have hunger—you?”

“
Oui.”

It was practically a conference.

We made breakfast of a day-old baguette with yummy homemade jam. After that I used the room with the bathtub to put on my toe cream, and the room with the toilet for the rest. And when I’d finished, I kissed his cheek thank you and picked up my purse. Jeannot rose to escort me to the door.

“
Play?” I asked as we passed the piano.

As a response, he ran his fingers—those lon
g, capable-looking fingers I’d attributed to a sculptor or painter—across the keys. The notes were both a song and not a song… not yet. Somehow I knew it was an original composition. I leaned my elbows on the piano, listening to the fluttering sounds of birdsong; the drumming of rain driving the birds away.

He was good.
Very good.

“
Like?” Jeannot asked in English.

I nodded.
“Like very much.”

We were about three feet away from each other, eyes locked.
I thought again of last night, of driving through the tunnel of trees to a stranger’s village before coming to this apartment to sleep. He had not even tried to touch me. Why? And why did that lack of pushiness intrigue me, maybe even bother me?

With Jeannot
still staring, I suddenly pulled off my shirt and placed it on the piano bench.

He blinked.
Didn’t speak. In fact, he seemed like a figure in a painting: a lovely image come to life.

I wanted this.
I wanted him.

And that’s the crazy part, you see.
I wanted him
because
he was a stranger and a joy to look at and because he had not assumed anything. Because when I disrobed and held out my arms I saw his disbelief…and pleasure.

Jeannot smelled faintly of soap and musk and that green apple shampoo.
I responded to his scent and touch the way some people respond to home and love and familiarity. I made myself comfortable the simplest way I knew how; maybe the only way.

I did make a joke in English, something about wanting to thank him for driving me all over the place and maybe
this was the best way to do it. But I had the definite sense that he understood I wasn’t joking. He was a musician, and this was a song we were creating: honest and raw. Songs may be beautiful, but they do come to an end. There is safety in that.

His lips were soft.
His breath smelled faintly of peppermint—had he secretly popped in a breath mint? His arms felt strong yet lean; his torso long. A small noise rose from his throat. Then, to my surprise, Jeannot let me go.

He peered questioningly into my face.
Down to my bra and panties—and back into my eyes as if asking:
You mean this, right?

I gave a quick nod.
Yes.
Oui!

With the oddest caution and reverence, he caressed me with
one hand: the same hand that had made the piano sing. And when he put both arms around me, I could feel his struggle between arousal and the weight of his mind…between erotic impulses and kind good sense.

He was thinking too much.
Like me.

I reached my hand down; h
e was hard. He definitely was hard.

We walked down a narrow hallway to another roo
m, his bedroom, where more French doors opened to a private balcony heady with the scent of mimosa. He sat on the neatly made bed and pulled me onto his lap. He brushed hair from my eyes and asked me something else, probably if I was really, really sure…and we both ended up laughing, because I was already doing this and how could we discuss anything even if we wanted to?

Finally h
e stood and unbuttoned his pants.

“
You…beautiful,” he began in English. “
Très, très
beautiful.”

It was nice of him to say it
though his words did not really move me. Words rarely did, in any language. What got to me, what
really
moved me, was how he had all the time in the world, first to trace my face with his fingertips, then to kiss me, then to massage my muscles and look and smile at me.

At last
we pressed ourselves together, sweaty skin to sweaty skin, and we had sex with all the fury the word implies.

Oddly, wit
h him inside me, I felt not only relieved but generous, as if I was giving the rewards again. Afterward we lay together not talking, just listening to the café outside and the birds overhead and the scooters zipping by. Maybe an hour passed. Then I propped myself up and told him in crystal clear English that I needed to go home to unpack.

I doubt he understood me in detail, but he got my drift. We
said goodbye affectionately, almost nostalgically. Although we were neighbors, who knew when we would see each other again? After all, getting involved with a man was not my reason for being in France.

I did not intend to write
“sex” on my blank slate.