Fiction from Web del Sol


The Happy Frenchmen

Walter Cummins

first published in Other Voices


      When Dan and Marcy got off the train in Lugano, they stepped from air conditioning into a wall of stagnant humidity. Sweat soaked their clothing by the time they reached the station steps and looked up at the grey sky suffocating the city. Dan squirmed in the stiff back brace, unfastened two more shirt buttons, swallowed his pain, and sucked in air, openmouthed.
      Marcy looked miserable too, dragging the wheeled luggage across the platform. Her damp hair was matted to her forehead, flat against her temples. Because his dislocated sacroiliac made him helpless, she had to be the one to hoist their bags up and down from luggage racks while he blushed embarrassment, hoping the world would sense his debility.
      "This is hell," she said.
      "I picked Lugano because it's supposed to be so beautiful." He tried to imagine the city without the grey haze--the palm trees under brilliant sun, lush gardens, mountains out to the horizon, a glimmering lake in the harbor below.
      Marcy's eyes were red, her round face drained of color. Yet, s miserable as she looked, Dan felt himself drawn to the curve of her tight white slacks. He desired her there in that heat, pain stabbing across his hip and down his left leg. He couldn't stop desiring her. She gave him a sad smile, and his heart plunged like a stone.

      For the week before he flew to Zurich as part of the company team for a trade show, Dan had tossed sleepless with expectation, Beatrice's weight on the mattress beside him, their children in rooms across the hallway, his nights filled with imagining Marcy. On the plane, alone, Marcy gone ahead for final preparations, her presence was so real he felt that he had only to reach out and embrace her. She was his palpable future. With his long hours and frequent travel, he only saw the kids on weekends anyway. And what kind of a life was it for Beatrice--married to a man obsessed with someone else?
      In Europe, for the first time in all the months they had been lovers, they would finally spend the night together. At home, he had a wife waiting. On their domestic trips together, she treated him as no more than a co-worker, fearful of her reputation in the company. Dan couldn't bring himself to tell her what the men in the cafeteria said as they sat by the windows watching her run the paths outside in jogging shorts, joking that the speed of her promotions came in direct proportion to the length of her legs. Even before he had loved her, she figured in his fantasies--a lithe divorcee with a beachfront condo and a red Jaguar. Afterward, he had to swallow his fury at the others' innuendo, caging the impulse to lash out in outraged pride.
      They had spent whole evenings planning their European tryst, Marcy insisting on reviewing every detail of the strategy. They would arrive separately for the trade show, book into different hotels, speak only of business, never share meals unless part of a group, spread stories that he would extend this trip for a weekend in Paris, she for summer skiing on Jungfrau. Dan chose their true private destination, recalling Lugano as the honeymoon site of a couple he had met once on a plane.
      Dan opened the city map he had been studying throughout the train ride as a futile diversion from the torture of his back. "The hotel's only a block away."
      She pointed at the rooftops directly beneath them. "Straight down."
      The train station sat on a steep hill overlooking the city. To the right Dan could see the dome of the cathedral, to the left the sign for their hotel. Twisting steps chiseled into the rockface led down to the street below. It was a sheer drop from here to there.
      Marcy stood beside their luggage at the curbside, her feet in narrow sandals bound with thin white straps, the toenails gleaming red. Dan looked at the shape of her feet and wanted to weep. Swallowing, he signaled for a taxi.
      Marcy counted the suitcases as the driver loaded them in the trunk. They could abandon everything for all Dan cared.
      The taxi ride to the hotel was a series of tight downhill curves that kept lurching their bodies together in a contact that sent a twist of agony down his left leg. He closed his hand on her thigh to brace himself. She covered it with a light touch of fingertips, cool despite the heat of the day.
      "How long has the weather been like this?" Dan asked the driver.
      "All month, signore. Most always this is the most beautiful time of the year."
      "When will it break?"
      The driver shrugged. "Who knows, signore. Let's hope you and your signora bring good fortune."

      That morning, back in Zurich after the trade show ended and all the others had boarded limousines for the airport, Dan rushed to Marcy's hotel the second she called. In her room, he twisted the bolt and fixed the chain, murmuring his love the whole time, tearblinded with joy at the press of her body, her arching gasp of pleasure.
      Afterwards he put a hand on her chest to feel her pulse subside. When she was calm, he leaned over her and touched his lips to her forehead. She closed her eyes. "I just want to go on like this."
      "For the rest of our lives."
      "I mean taking one day at a time."
      Dan stared down at her, elbows locked, arms rigid, as if his limbs had turned to stone. "I want to marry you." He had meant to give the words the force of his conviction, but they came out as a plea.
      She still would not look at him. Tears eased out from under her eyelids. He watched them spread down her cheeks. "So much could happen," she said. "It's such a huge risk."
      "I'll take it. Nothing else matters."
      "I don't want you to ruin your marriage for me."
      "It's ruined without you."
      "You don't know," she cried. "You're not seeing clearly. Everything is so complicated."
      She shook with sobs and Dan began to kiss her tears, at first slowly, tasting salt, then harder and faster, Marcy clinging back until they were making love again. But when it was over, before he could speak, she said, "Nothing's changed."
      "What about Lugano?"
      "We'll be wonderful in Lugano, and then we'll go home."

      The bellhop, a small, furtive man with a thick black mustache, couldn't undo the straps on their luggage carts, turning them sideways and upsidedown in an effort to free the suitcases. "Never mind!" Marcy cried. The man dropped a cart with a thud that snapped the straps loose. Dan gave him a double tip and pushed him out the door.
      "Look at this room." Marcy threw up her hands.
      With the luggage on the floor, there was barely space to maneuver around the bed. The dark floral wallpaper clashed with the heavy striped drapes. The carpeting was worn, the faded brown bedspread dotted with cigarette burns.
      "And it's not even airconditioned," she added.
      "I'll open a window."
      She seized his arm. "Don't you move. You'll do something else terrible to your back. I can't stand to see you suffering this way."
      "I try not to talk about my pain."
      "Your face gives you away. It's nothing but one constant grimace."
      For the first time, it struck Dan that she might be annoyed with him.

      At midday, after he left Marcy's room to pick up his luggage at his own hotel, stomach fluttering as if a terrified bird were trapped inside, Dan had dislocated his sacroiliac stepping into the elevator. As he shifted weight to his left leg, something tore in his side, a sensation that his innards had ripped loose, so painful he had to grip a handle for support and then stand hyperventilating for five minutes before he dared try to reach his room, hugging the walls and dragging his leg all the way.
      Once inside he immediately applied icepacks, unwilling to call Marcy and tell her what had happened. I'll be all right for the trip, he kept reassuring himself, although he knew weeks of agony lay ahead.
      An hour before train time, he had stared at the ceiling with burning, sleepless eyes, wondering how he would be able to engineer himself up from the mattress. Despite his resolution to grit his teeth and stand on the carpet with one thrust, he could barely lift his shoulders from the pillow, and had to slide his legs across the sheet and down along the side of the mattress, then grip the headboard and hoist himself into a sitting position. The maneuver left him whimpering. He counted to ten, but his nerve failed, then counted again and threw his feet to the floor, amazed at the courage it took to reach a vertical position. Standing, he hobbled to the closet, retrieved the brace he hadn't had to wear in two years, but packed at Beatrice's insistence, a wide canvas belt with a Velcro fastening and a hard plastic insert that wedged against the middle of his spine. When he strapped it on, he was able to take short, slow steps without the sensation of molten steel at his nerve endings.

      "I need a nap," Marcy announced. "This heat is exhausting."
      She kicked her slacks into a heap at the foot of the bed, then yanked her top over her head and stretched out in bikini underwear, forearm shielding her eyes.
      Fatigued himself, the painkillers she carried in a little golden case numbing only his brain, he lay flat beside her, fully clothed, still in shoes and brace to avoid the burden of dressing later. Marcy rolled onto her side, facing the wall. He didn't think he would sleep but two hours later awoke disoriented at the roar of her blow dryer. She stood at the wall mirror angry with her hair for frizzing in the humidity.
      "We'd better think about dinner," she told him.
      Dan groaned inwardly. Now he would have to get up, and he was ashamed to ask for her help.
      Clutching the edge of the mattress, he slid off onto the carpet, raised himself to his knees, and groped out toward the dresser for leverage.
      "For God's sake, here!" Marcy gripped his elbows and pulled him upright. The aftershock that spasmed through his back muscles made him bite down on the insides of his cheeks. He didn't let himself cry out, but it took several minutes before he could catch his breath.
      "Thank you," he said. "I'm sorry to be such a bother."
      "I'm sorry you're suffering so much," she said, but he saw she was gritting her teeth.

      When they got back to their room, Dan realized he had finished almost the entire bottle of dinner wine himself, while Marcy picked at the label with a fingernail. He sprawled back on the bed and couldn't keep his eyes from drooping shut. When Marcy pulled off his shoes, he tried to speak, but the words came out as a moan.
      The next thing he knew sunlight was dazzling him and his head throbbed behind his sinuses. Marcy had thrown open the drapes. Behind the bathroom door the shower was hissing, then stopped with a wrenching in the pipes. She stepped back into the room drying herself, naked, water drops beaded on her flesh, breasts bobbling as she rubbed the towel across her back.
      "You'd better get ready," she said. "We can't spend the day trapped in this place."
      "Please, help me up."
      She dropped the towel and reached her arms toward him. He gripped her shoulders while she lifted with a grunt, then sank against her until the back spasms subsided. She supported his weight inertly. He could feel her nipples against his chest. All he had to do was tilt her face up and kiss her. And then what? He was terrified at the thought of a sudden twisting.
      This is crazy, he kept thinking with each deep breath. For months his desire had conjured moments like this. And now her embrace was only first aid.
      In the shower he couldn't bend, just soaping his arms and chest and letting the water float the suds down his legs. Marcy was already dressed when he got out.
      "It wasn't worth it," she said.
      "What wasn't."
      "Bathing. Nine in the morning, and I'm already soaked with perspiration. It's like living inside a sponge."
      "Listen," he offered, "we could check out now and head north somewhere. Up into the mountains."
      "It's only a few days," she said. "We'll stick it out."

      Dan wanted to try walking down the twisting narrow streets that led from their hotel to the center of the city, but Marcy insisted on a cab. "You don't have to prove anything," she told him.
      The cab took them down to the central piazza, a large cobblestoned square of shops and umbrellaed cafe tables. Dan paid the driver, then thought to ask, "What's the best way to stay cool?"
      "The lake, signore. You and the signora will find pleasant breezes on one of the steamers."
      Marcy wanted to look in the jewelry store windows first, at the glimmering rows of rings and bracelets and earrings. As they approached the glass, Dan saw his reflection, a man moving with slow crabbed steps, hunched over and listing to one side. When she sought his opinion of a gold chain, he offered to buy her something.
      She stiffened at the suggestion. "That's not why I asked."
      "I just wanted you to have a souvenir."
      "I'll remember this city without one."
      The quay for the lake steamers was only a short walk from the square, across a wide boulevard thick with speeding cars. From the lakefront Dan could look back at the tiered levels of the city behind the spray of a large fountain. The peak of Mount Bre was barely visible in the haze, little more than an outline, like the shore across the lake.
      Although the steamer wasn't scheduled to leave for another twenty minutes, Marcy wanted to board. "There's no point in waiting out on the street." He agreed. The cabin was stifling, so they took a bench on the stern, the first passengers of the trip.
      Dan shielded his eyes from the glare and stared over the side, watching the water slap against the hull. It struck him that he would have to tell Beatrice something, how he had injured himself, why he hadn't flown right home. His real life seemed so vague now, here in this strange city, sitting beside the woman he had dreamed of loving. Dan didn't look around him until the boat began to back away from the pier and he discovered the deck crowded with people.
      "Where'd everyone come from?" he asked Marcy.
      "You weren't paying attention."
      "They all want to escape the heat."
      She nodded. "I've never spent a more unbearable day."
      Despite the discomfort of the slat bench, Dan knew he had no choice but to sit. When the waitress came by, he ordered a beer. Marcy wanted nothing. Away from the shore, though the sun was strong, a light breeze blew over the deck.
      He watched two children play at the railing, a brother and sister, both blond. The girl, about six or seven, was very pretty. Someday, he thought, she would be beautiful and wondered if her beauty would make her happy. The boy, a few years younger, hoisted himself up and hung over the railing, making sounds at the birds. His mother spoke sharply in German and pulled him down.
      Dan listened for the languages around them. The boat was a babel--Swissdeutch, the Italian of the crew, Japanese, British English. But the French was loudest of all. He looked behind and saw three women with faces tilted up toward the sun's rays, one plump and middleaged in what seemed to be a house dress, one young and plain in shorts, another young and quite lovely in jeans, her smile very appealing.
      These women spoke softly. It was the four men across the aisle who blared their French, shouting conversation even though they were only a few feet apart. They swigged beer from bottles, in unison--glass to their lips, swallows, and arms down. Then they would look at each other and burst out laughing.
      "They're drunk," Dan said to Marcy.
      "They're just having a holiday."
      "Why are they so lucky?"
      She said nothing.
      Like the women behind them, the men seemed mismatched--the loudest, with thick white hair and beard, was sunburned and barechested, a pale belly hanging over his belt; the old shrunken man on his right lit cigarette after cigarette with trembling hands. The two at either end were both much younger but total opposites--one impeccable with slick parted hair, hornrimmed glasses, and a crisply pressed shirt, the other disheveled in an undershirt and cutoff trousers.
      The barechested man unfolded his newspaper and passed out sheets to the three others, then gave step by step instructions on folding the paper into peaked caps. Even the old man made one, though he was slow and had to refold several times. But the barechested man was very patient. When all the hats were ready, he signaled that they should put them on their heads. He stood before them and saluted. They saluted back, again and again. Dan noticed that Marcy was watching closely, amused.
      The barechested man plucked the hats from the others and stacked them atop his own. Then he crossed the deck to the three women, bowed, and adjusted a paper hat atop each of their heads. For a moment, Dan expected anger: the man was attempting a foolish pickup and would be abused. But the man leaned over and kissed the two younger women on both cheeks, the middleaged on the mouth. It's his wife, Dan realized; they knew each other.
      The women tipped hats to the other three men, and the men toasted them with beer bottles. Dan tried to pair them off, uncertain which of the younger men was husband of the lovely woman. The old man was probably someone's father.
      The barechested man began walking about the deck, slapping palms against his belly and exchanging words with half the passengers: the two old women in black dresses, the adolescent couples at the side railing, the men and women back by the cabin. People on the benches were waving to each other, smiling, exchanging sandwiches from their coolers.
      "They're all together." Dan spoke his surprise to Marcy.
      "Of course. I saw that when they got on."
      "But who are they?"
      She gave him a puzzled look. "Tourists like us."
      "I mean--are they one big family? They don't resemble each other. Maybe they're from the same town. A whole village on an outing."
      "Why does it matter? They're having a wonderful time."
      The man offered peaches and plums to the two blond children. They looked to their mother for permission, and he patted their heads.
      The boat pulled up to a dock at its first stop across the lake, a village of whitewashed houses on a green hillside, gardens bright with flowers, sailboats bobbing at a dozen docks. People sat on the grass at the water's edge. The Frenchmen shouted greetings and received greetings in return. The man in cutoffs brought a mock trumpet to his lips and blatted a fanfare; the immaculate man boomed rhythm as he mimed a drum.
      The French began shifting places, ordering more beer, passing out food. The two women in black beckoned the old man for cake. The three women who had been behind Dan and Marcy moved to a bench in front of the barechested man where Dan could see them clearly. He watched the lovely one closely, sensing what a pleasant person she was, how the others seemed to light up when she gave them a smile. The immaculate man sat beside her and took her hand in both of his. Her husband; Dan's heart sank. But then the man in cutoffs moved to a space on her left and took the other hand.
      Dan was surprised at his relief. He didn't want to know who she was married to. It was pleasant to sit there in the breeze and believe she was available, that all he had to do was wait until the two men left and move beside her. She would smile and touch his face as through they had always loved each other. In their hotel,she would undo his brace, stroke fingers across his back, up and down his leg, and he would be healed.
      The Frenchmen began singing, rounds, voices from all corners of the deck, at first songs familiar to Dan, like "Frre Jacques," then tunes he had never heard before. The barechested man took the lead, standing at the boat's stern and waving arms like a conductor. His voice kept losing the key, but his enthusiasm was infectious. He lifted the blond boy to his shoulders, and the boy mimicked his gestures, two sets of arms leading the music.
      Suddenly they all became quiet, except for a pure, crystal soprano that seemed to echo from the lake shore. Dan realized it came from the lovely woman sitting shyly on the bench, hands folded, gazing down at the deck. He felt the tears well in his eyes, let them flow, not caring what Marcy would think or say.
      Now the Frenchmen were all singing again, some dancing, the adolescents first, laughing with raucous steps. The wife of the barechested man resisted his efforts to pull her up until he began tickling. She slapped at his hands and finally joined him, the two of them hopping from one end of the deck to the other.
      When the music turned slow, the immaculate man appeared at their bench and asked Marcy to dance, bowing deep at the waist and extended a hand. Her acceptance surprised Dan, and he wondered what he would do if she sat beside the man when the dance was over.
      He didn't watch them, instead fixed his attention on the old man shuffling between the two old women in black. When the woman in shorts sat beside him, he returned her greeting but shook his head and covered his ears to indicate he did not understand her language. She laughed and swirled a hand, indicating that she was inviting him to join the dance. He made an unhappy face and pointed to his brace. "Bad back." He spoke slowly. "Mal back. Hurts much. Pain." When she squinted bewilderment, he took her hand in his and touched it to his brace. He expected her to pull away as if singed; but she patted the hard plastic insert. "So so," she soothed. The lovely woman was looking at them, eyes fixed on her friend's hand. Dan tried to meet her glance.
      The barechested man stood over them. "Vite, vite," he told Dan. The woman in shorts spoke a long explanation, pointing and touching. The man waved her off, wrapped his arms around Dan and pulled him up. Dan stood so bewildered his pain felt distant and detached.
      The Frenchman guided him into the midst of the dancers and called to the immaculate man, who swirled Marcy to a spot directly in front of Dan and then quickly stepped away. They just stared at each other. The barechested man arranged them, laughing all the time, placing Dan's right hand on Marcy waist, his left on her shoulder, wrapped both her hands around Dan's brace. "Faites danser," he commanded.
      Dan took the first step, stiff and awkward, his leg cramped, knifepoints stabbing down his hip. But Marcy followed his lead, and they were dancing, turning a circle to the Frenchmen's song, the group backing away to clear a space for them, cheering their efforts. Dan saw the lovely woman's face aglow with a smile. She was so happy for them.


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