How did it go? It started in Omaha. A college girl heading to France, her first time away from home. She was wearing a hat she had bought at the Brandeis department store that looked like one she had seen in a magazine. A white summer hat with a wide, creamy ribbon around it. There was an early morning plane to Chicago, another to New York City, a flight to Paris, and then she would have to take a commuter train to Rennes, where she would live at the university there. More than a day of travel. Out-of-her-mind tired. Her first time on a plane, her first time anywhere. Big eyes for the world.
She had felt cool and confident when she left in the morning, but on the plane to Paris she was a mess. Her linen dress was wrinkled. Her blue eyeliner was smudged around the corners of her eyes, the matching shadow falling down her cheeks. The pins in her hair kept jamming into her head. She took her hair down. She washed her face in the bathroom. You are a mess, is what she said to herself in the mirror. A target, she realized later. A single woman traveling alone. Anyone could have seen it. Especially the man in the suit across the aisle, a man just short of her daddy’s age, if he were still alive. He would have been happy she went to France. He would have been scared the whole time she was gone and never told her a thing but he would have been happy. Did not matter anyway. He was dead now, three years past. She was on her own now. Whether she wanted to be or not. But here was this man across the aisle. He did not want her to be alone.
What did he look like? I asked that once. When I thought it was just a bedtime story. Maybe I asked the first time she told the story. Never again. I never asked another question again.
He was muscular, but short. He had a thick jaw. He had brown hair, and he wore it a little long. He had young hair, but an old face. He had big hands. His teeth were white and huge. He wore an expensive suit. It was cut tight around him. He filled out his suit. He filled out the seat he was sitting in. He took up all the room around him he possibly could. He was an ice-cold block of a man.
He was chewing gum. He offered her a stick. She took it. He spoke to her in French.
Coming home?
I am visiting.
Oh, you looked French to me. This hat, this dress. So French.
My mother was flattered.
I am American.
He smiled painfully at my mother. Then he started speaking in English to her and she was relieved. She knew she was going to have to speak in French the entire time once she landed. This was the point of her going. But she was not totally ready. To give in to being on her own. In her head, on her own.
What did they talk about? That part I do not remember. Maybe she told me once. I remember the gum, and that she told him she was American, and that they talked for a while. He asked her questions, she answered. She asked him questions, and he told her very little. He was a scientist. A man of science. He was coming home from a conference. That was all she knew. He was more interested in her. In her being an orphan, in her being alone, in this boy she had just met at an ice cream social at school, but, no, he was not her boyfriend. Yet. He was most interested in her having to find her way to the train all by herself.
They walked off the plane together. She pulled out the letter that had been sent to her by the immersion program. It contained all the directions to the train she would take to Rennes. There was a phone number. She was dizzy. The airport was huge. It was late in the afternoon, but it could have been any time at all.
Let me see those directions. I will tell you what you need to do.
She handed him the directions.
He scanned the paper.
These directions they give you, they are all wrong.
He ripped the piece of paper into little pieces, walked to a garbage can, and threw them away. My mother watched him, horrified.
I know exactly where this is. I will show you the way.
He took her arm. She stared at him.
No, it’s fine, I promise. I know where we go. We take the metro right there.
She stared back at the garbage can for a moment. And then she went with him.
He took her on the metro, all right. Around the city for hours. Off one train and on another. A loop. She had never been on a subway before. He kept her talking the entire time. She tried to pick up bits and pieces of conversation from other people but he would not let her leave his attention. Sometimes he would tell her they should just get off the train and have coffee. She shook her head.
You meet me for a coffee when you come back to Paris, yes? We go to the café. I take you to a beautiful café.
He kept touching her knee.
She felt herself crumbling. She just wanted to stop traveling.
They finally arrived at the station. He left her in the corner with her backpack. She could have run, but where would she have gone? She thought she was trapped. Trapped in a train station in France.
Oh, my poor mother.
He walked to the ticket counter. Of course, the last train had left. Of course, she must stay with him at his home. He insisted. Just one more train ride away.
Every part of her sank down, until she was flat on the ground. He picked up her bag. He grabbed her hand and pulled her up. She dragged her feet, and he put his hand on the small of her back. She took her hat off her head. Her hair smelled. It felt dirty, and heavy on her head.
I like this, he said. He wrapped his hand in the end of her hair for a second. She looked him in the eye.