The End of the Alphabet Page 4

  The bloody queues. Bathing tents, ices, chairs, towels, the loo. Stretched the length of the beach. We changed in our room. Ran half-naked through the lobby. It took us hours to find a vacant bit of sand. Nasty dogs and noisy children everywhere. The tents were a different colour that year. Were they green? I remember it was too cold to swim. The Channel was rough. First weekend of the season. Windy. Not even the local boats were out. You hated the sand. Yes you did. Insisted on wearing those horrible blue trainers. From the ankle up you were breathtaking. A fantastic bikini, red I think. Fine, black. I drank too much calvados. You read three books and mentioned what my father had said on the platform. You asked—in that voice you have—if I could see any soldiers on the beach. I said very funny and told you they had landed farther along the coast. Which made you laugh…

  Ambrose Zephyr’s voice trailed off. A moment later he spasmed himself awake.

  Tired, he said, then drifted away again.

  When she was certain her husband was well asleep, Zipper walked along the Corniche. She bought a postcard—an amateurish watercolour from some time ago. The bathing tents depicted were green, and judging by the crowds and the queues in the painting, it appeared the beginning of the season.

  She returned along the water’s edge. The girl in the blue boots had coaxed her dog from the water. Zipper watched them leave, then squinted out to sea.

  There was England. Just at the horizon.

  E.

  The Windy Coast of…Zipper read, in a tone she reserved for certain circumstances. They were on a train bound for Paris, a flight to Pisa, a short hop to…

  Elba, said Ambrose.

  Just a thought, said Zipper. Why not stay in Paris? Get out of the airport for a while.

  Napoleon wasn’t keen on the place.

  We could take a later flight.

  But the views are spectacular.

  They will be.

  We’ll be back to Paris in a few days, Ambrose said. And we always go to Paris. You’re not tired of it?

  Tired? Yes. Of Paris? No.

  How’s this then: E is for Eiffel, a Tower in Paris?

  Zipper pretended to frown. Not quite the music of The Windy Coast, she said, but if you don’t mind.

  Get out of the airport for a while.

  Whatever you think.

  It was a tone Ambrose could never resist. Nor had ever much tried to.

  Zipper awoke in a modest room on the top floor of a hotel—their hotel—tucked in a corner of Place Saint-Sulpice. A band of sunlight found its way between the mismatched towers of the church across the square, through the window and on over the bed. It came to rest across Zipper’s face. She slid farther under the duvet, warm and safe.

  Home, she thought. Another five minutes. Then she remembered where she was. Where Ambrose was. Off on his stroll.

  Whether Ambrose remembered it or not was never the point. The fact remained: they had met, and it was the first time, on the Rue des Rosiers.

  A younger Ambrose Zephyr is midway through his usual walk. Deep in the Marais, a spring downpour forces him into the doorway of an antiquarian bookshop. He huddles, his trench coat dripping on his shoes, and searches the sky for a break. He does not see the young woman coming through the door behind him.

  A young Zipper Ashkenazi—on a break from working a fashion shoot—purchases a second-edition gastronomique published many years before. The book is in only fair condition and she barters well. A good souvenir, she thinks, of a first trip to Paris. The small volume slips into her coat pocket and she opens the shop door.

  Zipper does not see the young man’s face as the bell above the door chimes an exit. Ambrose, fretting about his shoes, does not hear the bell.

  In the politest French she can manage, Zipper asks the young man’s back to excuse her. A startled Ambrose turns and stares at the young woman. Zipper waits, then begins opening her umbrella. Ambrose continues staring, oblivious to weather, shoes, umbrella.

  The rain continues.

  The staring becomes annoying.

  After some time, Zipper breaks the young man’s gaze and glances at his feet. Ambrose rediscovers his manners. He steps into the street and allows the woman by. He apologizes in the politest English he can manage. He would have removed his hat, had he owned one.

  The rain pours and Ambrose stands watching the young woman disappear under her umbrella. As Zipper steps to avoid a puddle, she glances back at the young man and looks away.

  He smiles, having caught her out. She vanishes around a corner and chuckles at the thought of the young Englishman’s ruined shoes and drowned hair. A hat, she thinks, might have gone well with the trench and the weather.

  Something had changed. The air seemed off. The sunlight through the window felt cold. Zipper thought it might be the cobwebs of a too heavy sleep. She glanced at the bedside clock, padded to the ensuite and ran a bath. By now her husband would be passing Notre-Dame, stepping on the point zero marker as he went.

  His flânerie, Ambrose called it. It was habitual, rarely altered in either route or duration. Friends called it his cliché, mentioning the beaten path, suggesting other sites and different sounds. Ambrose would politely nod his head and wander where he wanted. They have their Paris, he would tell Zipper. I have mine.

  She slipped inch by goosebumped inch into the steaming water. Her toes wiggled at the other end of the tub. Zipper closed her eyes as the heat went to her bones, releasing wave after raw wave of terror. She tried imagining something else, but all she could see was their time. Their Paris…

  The narrow street off the Boulevard Saint-Germain with its family boulangerie and two-table cafés and produce stalls. Where they had always bought a workman’s lunch and a bottle of vin de pays. Where Ambrose would sneak a foul cigarette while she selected a pâté…

  The Bastille roundabout. Where he would narrow his gaze and point out peasants laying siege to the prison. Where she had mastered the grace of walking in heels amidst the helter-skelter traffic…

  Zipper’s shoulders heaved, she gulped for air, fought for calm. She looked down at her body and thought of his hands.

  In Place des Vosges. His hands on her. In the dark beneath Victor Hugo’s window, her hands on him. Breathless mouths, wordless tongues, losing themselves. Under the plane trees in the middle of the night…

  She buried her face in her hands. You cannot have it, she screamed through her fingers.

  The antiquarian bookshop. Soon it would belong to other lovers, selfishly claimed as their Paris…

  The bouquinistes near the Pont Neuf. He would be there…

  Zipper pulled herself from the water, hurried to dress, ran for her life.

  He would be there by now.

  Zipper rushed along the quai towards the Pont Neuf, checked her watch. She was late. Yet she smiled. She knew where he’d be and it wasn’t far away and she could slow down.

  A bouquiniste’s stall caught her eye. It was decorated with the bric-a-brac of the printing trades: agate rulers, bindery clamps, typesetters’ trays. A collection of old type blocks.

  One particularly worn wooden cube felt soft and good in her hand.

  Zipper found Ambrose at the downstream end of Île de la Cité. Lying on the cobbled breakwall that sloped at a comfortable angle into the Seine. He was, as usual, admiring the view along the river to the Eiffel Tower, peeking above the rooftops, far in the distance. Zipper sat beside him.

  You smell like cigarettes, she said. How was the walk?

  Ambrose lied. Lovely, he said. Zipper caught sight of his slowly trembling hands, the subtle curling and uncurling of fingers.

  How was your lie-in? he said. Feel better?

  Zipper lied.

  As is the habit of lovers in Paris, they spent the rest of the day on the island in the Seine. They ate a workman’s lunch, drank all the wine, waved to the bateau mouche.

  At some point Ambrose lay his head in his wife’s lap and stared through the trees to the sky. He said he thought it migh
t rain. Zipper laughed.

  Admit it, she said. It was you with the soggy shoes. Ambrose smiled.

  What remained of the day passed quietly. Without a cloud in sight.

  I bought you something, Zipper said. For missing Elba.

  They were in a taxi enroute to the airport. She put the wooden type block in his palm and closed his stiff fingers around it. No peeking, she said.

  He knew the character by touch. Uppercase, a bold sans serif from a headline tray. He felt the sharp zig and zag of the letterform. The smooth face of the block, the worn and rounded edges. Feels large and heavy for something so small, he said.

  I bought you something too. Ambrose handed her a fat and tired edition of Les Misérables.

  Zipper glanced through the rear window of the taxi. A tower in Paris, tiny and far away, flashed through the skyline and was gone. The taxi merged onto the périphérique.

  F.

  Late afternoon stretched across the Piazza della Signoria. A marble David—muscular, walleyed, tall for his age—ignored the sightseers crowded about his base. A few with cameras backed away from the horde, cautiously measuring their strides, trying to fit boy king and mugging companions in the viewfinder.

  In a quiet corner of a café at the opposite end of the square, Ambrose Zephyr ordered wine. Two glasses. Rapido, he snapped.

  Zipper was surprised at her husband’s tone. She gave him a look he chose to ignore.

  They sank low in their chairs. It had not been the day Ambrose had in mind. It had all been too much, too many.

  Those who knew Ambrose would later say they were not much surprised by F. After all, they offered, hadn’t his mother introduced him—and at such a young age—to the great art of Florence? Wasn’t he proud—annoyingly so—of the university away-term he had spent flirting his way through the city? Did he not know its architects, its Medicis, its masters? By name and date, they said.

  An old man moved past their table. He was a picture of the casual Italian gentleman: polished shoes, cufflinks and cravat, practical sunglasses. He carried a walking stick, tapping it lightly on the cobblestones as he moved along.

  The stick missed Ambrose and Zipper’s table. There was a minor collision; a drop or two of spilled wine, a stumble. The Italian gentleman apologized as his hand searched for the edge of the table. Ambrose swore under his breath.

  Zipper glared at her husband a second time, applying more disgust, less surprise. Ambrose slumped deeper into his chair and sulked at the crowd across the piazza.

  No harm done, Zipper said to the Italian gentleman. He turned his body in the direction of her voice and smiled.

  Zipper found a third chair. The old gentleman asked if he might rest. Just for a moment…the joints, you see.

  You smell like my wife, he said. Zipper was embarrassed by her suddenly blushed cheeks.

  When we would walk. In our evenings along the river, she wore that fragrance. A wise and clever woman, my wife. This I know, she would say: A man can see a hundred women, lust for a thousand more, but it is one scent that will open his eyes and turn him to love. And he will never thank the angels for making him blow his nose that morning.

  The sightseers under the marble boy king grew more boisterous.

  These crowds, said the Italian gentleman. They take many photographs. Such a sad thing. Such a long way to come to take bad pictures of one’s friends.

  He shrugged. This city is too much for them. he said. Too many paintings, too many churches, too many Davids. Too many other people taking pictures. Can you see the Duomo? someone will ask. I can see the back of your head, another will answer.

  But enough, he blurted in Ambrose’s direction. Life is too quick for such gloom. There are other things to see.

  Ambrose scowled.

  The old gentleman searched for Zipper’s hand. Indulge me a bit of a game, he said. He took her hand and cupped it between his.

  Signora’s blouse, he announced after a moment, is as white as our marble. Crisp and tailored, like a man’s. The cuffs are rolled, the collar is turned. Very casual. The buttons open just so and—forgive me, signora—there is perhaps a peek of black lace, a peek of something.

  A smile inched across Ambrose’s face. The gentleman continued.

  She wears a silk scarf—reds and golds, I think. A flowing skirt, calf length. Red again, like Il Papa’s cardinals. But it is late in the day—she has slid her sunglasses to the top of her head. A strand of hair hangs to the side of her face. She squints with the low sun. The feet of birds at the corners of her eyes. Have I missed anything?

  Signora’s shoes, offered Ambrose.

  Aaaah, said the Italian gentleman, there you are. Now you wish to play my game. Very well.

  They are…black. Yes. Flat. For too much rushing around. For too many people. For too much art. But I am guessing. Better, I think, for walking by the river?

  Ambrose looked at his wife. Zipper noticed it was the first time his eyes had brightened all day.

  A third glass was summoned and a toast to marble kings was drunk. Ambrose apologized for his behaviour. Not my best day, he said. The Italian gentleman said there was no harm done. Ambrose asked him about his wife.

  The old gentleman produced a small photograph and handed it to Ambrose. I have many, he said. They never seem to be where I leave them.

  Ambrose smiled. He passed the photograph to Zipper.

  She expected an old and faded portrait of a young and beautiful woman. Instead, the face that smiled stiffly from the photo was worn, fleshy, a little pale. But the eyes were clear, the hair well styled. An expensive scarf was tied loosely around the old woman’s neck.

  The face in the photograph had been embossed. Raised creases and furrows traced the features: scarf, hair, eyes. The shy smile.

  I think she might be like your own signora, the Italian gentleman said. Something to see?

  She was, said Ambrose. Is.

  The Italian gentleman finished his wine and stood as best he could. He kissed Zipper’s hand, begging forgiveness for leaving so abruptly.

  I promised to meet someone by the river, he said, and tapped his walking stick across the piazza. As he passed the marble boy king, he pulled his pocket square with a flourish and quietly blew his nose.

  The Mediterranean was passing far below them, Zipper Ashkenazi nudged her husband. You were talking, she said.

  Sorry…dozed off…what? What did I say?

  You kept asking why.

  Why what?

  I don’t know. You were asleep.

  Must have been dreaming.

  Of?

  A woman in the distance, approaching. She wades carefree through the desert sand. She looks back towards the sun. She is barefoot, her sandals clutched by the heels, dangling in one hand. Her other hand holds the hem of her white cotton robe. Each step trails a fine stream of sand, caught in the hot wind and blown towards the Nile. The sun backlights her figure through the cotton, catches a glint of silver and ebony on her bracelets. Her walk in the desert has left her flushed and bronzed. Her hair is dark and fine.

  A camel appears from nowhere, blocking the view. Everything swirls into the art on a package of cigarettes.

  A boy lies on his bedroom floor. He is twelve, perhaps thirteen years old. He is drawing, with painstaking accuracy, the art from a pack of Camels. The arabesque curves of the serifs on the A. The ellipsed E. Three palm trees, two pyramids, one camel with its skinny legs. The pyramids tucked under the camel’s sagging belly. The boy is careful, colouring the camel’s visible eye a brilliant blue. He even includes the elegant ampersand between the words Turkish and Domestic.

  The camel turns his head and grins.

  Why so sad, Master Zephyr?

  The boy frowns.

  Death? Yes yes, death hovers near us all. And it is sad that it makes us sad. But I know a story.

  There once was a camel whose days begin in the shade of a palm on a nameless wadi, somewhere to the east of here. In the Sinai.

 
By the age of ten, the camel is a veteran of the trading routes from Alexandria to Tripoli. At twenty he walks the rich Aswan run, kneeling politely as nervous Japanese women climb aboard to have their portraits taken. At thirty he is done working, his knees worn thin. At forty, his days as a camel come to a peaceful end. Eyeing younger things in the Birqash market.

  He is gutted and skinned. For seven days he feeds his owner, his owner’s family, his owner’s cousins, his owner’s neighbours. His hide is sold for a good and fair price in the bazaar, to a maker of furniture who knows a good many buttocks would sit on such a fine and worthy leather.

  Was there anything before his days as a camel, you ask? Yes yes, Master Zephyr. The camel was a man. As you will be. Successful, well fed, loved by a clever and honest and beautiful woman. Happy they lived. Simply as husband and wife. Without extravagance, just off the high road between Suez and Aqaba.

  The man misses his wife every day. Even now, as a camel in your drawing, as a comfortable chair under a large rump. But he sees her every day. He watches her sleep.

  Why, you ask? There is no why, Master Zephyr. It is just a story. Life goes on. Death goes on. Love goes on. It is all as simple as that. Years from now, even you will return. Perhaps as the ochre that colours an artist’s brush. Or a kindly stray cat in a small park in London. And you will love the birds you chase.

  And then the camel winked, said Ambrose, and disappeared in a puff of sand.

  Zipper blinked away a tear. He hadn’t meant to make her cry.

  G.

  The small bedouin woman sat on her haunches beneath the pyramids.

  Her robes were black and billowed in the wind. She smoked a dark cigarette and played with a small Polaroid camera: holding it to the sunshine, tracing circles in front of her face, mimicking a self-photograph, watching for the soft image to emerge from its slot. She cooed and chirped and sang to herself. As a child might. Her grinning revealed the gaps of a few missing teeth.