Paris Lost and Found, livre ebook

Midwestern Bestseller!

What to do when life smacks you down? Head for Paris, of course!

In this book, the author of French Like Moi (2020) returns to the scene of the crime with more tales of intrigue. This time, he’s reeling from loss—and hoping the City of Light will come to his rescue.

From bizarre encounters on the Metro to comical clashes with authority figures, including a quixotic battle against a flock of migrant parrots, and even the tribulations of dating, Paris Lost and Found unveils sides of the great city that are as quirky as they are authentic. With a unique blend of wit, insight, and wistfulness, Carpenter charts a path through a labyrinth of challenges—only to emerge on the other side, squinting into the bright light of hope and new beginnings.
Chapter 1: Souvenirs


Hands down my favorite heist ever.



It
started innocently enough. I’d been recruited to accompany a tour group in the
Dordogne Valley, and my job consisted of giving a few lectures about life in
France. The rest of the time, my wife, Anne, and I traipsed along with the herd
of three dozen Americans. The local guide was a forty-something woman
whose wardrobe still clung to her twenties. Marie-Laure’s long scarf flowed
behind her as she steered the group through quaint downtowns filled with
replicas of ancient buildings. We tasted walnut oil and examined pots, admired
countless churches with banks of stained glass. The tour specialized in the
picturesque, and our dark-haired leader knew just what to show Americans. In
the coach she whispered to the bus driver about where to pull over for the next
photo op, and at the chateau she corralled everyone toward the west tower, the
one they had to see. We traveled from postcard to postcard, and I lapped
it up with everyone else.



Then
came the evening they planted us in front of two hours of folkloric dance,
performed by grim-faced locals in knickers and suspenders. The applause was
thunderous, and for once people got to call out encore! in the country
that invented the term. After the show I chatted with one of the curly-haired
dancers. While he sucked on a cigarette, I asked if they performed very often.
He glanced around to make sure his boss was out of earshot. “Nah,” he said. He
let the smoke stream from his nostrils. “We just do this shit for the
tourists.”



I
felt like a kid in Disneyland who bumps into Mickey on a cigarette break, the
mouse head pulled off.



Something
was going on.



“Relax
already,” Anne said when I told her about it. “Kick back and enjoy yourself.”



I
tried. I went with the group to Lascaux, where we stood in line to stare at a
modern reproduction of a prehistoric cave. One afternoon we had a wine tasting.
And a cheese tasting. And a chocolate tasting. The weather seemed made to
order, the dial locked on pleasantly warm.



Then,
in Sarlat, a man in our group wandered off down a side street, and Marie-Laure
chased him down like a border collie. What didn’t she want him to see? I
couldn’t shake the sense that there was a seam somewhere, the edge of a stage
set.



It
all came to a head the day they brought us to the goose farm. As we hiked
across the field to an outbuilding, I nudged Anne, lifted a foot, and pointed
at the sole of my shoe.



“What?”
she said.



“See?”



“See
what? There’s nothing there.”



I
nodded vigorously. “Exactly. A farm with no shit.”



Her
eye-roll was interrupted by the arrival of those escorting us into yesteryear.
There was a smiling man in pristine overalls, a beret screwed to his head—along
with his father, hands knotted, trousers filthy, a sullen and wrinkled
representative of tradition. The son, Martin, greeted us and trotted out a few
jokes. He winked at Marie-Laure and twirled an imaginary moustache, suggesting
an amorous relationship.



“Yoo
know ’ow we men are een France!” he quipped. The accent verged on outrageous.



Everyone laughed.



Behind him, the father, who was staring at nothing, went gray in the face. His
shoulders rounded even more.



The visit got underway. Step by step we
learned how they turned birds into little cans of foie gras, the kind awaiting
our arrival in the gift shop. There was all the breeding and brooding, the
great out-of-doors, and the free range. Eventually Martin eased into the
gruesome part that is hard to sugar-coat, the bit about shoving a funnel into
the goose’s gullet and pouring in the grain.



“But
non, do not worry,” Martin chuckled as he pantomimed the feeding. “Zee
goose, he don’t really mind! He ees a ’ungry bugger, zee goose! He weel take
all yoo can geeve!



The
laughter turned to guffaws. With jolliness and a few exaggerated shrugs, Martin
had turned goose torture into a knee-slapper.



In
the background, the silent father, a reluctant extra in this performance, had
gone ashen. What wouldn’t he have given to be elsewhere—indeed, anywhere
other than here, in front of a gawking audience demanding that saucy Frenchness
be enacted before them?



And
that’s when the penny dropped. No, it wasn’t just the geese who were being
fattened up for slaughter. It was us, the Americans. For the past
ten days the tour operator had stuck a funnel in our brains and was pouring in
the clichés, gallon after gallon. Like the geese, we didn’t even object. The
more they gave us, the more we swallowed. Gluttons for this particular
punishment, we were insatiable.



I
don’t believe I’ve ever had such a sad realization. Everyone we’d encountered
over the past week was complicit in the scam—the vendors, the tour guides, the
hoteliers, the waiters, and, indeed, even the victims, who—myself
included—wanted nothing more than to be duped and beguiled. We wanted the
pretty stuff. Like spoiled kids at the dinner table, we demanded dessert while
refusing to eat our vegetables. But because we were kids with credit cards,
they gave us what we thought we wanted.



On
the ride back to the hotel, I stared blankly out the window as blurred
countryside rolled by. Anne tried to buck me up, which somehow made it worse.



All
the others climbed off the bus before I could struggle to my feet, and then I
stood outside the reception area, a bit dazed, not sure which way to go. Why
bother?



Everyone
else had dashed off to put away their cameras and their goose paraphernalia
before heading out to dinner.



That’s
when the first cry erupted from the hotel. It was a woman’s voice, high-pitched
and startled. Another woman responded, calling out something in English. A man
joined in. Then the footsteps began to thunder. Members of our group were
scurrying back and forth in the corridors, thumping on doors, checking on their
friends. Were they OK? Had their room been broken into as well?



A
heist!



The
rest was like a waking dream, the scenes flowing together. Outraged Americans
mobbed the front desk. The manager with slicked-back hair literally wrung his
hands. Marie-Laure ran this way, then that, flummoxed by this event that hadn’t
figured on the itinerary. Finally, a siren sounded, and a little green car
screeched to a stop out front, a troupe of gendarmes tumbling out of it.



While
we were away, someone had gone through the hotel and ripped the wall safes from
the wardrobes in the bedrooms. Wallets had vanished, jewelry, even passports!



How
would we pay for our meals? What did we need for insurance? Who knew how to
fill out a French police report? What if—and now people started eyeing the
staff—it was an inside job?



Just
like that, the postcard of our French experience had been ripped asunder.



Anne
glanced at me and did a double-take. “What’s up with you?” she said. “You’re
beaming.”



She
was right. I was imagining the grandpa at the goose farm—how he’d have relished
this scene. Life was just too wonderful. Oh, sure, we’d lost a few bucks.
There’d be insurance claims to file. But better than any souvenir, we’d finally
been granted something real and unreproducible—a genuine memory.



The
gendarmes were now frisking the chambermaids, one by one.



Anne
began to giggle, covering her mouth. While pandemonium swirled around us, the
snorts erupted, her laughter fueling mine, mine turbo-boosting hers.



“Oh
my God,” she said, wiping a tear from her cheek. “This is one is for the books.
I’m going to remember it forever.”



Yep,
I thought, drunk with happiness. Me too. Forever.



That was so
many years ago.


Only problem
is, forever never lasts as long as you think it will. Back then I didn’t know
how time passes. How the future creeps up on you. And how sometimes, when you
look over your shoulder at yesteryear, what was supposed to be forever has
faded from sight.
Part One: The End
1.    Souvenir
2.    Memory
3.    Le Turd
4.    A Thing I Saw: Escape Velocity
5.    Fake-It-and-Wait
6.    ’Tis the Season
7.    Grand Finale
8.    Lockdown

Part Two: The Middle
9.    Ghost Town
10.    Adieu
11.    Silver Screen
12.    French Dough
13.    A Thing I Saw: Signs
14.    Shot in the Dark
15.    Scaredy-Cat
16.    Wildlife
17.    The Parisite

Part Three: The Beginning
18.    A Thing I Saw: Epiphany
19.    Swipe Right
20.    Lost and Found in Paris

Acknowledgments