‘For now,’ I said.
I hung up and made it down to the lobby about five minutes
after Summer. She was waiting there. She had been much faster
than me. But then, she didn’t have to shave and I don’t think
she had made any calls or taken time for coffee. Like me, she
was back in BDUs. Somehow she had cleaned her boots, or had
gotten them cleaned. They were gleaming.
We didn’t have money for a cab to the airport. So we walked
back through the pre-dawn darkness to the Place de l’Op6ra
and caught the bus. It was less crowded than the last time but
just as uncomfortable. We got brief glimpses of the sleeping
city and then we crossed the P6riph6rique and ground slowly
through the dismal outer suburbs.
We got to Roissy-Charles de Gaulle just before six. It was busy
there. I guessed airports worked on floating time zones all their
own. It was busier at six in the morning than it would be in the
middle of the afternoon. There were crowds of people everywhere.
Cars and buses were loading and unloading, red-eyed
travellers were coming out and going in and struggling with
bags. It looked like the whole world was on the move.
The arrivals screen showed that Joe’s flight was already on
the ground. We hiked around to the customs area’s exit doors.
Took our places among a big crowd of meeters and greeters. I
figured Joe would be one of the first passengers through. He
would have walked fast from the plane and he wouldn’t have
checked any luggage. No delays.
We saw a few stragglers coming out from the previous flight.
304
They were mostly families slowed by young children or
individuals who had waited for odd-sized luggage. People in the
crowd turned towards them expectantly and then turned away
again when they realized they weren’t who they were looking
for. I watched them do it for a spell. It was an interesting
physical dynamic. Just subtle adjustments of posture were
enough to display interest, and then lack of interest. Welcome,
and then dismissal. A half-turn inward, and then a half-turn
away. Sometimes it was nothing more than a transfer of body
weight from one foot to the other.
The last stragglers were mixed in with the first people off of
Joe’s flight. There were businessmen moving fast, humping
briefcases and suit carriers. There were young women in
high heels and dark glasses, expensively dressed. Models?
Actresses? Call girls? There were government people, French
and American. I could pick them out by the way they looked.
Smart and serious, plenty of eyeglasses, but their shoes and
suits and coats weren’t the best quality. Low-level diplomats,
probably. The flight was from D.C., after all.
Joe came out about twelfth in line. He was in the same
overcoat I had seen before, but a different suit and a different
tie. He looked good. He was walking fast and carrying a black
leather overnight bag. He was a head taller than anyone else.
He came out of the door and stopped dead and scanned around.
‘He looks just like you,’ Summer said.
‘But I’m a nicer person,’ I said.
He saw me right away, because I was also a head taller than
anyone else. I pointed to a spot outside of the main traffic
stream. He shuffled through the crowd and made his way
towards it. We looped around and joined him there.
‘Lieutenant Summer,’ he said. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you.’
I hadn’t seen him look at the tapes on her jacket, where it
said Summer, U.S. Army. Or at the lieutenant’s bars on her
collar. He must have remembered her name and her rank from
when we had talked before.
‘You OK?’I asked him.
‘I’m tired,’ he said.
‘Want breakfast?’
‘Let’s get it in town.’
305
The taxi line was a mile long and moving slow. We ignored it.
Headed straight for the navette again. We missed one and were
first in line for the next. It came inside ten minutes. Joe spent
the waiting time asking Summer about her visit to Paris. She
gave him chapter and verse, but not about the events after
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