Leaving New York

Chapter 43

Four months later, I was gardening for pay. Daffodils had bloomed in Parc de Belleville. I had a big wheelbarrow filled with hardwood mulch, and I was on my hands and knees mulching rhododendrons. I looked at the city from the hilly park towards the Quartier Latin, where Phillipe was renovating a co-op apartment for a young couple. He'd been through three helpers in as many weeks then decided to do everything himself. We'd argued at breakfast about a young Algerian boy barely eighteen who'd quit.

"I try to be open-minded about foreigners like you expect, but he stole my favorite hammer and took twenty Euro from my wallet. Foreigners!"

He was sitting in his underwear while I looked for my gardening gloves. "We were all foreigners from somewhere, Phillipe. You got to interview these people, train them, teach them."

"Adam doesn't steal."

"Well, you figure it out—I got to go to work."

"You get to work in the park while I carry fourteen sheets of plasterboard up three flights of steps."

"I told you ten times I'd help you . . ."

"No—you have your thing, I have mine. If we work together and live together, there will be a murder or suicide or worse.

"Right."

We'd done everything a "couple" would do, but living in his parents' old apartment was still creepy—I longed for the worn luxury of Gar and Chloe's. About the time I left there, Ari and the boys moved to his girlfriends in Montparnasse. I tried to keep in touch, but the boys grew up fast and didn't have much time for their Uncle Jack. I resented it because of what I'd done for them, but aren't all children ignorant of all the little kindnesses showered on them? I talked to Gar every few weeks—work was okay, and they were selling the house. Every time I'd hang up the phone, I reminisced about that first train ride from Le Havre to Paris, sitting across from Gar and Chloe--how they took me in. My phone rang.

"Jack?"

"What?"

"I need help getting this plasterboard upstairs; I can't do it alone."

"I told you that."

"It's supposed to rain--it'll ruin it all; it's leaning against the building on the sidewalk."

"Can you cut them in half or something?"

"No, it won't work with the studs."

"Well, what do you want me to do about it? Phillipe, this is all because of poor planning."

He got choked up, which I'd never heard-ever. "Please help me?"

"All right—I'll come help. I'll tell the park superintendent something came up. Where are you?"

"Rue Dante and Saint Germain."

"I'll take a cab."