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Paris always beckoned, so I was in Paris even though the business leads were far better in England. Isabel and Pedro were vacationing in the Algarve and decided to fly over to Paris for a few days. They are excellent company, and I was glad they would be there. Anna lived in Paris year round, could find anything in Paris. She found dinner and jazz at Le Petit Journal St. Michel, and joined us there in the sous-sol. While the four of us dined and enjoyed the St. Emilion, the jazz band played French favorites. The band was brass, although the leader occasionally substituted a clarinet for his sax. The banjo player and the inaudible classical guitar player seemed unusual additions, but the musicians were of retirement age, and played with obvious pleasure and with the freedom of those whose craft is thoroughly learned and they are neither striving nor arrogant. Isabel, without segue, said that the tuba player looked like Pedro’s father, a family man in Montreal who was not likely to be surreptitiously playing tuba in a small Paris club evenings. Some real resemblance and the good office of the St. Emilion soon resolved Pedro to confront his father about this when next he saw him. We elaborated this theme awhile, for great amusement. After dinner we stayed with the jazz band until closing, then returned by taxi to Isabel and Pedro’s hotel. They had booked a 5 am flight to Lisbon, and had reserved a taxi for 3 am to arrive by the required time at Roissy Charles de Gaulle. They were packed and it was only 2 am, and since their early morning Lisbon booking reminded us of Casablanca, we decided to search for an open bar to have champagne cocktails. We had only an hour and so couldn’t venture far from the hotel and their baggage. Finding an open bar in the 7eme near Invalides was less than likely at 2 am. The bad odds made it better sport. We took a side street toward Motte Picquet. The café on the corner was closed and the shades were down, but we could see 5 or 6 people together at a table in the back. They appeared to be the wait staff and two of their friends. The front door was closed but not locked, so we entered and walked past the bar toward the group. “Après fermiture.” one of the apparent staff said. I knew that. The whole city closes earlier than this on weekdays except maybe the clubs libertins. I struggled with the French. “Plusieurs verres de champagne, pas plus que ca. » was the best I could do to keep us somewhere between customers and potential additions to the after-hours party. A very tall femme detached herself from the group, now all standing, a put her arm around me. Her clothes were those of an “ombre de la rue” but her build would make her eligible for American football. More important, a connection had been made with a key member of the group, and so our lack of champagne had inconspicuously become their problem as well. In the end we were offered a bottle of quite decent champagne at a reasonable price for Paris, ice and lamentable paper cups to drink from, while repartee flowed. They insisted we return the next day for dinner, and provided a phone number. We went back to the hotel with the champagne to talk the night manager into providing stemware. He obliged with charcuterie snacks as well, which was better than I had hoped for. The arrival of the taxi for the flight to Lisbon interrupted our conversations. The chief of police was not involved, and no one was shot at the airport so far as I know, but, apart from these few details, the Casablanca plot continued. Isabel and Pedro had high hopes and we spoke briefly and casually of it as if it were less important. But none of us knew how that would turn out, so we were able to enjoy the company and the stolen occasion. I called for dinner reservations the next day, but was told petit dej and dej only. I didn’t ask for the tall femme.
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story, fiction, short story, Casablanca, Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains,
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