These Dreams of You

~ ~ ~

After the seven hour flight to Orly by way of Khartoum, Viv takes a bus to Paris’ outskirts and then the metro further into the city, making the mistake of getting off at Châtelet. From there she could transfer to a direct line to where she wants to go but doesn’t know this; pulling her bag into the street, she keeps hailing cabs until she finds one — in the thick of rush hour as dusk falls on the city — whose driver seems to understand that she needs to get to whatever station will put her on the express rail to England.

Once in the taxi, however, she’s not so sure the cabbie understands at all. The only thing clear is he’s drunk and agitated; she can smell the Côtes du Rhone like she’s sitting in a cask of it. “Train station!” she keeps trying to explain, “anglais!” but then realizes it must sound like she’s commanding him to speak English when what she means is England. He lets loose a torrent of French and something else, Turkish or Eastern European she supposes, and then — with deliberation and intent, she’s certain — he drives his cab straight into the limousine before him, nearly hitting what looks in the twilight and blur of the event to be a young boy about Parker’s age, pulled from danger at the last moment.