by Erik Dane
For an American like me – a born-and-bred East Coaster, a headstrong, pensive brand manager, a heartbreak-escaping, late night jogger – you’d think the hardest part of living in Paris would be the language. Until today, I would have agreed with you.
Now, at this particular moment, the fact that I can speak exactly fourteen words in French properly enough that the Parisians won’t receive every single word I say without offering a signal that they have, in fact, understood at least something this foreigner with oversized clothes and a glaring absence of a scarf has woven into the conversation is only part of a broader challenge I’m facing.
At this moment, the hardest part about living in Paris, which presents itself to me not so much as a thought, well formulated, but a mélange of emotions – panic, astonishment, and, in doses, self-mockery – concerns the fact that, just possibly, I won’t make it through tonight unscathed.
Something I just realized has me wondering what state I’ll be in when the sun creeps over the Seine and reveals, once again, as it’s done for centuries, the charcoaled verticals and elegiac aura of the Notre Dame Cathedral, the highest spire of which I can make out in the distance this evening from the top of a hill in the city’s Latin Quarter.
I just realized my apartment key is at the bottom of the Seine.
I didn’t drop it. The key didn’t fall out of my pocket when I was jogging over the bridge – one of so many bridges that connect the Left and Right Banks. It was hurled into the Seine by a man concealed by a torn, dark gray overcoat. I bumped into this man just before I started jogging over the bridge on my way to this very place – the top of this very hill. At the time, I thought little of it. I’d bumped into a beggar – a clochard. These things happen.
As with any unexpected event – slipping on a wet floor, failing to win a can’t lose bet, your wife telling you on a Friday night at your favorite restaurant, just days after you finished writing a piece about how she was the love of your life, that she wants to separate – the telltale signs were there, fully formed. Your assumptions prevented you from seeing them.
In this case, I assumed that, when I bumped into the clochard, this was all that had, in fact, happened. And really, there was no need to assume otherwise.
When I left my apartment tonight, I carried neither my wallet nor my cell phone in the pockets of my Adidas warm up pants, white with black stripes. Sufficiently European looking.
I carried only that key.
Now, it’s gone.
He picked my pocket, of course. Swiftly. Skillfully. The most artful street dweller in Paris. Respect to him.
Finding nothing in his grasp besides the key after his hand plunged furtively into the pocket of my pants, he was outraged. He threw the key into the Seine.
I saw him do it. After crossing the bridge, I looked back at him. I saw him launch the key into the river. I just didn’t know yet what he had thrown. At that time, I’d never have guessed it.
My assumptions were out of alignment with the situation.
I mentioned the self-mockery I’m feeling. I should explain.
Less than a year ago, I made a comparable blunder. I wasn’t in Paris. I was in El Paso, Texas on a scorching Sunday afternoon in July. Like today, I’d gone out jogging with nothing but a key – my friend Daniel’s house key. He’d moved to El Paso for work, and I was visiting him there.
That day, the key stayed with me the entire time. I didn’t lose that key. Instead, I lost my bearings.
Sweaty, thirsty, ready to down the largest possible glass of ice water and, in time, drink a few brews and sample the brisket Daniel had promised to cook in the smoker, I slowed my pace to a walk and strolled the last few blocks to his house.
The recognition that I was lost arrived only after a series of hypotheticals occurred to me. Wouldn’t it be funny if I couldn’t find the house? What would I do? Who would I talk to? Who should I talk to? Wouldn’t this all be much, much easier if I had my phone on me? Or even my wallet?
As the recognition set in, I realized I’d have to do something out of character for someone fiercely self-reliant. I’d have to follow a cliché. I’d have to depend on the kindness of strangers.
Thankfully, in time, I found one loitering in his backyard. Reluctantly, he let me use his smartphone to find Daniel’s address online. He acquiesced to my most important request: he brought me a large glass of ice water.
Over the course of an hour, I’d gone from working professional to beggar and, in turn, working professional again. I’d slipped through one layer of society into another. I’d seen the other side from the inside out.
Over beers and brisket, Daniel and I joked about what happened to me. But something kept nagging at me and it wasn’t just the fact that, for a brief time, I’d crossed over to a different type of existence.
Had I wished for this to happen, I wondered? Certainly, nobody intends to get lost on a summer day in West Texas. And yet, at some subconscious, bedeviling level, did I put myself in this position for a reason?
When you’re lost in life, you lose your bearings in many ways. Lost souls crave getting found but actively pursue and perpetuate the state of being lost – a state that incites confusion and messiness. It ushers its possessor into situations where self-understanding stands to the side – situations that serve as their own form of escape.
I’m in Paris to escape. I was offered a six month assignment here, and I accepted immediately. The appeal wasn’t Paris itself. Any place would have done the trick – any place without associations. Without memories. Even so, I must admit there’s a magnetism to the streets and sights here. On my days off work, I leave my apartment with a destination in mind – a park, a café, a museum – and begin walking toward that destination, only to find myself wandering in other directions, down pathways unanticipated and mysterious.
Walking subdues sorrow. When the thoughts arise – as they do often, still – I tell myself to get moving. I drop a few Euro on the table to cover my espresso and select a destination, hoping to lose myself on the streets of Paris before I ever reach my intended spot. I call this mindful wandering.
Through mindful wandering, I bob and weave and wave away, temporarily, the thoughts prompting my escape. For stretches of time – for entire city blocks – I don’t think about watching her pack up and seeing the movers arrive and sitting alone, stone faced. Sitting alone, sobbing. Sitting alone for days on end in a silent house, hoping she’ll come to her senses. Knowing she won’t. I don’t think about spotting her at a bar months later, another man’s arm around her. I don’t think about the time she called me, late at night, to tell me she had “strong feelings” for someone else. That my hopes and appeals were without function. That her days of being in love with me had run their course.
During these stretches – one city block, another city block – those thoughts retreat. To suppress the feelings, mute the thoughts. That’s what I’ve learned. That’s what Paris has given me.
Now, Paris has taken something away from me. I’m standing on a hill in the Latin Quarter and my apartment key is at the bottom of the Seine and I’m not sure where things will stand, come dawn.
It’s clear, though, that I’m going to have to do something outside my comfort zone. Once again, I’m going to have to depend on the kindness of strangers.
Or, maybe not. Maybe I can depend on the kindness of authorities. I could find a police station and explain my situation.
But, they wouldn’t have much patience for me, and I doubt they’d be able to do much about this anyway. And then there’s the language problem …
What about approaching people on the street and asking if they’ll take me in? Plenty of universities around here. Maybe I’ll meet someone. A lonely faculty member. An attractive faculty member. Tonight could turn out very well, indeed. What a story that would be!
But, who am I kidding? I know I won’t try this. Too forward. Too desperate.
I suppose I could turn tonight into an all-nighter. I could visit one of the expat bars – The Moose, maybe. I could throw myself on the mercy of the bartenders, tell them I’ll pay my tab the very next day and ask if they wouldn’t mind setting me up with some drinks for tonight and letting me hang out there until closing time. Until well past closing time. Maybe tonight’s “industry night.” Maybe they’ll invite me to join them wherever they down beer and toss back shots when their shift ends.
Maybe that’s the right call. The key for getting through tonight.
The key. The key…
The key!
It’s not at the bottom of the Seine at all. It’s dry. And it’s very grimy.
The clochard still has it.
Why would a vagabond cast off a skeleton key? It’s heavy and strong. And jagged. It’s a tool for crissake. Maybe even a weapon. At the very least, it’s a resource of some kind.
For the past few minutes, this question has nagged at me. Why would the clochard throw the key into the Seine? Was he really that outraged? Did he really expect a guy wearing warm up pants – a nighttime jogger – to be flush with cash?
Cash. I did have cash on me, in the most nominal possible way. Right before heading out for my run, I pocketed an American penny. A mundane, smudged penny that fell out of my luggage when I unpacked last month, which I never bothered to remove from my living room floor until this evening. I don’t think there’s anything else I could tell you about that penny. I certainly couldn’t tell you the date on it. I imagine the clochardcould tell you more about it. I bet he walked under a street light after he picked my pocked and studied that penny pretty closely.
An American penny. Worth less, even, than its Euro equivalent. Worth nothing to someone without the knowledge or means to visit the currency exchange. A worthless coin to a vagrant. A coin merely worth tossing away.
So, that coin lies at the bottom of the Seine and my apartment key is in the clochard’s pocket.
What now?
Naturally, he’s rancid.
How in hell can I get that key back from him? How on earth could I even explain to him what I’m doing here? Even if I spoke fluent French, he might not understand anyway. Most bums aren’t exactly right in the head, you know?
I’ll just sit down as close to him as I can bear, given the stench.
I don’t know why I’m sitting here. He’s probably just as perplexed as I am.
We turn toward each other. I see his beady eyes. The stench grows. He’s scuffling my way.
He begins to speak.
I’m not much of a French speaker, but I’m even worse at comprehending spoken French. Typically, I don’t understand a word people say on the streets of Paris. Somehow though, through the hum and pulse of the Seine and the fog enveloping us, I understand in full what the clochard is saying to me.
He’s speaking in an ancient tongue. The tones and rhythms he’s using predate modern languages. They predate all languages. They consist not of words but of feelings experienced and expressed throughout the ages. Emotional chords that run deep. Haunting incantations.
These words – words that defy words – are the words I’ve always known. The words every one of us has known, always. Beneath their melancholy lies their embrace. It’s the minor key of life that unites us, I realize. A realization born outside my brain. A purely embodied epiphany.
Finally, I begin to think in letters again. And from somewhere distant in memory, lines from a poem begin to course, harmonizing with the clochard’s croons.
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Then, it hits me.
The clochard wanted me to come back. Somehow, he knew I’d come back. He wanted to share his story. He wanted to speak his language. In me, he’d sensed a kindred spirit. A soul, saddened, seeking to connect.
Through all of this, I haven’t lost eye contact with him. It’s possible that everything he’s said, he’s said with his eyes.
I have no idea how long we’ve spent here in communion.
Slowly, steadily, with a slight nod, he turns away from me. I hear nothing as he retreats. No rustle. No footsteps. My hands are cold, I realize. I slide them into the pockets of my warm up pants and my right hand clasps something heavy and metallic.
It doesn’t occur to me to ask how he returned it. Or why. The why, I know. The how is merely incidental.