“How do you say corkscrew?”
“No idea,” I said.
We sat on either side of a
small round table in a shabby courtyard. Alex squinted through her bangs as she
inventoried the table: cigarettes, lighter, two wine bottles (empty), two glasses (empty), one unopened bottle of wine. Zero corkscrews.
It was getting dark, the end
of a hot August day. An hour ago the courtyard was full of people, some bearing
corkscrews. They left to attend a concert. I was blasé about the concert. Alex
was blasé about everything. We were drinking wine. We were on our own.
I stood up, feeling self-conscious and tipsy. “I’ll get one.” Alex pushed away from the table, brushing hair from
her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’ll come too.” She was small. She’d
matched me glass for glass, but she seemed steadier than I was.
We pushed open the huge
wooden door and turned right, out of the courtyard, onto a narrow street. We
didn’t talk. The silence felt awkward, and I was trying to remember:
“What do you call a corkscrew?” I knew how to ask for a beer or, later,
a bathroom.
We took another right at the
corner. A sad-eyed old man, quiet and dignified in a hat and dirty suit, sat
cross-legged on a large piece of cardboard over a grate in the sidewalk,
scritching the ears of a huge black mutt on a leash. Written in large letters
in French on the cardboard: “I’m hungry.” Another thing I knew how to say.
Across the street was a
brightly-lit shop not much larger than a walk-in closet. Inside you could find
everything you would ever need: cigarettes, cheese, wine, toothpaste,
band-aids. A stocky, balding man stands smoking behind the counter. He glances
at me, then looks Alex up and down.
“’Scuzez-moi,” I say.
He looks back at me, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. In French
I say “We have need of,” put my fists in front of me, swiveling one of them in
what I hope is a recognizable pantomime of opening a wine bottle, and say with
emphasis “pour VIN.”
He says something.
“Comment?,” I reply.
Without taking his eyes off mine, he reaches under the counter and with a
flourish reveals a corkscrew, as if executing a magic trick. He repeats the
same something he just said.
I point at the corkscrew — “Oui!”
— and give him a thumbs up.
Smiling, he says something
else to me. He looks at Alex and winks. She smiles back. “Oui!” she
says.
He punches some numbers into
the cash register, then points to the price on the display.
We’re splitting this, maybe?
I look at Alex. She smiles at me, motionless.
I pull a bill out of my
pocket, the last of my francs aside from some coins, and put it on the counter.
The man takes the bill, drops it into the register, puts the corkscrew into a
paper bag, then counts out the change and puts it on a little tray on the
counter. He places the bag beside the tray.
I pick up the bag and the
change. It’s 12 francs short. How much is 12 francs? Math is not working in my
head right now. Is it worth even doing something about? Yes: I’m poor.
I hold out my hand with the
money and say “’Scuzez?” His eyes widen, and he freezes mid-puff. He
looks at me with a pure, open, waiting face, as if he’s having his portrait
painted.
I point to the change in my
hand. He takes a drag from the cigarette in the corner of his mouth.
“It’s not correct,” I say in French.
He frowns, shrugs his shoulders, and makes an uncomprehending grunt.
“Douze francs,” I say.
“Shoo-shoo-shoo,” it
sounds like he says, out of the free corner of his mouth. Frowning, he looks at
Alex and says something. She smiles. She has no idea what’s going on.
He turns to me, arches an
eyebrow, and says loudly in a slow, pained voice, “MON-sieur!” He leans
over the counter and motions for my hand with the change. I show him the money
in my palm. Suddenly he grabs my wrist. I’m too shocked to pull away. His hand
is surprisingly moist and warm, and his grip is very firm. For a split second I
have the impression he’s about to spit in my palm.
He sighs. Gently, like a dad
explaining numbers, he fingers with his free hand the various coins I’m holding,
tallying them up. As he announces the value of each coin, cigarette bobbing in
the corner of his mouth, he gestures for me to repeat the French words.
Stunned, I do as I’m told. We
go through the change in my hand, him counting off in French and me repeating,
a math lesson and a French lesson.
For some reason, I get tears
in my eyes. I glance at Alex. She is watching our hands, mesmerized.
He is finished. He releases
my hand. Blinking, I look down, trying to focus on the coins. I have the
correct change.
“Sorry,” I say. He’s looking
at me intently. The lesson over, Alex brushes the hair from her eyes and looks
up at me. “Je suis,” I start. “Je regrette.” I stop. I have no
idea what to say, and no idea how to say it. “Sorry,” I say again, in English.
“O.K.” the man says. Alex
says “Merci,” and the man shrugs and half-waves, “O.K., O.K.” as we turn
to the door.
We cross the street. As we
walk past the hungry man and his dog, Alex asks “What was that?” We turn
the corner at rue de Fourcy.
I have NO desire to talk
about it. “Weirdness about the price,” I mumble.
“Tears?” Alex starts to say.
“What?” I interrupt her,
defensively.
We’ve stopped walking, and she looks up at me, frowning, trying to make sense of me.
“Teer, something,” she says carefully. “It’s how he said corkscrew.”
