Postal
Mersiha Bruncevic
It was a very hot summer day last year in Paris, and my new shoes had somehow been sent to the wrong address.
“It says here, ‘left with the concierge’. But there is no concierge in my building,” I said, showing her the notice on my phone. The lady behind the desk, whose job it was to find missing mail, seemed not to care one bit about that. She struck the keys again, loudly, writing the track number for the fourth time, as if writing it again loudly would change that there was no concierge in my building.
“And there is no concierge in your building?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.”
“Unless he’s see-through.” But she took no notice of my comment or how I said it.
“You live in the 15th, no… in the six…?” I had to cut her off.
“No! I live here. In the 9th.”
“Oh?” She seemed very surprised even though I was standing there with no makeup and in the sort of clothes someone only has on around the house when they are sick or cleaning the bathroom. It could not have been that much of a surprise that I lived nearby. Nobody would have gone all across Paris dressed like that.
She turned the big screen towards me, showing a picture of a man. And in the hands of this man that I did not know, and had never seen, was a box with my name on it. He had my shoes.
“The box is with the concierge. As you can see. Drop-off was at 10:15 this morning at the address in Passy. The mailman took the picture, the notice was then sent to you, to your phone.”
“That is not my building. I have never seen that man. I don’t live in Passy. I wish I did, but I don’t. I live here, in the 9th.”
“I suppose you will tell me next this is not your name, address, and phone number?” she said, pointing to the screen.
“Two out of three, Madame.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s my name, that’s my number, but I have no idea where that address is.” All of it was wrong: the street name, the street number, everything. My new, fancy French shoes were way across town in strange hands.
I called a cab to take me to that damn address in Passy. The ride took about half an hour. I got out right on the street under the raised road and rail bridge. The noise and roars from the trains above were almost unbearable.
The street name on the sign in front of me was the same as the one on the screen of Our Lady of Lost Mail. But I knew this street and had always thought, for some reason, that it was called Rue Jules Verne. Now, it had a different name.
There was only one call button at the entrance. There was no answer for a long time. I tried again. Then, I began to knock on the large glass door.
“Hello?” No answer. “Hellooo?” A lady with red rollers in her hair opened finally.
“Yes?”
“Hello, Madame. I’m sorry to knock like this. I don’t live here.”
“Yes…”
“My mail was sent here… it was sent to the wrong address. The mailman left it with the concierge.”
“No concierge in this house.” She was foreign and old and did not speak French very well.
“No concierge?!”
“No concierge here…”
“Well, that’s not true. They told me… they said… there was a picture of him even! I saw his face, his hands, and the box, he was holding the box with my shoes in it!” I must sound crazy to her, I thought.
“No…. I no mean no concierge, I mean he gone. He back soon,” she said calmly, looking at my worn house clothes.
“Ah,” was all I said. The lady with the red rollers in her hair let me in to wait in the hallway, and I sat down on the stairs. In one of the ground-floor apartments, someone played classical music very loudly.
Later, finally with my shoes in hand, I headed across the bridge to catch a train back. I did not have enough money for another cab, all my money had been spent on the shoes in that damn box. But when I got to the station, the entrance was closed, a sign on the gate read: “WALK-OUT! WORKERS — COME TOGETHER NOW FOR BETTER PAY, BETTER HOURS!”
The way things were, with the walk-out, my not having any money for a cab and all that, I would have to walk home all the way across Paris in the heat. But I was tired and did not want to do that. I went back across the bridge instead to have a cold drink at the Kennedy-Eiffel Bar.
I went inside and found there was only one empty table. No one sat outside, no one wanted to breathe that hot air. We were all stuck anyway, there would be no trains for days, maybe longer, and the lot at that bar could probably not pay for a cab any more than I. Well, so it goes.
At the table next to me, two young women talked loudly.
“You want this golden, shining, powerful warrior to build a fortress where you can hide. So you don’t have to ever… have…You don’t ever have to be afraid. You don’t have to feel lonely or empty. That’s what you want, isn’t it?
“Yes!”
“Well, you'll never find it.”
“But, Rosa, I found this man!”
“No. You have not, Jeanne!”
There was a group of kids at the big table in the corner. They were still going after what must have been a fun night, still going in the afternoon. They were buzzed, drunk and dressed all in black even though it was so very hot outside. It seemed like they hadn’t even thought about sleeping for days. The young men had long hair, the young ladies had short hair. They all had tons of makeup on. It made me think of wakes and the white face of someone dead surrounded by flowers, the face painted with tons of makeup on.
“Who was there… who was theeerrre last night?” one girl cried through a little laugh.
“Mr Juicehead Junky. And… Mr Saxophone. He’s… he’s our connection, he gives us some hard stuff once in a while. The beautiful Miss Blowjob of course!” one of the young men said, also laughing. He then turned to a strange but sweet-looking young man next to him “And where did you get off to?”
“Why?”
“Well, where did you go?” another young lady asked.
“Quo vadis, baby?!” somebody said.
“I went to see Marcel,” he said finally.
“Oh!” cried the girl.
“Then I went to see Paul…”
“Oh! Double oh! How fun!” the other girl said.
“You can say that again, it was double O:s for me all night long.” Then they all started laughing, it was crazy, hysterical laughing.
Sitting at the bar, a man in his 50’s said, pleading with his wife,
“We’ll change everything! Everything! We’ll change this… We’ll change chance to fate!” But his wife did not look at him. He went on, angry now, “You know, on the top of the closet? The cardboard box. I found all your little goodies. Pens, keychains, foreign money, French ticklers, the whole shot. Even a clergyman’s collar. I didn’t know you collected all those little knick-knacks….” he cried, “I met him, I met him as he was leaving our house… I didn’t even have the guts to ask him if the same numbers you and I did were the same numbers you did with him… Our marriage was nothing…” he put his hand to her mouth, rubbing off her lipstick.
Outside the old Kennedy-Eiffel Bar, the street lights came back on after a day of sleep, the light was soft and green like it always is when it first turns on. It was evening all of a sudden. I thought, “How did that happen? Where did the hot, crazy day go?” The city, the sky, the rooftops, all of it was so calm now, the air cool and sweet. Everything outside was so beautiful, it felt like all the mail in the world had been sent to the right address.
The bar was almost empty. I had finished my drink, a good, strong drink. It was enough for me to bear the long walk home.
“Is this seat taken?” a man said, stopping me as I was about to leave.
“No,” I said.
“May I?”
“If you’d like to.” We sat for a moment, looking at each other.
“I’m awfully sorry to intrude like this,” he said finally, “But I was so struck with your beauty that I thought I could offer you a glass of champagne.” He had the tired eyes of a man who was worn out by many things, many good and bad things. It seemed to me that he was a whore-fucker, a bar-fighter, super-masculine but also poetic, and there was pain in his eyes, beautiful, unbearable pain. I thought he must have been very handsome twenty years ago.
There was an old television set behind the bar and on that small screen shiny people were dancing slowly in shiny shoes along a shiny floor. “You know, the tango is a rite… Do you understand? A rite. You must watch the legs of the dancers,” he said.
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“Are you American? You have an American accent?” I said. He raised his glass and there was a hint of a smile or something like it on his strange face and in his tired eyes. There was an awkward energy between us, sitting like that with the box on the table between us.
“I’m…” Before I could say my name, he cut me off.
“No, no! I don’t want to know your name. I don’t want to know anything about you. I don’t wanna know where you live or where you come from. I wanna know nothing, nothing, nothing…”
“All right,” I said. He was still kind of hot.
“All right.”