French Exit

by Patrick deWitt

“Christmas is coming. I say it each year, but you’re hell to shop for.” “I’m simple: I want nothing.” Frances had come to think of gift-giving as a polite form of witchcraft.

“There was Raoul,” she said. “The central casting Latin Lover. He used to always ask me, ‘Will you remember this forever?’ He was after immortality, I guess. He never did propose; he didn’t want to spend forever with me. He only wanted me to recall him after he’d disappeared, which is what I’m doing now, of course—you’re welcome, Raoul.”

Frances said, “I ran from one brightly burning disaster to the next, pal. That’s the way I was. Possibly you won’t like to think of your mother as one who lived, but I’ll tell you something: it’s fun to run from one brightly burning disaster to the next.”

Malcolm asked her if she was all right and she answered, “I overheard a man say it was five miles to the bottom of the sea.” “Yes?” he said, sitting. “Well, I wish I didn’t know it. What a stupid thing to say on a cruise ship.”

Frances was cold, and suggested they visit a church. Thinking of the view on this bright winter day, Malcolm said they should go to Sacré-Cœur. “Sacré-Cœur is a casino,” said Frances. “Notre-Dame?” “To stand in line with the morons?” “Saint-Sulpice?” “Oh, well, fine.” Actually, Frances preferred Saint-Sulpice to all other churches in Paris; this was the church she’d had in mind when she brought it up. But she was embarrassed to like something so patently likable.

Malcolm had less of a reason for visiting a church than his mother. He didn’t take the notion of God seriously but couldn’t deny the feeling of beatitude he knew when he sat in a church pew. He attributed this to aesthetics; he wasn’t conflicted about it.

The telephone installer received his reprimand and he did eventually put in the second line, but he was outraged by the loss of face and behaved with the most unsightly petulance. I tried to bring him a cup of tea but he wouldn’t take it. And you should have seen the paperwork he made me fill out for him, it was thick as a dictionary.” “The French love their red tape, don’t they?” “They’d eat it on a plate if they could.” “They would, they really would.”

“Do you ever feel,” she asked, “that adulthood was thrust upon you at too young an age, and that you are still essentially a child mimicking the behaviors of the adults all around you in hopes they won’t discover the meager contents of your heart?”

“What you want is to know someone’s there; you also want them to leave you alone. I’ve got that with Don. But, I was shocked because I suddenly understood that the heart takes care of itself. We allow ourselves contentment; our heart brings us ease in its good time.”

And third, three, yes, my life is riddled by clichés, but do you know what a cliché is? It’s a story so fine and thrilling that it’s grown old in its hopeful retelling.” Joan couldn’t help but smile at this. “People tell it,” Frances said. “Not so many live it.”

Malcolm was opening his mouth to speak: “My mother was overfine for this world, Detective Alphonse. That’s what damaged her. She belonged to another time and it was her ugly luck to be born among us.”