I flew to Paris with my girlfriend. We stayed at a cheap hotel at the edge of the Red Light District. Our concierge warned us not to walk too close to doorways, a criminal might pull us inside. On our last night in the city, we ate dinner at a café a few blocks from our hotel. The waitress was the owner and her husband the chef. The place was decked out in reds and greens, the tables made of solid oak. I’d never eaten escargot. It was delicious. My girlfriend ordered us a bottle of white wine, then a bottle of red. She drank most of it. When the bill came, I was almost drunk, but it was the waitress who fumbled with the credit card machine. It would not operate. She told us so, more or less, in broken English. Her husband emerged from the kitchen, his forearms decorated with miniature wheels of diced chive. He, too, fumbled with the machine. He shook it, he checked the batteries. My girlfriend found the whole thing funny. I felt her bare toes crawling up my pant leg. Her neck and chest were flush. “Can you bill our room?” I asked the waitress, my pulse quickening. I pointed to the door, our hotel just two blocks away. The waitress clapped her hands. She appeared pleased. Addressing her husband in French, she disappeared into the kitchen. The chef retrieved my coat from the coat rack. The waitress came back with a bottle of Chianti, filling my girlfriend’s glass. My girlfriend, laughing freely, flashed me thigh beneath her skirt and raised her glass to toast me out the door, which the chef held open. It was raining. I followed the chef, who wore no coat and spoke no English. We were heading in the wrong direction. The night was cold and dark and I could feel the wine, warm inside me. I walked cautiously in the street while the chef sought cover from the rain under the sidewalk awnings. He eyed me queerly. I tried to explain about the doorways and the concierge and murder. He did not understand. It was only when I uttered “puerto” on a whim that we discovered he and I spoke Spanish, enough to complete a handful of exchanges. I told him, more or less, what the concierge had said about the doorways, and the chef wrapped his hands around his throat and let his tongue roll out. I went ahead and joined him on the sidewalk. We awning-hopped for several blocks until we found an ATM. The chef stood next to me. I typed my passcode incorrectly and my card slid out. It was a mistake. My hands were wet, the buttons were slick. The chef frowned and touched my shoulder, misunderstanding. He started to walk off. I forgot the word accidente, so I called out: “Por favor, tengo dinero!” Just then a tall man in a dark coat emerged from the shadows on the opposite side of the street. I’d typed my passcode correctly this time and a menu appeared on the screen. But the tall man in the dark coat was crossing the street, heading toward us fast in the rain. I cancelled my transaction. Pocketing my wallet, I motioned for the man in the dark coat to go ahead. I stepped out from under the awning and approached the chef. The chef gestured for us to go, but I touched his arm and said, softly: “un momento.” He waited, but he did not understand. I thought about wringing my neck or lolling my tongue. I felt embarrassed and uneasy. The man in the dark coat stood under the awning, facing the machine. By then the rain had washed the herbs off the chef’s arms and my coat was soaked through. I pulled the collar tight around my throat while the chef resumed our conversation. How long, he asked, had my wife and I been married? “No esposa,” I said, and in correcting him I tried to find the Spanish words to explain with some kind of merit how my girlfriend and I had just graduated college, how we planned to move together to Chicago, how we’d both finds jobs and earn money and be happy and no matter what, we’d have each other. I thought he understood me. He smiled every time I said “amor.” Then he asked how old we were, and I said “Twenty-two.” The chef burst into laughter. The tall man in the dark coat, having finished his transaction, joined us in the street. He said something in French to the chef, and the chef said something back. The chef pointed at me. Both men burst into laughter. Speaking rapidly, as if they were life-long friends, the two men conversed in French. I stood there watching as their mouths contorted wildly in the dim-lit street. The rain did not let up. There were no red lights in this area. Everybody was a liar and a fraud. I stepped up to the ATM and slid my card into the slot. Behind me, the two men conversed and laughed and made commotion. A menu appeared on the screen. ENGLISH, I selected. But I did not use my passcode. I input random numbers. When my card slid out, I slid it in again. I punched another set of random numbers. I stood to the side so that the chef could see my movements. My hands were cold and shaking. When I pushed my finger hard against the keypad no blood showed beneath the nail. I repeated my routine six or seven times. By then the laughing had stopped. I put my card back in my wallet. When I turned around I saw the tall man walking off. He disappeared around a corner. The chef was waiting in the street, sopping wet but cheerful. He turned up his palms in my direction. “No tengo,” I said. We headed back the way we’d come. The chef asked me questions but I acted like I did not understand. I had this feeling. I couldn’t shake the image of my girlfriend, flush and drunk on stolen wine, alone in that café, and as I walked with the chef in the rain I knew for certain that she wasn’t mine and that I’d take her anyway.
“No Tengo” originally appeared in CutBank and has been reprinted here with permission of the author.
Brian Phillip Whalen received his MFA in Creative Writing from Iowa State University and currently teaches at the University at Albany, NY, where he is completing his PhD in English. His stories and poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Beecher’s, The Chattahoochee Review, J Journal, Lake Effect, Mid-American Review, RHINO, Tammy, online at The Pinch, and elsewhere.
More About CutBank
