After Hours

THE streets were damp with the afternoon rain still, the air warm and filled with softer noises than he was accustomed to. Foreign noises, strange and distracting. Montparnasse, Richard thought, was chaos and confusion: people everywhere, ornate streetlamps casting electric light that framed the scene alternately into brightness and shadows. The cafes were filled with people, some slumped over their hands even this early in the evening as though sleeping off a hard night of drinking, no one paying them the slightest mind but talking over their heads, arms moving as they argued and laughed. Men, wearing everything from formal evening wear to the sweaters and bags of students and the smocks of artists, mingling together without any seeming regard for class. And women, too, dressed in the smart modern fashion that still raised eyebrows and shocked whispers back home, laughing and smoking and drinking in public.

It was heady stuff, making his head spin. The sights, the sounds, even the smells were richer, more exotic, the blend of fresh breads and rabbit and beer and sweat mixing in the damp air like a perfume. He wanted to linger, to sniff the passing bodies, to run his hands over the colorful murals painted on walls and the stylized metal bands around the doors, to look in the darkened windows of storefronts and the brighter-lit facades of cafes and bars—out in the open, unlike back home—but his companions dragged him forward, men on a mission.

They were halfway down the block before Richard finally translated what the woman had said, and his ears flushed bright red. He was the youngest of the team, barely eighteen, and they never let him forget it.

The entire team had arrived in France two days before, in a tumble of trunks and shouted orders, loaded into conveyances and taken to their destination with barely time to breathe, overwhelmed with the rush of excitement on seeing the great flags of every nation flying over the cottages they had been assigned to, just beyond the stadium. Three weeks crossing the Atlantic, anticipation growing more intense every day, and then suddenly: there.

Richard had thought they would spend the time practicing and resting for opening ceremonies, but once they assured themselves that all their equipment had arrived and was properly stored, had made sure that everyone was where they were supposed to be, none missing or mislaid, the close lure of Paris, that terrible center of sin and desire, was too great to resist.

George and Henry, who had appointed themselves his caretakers, were leading the way, bypassing one café and bistro after another, leading them somewhere—somewhere special, they promised him. Someplace like you’ll never see back home.

Richard kept his laughter within his own chest, so the others would not ask him what he found so amusing. There wasn’t anything like this back home. This was Paris. But he let his teammates tow him through the stone-cut steps of the arrondissement, turning this way and that through crooked streets and down what seemed scarcely alleyways, until they finally fetched up in front of a building, two stories high, built of yellowgray stone. Glossy brown wooden panels fronted the door, with its polished brass handle, and there was one window, frosted over so that you could not see in, with one word painted on it: Gil’s.

“I have no idea.” Henry was gloriously unconcerned, the way he was unconcerned about all else, touched with the assurance that the world would move for him as he desired. “Good luck, maybe?”

They were speaking English, but nobody gave them a second look; on George’s advice they had left their identifying badges behind, dressed in what they had hoped were casually smart flannels and coats that now seemed almost conservative amid the flash and chaos of Paris.

“Nobody ever gets caught at Gil’s,” Henry said confidently, as though he had done this a hundred times before, and went through the doorway, assuming the others would follow him.

Inside, it was as though the dampness and noise of the city faded away, the space larger than it seemed from the front; the center dominated by a horseshoe-shaped bar topped with a gleaming marble top, glassware racked and glittering overhead. Scattered on either side were dozens of round tables, large enough for two or three to sit at, but most crowded with four or five, save the occasional table where a single soul sat crouched over his drink, like a cat guarding its mouse. The walls were lined with brown leather banquettes, people lounging against the whitewashed walls as though they were in the comfort of their own homes.

Although Gil’s was not as crowded as the artier, more open-air cafes they had passed, there were already men two deep at the bar, with that elegant slouch Frenchmen somehow perfected, elbows down and shoulders back, looking as though they could spend all day just where they were.

“Bon soir.” The bartender was a slender, almost short man with polished brown skin who could have slipped into their team without a moment of doubt; whipcord strong and probably just as fast. He took another look at them, and then switched into English. “Good evening. What may I fetch you?”

“Trois ‘Sidecars,’ s’il vous plait,” Henry said. He was the only one who knew much French at all, beyond what they drilled into them before leaving the States—and of course the terms of the sport, but somehow Richard didn’t think “en garde” was going to get him anything to drink.

“I’ve got this,” George said, reaching for his money clip. Richard hoped he wasn’t going to haul out the wad of bills he had seen George shove in there before they left: George’s clip was bright silver and set with a stone that glittered enough to catch even the most honest eye.

“What do you think of the Italian team?” Richard asked, uncomfortably aware of the stranger at his back, the hum of a foreign language being spoken around him. In the Village they were housed in there were a dozen or more languages around them, but it had seemed less confusing, somehow.

“I think they’re overrated.” George sounded more like he was wishing that was true, rather than believing it. Their coach was worried; that was reason enough for them to take the other team seriously. “You should worry about Hungary. Their boy, the captain, is damn good.”

George paid for the drinks, and then nudged Henry with his elbow, indicating where a small table against the far wall had become available. It was only slightly less crowded than at the bar, but they’d be able to sit down and drink comfortably.

Gil saw them the moment they came in. He saw everyone; the quick pass of a gaze that had once sized up potential opponents, and now merely gauged, in an instant, if the newcomer was of interest or not. All too often the answer was ‘not.’

Even here, in this city filled with men—and some women—aching to make their mark on history, to achieve a fame and glory he once chased himself, he found little of interest walked through the doors. The usual assortment of sad drinkers and happy drinkers, hopeful drinkers and those who were resigned to there being nothing more than a momentary pause at the bottom of a glass; that was what came through his door.

Americans, from the language. Not part or parcel of the scribblers and scrawlers and social parasites who had overrun the city in recent years; these three were too healthy, practically alight with youth and vigor. Olympiads. Skinny but strong; not runners, the wrong build for that, and not swimmers ... swordsmen. Fencers.

An elegant sport, removed from its bloody origins but not so far as to make it bloodless. Gil approved. Men still died at the edge of a blade, even in mock-combat, and all the protection and training in the world did not remove that risk. Fencers knew what they held when they picked up their blades, even blunted and capped.

But why these three? Of all the would-be champions in Paris this summer, why these three to catch his eye, to pique his age-weary attention? He put down the glass he had been polishing, and drifted toward the front of the bar, even as they placed their order, the tallest of them speaking in execrable French.

Like any good bartender, Gil could read his patrons. Over the millennia he had been trapped within the confines of this bar, he had honed that skill until it was almost uncanny, knowing what they desired, what they feared, what they needed.

Most of the time it was merely a pause: for refreshment, for drowning their sorrows or speaking them, before they went back out into the world again. Gil’s served them what they needed, and let them go. Sometimes they needed a fight, to get the blood moving and the spark of life relit within themselves. Gil himself obliged them, holding back his own considerable strength so that they felt they had a chance against the burly owner.

Sometimes, not often, they needed more. Sometimes they had earned more, merely by being more than their fellows, having some spark of fire their fellows lacked, banked or slow-burning, waiting only the gift to make it bloom into open flame.

Gil watched as they moved to a smaller table, leaning their elbows against the zinc countertop with the nonchalance of men who were utterly comfortable with their bodies, but not to the point of vanity. Three men, but one sparked with more fire than the others, the faint halo of potential glory that had been given to Gil to see.

“It’s the women.” The Olympic Committee had allowed females to compete in foil this year; an experiment. The United States had two women on their own team, although the males didn’t have much to do with them, separated by chaperones and the knowledge that a single infraction could endanger the entire team. “Having them around distracts him,” George went on. “Good for us, I say. Bastard’s too good when he’s focused, we can use all the help we can get.”

“Enough fencing,” Richard decided. “I’m bored of talking about nothing but fencing.” It was all they had discussed on the voyage over, endless hours at sea filled with practice and theory, discussing their possible opponents, and wondering who they would face.

“What would you prefer we talk about? Women?” Henry shook that idea off. “I haven’t been near one since we were picked for the team, and I know that you haven’t either. And I don’t think that’s going to change tonight, even for George. Finance? Politics? No thanks. Time enough for that when I am back home, facing nothing but meetings and ledgers.” Henry was the son of a banker, and it was understood that he would follow his father into the industry, once the Games were done.

“You love it.” George said, his eye caught on a lively bird who was, sadly, on the arm of another man. George’s father was a well-to-do businessman as well, but George had claimed no desire to take his turn as a Captain of Industry. Fencing was everything to him; he lived and breathed it—except when he was chasing after women, anyway. The others called him Casanova, not without some envy.

“I do,” Henry admitted ruefully, smiling. “It’s almost like fencing, the move and countermove, touch and point. Only when you win, you earn potloads of money, in addition to a shiny medal.”

“I’m not bailing you out if you get your hat handed to you over another woman,” Richard said, not entirely joking. “That will be harder to explain, come morning, than a simple headache from overindulgences.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing, old man,” George said, but let the woman disappear into the crowd, and raised his glass to the others in toast. Richard smiled, and raised his as well, clinking the rim lightly against theirs before taking the first sip. The concoction was a pale orange, and tangy-sweet with a bitter kick at the back of the throat, and he could feel the alcohol start to work swiftly, bringing him a sort of calmness that had been rare ever since he was selected for the team, and the fuss had begun.

Henry was right. There wasn’t anything except fencing to talk about. That was all that mattered, while they were here. The rest of the world would wait, while they claimed their gold.

The other man shrugged, trying to make his admission into a minor thing. “Makes as much sense as going into business. There’s going to be another war. Everyone knows it. If I join now, I’ll be in a position to give orders, not take them by the time action starts. Not for me, foxholes and gas masks for breakfast.”

Richard looked around, cautiously, to see if anyone had overheard, or taken offense. Americans had suffered in the Great War, but the Continent had seen far worse. Paris might seem filled with life and laughter now—but it had not been that long ago that all Europe felt the shadow of the Huns and their allies. The thought that it could come again....

Richard took another sip of his drink, as though to wash away that thought. “The silver won’t get you far,” he joked, instead. “You’ll need to show them the gold, to jump over other officers.”

“Damn straight,” Henry said. “I’m not here to bring home silver or, God help us, bronze.” He raised his glass again. “To glory—in sport, in war, and in the almighty dollar!”

They clinked again, and drank. This time the booze went down cool and smooth, without any bitterness at all. Richard thought that he could get to like this Frenchy drink, whatever it was called. Maybe they could bring it back to New York, make it a sensation.

“Ah,” the stranger said, seemingly delighted. He was their own age, but heavyset, with a hooked nose and slicked-back hair, dressed casually in an open-necked shirt, with a thin brown cigarette held carelessly between two stained fingers, emitting a strong, almost fruit-like smell. “American! Many Americans in Paris these days.” His English was heavily accented, but understandable. “Perhaps you too will stay, after you lose in horrible defeat to the French team.”

Suddenly they had gone from being three alone to part of a larger group, the bar opening up somehow and voices surrounding them in raucous good humor, a constant stream in two different languages. All men; none of the bright, flirtatious women they had seen at the other bars, but a rougher, more familiar camaraderie.

George and Henry took it all in stride, accepting offers of drinks, exchanging toasts and letting the locals practice their English—so much better than the Americans’ French—on them. Only Richard felt adrift, the calm of earlier fading away, even as his glass was taken away and refilled. The boasting, taunting tone of the conversation began to chafe him, making him impatient rather than amused.

Halfway there, he noticed that the bartender who had served them the first time was gone, replaced by a much larger man, broad-shouldered and tall, with black curls and a close-trimmed beard covering a square chin. Richard read him quickly, the way he would an opponent, and decided to go with English rather than French to avoid any possibility of offending the man with a poorly-chosen word.

“T’as une cervelle d’un mammouth congelé!” The deep-throated shout rose through the hum of the crowd, and Richard felt his reflexes kick in, dropping into a defensive posture even as he tried to find where the angry shout had come from, just in time to see two men in dark pullovers stagger at each other, clearly intoxicated.

“Et toi, t’as des couilles d’un lapin,” the man on Richard’s left spat, holding up his fists in a classic pugilistic move, obviously challenging the other man to follow his words with action.

Queensbury rules were clearly not in order, here. A sloppy roundhouse punch from one actually, through some miracle of God, managed to land on the other’s jaw, and he staggered back into the crowd, who shoved him back toward his opponent. Neither man looked to be under forty, but they were still well-muscled, and determined to do damage.

The shout came from the bar behind Richard, a deep, booming voice, and it was as though the voice of God Himself had come down on the two. Their arms dropped, and they stared at each other with the blinking, slightly dazed look of men who had just been doused with cold water.

And as quickly as it began, the fight was over, the two men grinning stupidly at each other, the crowd going back to its previous discussions, leaving a careful bit of space around the two in case they decided to start up again, but otherwise ignoring them.

Richard found himself shaken as much from the abrupt end to the fight as the suddenness and close violence of it. The bar had settled back into the same low buzz as before, once the offenders had been settled, and when Richard craned his neck to see over the crowd, even Henry and George seemed to forget about it entirely, talking happily with their new companions. Richard tried to make his muscles relax, to imitate their seeming nonchalance. It had only been a scuffle, nothing he hadn’t seen before—hell, he’d been involved in one or two himself, in college. Somehow, in this place, it seemed so much more . . . brutal.

“It could use some work,” the man said, and his face eased a little, no longer holding such a still intensity. “The trick is to relax. And have another drink. We are all multilingual when we are in our cups.”

In fact, Gil had not left the confines of the bar—was not able to leave the confines of the bar—in too many centuries to count. All he knew of the world was what came through these doors, carried by voices and newspapers. But he knew a great deal about men, and dreams. And hunger.

The boy handled himself well, when startled by the fight, when accosted by strangers. Dark haired, dark-eyed, younger than the other two he had come in with, although it might be less years and more a lack of experience. He was not hard yet, for all his toughness.

The new bartender fussed with the bottles, and then poured him another drink, not the sidecar he had ordered but something different, mixing it with a flourish, like a magician. Richard thought about protesting, but didn’t trust his French, or the bartender’s mood, enough to risk it. The bartender pushed the drink across the bar, accepting the coins Richard pushed back at him with smooth motions that reminded Richard of the second crossing of blades, where you think you have your opponent’s measure, but want to make sure before you ventured anything tricky

“I’ve never gone anywhere,” Richard admitted, not sure why he was telling this man anything except . . . that was what you did with bartenders? He took a sip of the drink, and nodded in approval. It was much better than the sidecar. “I mean, I’ve traveled across the States, of course. I’m from Chicago, in the Midwest, and I’ve been to Boston and New York, and Pittsburgh, and. . . .” The names of the cities were only that to the bartender, he realized, somewhat taken aback. ‘American’ was all he knew, and all he saw. “But well, that’s all home. We speak the same language, mostly, except for slang and such.”

Richard considered the question, taking another sip of his drink to give himself time. It was much stronger than the first one, too, or maybe he was feeling it, suddenly. “Yes,” he said. “Oui, there is ... fraternity.” He liked the word, the more he thought of it. “We are all here for the same purpose; we’ve been working for years to reach this point, and even though there is competition, there is also a bond in knowing that we want the same thing.”

“Ah, oui, all want to win.” The bartender nodded as though that were self-evident, and Richard in fact felt foolish for having said it, like the greenie the others teased him for being, younger and less sophisticated. Of course they all wanted to win.

Why? The question was like the roundhouse punch, throwing Richard into blinking silence for an instant. “Winning . . . it means that you are the best. Proving yourself against the rest of the best. It’s a thing to bring home, to hang on the mantle, or on an office wall, to show that you’ve proven yourself. ‘Ah, Dicky, he’s been with us for ten years, since he took the gold for the States, you must remember. . . .’ ” Richard managed to do a credible imitation of Henry imitating his father the banker, although there was no way the bartender could know that.

It sounded grand, when the bartender said it, not silly at all. Richard turned the glass around, watching the condensation on the bartop fade and dry up, only to be replaced by new rings as he moved the glass. His mouth was dry, and he took another sip.

“Hey, Dick!” George was calling to him, and he turned, waving a hand to indicate that he would return soon. The stranger was still in his seat, however, and an odd bitterness rose in his throat.

“Glory. Fame. Fraternity. It’s all fleeting, isn’t it?” Even a name on a medal was fleeting; eventually people would stop looking at it. Someone else would win another, the way someone had taken his chair.

“All life is fleeting,” the bartender said, but there was a weight to his words that made Richard frown again, aware that he’d missed something unsaid. This second drink was much stronger than the first; his head felt muzzy and his eyesight seemed almost blurred, as though he’d been drinking all night, and not just this brief time.

“There has to be something in life that lasts, that matters,” he protested, not quite sure why—or what—he was arguing. “And not the way the pastor claims, glory in the hereafter, either.”

“Bah. There is nothing.” The man to his left had terribly accented English, but he seemed to understand enough to have followed their discussion. “We are born, we sweat, we are for the worms.”

“At least, in feeding worms, we live again?” Richard said, attempting to smile, unsure why the words had shaken him so. The bartender—the owner, Richard suddenly realized—scowled at the old man, as though he would take up the argument again, with Richard, were they alone.

“Dicky!” George came over, a little unsteady on his feet, and slung his arm across Richard’s shoulders, startling him from any further rejoinder he might have made. “You’re being anti-social again, chum. What’s eating at you?”

George had an edge to his voice, and Richard wondered if he looked or sounded as half-under as his teammate. How long had they been there? It seemed as though they’d just arrived, and yet he felt as though he had been talking to the bartender for hours. The occasional gin taken in a speakeasy never had this effect on him—what had the bartender put in this drink? Or was it the air in here, the pungent smell of the butts these Frenchies smoked, harsher and more aromatic than cigarettes sold back home, until the air was practically blue with it? Richard shook his head, as much to clear his thoughts as to answer them. But George took it the wrong way.

It was easier to give in, go back and rejoin the group. They would make room for him, shove the interloper out of his seat or find him another one. He was just letting nerves nibble on him, was all. Once things got started he’d have his focus back, his eye on the gold, and everything would make sense again.

“Knowing what you want,” the bartender said, speaking, it seemed, only to Richard, his shagged-curled head leaning in close, his voice pitched to carry through the endless murmur of noise. “Being very sure of what you want. C’est ce qui compte. That’s the trick.”

It seemed as thought the bartender was waiting for him to respond. What did he want? He wanted to win the gold, of course. He would accept silver, or even bronze, but it was important to bring home a medal, to show everyone back home what they could do, to represent the United States against the other nations....

But what did he truly want? After the bouts were done and the excitement and strangeness of it all faded away ... what did he want then? It seemed impossible to think that far. The moment was now, the now was the moment. After that would come war, George was right; even though nobody talked about it, everyone knew it.

Glory. Honor. Pride. A shiny gold medal hung on the wall in some office, or over the mantle, and the memory of soldiers just come home from war, their faces gaunt, butts held in shaking hands as they told stories that didn’t tell the real story. Eyes that were too intent on something you couldn’t quite see, or looked at nothing at all, even when they looked right at you. Richard had seen the soldiers come home, not the generals or the heroes, but the boys who’d gone and bled and made it home not entirely whole. His friends could talk about being officers, but there was something in Richard that shied away from the thought of giving orders that sent men to such a fate.

There was no gold for the team that year. No silver or bronze. The Games ended, Richard went home, and hung his favorite épée on the wall. He went to war, and came home and got married. Taught high school, and raised two daughters. Saw them grow up and get married, and held his grandchildren when they were born. All those years, the épée hung on the wall, and he would touch it, every now and then, as he passed by. And when his wife died at the age of 79, two months after he had been diagnosed with lung cancer the doctors could do nothing about, he held her hand as she breathed her last, remembered the despairing words of a drunk old man in a bar in Paris of 1924, and his expression was one not of bitterness or regret, but content.