The Memory of Place

For some reason the marina had asked for emergency contact information, which soon came in handy. Do we believe in coincidence?

It was a dreadfully hot day, hotter than any other time I could remember that summer, and I was working down below, not drinking enough water and pushing myself way too hard when it came.

A crushing pressure in my chest. Yes. That pressure we all know and love. I just managed to crawl up into the cockpit and get a passing mechanics attention before I passed out.

◊◊◊◊◊

I have no recollection of events as they transpired. A medical team took me to Cassis and thence to Marseilles. Jean Paul was contacted, and he must have called the President of France because overnight I was flown to the best cardiac hospital in Paris where a team of JPs friends went about clearing out my somewhat over-clogged plumbing. Madeleine was soon in attendance, clucking over the freshly minted zipper now right down the middle of my chest, and she chided me once again about not eating enough fruits and vegetables and drinking too much rum. Did she mention my passion for Hollandaise sauce, too?

You know, fruits and vegetables are one thing, but messing with a sailor's rum? And Hollandaise? Come on! Cut me some slack, wouldya? I me, why bother.

◊◊◊◊◊

Madeleine left for Darfur about a month after my événement cardiaque. I healed nicely, or so JP said anyway, and I used the time to get caught up with business affairs back home. Getting Mom's final affairs put to bed -- the ranch on the market, equities liquidated, etc. -- took up most of the time that wasn't being chewed up by truly sadistic nurses in cardiac rehab. Fortunately, my little hiccup wasn't a really bad affair -- more like a warning shot across the bow, really -- but it was a warning that I took to, well, to heart. I know, I know...I'm so sorry.

Madeleine was due to return just in time for Christmas, and we had talked about spending the time down on the boat, so as soon as I could I planned to make my way back to the coast. And so it was that JeanPaul flew down with me in late October, and we found that the workers in the yard had done a nice job on the bottom paint and engine overhaul. The sailmaker who'd made the zeppelin, er, the sun awning, had graciously made me a new main-sail and the yard crew had put that on, too, so with a fresh autumn breeze at our backs JP and I made the short sail to the Calanque d'En Vau again. He handled the anchor and then we slipped our toes into the water.

It was unanimous! Way too cold for mere mortals to swim in, so we made a nice (healthy) salad and sat in the sun, while the steep walls of the canyon kept the blustery air just offshore from working us over too badly.

"What are you going to do about Madeleine?" Jean Paul asked me in his usual, delicate way.

"What am I going to do? What the hell does that mean?" I shot back.

"When she heard about you, dear Thomas, and about your little circulatory problem, she came unglued, you know. I mean totally unglued. Mind you, this is a woman with a heart of steel, pure steel. I've never seen her cry before. And the things she's seen, well, they make me cry to think about."

"I hear you, Jean Paul. I love her. That's all there is to say."

"And?"

"And -- what?! Look, the ink on my divorce papers has barely had time to dry, you know what I mean?"

"That's bullshit and you know it. Love is love. Commitment is commitment, and time is fleeting. You of all people should understand that now."

"And don't I just know it, my friend. Thanks for reminding me."

"And I thank you for that, Thomas. Truly. I am honored to be your friend. And as your friend, I tell you that you are full of bullshit."

Yeah, there was no doubt about it. He was from my mother's side of the family alright, with just enough of my mother's steel-edged irony to cut deepest when least expected.

◊◊◊◊◊

I don't know much about Darfur; I didn't then and I still don't. I don't keep up with that stuff anymore. I figure that people are going to keep killing people for any and all reasons they can come up with. I've experienced it personally in Central America, in the southwestern Pacific, and in Ireland. I've seen it in South Central L.A., and in Oakland. I've nearly been knifed in Mexico City and mugged in New York City. Yeah, it's usually some kind of religious gripe that sets people off these days, but hell, why blame God for all our nonsense. Assuming he gave us this paradise in the first place, most of the time we've pretty much fucked it up all by ourselves and with no help from Him. Besides, more often that not it just comes down to somebody else wanting your stuff, and they're willing to hurt you to take it from you.

So, when it comes to believing in the goodness of man, I'm an agnostic.

That's why I was such a stoic when I heard that Madeleine and a handful of other physicians had been abducted by Islamist militants from their aid station outside of Nyala, in southwestern Sudan.

As far as I could make out, there wasn't much reason for this latest war. One group of (well-armed) muslims with -- basically -- nothing of value to call their own were out killing another group of (somewhat less than well-armed) non-muslims who had -- basically -- nothing of value to call their own. A few well-intentioned people were trying to stop the murder, but -- basically -- the general public in the west had had it with the never-ending stream of tribal genocide that had been playing out on television in their living rooms -- night after night -- for almost thirty years. Throw in a few misadventures playing out in the Middle East at the same time, and -- well -- Darfur was getting lost in the shuffle.

But then, as these things tend to, all of a sudden Darfur got real personal for me.

◊◊◊◊◊

I flew up to Paris and was met at deGaulle by Luc and Claire; Jean Paul was at MSF headquarters getting caught up with the latest news. Rumors were flying about a French military mission into the area to try to recover the physicians -- something the docs at MSF were adamantly against, by the way -- when video was released showing one of the doctors being beheaded. A knife-wielding masked militant declared that any attempt to rescue the others would only lead to more beheadings. I watched this bastard tell me he was going to kill the woman I loved right there in the baggage claim area at Orly Airport -- on CNN.

You have to believe me when I tell you this. I believed him, I was willing to take him at his word. And I wanted to kill that son of a bitch more than anything else in the world. Maybe that's what terrorists want -- to fill the human heart with hate -- and if that's their aim this one had surely succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

◊◊◊◊◊

Well, it seemed the son of a bitch had used an unsecured connection to send his demands to CNN, and of course our good buddies at the NSA intercepted the transmission and forwarded the coordinates to a group of United States Marines already operating (ahem, covertly) in the area.

I never got the chance to kill that prick. Some kid from Flint, Michigan got that honor. One other doctor got wounded in the rescue, but the rest were hustled out of the Sudan on a US Air Force C-17 within a couple of hours of their 'release' -- at least that's what the press was told -- and Madeleine and her associates her winging their way back to Frankfurt, Germany, where a group of French spooks debriefed them before their return to Paris.

All this Jean Paul related to me over dinner across from the Tuileries; Luc and Claire were simply too devastated to eat -- they had known the murdered physician quite well, so JP and I sat quietly by ourselves and ate our dinner. The worst was over, Jean Paul told me, and though relieved this part of Madeleine's ordeal was now in the past, we both knew there would be trying times ahead as she came to grips with the broader contours of her ordeal.

"Have you thought about our last conversation? On the boat?" he asked.

"Little else, my friend. Little else."

"And?"

"Don't you think this would be a most inappropriate time to bring all that up? I mean really, Jean, look what she's just been through."

"I see. I see -- that you are still full of bullshit. Too bad. She deserves better."

"Pardon me, Jean Paul. But fuck you."

"No, you spineless coward, fuck you! You love the woman, and she loves you! She is all alone in this world, no family, with but a handful of friends, and yet it is you that she loves more than anything else in this world. And what are you going to do? Get on your boat, perhaps, and run away again?"

I think I was stunned, too stunned to say a word. I think everyone else in the restaurant was too stunned as well.

But, was my dear cousin finished with me just yet?

Oh-no-no, mon ami, he was just getting started: "You have grown disgusting, Thomas. You called yourself a hippy once, didn't you? A revolutionary, then you opened up a restaurant and served plates of fifty dollar crap to the very same people you once condemned. You got rich off them, off their money. Then off you go in search of everything you turned your back on -- in a half-million dollar plaything, and you did this when your country needed people of conscience more than at any time in it's history. Shit, Thomas, when the world needed people of conscience. And now here you are, faced with the reality of love, love from a true woman of conscience, and you are prepared to run away from her too, aren't you? Aren't you!?"

I felt like getting up and walking away from the table, but he held me with his eyes. Remember, I think I once mentioned his eyes? Empathetic, all knowing eyes? Jean Paul is a rare bird, and I love him, but he can be such an ass.

So of course I looked at him, and in my best poker face asked: "You gonna eat those snails?" I spoke in my best deadpan poker-face, but I gave it away too soon and started to grin.

He looked at me for a moment longer with astonishment registering clearly in those eyes, then he laughed. I'm not talking a little snort of derision, either; we're talking a major-league blow-out laugh, an eye-watering, side-splitting laugh, and soon he was pounding the table and trying to catch his breath, and then the people around us started to laugh.

That was it.

I laughed so hard the staples in my chest hurt, then everyone in the restaurant was laughing, and our laughter spread to the street, across the city, then a continent. Soon the whole world was laughing at the absurdity of life.

We laughed until we cried. All of us.

◊◊◊◊◊

Late the next rain-soaked afternoon, Madeleine returned to Paris in a little Dassault Falcon 50, and all of us were waiting for her when the little white jet pulled up on the ramp at a private airfield south of Paris. She was the third one off the plane, and I could see she walked now with a limp and a cane, yet when she was still a good distance away she saw me and started to run. I could see her grimaced pain, and I rushed past a security guard to meet her. We met while still out on the wet tarmac, rain falling on our shoulders and faces as we kissed, and I think we both cried, though it was hard to tell -- we were both so wet.

We piled into JPs little Citroen and slipped back into Paris and made our way to Madeleine's little apartment next to the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres.

What do you do at times like this? Do you celebrate? Get drunk? Go to church?

Well, yeah, but in what order?

◊◊◊◊◊

I sat beside Madeleine as she kneeled at her pew inside the Abbey, and I listened as she whispered a prayer and crossed herself. After a while she sat beside me and I took her hand; she returned the pressure I felt building in my heart, and with her hand in mine I turned and looked at the overwhelming beauty of her face in the subdued light of the chapel. She tried to smile for me, but the attempt was lost in the grief she felt.

We left the chapel and walked out into the chill air of the late autumn evening and walked the four blocks down to the Seine, and it was as if gravity had pulled us as we walked upstream to the Ile de la Cité and Notre Dame. We continued along the river, her hand in mine, on past the cathedral until we came to the little bridge that cuts across to the Ile Saint-Louis. Still we walked, on toward the Place de la Bastille and our little marina.

On to our own memory of place.

Gaston, the astute old man running my favorite crepe stand, recognized me from a distance and put on a couple for us as we approached. We asked him to fix us two, with Gran Marnier and berries, then went to sit on a bench by his stand overlooking the spot where aquaTarkus had been not so long ago, and we sat in the quiet evening and ate our crepes as we looked down at all the boats, and relived other times. We sat there for hours, I suppose, wanting to commune with spirits of the past, the memory of place guiding our love tentatively towards some sort of conclusion.

I felt a chill on Madeleine and stood, held my hand out for her, but instead she took mine and pulled me back down to face the issue.

"Tom, what is to become of us?"

Ah, there it was. Had we come to the most important question of my life -- and hers -- so soon?

"Madeleine, I..."

"Oh, Tom, I'm so sorry. This must be so strange for you? I should not..."

"Strange? Why would you think it strange for two people in love to ponder the future? Why shouldn't two people who love each other as much as we do talk about commitment and what we dream the future might hold for us?"

Suddenly she was very quiet, and the air took on a preternatural hush.

"So, I don't know Madeleine, perhaps it would be crass to ask you to marry me tonight. I know you've been through so much the past few days, so much violence and sorrow. Why would you want to contemplate spending your life with an old vagabond."

"Thomas?"

"Yes, my love?"

"Shut up, Thomas. Shut up and kiss me."

◊◊◊◊◊

"Thomas?"

"Yeah JP, what's up? You still at the office?"

"Thomas, a woman is here in the clinic. An American. Lisa something. She says she's here with your daughter, and that she wants to see you right away."

"My daughter? In Deauville?"

"That's what she says. My, Thomas, but you have led a complicated life."

"Last I heard, Jean Paul, she said another fellow was the father, but I haven't kept up with her too much since I left America. I think she may have a few loose screws, if you know what I mean?"

"Well, she has made an appointment to see me. So. Would you like me to talk with her about this, or would you like me to keep out of the affair?"

"Hell no, Jean Paul. Find out what you can. Just keep in mind that Liz has heard some contradictory things about this woman, and her pregnancy. Do you have Liz's number?"

"Yes. But it shouldn't come to that, should it?"

"I don't know. I doubt it."

"Can you come up tonight?" he asked.

"Yeah. On my way. I can just make the one thirty to Deauville. Be there about five."

"Good. I'll pick you up at the station. Oh, Thomas? Will you come alone?"

◊◊◊◊◊

I didn't know what to think.

Was this woman a pathological liar, and if so, what in God's name was she up to?

The one thirty was a local, not an express, and the train stopped at every little station between Paris and the coast, and while normally I enjoyed this slow rolling journey -- not today, not with Lisa crashing into my life once again. The closer we came to Deauville, the more upset I became until, at one point, I was so nauseated I thought I might lose it. I had long thought this incident over and done with, and, well, at least my part in the affair was at an end, so I hadn't given the problem of Lisa a thought in months.

Oh, so complicated, yet so simple. Some mistakes never leave you; they follow you until they find you at your weakest, then they turn and face you, ready to sprint in for the kill.

I called Madeleine before I left for the station. She had gone to work that morning to do some difficult analyses in her lab, and I simply laid it out on the table for her as best I could. I could hear the strain in her voice when I told her I would get to the bottom of this as fast as I could and call her that evening.

And she wished me good luck.

When the woman you love wishes you good luck, in my experience you ought to start packing your bags -- because they surely are.

◊◊◊◊◊

The train arrived a half hour late, but Jean Paul was on the platform, waiting, and I could see a little impatiently. A light drizzle coated the old beige tiles of the station platform as I met him, then we walked out to his Citroen.

"I dropped her off at the house. I thought it better for you to talk in quiet surroundings."

"What did you find out?" I asked Jean Paul.

"No, Thomas, first I want you to talk to this woman. Listen to what she has to say. Also, forgive me, but I called Madeleine, asked her to come up tonight."

"You did -- what?"

"Again, Thomas, talk with this woman. Listen to what she has to say. But Thomas, understand this. I love you; you are my family. I will support any decision you make, because I know you will make the right choice."

◊◊◊◊◊

We crunched down the gravel drive, tires popping over the wet pebbles as we pulled up to the front door. It was dark now, and honey colored light shone out the front windows, spilling onto tired grass now fast asleep, and I grabbed my overnight case and walked with Jean Paul into the mother's house. He took my case from me and indicated that I should go to the last bedroom -- the old blue one at the end of the hall -- and that Lisa was waiting for me there.

I walked down the hall; instinctively, I walked as quietly as I could, like I was sneaking up on my past, trying to surprise it.

The door was open and I looked in -- not sure what to expect but with my knotted stomach burning away like a lump of glowing coal.

Lisa was asleep on her side, and though a light was on I couldn't make her out too well. I knocked lightly on the door.

"Tom?" And I could hear the truth in her voice.

"Yes, it's me." I walked into the room, and I could smell her sickness throughout the room.

"I'm so sorry for all this. I really am." I could see her emaciated body under the sheets, her bright eyes now lined with dark circles, sunken deeply in her yellow face.

I moved to her, sat on the bed beside her.

"Lisa, what is it? What's happened?"

"Well, turns out I'm a little sick."

"I can see that. Where's the baby?"

"She's with Liz right now, in the kitchen."

"She's...Liz is...here, now?"

"Oh, poor Thomas. This must be so impossible..."

"I...uh..."

"Go. Go see her, Tom. Then come back and talk to me."

I was speechless, frozen in place, felt like I was floating outside my body.

"Will you please tell me what's going on first?"

"Go, now," she said, pointing. "Now, Thomas. Go and meet your daughter."

I stood in a daze and walked to the kitchen. Jean Paul watched as Liz, holding the little girl close, held a bottle to her lips. My ex-wife looked up at me for a moment, the moment I walked into my mother's kitchen, and she smiled at me as though this was the most natural thing in the world.

Ah, I understood now. I was having a dream! None of this was real! It couldn't be, could it?

"Was she asleep?" Jean Paul asked me.

Oops. No, not a dream.

"No, she's...Jean Paul? What the hell's going on?"

"Sh-h-h!" hissed Liz. "Don't upset her, Tom. Here, come hold her."

I walked forward, looked at the little bundle in Liz's arm.

"No, no. Not quite yet. Jean Paul? How 'bout a little truth right about now?"

"Lisa has an aggressive cancer, Thomas. A pancreatic cancer. It's a miracle she carried the baby to term, really."

"Liz?" I asked. "How long have you known about this?"