Le Café du Loup

Le Café du Loup was one of the lesser-known establishments in the 6th arrondissement, having long stood in the shadow of Les Deux Magots and Café de Flore and even Brasserie Lipp, where tourists congregated like herds of sheep each summer to graze where Hemingway, Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir ate their croissants and sipped their espresso. However, Jeffrey Bittenbinder hated most writing, and no writers ate at Le Café du Loup, probably because the food was terrible and the dark-oak room barely let in any light through it’s narrow, curtained windows. The croissants, though store-bought and frozen (a secret unsuccessfully kept under lock-and-key), were excellent. 

Jeffrey had moved to Paris twenty-five years ago in an effort to leave all of his mistakes behind. To his credit, it worked, and he hadn’t thought about them in the twenty-five years since. He also hadn’t bothered to learn the language in the quarter of a century he’d spent here. Instead, he relied on his digits to display to the baker the number of pastries he wanted that morning.

Jeffrey’s neighbors...well, you know how French people are. The young couple and old lady that sandwiched Jeffrey’s tiny apartment didn’t care for Americans before Jeffrey moved in. You don’t need me to tell you how they felt in the years since. 

One morning Jeffery sat in his usual spot, perfectly triangulated to be as far away from the windows and lavatories as possible, and read “La Dépêche de Paris,” (poorly translated in English to “The Paris Report”). He browsed the dense rows of text, taking in pieces of information here and there. Needless to say, Jeffery did not absorb the morning paper with the same rigor he once did, but today he was especially adrift in thought. One of the afore-mentioned mistakes of which he was now so wonderfully free had begun to nag at the corner of his brain, just enough to cause him a mild level of discomfort—the type which he had moved to Paris in part to avoid. It was the thought of a woman; not the buoyantly plump one who had just taken a seat across the cafe from him, though she may have precipitated the inexorable freight train of thought that was to come. No, it was a woman from his past (one he might refer to as an “old flame” if she ever comes back into his mind in twenty years or so). She was a woman who crossed his path in New York shortly after he became a bachelor of the liberal arts. Her name eluded Jeffery, who had now altogether forfeited any attempt to read about the new public fountain in Le Marais, but her face appeared in his mind’s eye as vaguely yet persistently as the dimly lit cafe in front of him. She was pretty, with blonde—no, light brunette—hair and eyes that were a whimsical shade of green, or perhaps a somber gray. Yes, Jeffery remembered her clearly now. Rather, he had constructed three versions of her with slight variations, one of which was bound to match reality, he was sure of it! But her name still evaded his tongue’s grasp. 

When Jeffery was finished with his studies in New York, he had decided to try to find work as a journalist. “The Village Voice’s” assistant fact-checker had serendipitously died in a horrible fiery car wreck on the snowy drive up to his familial abode in Westchester just a week prior, so Jeffery spent his summer days bathed in the windowless off-green fluorescence of the head fact-checker’s office. Jeffery’s desk, no more than a foot wide, was shoved in the corner behind the constantly opening and closing door (Jeffery learned the hard way not to lean too far to the right when bent over a stack of papers). The head fact-checker, Moses Fernsby, was a man who had a vehement disdain for oral hygiene. He wore wire-framed glasses that hooked violently into the backs of his ears and gripped for dear life onto the tip of his bulbous nose. He and Jeffery never talked, save for Jeffery’s last day when Fernsby reminded him to return any pencils he might’ve “accidentally” stolen. 

“Well, what does all this have to do with the old flame?!” you might be asking by this point. To be honest, I don’t know, and Jeffery didn’t know either, but these memories were coming back to him unrelentingly and all he could do was recline and enjoy the theater of his own mind unraveling.

Sarah MacQuoid. It came to him as suddenly as a hiccup, a series of which took him hostage just as the name was about to float out of his lips. He downed a glass of water and ardently spelunked the cavities of his memories for more information. She had been a beat journalist who covered everything from Carmine Street to Washington Square Park. She walked disturbingly quickly, and would often breeze by Jeffery at lunch as he reveled in a cheese sandwich. Sarah would frequent the fact-checker’s office with fresh, fiery manuscripts to be combed through. In fact, she was the one who smashed the door into Jeffery’s head as he leaned over his first assignment. She apologized profusely, clutching one hand to her chest and resting the other firmly but tenderly on his shoulder. She offered him an ice pack; he refused, insisting he was fine, and she went on her way. Jeffery fell madly in love with her. 

In the subsequent months of his employment, Jeffery avoided her at all costs. He feared the passionate burning of his love would quickly be extinguished by the disappointing reality of all human beings. From afar, she reminded him of the softly-lit and glowing “girls in the movies.” If Jeffery ever found himself pressed shoulder-to-shoulder with her in the elevator, however, he’d begin to notice her ever-so-slightly foul odor. If he sat across from her at lunch, the smoothness of her skin would transform into the texture of an overripe tangerine. These harsh realities soon became overwhelming for Jeffery, and he found himself more and more isolated throughout his brief tenure. One evening, just as the workers flooded out of “The Village Voice” headquarters and into the streets, Sarah approached Jeffery despite his valiant effort to become immediately and wholly absorbed in the gum smeared into the crack of the pavement beneath him. She got his attention with a whistle and, to Jeffery’s horror, invited him to her birthday party that Saturday. As she asked if she could count on him being there, Jeffery had already begun cycling through the thousands of different excuses he had on file in his mind, but none seemed just right. He had waited too long. He had to say something. “I’d love to,” he recited with obligatory cheer, “but...I’m moving to Paris. I’ll be out of the country by Friday night.” And so, Jeffery found himself fervently making arrangements for his sudden departure.

It was now late afternoon. The light lazily trickled through the seams of the curtain and the very infrequently opened doorway. The plump lady and Jeffery made eye contact. She smiled at him and evaporated into the bright Parisian day. To the outside observer, Jeffery might’ve seemed to be in a lifeless stupor, but in actuality, he felt more alive than ever. Sarah MacQuoid! How could he have forgotten her? When Jeffery booked his ticket to Paris twenty-five years ago, he told himself she was the primary reason for his departure. But that was a lie. There were many things that troubled Jeffery Bittenbinder, many troubles worth escaping. He had forgotten the minutiae of his old life; the wrinkles in his brain had been reformed by Le Café du Loup and its reheated croissants, “The Paris Report,” and Parisian women he never slept with.