Standing at the window, he gazed outside and saw the fog clouding the distant Appalachians, ready to come down the valley. Paul was a middle-aged man, a respected academic who lectured in contemporary literature in a French provincial college. The view reminded him of the mountains of eastern France where he’d spent a part of his career as a secondary school teacher. He had a few hobbies that would have surprised his colleagues who did not really know him. A solitary skinny man who enjoyed long forest walks and the company of trees. Probably, he found inspiration there in the constant humming and buzzing in the foliage, a peaceful beckoning to intellectual pleasures. He had accepted to leave his books, his antique roses which he pruned with care, and his cats, to spend a week in this Virginia college, shaking hands and listening to long dreary, often self-satisfied or self-serving communications. He did not have it any more. He had lost the flame, the ambition, the language, and was longing to go home and write silly little poems. They had paid for everything after they had accepted his paper on the Iowa poets.
The week-end was organized with meals in better-than-average restaurants, and culturally nourishing field trips where the usual intellectual flirtation would take place, and maybe more if the wine was good enough. He was tired of all that. He had decided to rent a car and drive the forty miles or so that separated the place from a little town he had known some thirty years before.
As a teacher of French he’d spent a few months trying to adjust within a community that tolerated him at best. He had no religion, that did not help. The school was run by an incompetent fat man with greasy hair and a stupid look who had disliked him from the start, and had done everything he could to make his life miserable, as if the European teacher was to be taught a lesson. The students were lazy, and constantly had to be coaxed into working, or threatened with a grade that would affect their GPA. After a while, he had accepted to pretend they were learning, and followed one of his co-workers’ advice to keep a low profile with the administration and give good grades to bad students. Not very like him. Yet, he had adjusted. Not many locals became his friends. The town itself was without character. They were building the state’s largest penitentiary. A boon. He had been surprised to read the signs along the local roads prohibiting to stop and pick up hitch-hikers. He’d done a lot of traveling this way when he was a young man. As he came to think of it, there was not much difference between the inmates and himself. Maybe they didn’t get to choose the food.
He had never returned in thirty years, yet today he was curious perhaps to see how the town had changed, or how more likely it had remained the same. Maybe he would see the Victorian house in which he had spent months, and, who knows, meet a former student who would not recognize him, but would stare at him in doubt.
Deep down he was curious to know if Karen Larson was still in the town. She had been no ordinary student. Just as reluctant as the rest to produce any kind of serious work that required an effort, she would irritate him with her “whatever” each time he corrected her. A gorgeous looking fifteen-year old blonde with a challenging grin who looked him straight in the eye, and had soon decided that she would refuse to cooperate, but would seduce him. She was from a rather wealthy family and was used to getting what she wanted. And she wanted him. He had sensed it from the very first moments. He’d also had the sense not to play into her game. He remembered a Monday morning when she asked him if he’d had any fun during the week-end, adding before he could even respond, “did you get drunk?” He could have smacked her, but of course he’d smiled. Not his idea of fun anyway. He had a hard time with the students who kept on bringing soda cans in the classroom, cookies and candy they knew were outlawed on the school premisses. They were testing his patience. Karen was constantly chewing gum, and he had quickly taken the habit to simply hold the trash can, and call her name. She would take the gum slowly from her mouth and drop it in the can while looking at him defiantly. He knew she was pushing the limits. He never lost his temper, and took it as a routine.
He smiled at the exaggerated vision of the electric chair he had declined to see when a friend with connections had offered a visit to the state penitentiary, the old one. Maybe she was gone, or dead? That beautiful brat, how old could she be now? In her mid-forties he believed. That was worth the trip, just to look back. Memory lane? No, not for him, he was too cynical. Besides he had never really liked the place. He was just curious. Opportunity knocking.
On Friday afternoon he told the lady in charge of the symposium that he would not be attending the florilège of events that he was so sorry to miss but had a good personal reason to. She had given a no-you-can’t-do-that sort of look, but he knew that he wouldn’t be missed the moment he stepped out of the campus.
He had signed the papers of the rental car, a silver Japanese compact, and was adjusting to the automatic gear shift. He’d lost the habit, and the first few miles he drove more carefully than he usually did. Once on the freeway he started thinking about what he was doing. He felt a little stupid to have acted on an emotional impulse. He had made no hotel reservation, and trusted the power of plastic.
When he got there he drove through “burger alley” as the locals called it, and noticed that apart from a few additions, the same joints were still in operation, some a bit dilapidated, many just as he had left them ages ago.
He parked his car outside a lobster restaurant with a giant plastic lobster on the roof, and waited to be seated. When the waitress, a Peggy, brought his plate of stewed chewy Maine lobster, he asked if he could take a look at the local phone book. Peggy was so kind as to bring one right to his table. He immediately looked up Karen’s name, but did not find it. It dawned on him that she would be married and have a new name. Or maybe she’d left town. Why on earth had he had this idea to look for her? What kind of infatuation with his past could that be? He left some of the food in his plate and a large tip on the table, and walked out. There was no sense to all this. He knew better. He’d learnt to brush his past away. Like his marriage, a two-year love-hate affair with a younger woman who had tried to bend him into someone he didn’t want to be. That was long ago. Now, the mosses would be blooming, and he started missing their fragrant indolence.
As he was reaching for his car-keys, he heard a man’s voice in his direction. He saw a chubby faced man with freckles and strangely blue eyes scrutinizing him longer than he should have. The man approached him and said, “didn’t you work here as a teacher in the eighties?”
Someone had recognized him. He couldn’t remember the man’s name. He extended his hand, “Paul Lecour”, he said. “I’m Billy French. You remember me? You made jokes about my name”, replied the man. Paul pretended a flash of recognition, and smiled apologetically.
“What a surprise! You here long?” the man asked.
“No, sorry, just passing. I was near Lawrenceville”, said Paul.
“How about a drink? I mean, would you come home for a drink? Well, if you’re not too much in a hurry.” offered Billy.
“Yeah, why not,” said Paul. He didn’t really want to accept the offer, but he was trying to be polite.
Paul followed Billy French’s tattered pickup to a semi-detached house that must have been painted green. There was a couch on the porch, and a tire hanging from a tree in the garden.
Billy opened the screen-door and called inside. A fat woman dragged her feet to the front door. A cigarette was hanging from her pouting lip, and she stared at the visitor with a bland expression. It was probably not the first time that her husband was bringing a co-worker home.
She was dressed in gaudy colors, a shapeless green blouse sagging over brown slacks that seemed a little too tight for her. There was something sad in her eyes, as if she’d been through a lot. But there was no doubt about it, she was Karen. He had instantly recognized her. The shape of her face, something about the way she looked at you, ready to spit gum. He thought she must have married down, and accepted to become a housewife, with kids and a few more pounds on every year. Such a waste! Where had the dazzling charm of the teenager gone? The defiance, the appetite for life?
They shook hands. She did not know who he was. Obviously.
“Guess who I met in town, hon?” said Billy.
“I’m Paul Lecour,” said Paul, stopping the quizz game immediately. “I used to teach here. French. Amusing coincidence!”
But she was not amused.
“You remember the French lessons, hon? How do you say… ‘Voulez-vous…?’ asked Billy trying to sound French.
“Sure I remember. I’d just forgotten the name”, said she.
That was a lie, he knew it. He thought she was oblivious of the past for reasons he did not want to hear.
“Care for a beer?” offered Billy.
“Yes, please, but a quick one, I still have a bit of driving to do. You know I’m here for a conference. Gotta be back.”
They both sat on the couch, legs apart, with their cans, while he leaned on the four by four that held the steps with his. A bit of green paint peeled off onto his right shoulder. He said he had been pleased to see them again after so long, and as the conversation was drying out, he looked at his watch and said it was time to hit the road.
