A Strange Thing
Written for Shawk.
Bossuet had smiled his way into the caf�, and when he left he meant to smile his way out again without paying.
It was an expensive-looking, fancy caf�, hung about with drapes, and full of incense and smoke and scarves, and a lot of dark-skinned fellows very refinedly dressed who went about between large wooden tables covered with strange-patterned cups and saucers. It looked to Bossuet like a private club sort of place, and he was bemused--but still smiling.
He had tripped through the doorway by mistake, by tripping over a stray dog which he cursed soundly and falling down a weather-beaten stone stairwell that seemed far too old and dingy ever to have been used within the last hundred years. When he fell against the door, however, it eased open, and he looked up--smiling--at a dark face and dark eyes which looked back at him confusedly.
Bossuet shrugged ruefully, good-naturedly, rubbing his banged-up shoulders. "Hello. You know," he said in a friendly tone, looking around as though it were home, "I'd never have believed there was really something down here. You do a fine job of hiding it, with those stairs out there. Too fine a job, really, or I'd have realised and not gone knocking you up. Well, I'd have made an effort, at any rate," he amended, smiling to himself. He got up, now rubbing his knees, and slipped inside, and gave the dark-faced fellow a glance but didn't continue talking. He had an idea it might be wrong.
As he stood by the door looking in, a hot drop of wax rolled down a tall, blue tapering candle and fell on his cheek, and he startled, which knocked it over. The dark-faced fellow merely bent to pick it up again, and Bossuet looked apologetic.
"I fear I have a tendency to do that. If it's broken, I'd pay."
He had made this promise so many times that it didn't even feel like lying. He spoke it like a pleasantry, without thinking about it; but he'd never have had the money to pay for anything. His parents had bought his education and if he wanted money for schoolbooks, he had first to beg an audience of them. It amused him. The dark-faced fellow, however, shook his head, and let Bossuet by as he went, quietly.
At least he was able to be quiet, he thought, still smiling. He might crash into something at any moment, but at least he would be able to walk without making a sound beforehand, which had occasionally aided him in getting away from the scene of the crime.
Now he looked around at the wooden tables, and noticed the strange music somebody was playing behind one of those heavy drapes--some of them were brocade, some tapestries, some silk, and a few of them looked gauzy and filmy, letting him see a few small men sitting around tables by themselves. He scratched wax off his cheek absently as he eyed the plates and saucers before them, on which sat little elegant-looking pastries, and their thin painted china teacups, which seemed to be full of tea or coffee or chocolate; at any rate, something that was dark and smelled pleasant. It had been at least yesterday since he had eaten last, on account of Joly's being away to visit his family for Christmas and Musichetta moving to a finer side of town to wait for his return.
Before she left, she'd kissed Bossuet, and said, 'Poor Eagle--I do hate to leave you boys, but it's cold here, and I'll be warmer with my cousins. Besides, my uncle thinks me remarkably beautiful, the silly old fool, so I'll bring back nice things for everybody. You can't begrudge me that?'
And Bossuet, who knew how the apartment fell into disrepair without Joly to look after it, conceded that he certainly could not, and he hoped she would have a pleasant holiday. Then he watched her go, and ventured out into the icy streets to spend the few francs he had and see if there were any restaurants that would give him their old food. He had never been good at taking care of himself, but he only smiled, and scavenged.
He was wondering if the fellow at the door would come after him, or demand some sort of payment--it was an expensive-looking caf�, as he'd thought, and he could see quite well that he didn't belong, so there was a good possibility, he decided, that he was only in because he was going to be accosted on the way out. He stood for a few moments, musing over whether as long as he was going to be brought to task anyway, might he not try getting something to eat while he was inside.
As he stood, quietly, smiling gently and looking through the draperies and the sweet-smelling smoke without focusing on them, thinking too deeply to observe (for food was good for inspiring profundity), he felt a slight touch on his arm. For several moments it did not occur to him to do anything about it, and then suddenly he looked up, rather astonished but his smile only growing, and saw before him another dusky-skinned fellow.
This man was dressed neatly in a long smoking jacket with fantastic patterns scrolling across it, and his eyes were carefully shaped and pleasantly coloured, like the dark liquid in the china cups that Bossuet was slightly longing for. Still, his hair was pale grey and thin and wiry, and he walked stately, but stiffly. He was old
"Monsieur," said the man with a perfect accent, "Monsieur."
"Oh! Hello." Bossuet stretched himself lightly, lankily, and smoothed one hand over his head mechanically before repositioning his hat. "Hello."
They both paused. Bossuet was not decided as to whether it would be impolite to enquire after getting something to eat, and he wasn't sure that he really cared to know anything else; and the man didn't seem certain what question he wanted to ask, for he hesitated and changed his expression and seemed about to say many different things.
"Well, if you want to know who I am, I'm a fellow who goes to the University, and they call me L'aigle," Bossuet said finally, smiling particularly for the man. "If you want to know what I'm doing here, I'm afraid I quite literally stumbled upon this place, and the chap at the door let me in. If you wanted to know whether I intend to get out, I will if that's what I ought to do, and if you would like to know if I'd like something, I'll take a menu."
The man laughed softly, surprised and pleased, and said, "There! you've answered all my questions, I think; but I shall not make you leave. This is a private caf� for the foreign men from Asia and India, and I can't tell you why the doorman let you in, but that's his business."
"Doormen are quite a puzzle, really," said Bossuet agreeably, leaning carefully against what appeared to be a supporting pole for some of the drapes. "Never could figure them out, which I why I won't allow a single one in my mansion."
"I beg your pardon?"
"My estate. In the country. There are several restaurants and eating-places inside, each designed for a different meal of the day and a different artistic temperament, and all fully staffed--but without a ma�tre d'. I can't make heads or tails of the fellows, so I keep them out. I have only beautiful waitresses, who manage everything."
"I see," said the man. "I take it you're just visiting Paris, then."
"Quite; and Notre Dame! I can't find my way about at all. Nothing is marked in this city, by heaven. I've lost my carriage, my footmen, and my man, and all in only five hours."
"In that case, perhaps my man can serve you for the present. Darius," he called gently, and another man appeared silently, beautifully dressed in silks that made Bossuet think of his grandfather's tales of China. "This gentleman is, I think, in need of something to eat, and I should very much like another cup of tea. Please ask Aaditya for us."
Darius nodded, and turned expectantly towards Bossuet.
"Hmm? Oh, well, I think I'd like a savoury sort of pastry thing." He tried to look imperious and wealthy and unconcerned, and flapped his hand awkwardly. "Food, you understand. I don't really care what it is." He looked over at the man quickly. "And a cup of coffee. Thank you, my good man."
Darius nodded again, and disappeared.
Bossuet looked after him, wanting to burst out laughing and stare in confusion at the ceiling. It was strange, however strange the admission sounded, to order someone about, or to play a game--such as he had thought this was--with more than one person. He shook his head. "Poor fellow. I haven't--?"
The man lifted his hand dismissively. "No. It is all right. Darius is--well, I shall not say he is used to this sort of thing, serving an immensely... aristocratic gentleman like yourself--but he is quite used to peculiarities. Please do not trouble yourself."
"Oh. Quite." Bossuet lifted his eyebrows and was able to smile again, in a sleepy, amused fashion. When the man invited him to sit down, he complied, and when Darius returned with a china cup of tea, of coffee, and a little plate with two steaming pastries upon it, he thanked him snidely, affecting an accent. The man smiled, too.
Bossuet carefully began dissecting his pastries as the man sipped tea, and found them to be full of steamed meat, an abundance of vegetables, and some sort of colourless gravy. He cut the contents of the first one into tiny pieces, and ate them delicately, bit by bit. The man watched with interest.
"This is how a well-bred man eats in Paris?"
"Most certainly. Small, genteel bites, in order to taste the flavour better and to appreciate what is inside the outside shell of one's meal. A light touch with the utensil, like so, better preserves one's dignity, and of course makes it quite easy to talk with one's mouth full. It's a sort of art, you see."
"Ah. If only I had known this. I imagine my own customs would seem barbaric."
"Oh, I don't know. Stick your little finger out and you'll be doing excellently with your tea."
The man started, almost self-consciously, and drank his tea more carefully, trying not to do anything affected with it. Bossuet bowed his head and ate his pastry, and did not laugh.
"How long have you been in Paris?"
"Many, many years; but recently I returned home. I left my country for certain reasons, you will understand; that it was not safe for me there. Then the ruling power died, and a new one took his place, and I was able to go back. It is only this year that I have returned again, for I found that I actually missed Paris. Now I am reacquainting myself with it, and I sometimes can understand why I loved something, and sometimes wonder what possessed me to think so highly of it."
"Aha. It appears to me that you are some kind of foreign ambassador, then."
"Nothing of the kind, I assure you."
Bossuet lifted his head and looked firmly at the man, meeting his eyes and smiling again. "Yes, you are."
"Oh. Yes. You're quite right."
"A cultural meeting, this, between two fellows of high standing from two different lands."
"A monumental moment, indeed."
"I am sure that both our biographers will be highly interested in it."
"Undoubtedly."
Now Bossuet did laugh, holding out his hands, half-shrugging, his whole body moving in a perfect fluid stretch as he leaned over the table and pressed the man's free hand, which lay gently on the table. He felt, but did not hear, the crash as his coffee cup was knocked to the floor, and instead realised only how perfectly he'd moved and felt himself, and how strange--but not at all strange--a feeling it was. He laughed again without sounding surprised, as he'd thought he would.
The man looked at him very tenderly. "You are a strange boy, Monsieur L'aigle."
"Pardon, but I'm not sure the foreign ambassador ought to address an upstanding gentleman like myself as a 'strange boy'."
"It is strange to be an old man, you know. Children look at one differently, and women speak to one differently, and men will often disregard me altogether, especially as I am clearly not French. I have often wondered what young men see in an old man. I have often wondered what I must look like to a boy like you. I have never had one take me by the hand the way you have just done, and it is very strange."
"I'm sure it is." He had enjoyed being a wealthy gentleman, but Bossuet also enjoyed being himself, and he changed without a thought. He gave the old man his own, apologetic, grinning, doleful smile, and bent down to pick up the pieces of the coffee cup; but he answered honestly.
"Do you have a wife or a sweetheart somewhere?"
"Oh, no," laughed Bossuet. "I'm afraid I'm much too poor for that. Besides, running one's fingers through one's lover's hair is all the fashion now."
The man bent down beside him and stroked his cheek cautiously with dark fingers, and then gave him a kiss, a funny, sad, spicy, strange kiss that tasted a little of tea and a little of being old and a little of the scented smoke that the place was full of. Bossuet cut himself on a piece of the broken china, and wrung his hand painfully, and the man stood again.
"Let me call Darius. He'll help with that."
"Oh, don't bother. I've got it." He put the pieces of the table. "There."
"Will you return here to-morrow?"
"If you'd like me to," said Bossuet honestly, pushing the pieces into a neat pile.
"Please do."
So Bossuet wrapped up his remaining pastry in a silk handkerchief the man gave him, and went back to the apartment, which as he'd guessed was cold, and lay alone in the bed for quite a while, twitching his bare feet and thinking, sometimes careless and sometimes very seriously.
For the next twelve days, until Christmas was over and Musichetta and Joly came back for Twelfth Night, he went to the caf� and got his supper, and spent a long time talking with man. They talked about Paris and Persia, where the man had come from; and about tea, and hair, and being young, and being old, and--for a few hours, in a tone that was nostalgic and bitter and amused and quiet and sorry and sometimes in a way that made them sound almost like connoisseurs of cheese--of the taste of kisses. Not in those few hours, but sometimes in those twelve days, they tasted kisses again, for Bossuet had meant what he had said, and the man truly was old.
On the eleventh day of Christmas, Bossuet left not intending to come back again, and the man knew, for he'd touched Bossuet's face and kissed him oftener and more gently, and with inexpressible, impossible sorrow, which Bossuet was not entirely able to understand or show. He just smiled, as he had always done, and finished his coffee, and gave the man a kiss that tasted like good-bye. They bade each other good night, and Bossuet went home with a warm roll in each pocket.
Musichetta brought back money and wine and Christmas cake, and an old gold watch for Joly, and a new pair of gloves for Bossuet. Joly brought back holly and wine and sweet rolls, and a fur wrap of his mother's for Musichetta, and an expensive sort of cigarette for Bossuet. They were both laughing and pleased.
Musichetta demanded to know what Bossuet had done while they were gone, and he smiled and said he had done very little.
Joly wanted to know what Bossuet had got them for Christmas, playfully, and he turned out his pockets to present them empty.
Then they drank wine and ate cake, and Joly and Musichetta talked of their Christmases, and as they all looked at one another fondly, somewhat sleepily, a bit drunkenly, very contentedly, he gave them kisses that tasted of scented smoke and wine and love, and his smile only grew.
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