She had gone to Paris so she could smoke cigarettes unmolested. And be depressed. If you have to be depressed, be depressed in Paris. Angie’s grandmother said that from her bed in the New Seoul Nursing Home in Koreatown. In Korean, of course. She died soon after from a blood clot, having never been out of the country since she arrived as an immigrant in 1976.
The old lady left Angie three thousand dollars in cash, Paris on the envelope. Angie cried looking at her grandmother’s shaking script. Two months later, she flew out of LAX. She rented a room in the third arrondissement from a bitter divorcée in her mid-fifties. The only house rule: Angie could not bring any men home.
Not a problem, Angie said. I’m taking a break from relationships. All of them.
It had been hard to be depressed in America, in L.A., where everyone had to be happy, healthy. The sun brought out unflattering shadows if you frowned, and crying ruined fake eyelashes.
It rained all the time in Paris. People looked elegant, even when wet.
Angie’s heart was broken. One minute she had a fiancé, the next she lost him to a craft services girl who saved the everything bagels for him. They were working on a Brad Pitt thriller, so Angie hated Brad Pitt too. And the movie business. And movies.
The apartment in Paris was old and had no wifi. She went out and gesticulated until she bought herself a modem, and with her substandard French, set up a telephone account. Only Angie’s mother and sister knew her phone number. Angie’s mother called once a week, on Saturdays, to make sure Angie was still alive. Angie’s sister called more sporadically, usually when drunk, and complained about her boyfriend. She said she wanted to visit Angie in Paris but Angie knew she would never get it together enough to get a passport.
Angie kept odd hours. She woke at four in the morning, which was seven at night in L.A. It was dark out and quiet, the streets deserted, chairs on top of all the café tables, anchored together with a long, snaking lock. She dressed in the dark, put her hair in a ponytail, wrapped a big scarf around her neck, and let herself out of the apartment as quietly as possible. Her roommate was a light sleeper and angry when awakened.
Angie walked. It didn’t matter where, often crossing the same bridge again and again over the Seine. It was wonderful how she did not think when she was walking. She looked at things without it reaching her so that nothing hurt her. Later, she would remember almost no details about her stay in Paris, not the names of the cafés she frequented, the train stations, the faces at the tabac stands where she bought her Gauloises, the gargoyles leering from all the beautiful old buildings. She would forget the name of her roommate and only remember her sour expression like a stain on her face.
Angie walked until nine, when the streets grew too busy with life and crowded her out. She went back to the apartment and sprawled on the bed, falling asleep instantly, sweating as the summer sun poured in from the high, tall windows in her room. In the afternoon, she woke, her mouth dry, her stomach famished, and she ate two vanilla yogurts and several croissants she had bought that morning in a bakery she would never be able to find again. Her face and body littered with crumbs, she opened the windows and brushed herself off, annoying the birds resting on the sills, who flew away and then came right back.
One late Sunday morning, Angie’s phone rang. The caller spoke English with a French accent. He asked for somebody else. Angie said he had the wrong number.
Do I? the man asked. What’s your name?
Angie felt like she had nothing to lose, nothing to gain, so she told him.
He said her voice was delicious.
Was that something Frenchmen say? Angie asked.
Angie must have been very lonely because she talked to the wrong number for a long time. She asked him who he was calling. It was a Korean woman with the same last name as Angie. Later it occurred to Angie that he was lying, that he had simply looked for Korean names in the phone book.
He said his name was Paul. He was funny, like a cartoon Frenchman. He bragged about his sexual conquests and the size of his manhood. What century are you from? Angie laughed. She hadn’t laughed in a long time.
He said so many inappropriate things, like that he preferred Asian women because they were small and more likely to age gracefully. His words were confusing, sounding like compliments, but making her feel unimportant. And then he said he loved all women, all sizes, all races, all ages, he didn’t discriminate.
Angie laughed when he said he wanted to meet her. She had been hardwired to reject strangers by watching reruns of Law & Order. So you can kidnap me? she asked. So you can tie me up and use me as your plaything? Now Angie said something inappropriate. Don’t you know Asians are smart?
A hardness came into his voice. You tease, he said. You are cruel. He accused her of playing with him, leading him on. I am engorged! he shouted at her.
What was that? she asked. She couldn’t make out the word in his accent. Encased? Engarde? Didn’t that have to do with fencing?
Angie imagined herself as a fencer, encased in the thick white outfit and mask that would keep her anonymous, the fine, sharp tip of her sword. It was encouraging.
Angie hung up on him. Later, back in L.A., it took her almost a year to cancel her phone service because of her terrible French.
CAROLINE KIM was born in Busan, South Korea, and currently lives in northern California. Her poetry and fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in MANOA, The Michigan Quarterly Review, Spinning Jenny, Meridian, Faultline, Jellyfish Review, and elsewhere.