“Well, I assumed things were being handled,” I told him. “And then—it was strange. People started to stop talking when I walked into the room. At school, in the teachers’ lounge. I didn’t understand. But what she’d told the nurse—somehow the facts got rearranged. It was me, she said, I had done it. Of course at that point the school board got involved. I told them what she’d said to me, but by then it was too late. They said, ‘Why didn’t you report it immediately?’ and I tried to explain, but the girl denied everything. And no wonder—they had a hearing, and the rules said the parents had to be present when she gave her side.”
The man leaned back in his chair and puffed out a breath in an understanding kind of way, so I went on. I told him how the committee figured out pretty quickly that there were problems with her story, but by the time the family issues fully came to light, the school board had it in for me. There was talk of sexual improprieties and accusations of the kind of clumsy innuendo that, as a teacher of the language arts, especially offended me. They didn’t like that I’d met with her outside of class or that we’d had a relationship based, I’d thought, on real affinity. I explained that I’d tried to be a friend, that I thought she needed one in a system that didn’t know how to nurture a kid like her, but they couldn’t understand that. All they cared about was whether I’d sat too close or touched her hair, imposing the school system’s code of conduct like a grid over a simple human relationship. I was tired of having the things I’d thought were real and good turned rotten in the eyes of other people, and I told them so. And when I’d finished they looked at me coolly, and said, “You seem very upset.” So I stopped trying to explain. “I didn’t put a hand on her,” I said, and for their purposes it was true enough. I finished out the semester and then I left without a fuss.
Through it all, I did my best to make sure no one outside of the old battle-axes on the school board found out that the girl had confessed to me, unbidden, the afternoon it all began. I’ve wondered since if it was the right decision, but at the time I had genuine concerns about her safety if the truth came out. Once our local paper got hold of the story I could have done myself some good if I’d shown a reporter a copy of what she’d written in her homework assignment. And it would have been easier for me to get a teaching job in another district if the gossip they printed up like it was news wasn’t always followed by “Richard Beart declined to be interviewed for this article.” But there’s nothing like the combined effect of a school board investigatory committee and a small-town newspaper to make a person feel like he’s shouting at the wind. Whatever it cost me, keeping my end of our bargain seemed the least I could do to help protect that child from all that she was up against. And it was too bad. I’d taken an interest in her in the first place because I truly believed she had a gift. “You could be a great writer someday,” I’d said to her, never guessing that her first successful work of fiction would be at my expense.
The gallery owner was quiet, and I sat for a moment, knowing my face was red and that I’d been talking too long. I remembered the ladies on the school board, listening with lips closed tight, sure that if they kept me talking long enough they’d catch me in a lie. And perhaps they had. I’ve learned by now that the truth is full of angles and refractions—and though everything I’d just told the man was true, it was also true that the school board hearing had left me with a kind of shame that was harder to bear than the public humiliation because it was entirely my own. I’d known from the beginning that the girl was troubled and I’d done nothing about it; I’d thought those troubles would be useful to her later on. I told her what they used to say about my mother, that she wrote to ease a sadness she could never quite explain.
The man drained his teacup and stood up. I wasn’t sure from his expression what he thought of it all, and I half-expected him to tell me to get out of his shop. So I was surprised when he took a bottle down from the shelf and asked if I’d like a glass. I shook my head. “I really should be going,” I said.
“Yes of course,” the man said. He took my cup and saucer and nodded to my notebook, which I’d set on the table. “Best of luck with your research,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said. “And thank you for the tea.”
“Not at all. I hope you will stop by again while you are here in Paris.” He nodded toward the canvas in the corner. “Perhaps when the paint has dried. You can tell me what you think.”
I thanked him again, saying I’d be sure to do that. I knew I ought to ask him to tell me more about his mother’s accident, but I hardly wanted to prolong our conversation. As I left the shop I told myself I’d just have to live without the knowledge, because I was not going to make the mistake of going down that street again. I’d told the man more than I’ve ever told anyone back home. I wondered if every traveler had the same experience—if there was something about being a stranger to a place that made things better left inside one’s own head want to heave themselves, uninvited, into the light.
{NEIL}
Paris, June
Neil balanced his saucer on his knee, then thought better of it and set it on the table. He let Madame Piot carve him off a thick slice of foie gras. It came from the Piot family farm in Dordogne; Professor Piot’s sister-in-law had tube-fed the goose by hand, which was something Neil would rather not have known. Madame Piot sniffed the foie gras, frowned, and laid the slice across a piece of bread on Neil’s plate.
“Eat,” she said. “It’s going to go bad by tomorrow.”