The Radiant City. Lauren B. Davis
Chapter Five
It is just after nine o’clock when Matthew finds the Bok-Bok, in the mostly Arab neighbourhood known as Belleville, in the 20th arrondissement, where windows full of oriental pastries and shops selling prayer rugs and Korans line the streets. As he walks, he keeps his eye on a group of twenty-something North African men wearing track suits and smoking with practised nonchalance. They joke, slap palms and watch the passers-by. Women keep their eyes downcast as they walk past them. When a blond in a short skirt and high-heeled sandals walks by they toss out insults in Arabic and spit at her. The old women and the ones wearing traditional headscarves are treated with more respect. An old man comes out of his grocery shop and shakes his hands at them, as though they are a trip of goats he means to move along. He says something harsh in Arabic, but the young men take no notice.
Matthew gives them and their tangible disaffection a wide berth. There are young men like this in every city of the world, only the ethnicity is different. He knows that the angry, like the poor, will always be with us. He avoids eye contact and keeps his gait casual.
He is looking for a particular passageway that was part of Jack’s instructions, and when he finds it he edges through a gate into a small discreet courtyard that smells of piss. He crosses to a door on the left, next to a wooden sign with the name of the bar on it and a Harley-Davidson logo sticker. The steps inside are absurdly steep, narrow and dark. He feels along the wall with his hands as he descends. The wall is damp.
When his eyes adjust to the shadows in the dimly lit room below, he sees an attempt has been made to reproduce an in-country Vietnamese hooch. The floor is wooden, the bar is rough-hewn and the tattered remains of an army surplus camouflage net hangs from the ceiling, festooned with small red and green Christmas lights. The faces of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin look down from the walls. There are dusty plastic palms in the corners and the air smells of cigarettes, beer, piss and the sort of centuries-old mould that is endemic to Paris basements.
Matthew waits a few seconds, knowing that eyes are on him, and then walks slowly toward the bar, nods to two men who nod back, but is careful not to stare at any face. He becomes still here, in the pin-drop tension, and he begins to relax for the first time in weeks. He feels as though he has stepped into water the same temperature as his skin. The jitters inside him begin to quiet. Home sweet home.
The bartender, a man wearing a porkpie hat over a scraggle of red hair, jerks his chin at Matthew, who orders a beer, whisky back, and drinks it, facing away from the room.
“You all right then?” asks the bartender.
“Fine, thanks.” The bartender nods and walks to the other end of the bar where he polishes a glass. The room’s low buzz of conversation returns. It is a drone of speech not whispered, not under the men’s breath exactly, but with awareness that not all things are meant to be heard by all people. A pale girl sits a few seats along the bar. She has black hair, which looks like a wig, and wears a high-collared, vaguely Chinese, tight dress. She smokes a cigarette and picks at chipped nail polish. There is a slit in the skirt and a dark bruise on her leg. She notices Matthew looking at her legs and stares at him but does not smile and so neither does he.
A man comes over and stands close to Matthew. He is not as tall as Matthew is but powerfully built, with tattoos of dragons on his arms. He says nothing.
“How you doing?” asks Matthew.
“You sure you’re in the right place, friend?”
“I suspect so.”
“No civilians here.”
“Jack Saddler told me to meet him here.”
“Ah,” says the man and extends his hand. “Name’s Charlie.”
“Matthew.”
Charlie and the bartender nod to each other and then Charlie returns to his table, where he says something to another man, who glances at Matthew, and then turns away quickly.
After a few minutes, the door opens and Jack Saddler enters the room. As he approaches, a big grin under his droopy, greying moustache, Matthew notes he has put a few beer-pounds on his professional wrestler build. Being six foot one, Matthew does not look up at people often, but his neck tilts when Jack comes closer.
“Hey! The original bad penny,” says Jack and he claps Matthew on the shoulder. His hand is the size and weight of a brick.
“You’re looking prosperous,” Matthew says.
Jack grabs his belly. “I look like a fucking Buddha.”
“Suits you.”
“How long you been in town?”
“Few weeks. You still carry that copy of St. Augustine’s Confessions?”
Jack laughs. “Shit. You remember that? Well, I’ve got a confession of my own. I never read it. Just knew that one quote.”
“Now I got it!” says a voice. They turn and see Charlie coming toward the bar. “I thought you looked familiar. Journalist, right? You’re that guy. Hey, Dan,” he calls to the bartender, “Fuck me! This is the guy in Israel, you know, the guy with that man and his kid, on CNN!”
Matthew knocks back the whisky. “Time for me to go.”
“Charlie, check yourself,” Jack says, his voice low. “Now.”
The man looks stricken. “Hey, hey. Listen,” he puts his hand on Matthew’s arm. “Sorry, man. No need to go. Rules around here. You don’t want to talk, you don’t have to talk. I fucked up. It’s just not too often we get a . . . well, anyway, my mistake. You’re welcome here.” He holds out his other hand for Matthew to shake. Matthew hesitates. “Next drink’s on me, for both of you.”
Matthew looks at Jack, who nods.
“Fair enough,” says Matthew and shakes the man’s hand.
“Whisky, double,” says Jack to the barman. “See you later, Charlie.”
They take their drinks to a table, and before Matthew knows it, there are more drinks. The night ebbs and flows as people come and go. No one comes near the table. Jack asks no questions. Instead he talks of himself.
“Nearly fifty, can you believe it? I’m too old for that merc shit. Too old for the war photographer thing, too.” Jack chews the side of his moustache, as he always did when he was uncomfortable. “I needed a break, you know?”
Yes, Matthew knows.
“I’m working in a hostel. Don’t laugh. Sort of a receptionist-slash-bouncer. Gives me a little extra cash. And let’s face it, there’s something to be said for working in a place full of eighteen to twenty-eight year olds. Especially the girls. All those belly rings and pierced tongues.” His eyebrows waggle and Matthew laughs. “But that’s not my real gig. I figure I’ll do some stuff in Paris. Street shot stuff, down and dirty. The Paris the tourists don’t see. I’m thinking of a book of subterranean Paris. In fact, now that I consider it, you could even do the words. We could do it together. Me pictures, you words. What do you think?”
Matthew laughs. Josh’s face swims before him. “Maybe,” he says, “Maybe.”
“Later, when Matthew is back in his apartment, lying on his back, the bed gently rolling under the wave of booze, he wonders why it is that everywhere he goes he finds someone who’s been in Vietnam. They pop up everywhere from El Salvador to Somalia. Soldiers turned mercenaries mostly, sometimes soldiers turned reporters, like Carl. Once in a rare while some guy, apparently just wandering.
The first time he met Jack had been in Peshawar. He was thinner back then, with red leathery skin, and a dog-eared, talismanic copy of The Confessions of St. Augustine that he wouldn’t go anywhere without. Jack said he had come to the Afghan border to hook up with the legendary mujahideen fighter Abdul-Haq. He stayed for a couple of weeks, making contacts and lining up guides to take him across the mountains. He showered in Matthew’s hotel