After finishing at the Veaux's, Faith walked quickly to the small square in front of her venerable building and went into the dark, cool, sometimes pungent vestibule. The huge dumpsters,poubelles, for the building were at the rear of the narrow hallway.
The apartment had been a surprise. It belonged to a relative of the Leblancs, both of whom were from old Lyon-nais families, and the cousin—a generic term for all kin outside the immediate family—was willing to let the Fair-childs use it because he did not dare to rent it. Since the Napoleonic Code, a sitting tenant has had such inalienable rights that it often took years to get rid of one, no matter j what the lease said. Paul's cousin planned to move to this apartment in another year; until then, it was virtually empty. There were a bed, two tables, a few lamps, and some chairs. There was also a phone, since to disconnect service , could mean never getting it restored. The Leblancs had ' produced a child's cot for Ben, some plates, cutlery, and kitchen equipment, and it would suffice for a month.
When Faith and Tom had struggled with Ben and their f suitcases up the five flights of dizzying circular stone stairs to open the heavy oak door, using three separate keys, they had walked into an immense apartment with high ceilings adorned with intricate plaster bas reliefs and moldings, the walls beautifully painted and papered, ornate fireplaces with carved marble mantels in most rooms, and small balconies outside the almost floor-to-ceiling windows. The windows were tied shut now after Ben had exuberantly flung one open and managed to take a heart-stopping step outside onto the balcony.
Tom had walked about slowly, then let out a whoop. "Pinch me, Faith—it's like camping out in some corner of Fontainebleau!" he'd exclaimed.
The room with the bed in it faced the immense fifteenth-century church of St. Nizier directly across the square, and the clock face on one of the steeples seemed close enough to touch, especially at night when it loomed through the windows they were loath to cover with the inside shutters. The statuary on the facade seemed to come alive when illuminated at dusk, the babe in the Madonna's arms wriggling slightly, high above the street.
After their first enthusiastic impressions, the Fairchilds began to take note of the antique plumbing—the toilet in a closet so tiny that one's knees grazed the shut door once enthroned, and with a chain pull so high that Faith, not a small woman, had to stretch to reach it, producing a cascade of water that threatened never to stop. The bathtub— at the far end of the apartment from the w.c.—had lion's-paw feet and was large enough for all three of them. Faith found it handy for laundry.
The kitchen had a stone slab of a sink and a doll-sized refrigerator and stove. To get hot water, there were two Victorian contraptions, one in the kitchen, one in the bath, that required a great many pressings of buttons, lightings of matches, and prayers.
Faith loved the apartment more than any place she had ever lived.
They'd immediately gone to Mammouth, a sort of combination supermarket, department store, and hardware store in a building the size of an airplane hangar, and bought a tricycle for Ben and other essentials. He careened recklessly from room to room. There was nothing to worry about: no furniture, no heirlooms, hardly any possessions at all. Faith filled the rooms with flowers from the market, arranged in some pitchers and vases from Mammouth. She covered the table in the dining room with a few yards of paisley fabric, from the Monday nonfood market, the marche forain, and that was the extent of her decorating. She didn't miss her home, the parsonage with all their things. The feelings possessions bring seemed to depend on immediacy. Or, as she put it to herself in her current euphoria, the whole place could sink into the earth and she'd merely say, "Too bad.”
The first night, savoring the cheese course, still suffering from decalage horaire, jet lag, and feeling slightly drunk—Tom on the excellent Cote du Rhone he'd discovered he could buy in bulk at the vinotheque nearby and Faith on the grape juice she'd found at Malleval, a fancy epicerie—they'd watched the sun set and asked themselves how they were ever going to be able to leave.
And now after she put the food from the market away, this was how Faith started a long-overdue letter to her younger sister and only sibling, Hope. Their parents had stopped short at Charity. Hope was a newlywed, living and working in New York City with her husband, Quentin, and their yours, mine, and ours Filofaxes.
I can't remember ever being so happy. Tom says it's \ my hormones, but he's grinning, too. Even the job of switching from winter to summer clothes early—you know how boring that is, and in New England, you no sooner drag all the stuff out than the season has , changed again. This year it was easy, because nothing fit Ben or me and I decided to wait to get things here. You must be wondering what it's like in Lyon. Very different from Paris. No place is like Paris, but I think it's more livable here. The Leblancs have been sweethearts. I liked them immediately. We've been there twice for meals en famille and sit and laugh and talk for hours. They have two children: Stephanie, who's thirteen and can seem thirty, as well as seven when she plays with Ben, and her nine-year-old brother, Pierre. He's very solemn and like all these French children, so perfect in their long Bermudas and polo shirts, Chipie, the hot brand and very branche, of course. The small children in Benjamin's school, the garderie, look as if they are going to a birthday party every day. But the marque with the greatest cachet for the preschool set is—Oshkosh! Very expensive and treated like gold.
We've also met some of the other people in our building. The d'Amberts live directly below us and their apartment stretches from Place d'Albon to Place St. Nizier, so they look out at the church on one end and the river on the other. The Saone, that is. I've finally gotten them straight. We're hi Presqulle, the center of the city, which extends like a finger between the Saone and the Rhone. Lyon is a very walkable city and Ben and I go exploring every day. He's changing so fast. You won't recognize your grown-up nephew when you see him next, and I miss my little two-year-old. I think this is how kids get their parents to produce siblings for them to play with.
It's hard to describe our apartment's location. Two buildings back onto and around a kind of courtyard, except no court—more like a large, open elevator shaft. Everyone uses the deep sills for plants, small laundry lines, and for cooling pots. The windows are all discreetly curtained, of course, but not always closed, and I'm becoming dangerously voyeuristic—or whatever it is when you eavesdrop, too. I can see the Saone if the windows in the apartment across from us are open and at the right angle. I can also see the photos of their ancestors hanging on the wall— Grand-pere looks remarkably like Lenin, or maybe it isn't Grand-pere at all. It's a bit strange to know so much about your neighbors—what they're having to eat, the state of their lingerie—without knowing who they are or what they look like in some cases. By the way, the French really do say "ooh la la" or "ooh la" for short. They also say merde a lot, and I don't think it's as bad as saying "shit" at home. Anyway, back to the travelogue.