1.10 Arrivals in Paris
1.10.1 Alenby à la Recherche du Bagages Perdus
Baggage Claim Area
Simone de Beauvoir Airport, Paris Roissy
About 7 am Wednesday 2 April 1987
Extraordinary enough, Alenby thought, that his valise had disappeared at the Newark check-in, before he’d even received his boarding pass. And it would be even more extraordinary if it reappeared in Paris. He had almost lost hope of getting it back. Ada pressed him to file a Lost Baggage claim, but in his pessimistic mood he refused to budge. He waited listlessly, watched people pluck their bags from the carousel and hurry off, until no one was left but a couple of young American men, Midwesterners by the look of them, apparently also having a baggage problem. In the end there was nothing for it but to do but follow Ada’s suggestion. They proceeded to the Baggage Office.
The Air France employee was very polite, very apologetic. They already had a trace on the missing item, but a full description, Excellency? Yes, very helpful. The short, thin young woman filled out the form:
Closure type, zip.
Weight, 70 pounds. "But Excellency, 70 pounds, that would be 31 kilos, impossible! Surely that is a typographical error? Was it not 31 pounds, still over the limit but…no? Very well."
Material, Florentine leather. "Florentine leisure—a new proprietary name, I assume. Florentine leisure, most distinctive. This will aid us in our search."
Contents, gentlemen’s woolen garments. "Walloon garments, Belgian specialty clothing no doubt, also distinctive…."
Alenby turned away feeling disheartened. This nightmare of a twilight existence without decent clothes, and no nice lunch in prospect, settled over him like a miasma. He followed Ada through the immigration formalities, watched without feeling more than a flicker of interest as she won over a suspicious official—male—to the view that his passport was valid for entry into France despite having been issued in another universe. He clung to the one last hope, that just as the café at the end of the International Arrivals concourse had always seemed to him the place where the gastronomically undistinguished torpor of America ended and France began, so now might it prove the gateway to the cozy ambience of strong coffee in decent-size cups and croissants with brittle nutty-tasting crusts that shatter and fly all over when you bite into them. He shrugged off his depressed mood and with Ada seemingly floating at his side he stepped out energetically in the direction of petit déjeuner.
1.10.2 Izzy Bott and Leo Barton Exchange Duffles
Baggage Claim Area, then Café Brûlante Afrique
Simone de Beauvoir Airport, Paris Roissy
About 7 am Wednesday 2 April 1987
The Midwest accented male voice easily carried the length of the now almost vacant carousel area.
"Yo, buddy! If you are Isador Bott MD of Muskogee Oklahoma, this is your duffel I’ve got here."
Izzy automatically analyzed the voice: plenty of juice in that baritone, good projection from the diaphragm, possibly a singer or actor. Age about the same as his own, 35 or so—an estimate confirmed by a glance at the by now rapidly approaching figure.
"And if you are—" he read the label on the item he’d just picked off the carousel "—Leonard Barton of Ames Iowa, this is your practically-identical-to-mine Green Berets Army and Navy duffel bag."
"Right. Leo Barton here."
"Izzy Bott, pleased to meet you."
The two men shook hands, swapped bags, slung them over their shoulders and strode out past customs.
"Well, Leo," said Izzy, "I’m sure glad our baggage mix-up resolved itself so quickly."
"Yeah, for a minute there I thought I might miss the train. Now I’ve got a half-hour to spare, time for a slug of coffee."
"Same here. Same train, I guess. Richelieu?
"Right," Leo said, "Richelieu—I got a boondoggle at the PROFATPOL place there. Don’t tell me—"
"The same. With the War hotting up, they’re tapping military funding, so more openings.…
The pair paused to read the signs in the arrivals concourse: right to the TGV station, left to Café Brûlante Afrique. They turned left.
1.10.3 Alenby Relaxes
Café Brûlante Afrique
Simone de Beauvoir Airport, Paris Roissy
About 7:30 am Wednesday 2 April 1987
Café Brûlante Afrique was the site of Alenby’s ultimate disappointment, the quenching of his last spark of hope of return to the comfortable, buttery, crispy-toasty Gitane-fugged France of his dreams. Before he and Ada had so much as set foot in the place, it was brutally evident to him that the its specialty was not croissants or brioches, but fruits exotiques—pineapple, mango, papaya, starfruit and the like. Simple fruit flavors only, nothing any discriminating gentleman would care to eat….
He turned to Ada with a complaint on his lips, but he saw at once that she did not share his mood. Eyes sparkling, face flushed the color of sauce Aurore, she radiated joie de vivre.
"Wait here, Alenby," she said. "Back in a couple of hours—bye!" With that she wafted away, light as a butterfly.
Alenby stumbled into the café and squeezed behind one of its little round marble-topped tables. A series of disappointments and absurdities he’d endured in the preceding few hours had left him feeling exhausted and disconnected from reality. He had slept on the flight, but maybe a little more sleep would be a blessed escape….
He thought carefully, and then made his move: two tablets of Comadöz to ensure two hours of natural relaxing slumber, plus one Amphetojolt! to be followed up with a booster cup of coffee for a safe and swift return to consciousness. On second thoughts, better make that two coffees—those ridiculously small cups….
Just as he passed out, he recalled Ada’s saying something about some business in Paris. What business? A shopping expedition, probably. When the weaker sex got excited, shopping was the usual explanation.
1.10.4 Izzy and Leo Exchange Views
Café Brûlante Afrique
Simone de Beauvoir Airport, Paris Roissy
About 7:30 am Wednesday 2 April 1987
"I sure could use a coffee," said Leo. "Also a PMS. Looks like this Brûlante Afrique place ought to fill the bill."
"Right, a coffee," Izzy agreed. "Uh, PMS—what do you mean by that, actually?"
"Papaya mango and starfruit salad. Right now it’s all the rage with my students. Next year it’ll be something else. Don’t tell me PMS is a medical term?"
"It is, actually, Leo—premature menarche syndrome. Precocious sexuality is shaping up to be a real problem for young users, especially females. Plays havoc with their high school education. Excessive dietary protein and fat leads to excessive secretions of sex hormones, you know. Result—they go ape over the opposite sex, neglect their studies. I gather you teach? At Iowa State?
"Right, English lit. Ah, here we are…."
The two men went in, dumped their duffels and sat down at one of the little tables. They ordered. Then they looked at each other appraisingly.
"So Izzy, how d’you see the French Open shaping up? Does the Slashing Swede have a chance this time around, would you say?"
"Well, he’s over 50. He’s peaked. And he’s carrying some excess weight. At 5-7, he ought to be 135, and he’s playing at a pound or two over that lately. Question: can he go five?"
"Right, but he can still knock in a blistering first serve. Over 100 mph—"
"Well, there again, with the new rule, he has to stand way behind the—"
"Right, but remember he has a heavy top-spin—"
After several more such ripostes, they paused and exchanged barely perceptible nods acknowledging the other’s mastery of sports speak. Male bonding ritual observed.
A waiter delivered their PMSes, and they dug in.
"English lit?" Izzy prompted after a time.
"Right," said Leo. "English lit, deconstruction and all, total waste of time. But I learned the gobbledygook, got quite facile at it actually, and lined up this sabbatical year on the strength of it. I’m supposed to be writing publicity blurbs for PROFATPOL. About staying away from substances. It’s just crap, everybody with half a brain knows that, anyway—"
"Then why did you—?"
Leo forward. "It was in the fine print. Possibility of making publicity s! To run on regular HV, you know. That’s what I really want to do. Of course it’s the same old propaganda drivel, but it’s just a chance to, you know, get into something interesting for a change. Just a possibility."
"HCDs, huh? Hmm, that does sound interesting, actually….
"So, Izzy," Leo resumed after a pause, "you’re a medic—even here in France?"
"Yes, I’ll be the assistant to the chief medical officer at Richelieu. Actually, I’m hoping to get some experience with users. Detoxification, rehabilitation—"
"Turn ’em back into decent, law-abiding citizens, eh. Well, lots of luck."
"Yes," Izzy agreed, "it is indeed a daunting task. We humans have evolved to desire foods of high energy content regardless of overall nutritional value, such as animal products and refined foods such as sugary snacks, bread and so on. So it’s unnatural in a way to follow a legal diet. But we have to go as reason and science would indicate, or face the possibility of an epidemic of PMS. Not to mention chronic degenerative diseases—"
"Right—CHAOS AND OUCH."
"Yes, CHAOS AND OUCH as they’re popularly called. Not a pretty prospect.... Say, your students are right, Leo. This PMS is pretty good."
"Yeah, it’s good, all right. You gotta hand it to the Frogs…. Hey, what’s that noise? Sounds like a chopper or something. Coming over real low—"
Izzy laughed. "That sawing noise, you mean? That’s just somebody breathing in her or his sleep in such a way as to cause an audible vibration of the uvula and soft palate. It’s called snoring. It’s not that common, actually. Pretty much confined to users."
Leo around the room. "That must be him over there in the back," he said, indicating a burly figure slumped over a table in an attitude of total relaxation. "Gaea, that’s a big guy!"
Izzy wagged an admonitory finger. "Actually, Leo, according to the PROFATPOL orientation handbook, we’re supposed to stick to non-discriminatory language. Remember, ‘dimensionally disadvantaged’ and the like."
"Oh, right. So the guy is dimensionally disadvantaged in spades. He’s a user, wouldn’t you say?"
"I would. As a matter of fact, Leo, I happened to catch sight of him at the Baggage Claim, and I noticed he is significantly disadvantaged vertically as well as horizontally. I would say that he’s been a user since birth, and consequently suffered overly rapid growth in childhood. In that case he would be most likely not only a user, but also the offspring of users."
"So dimensional disadvantage runs in families," said Leo, still glaring at the direction of the disadvantaged one. "You’re saying it’s a genetic thing?"
"To some extent genetic, but from research coming out of Ducru’s lab—P A M Ducru, you know, quite an influential figure in the genetics and biochem field, the one the others all quote these days. According to Ducru it looks as if gene expression is significantly affected by environmental factors, including the ingestion of substances.
"Well, whatever he is and however he got that way, if he doesn’t let up pretty soon on that Gaea-damn snoring I’m going to go over there and I’m gonna knock his Gaea-damn uvula down his—"
"Oh, I wouldn’t try anything like that, Leo. Remember, users can be quite vicious if disturbed. They frequently suffer from something called headache—often as the consequence of detoxification after ingestion of a substance."
Leo shifted irritably. "Frankly, old buddy, I’m about fed up to here with this crap about users and their problems, and I haven’t got to Richelieu yet. Haven’t even got on the Gaea-damn train! Maybe I ought to head right on back to Iowa."
"Oh, you don’t want to quit just yet. Why not give that HCD thing a whirl. It might be your big chance. Writing for a movie or whatever—"
"Not writing, Izzy—acting. Acting’s my game, I reckon. The classics: Shakespeare, Shaw, Wilde. And farce—I’d like to take a shot at the British-type comic figure, the imperturbable butler sort of thing. Of course I wouldn’t be doing any of that for PROFATPOL, but you’re right, it could be my chance…."
"A butler, you mean like Jeeves?"
Leo jerked his head back and regarded Izzy with an expression that mingled contempt, incredulity and suppressed rage. "Jeeves?" he repeated in a tone about as friendly as that of a wine glass shattering on stone, "In the writings of the author you may have in mind, the butler is Beach. Not Jeeves, Beach. Jeeves is a gentleman’s gentleman, not a butler. There is a difference, you know."
Izzy realized that he had started back in alarm. He tried to laugh, but brought out no more than a nervous croak. "Gaea, Leo," he said after a moment, "you certainly came across as a mean son of a sow."
Leo smiled broadly. "Well thank you, old buddy, thank you," he said in his normal voice.
"Actually," said Izzy, "I wouldn’t mind having a shot at acting myself. Perhaps an inscrutable oriental type, man of few words sort of thing."
"You could do it, I think," said Leo. "You have an oriental cast of features…. Yep, the monosyllabic Asian smart-ass like in the old Charlie Chan movies…you really ought to do a screen test, old buddy! Uh oh, look at the time—"
"Yes, we’d better get moving—"
Leo struck an attitude, his gaze directed at the pressed-zinc ceiling of Café Brûlante Afrique. "Now sits the wind fair," he declaimed.
Followed his gaze, Izzy saw not pressed zinc but seagulls wheeling, masts and streaming banners. He felt himself on the brink of a new career. He slipped into his oriental persona. Yes, yes indeed, or…how would Charlie Chan put it?
"Is," he said.
Exeunt Leo and Izzy.