The Stake Out
by JEREMY PHILIP GALEN
The next afternoon I head down Rue Pigalle and walk by the Vietnamese cobbler. His pal is in there too. They are laughing raucously and smoking inside the little shop. The cobbler isn’t at work, and I notice that their scotch tumblers are more than ¾ full. What is it about this zipcode? It’s filled with a kind of decadent lunacy, a mix of madness and gratification.
Back home Genevieve reports to me that her doctor said she might become paralyzed if she continues to work hard. My first thought is, “I would have to do all my own laundry again.” Then I start thinking that she’s actually very delusional, that she hasn’t been to see a doctor at all, that she’s lying or fantasizing. Subsequently it occurs to me that there really is a good chance she doesn’t ever go dancing until 7 a.m. like she claims. It could just be a way of fantasizing external sources of validation and attention. If this is the case, I would be very sad. I decide that the only way to get to the bottom of this is to stake out the entrance of our building and then follow her on her way to her secret dance hall. It would mean sacrificing one of my own nights out, but so be it.
I tell only one of my roommates about my plan. He’s the one who has shown the most convincing regard for her. The others have been getting tired of her and complain a lot about the clothes she destroys. He declines to join me in the stakeout but wishes me luck. Around 6 p.m. I set up a little space for myself in a dark corner of the courtyard. I bring a chair, a few beers and a jacket. I sit there for an hour and a half. Nothing happens. Then the philosopher and his wife enter the building. They come over to me and I explain to them what I’m up to. “Genevieve? She’s definitely a liar. And a real thief!” “What are you talking about?” I exclaim. The philosopher’s wife starts to turn away in frustration or disgust. “Genevieve used to work for us once. She came and cleaned. But she used to steal!” I try to picture this little woman in the act of filching something. It doesn’t work out. “Anyhow, you’re going to see nothing tonight. She’s probably already asleep,” he says, walking away. I had so been looking forward to the positive finding that I really hadn’t given much thought to the negative one. A half hour passes. And then sure enough the door to her place opens slightly and I can hear her bid farewell to the strange dogs and the cat.
She looks hilarious, I’ve never seen her like this. She’s in jeans and a sagging 1980s vest with a large scarf tied around her neck. She’s also wearing lipstick and a small hat. She’s all set up, a geriatric version of the kids down the street at Le Sans Souci. I wait until she leaves the apartment and then I follow her out slowly. I take my last beer with me in case it’s a long journey. I exit the building and she’s lumbering slowly down Douai toward Place de Clichy. I stay 50 meters behind her as she slowly approaches Boulevard de Clichy. I feel a strange sensation, like I’m doing something wrong. It feels unfamiliar to me. All I’m doing is following Genevieve, my ambition is noble. I want to prove to myself that she’s not insane, that she does in fact go dancing. Am I invading her privacy? Is this unethical? I continue to follow her. I realize in a way I have no compunction anymore. I have nothing other than friendship. But isn’t friendship enough? Is there anything more noble than being a loyal friend? I am a good friend to Charlie, to my roommates, and even to people back home I don’t see often. Friendship is invulnerable in a way love relationships aren’t. There’s something permanent about adoring a friend that seems opposite to the raging hot and brittle passions of love.
I watch the sad little figure of Genevieve wait for the light to turn green at the crosswalk. She looks both ways patiently before crossing. I wait and watch her from the other side of the street. She heads into this small, crappy bar tucked in between the movie theater and the large touristy oyster restaurant. I had no idea there was dancing in this place. I loiter outside for a bit. It’s around midnight. I bum a cigarette from some young kids. I’m tired. I guess Genevieve isn’t insane. I peek in through the windows. Sure enough she’s drinking wine from a carafe at a table with several other people in her demographic. They laugh and push at each other. The men are bloated and red-faced, the women are round and happy, like Genevieve. I feel stupid about having come here and start to worry about myself. This is reckless egoism. The problem is that one of my supreme worries about myself is the likelihood that my egoism is reckless.
I head home. I can’t bear the thought of being in that apartment alone right now, I don’t know what I would do. I decide to pay the philosopher and his wife a visit. I want to tell them that I’ve discovered Genevieve is not a liar.
I knock on the small, strange wooden door of their apartment on the top floor. It takes a while for someone to come to the door. It’s the wife. She’s in an apron smoking a cigarette. “Hi,” I say. “Hi,” she says back. She scratches the back of one of her legs with a foot. “He’s asleep,” she says. “I’ve been smoking a bit of hash. And painting.” I follow her into the apartment. The philosopher is fully asleep on the couch, snoring. His large belly rises and falls with cartoonish flair. “Want something to drink?” I don’t respond for fear of waking up the philosopher. She just returns with a glass of beer. I like how she’s painting on a Saturday night after midnight. I want to make out with her. She’s a couple decades younger than the old man and though they probably had a charming thing going on up until ten years ago, there’s no denying the fact that nowadays he’s an old man and she’s still a beautiful middle aged woman.
“So is Genevieve a liar?” she asks me. The philosopher wakes with a startle and joins in, “Yes, please do give us the update.” Without sitting up he extracts a cigarette from the pack in his breast pocket and lights it with a lighter that seems to have been in his hand while he slept. “Well, she’s not a liar. She goes to a bar in Place de Clichy and drinks and dances.” The philosopher sits up. “Why is a handsome young man following an old gardienne around on a Saturday night? Aren’t you supposed to be out on the town?” I tell them that I’m fed up with partying, really. That Parisian women are hopeless. I tell them about Marie and the infinity of her charm and my complete failure to get anywhere with her. I also tell him about the pain and desperation I feel without love in my life: “The power of something missing from our lives to torture us with its absence is absolutely diabolical!”
The two of them look at each other and grin. They seem to recognize something in me or what I’m saying. The philosopher crushes out his cigarette in an ashtray overflowing with butts and asks his wife for a beer. Then he says to me, “Young man, love isn’t something we’re entitled to. It must be earned. You are complaining about something as if you wish you could find it otherwise. But it isn’t ever the case that love is easy.” “I don’t want love to be easy to obtain, I just want to know I’ll have it one day.” “Choose another type of woman than Parisian girls,” the wife starts in. “Other French girls are fine. But the Parisian girls are a waste of time.” I recall that she’s Belgian. The philosopher chortles. “All women are the same,” he says. The wife is cross with her husband. “No. We are not the same. Parisian women are evil.”
The philosopher is not happy with her. He shouts at her about how they’re running low on cigarettes. She responds by racing to the kitchen and returns to throw a pack with one or two cigarettes left in it directly at his head. It seems widely held that the capacity for sophisticated communication is the hallmark of humanity; I think it’s miscommunication and insincerity that makes us unique. What could be more human than disingenuity? More remarkable than irony?
Jeremy Philip Galen is a writer living in New York. He twitters here. The Stake Out is an excerpt from a forthcoming longer work.
You can find the archive of our Saturday fiction series here.
