1.
Bart Schwartz
He looked up and realized he had walked too far. The streets of Paris still confused him. At sixty, it was hard to learn your way around a new city, and he had never been in this neighborhood before. He glanced at his reflection in a shop window and pulled in his stomach.
Backtracking along the mansions of Avenue Raymond Poincaré, he found his way to No. 51. He looked up at the imposing, stone building, searched the polished brass board containing the list of occupants, and found what he was looking for: “Lambert et Associés, Avocats à la Cour / Attorneys at Law”.
He pushed the shiny button and a woman’s voice responded “oui?”
“I am here to see Mr. Lambert, please.”
The metallic buzzer sounded and he pushed the heavy grille on the glass door open. He crossed an expanse of marble floor to the sloping staircase at the rear, which had a runner of red carpet leading upstairs. He gazed at the long staircase, and felt tired. He spotted a narrow elevator door, stepped inside and pushed “3”.
Emerging on the third floor, he crossed the parquet hallway to broad doors. Nervously, he entered the office and approached the receptionist. She turned to him and smiled, “Oui, monsieur?”
“I’m here to see Mr. Lambert. My name is Bart Schwartz.”
“Oh yes, Mr. Schwartz. Mr. Lambert is expecting you. Please have a seat. Would you like some coffee?”
The young woman caught his eye. She had an oval face and short, dark hair and she wore red lipstick. Her English sounded mildly British.
He sat down gently on the low sofa and waited. After a few minutes, the receptionist looked over her desk and called to him, “Mr. Lambert is ready for you now. Would you follow me, please?”
He followed the young woman through a series of hallways decorated with bold paintings. She opened the door to a conference room and invited him to take a seat at a long, varnished table.
Unsure of where to sit, he selected a chair far from the head of the table, close to the center. Then he realized that that would make for an awkward conversation, and he got up again and then moved to the chair two places from the head of the table.
He sat there and waited for about five minutes, growing more nervous as the time passed. Suddenly the door to the conference room opened and an energetic, wiry French man of about forty burst in, preceded by a whiff of pungent cologne. “Mr. Schwartz!”, he said. “It is a pleasure to meet you. I have heard so much about your law firm in New York.”
Mr. Lambert sat down at the head of the table and smiled warmly at Bart. Bart hesitated, and said, “Thank you for taking the time to see me, sir. I have been looking forward to meeting you.” Mr. Lambert smiled again, but said nothing. There was an awkward pause.
“How can I help you today?”
“I see that you have an opening for a Senior Associate Attorney. I am very interested. I have admired your work for years.”
He reached quickly into his briefcase and pulled out two sheets of paper that were stapled to each other, which he gently placed them in front of Mr. Lambert.
“Here is my C.V. I think I meet your job requirements. I’m a member of the New York Bar and have a lot of the legal experience that you’re looking for.”
Mr. Lambert shifted in his chair, tapped his pen on the table, then glanced at his watch. “I don’t understand, monsieur. I assumed you were coming here as a representative of your law firm in New York, perhaps with a proposal for mutual collaboration. At your age, to apply for the job of associate attorney…., “But you are no longer with your firm?”
“No. I, uh, retired two years ago, when we moved to Paris. But I would like to stay active so I have decided to return to work.”
“Do you have at least a letter of reference from your … former partners? It would help to know that we could hope for some future business from New York.”
“Uh, no, I’m not in touch with them any more. We both felt it better to, shall we say, turn the page.”
“That is most unfortunate,” said Mr. Lambert. “In any case, I am afraid you would not be suitable for the position of Senior Associate Attorney. We have younger people who fulfill our requirements more precisely.
“I realize that you might have been thinking of a more junior person for this position,” Bart’s voice rose. “But perhaps you could consider a more senior attorney such as myself? I am an expert in our field, and would bring you a great deal of experience. I have seen and solved so many of the problems that your clients are facing. And my financial requirements are modest.”
Dick tried to suppress a plaintive tone.
A moment of silence. Then he pushed harder. “I’m sure your firm would not discriminate against older people. That would be illegal and unethical.”
Mr. Lambert’s smile had disappeared. After a moment, he stood suddenly as though he remembered more important things he had to do. “Thank you for coming to see us Mr. Schwartz. Unfortunately, I cannot help you. I wish you a very good day.” Mr. Lambert opened the door to the conference room and quickly led Dick back to the receptionist, who did not look up from her work.
Dick found his own way back to the street below. He took small, slow steps, with shoulders slightly stooped and his face had a grey pallor. His arms drifted away from his body, as if trying to escape.
The steely, grey clouds overhead shimmered on a background of the purest, most innocent blue sky you ever saw. The clouds parted, letting bright and warm sunlight cover the ornamental city below. Then they closed and darkened the macadam sidewalks.
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Paris isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, especially for Americans who expect too much. It won’t make you younger. It won’t wash away the past. And it’s not an easy place to create a future. Paris can freeze you into a melancholy present while you gaze at precious beauty.
But sometimes the earth moves. At least that’s what we’re all hoping for.
—————
A rowdy group of young men brushed past Dick as he slowly climbed the steps to exit the metro at Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Emerging into the fresh Paris air, he headed down boulevard St.-Germain past windows of expensive boutiques and under trees already acquiring their autumn colors.
At rue du Bac, Dick passed the outdoor tables of a crowded café. He turned to go inside. Then he noticed the menu that was displayed by the door. He paused and let his eyes settle on the prices. Coffee and a piece of cake cost twelve euros. He turned away, and headed back down the street.
A well-dressed man glanced sideways to see if anyone was watching, then bent down quickly to pick a cigarette butt off the street.
At a kiosk, Dick waited to pay for a newspaper. He stood behind two men, a young man of about twenty-five and his older companion who was placing money on the high shelf in front of the vendor. The younger man half-turned and looked at Dick. He had delicate, almost feminine features. The nose was long and aquiline while the mouth was small. He had thick brown hair that fell in conflicting waves on the top of his head and was very short around his ears. A small tattoo crept up his throat. Most striking were his eyes. They were large and rounded and transparent blue-grey, as though you could look inside him.
He caught Dick’s eye for a moment and smiled. Dick smiled back, and felt happy. Then the young man looked away. Dick stood transfixed.
Someone tapped his shoulder. It was the older man, who had paid the vendor. “Dick, is that you?”
He turned and dimly recognized a face from the past. A distant older cousin, on his mother’s side. They had been at school together, in different classes. Afflicted by age; his face had melted into wrinkles and liver spots.
“Don’t you remember me? Edward, from Andover!”
A long-buried memory bubbled up to the surface. Prep school long-ago, during a steaming Indian summer. He had struggled to keep his voice calm when he suggested, “How about tennis tomorrow?” He had plotted for weeks to have this moment alone with Edward. Singles during the hot afternoon. Horsing around in the locker room afterwards, whipping towels at each other, then wresting Edward down and pinning him to the floor. A furtive kiss, then a longer kiss back. Groping hands that reached into his pants. The smell and taste of skin and lips and tongues and saliva. Bart had thought of nothing else for weeks afterwards, hoping for a chance to do it again. Edward became hard to find, so Bart waited for him in front of the dining hall, knowing he’d come eventually. Edward had breezed by and didn’t speak to him.
“Oh right! How nice to see you. It’s been a long time.”
“Isn’t this amazing! Bumping into you so far away from home! And after all these years. What are you doing in Paris?”
“I live here. Faye and I have an apartment just up the street.”
“Live here? That must be great. Helen and I are in town just for a few days to visit my son, Ted here. Ted’s living in Paris now, too.” He nodded to the young man standing beside him. “Hey, why don’t we grab a cup of coffee and catch up?”
Ted said, “Dad, sorry but you know I have an appointment. I’m already late. I’ll see you later.” Looking squarely at Bart, he smiled again. “Nice to meet you, sir. I hope we'll see you again.” And he turned and walked down the street. Bart’s eyes followed him until he disappeared into the crowd.
Edward looked worried. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with that boy. He came to Paris last year with a pipedream of becoming an international journalist, but he just can’t seem to find his way. I hope he finds a job soon. He needs to get on his feet and to make some money.”
Bart and Edward headed down the rue du Bac and turned into the crowded, expensive café that Dick had passed a moment ago. Walking through the outdoor tables, they entered the dining area. Inside, the tables were pushed closely together and men and women stood shoulder to shoulder at the little bar drinking demitasses of coffee or espresso.
Standing at the coffee bar pressed next his old friend, Bart half-listened to Edward drone on about his successful business career, now ended. He wondered if Edward remembered their passion in the locker room. His thoughts wandered to the face of Ted, so much like his father’s years ago, and in his minds-eye he continued to gaze at the young man. This didn’t feel right. After all it was his cousin’s son. So he tried to think of something else.
The two men stood together for what seemed a very long time. The haze of words created a tangle of predictable reminiscences, talk of old friends, observations on life passed by. A close observer might have noticed an unusual twitch at the edge of Bart’s mouth. For the rest, this was the most conventional of scenes in a city where Americans of a certain age and class are very common, indeed.
Bart heard the familiar creak of the French parquet floor in the apartment’s entry foyer and the double doors to the living room swung open. Faye appeared, laden with packages from her shopping, crying out, “Bon joor,” with that Midwestern accent she couldn’t seem to get rid of.
Her cheeriness was jarring. Bart wondered if it really was meant to cheer him up or was just to prepare him for her latest extravagance.
Turning only halfway toward her, still reading a newspaper, he said, “How was the market?”
“I didn’t go to the market, silly. I told you yesterday, I needed a new outfit. You do remember, don’t you? We have that fundraiser tonight for what’s-her-name, that Democratic candidate for Congress. Everybody will be there.”
Bart realized that this was going to be yet another costly evening, keeping up with the rich Joneses yet again.
In Paris, chic was a flat stomach and a fat wallet. Bart had neither.
“Do we really have to do this, tonight? Those people are so boring. I never have anything to say to them. And do we need to spend money on a thing like this?”
Faye’s eyes took on a steely glint, if only for a moment.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “We do. This is important to me. I’ve worked hard to meet our new friends who be there tonight. We are not going to miss this. Please get dressed.”
Bart hated it when Faye got cold like that. And he knew there was no point in continuing to protest. So he got up, stepped away from his desk and kissed his wife who was still holding her packages.
“It will be a wonderful evening, I’m sure. I’ll be ready in a jiff.”