Freeport International Repository.
Inside I laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Some jokes are too good to ignore.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
« ^ »
Paris is beautiful. I mean it. Oh, the traffic’s noisy—everybody’s water-cooled motor horns on max for no reason—and a city’s but a city. Yet it surprised me. Small. I’d expected something massive like, say, New York or London. Paris gets to you by cleverly putting all its bits within reach. Unbelievably, it’s a walker’s city. And its charm isn’t synthetic polyurethane gloss; it’s natural. Sweet yet protein, so to speak.
They, my golden pair, booked us in at a small hotel by the simple process of screeching to a heart-in-the-gob stop at the front door and strolling in, ready to remonstrate with whoever came forward to remonstrate. The booking-in process wore me out. Guy remonstrated, Veronique remonstrated in a crosstalk act straight from music hall. I got an upstairs room. There were only about fifteen rooms in the whole place.
Nothing to unpack, I opened the window and was captivated. The famed Paris skyline really truly exists! Jumbled roofs, chimneys, windows with tiny balconies. Church spires here and there, television aerials, wires, a splash of washing, pots flowering on sills, now and again a flat roof, an old man having a sly kip, children skipping to some chant. Beautiful. I turned, smiling, and jumped. Veronique was standing silently behind me. I hoped she wasn’t one of those stealthies.
“What do you see, Lovejoy?”
“Eh?” She looked sullen, brittler than usual, narked as hell. “Never been before, love. Didn’t know what to expect —”
“Decadent enough for you, Paris?”
A glance out showed me the same charm. A woman across the way was seeing to her pretty window box. “Looks fine. I’d thought skyscrapers, black glass boxes filled with bankers—”
“Decadence!” She glared past me. “It needs thorough cleansing, Lovejoy! Of parasites that drag her down.”
Well, there’s not a lot you can say to this gunge. I’d been wondering how far it was to Monet’s garden, but didn’t risk asking while she was in this black mood. I couldn’t see many parasites, but no good arguing with a bird.
“You don’t see, do you?” Baffled, I started to edge past her into the room. “The tourist’s vision.” She spoke hate-filled.
“Look, Veronique. We’re tired. That hell of a drive—”
She grabbed me and with ominous strength dragged me to stand looking across the street. “Calm? Tranquil, Lovejoy? Pretty? Can you see Notre Dame from here?”
“Dunno.” I was only trying to be helpful, please the silly cow, but she started to shake.
“You know what I see, Lovejoy? I see unemployment—French jobs stolen by foreigners! They pour in to bleed our money, give nothing back! To France: The Last Land Before the Sea!”
“Really?” Polite, I managed not to yawn. These days it’s politically upright to grouse about this kind of thing.
“Unemployment! Misery, resentment! You think you have strikes across the Channel? Not like we have strikes! We have more grievances! Recently, every French port was closed. Nurses on strike this week, all public transport in France next. Farmers riot. Our…” She struggled over the word, spat as she said it: ”… autobahns are blocked by fighting lorry drivers. The airports are in uproar, barricades everywhere. Pretty, the view?”
“Yes,” I said simply, because it was.
“You are determined to be stupid.” She let go, stepped away. I’d been close enough to be intrigued by the faint division across her hairline, but looked away.
“I can’t understand,” I suggested lamely, but thinking, what does a girl this lovely want to wear a wig for? “I think France is bonny. Political things blow over. They always do.”
“We French sink under a morass of foreigners! Frenchness is losing its identity. You know Romanian roulette, Lovejoy?”
“Russian?”
“Fool! Romanian immigrants here market imported Romanian women! Thousands are shipped in each year! It’s
She sounded likely to kill anybody who disagreed. I hesitated. Change the nationality, you can collect a million such moans in any bar anywhere in the world. Every nation’s at it, same old grumbles against governments, changes, taxes. It signifies nothing. I can’t honestly see the point of shoving the clock back to some Good Old Days. We all know they never existed. What
“It’s a pity,” I tried soothing. She was still trembling. Was it rage? “But there’s nothing you can do.”
She smiled a crooked smile, oblique with vile meaning. Her hand stroked my face. I didn’t like it—unusual, this—and drew away. “Oh, yes there is, babee,” she said.
Just then Guy called from the next room, and she left. I shivered as the door closed. I never have a watch, so I had to estimate a lapse of five minutes. I went and knocked.
“It’s only me,” I said to the handle.
