Reminisence: My Remote Debut

***

1

I attended the State University of Iowa. I paid day-to-day expenses from the income – at $1 per hour – from my campus job, at the college radio station WSUI/KSUI-FM, where I worked 25 hours a week.

For all of my sophomore and senior years, I was the sole announcer on KSUI-FM, which broadcast with 17,500 watts from the top floor of the engineering building, where all of the AM and the FM stations’ studios were located. KSUI was on the air from 7 to 10 p.m. every night Monday through Friday.

(It was exciting, by the way, when there were thunder-lightning storms. Not only was the studio located in a small cubicle on the building’s roof; also, right in my studio itself was a heavy glass tube through which a broad cable passed from the ceiling through the floor, except that when you looked carefully you could see there was a gap between the upper and lower parts of the cable encased in the thick glass tube. This was a power diffuser to help prevent electrical surges in all the facilities when the lightning rod on the roof was struck… which happened three or four times a year. While I was announcing in my most mature, soft-sell voice that our next piece would be a piano trio by Franz Joseph Haydn, or whatever, now and then with a zap, the whole studio would light up blue-purple and the hair on my arms and the back of my neck would stand up.)

Once a week or two our program from 8 p.m. to "whenever" would consist of a live remote broadcast of a recital or concert by the SUI Music Department. This was called a simulcast, since it was broadcast simultaneously on AM and FM. Listeners with two radios could hear the concert in stereo by placing the AM receiver on the left and the FM receiver on the right. This was a big deal in the early 1960s.

There was a special little challenge for me as the FM announcer: as 8 p.m. approached, I had to put on special earphones carrying WSUI from downstairs, and co-ordinate the station i-d I was making with the AM announcer, so that Mr. B------- could begin speaking from the remote location at 8:00:05 simultaneously on both stations.

I would be wrapping up my first hour telling our audience what we had just heard, performed by whom and giving our station identification - “This is your Fine Music station in Iowa City: KSUI-FM, broadcasting at 91.7 megahertz on your FM dial” - exactly in time with the guy from downstairs saying “This your Hawkeye broadcasting station, WSUI in Iowa City.”

At the end of the evening, I also had to be standing by with music to introduce and play whenever the remote simulcast was completed… or at least to sign off if the remote ran past 10 p.m.

From the beginning, all that was just enough of a challenge to be fun.

2

After I had been on the air for a while, I learned I had apparently earned the confidence - or at least some level of confidence – of my supervisor, a rather curmudgeon-like older man (Mr. B------) who had been the sole announcer of classical music on both stations for years.

One day late in February he called me into his office in the classical music library and told me that the next evening, he had another engagement, so I would be hosting the remote show. He said it was easy.

All I had to do, Mr. B------ said, was to put on a long-enough piece, which he would select for me (as he did all the pieces), and then put it on at the time he would designate for me. I would leave the studio with my engineer, Ernie, walk across the campus to Macbride Hall, go up to the third floor to the Auditorium and climb up to the projection/broadcast booth in the back, where a different engineer would be waiting.

Finally, I would put on the same kind of headphones that I used in the studio so – as usual – I could listen to WSUI as we neared the station break. The engineer would signal me when my piece on KSUI-FM had finished so that I could wrap up that studio broadcast and give my station break so that both stations could switch simultaneously to the remote location. Simple enough.

Mr. B------ would write out the script he would have prepared for himself for the 10-minute intermission. AND he would give me an album (an LP, of course) with long liner notes for me to read just in case. That would be enough to fill up to 20 minutes, just to make me feel comfortable.

Yes, he had thought of everything. In fact, as he told me, Mr. B----- knew the whole routine so well because he had done it himself dozens of times.

The night came. My engineer was all prepared and did not seem nervous. The album with the liner notes was there, along with the live performance’s program and list of all performers: a chamber orchestra, a guest contralto, and of course, the conductor. All set.

I noticed that most of the concert would consist of a special, experimental piece – hence, the contralto – by a composer of whom I had never heard, Alban Berg, who was one of the chief proponents of atonal music, and the piece would be sung in German. The album had the lyrics all translated. The poem looked pretty weird too.

As I had walked from my supper at my dorm across the river, up the hill, on to the engineering building and up to the third floor, I noticed that although it wasn’t especially cold, it was beginning to snow a little; it was coming down a little harder by the time I arrived at work.

An hour later, everything was going along according to plan. I was enjoying the opportunity for a new experience. My last piece went on exactly at the predetermined time. I put on my muffler, my heavy coat, and my hat and said Goodbye to Ernie. “Take ‘er easy,” he called as I left.

When I got outside, I found that over an inch of snow had accumulated in the hour while I had been on the air… and it was still coming down as hard as it ever had in my year and a quarter in Iowa City. But no problem; Macbride Hall was only across the street and three classroom buildings away. I had about fifteen minutes before the FM selection would finish up so I could slog my way carefully down the sidewalks. Why worry?

3

Inside the Macbride Hall door under the stairs I stomped the snow off my boots. I shook the snow off my hat, noting how wet it was, and unzipped my coat so that I could shake the snow off the shoulders. Ready to go. Still more than five minutes until I was to go on the air again.

Up the stairs to the third floor, making my way up the side aisle to the booth in back. The engineer was there with KSUI playing softly; he was all set and ready to go. I dumped my hat, coat, and muffler in a corner, noticing with mild surprise that the booth was open, not glassed in, so that everything I would say would be heard by the audience, or at least by those in the last few rows of the center section. No big deal…

I put on the earphones; I could hear KSUI in the booth and WSUI on the ’phones. I arranged my notes for the piece that had still a couple of minutes to play on FM, with the script and the album with liner notes underneath ready for later, and looked around.

There were fewer than 10 present in the auditorium, and of course the chairs on stage were empty. The auditorium was a bit old and a little shabby; the curtain folded at both sides of the proscenium looked especially fragile.

As my piece was finishing up, a shirt-sleeved young man in a cummerbund came right out on stage, looked around in the auditorium, and hurried away. Following the signal, I announced into the mike what had just been playing on FM, and the performers, and launched into the station break just as I heard Bob doing on the AM side. We both finished up, almost to the second at the same time. The engineer and I made eye contact; he dramatically pointed at me as I noticed a little red light on his board light up.

“Good evening, everyone. This is your announcer, 'Byron Derrick,' welcoming you to Macbride Auditorium…” And so on. I summarized the program we would be hearing and was moving on toward mentioning the contralto when a distinguished-looking man in his tuxedo came on stage with a stand-up mike. He looked out into the auditorium and even looked up at me.

“Here is an announcement from the stage,” I said, and the gentleman welcomed those present, noted the intensity of the storm, and said that he was aware of some intended guests who had called to say they were delayed en route. “We are going to give them a little extra time to get here,” he finished up, “and we thank you for your patience.” (He gave me a little smile.)

4

I hadn’t been nervous. The engineer had a little, sympathetic grin on his lips and he shrugged as our eyes met.

I repeated to the audience at home what the conductor had said, knowing they had already heard him themselves. Okay, I was thinking, I’ll give the intermission speech now and maybe repeat a varied version of the same thing or read some of the liner notes during intermission. I had plenty of resources, didn’t I?

But, by the time the 30 minutes had passed before the orchestra came on stage, I was saying anything that came to mind. The engineer and I were both enjoying the absurdity of the situation (perhaps he more than I).

“For those of you who aren’t familiar with our fine old Macbride Auditorium,” I remember saying, “let me describe it for you…” and so on.

I named some people I pretended to recognize in the audience, and just maybe invented a few who really weren’t there: “The distinguished English professor, Dr. _______ _______,” I may have said. And, although the clock was ticking, nothing was happening on the stage.

Finally, members of the orchestra began to appear (I noted where each was seated), and at last out again came the conductor. (Applause from the hardy few who had made it through the blizzard.) “And once again,” he said, looking (I thought) especially at me, “we thank you for your patience.”

I did not know what to expect at intermission, but if anything it was shorter than the planned 10 minutes. The little script Mr. B-------- had prepared, paraphrased here and there, worked just fine.

I don’t recall whether or not I had to announce a final piece for FM once the simulcast had finished, probably not since we had started so late… or at least those musicians had started late!

I'd started right on time.


***

Poem: Narcissus

***

I Am
The tree
That falls
In a wood.

No one
Sees
My falling
Nor the leaves
I fall
Upon.

My face,
Rough bark,
Snaked
With rotted lines,
Wriggles
In the water
Before me.

And I see
My Self,
Agèd
Crookèd limbs
In fall,

Quavering
In my waters'
Eye.

***

Reminiscence: Clorey Passed Away

***

1

I was born in the early 1940s in Texas. I lived with my family in the same house until, at 18 years old, I went away 1,100 miles to college. Among my earliest memories are recollections of “Clorey.”

(Note: I have no idea how she spelled her name, but this spelling captures what it sounded like to me as a kid.)

My family was not badly off financially, although Dad – who was an academic - had to borrow against his life insurance every July or August when he had no regular paycheck coming in. We were among the last of my friends to get a t. v. in our home and always bought used cars (sometimes not really “gently used” at that). Mother managed household and incidental expenses carefully to stay within a budget. So, we may have been comfortable enough, but we also may have lived close to the bottom threshold of that status.

Even in our neighborhood, however, and in fact among most of the families of my friends, households typically had hired help: at least – like our family – an occasional “yard man” and a part-time maid. That remained true in our case right up until my mother’s death in 2001. In that year, the same African-American woman who had come to work for my mom at least 20 years earlier was still coming over twice a week in the morning to dust and vacuum, help with the laundry, and so on; and the same African-American man who had come for a long time to mow the lawn, rake the leaves, and so on, was still coming by once a month.

2

Clorey was our maid when I was growing up. I have the impression that as a toddler and young child, I spent about as much time with Clorey as I did with my mother.

I remember Clorey’s changing the bed clothes and throwing them with the other laundry into the big basket in the hall closet, and heaving the whole pile of them down the stairs. I remember Clorey and Mother hauling the clunky, bulbous washing machine out from behind the kitchen table, hooking it up to the kitchen sink faucet, stirring in “bluing” with a thick stick, doing something about starch, and eventually hauling the wet clothes in a big basket out the kitchen door and down the steps to the gravel driveway, to the gate in the chain-link fence, and on to the rear of the backyard, where Clorey hung the wet clothes on the line. I remember the wooden clothes pins, some of them in Clorey’s mouth, as she worked.

I believe that Mother did most of the food preparation, but on occasion Clorey would make me a peanut butter sandwich. (I don’t remember jelly and still prefer peanut butter sandwiches without it, to my wife’s consistent surprise.)

I don’t think I ever accompanied Clorey in the hot afternoons when she shuffled up the street, joined one by one by other maids from other houses as they made their way to wait at the corner for the bus heading downtown to Sixth Street, where I later learned they would change buses outside the Woolworth’s store to head on to their homes in East Austin.

I have a clear memory of Clorey’s hands and feet, and of the way she talked. She was a big woman - well “fat” would be fair to say - a fact emphasized by the contrast with my mother who was not thin by any definition but who was less than five feet tall and seemed tiny compared to most adults. (She also wore a girdle every day, while Clorey did not.) Clorey’s skin was quite a bit lighter than the nearly-black skin of John the yardman, whose young son John Jr he brought with him sometimes, to play with me. Clorey had a few white spots on her hands, feet, and neck, just as my mother later developed dark spots on her hands, which we called “liver spots.”

Clorey’s feet gave her pain, as even I as a small child could tell. Her feet were wide and flat. She padded around, puffing a little, sighing now and then. She always shuffled, in slippers. She may even have worn her slippers out in the street and on the bus; I don’t remember shoes at all.

3

When Clorey died, I was maybe 10 years old. For my parents, her death raised several tough questions about our attending the funeral. Even though I was certainly not part of the conversation, I remember sensing that Mother and Dad were struggling about it. On the one hand, this was Clorey, an integral member of our family for a goodly number of years, maybe particularly close to little “Byron”; on the other hand, I was only a small child and besides had never been to anyone’s funeral. Would the funeral only intensify my grief?

Also, the ceremony would be in Clorey’s home church, in the African-Americans’ part of town; would her white employers be welcome? Would we be a distraction from the solemn rites she deserved?

They couldn’t ask just what the impact of Clorey’s dying was on me, of course. But I believe this was my point of view: Clorey was there one day as usual; then she wasn’t there the next day. That was like a Saturday or Sunday. It was like afternoons and evenings too. Also, I had a little more of my mother’s attention after Clorey died. These may or may not have been the reasons, but the fact is, for whatever reason I don’t recall feeling any grief.

Well, the final decision was for me to go to the funeral after all. My older sister must have gone too, but I don’t remember that. Although I don’t think the experience “scarred me for life,” or anything like that, I certainly do remember it.

4

We were naturally dressed up in our best Sunday clothes. (It was not a time for anyone to be comfortable, in any way.) And it was dreadfully hot, as hot and humid as late August. We were all sweating a lot.

It was in a little white clapboard church on a dusty, unpaved street on a hillside, in a neighborhood of small modest wooden houses without much room for yards. A lot of people were making their way towards the church; we parked a couple of blocks away, uphill of the church. Boy, it was hot!

This was the first time I had seen the little fans stapled onto wooden sticks sort of like long tongue depressors. We were each given one when we entered the church. There were still people behind us, but the little sanctuary was already packed. The folks on the back row made room for us. Did they know who we were or why we were there? No one addressed us; everyone was polite. I think they may have been pleased we had come; my dad often seemed to find a way of “doing the right thing” in ways that surprised and impressed people.

As for me, I was mainly fascinated by that brightly colored fan. It had a Biblical scene pictured on one side; I recognized that type of picture from the story books they had us read in Sunday School. On the other side were lots of words printed in short lines centered on the page, one above the other, poems, from the psalms perhaps. Everyone around us was fanning themselves. I did likewise; it made a little breeze.

We were the only white people in the room, and by now the place was jammed, every corner, every aisle. In the front before the altar was a long box, Corey’s coffin though I didn’t even know what a coffin was. I knew we were there for Clorey’s funeral, and what a funeral was must have already been explained to me by then. I knew that Clorey was in that box.

I am sure there must have been a minister in some sort of gown, and he must have spoken. We must have sung hymns. But what I remember was the intense heat, the fact that everyone was wailing and crying, and the way that every so often, someone would cry out and wave their hands. With Mother and Dad on either side of me, I wasn’t frightened, but I was excited. How could you help being excited?

I don’t remember what all the service was, but the last thing that happened was that people from the congregation started coming from the right side down front and walking by the coffin. They would look inside and cry more. Some of them would shout out and hold their heads. Some had to be helped along so that they didn’t fall down, overcome with sadness. My parents must have been trying to decide whether we would go down too.

Then some of the ladies who were about Clorey’s age started to reach into the coffin. At least once, one of them grabbed up the body inside and hugged it, crying and shouting out. They were hugging Clorey, I knew.

My father led us down the crowded aisle when it seemed to be our turn. He lifted me up to look in. Yes, that was Clorey. She had her eyes closed. We moved on.

5

It was a little cooler outside than it had been in the church by the end. The other folks were shaking hands with one another, the women hugging each other. No one seemed as emotional anymore, but they were still sad. We must have been too. I don’t think anyone spoke to us, but many of them nodded solemnly as we walked by.

I still had my fan with me.

***

Story: Charity

***

1

Jon's bench in the Jardin du Luxembourg was covered with the warm light as with a thick and cozy blanket he pulled up to his chin, and he snuggled peacefully down on the sloping slats in the almost tangible air of a Paris spring morning. He lay on his back, his hands folded on his chest, and sighed. Weary, and warm. Quiet.

"Toi, gars! Lève-toi!"

It hadn't been more than a moment, and someone, a city policeman, a flic, "You can rent one of those reclining chairs." He gestured down the path where there were now four mothers and four black baby-carriages.

"Bien. Merci, monsieur," although Jon couldn't really think of any reason why he should be thanking the flic for having roused him from his quiet, warm nap. (Nor could he consider squandering 35 centimes for one of the chairs.)

The policeman disappeared down the path.

Jon sat there heavily, still not completely awake, and stared into the bushes across the pathway from his bench. Policemen always frightened him, and he still felt a little jumpy.

He stretched his arms high, then rubbed his chin. While he had dozed, he noticed, another man had come to sit on the farthest bench in the row. Jon turned the other way; no, no one had come to the other end… He could just hear the distant shouts of the children playing soccer beyond the low trees in front of him.

"Want some candy?"

It was the man, who had now approached and spoke to him in French.

"No, no. No thank you,” Jon said and smiled fleetingly.

The man was shabbily dressed in heavy, formless trousers that bulged down a little over his shoes and frayed at the cuffs. His shoes were sturdy but scuffed, and there was dried mud on them.

Jon sat forward, his chin in his hands, looking straight ahead. The man's pocket had a ragged spot at one corner. Above his gray trousers, he wore a heavy old sports coat with a dull pattern striping its flanks and thinned shoulders like old scars. His shirt was coarse, dark plaid; his tie, loose at the throat, was dirty white, lined with a sketchy black or blue pattern.

First the man mentioned the weather. It had been especially cold that year. Jon added a few things. They sat silently.

"You English?" the man looked at Jon, who sat back again. He wished the man would ask him now and end it. Then, maybe they could really talk.

"No. American,” he said.

"Amer-ri-cun boiee," the man said slowly in English, dwelling on the r and oy. "Amer-ri-cun boiee,” he said again.

"Ouais,” said Jon in his slangiest Parisian.

He was proud of his French. Please get it over with, he said inside.

"I...saylorr boiee," the man said.

"Marin?" Jon asked.

"Ouais, saylorr boiee," he said.

"Moi, je suis étudiant à la Sorbonne," Jon said.

"Amer-ri-cun boiee,” the man said again, and then in French, "It's good to travel, no?"

Jon smiled just an instant.

"I went to Mozambique once,” the man went on. "You know, Africa. I've even been to Amer-rickaa."

"Yes?" Jon said, doubting. "Where did you go?"

"Just New York," the man said. "Off the boat."

There was a long pause. Jon was awake at last. The sounds of the children and their soccer game had grown louder and more excited. The sunlight was becoming downright hot. He almost stood.

"You like Paris?" The man smiled with the corners of his mouth.

"It's all right," Jon said. Except..."

"The people?" The man nodded knowingly. "Very unfriendly, I know. I don't like them either."

"I think the cold winter had something to do with it." Actually, he rather liked Parisians.

"I'm not French, you know," the man said, and rubbed his hand over his chin. His nails were long and nicely shaped but very dirty on his stubby fingers. He was frowning slightly.

"No, I'm from Bretagne. I hate these French bastards!" The man bared his teethe, frowning harder, and shuddered as with a fever. The sudden violence of this outburst surprised Jon. He waited, a half-smile frozen in his cheeks.

"I hate them," the man said more quietly, and the cellophane in his pocket crinkled a little when he scuffed his feet in the sandy path.

Jon stared into the leaves. He would have to be leaving soon. He noticed that ten feet to his left some little old lady had come to sit, a delicate woman about 60 years old, in a gray patterned suit, gray hair, and a neat gray hat.

"Filthy cows," the man was saying.

The old lady sat, prim and proper, down the way, looking at the gloves in her lap beneath her folded fingers. Her lips were pursed in a neat half-smile.

"It must cost a lot," the man said, "all those books you students have to buy."

Here it comes, Jon thought. "Much less than in the U.S.," he said. He did not like to refuse. "I am saving a lot of money this year," he said. "A good thing it is too. I used to work at two jobs at once," he said.

"I am out of work now," the man said at last.

Jon was silent.

"Filthy French cows," he muttered.

Jon eyed the lady down the bench. She is probably listening to us, he thought.

"I'm just an unemployed sailor," the man said.

"I see," said Jon. I am not going to be run off, he vowed bravely, yet he almost stood to flee anonymously up the pathway.

"I don't suppose you could give me a little help, could you?"

Jon looked at the man sadly; the man looked away. "I'm sorry," Jon said. A toddling child about two feet tall was unsteadily clopping around the bend in the pathway, her pudgy arms raised above her head. She had red, fat cheeks and wide black eyes.

The man was watching the little girl, and nodding his head up and down. After a moment, he grabbed the candy sack and pulled it crackling from his pocket. Then he stood up, a bit abruptly. "Well..." he said. And, holding still the candy bag in one hand, he went down to the old lady. As he leaned toward her to speak quietly, Jon turned away to watch the child who was now curiously staring up at him from the turn in the pathway.

Ant then the man was coming back -- she too had refused him, Jon thought -- and before shuffling away the man suddenly leaned down before the child.

"Bon-bon?" Jon heard him say. The little girl hesitated but did not seem frightened. She looked in wide wonder at the bright colors under the cellophane. The man handed her a purple ball (grape -- Jon imagined its taste). She smiled happily and toddled back up the path to show mother.

The man turned for an instant, and vaguely waved at Jon. His smile seemed embarrassed or hard. "Byee byee, boiee," Jon heard, as the man walked swiftly down the path toward the fountain.

"Adieu, mon vieux," Jon said too softly to be heard. "Et bonne chance, hein?

2

After the man had gone, Jon sat watching the sunlight on the wide green leaves of the bushes across the path from his bench.

"It's disgraceful," the old lady said, in French.

Jon looked around at her curiously. She was sitting there ten feet down the row of benches, talking primly in her precise, pretty accents into the leaves, to him.

"Disgraceful," she said again. "A young man like that."

"Yes," Jon said, and she favored him with a shy smile. "A little sad," he added, to see what she would say.

The small gray lady was quiet a moment, looking into her lap. The she said, "Oh, a man like him can always find work. He is still young."

"Yes," Jon said.

There was another moment of silence as Jon's tired mind wandered down the paths, thought of the grape ball of candy and the little girl's red cheeks. He sat very still, and was weary and content to be motionless as the sun made him feel like a warm potato with butter melting on it and fragrant steam from inside it.

"Now I'll put it to you, monsieur," the little lady had turned fully toward Jon now and was speaking to him in a confidential tone.

Jon was flattered by her manner and smiled warmly.

"That girl," she gestured slightly down the benches. Jon had not noticed the young woman who had come to sit there. "That girl," the gray lady was saying. "Now look at her a moment."

The girl was rather large, wearing a medium-weight, autumn brown coat. There was a faded, large, and worn valise at her feet. Just as Jon looked, and the old lady between him and the girl turned toward her as well, just then the girl, who had been quietly sitting staring before herself, slumped forward and her head nodded to her chest.

"She is tired," the woman sadly smiled.

"Yes," Jon repeated flatly. Then he said, "She must be traveling."

"She has come a long way," the lady said sagely in her confidential tone.

"Gare Montparnasse?" Jon knew how far the train station would be, even for a sturdy girl, with such a large suitcase.

"I am convinced that she has not slept last night," the lady seemed to be thinking aloud, her delicate brows slightly pinched in thought.

"Traveling."

"Perhaps not," the lady persisted.

Jon waited.

She went on, "Sometimes, young girls come to the city to find work. From the country, you know. And they really have nowhere to go, no one to turn to." Her thin, white face had darkened in a pretty frown. "I wonder that their parents would let them just go off like that." After a moment she added, "They don't realize what the city can be like."

"Let me tell you something that happened to me once, young man." And the old lady made a little move to slide toward him on the bench. Jon made a similar move, but there still remained at least five feet between them. Still, the lady continued on with her tale in her confiding, friendly manner.

She had once seen a young girl, like the one down the bench from them, while entering the subway. This young woman had approached her -- "Oh, she would never had done it, she was not a forward girl at all, I assure you monsieur, if she had not been on the verge of utter despair."

There had been a troop of young fellows -- "You know the sort, monsieur" -- who had followed the young woman around, saying awful things to her. She was a country girl who had arrived only that day from her rural home.” (Jon remembered the notices on the church-board in Brittany, warning young women of the evils of the city.)

"She had nowhere else to go, you see, and no work besides."

The little gray lady had calmed the girl's fears and had helped her to a friend's home where she was allowed to spend the night.

"Oh, we had guests in our house at the time, you see, monsieur."

But it had turned out so marvelously: the friend just then has needed an extra helper in his shop -- "just down here on Boulevard St. Germain, you know."

Jon nodded.

"And she is working there still today, and lives not far away. Only yesterday I was visiting with her in the shop."

Jon looked beyond the lady. The girl there had raised her head now, and it was sleepily nodding and snapping up again.

"I am afraid this young girl is in a similar situation."

"Yes," Jon said. "It is possible."

"I could at least help her to a room, and help her to begin looking for work." After a moment, the old lady looked into Jon's face: "Now I will put it to you, monsieur," she said. "Should I approach her?"

Jon slightly smiled, but then spoke gravely, "Well, Madame, it could certainly do no harm. Even if the girl does not need your assistance, I am certain she will be pleased to see someone interested in being kind. And, of course, it could help her."

"I could at least tell her somewhere she could go," the lady said, frowning.

"I am afraid that if I spoke," Jon said, "I would only frighten her." He was confident he was risking nothing.

The lady looked up and said firmly, "No, of course not. It could not be a man." She paused and then asked, rhetorically Jon thought, "Shall I approach her?"

Jon smiled. "I think it would be quite nice of you, Madame," he said.

The delicate features of her face came suddenly alive in a clear smile. "O merci, monsieur. I will do it." She stood up, and smiled au revoir. Jon nodded and murmured "Madame" as good-bye through his wise smile. The little gray lady marched sprightly away. Jon thought it strange that she walked directly away from the girl, but in a moment he saw her round the far bend and approach from the other direction. She had circled the lawn, he thought with admiration.

The young woman and the old lady conversed quietly several minutes, and then the lady stood up and hurried away down the path toward the Rue d'Assas, without looking back at Jon. He mildly wondered what had been said, and wondered too if the long gray paper or pamphlet the girl held in her hand had been given to her by the old gray lady. It could have been a ticket, he supposed.

He sat back on the warm slats and stretched his legs out before him. Then he sat forward, stood, and walked down the narrow path into the leaves.

A moment later, when he stepped out from the row of urinals behind the bushes, the girl and her heavy suitcase were gone.

3

The night was cool. Again, like that morning days before in the park, the air felt soft on Jon's face and in his hair as he walked excitedly across the black, ripple-lit Seine at Boulevard St. Michel. The street lamps stood out from the quiet darkness, surrounded by a sphere of golden mist.

Jon fairly skipped along, his heart still ringing with Othello's thunderous cries. A British company had been visiting at Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt. He went there often now, where he could see a play for two francs.

The streets were charmed to Jon's sleepy but energized mind, and his step was light as he twisted through the turns of his now- familiar pathway home. Turning quickly down a small street running obliquely from the river, again turning beyond the small bright café there that was never closed, again into the long, moon-shadowed walk beside the towers and black walls of old St. Sulpice, and across the tiny square. Soon he was walking more slowly as his long day found him (it was after one a.m., and he hadn't slept since seven the morning before), and as the thrilling tones of Shakespeare's poetry faded away into the calm, black night behind the street lamps, walking along brightly lit but tranquil Rue de Rennes. There, blocks and blocks before him he could just make out the lights of Gare Montparnasse and its gloomy, squatting bulk in the distant shadows and neon colors of the Boulevard which ran before it.

He was crossing the broad Boulevard Raspail, which was also brightly lit and equally tranquil, when he saw her. She was sitting on the light rust-colored bench next to the metro entrance in the center of the little strip where the trees and grass grew dividing Boulevard Raspail. The metro stairs were dark and closed by a black, iron gate.

It was the girl he had seen in the Jardin. There at her feet again was the heavy brown suitcase. She sat motionless and looked away when Jon passed.

He crossed the boulevard, continuing his way, but just beyond the heavy cream-stone corner of the Crédit Commercial there he stopped, and called out inside himself to the exhausted, sad face he had seen. Yet he did not know what to do.

He hurried to the next corner and raced down and around, and then turned carefully onto Boulevard Raspail a block nearer the Seine. He walked quietly closer to her, watching her from behind as she eyed carelessly the car whose lights flashed yellow, crossed Rue de Rennes, and drove slowly by.

Jon stopped behind the corner of a construction project 50 yards beyond her and peeped at the girl. She certainly recognized me, he thought; it was the one clear thought he could gather through his night-bound brain.

For several minutes he watched her. She sat unmoving in the streetlight shadows beyond the vague, dark forms of the trees near Jon's hiding place. The little gray lady must have been right, he thought, and the girl has come to sit here on Boulevard Raspail because there are not many who pass here, yet the branches are well-lit and, if a cry would arouse aid from bourgeois beds anywhere in Paris, it would do so here. Jon realized, however, that there were not so many ears to hear, or to unhear there in a commercial district, near the lights at Rue de Rennes and the shady trees along the Boulevard. Yet that was why she had come, he was sure.

Perhaps, though, she wasn't naive and frightened. Perhaps she was merely a prostitute. But she is inept, he thought. There would be no one passing here, by the large shops and banks, the libraries and bureaux.

Jon imagined approaching her. "Excusez-moi, mademoiselle," he would keep his eyes on the ground and be very quiet. He would ask her if she remembered the little old lady in the park that day. She would; she had even recognized him.

But then… What then?

There are two possibilities, Jon thought, getting more and more nervous and growing more and more conscious of how late it was becoming. She still sat there staring blankly up Rue de Rennes.

Two possibilities -- she is a scared lost waif; or she is a whore.

If I approach, he thought, and she is scared and lost, she will be terrified -- perhaps will even panic and flee. He imagined in the shadow of the corrugated tin the large-boned girl clumsily stumbling off down Rue de Rennes in a pathetic, bumping run with her heavy suitcase banging her shins and hips and tripping her. Or perhaps she would even leave the valise behind, and Jon would be left with it, responsible for its being gone from her like a low thief.

And if she is a prostitute, merely a young inexperienced one from some other city, not used to the ways of Paris and the places where people go at night--Pigalle, Montparnasse, les Halles, St. Lazare, What then? Could Jon laugh it off and bow away gracefully? He didn't even want to imagine the scene.

He stood there a long time, considering even the police--no, they would simply take her to jail, if they listened to Jon at all. He had nowhere to turn for advice, no woman close-by who could do the asking for him. His landlady was out of town, in fact. (He would not have awakened her at that hour anyway, he realized.)

Finally, as it approached two a.m., he decided to walk slowly down his side of the street, not near enough to alarm her, yet near enough--and she would clearly recognize him again, even if he did not look at her--and slowly enough for her to call out or come to him if she were truly desperate. He had dressed nicely for the theatre, and looked respectable, and even English no doubt. He wasn't sure, but he stepped out from behind the construction works and walked toward the corner.

His heels sounded loudly on the walk. He turned his face into the light and felt her eyes on him.

What if she does call? Jon thought suddenly.

He couldn't take her home. Madame was gone and Paul, his roommate--yes, crazy old Paul would understand, of course. He might even like it since it would be so unexpected. But no, that would not be what he should do... Madame would not have approved, and he would respect her feelings.

He came to the corner and stopped, gazing off into the gloom beyond, up Boulevard Raspail toward Montparnasse where there was a statue of Balzac by Rodin. He would take her to a hotel he knew where his friend David had stayed the year before; it was only a few blocks away. He waited a moment, and then moved on around the corner.

She had not spoken; she would not come.

Jon hurried along the shady unlit blocks toward his room. He imagined desperately a fantastic plan to approach the police: "If I were to tell you of a girl, etc., what would you do?" he would say. "Would you see her to a hotel? or help her somehow?" But he could not imagine himself doing that. He couldn't imagine either that they would even listen to him.

And soon his furied footsteps were echoing dully into the shades of little Rue Mayet where he lived. He leaned and shoved open the heavy door at number 10. It swung silently back, splashing on the uneven brick floor a skewed trapezoid of light and his black silhouette framed in it. He stepped inside and swung carefully the door back, closing out the street light.

He stood silently a moment, waiting for his eyes to adjust enough to the darkness for him to see the Roman bust, quietly ghost-like in the moonlight of the court at the end of the entrance-way. His heels clacked with their familiar, incongruous cheeriness on the bricks. He moved slowly, his hands stiffly before him like a blind man with no cane or dog, until an amorphous patch of whiteness came to view at his left.

It was the sign which said "Fermez la porte, s. v. p." and which was just below the doorknob. He stepped up the curb-like step his toes found, reached for the door handle and silently turned it, to step inside. Madame's flat was two flights above. He moved carefully to the narrow stairs; they creaked under him.

She would be there still, he thought, sitting in the light of the Rue de Rennes, sleeping by day on a park bench where she could not lie down. And if it rained? (It rained often in Paris.)

His knees felt very old and his thighs heavy as he moved unhurriedly up one step and then another. At the first landing he looked down into the tiny court, on the cracked statue and garbage cans, and then up into the sky; but the eave was too wide and he could not see the soft moon which he had seen rippling the Seine.

Even Paul would be home by now, sleeping perhaps. Jon stepped up stair after stair, twisting to his right up the stairwell.

His heavy key jumped into his hand from his pocket, but the hole was difficult to find in the darkness of the landing. He felt the door with his fingers as an eyeless man reads his Bible, and found nothing. He was becoming exasperated.

She would be watching a lonely car now and again, blinking its yellow lights at the intersection and moving slowly on. Perhaps she would be frightened if one of them moved very slowly by her and she saw mocking young eyes leering out at her.

The key scraped hollowly in the lock. Jon stepped into the foyer. He stood there a long moment and then turned, feeling along the wall to the right and down a tiny passageway, where the bathroom was.

4

In a moment, he stepped briskly back through the passage; at the foyer he did not continue on toward his and Paul's room, but pulled instead at the door latch. He ran headlong, though not noisily, down the stairs, through the door, stumbled on the step, but quickly pulled the heavy door open. He would not ask Paul about it. It didn't seem to be any of his affair.

In a moment, he was racing down Rue du Cherche-Midi, his hard steps splatting into the silent night air like high school boys stomping overturned paper cups at a football game. He fled through the streetlights and shadows beyond the Post Office street, beyond the favored wine shop all shuttered and barred, beyond Rue Dupin and Hotel Raspail there with the nice Swiss lady who slept next to her office, beyond the long wall.

He came to the corner and slowed to a walk, his breathing heavy but regular. It was Boulevard Raspail, the corner behind her again; and Jon turned and walked silently, quickly to the corrugated tin blind.

She had not moved at all. She had not even slumped forward to sleep what little she could, but held her head erect staring before her into the shadows up Boulevard Raspail. He remembered how heavy her full cheeks looked, and felt tired.

His running had given him a headache, and his breathing slowly grew more normal, his temples took up the regular throb, and his eyes ached. He stood there idly watching the girl in her light brown coat. And then he turned back for home.

5

He was not aware of the streets before Rue Mayet, nor of the heavy door and the trapezoid of light. He moved mechanically through the inner door, and more and more wearily up the stairs. He was suddenly overcome with deep fatigue. His limbs ached as they had after he had borrowed Paul's bicycle and had ridden 50 miles. He concentrated all his effort on getting up the steps.

The key slipped in, and he was home. He felt for the bathroom again, and decided to wake Paul up to tell him about the girl. What would he advise?

Soon he quietly crossed the entranceway, streaked by the light leaking through from the living room windows beyond the piano. His feet sounded suddenly heavy as he stepped from the carpet onto the creaking boards of the hallway. He stepped carefully down it, turned to the right, and pushed the door open to their room.

If he saw her again some night, he decided, he would not fail again to approach her.

Paul's strong breathing was peaceful. The lights from Rue Mayet filtered as always, softly through the thin white curtains Madame had hung for them. Jon heard the ticking of his clock.

He sat on the edge of his bed, set back into a small alcove in the wall across from the windows, listening to Paul's breathing and the clock's tiny ticking and staring at the cool pattern of light on the rug in the floor's center.

After a moment, he stood up and undressed. He climbed into bed, the alarm set for seven as always.

And soon, his quiet breathing was as peaceful and as regular as the clock.

***

Beware of Evil (and of Good also)

***

1

In one of T. S. Eliot’s plays, a mysterious leading character says that we must distinguish between sin (which was very important to Eliot, who was a deeply spiritual individual) and immorality. Sin is an example of evil, which we can distinguish from immorality, which is “wrong,” of course; but especially when discussing public issues, it is useful strategy to say that immorality is wrong, but is not evil. Sin is evil; immorality – on the other hand - is wrong. The opposite of immorality is morality. Immoral action, which is not “right,” is “wrong.”

At least when discussing contentious public issues, it is a good strategy for everyone to deliberate about the difference between right and wrong, rather than the difference between good and evil. As I will mention below, this is a strategy more likely to lead toward resolution of serious and lasting public issues than would be the confusion of “immoral” behavior for “evil” actions.

2

But first, we need to sharpen our understanding of the difference between these two important concepts by looking at some examples.

In Eliot’s play, the context of the discussion about sin and immorality is boiling Christian missionaries in Africa! We can all agree that such a barbaric and heinous act seems wrong or immoral, I presume.

But it may be more complex than that. If the missionary’s real goal had been to colonize the indigenous people and to subjugate them, I hope everyone would agree that that too would have been immoral. Or if the means of converting the Africans was bribery (as in “We will provide you with irrigation if you will worship Christ…”), then at least to some that also might seem wrong.

On the other hand, if the missionary’s fault were naiveté, ignorance of the indigenous culture, even not understanding the colonial result of religious conversion – if so, we might say that was not right, and may be wrong… but boiling the naïve, ignorant missionary would seem at least what we might call an overreaction, to a wrong but not a sin. That’s the character’s point in Eliot’s play.

3

At every time in a society, there is disagreement about moral issues; some people are convinced that something or some action is wrong, while others say that same thing is right. We all know that from everyday experience.

Let me ask you to think for a moment and identify a very significant issue which right now divides us, splits American society, an issue about which various people have very different views, even profound disagreement. Think of one or two at least.

We might use capital punishment as an example of such a divisive, contentious issue. Capital punishment is certainly an important public issue about which people profoundly disagree, but at this moment in our history, the issue of capital punishment is probably less burdened with emotional baggage than the ones you may have thought of.

The point is, we can imagine someone’s thinking that, on balance, capital punishment is moral, and of course it is legal in many states. Some, that is, would say that capital punishment is, sadly, necessary for maintaining social order, perhaps essential for the sake of justice, and so on. In other words, one might argue that in some circumstances capital punishment is the right action for society to take.

But even one who is making that argument is not likely to think that capital punishment is “good.” It may be moral or right, but it is not a positive good, we might agree.

To say capital punishment is indeed a positive good, speaking and thinking rationally, using terms precisely, one would have to consider the crime being punished as not simply “wrong” or “immoral,” but evil – which would not be a useful strategy in discussing this complex public issue.

We know that there are other people today who maintain, often passionately, that capital punishment is wrong, immoral, no matter how heinous the individual’s crime. It is simply wrong, they say, for society to kill that person, and they may even say that capital punishment is as immoral, as wrong, as the murder, or multiple murders, or rape- torture-and-murder that the criminal has committed. We might all agree that what he (or she) did was terrible, among the most immoral, the most wrong of all possible behaviors; but for society to kill him (or her) – this argument would run – is just as wrong.

4

The distinction between good and evil and the distinction between right and wrong are certainly both important, among the most important matters we can ponder or debate. But is it helpful for us to confuse that which is right or moral, with that which is good? Or – much more critically – shouldn’t we avoid confusing that which is immoral with what is evil?

To apply this line of reasoning: When you thought of one or two of the issues that we are actually confronting today – about which Democrats and Republicans can have contrasting opinions, or over which believers and non-believers may struggle - some of the issues thought of may involve matters that you actually abhor, whether it be abortion or homosexuality, or torture, or big corporations significantly influencing the public media, or whatever.

The question is, Is what you abhor “evil”? We would be far better off avoiding any temptation we might feel to say so. No matter how much we detest or abhor some action, in a public discussion we would do better to consider that abhorrent behavior immoral or wrong… but not evil. So, Beware of evil.

And at the same time, in regard to such contentious public issues as those current ones that you thought of, what we might support or admire we should consider, not “good,” but right, the moral thing to do. (Beware also of good, we might say.)

It is much more useful both for ourselves and particularly for our nation, or any nation, to think in terms of right and wrong, rather than in terms of good and evil. Avoiding the temptation to think of public issues as absolutes, like good vs. evil, is not just wordplay (as it may have seemed at first); it is significant too, as well as useful and valuable.

Between evil and good, there is no possibility of finding a middle ground, no possible agreement, no peace. If we think of behaviors in the contentious issues that divide us as moral or immoral, we are much more likely to be able to approach them rationally, without dogma, bias, or superstition, and with a practical chance to move toward understanding and accommodation of others’ opposing views and beliefs.

***

Reminisence: My Eye Exam

***

1

When I was 27 years old, the U. S. government conferred upon me a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship to France. The award letter said that in order to formalize the Fulbright, I would need to pass several kinds of examination. These included an FBI background check (I wondered if they would discover the several meetings I had attended as an undergraduate of the American Socialist Party; I never knew… ) – and a rigorous series of physical exams.

Since I had not had any kind of physical since graduation from high school, I was glad to comply.

(Note: I don’t recall the FBI ever saying anything directly to me, but soon some friends and former professors and employers were congratulating me on my Fulbright, of which they had learned from J. Edgar Hoover… well, maybe not from him personally.)

I found a physician in my California graduate school town who would do the basic lab tests and an elaborate physical exam for a price I could fairly easily afford. But an eye exam was also required, and I could not immediately find an ophthalmologist.


In our next family phone call, my mother asked where I was in the Fulbright process. I casually mentioned my not yet having found an eye doctor, and my dad and mom suggested I get that exam in a few weeks when I was planning a brief visit back to our home in Texas. They would find the doctor and even pay for the examination. Who could say No to that?

My mother went on to mention that she thought the long-time family eye doctor, an imposing German man with a strong accent (as I remembered), was still in practice. This news was at first surprising, since Dr. O--------- had first started with us about 20 years before, and had seemed pretty old when I was only nine; but I was happy to leave Mom in charge and concentrate on making progress on my dissertation.

2

As a child, I had had two experiences with Dr. O---------: an initial exam when I was 7 or 8, because – as I recall it - my sister was being fitted for glasses. I had no vision problem at that time myself, but my parents – both of whom wore glasses, by the way – must have thought, Why not have Byron checked too?

When I was 10 or 11, I began having headaches, especially after going to a movie. That must have already happened at least a couple of times when I went downtown to the Queen Theatre to see what was no doubt a “B” movie and had to leave in the middle because my head hurt so. I called Mother to come pick me up, and she decided to take me in to have my eyes checked.

I didn’t know exactly what to expect since I had “passed” my first exam with flying colors. I was a little concerned, I remember, first because I didn’t like the headaches and hoped my little problem that would go away (soon) on its own and also because Dr. O--------- had scared me in the first visit a year or so earlier.

He was tall, big, cool, and he spoke loudly, decisively, with that strong Germanic accent. There was no chit-chat, not even with my mother. As a somewhat timid little fellow, I was anxious.

Dr. O--------- examined me, leaving my mother in the waiting room. I did my best, but found no way to reassure myself. And the final outcome was that I got glasses to wear while reading and, especially, when going to the movies.

I liked reading, and I liked going to the movies, so in itself that didn’t seem like a bad deal. I rather liked the way I looked too, behind the traditional horn-rims. On the other hand, as a kid who everyday wore blue jeans and a tee shirt, I had no convenient pocket where I could put the glasses. So I carried them in my right back pocket. It didn’t seem to be a problem when I sat down, so that was all right.

3

I was in the sixth grade. I don’t know whose idea it was originally, but a bunch of the kids in my class at W---------- School were signed up for ballroom dancing classes in a little second-floor studio a couple of blocks from school. We would troop over there once a week, girls in a bunch ahead and jostling, loud boys rambling along behind.

Foxtrot, waltz, rhumba, jitterbug, and even the tango – over the weeks, we learned them all. I rather liked dancing, but since the other guys made fun of it all and misbehaved now and then to show how superior they were to such a girlie thing, I kept my enjoyment private.

I don’t remember participating much in the good-natured pushing and shoving, but I didn’t have any trouble fitting in. After all, these were by and large the boys I played with everyday.

One day, shortly after we all had arrived, the guys were especially boisterous and were fooling around a little more vigorously than usual. Somebody had just learned the clever trick of having one buddy get down on all fours behind another so that the leader could give the victim a quick push and he would go crashing backwards to the floor. We had seen a demonstration or two at recess. Everyone thought it was really funny, and no one was in danger of getting hurt, so…

Well, that day waiting for the dance instructor and horsing around, one of my buddies decided it was my turn. It worked like a charm too, and I howled with laughter along with everybody else, as I just about flipped over backwards to the floor.

Yeah, that was fun… until I felt my glasses in my back pocket and had a sinking feeling. I managed to check for damage when no one was looking. One lens was completely smashed, and one earpiece was actually in two pieces.

I didn’t tell my mother, taking a wait-and-see approach. Luckily, the headaches never returned, even at the movies, so I didn’t feel the need to speak up. It seemed a long time later before Mother asked me where my glasses were. I explained that I didn’t need them anymore, so I was no longer even carrying them around. She seemed to think it was a good thing that my sight had improved, and that was that.

4

So, when I got to Texas those many years later, Mother had sure enough set up an appointment for me with the redoubtable Dr. O---------. Fine.

I drove to a new office in a shopping plaza, went through the preliminaries, and after a few minutes was escorted to a narrow, dark little room with a special chair with some impressive equipment hanging about. A young lab technician (with no German accent) entered and gave me the standard sort of exam of my eyesight using projected charts at the end of the room opposite my chair.

He was chatty and pleasant and when finished, said Dr. O--------- would be seeing me soon. After a few more minutes, I was escorted down the hall and into a well-appointed office. Again, I was informed that Dr. O--------- would be joining me soon.

It was an impressive office, with a nice deep carpet, built-in wooden bookshelves all around the walls, and a huge dark wooden desk, in front of which I was asked to sit to wait for the doctor. The hard seat was rather low compared to the massive desk, and I felt small as I waited.

It seemed a little longer than a few minutes. I was wondering if I would recognize Dr. O--------- after all those years; I couldn’t call to mind anything about his appearance except that he seemed tall and imposing. And I waited a little more.

Then, the door abruptly opened as Dr. O--------- entered and pulled the door to behind him. He strode across the room, in his white doctor’s smock, acknowledging my presence with a curt nod. I did recognize him, after all, despite all the streaks of grey in his thick, black hair.

Seating himself in a tall office-desk chair opposite my little, crouching straight chair, the doctor peered at me intently. I nodded again and murmured, “Morning, sir.” He nodded again and looked down at the folder on the desk in front of him. He looked at one page and turned it over. He reviewed another page and another… I was sitting there quietly.

At length, Dr. O-------- closed the folder, hunched forward, and examined my face carefully. He cleared his throat, leaned toward me a bit further, and spoke loudly in a clear baritone:

“Where,” he said (though it was really “Verr” with a “V”),

“WHERE – ARE – YOUR – GLASSES?”

***

Story: Inarticulate Hour

***

This close-companioned inarticulate hour
When twofold silence was the song of love.

- Dante Gabriel Rossetti

*

1

If someone had been watching him from above, he thought, he would appear as the only moving thing in the silent world he was walking through. In the direction he was moving at the moment, after turning one corner coming down the long hill from the university, there would be on the viewer's left the park rolling out from the grid-pattern of streets around it. There would be the hill above and the tops of the houses he was walking by, with their steep, shingled roofs ranged properly in their neat rows back from the gray lawns in front of them. The houses were pretty tall for just houses, two and often three stories, and if the one above was not looking at just the right angle, Jon himself would be hidden behind them. Except perhaps as he crossed the street.

He always walked along the same route, climbing up the hill in the mornings to keep office hours or to type something since he his typewriter at the university instead of at home, to check into the library, or attend a graduate seminar; and wandering back down again in the afternoons, just before it was late, after class. He taught two sections of freshman English and paid that way for his books and his apartment and his food. It was the third year he had done that.

"Perhaps she will call me," he thought.

He walked the same way everyday, enjoying the feel of being regular like that for no reason at all except it was fun; but in the mornings he found himself on one side of the street and then later crossed over, and in the afternoons, he would take the other side, sometimes even walking in the street.

By now he was proceeding along the street that touched the corner of the park. He walked the street on the park side, just beyond the soggy leaves that filled the gutter. He didn't like to get his feet wet because it ruined his shoes and because he refused to buy rubbers, as everyone else did, in a kind of denial that the weather was all that bad. It was all that bad anyway, of course, despite what he tried to make it by not buying them. His influence in such matters was not great.

"But why would she call?"

Among all the trees in the parkway at his side which stood there shivering above their dropped leaves like trembling virgins naked for the first time before a man, there was one old codger of a tree whose bark was thick and rough and which, now that the leaves are gone, attracted one's eye only to its trunk, stubby and stout, twisted slightly to one side and further deformed by huge lumps that bulged out of its sides in two or three places. That tree inspired him with confidence. Everyday when he went by he picked it out from the others and tried to absorb some of its sturdiness. Before all the birds had flown off to the South, they had crowded around those trees and hopped along the ground.

It was the time of day then, however, when everything was quiet. There happened to be no wind. It was late enough that all the children who lived around there were home already from school, and cold enough that they weren't playing outside. It was early enough that not too many people had started home yet from work, so that there wasn't any noise up by the park from the big boulevard at the bottom of the hill. He could hear nothing besides his own footsteps; and they, of course, weren't much.

But she might call, just the same," he was thinking.

He enjoyed teaching because it broke up his day, and he was not unpopular with the students. He graded hard (though of course he was fair) and besides, didn't expect them to do too much work. He always had a few students, every semester, who got very interested in the course and worked very hard. At the end of the term a few of them might come up to him when they handed in their exams and say something awkward about how much they had liked the course. He enjoyed it even more if they were really embarrassed and hesitated a little or stammered, because he thought that showed they were sincere. It was still early in this particular semester, however, and he had just gotten to know the students' names.

Beyond the corner of the park, a little farther down the hill, was a flight of steps, leading him down to a steep street slanting toward the boulevard and his "place" (as he thought of it) just beyond. He always bumped his briefcase on his knee or shin going down the steps, or behind him (as he just did again) on a step at the turning. The street way going so steeply down like that opened up the sky more to his view, and he could see quite far across the city where another hill rose, spotted with crummy frame houses that he thought must be as bad close up as the ones he was walking by.

It was Friday afternoon, the end of the month, and the weekend spread out before him like a great plain filled with cold and lifeless garbage he would have to pick his way through--but that would over-dramatizing it.

He crossed the street to the broken sidewalk there, swinging his briefcase out before him and back. It certainly was better going down than going up.

He imagined ahead of himself that when he would be opening the door--No, it would be some time later after he had settled down in his window niche on the comfortable chair with something to read, his Leconte de Lisle perhaps. The telephone would ring and he would wonder who it was, going over to see, letting it ring twice or so. He figured it all out as he walked along.

Hello. Is that Jon?"

He wouldn't know who it was, you know. He never had been much good at recognizing voices over the telephone even after hearing them several times. And this time he would have heard the voice only once before on the phone anyway. He would say that it was Jon, though, naturally.

This is Emily," she would say, and, sure enough, he would recognize the voice once he knew who it was.

Emily Lukas was his co-teacher in one class of freshmen. She had just come out from the Midwest that fall, four weeks before or so, and at the university now they were trying to "train" the new instructors by putting two classes together and having the new instructor and a "veteran," as they called him, teach the double-class together. It wasn't much of an idea, of course, and the sixty students or so they had in that class were already restless; but so far Jon was enjoying it.

Emily didn't have a telephone herself. She had called him not long before the semester began so that they could plan what they were going to do. She had come up to his apartment, in fact, because she had a car and he didn't, of course, to talk it over one night. They both seemed to have a good time and went on with it until late.

"Hiya kiddo." He might even say that back to her when she called again.

"Listen...," she would say in preface but would then fall silent. One thing you were conscious of talking on the phone was the warmth you somehow generated between your ear and the receiver. And then, just breathing over the mouthpiece that close to your lips, that too gave it a kind of intimacy.

He knew right away that Emily had some kind of trouble. But he didn't know what sort or what she wanted to do about it. That was all right (or would be, you know, if this thing really happened)--that was all right because he always had been able to get people to talk to him.

"I was thinking about you just now." He might as well boldly say that to her (which would be true, of course, since he was thinking of her at that very moment).

If he had wanted to think about it, he would have been struck again, as one is periodically, by the amazing speed of his mind. He was walking along all this time down the curving street toward the boulevard, which was not very far to go. Only about one block and a half or so compared to most streets. And yet he had already begun in his mind all this telephone story. He was even having time to sort through several possible things that could happen--for example, he almost had Emily say, "May I speak with Jon, please?" and almost just now had himself say, "What's up?"--and still confident of finishing the whole scene before he got to the stoplight at the bottom of the hill. You could go through a scene like that much more quickly in your mind than you could walk down the hill.

"You were?" Emily would really wonder about his thinking about her, but would add in a lower tone, "About the class?"

"Well, no, not really," Jon would say. "I was wondering what happened to you over weekends. Not really knowing too many people here yet."

"Oh... Listen," Emily would say again. "I wondered if I could come over and see you."

"Well, sure," Jon would say. "Would you rather I came over there? I could take the bus..."

At this point, he didn't even know which he wanted to happen... He was prepared to skip that part of the conservation.

Emily was small and girlish with delicate limbs and fine features. She wore her hair, just any-old brown, cut very short, lying flat on her head, barely fingering down onto her neck and wisping a little around her ears. She didn't wear make-up--as no insecure, intellectual, and "arty" girl from a Midwest college would--but her features were regular enough and lightly enough formed that one didn't even notice. She had brown eyes that didn't require punctuation, and her lips, though thin and her mouth small, were well-defined and yet not hard or cold. Her voice was low and musical.

She dressed what she must have called sensibly. Plain wool skirts, longer than the fashion, and simple blouses. She hadn't really made friends as far as anyone could tell, and didn't say much in her seminars. Some thought her an amazon of sorts, but most didn't notice.

Emily, you see, was the reason why Jon was enjoying the semester so far. He had begun to go over to her office more and more before class began because, as they got to know better what the course was going to do and what they could expect from each other and so talked less and less about classwork, they talked more about each other. Emily had been born and raised in Atlanta, for example.

But it wasn't what they talked about, you know, but how it happened to get said. He would be sitting on the desk across from hers in her office, swinging his legs a little and leaning on his hands at his sides on the edge of the desk; and she would be at her own before him. There was a little smile that kept getting mixed up in everything she was saying; it kept playing around her smooth cheeks and lips, and sometimes they would both laugh, more just because it was pleasant than for any reason.

That was the first weeks when she was happy.

By the time he had arrived at the stoplight, where he had to wait for several cars to pass, he had finished the scene. The last of it had to be pretty vague since he couldn't really invent anything definite to be bothering Emily. Or if he could, he didn't want to. It didn't really matter after all, or even interest him. And as he crossed the street and went on toward the house where his apartment was, he was filled with a sense of his own strength to face the difficulty and kindness and tact. She had come to him not to solve the problem or to wish it away, but for the quiet she needed to gain the strength to face the difficulty and perhaps to set about snuffing it out. He thought he could manage that.

She had even mentioned one time in the office how happy she was to be there and to be setting out anew again. As if she had to say it in words. She mentioned that it was especially good to be living alone again. Jon himself hadn't had a roommate since sophomore year.

The last week or so, however, had been slightly different for Emily, which had prompted Jon's most recent daydream. Emily had always received a good many letters--one couldn't help noticing since all the teacher's boxes were right next to each other and Jon and Emily most often went up to the office for mail together before class. Her mother was involved in a divorce suit; she had mentioned that but didn't seem to be very much concerned (it was not evidently her father involved). And there were letters from someone who wrote in a huge, scribbled hand on wide-line tablet paper, which came from the town where she had been to college. More of them had come recently.

When she and Jon talked together, she had a languid air about her--mostly because of her warm and mellifluous voice--but she smoked a lot and now and then her hands would flit nervously over the top of the desk in front of her. Sometimes too her movements as they walked to class would suddenly become angular and awkward, and her face would freeze for an instant at his side.

He didn't speculate much on what people did not tell him about their lives, perhaps because so many told him more than he was interested in knowing. But he expected vaguely that the letters from the Midwest came from a hopeless and sick lover she had been living with before moving East. He was a little glad to hear she was tired of that kind of living because that would have made it impossible for him who couldn't get that involved. But he was glad to think also that she had had that kind of experience.

2

He had moved into many other scenes by the time he reached the door of his little apartment. He had found a few in the fifty yards or so between the boulevard and his house, several more on the porch and in the red door there, and in his empty mailbox many others which he moved through incoherently as he climbed up the stairs. His apartment was fairly long and narrow; it was rounded on the end that faced the lawn before the house, where the roof just above made the ceiling slope down. At that end, there was a small window set into a niche of its own, just wide enough for a disreputable sofa chair with its slipcover falling off, which required an old pillow punched inside it because of the stuffing that had died within. At the other end was a microscopic kitchen and the bathroom.

But the room itself was filled with other lands and other times, crowded with people he had known or read about, and with new faces and scenes he met there everyday. All English graduate students have a lot of books. Jon's especial boast to himself was that he had read all the ones he had. Except for a few selections in anthologies, most of which he knew.

So he was sitting in the window niche, because natural light is so much easier on your eyes, and this time was strolling around the silent, sunlit fields outside of Paris with "pere Leconte"--when the telephone rang. He had only had a telephone for a few months, and it always startled him when it rang. He moved quickly across the room. He let it ring twice.

"Jon? This is Dr. Thompson." There were two striking things about that. First, Dr. Thompson, a Shakespeare instructor and the director of Freshman English and so Jon's immediate superior at the University, never spoke to him except addressing him as "Mr. Arcott". Second, and even more interesting perhaps, Jon had never spoken to Dr. Thompson on the telephone before, but he had immediately recognized his voice, just after "Jon?"

"Yes, sir. How are you?" He didn't like to speak on the phone because it seemed such a cold and distant way to communicate.

Dr. Thompson went on: "I wanted...Well," and he started over again. "Do you know where Ms. Lukas is?" he said.

Jon had wondered himself what happened to Emily on weekends and hadn't seen her since their class together early in the afternoon. He didn't notice anything peculiar in Dr. Thompson's calling to ask that. Perhaps it was a special-delivery letter, or just some administrative detail.

"Let me tell you why I have to ask," he said. "I have received a note from her--I just found it in my box this afternoon; no one knows when it was placed there--the note saying that Ms. Lukas is sorry but she just can't stay here any longer." He paused there for a moment to let Jon acknowledge his surprise. He did that because he knew Dr. Thompson was waiting, but he didn't bother to say anything, just making a nonverbal sound.

"She apologizes profusely and says she's sorry she didn't have enough nerve to come in and tell me in person. I don't mind about that, however."

Jon just wanted him to go on.

"She says that she has been very happy here, and especially she has some very good words to say about you, Jon. She says that she especially regrets that you will probably have more work to do now because of her leaving."

Jon wanted to speak then, about that was unimportant, but Dr. Thompson was going on.

"Now, I called to ask...I am sure that you realize that I am asking only to help get my bearings here. And I am still hoping I can catch Ms. Lukas before she leaves the city. But what I wanted...Do you know her at all personally?"

Jon couldn't really help much, of course, and Dr. Thompson said he was going to drive over to Emily's apartment, since she didn't have a telephone, and he would call Jon again if there was anything to report. Jon did mention her mother's divorce and tried to suggest too that Dr. Thompson should especially call if there was anything he, Jon, could do to help. And they hung up. Jon didn't know if he had made himself clear.

3

He went back to the sofa chair and sat down, turning it as he did so a little more toward the window. He thought that probably there was a note from Emily in his box, too, but the office would be closed before he could walk up and get it. He wouldn't see it until Monday. What could it say anyway? Perhaps she would tell him that she had enjoyed working with him and was sorry to have to leave. Maybe she would even tell him what it was that was making her go away. But that was just curiosity.

Would Dr. Thompson find her before she drove off? No, that would mean that she would really have wanted to be stopped, since she was not so unintelligent as to think no one would care. And if all she had wanted was sympathy, she would have called him instead. Or told him after class. She wasn't weak, anyway; he had known that all along.

What would become of him now?

His apartment was on the third floor and the house across the street was only two stories high, so that when he looked out his window, he saw above it into the quiet clouds moving slowly across what was left of the weak, orange glow on the sky. It was very quiet, the cars going home on the boulevard somehow distant and muted.

As he sat there watching the vague clouds, he began to wonder who those letters had been coming from that were written on the old tablet paper. She had broken away from all of it; she must have felt that firmly and confidently when she had arrived. Just buying new books and moving into a new apartment, and seeing a new campus even if it wasn't much, and even knowing him--even if he wasn't either. Just being new would have been enough. Jon knew what it was to break out and start again; he knew the joy of feeling old ties and old burdens slip away. One doesn't make all his burdens himself, after all, and sometimes you have to shrug them away. Jon had realized that before.

But old ties and burdens you haven't created yourself, perhaps one is responsible to them after all. Perhaps that doesn't even matter, because perhaps the old ties are not ever really broken.

Emily had flown whole and strong, though tiny and delicate, from the shells cracking around her and into a kind of ether she hadn't felt capable of breathing in. It must have been a great joy. In fact, he had seen her eyes cool and calm, and had heard her laughter. So he knew.

She must have had to fight herself free; perhaps in fact it was an old part of herself that she had been leaving behind, broken and falling from her. An old woman who had cheated her and hurt her and tied her to insane neurotics and irresponsible mental invalids in order to hurt herself, to bind her down.

And now, Jon saw, the frail and invisible arm that had thrown her into the air, the gossamer bond draped lightly about her foot, had reached out for her again, had pulled her inevitably back toppling blind into the depressions she had hollowed behind her in the past.

He would take over her other class, at least for a time; there was no doubt of that. He would make her going as easy for those left in place as one could. But it seemed an empty gesture.

Perhaps one day she would write to him to say what it was, or merely to invite a word from him, and he could show somehow that it wasn't her going...It was her having to go, that left him nodding solemnly in the window, watching, concerned, and resigned, in the shadows of the evening. Perhaps if he could say it right, she would know for certain what she surely must feel somewhat already, and perhaps even hope, that her going and the bother it left him in his work was not all, though that would be what he would say.

4

It might have been a telephone line that ran from the top of his house across the street, slanting down just over one corner of the frame the window made of his seeing. It was growing dark even behind the line now in the West, but Jon could see in darkened silhouette at least a sparrow, perhaps it was, or something else since he didn't know much about birds. It was sitting on the line just at the edge of the picture the window made him, turned toward him, he thought, but couldn't know for sure in that kind of light.

He wondered why that bird hadn't moved on to the South by then. It was cold enough by then, and the days were short. He said to the bird in his mind to fly away, to go on down where its instincts must be telling it to go. He didn't command, but coaxed in a sympathetic way as an experienced teacher will sometimes encourage a bashful child to speak.

Go on, he said.

But when he had settled back into his chair to gaze more into the wide, dimming sky, the bird had not flown away to the South, where the other birds would be nesting now, and making love.

***

Reminisence: My French Bank

***

1

When I arrived in Lyon in September 1969, I was under the impression that I needed to establish an address before contacting the Fulbright Commission who had hired me for a teaching fellowship. The day after I moved into my little house-keeping room off the Place des Terreaux, I sent a brief letter to the Embassy in Paris informing the Commission of my new address. (I had no telephone; few people did.)

It seemed like immediately (it must have been the next day) when I received a telegram expressing some urgency that the Commission had been waiting and waiting for me to tell them of my new bank account so that they could send me my first paycheck (which they apparently thought I would need to get set up), and saying that I should hurry to the Post Office to pick up my first pay in cash!

Well, indeed I did hurry right over to the Poste, which I had noticed only a couple of blocks away. There with a minimum of hullabaloo, I picked up this wad of French bills. I was much impressed with the Commission’s concern for my welfare as well as the efficiency with which they had solved their problem.

But as I emerged on the Avenue, I began to realize that now the problem was mine. The door to my little room was about as thick as the cardboard of a sturdy packing box – that is, not secure at all. I didn’t know my neighbors (and never did, by the way, although I lived there for eight or nine months). “Were they possible thieves?’ I wondered.

Nor did I want to be walking around the streets with such a big wad of bills in my pocket. It seemed like more money than I would or could spend for a month or more: what could I do? Well, I needed a bank account for the Commission’s convenience anyway as they wanted to transfer my pay each month from their account to mine.

It happened that right across the street from the Poste was a Banque de France, with an inviting doorway flanked by a well-armed and solemn-faced guard. “What could be more safe and secure?” I asked myself.

Sure enough, as I strolled toward the door, it seemed to me that the guard nodded respectfully. Once I stepped into the large open room – which was recognizable as a bank, with a large counter in the center for customers to fill out their deposit or withdrawal slips, and ringed by tellers’ cages – I saw an inside guard, also with a sidearm, who was actually coming toward me smiling pleasantly. (I must have looked inquisitive if not bewildered as to where to go.) And he asked me what I wished to do at the Banque de France.

I showed him the wad of cash I had just been given at the Poste, which my employer had sent me. I felt I could not trust that my little room was secure – (Ah, he nodded with sympathy) – I didn’t want to be walking around with that much… (Non, non, surtot pas, he seemed to say).

“A new account is what you want,” he said; “Step right to that desk there. Mlle. ________ will be there shortly.”

I went over to the desk, and after a moment or two a young woman did indeed appear. She asked me pleasantly what she could do to help. “Well,” I said, showing her the wad of bills, “I have just received this payment in cash from my employer” – perhaps I mentioned the U. S. Embassy – “who would prefer from then on to simply transfer my monthly compensation.”

Ah, she began to look through her top drawer. “AND even more urgently,” I started – she looked up – “My little room cannot be securely locked up, and I didn’t want to be carrying around all that cash, so…” Oui, oui, she indicated she got it. Just to be sure, I said, “So I need an account to put this money in so it will be safe.” “Yes, yes, Monsieur. You want to open a new account!”

So she got out paperwork, took a lot of information from my passport, with care took down my local address which I told her… Everything seemed to be going well; I relaxed. Even here in this most imposing of banks, people were sympathetic, helpful, even intelligent. Even among the French, I had been told, Lyon was known as “the city of high walls” – that is, where non-locals were shut out. That just wasn’t true, I was thinking.

After a few minutes of her filling out one form and then another, of various sizes, she looked up. I took that as my cue to hold out the wad of cash. “Oh, no, no, Monsieur,” she said, “you need to see a Director. Be pleased to come with me.”

She rose and walked toward the back, going right behind the tellers’ cages, waving me along behind her. At an office, she looked in, softly said a few words, looked encouragingly back at me, then went in with my passport and all the little papers she had been filling out.

When I got to the door, she was tell M.________ that I, Monsieur Derrique, needed an account into which my pay could be transferred AND, more important, I had a sum in cash – I held out my wad of bills – which I could not feel secure leaving in my little room or… Ah non, M.________ indicated that he understood. The young woman went away, after shaking hands. M._______ indicated a chair but shook hands before I made myself comfortable.

“Boy,” I was thinking, “what individual attention I was getting, just a single guy walking in off the street… And this was the Banque … de … France!"

M.________ asked me some questions, apparently checking me out, seeing if I seemed respectable, had nothing up my sleeve. I was impressed by the level of caution. “Would my money ever be safe here!” I was thinking.

After only a few minutes, Eh bien, Monsieur Derrique, he said with a warm smile. I held out the wad of cash again. O non, monsieur. “The cash will go to the cashier. Please follow me, and we will establish an account for you.” He rose and led me to an adjoining office and introduced me to Mme.________. “This young man,” he said, “needs an account; will you take care of that, please?”

“Yes, yes. Monsieur Derrique, please sit down while I fill out a few forms.” As she busied herself, she started a little conversation. “Where in the USA did I live?” And that sort of thing. So it seemed natural for me to mention that I had just arrived in town and had that very morning just received from the Poste my first monthly pay – I held up the wad for her to see – and my room was not a good place to leave it…

Unlike the others, Mme.______ became excited at hearing my story. Leaving me for a moment, she called to M.________ in the office on the other side of her from her boss’s office, who appeared, shook hands, heard my story from her. Ah! he responded, as though I had done something especially brilliant. He waved at one, then two other colleagues, who clustered outside Mme._______’s little office. “This young man,” he explained (proudly, I thought), has a certain amount – I showed my wad of bills – but his room (sympathetic murmurings), his room is not secure.” Yes, they understood, showing equal enthusiasm. “No, his room would not be safe.” “Yes, yes.” “Well, how interesting.”

Mme._____ came forward with my passport and her papers. I figured this was not yet the time to offer my wad of cash; she did not seem to be the cashier. The crowd parted enough for us to make our way back toward the open area; she indicated I should go there while she made arrangements with the cashier.

I went out front.

Mme.____ spoke quietly to one of the men behind the cages and then nodded in my direction; she gave him the paperwork and beckoned me to step up to his window. I now realized that his window was the only one with thick Plexiglas around it; he was indeed the cashier.

And he was all business. He slipped my passport through the little opening under the Plexiglas. He looked up – I held up the bills - yes, he nodded. I began to stuff the bills through the opening. He straightened them, and after counting them two times rather carefully, he wrote in what looked quite a bit like a checkbook. It was! After a moment more, he slipped the checkbook under the window to me and said, “Monsieur, you now have a comte etranger (foreigner’s account) in the Banque de France!"

As I headed for the door, the guard nodded cheerfully. I had the sense that the guard outside too, knew that now I was legit.

The telegram saying go directly to the Post Office had come barely more than an hour before, and now I (me!) could write cheques on the Banque de France! Wow, I thought as I headed across the Place des Terreaux and up the stairs to my little, much maligned room. Did that feel like an accomplishment, or what?

2

In Lyon in those days, there were actually two mail deliveries each day: one about 9 a.m. and one about 4 p.m. Boy, was I surprised when at 4 that day, there was already a letter from my Banque de France. Wasn’t that efficient?

Sure enough, it was a letter signed by the Directeur himself (not the lesser person I had met, apparently) confirming that I now had a checking account in his bank. But it went on to say there was a certain problem, so would I please come to the bank at my earliest convenience.

What could it be? I wondered, not really concerned since I had succeeded in opening the account. But I did hurry the one or two blocks down the Avenue and entered my new bank with about 30 minutes to go before 5.

I did not really recognize anyone, strangely, but I went to the older woman sitting with a small stack of papers at the desk where I had started that morning. I showed her the letter. “Oh,” she seemed a little concerned – perhaps disturbed because she knew I might be concerned myself – and hurried off toward the back where the private offices were.

In a moment, a nice-looking slender man in a handsome suit came out to me, introduced himself as the Directeur, and invited me to his office. His was a bit larger than the others I had seen, and it had a window. “Monsieur Derrique,” he said…

He seemed embarrassed that the staff had made a minor error when I was there earlier; he did not apologize but explained carefully. It seemed that I had opened an account in which one could not deposit cash.

“You can understand, Monsieur, I am sure. As a foreign national, you are entitled to the comte etranger that you now have, and we look forward to receiving your pay from Paris. We French, you see, cannot allow a situation in which a foreign national deposits cash – French currency – and then writes a check to someone, or some bank, in another country. “O, non non, the economy would collapse! I am sure you understand that, Monsieur.”

Ainsi (and so) “we will have to return to you the cash that you deposited with us this morning and await your next paycheck from Paris in a month.”

I must say, the Directeur seemed satisfied with his explanation – which I had to admit was succinct and clear – “But, but,” I explained in turn, “the reason I came here at all, at least today, was because I had this wad of cash which I had just received at the Poste, but my little room is not secure, and I didn’t feel comfortable carrying around that much cash… It could be stolen, I was afraid.” I may have been somewhat animated.

“Ah yes,” he said, “We are a banque, you know; on the cash matter, we cannot help you.”

I didn’t want to seem uncooperative to such an important man, but I persisted a little, out of sheer annoyance, explaining that I had told the very first people I had met on his staff what I wished to do. I had shown them the cash and said I wanted to deposit it…

He pointed out that at their level we could not expect the staff to understood that cash cannot be deposited in a comte etranger, and with that he was leading me back to the cashier behind the Plexiglas. A different man there from the morning’s cashier had a stack of bills ready, which he counted out and then shoved to me under the glass barrier. I took it; I may have even said, “Merci, Monsieur.”

3

As I walked slowly toward the door of the Banque de France, I noticed that the older woman at the first desk was looking sympathetically in my direction. When I came over to her, she asked if I had concluded my business satisfactorily.

Well, no, Madame. I had not, I confessed and could not stop myself from telling her the whole story. I showed her the new wad of cash and pointed out that my pitiful little room was not safe, and I couldn’t just carry around that much cash – a whole month’s salary after all – All I had wanted to do was to leave it somewhere safe, but in my type of account, the Directeur had told me, I could not deposit any cash!

“Un comte etranger?” she asked. I nodded. “Mais oui, a foreign national could bankrupt the state that way.” She was proud of knowing and understanding the compelling reasoning behind the Banque de France’s sound and wise policy.

“But what am I to do with this money?”

Ah oui, I see the probleme. That had not occurred to her, any more than it had to Monsieur le Directeur. She turned to the woman at the next desk, calling her by her first name. She came over. The older woman explained that I had come in to deposit some cash – I indicated that I was holding a little stack of bills – but of course, I could not deposit cash in a comte etranger.

Ah oui, je comprend, this younger woman said, apparently pleased that she had understood the g-d policy.

“So now,” I interrupted their little tete-a-tete, what am I to do?” I said, holding up the bills again.

Both women were at last engaged in trying to help me solve my problem.

After a moment, the younger woman’s face brightened. “You know, Mme. _____. You know what I would do if I had some cash to deposit?” The older woman seemed interested.

The younger woman looked sideways at me and said, “If I had any money to deposit, I would put it in a Caisse d’Epargne!” That sounded like a savings account. Mme._____ was not sure but did slowly nod her head.

Emboldened, the junior staff member spoke directly to me. “I would go just across the street. There,” she pointed. “To the Caisse d’Epargne.”

4

It was still a few minutes before 5.  I said “Merci” and hustled outside. Sure enough, there was a little office in a store-front next door to the Poste with the letters above the door indicating it was a “Caisse d’Epargne.” Frankly, I have to admit I was skeptical. After all, that young woman in the Banque de France was just a junior clerk …

But I scurried across the street and opened the door across the way. The room was crowded, and there were three or four people already forming a queue.  My heart sank a little further. But the line moved quickly, each person taking only a moment or two. Three or four people had gotten in line behind me. “How long would it take to open a new account?” I worried.

When it was my turn I handed over my passport, saying something like “I need to open a new account for this money,” still again showing my wad of bills. (I did try to shield view of it a little from the others in the room.)

Oui, Monsieur. Attendez une seconde. “Yes, sir. Wait just a moment.” Another clerk appeared and started waiting on the other people in the line, who appeared to have no interest in me or my business. The person who took my passport went to a desk with a typewriter and slipped what looked just like a passbook at a Savings and Loan into the typewriter. She consulted my passport, and after only a minute or two she returned and said, “Now, on this account you will earn interest at the rate of --%.” She handed me back the passport and the little book she had typed upon and gestured that I was next in line.

The other clerk did not really meet my gaze, so intent was she on serving those of us who were waiting. After taking my cash, she wrote something in my book, noted something on a ledger in front of her, stamped my book with something – which turned out to be the date – and handed it to me, looking at the next person in line.

This whole thing had taken no more than fifteen minutes or so. Back on the street, I saw that the little book said I had deposited the correct amount and had a lot of blanks on an empty grid to record future withdrawals and deposits.

So, now I had two bank accounts, and all was well again.

The experience was already beginning to seem… well, funny!

***