Allan Stein by Matthew Stadler Page B

street to walk where there is no grit. The sky is slate gray and empty. On every street there are children rushing to school. Allan hurries down the rue de Fleurus and crosses the rue Guynemer to the iron gate of the Luxembourg Garden. He pulls his mittens off and fixes the satchel, then runs with it against the fence, making a dull accelerating noise. At the rue d'Assas, where bombs would fall during the Great War, Allan slows and walks. Boys from his class call greetings or hit his head with their mittens. His friend Giselin bumps his shoulder and they shake hands. Older boys stand by the wall at the Lycee Montaigne, blowing smoke and staring past them. Allan and Giselin say nothing. The courtyard echoes with shouting and the smack of hard shoes on gravel. Allan's cap is grabbed and pulled down over his eyes, and he pushes it back up again. Cold mist hangs among the shouting boys, muting light from rooms where teachers write lessons on blackboards in chalk. The hard ball comes flying, unseen, toward Allan, and he feels the sting and then a sharp burn of pain on his bare calf when it hits him.

    " I f you went to Paris, Herbert." We were at Shackles again. The day was sunny and warm, and Shackles had their articulating windows thrown open to the spring breeze. I was trying a
rosé
Tristan said was typical of Provence. Herbert had scotch. "I mean, to find those drawings: Wouldn't the museum tack your vacation on after the work was done? I mean, a week or two of business, then 'Herbert's vacation'?"
    "Naturally I could do that. I'm the one who accounts for my hours. It's not like a factory time clock. What are you getting at?"
    "I think you need a vacation."
    "Of course I need a vacation, just not in Paris. Are you fixing to send me away for a long time so you can take over? Madame Assistant leads the revolution?"
    "No, I've got a much better idea." I left an obnoxious silence, which Herbert didn't bother filling. He just stared, sipping his scotch. "I should go to Paris in your place." This made him laugh, which I preferred to the silence.
    "You're delusional. You don't work for the museum. That is a fiction, a lie we told Hank, just for—for I don't know what reason."
    "I know that. I'm not proposing that I go to Paris, per se."
    "Well then, how will you go, if not per se?"
    "I'll go as you. As Herbert Widener. I'll get the drawings, have a fine time doing it, and take however long you want me to, and you can just disappear into whatever vacation your heart desires—paid, I might add, while everyone thinks you're off in Paris working." This put him into a much more involved silence. I fiddled with the decanter, holding it up to the sun as if this could tell me something about the wine. Herbert thought and thought and thought some more.
    "You'll go as me."
    "Mmm."
    "What if you run into someone who knows me?"
    "Why would I?"
    "I don't see why you would."
    "The Steins don't know you."
    "No, they don't."
    "Does anyone in Paris know you? I mean by sight."
    "Well, a few friends of course, but no one you'd have any reason to deal with." A long pause. "You can't stay at the Mahler."
    "At the what?"
    "The Hotel Mahler. All my friends know I stay there.They're probably checking the register every day, just waiting for me to show up."
    "I won't even stay in the neighborhood. What neighborhood is it?"
    "The Fourth—"
    "Send me to the Fifth."
    "No, farther. We've got to put you somewhere out of the way. It is, I would say, an intriguing plan, as long as no one who knows me sees you."
    "So I'm going?"
    "It's unthinkable." A sip of scotch. "Let me think about it."

    M y first passport was shared with my mother and our dog, Max. In the picture she is seated, holding Max, and I'm standing at her side. I was twelve. Louise wanted to take me to North Africa.
    Louise kept a shrine on a small credenza in her bedroom. Among photographs and candles, postcards, and especially memorable traffic citations, Louise always had propped her folded and