CHASING LIFE (19 page)

             
‘Love you. Bye.’ Dave knew that Amy worried about him like a sister, and it pissed her off when he didn’t listen to her advice. Her solicitous concern for him put a smile on Dave’s face. When his phone rang an hour or so later, he heard another familiar voice.

             
‘What the hell happened to you?’

             
‘Hey Mike.’ Dave couldn’t be bothered going through another explanation, but he couldn’t tell a friend to just leave it alone.

             
‘I just heard your message telling me you were robbed. Are you all right? Do you need money?’ Mike’s concern was genuine and devoid of his normal jocularity. It had obviously dawned on him how serious his friend’s situation was.

             
‘Yeah, I’m okay, mate. Amy is going to lend me some cash while the bank gets back to me.’

             
‘Are you sure?’

             
‘Positive.’

             
‘All right, you cheeky bastard,’ Mike said in a low voice. ‘I hope it was worth it.’ His old self had returned and Dave found it a relief.

             
‘Well, the problem is that I don’t remember most of it.’

             
‘No shit? You really went balls-out, didn’t you?’

             
‘Nah, I think I was drugged.’

             
‘Bloody hell! Have you told your folks?’

             
‘No and please keep it that way,’ Dave grew concerned at the notion of his parents worrying about him. After everything he’d put them through, this was the last thing they needed.

             
‘All right, you banana. What now?’

             
‘I’ll have to sort it out with the cops and see whether I can get my money back.’

             
‘Are you coming back to Aus?’

             
‘I can’t, not yet anyway.’

             
‘Okay. Well, call me if you need anything.’

             
‘Will do. See ya, Mike.’ Dave hung up and threw himself on the bed, bouncing on it uncomfortably like a sack of potatoes.

Chapter 22

After the incident
, Dave spent his days mostly in and around the apartment, staying sober at all times. His newfound motto of ‘try anything’ was under revision. His inclination to trust people had fallen to an all-time low and it took him some time to recover from a dislike of the French. One tends to hate everything foreign when wronged, he’d learned, but he was the foreigner here. Eventually he came to the conclusion that not every French person was out to rip him off. They weren’t to blame, after all, for the bastards of their society.

             
Meanwhile, he longed to escape from this crappy experience and go back to Melbourne. The world wasn’t as safe and accommodating as he’d expected. However, he was trapped for now, and there was no going anywhere without money. Every hour of the day and every day of the week would be counted down until he’d sorted this mess and bought himself a ticket out of there. He felt lonely, unhealthy and horrible in general. He contemplated seeing a local doctor about it. What worsened things was his constant thinking of Julia.

             
Waking up with a hangover and an ashtray mouth virtually every day had disgusted him. Something had to change. With the money Amy sent him, Dave bought a pair of shorts. He had decided that exercise would be a way to pass the time. Over the years his body had turned soft and flabby—a direct result of sitting on his arse for most of his working life. For a week, every morning Dave had shoved his apartment key into his pocket and headed for the park across from rue Buffon.

             
At the botanical park, Jardin des Plantes, runners had passed him by while he struggled to complete one kilometre of a track five times that distance. Although exhausted and puffing like crazy, by the time he’d reached five hundred metres, he’d pressed on. He’d pushed himself until his heels broke out in blisters, calves burnt and thighs begged for mercy.

Along the park’s dirt path were benches occupied by teenagers fiddling with iP
hones, lovers smooching, old ladies quietly chatting away and young families idling with prams. Having people around him, even though they were strangers, brought Dave comfort. The noise in his mind was akin to a busy freeway full of congested traffic. Focussing on the world around him distracted the useless thoughts floating endlessly. They had no purpose, except to feed his loneliness and depression. At night, he’d devoted all his time to learning the French language. He read anything he could get his hands on, plus stuff he could find on the Internet.

Eventually
, something interesting happened—and unexpectedly. The more he ran, the more the world revealed itself to him. The smell of the flowers in the lush garden devoured his senses like never before; it was intoxicating. He realised that the park and the environment around him was full of life; the chatter and people’s facial expressions when greeting each other and reading their moods became a new interest. All these creatures had lives of their own: happy, sad, playful and absorbing, they were all going through a range of emotions. Like him, they were part of it, this life. Ordinary Parisians going about their business like ordinary people.

Dave tackled the full five-kilometre track after a week of daily running. During that week, his body had cleansed itself of the toxins he’d been accumulating of late. Over the week, one lap had turned into two, then three and then, a week on, he’d broken through the comfort zone he’d confined himself in and ran across the busy street and along the Seine. His chest heaved and his heart pumped like a perfectly timed steam engine— well-built machinery chugging along without missing a beat.

This was a new
experience. He was dodging the tourists blocking his way, but he wasn’t annoyed or angry. This state of mind brought him balance, and he didn’t mind the little things. The anger he was normally prone to felt distant. It was just like in his younger days, and Dave felt good. At one point, a rowdy group of Russians walked into his path and nearly forced him into oncoming traffic. They had apologised and, to his surprise, he found himself saying ‘Have a nice day’—and he’d said it in French. He felt elated and wanted to share it with the world.

With abundant energy he sprinted down a set of stairs and ran along the Seine’s banks
. When boats full of sightseers floated by, he increased his pace. He was trying to keep up and imagined a passenger taking pictures of him and egging him on, saying ‘Come on, Dave. Keep going.’ He ran nearly halfway around Notre Dame Cathedral, over the main bridge to the other side and down the banks again, where he ran out of running space. The footpath came to an end.

He stopped to catch his breath and give his legs a break. As he wiped the sweat off his brow, he watched the sightseeing boat float past him. The passengers pointed in his direction.
He wondered whether they were really looking at him. Dave felt exhilarated because they were even taking photos. He turned around to see if anyone on the banks was watching, but there was no audience.

A man was walking his dog atop the riverbank
, and a couple gazed down, but not toward him. The boat’s passengers had been taking photos of Notre Dame. They had a great angle from where the boat was passing by. Dave smiled at his naivety. Why would they care about taking photos of a jogger? He got his breath back and continued on his run.

Being lonely was one thing, but experiencing the fulfilment of solitude had a positive eff
ect. Before then he’d relied on family and friends to prop him up when he was down. With no one around to depend on, he’d had to learn to deal with his emotions by himself for the first time in his life. He’d been shutting out new possibilities for so long, and all his thoughts had been directed to Julia. His mind obsessed over the past, and since he couldn’t go back there, he suffered for it.

A week after the theft, a new credit card arrived, along with new security details for Dave’s web banking. He held the plastic card in his hand like it was a fascinating artifact. Amazing how much we rely on this thing, he thought. The French police had been sympathetic to his plight and had done a thorough investigation. Dave’s apartment-complex superintendent had identified Vincant and the Jazz Inn former barman in police mug shots. An arrest warrant had been issued for them, even though they were nowhere to be found. The fact that Vincant had a prior record of fraud helped. Gerard Pompei and Pompei Gerard were aliases he’d used before.

At Dave’s
insistence, the French police had taken blood samples to test for drugs. Apart from Viagra, they had found a substance that induced a trance-like state. This illegal drug was known to be used for interrogation, a ‘truth serum’, they called it. It induced the victim to answer any question asked and left them at the mercy of their assailants. During Dave’s semi-comatose state, Vincant and his friends had convinced him to divulge his banking information. A laptop was most likely used to transfer the money, and it confirmed Dave’s theory about the laptop in Vincant’s car. Anastasia was well known to the police also. She’d operated in the same manner with older gentlemen.

When the police report was faxed to Dave’s bank
and his credit-card travel insurance approved his claim and covered his losses. He had to pay a $500 penalty charge, but he could live with that and felt extremely lucky. He could have ended up dead in a gutter. Restored to his previous financial state, he was now free to leave. But was he ready to leave? He was in two minds now. He’d made no conversation with anyone for weeks, and his only contact was with the building superintendent—the now-standard greetings of
bonjour
,
comment-allez vous
and
au revoir
.

On the other hand, l
ong-distance conversations with Amy had become the norm. Every second day without fail, either he would call her or she would call him. Their banter wasn’t filled with any profound exchange of information. It had simply become a habit—the need for contact with someone familiar. The need to know that he existed and that someone knew it. She’d become the parole officer he reported to on a regular basis. Amy would tell him all about her day at work and how close she was to her dream of buying a house while he’d listen and nod. Funnily enough, she’d never talk about her boyfriend.

Dave’s
circumstances had now changed, and the longing to leave wasn’t as strong as it was after he was robbed. At times, he would read Julia’s letter and a moment later find himself packing. With his passport and credit card in hand, he was ready to purchase an online ticket at the hostel Internet café. Then, he’d find himself pressing the cancel button and going back home, wondering when he would get the chance to be in Paris again.

He knew a
decision would have to be made one way or another. Leaving for another destination would bring him to a similar circumstance of uncertainty. Taking it as it came and being open-minded was his motto for the trip, and he was still doing that by staying. So why not stay? Erin was unfinished business, and he couldn’t leave yet, not without seeing it through. She was there somewhere, and he felt it. His jogging route now extended throughout the Latin Quarter and St Germain, in hope of getting a glimpse of that elusive creature. He was David Attenborough, in search of a rare species of animal in the urban jungle of Paris, ready to capture a glimpse of her.

His i
nterest in tourist attractions had waned, but he’d managed a couple of trips. One had been to Pigalle, the Parisian red-light district. He’d found the Moulin Rouge happily drawing an immense amount of commercial tourism, alongside the sex tourism of nearby establishments. Close by was the magnificent Sacré Coeur, an impressive cathedral with a breathtaking view. But the bristling two-bit buskers, hordes of dodgy hustlers and scammers he had to wade through were off-putting. He’d given the art galleries a miss after his experience at the Louvre.

What
had really fascinated Dave was La Défence. This suburb, on the fringes of historical Paris, was a purpose-built major business district. Modern high-rises and office buildings had a free reign. Walking down its streets reminded him of Melbourne’s business district. He had no idea such structures existed in this part of Europe, judging by what he’d already seen. He marvelled at how well planned it was. Mostly accessible to pedestrians, a new spirit of Paris was conjured while the old one remained preserved in the distance beyond. The old city was still in the running for a spot in the modern world; progress and experimentation with high-tech architecture continued, without the grotesque intrusions of eyesores that other world cities experienced.

To some degree,
Dave found himself integrating in the local lifestyle. This became evident to him when he’d given directions to lost tourists on a number of occasions, in French and sometimes to the French. In the afternoons, he would go to the enchanting Restaurant de la Mosquée behind Jardin des Plantes in the open courtyard. The interior walls of this, part restaurant and part mosque, were covered with middle-eastern paintings, elaborate murals and mosaics. Deep, rich colours created a relaxing atmosphere for weary visitors. Locals were engrossed in conversation over nargile pipes, and the air was filled with the scent of apples and grapes. Dave watched them with curiosity. He was particularly fond of the couscous and hot mint tea on a cold day; it warmed his insides in the chilled evenings.

             
Back at the apartment, he’d been thinking of what else he would do, or should do while he was there. He’d got himself quite a routine. It suddenly dawned on him—routine. It was happening again, here in the city of light. But being detached from the world he knew and transitioning into a solitary outpost of his own making was like being stranded on an island. The temporary peace he’d found carried a sweet and monotonous simplicity that surely could not last. He would surely soon find himself anxiously dangling on a fine line of uncertainty again. A storm would either come on its own or he would bring it on himself.

             
One night after a big run, he walked to the kitchen in his apartment and eyed the last bottle of wine. It had been a while since he’d had a drink. The next choice was natural and obvious; he opened the bottle and poured a glass of the mind-numbing fluid he’d grown accustomed to. It tasted terrible. He’d become enough of a local to know that being given such wine in this country amounted to an insult. The cold liquid whirled in his mouth and found its way down his throat with a tingling sensation that caused an immediate warming effect on his body. An acidic feeling lingered in his stomach and he shrugged, washing it down with another glass.

He thought about
Riza, picturing her on his bed that night in Hong Kong, when he’d been kissing her neck gently. His vivid imagination went rampant. A feeling of want stirred in him—an urge that had not been satisfied in so long that it had become dormant. Besides Anastasia, Dave hadn’t slept with a woman for a long time, and he didn’t want to draw memories from his time with Julia—it would bring him to tears. The craving grew into a need and he had to have it—the bubble was about to burst.

A
primordial need insisted he go out and get it. His restlessness grew by the minute as he dwelled on it. The second glass of wine turned into a third, and his movements become less focussed. He dressed quickly, with confidence and determination. A fresh shirt, clean jeans, money in his pocket and brand-new shoes he’d hardly worn were his weapon. Tonight, he was on the hunt.