BOXING WITH
HEMINGWAY
by David Hyde Robbins
Chapter Three
Finding Sarah
September 26, 1960
Quentin –
Montparnasse — March 28, 1926
Clement wasted no time publishing “The Vanishing Man,” but my dubious reputation as a pulp novelist arrived in Montparnasse before I had. Once, in Le Closure de Lilas, a bistro where writers worked as they sipped their café au laits, I noticed someone reading “The Vanishing Man,” while making faces at the pages. He then glanced over at me, and I quickly turned away. He had looked vaguely familiar, but then, in Montparnasse everyone looked familiar. And vague.
Soon after that, I changed my pen name to Q. M. Flynn. A pocket of French authors at Le Parnasse had taken to calling me “Quem,” most likely because the “Q.M.” had offered up a pronunciation challenge. I liked that and changed my nom de plume again to “Quem Flynn.” I had an idea that someday I might just shorten it to “Quem.”
Since our arrival, my son Michael had taken his musical talent to The Ginger Cat American Café, an intimate club tucked away off Rue d’Odessa. There, paid a pittance for playing back-up piano, he nurtured his skill and even performed some of his own arrangements. He soon became known in a few select circles — mainly homosexual ones.
Then came that March afternoon, where I sat trying to nurse another bourbon at Le Dome, when I first noticed a woman sitting alone a few tables away, sipping a green-colored Pernod. She sported a tousled, black page-boy cowl of a bob with straight-cut bangs that cupped her cherubic face. She took a long drag from a cigarette stuck in an ivory cigarette holder. Her expression conveyed a certain sadness hidden behind a tight-lipped attempt at pride.
I saw her again a few weeks later sitting in a booth at Le Select American Bar, engaged in conversation with another patron. A third, a frail woman wearing man’s clothes and an oversize fedora slouched down in the bench across from them. I decided I would walk by them and toward the bar on the pretense of ordering another drink. Some music came from the little stage off in a corner. It was “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” though it was hard to discern over the surrounding din. Finally, with my courage up, I made my approach.
“Bonsoir. Comment-allez vous, ce soir?” I said as I stopped, then faltered in the throes of an awkward moment, as I just stood there expecting something else to happen.
“Can I help you, monsieur?” The woman who had captured my attention finally asked. Her voice sounded dry; hardened from smoking.
“Ah! Vous et Americain.”
“Yeah. And your French stinks worse than mine used to.”
I smiled. “Well, I’m just learning.”
“Sit and join us,” her conversation partner said. He had an Italian accent.
My heart sank when she told him: “It’s okay, Carlo. He was just passing by.” She looked softly at me. “N’est pas, monsieur Americain?”
I felt defeated to my core. ”Uh, oui.”
“Nonsense!” the one she referred to as Carlo said.
“Here. Sit and drink with us.“
I glanced at the sardonic woman as though for approval. She shrugged her shoulders in acquiescence. “What the hell? Sure. Carlo’s buying tonight. It's his party.”
I edged my way into the empty spot next to the frail, silent one. “A celebration?” I asked Carlo.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I just got a full year’s work from Le Bon Marché.”
“Congratulations. Who is he?”
She tightened her expression as she cast me a dry look. “It. Le Bon Marché is the finest department store in Paris. You really are just off the boat, aren't you?”
I tried to rationalize what it was about me she pretended not to like. “Uh, I don't get into Paris much. Just here to Montparnasse.”
“Okay,” she said. “Well, Montparnasse is in Paris, so, yes, you are in Paris.” She patted a stray fall from her bob into place. “So, who are you? You’re certainly not dressed like a starving artist. Are you an agent, or something?”
“No, thank you. I’m a novelist.”
“Be nice,” Carlo warned her. “Please excuse our friend, here. She is having a bad day.”
Her reserved smile seemed cruel, and her glance darkened. “I’m the resident pessimist. I always have a bad day. My name is Sarah, by the way. This one sitting next to me is Carlo, and his silent friend next to you is Anton-Marie, his muse. So, now, what’s your name?”
“Q. M. Flynn. Also known by a few around here as ‘Quem’.”
Sarah thought for a moment, then came to an awareness. “You’re Quentin Flynn, the novelist?”
Unmasked, I cast my eyes downward. “You know my work?”
“Well, yeah, I know of it, I guess. I recognize you from an author picture I once saw. The word’s gotten out that you’re here, and your “Vanishing Man” is making the rounds. So, I guess you’ve not really vanished, after all.” She was slurring her words. It was approaching midnight; that hour when everybody still awake in the 14 arrondissement was on their way toward being drunk, which would them staggering around the streets until dawn.
“Would I know this book?” Carlo asked.
“Probably not,” I told him.
A waiter appeared at our table to save me from the conversation. Carlo ordered the round.
Sarah glared at me with a one-eyed squint. “One of my writer friends once told me about your family. Don’t you own half of Brooklyn, or something?”
“Well, maybe a quarter of it,” I said. It wasn’t that far from the truth. “But that was seventy years ago, when my grandfather had a lot of farmland in Flatbush, when it was easy and cheap to own it. He just had the good sense to hold on to it. How do you know that? Are you from Brooklyn?”
“How come you know so much about my past life?”
“Word of wealth travels fast around Montparnasse. Some of us want to know who to tap for a loan we have no intention of paying back. Not me, though. Anyway, just because you own Brooklyn…”
“I don’t own it,“ I said.
“…doesn't mean the world ends there. The news from New York sometimes makes it out to Milwaukee where I’m from. Or was. Now I’m from here.” She inhaled languidly through her cigarette holder.
“Brooklyn? In New York City?” Carlo asked. “Your family owns all that?”
“Only a small piece of it.”
Sarah’s lips turned up in a half-smile. “You see that, Quentin? Now your family secret is out and has spread as far as Milan. Wasn’t that easy?”
“I'm sorry,” I said. “Can we just talk about Montparnasse instead of Brooklyn?”
“Touchy subject, hunh?”
I was becoming annoyed by her arrogance. “No. Just a tiresome one.”
“Are you going to take me to dinner tomorrow, Quentin?” she asked.
“Why? Because you think I am rich?”
“No, Quentin. Because I think, like me, you’re an artist in search of yourself. And I’m getting just drunk enough to ask you.”