ÿþ<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Directions</TITLE> <META content="text/html; charset=windows-1252" http-equiv=Content-Type> <meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us"> <META content="MSHTML 5.00.2614.3500" name=GENERATOR> <META content="fiction, Karen Bennett, Paris, France" name=Keywords> <META content="" name=Description></HEAD> <BODY bgcolor="#F8F8FF" link="blue" vlink="black"> <div align="center"> <center> <table bgcolor="#F8F8FF" border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="2" width="800"> <tr><td colspan="5" width="100%" align="center"><img src="images/sitemainoceanjasperbluered.jpg"></td></tr> <tr><td valign="top" width="18%" colspan="1" height="100"><hr color="#B3B3B3" width="100%" align="left"><br><FONT face="arial, sans-serif" size="2"><B><A HREF="http://www.karenbennett.ca/index.html">HOME</A><br><br><A href="http://www.karenbennett.ca/Blog.html">BLOG</a><br><br><A href="http://www.karenbennett.ca/OtherWriting.html">OTHER WRITING</A><br><br><A href="http://www.karenbennett.ca/PhotoGallery.html">PHOTO GALLERY</A><br><br><A href="http://www.karenbennett.ca/AboutMe_&_FAQ.html">ABOUT ME&nbsp;/&nbsp;FAQs</A><br><br><A href="http://www.karenbennett.ca/Contact.html">CONTACT</A><br><br><A href="http://www.karenbennett.ca/Links.html">LINKS</A><br><br> </font><br><hr color="#B3B3B3" width="100%" align="left"></td> <A NAME="top"></A> <td width="62%" valign="top" colspan="1"><P><FONT color="black" face="Arial, Verdana, sans-serif" size="2"><br> <br> <p><h1><center>DIRECTIONS</center></h1></p> <center><p><h3>by Karen E. Bennett</h3></p> <p><i>(An unpublished short story, written in 2004 following a trip to France and revised in 2011 to delete the original coda.</i></p></center> <p>Dragging one suitcase and pushing another, I forged across the cobbles outside the Gare d'Austerlitz train station and halted near the first Taxi Parisien in line, transfixing its likely driver with a stare. He'd been talking quietly with another driver. When he saw me he said something to the second man, glanced at me again and then away, and walked towards me.</p> <p>At the back of my mind&#8212;the front of my mind was rehearsing the French words for my destination&#8212;the dancer I was in my spare time couldn t help noticing the way he moved: self-contained and well-coordinated, without wasted motion. He didn't waste words either. He asked me if I wanted a taxi. "Oui, monsieur," I said, and moved to hoist one of the suitcases into the hatchback of the black Citroën. I'd been hauling that damned luggage into and out of so many cars, trains and hotels lately that I reached for it automatically.</p> <p>His hand bumped mine. I let go of the suitcase at once. He murmured, "Pardon." As he loaded the second suitcase, the hindpart of my brain registered that he smelled good. It was a rare man whose smell I liked.</p> <p>Gratefully, I sank into the back right-hand seat and settled my shoulder bag and a paper-shrouded drawing&#8212;a medieval Chinon street rendered in the conté pencil colour called "sanguine," a rusty orange&#8212;as he took his seat and turned to me for directions.</p> <p>It was time for a complete sentence in French.</p> <p>"Je vais à l'hotel Holiday Inn près de l'aéroport Charles de Gaulle," I said, hoping he didn't need the street address of the hotel. Apparently not, for he nodded once and turned away.</p> <p>I'd known it would be expensive to take a taxi from the southeast section of Paris out of town to the northeast, but I thought I had enough euros in my wallet. And at this, the end of my vacation, I wanted the most energy-saving way to get to my no-surprises hotel near the airport for my last night in France. The flight back to Canada was the next morning.</p> <p>The driver said nothing more for a while, which was a blessing, as small talk was beyond me. A bad sleep the night before and the humid July day had rendered me limp with tiredness yet hyper-aware that I looked less than soignée. My capture of the taxi had taken most of what remained of my energy.</p> <p>As street signs passed, I noted a few place-names&#8212;"Place Valhubert" recalled a character in the Nancy Mitford novel <i>The Blessing</i>&#8212;before our route took them onto various highways, which looked like all other modern highways and were full of trucks. And then it started to rain&#8212;not hard, but enough to make me lose interest in gawping as if I was just another tourist. I'd been to France before, after all; even lived here for a few years, as a child. <i>Just not long enough to become fluent in French, dammit</i>.</p> <p>To save the wrappings on my drawing from the wet, I cranked up my window and then leaned across the seat to get the window on the other side of the car, since the driver couldn't close it himself.</p> <p>My attention settled on his right hand, covering the gearshift. I'd spent the previous week driving standard in central France, and was curious to see how a professional driver used second gear in slow-moving traffic. Hmm. His hand bore black hairs on its back, and there was something about the way it handled the gearshift that pleased me. Something besides its competence.</p> <p>My gaze slid up his compact black-clad arm to his neck and the back of his head. He wore his salt-and-pepper hair very short. I discovered I liked looking at the bumps in his skull and that I wanted to apply my lips, not once but many times, lightly, to the back of his neck.</p> <p>A motion caught my eye, and my gaze leaped to the rear-view mirror. His black eyes were looking at me without expression.</p> <p>For a time that seemed immeasurable but was really about three seconds, I held his eyes, letting him know that I desired him in the only way my prudish WASP upbringing allowed.</p> <p>He slid his gaze away to pay attention to the road.</p> <p>I looked down, suddenly over-conscious of being over-inhibited, over-tired and over 40.</p> <p>Another possible inadequacy recalled me to my surroundings. I leaned forward to see the meter. The fare was still manageable.</p> <p>He inhaled sharply. "Vous parlez français?" he asked.</p> <p>"Un peu," I said.</p> <p>But I'd no trouble understanding <i>him</i>. He suggested that I was going to the wrong place. The nightlife&#8212;the drinking, the dancing&#8212;were at the downtown hotels, not the airport ones. He mimed downing a drink in one gulp&#8212;evidently not wine.</p> <p>I waved my hands dismissively and answered, "Ça va; je suis bien fatiguée." <i>That's O.K.; it doesn't matter. I m very tired</i>. And the truth in those words prevented me from inferring any other meaning from his remarks, or even from wondering if he made a commission taking strangers to tourist-traps. I still needed to gain the refuge of my hotel room, where I could decompress and cool down in the blessed solitude.</p> <p>His next words took me in yet another direction I wasn't expecting. There were two Holiday Inns near the airport; which one did I want?</p> <p>Bloody hell. <i>Merde</i>, even. I'd left my travelling companion, Andrea, at Châteauroux, following a hell-for-leather drive to the train station (I adore driving fast with a standard transmission, and I was short of time, to boot), and had taken the train northeast to Paris. But, once aboard, I'd ransacked my bags for the sheet of paper that held all the hotel information. Not there.</p> <p>"Vous avez la réservation d'hôtel?" the driver asked me now.</p> <p>Rolling my eyes&#8212;a bad habit I wished I could break&#8212;I said, "Je l'ai perdu" once, and then repeated it in a louder voice when it was clear he hadn't heard me. <i>I lost it</i>.</p> <p>By this time it was clear that he wasn't familiar with all the hotels in the airport strip. He found all the major chains, such as the Marriott and Campanile. As we drove by the Novotel, he asked if I was sure it wasn't this one. I said no, wishing I'd the French to tell him that I had the damn hotel name right, I wasn't a scatterbrain, and he wasn't getting rid of me as easily as that. But the third time he gestured at a passing hotel and asked if that was the one I wanted, he did it with a smile. <i>So, it's a game, is it</i>, I thought, and laughed. He shot me a startled look in the rear-view mirror.</p> <p>Having no cellphone with me&#8212;I loathed the things&#8212;I offered to get out and phone for directions, but now he wouldn't hear of it. He held up two fingers and said, "Deux minutes." I didn't argue. If he was determined to find this phantom American inn, I could afford to let the meter go for a bit longer.</p> <p>He stopped and asked a gaggle of taxi drivers the way, explaining that his passenger had lost her reservation. They said they thought the Holiday Inn was on the other side of the highway, near Roissy-en-France.</p> <p>With that, he turned off the meter, saying that he wouldn't charge me any more than the amount displayed, as it was his fault that we were lost. As he threw the car into a tire-squealing U-turn, he said something else but I couldn't catch it, except for the final words: "Mais vous êtes bien fatiguée."</p> <p>"Ah, oui," I said. I'd probably missed another pick-up line.</p> <p>On the other side of the highway a large sign boasted many hotel logos. "Holiday Inn" was not among them. The driver expostulated on the imbecility of building a hotel but not a sign directing people to it.</p> <p>At the end of the road through the pleasant stone village of Roissy, the once longed-for words appeared on two hotels: "Express by Holiday Inn"&#8212;the nearer one&#8212;and "Holiday Inn Roissy Airport."</p> <p>The driver gestured. "Ici&#8212;ou là-bas?" <i>Here, or over there?</i></p> <p>My eyes switched from one hotel to the other as I tried to recall if the word "Express" had been on my reservation.</p> <p>He repeated the question. I felt like saying, "Yeah, I heard you; let me think, will you?" But instead I said, "Là-bas."</p> <p>The rain had stopped, and the sun had come out, feebly. As the driver unloaded the car, I asked how much the fare was, and he said, "C'est quarante. Forty euros. I had fifty-two in my wallet. I took out forty and added a two-euro coin. At the sight of the coin, he held up his hands and said, "Non, non," refusing to accept a tip he hadn't earned. So I put the coin away and handed him two twenty-euro bills, meeting his eyes only fleetingly. Now, at the end of the road, all I could think of was, "The luggage. I have to pick up the luggage."</p> <p>I gathered everything up and turned away, saying, "Merci, monsieur."</p> <p>To my retreating back, he said, "Merci, madame."</p> <p>It was the right Holiday Inn, and I gained my reserved room with dispatch.</p> <p>But the door's slam behind me echoed, booming, against my sternum. Instead of a no-surprises refuge of blessed solitude, I'd reached an all-too-predictable lodging for a lone prisoner. The room smelled of nothing.</p> <p>Dumping myself down with my back against the nearest wall, I beat my fists on the floor, sobbing, cursing my cowardice, my inhibitions, and the exhaustion I was so God-damned tired of giving in to. Then I kicked the luggage away from me, hard.</p> <p>It had been fifteen years since I'd wanted a man that much.</p> <p>It seemed like almost as long again until the longing, the frustration and the grief drained out of me, leaving nothing but cold in their place.</p> <br><br> <p><center><i>Copyright © 2012 Karen E. Bennett. 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