The Nightingale

It is the best I can do.

Pushing back from the mirror, I go to the closet and withdraw the winter white slacks and turtleneck that I have brought with me. It occurs to me that perhaps color would have been a better choice. I wasn’t thinking when I packed.

I am ready when Julien arrives.

He guides me out into the hallway, helping me as if I am blind and disabled, and I let him lead me through the elegant hotel lobby and out into the magic light of Paris in springtime.

But when he asks the doorman for a taxi, I insist. “We will walk to the reunion.”

He frowns. “But it’s in the ?le de la Cité.”

I wince at his pronunciation, but it is my own fault, really.

I see the doorman smile.

“My son loves maps,” I say. “And he has never been to Paris before.”

The man nods.

“It’s a long way, Mom,” Julien says, coming up to stand beside me. “And you’re…”

“Old?” I can’t help smiling. “I am also French.”

“You’re wearing heels.”

Again, I say: “I’m French.”

Julien turns to the doorman, who lifts his gloved hands and says, “C’est la vie, M’sieur.”

“All right,” Julien says at last. “Let’s walk.”

I take his arm and for a glorious moment, as we step out onto the bustling sidewalk, arm in arm, I feel like a girl again. Traffic rushes past us, honking and squealing; boys skateboard up the sidewalk, dodging in and out amid the throng of tourists and locals out on this brilliant afternoon. The air is full of chestnut blossoms and smells of baking bread, cinnamon, diesel fuel, car exhaust, and baked stone—smells that will forever remind me of Paris.

To my right, I see one of my mother’s favorite patisseries, and suddenly I remember Maman handing me a butterfly macaron.

“Mom?”

I smile at him. “Come,” I say imperiously, leading him into the small shop. There is a long line and I take my place at the end of it.

“I thought you didn’t like cookies.”

I ignore him and stare at the glass case full of beautifully colored macarons and pain au chocolat.

When it is my turn I buy two macarons—one coconut, one raspberry. I reach into the bag and get the coconut macaron, handing it to Julien.

We are outside again, walking, when he takes a bite and stops dead. “Wow,” he says after a minute. Then, “Wow,” again.

I smile. Everyone remembers their first taste of Paris. This will be his.

When he has licked his fingers and thrown the bag away, he links his arm through mine again.

At a pretty little bistro overlooking the Seine, I say, “Let’s have a glass of wine.”

It is just past five o’clock. The genteel cocktail hour.

We take a seat outside, beneath a canopy of flowering chestnut trees. Across the street, along the banks of the river, vendors are set up in green kiosks, selling everything from oil paintings to old Vogue covers to Eiffel Tower key chains.

We share a greasy, paper-wrapped cone of frites and sip wine. One glass turns into two, and the afternoon begins to give way to the haze of dusk.

I had forgotten how gently time passes in Paris. As lively as the city is, there’s a stillness to it, a peace that lures you in. In Paris, with a glass of wine in your hand, you can just be.

All along the Seine, streetlamps come on, apartment windows turn golden.

“It’s seven,” Julien says, and I realize that he has been keeping time all along, waiting. He is so American. No sitting idle, forgetting oneself, not for this young man of mine. He has also been letting me settle myself.

I nod and watch him pay the check. As we stand, a well-dressed couple, both smoking cigarettes, glides in to take our seats.

Julien and I walk arm in arm to the Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge across the Seine. Beyond it is the ?le de la Cité, the island that was once the heart of Paris. Notre Dame, with its soaring chalk-colored walls, looks like a giant bird of prey landing, gorgeous wings outstretched. The Seine captures and reflects dots of lamplight along its shores, golden coronas pulled out of shape by the waves.

“Magic,” Julien says, and that is precisely true.

We walk slowly, crossing over this graceful bridge that was built more than four hundred years ago. On the other side, we see a street vendor closing up his portable shop.

Julien stops, picks up an antique snow globe. He tilts it and snow flurries and swirls within the glass, obscuring the delicate gilt Eiffel Tower.

I see the tiny white flakes, and I know it’s all fake—nothing—but it makes me remember those terrible winters, when we had holes in our shoes and our bodies were wrapped in newsprint and every scrap of clothing we could find.

“Mom? You’re shaking.”

“We’re late,” I say. Julien puts down the antique snow globe and we are off again, bypassing the crowd waiting to enter Notre Dame.