The Rose Café (28 page)

In spite of the odd ending to the little dinner party with Marie, because of the apparent sincerity of his story and the epic sadness and penumbral tones of his delivery, I had more or less come to accept his own version of his tale—even if it wasn't true. But the fact is, in the end, I didn't really care.

It was from the hunt for le Baron that I first came to learn the value of narrative—the rich fabric of truth, supposed facts, misinterpretation, delusions, myths, legends, and inventions that makes up the history of a place—or a person. I learned that perhaps it didn't matter which tale was authentic.

Chrétien and I spent a hideous night in the Marseille train station, trying to sleep on the hard benches amid the drunks and clochards and petty criminals who had taken shelter there. We caught the morning train the next day and slept most of the way up to Paris, and I went back to my old haunts on the Left Bank.

A few days after I settled in, I took one of the $20 notes to the Bank of France to get it changed. The teller, a mousy woman with tinted glasses and a brown suit, took the bill, snapped it flat, and inspected it.

“One moment please,” she said and went off to a back room.

She was gone for a long time.

I waited, tapping my fingers on the counter, and after a while a heavyset, smooth-skinned man came over and angrily pushed the bill through the window.

“This is counterfeit,” he said.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

Copyright © 2007 by John Hanson Mitchell

Cover image by Gordon Morrison; design by Neil A. Heacox

ISBN: 978-1-4976-8211-5

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