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stood up, pushed the door closed firmly and stepped slowly back so Joséphine could turn and start down rue de Mézières. He watched her drive away and could tell that she did not look at him in the rearview mirror. It was as though in a moment he did not exist.

2
    What Austin hoped would be the rue de Vaugirard, leading around and up to Joséphine's apartment, turned out instead to be the rue St.-Jacques. He had walked much too far and was now near the medical college, where there were only lightless shop windows containing drab medical texts and dusty, passed-over antiques.
    He did not know Paris well—only a few hotels he'd stayed in and a few restaurants he didn't want to eat in again. He couldn't keep straight which arrondissement was which, what direction anything was from anything else, how to take the metro, or even how to leave town, except by airplane. All the large streets looked the same and traveled at confusing angles to one another, and all the famous landmarks seemed to be in unexpected locations when they peeked up into view above the building tops. In the two days he'd been back in Paris—after leaving home in a fury and taking the plane to Orly—he'd tried to make a point of remembering in which direction on the Boulevard St.-Germain the numbers got larger. But he couldn't keep it straight, and in fact he couldn't always find the Boulevard St.-Germain when he wanted to.
    At rue St.-Jacques he looked down toward where he thought would be the river and the Petit Pont bridge, andthere they were. It was a warm spring day, and the sidewalks along the river banks were jammed with tourists cruising the little picture stalls and gaping at the vast cathedral on the other side.
    The prospect down the rue St.-Jacques seemed for an instant familiar—a pharmacy front he recognized, a café with a distinctive name. Horloge. He looked back up the street he'd come down and saw that he was only half a block away from the small hotel he'd once stayed in with his wife, Barbara. The Hôtel de la Tour de Notre Dame, which had advertised a view of the cathedral but from which no such view was possible. The hotel was run by Pakistanis and had rooms so small you couldn't have your suitcase open and also reach the window. He'd brought Barbara with him on business—it was four years ago—and she had shopped and visited museums and eaten lunch along the Quai de la Tournelle while he made his customer calls. They had stayed out of the room as long as possible until fatigue dumped them in bed in front of the indecipherable French TV, which eventually put them to sleep.
    Austin remembered very clearly now, standing on the busy sidewalk on his way to Joséphine Belliard's apartment, that he and Barbara had left Paris on the first of April—intending to take a direct flight back to Chicago. Though, once they'd struggled their heavy luggage out of the room, crammed themselves into the tiny, airless elevator and emerged into the lobby, looking like beleaguered refugees but ready to settle their bill and depart, the Pakistani room clerk, who spoke crisp British English, looked across the reception desk in an agitated way and said, “Oh, Mr. Austin, have you not heard the bad news? I'm sorry.”
    “What's that?” Austin had said, out of breath. “What bad news?” He looked at Barbara, who was holding a garment bag and a hatbox, not wanting to hear any bad news now.
    “There is a quite terrible strike,” the clerk said and looked very grave. “The airport's closed down completely. No one can leave Paris today. And, I'm sorry to say, we have already booked your room for another guest. A Japanese. I'm so, so sorry.”
    Austin had stood amid his suitcases, breathing in the air of defeat and frustration and anger he felt certain it would be useless to express. He stared out the lobby window at the street. The sky was cloudy and the wind slightly chilled. He heard Barbara say behind him, as much to herself as to him, “Oh well.