Old Ways

  By David Xavier

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  He walked along the Rue de Berri and turned when it intersected with the Champs-Élysées. The street echoed with noise and conversation, the windows reflected with transparent people, doubling the action. The clouds looked more and more as if they would drop rain, and the sun turned its back, so it was cool.

  It was a great city to write in. One only had to look around at the people and the buildings for inspiration. The man with the jackhammer-laugh at the table, the sad woman with the purse she held like it wasn’t hers. The boy on the curb pitching rocks and a grin. Here he had found the words he could not find elsewhere, but things were different now and he knew this would not be forever so he paused at the corner and took in all that he could. The street was dirty and loud and the people were busy and walking fast. The blocks of the buildings were large and white and they streaked black with old rainwater from top to the bottom. He made sure to look at the street behind him and notice the way it was cobbled and uneven and the ancient, unsteady curve it took around the bend. It started to rain slightly, and he couldn’t find any words so he continued down the street.

  There would be no more words and no more writing here. He wished there could be but he decided that morning that he could not continue it the way he had. He did not belong there anymore. The people he saw now, the same people who once marched freely in his head, stayed on the street, dry of inspiration, finding no place for words inside. He had destroyed any chance of a life here and he felt that he could live here and try, but it would be too hard. He was guilty here, and guilt takes away from the words like a sponge, so he had the train ticket in his jacket pocket.

  He walked along the Champs-Élysées and the sprinkle of rain felt cool on his face. The people he passed were tucked into their pockets and coat collars and they moved quickly. The smell of coffee and bagels floated by, along with the cigarette smoke and the smell of the river. He found the corner away from the café and he waited for the old woman with the roses, watching the street with his hands deep in his pockets.

  A man walked by with his wife under his arm. She was pregnant and holding herself out front and they crouched to avoid the light rain, moving as quickly as a woman large with pregnancy could move. She was beautiful the way she did it and he felt bad inside. The man dashed into the street to signal for the carriage and he watched as they boarded, brushing the raindrops from their jackets, smiling as they sat across from each other. The backs of the horses out front were wet and they were big and magnificent, shining with the rainwater, creating misty rainbows with each stomp.

  The old woman came to the corner with the roses in her basket. She had bad clothing and bad teeth, but her eyes were kind underneath. He took a single long-stemmed rose from her basket and gave her the francs. She smiled her bad smile that was still kind, and he left her and walked down the street to the café.

  There she sat at a table under the awning, a coffee in front of her, her shoulders wrapped in a shawl. The café was busy, every table used. She smiled when he came near and he kept his hand behind his back until he was close. She smiled again, with an open mouth of surprise when she saw the rose. He took a seat.

  “It is a beautiful rose,” she said with a thick accent. “But you save your money.”

  “For you, I spend every last franc,” he said.

  “You are a kind American. A charming American.”

  “You are a beautiful rose.”

  “Like this one?”

  “Even more beautiful than this one.”

  “You love me.”

  “I love you. You are my sweet Berenice. You love me too?”

  “Oui,” Berenice said. “I love you, my American.”

  “And you will teach me to speak French?”

  “Oui. You will learn very quickly.”

  The waiter came and he ordered a coffee. It came as an espresso and he asked for a small pitcher of warm water.

  The waiter smiled. “Café Americain, monsieur.”

  “Oui, merci.”

  “You do just fine,” said Berenice. “The French words come to you.”

  “Not very well.”

  The waiter brought him the pitcher and he poured a little into his cup and mixed it with the small silver spoon. Then he thought only of the coffee and the rain and not of the girl. He thought of the pregnant woman in the street and the man who hailed the carriage. At the table next to theirs sat an old man wearing a wool cap over white hair. Opposite of him was a young woman, and her small boy with dark hair ran around their table. The street and the sidewalk were wet, and large drops fell from the awning. He tapped the spoon on the edge of the cup.

  “The spoon is cuillère,” Berenice pointed.

  “No, I don’t want to learn right now,” he told her.

  “Say it to me.”

  “Not right now.”

  “What is the matter? You want to learn it?”

  “Yes, but not today.”

  Berenice was always bright and ready to teach. He liked that about her. He liked also that she was young and beautiful and that she loved American men. She was only a child to him, but she was very much a woman and she was ready to love, and when they made love it felt better than any feeling. She moved well and was full of passion he had not experienced before. She had green eyes and he liked that better than brown.

  She held the rose to her face and let the petals cover her nose. She smiled at him and put the rose in the center of the table.

  “You are writing a story today?” she asked him.

  “Not today,” he said.

  “I love your stories. They make me feel good.”

  “They’re just stories.”

  “But they seem real to me.”

  “I’m glad you say that, but they are just stories and they mean nothing.”

  “Will you write a story about me?”

  “What would it say?”

  “It will say about love and of you and me.” She lit a cigarette and put her head back in the chair. The smoke came from her lips in a tight stream straight into the air and became wide over their heads, blowing into the street. She made smoking look nice.

  “I can’t write that story,” he said into his coffee.

  “Yes you can. I will be in it and you will tell the story to America.”

  “It won’t be real in America.”

  “You can make it real. Don’t be hard. American men are so hard. Why are American men so hard?”

  “Are we?”

  “Oui.”

  “Am I difficult?”

  “Oui,” she said. She crossed her arms and held the cigarette to her lips. “The hardest.”

  “How many American men have you known?”

  “Just you.”

  “Then how would you know?”

  “I know by you. They are all like you.”

  “No. You have a lot to learn. Everybody is different.”

  “They are all like you.”

  “Are all French women like you?”

  “No. I am not the same as any.”

  He shrugged and sipped his coffee. He heard the clopping of another horse carriage and looked to the street to watch the rainwater spitting off the back wheels.

  Berenice tapped the edge of her cigarette and breathed it again. “You will one day write a story about me?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”<
br />
  “Not today.”

  “Will you read it to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you read it to me after we make love on a rainy day like this one?”

  “If you want me to,” he said. “I will read it to you however you wish.”

  “That is how I wish,” she smiled. “After we have made love and the windows are opened for the noise of the street.”

  He looked at her.

  “That is how I like to read,” she said. “The noises help the story.”

  “If you want to read it that way.”

  “I want you to read it to me.”

  “Fine.”

  “What is the matter with you?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine. I will read it to you with the windows open.”

  “After you have made love to me.”

  “Yes.”

  She pulled her shawl tighter and ashed the cigarette, holding it away. He liked her profile, the way small things caught her interest, and he liked the way she smiled at things, even though her bottom teeth were crooked. Her top teeth were straight and nice. He didn’t care about her teeth at all when her eyes were opened.

  She sat forward. “Why do we meet here?”

  “Where do you want to meet?”

  “At your place, just once.”

  “It’s not very nice.”

  “I don’t care where we meet as long you are the one meeting me.”

  He hung his arm over the chair and looked around. The small boy was crawling under the table next to them and the old man was pushing the boy back out with his foot.

  “Our love is different than others,” she told him.

  He nodded to her. She leaned in and looked at her rose.

  “You and me, we love like a rose,” she said.

  “What, like a season?”

  “No. We love like beautiful petals all around each other holding each other tight.”

  “Only when the season is right.”

  “I don’t like that,”