Fiction from The Literary Review

Tourists

MILDRED VERBA MORRIS

Day Four. 6:05 A. M. Shivering outside Best Rest Inn, London.
      "Lateness, mes enfants, is a cardinal sin. Like smoking, or an encounter with The Tourist, it takes years off your life...." In the November fog, the tourists cannot see the whiff of sorrow-or is it irony?-shading their tour director's half-smile, but they know it is there, along with Nicole's high tech haircut, eyes like soot, and neon-tipped cigarette. A thousand years of Gallic civilization lies behind the way she ties her cerulean scarf. . . .
          Susan, first in line, wearing tan Land's End raincoat and shoulder bag with orange "E" for Econo Tours-meals not included-ignores the implication of Nicole's remark, and continues writing. I am not my husband's keeper, I am not my husband's keeper. . . .
          "Eh, bien, let us board the bus, and pray your Howie takes pity on us," Nicole says. Susan, feigning deafness, takes her usual window seat, uncaps her pen again, and writes, Nicole is the quintessence of Parisienne elegance.... She pauses. Quintessence. She has always wanted to use that word, then resumes; Americans file in, laughing. Good old Howie. Terminal bus lag, ha, ha! Others not amused. Classic American. Careless. Uncultured. After three days, sightseers have rediscovered patriotism, flourishing tattered national banners, asserting territorial claims as soon as they board each day; Canadians to right front, Irish to left, Australians (a rowdy bunch) to rear, Americans, the largest group, spread out in middle, and the Colombian where he can. . . .
          At last, prodded by the tour bus' impatient snort and Nicole's imperial eyes, Susan stuffs her notebook into her already overstuffed tourist bag. "OK, OK, I'll get him."
          She told Howie's doctor they were taking a tour; four days in London, three in Paris. "Enjoy," he said, "and remember, it's not when they forget their keys that you should start worrying, it's when they can't remember what they're for, ha, ha." He did suggest taking notes on Howie's behavior, inconspicuously, of course. The first day she waited until he was asleep. But it soon became apparent that, since Susan was the sort of person nobody noticed, they would continue not noticing her no matter what she did. In addition to Howie, she wrote about kings and queens (many Georges and Edwards, two Elizabeths, one Victoria), the wormy smell of old wood in ancient churches, how American tourists can be identified by their white running shoes, the way Nicole stroked the back of bus driver Pamela's neck when she thought no one was looking, how the Colombian with the oversized Hasselblad laughed uneasily when the girl from Nebraska tumbled into the seat next to him, saying "Everybody says you're carrying drugs in your camera, but you're really The Tourist, right?" how Bonita from Bogota, New Jersey, sitting in front of them, had four of the whitest front teeth she had ever seen, the way the child (?) next to her, referred to as "The Boy," had a round, beardless face, fine wrinkles, a voice like Johnny on the old Phillip Morris commercials, and spent his time reading maps and making sure that the passengers observed proper seating arrangements, how the ancient bus never started until the third try, and, as if protesting, spewed out clouds of black smoke. She listed everything in her cramped backhand, and in three days her book was half full. Susan loves collecting things; a thimble-sized tea set, miniature snow domes, odd samples, and found it strangely soothing to cram the flotsam and jetsam of the travel experience into her paisley-covered notebook from Harrod's.
          "Be right there," Howie says, attempting to wet comb his hair into submission. Susan, in the narrow doorway of their Econo-sized hotel room, wonders what makes Howie tick, or rather not tick. Studies him dispassionately as if she were a visitor from a distant planet. Writes: Howie. Late sixties? Gray, stand-up hair. Rumpled appearance. Reflecting in mirror. "Remember that hotel in Paris we were billeted in after the war. Rows of cots in the grand ballroom. Mirrored walls. Angels on the ceiling. . . ."
          "And that girl you left behind...?" Susan cannot help adding.
          "Smoky eyes. Hair like corn silk. Cute little thing. . . ."
          "Your fatal weakness. What was her name, Fifi?"
          "Francoise. You remember."
          "How could I? I wasn't born yet."
          "I told you about her. Worked in a pastry shop near the Place de la Concorde. Last name was Reynault like the car. Have to check it out when we get to Paris. . . ."
          "Howie, everyone's waiting. Let's go." Susan wails.
          Howie turns. "Why, Susan, you've dyed your hair gray. I didn't recognize you."
          Susan blinks. It is hard to tell whether what he says is meant to be funny, as when he said to Pamela, their bus driver from Swansea, "What's a little girl like you doing, driving a great big bus like this?" a remark Pamela did not find funny at all. Susan takes a last look around. Scoops a small bottle of shampoo off the bathroom shelf, a ball point pen and pad off the night table. Howie's wallet, his reason for going back, is still on the dresser. She stuffs it in his tourist bag, pats down his stand-up hair, pushes him toward the door. Howie removes her hands from his shoulders, attempts to kiss them. She tears her hands away, saying Nicole is having a fit. "What has she lost?" he says, "Only time."
          
          12:30 P. M. Pizzaland. Crowded fast food restaurant. Share table with young programmer from Elsie, Nebraska. Dyed blond hair. Metal-studded jacket. Draws out rubbery mozzarella, bubble gum fashion. She says she hates happyface hopelessness of Heartland. "'Nice day, nice evening,' they all go, and then they only stop when somebody else loses a farm or shoots himself. But a few days later they're at it again. 'Nice service, nice flowers, nice casket.' Everyone's leaving. Should I try New York . . . ?"
          Like most New Jerseyans, Susan thinks of the city as a crowded subway train in which one might turn into a statistic merely by exchanging unprotected glances. "Not a nice place at all," she says.
          "But if that's what you're looking for," Howie says, "you'll love New York, ha, ha." The girl laughs, too. She and Howie trade quips about The Tourist, an international serial killer, who has shoved Princess Di into the back pages, and is the topic of much good-natured talk show humor. Nobody knows his nationality, but the one eleven-year-old Dutch girl who got away, said he had an accent and carried a suitcase containing instruments for chopping his victims into sausages. From this the English deduct he is German, the Germans, Polish, the French, American.
          "Why sausages?" the girl from Elsie wants to know.
          "For his pizza, I guess," Howie replies.
          "Gross," the girl says, and they draw closer.
          Susan marvels at how easy it is to interest young people, if you do not have their interest at heart. She could never think of herself at twenty-one without confronting the memory of Howie, forty-four, his fatal appeal. "Mark my words, twenty years from now you'll be pushing his wheelchair," was how her mother put it. With that kind of parental opposition, what hope was there for her? Yet, ironically, a few years after Susan's elopement, her alcoholic father had a stroke, and her mother assumed the role of wheelchair pusher until his death fifteen years later. Then she died. Susan is sure her father, drunk or sober, would have done the same for her mother, because that is how they were. Bitter enders. A more profound devotion than she could ever aspire to.
          "Always need programmers at Connors & Delphi," Howie says. "Give us a ring when you get to the city." He hands the girl a dog-eared business card. Susan is so busy writing this down, she forgets to replenish her stock of Sweet 'N Lows. Howie hasn't worked for Conners & Delphi for five years, ever since they forced him into retirement. But having the girl from Nebraska lapping up his every word, it just slipped his mind.
          
          2:45 P. M. National Gallery. Nicole discusses only most recognizable and touristy paintings, yet Howie mixes up Manet and Monet, Bathsheba and Bethesda. Calls Gericault's painting, in which survivors of shipwreck cling to raft crowded with dead or dying, "The Raft of the Medea." Restraint with which Nicole responds to culturally confused commands respect, but tour director possesses repertoire of eye gestures that gives her away. . . .
          "Medusa," she says calmly, yet all the while staring at Howie with an incredulous look that says, I give you only what you can absorb, and still it is too much for you. "The Raft of the Medusa," she repeats.
          "That's right," Howie says. "Medusa. Medusa is the one who ate her children, and Medea is the one with the bad hair."
          His compatriots laugh. Egg him on. Nicole rolls her eyes. Amidst the banter, Susan, who feels the leading edge of a bad day coming on, slips behind a nearby statue. "Ah, at least someone is paying attention," Nicole says when she spots Susan, writing furiously. "You should all be so diligent. We will have a quiz about the influence of the Revolution on French Romanticism when we get back on the bus."
          
          Day Five. 11:40 A. M. Channel boat. Dover to Calais. Gray sky. Lapping waves. Rising sea. On such a day seven years ago Jenny. . . .
          Biting her lip, Susan crosses out her last phrase and writes, On such a day, only the brave on deck, clinging to railings. Loudspeaker announcement in French and English: "Because of the recent murders, do not, under any circumstances let children wander around the boat unescorted. . . .
          "So, mes enfants, have you spotted the killer?" Nicole, behind them asks. "There is a rumor he is on board, and he is an American."
          Howie, gazing into the dark water, does not answer immediately. "Not yet," he says finally, "but ask my wife. She takes the notes."
          Susan continues to write.
          "You are missing the White Cliffs, Susan," Nicole says. "Write it down. The White Cliffs of Dover Experience."
          Susan looks up. Even Nicole cannot dispel the gloom of a bad day in which everything looks two shades darker. "To me they look gray," she says.
          "You could spray paint them white," Howie says.
          "That is so American," Nicole says, gazing heavenward. Then adds hastily. "Of course we French love all things American; jeans, supermarkets, le fast food. But not your serial killers. Did you know Burger King is already on the Champs Elysees?" She pauses, her eyes misting, as if, inside her head, she carries some exquisite scale model of the real Paris, one that tourists can never hope to see. "When and if Paris is restored to itself, Pamela and I will open a candle-in-bottle café with Lautrec posters on the wall and tables on the sidewalk. An American's fantasy of Paris, but not tacky. No, no, I could not stand that." She hopes to do all this before Disney takes over or the Japanese.
          Nicole grimaces as the wind deconstructs her geometric hair, suggests going inside where the weather can be watched without experiencing it. There, she flings her indigo jacket and cerulean scarf over a yellow ochre lounge chair, and, voila, she has created a small area of aesthetic order. Would it be possible, Susan wonders, to hold that exact shade of blue in her head all the way to Paris, and there find a scarf to match? She feels that under the sunny skies of Paris, hope might flower again.
          Spring. Sidewalk café. Tender buds of hope rustle obligingly. See myself, cerulean scarfed like the sky. "I must leave you, Howie before life runs out on me. . . .
          "I understand you are writing a novel." Susan is dazzled out of her daydream by Bonita, a huge woman with a mass of bronze curls and four newly-capped front teeth. "Is it a mystery novel?" Bonita persists.
      :    "We are all a mystery to one another." Susan says.
          "Oh, that is so true," Bonita says. The floor rolls. She hangs on to The Boy with one hand, and a pillar with the other. Then she eases herself into a chair and takes out the argyle sweater she has been working on since the beginning of the trip. "Everybody has a dark side," Bonita says, bobbins bobbing. "Take the Colombian. Never without a camera. But has he snapped a picture yet? And how come Nicole permits Pamela's daughter on the bus? No other children are allowed. You are thinking what I am thinking, right? And of course you are curious about The Boy? Admit it." Without waiting for a reply or skipping a stitch, Bonita says that The Boy is her younger brother, thirty-four years of age, a menopausal mistake. "Wally," she says, "give the lady the book."
          The Boy thrusts the Michelin Guide to Paris into Susan's hands. "Ask me something hard," he says with a proud grin.
          Susan opens the book at random. "Where is the Medici Fountain located?"
          His eyes move, as if following a teleprompter in his brain. "It stands at the end of a long pool in the Luxembourg Gardens, shaded by plane trees. Built in 1624, it shows obvious Italian in . . ."
          "That's fine," says Bonita.
          ". . . fluence in its embossed decoration and overall design."
          "You see," says Bonita, tapping her forehead. "A map for a mind. This is his first trip to Paris. Planned it for years. Never gets lost, but his map doesn't include people and traffic, and he was almost run over in London with the cars going in the wrong direction. I promised my mother on her deathbed, I said, 'Mom, don't worry about a thing. As long as I'm here, The Boy will be taken care of.' My brother and sister didn't say a word. They were going to put him in a home. But I had to make the grand gesture. So now he is my life," she says. "Funny thing though, I dreamed last night we were in Paris and a taxi ran over him. Rolled him out flat like Bugs Bunny, only Wally didn't get up afterward. When I awoke, I thought, wow, where did all that come from? Is it wish-fulfillment or what? But I shouldn't be telling you all this should I?"
          A tidal wave with an overbite . . . , Susan writes in her notebook. She sighs. In Bonita's lusterless eyes she sees her own bitter end. "But you're not responsible for your dreams," Susan says. "I'm sure you love him."
          "Well, ye-e-s," Bonita says, "but then I ask myself, 'who dreamed it?'"
          
          12:45 P. M. Channel boat cafeteria. Clatter of trays. Cheerful ring of cash registers. Homey smell of steamtable cauliflower. Girl from Nebraska, in cafeteria line swirls fries in catsup and nibbles while waiting for hamburger. Eats only fast food, but impatiently, as if no food will ever be fast enough. Says Colombian promised to take her to Le Chien Noir, a dive in Paris, where everyone is a transvestite, a transsexual, or something in between. . . .
          To Susan it seems that hers is a child's dream of depravity, like smoking or making crank phone calls to your gym teacher. She feels a touch of affection for this girl, who has pulled her back to the days when she, too, was young and looking for trouble. Trying for a touch of Howie warmth and cheerful banter, she says "You want to save yourself for New York." Too late. She has spotted the Colombian at a corner table behind a pillar.
          As if executing some unfulfilled death wish, the girl rushes off without a thought for those she leaves behind . . . Susan sighs, tries to imagine the darkness that drew their daughter to it. One minute laughing on deck with her friends, the next, caught up in the black, swirling water. She is beginning to lose her concentration again, and she crosses out her last line, writes instead, Pamela. Blond bus driver. Nods curtly. Hair crackles with negative energy when we squeeze by with metal trays and take seats at far end of long table. . . . Susan wonders if Howie will say something ghastly again to Pamela. She hates herself for her unworthy thoughts. On her bad days, she hates Howie as well, and wishes he would do something really hateful, so she would feel justified.
          Pamela remains buried in her magazine, and Susan writes, Lauren. Five. Karate-trained daughter. Miniature of her diminutive mother. Fine, blond hair, pasted to nose and mouth. Scowls at turkey sandwich. Could this small girl be a black belt . . . ? Hmm. Black? Susan crosses it out. Better make it brown, or green, if there is such a thing.
          Lauren pushes her plate away. "Mum, I'm leaving my sandwich for Spinney."
          "All right, dear," Pamela says.
          "I said I'm leaving it for Spinney."
          Pamela glances up. "Remember what I said, Lauren, if I hear the Spinney word once more, no amusement park tomorrow. Now eat."
          "Why can't I have chips?" Lauren says, no doubt more in habit than hope, since Pamela has returned to her magazine. Howie smiles at her and she slides over on the bench toward him. "Did you see a donkey go by?" she asks.
          "A donkey? Not recently," Howie says. "What was his name?"
          "Spinney," she whispers, her eyes darting sideways. "His name is Spinney."
          "Great name for a donkey," Howie whispers back. "And where do you keep him? In your suitcase?" Lauren giggles. Susan shudders at how the words suitcase and sausage have taken on new, hilarious meanings, apparently even for five-year-olds.
          "No," Lauren says. She pats the seat beside her. "Right here, I always save him a place. We're going to the amusement park in Paris, and he's going to sit next to me on all the rides." She points toward the windows. "Oh, look. See him?"
          "The one with the bell and the long ears, right?"
          Lauren nods blissfully. They share an energetic dreaminess that makes Susan uneasy. Susan grips her pen tightly, waiting for the showdown that must surely come, but Pamela continues to ignore Howie. Susan writes, Pamela stains the air with her hostility, then looks at her watch. "Howie it's 2:10. The boat docks in ten minutes."
          "Plenty of time," Howie says, stirring his coffee.
          "Right," Susan says, getting up, her mouth twitching. "It's only time. So you take your time. I'm going downstairs to the bus."
          The bus door is open, and no one else is on it, not even Nicole, who is so fussy about security and promptness. This makes Susan madder yet. She dreams of revenge against all who would put her down or keep her waiting. Ten minutes later, the bus fills up, but no Howie, no Pamela, no Lauren. "Three missing," The Boy announces.
          "Delays, delays," says Nicole. "Would someone please accompany me to round up the stragglers?" Susan does not have to look at Nicole to know she means her. They always do. Well, she will put forth no more energy in Howie's direction. He's forced her into the role of a nag, a clock watcher, a truly boring person. And now who could tell her from one? "OK, OK, I'll go," she says.
          In front of silverware, they find Pamela gesturing at the cafeteria manager, yelling words like pervert, pedophile, husband. "Oh, there you are," Pamela says, spotting Susan. "Your husband, walked off with Lauren. For all I know, he is The Tourist."
          "The Tourist?" Susan asks idiotically. "But how could that be? Howie gets lost just walking around the block." All around, last-minute diners pause, forks frozen in midair. "I mean he's harmless." Then she pauses. What does she mean? Might there be some basic perversity in men, and when the mind cracks, the inner molester crawls out? "He must be in the game room. I'll look."
          He is not there. Think. Think like a molester, she tells herself. Where do perverts hang out? Not the tax-free store. Not the ladies room. Maybe the men's. Of course. She clenches her fists, gathering courage as she does so. Then she knocks on the door. No answer. She has never been in a men's room, and opens the door warily as if entering an abattoir. A foreign-looking man stands before the mirror arranging a few wet strands of hair across his bald dome. Susan breathes deeply. "Avez vous vu un homme et une petite fille?" she says in her high school French. "Nien," the man growls and Susan flees, convinced for the moment she has narrowly escaped ravishment and death.
          Back at the cafeteria Pamela pounces on Susan. "Find him? It's been ten minutes. He could have her ground up by now." The woman is deranged, yet she drives the bus.
          Nicole lays a calming hand on Pamela's shoulder. She and Susan will conduct another search. They must be on board. Just then Pamela screams, "Thank God." Howie and Lauren have entered the cafeteria hand in hand. Pamela rushes up to Lauren, hugs her, then grips her arm. "What made you go off with the man?"
          "We were looking for Spinney. He ran away again."
          "Spinney? I'll give you Spinney," Pamela yells, swiping with an open palm at Lauren, who in a rare display of karate skill, ducks. She runs back to Howie, saying, "Didn't Mum say, 'yes I could go?' Didn't she?"
          Pamela grabs her arm and pulls her back "Don't you go near that man again." She holds her daughter by the shoulders and looks her over, as if checking for subtle damage. Lauren's chin is textured in grease and salt. "Bought you chips, did he?" Pamela yells, shaking her. All around people, with carefully arranged faces, make a serious show of eating. Nicole shuts her eyes as if dropping a curtain over the entire miserable scene.
          At last, drawing herself up, Nicole ventures closer and whispers in her ear. She inscribes a circle in the air with her finger. Pamela pauses. A reasonable explanation has been offered, and Pamela, a not unreasonable person, nods gravely. "It is a wonder to me that you let your husband out alone," she says, sweeping past Susan, Lauren firmly in tow.
          Howie shakes his head. "I had no idea . . . ," he begins.
          "We're late. Let's not talk about it now." Susan will write it all down on the bus.
          "And now, dear friends, we are finally off to gay Paree," Nicole says when they are again seated. "No more delays, eh?" Susan is determined to get every last detail down on paper. Strange how things work out to suit the needs of the note taker. You provide the space, and the world bleeds into it. She does not look up until she realizes their bus has not moved and Pamela is on hands and knees, groping under the dashboard, peering under seats. Distraught and distracted . . . , Susan writes.
          Pamela finally whispers something to Nicole, busy taking reservations for a side trip to Versailles. "This I do not believe," Nicole says. She walks up front. "The keys to the bus are lost. Will everybody please search the area beneath you. Pamela and I will investigate the exterior of the bus."
          The passengers inside hear Nicole peppering the driver with questions. "Did you leave the bus unlocked? . . . Were the keys in the ignition? . . . Did you look in all your pockets? . . . In your purse? . . . Do you have a spare? . . . No spare, eh? . . . Is that what they taught you in bus driver's school?" If Pamela were not Pamela, Susan could almost feel sorry for her. Suddenly the bus driver pivots, purses her mouth, and says something to Nicole that sounds like a cat spitting. Nicole presses her hand to her brow, and, without another word, turns abruptly and climbs back into the bus, into more animosity. The usually sheeplike tourists are murmuring darkly, "No way to run a tour. . . . Remember when the driver got lost? . . . Remember when she parked the bus so nobody could get out? . . . You get what you pay for. . . . Or don't pay for, ha, ha. . . . Wait until my travel agent hears about this." The natives are becoming restless. . . . Susan writes with relish.
          "In all my years with Econo, this has never happened before," Nicole swears. Suddenly Bonita rushes up, muttering something that brings smiles to the dour Canadians.
          "No, no, I cannot," Nicole says. Bonita presses her palms together prayerfully. A tiny vein at Nicole's temple vibrates. Finally, she shrugs. "The ferry," she announces, "will be returning to Dover in five minutes. If we do not find the key, we will be forced to shuttle back and forth across the channel until the end of time. You do not wish that, do you? You would do anything in your power to prevent that calamity, n'est-ce pas?"
          "So whaddaya want, Nicole, a strip search?" rasps an American voice.
            :
          Nicole closes her eyes. "Nothing like that," she says when she regains her composure. "I would appreciate it, however, if everyone would please rummage through their tourist bags for the key," adding, "It is completely voluntary." Everybody looks.
          "Mine is so packed I can't find the bottom," Susan says, assuming that Nicole, with her sensitivity, will understand. But, no, she has planted herself firmly behind Susan, as if determined to make hovering an occupation.
      :    Howie frowns. "I think you'd better do as Nicole suggests."
          "You're violating my rights as an American citizen," Susan says, hoping for a supportive eye. There are none, and, while everyone watches, she removes her notebook, her six bars of soap, her shampoo and conditioner collection, five bottles of hand lotion, all labeled Ramada Inn. Her packets of Instant coffee, cheddar cheese, and crumbled cracker, remnants of her continental breakfasts. Her salted nuts and small bottle of amaretto from the plane. Her Sweet 'N Lows from assorted restaurants, the pen she borrowed from Nicole. A comb (her own.) Nicole's cerulean scarf. "Where did that come from?" And underneath-the keys.
          "This I cannot believe." Nicole jangles the keys triumphantly aloft. Howie clears his throat. The Boy rattles his map. The weight of a hundred passenger eyes bear down upon Susan. And Susan notices that Nicole is not so beautiful after all. Up close the roots of her hair are gray, her eyeliner wavers, and the subtle shadow above her smile might be . . . Yes it is. The Mona Lisa has a mustache. Bleached, too.
          "Things just seem to fly into my bag," Susan mumbles. She returns the scarf and the pen to Nicole, thankful, at least, that no one questions the provenance of the notebook, technically still Harrods. Howie gives her a long, sad look.
          "And so, my dear Ladies and Gentlemen, we are off," Nicole says. Pamela turns the key three times, the motor hums expectantly, the passengers lean back, and then, slowly, slowly, as in a bad dream, the ferry separates itself from the dock.
          Being persona non grata, Susan soon discovers on the long trip to Dover and back again to Calais, has its compensations. Nicole no longer asks her to check up on Howie, Bonita no longer expresses interest in the outcome of Susan's mystery, and she is free to write uninterrupted with the stub of a pencil she fished out of her empty bag.
          . . . Six hours later, Bonita has finished her sweater. "You wonder how I knew where the keys were. Am I right?" she asks Howie, flashing her glorious teeth. "I prayed to St. Anthony, and, before me, I saw this tourist bag with an orange 'E' on it. St. Anthony is the Patron Saint of Lost Things, you know. He can bring back anything."
          "But what if it's your mind?" Howie says.
          "Ha, ha, that's a good one."
          The boat has again landed in Calais. The passengers have again boarded the bus, and Nicole announces, "Believe it or not, in two minutes we shall finally be on French soil." Pamela turns the ignition key three times, the motor hums, the bus coughs black smoke, and lurches reluctantly forward. The passengers cheer.
          At French customs, the Colombian is singled out for a suitcase inspection, and is promptly whisked away. Bonita, standing behind him, says she saw a flash of metal, a scalpel, perhaps. The others are dubious. You know Colombians. Probably only drugs.
          Midnight. The heat on the bus does not work and the windows steam up. Under a donated coat, Lauren sleeps over two seats,, legs carefully folded to accommodate Spinney. The Boy, resplendent in a yellow and green argyle sweater, also sleeps. In back of the bus, the Australians and the girl from Nebraska, laugh and drink beer. The dour Canadians (at least those from Montreal) sing "Mon Pays." Howie snores.
          "Voyez, the City of Light," Nicole announces, hand resting tentatively on Pamela's arm. The passengers wake, rub eyes, wipe mist off the windows with mittened hands. But the lights do not twinkle prettily as on a picture postcard. And the sad, gray sky, the same sky pursuing them from London, presses down on the buildings, erasing their grandeur, and decapitating the Eiffel Tower. The windows steam up again. . . .
          It is as if . . . as if, what . . . ? Susan tries to think, but nothing comes to mind, except that well-known picture by Gericault, and she writes, It is as if the tourists are on a raft, floating in fog, hoping for a miracle that will not come. Bound by the mysterious chains of love, hate, honor and country, they are the best they could offer each other. They could no more abandon each other than Lauren could forget Spinney, or The Boy could cross a street by himself, or St. Anthony could bring back the time they have lost, or for that matter, any of them could find the Paris they have made up in their minds. . .
          That last phrase, the Paris they have made up in their minds, has a ring to it, and Susan, who has written through her sorrow, anger, her stub of a pencil, and her entire notebook, is now ready to explain. "Pamela should never have left the bus unlocked or the keys in the ignition," she tells Howie. "I just wanted to teach her a lesson. If Bonita hadn't made such a fuss, I would have found them under the seat two seconds later. It would have been a big joke. Everyone would have laughed." Howie's eyes are on the mid-distance. He, too, has seen the gray cliffs peering back at him from the dark water. "You had one of your bad days, Susan," Howie says. He takes her hand, and this time she does not withdraw it.