One Way

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I bet it belongs to him, the one with the big goofy grin from ear to ear, sitting at the back of the café’s terrace. He moved his eyes to look up at the waiter and nod thanks for the cup of coffee he had just brought him, then turns his face back this way, toward me, but not at me. He’s looking at the car, the one with no driver, his car, nose to nose with another in the middle of the narrow street. I had noticed them as I was walking up and thought maybe one was getting a jump start from the other. But I see the hoods are down, no cables, both cars are idling, and the driver of the other car is reading a newspaper, holding it so high it brushes the roof. I looked in his window as I passed, but he didn’t see me or didn’t act it. He just reads the paper or makes a good show of it. The street must be a sens unique, but which way it’s one way I didn’t notice as I walked around the corner. I like this: it makes no sense.  The grinning man looks as if he’s doing everything he can from his face down to the seat of his pants to keep himself from bursting out laughing, unless he has to pee now and badly. He sees me looking at him, claps both hands over his mouth and puts his head down: no, it is laughter, not the bladder, I think. He looks up, then puts his head down again. I accept his invitation and wander over toward him, looking back at the newspaper-reader who hasn’t moved a muscle, nor turned a page, I’m pretty sure. I ask if I may join him. He starts to say je vous en prie, but gets no farther than the first syllable before he covers his mouth with his right hand and gestures to the seat next to him with his left.  “I was wondering what…” No, won’t do. Even if he hears what I am saying, I’m not sure he’ll be able to get an answer out while keeping his laugh in—and I don’t want him to hurt himself trying. I try again with another approach. “I was wondering if you moved around and didn’t look over at the cars if you might be able to give me an idea, you know, and I promise I’ll keep on eye on your car for you…” He hears and after nearly choking—evidently I have said something almost as funny as whatever it is he is trying not to laugh at—shifts around the table. The waiter passes, I ask for coffee, then decide this is worth a glass of wine, and wait until he brings it to let my new friend settle down. I also suggest to him that he shouldn’t look at the reflection of the cars in the glass front of the café: agreeably, he looks down. Wine in hand, I silently toast the good fortune of finding a strange puzzle in the middle of the most unstrange of streets in a very unstrange quartier, then ask my pal what’s going on.  He tries. He speaks with the stricken closed throat you hear when a Frenchmen taken to a Tex-Mex joint for the first time figures the hottest chili on the menu is the only way to go native. I give him my wine, figuring his hot coffee is not going to help and wave at the waiter for another. “Merci,” he croaks, much more distinctly or at least intelligibly, “that was a good idea. Thanks.” Je vous en prie, I answer by way of showing him the phrase really can be uttered. “Well, you see, I was laughing already. You could tell. But when you said you’d keep your eye on my car, I thought it was too much for me. Look at it! C’est une chignole! Who’d want it?” It’s not much, I agree, but not a total piece of crap, his aging Peugeot, and by Parisian standards must just getting its second wind.  So what happened? “Well, you can see the street is narrow, so of course it is one-way.” Which way? “Not mine,” he says. Did you know that when he started driving down the street? “Of course.” Of course? “Bien sûr because I drive on this street all the time. It’s on the way to my aunt’s house, and she is a very good cook. Also, you see, she worries because I am an orphan.” Sorry to hear that. “Merci, but I have had a lot of practice. Thirty years. My parents died when I was at the university.” Of course. “But auntie Cunégonde…” You’re making that up. “No, my grandparents on my mother’s side were very taken with great literature, especially Voltaire. My mother was Clytemnestre.” So sorry. “Well, yes, but it’s better than Mrs. Waters. They liked Tom Jones, too.” Understood. And tata Cunégonde? “She lives over that way, three streets. But if I go on the streets in the right direction, it adds too much time and traffic and I have to go around several blocks. Not convenient.” So that’s why you drive the wrong way on this street? “Bien sûr, as I said.” And this doesn’t happen? Didn’t happen before? “Never, because, you see, it’s the bollards. They’re new. Must be. I was here just a few days ago and I don’t remember seeing them. Maybe they were here, but there was no traffic the other…
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