Bill Vernon Let Us Rejoice

Let Us Rejoice

Our first step on the stairs, a flood of people washes us forward and down,

then on through the tunnels. The power of their rushing propels me, nudges me aside,

slows me down but shoves me on as well.

Oh no! My companion, my guide, my wife is also caught in the current, some

kind of late afternoon riptide. We've done this trip before but never been so

forcefully swept along as we are now. I yell but she can't hear me. And she doesn't

look back, assuming I'm right behind her. I recognize this posture. That's definitely

her, one-track minded when she makes up her mind.

It's one of those situations where you suddenly realize it's so out of hand you

have to do something, but you can't do what you really want to do. What's around you

controls you, and you can control yourself only a bit. These limits, I know, are so

restrictive they would depress me if I consider them for any length of time. But I

can't. The anxiety I feel is as strong as the force of these people's desires. A mass

movement. A tsunami. Adrenaline confuses me too. I can't stop what's inside me any

more than I can stop what's outside.

The din is part of the problem. Engines are shrieking, metal wheels are clacking

and squealing on metal rails. Whistles are screaming. And echoes of them all

reverberate. Amplified above all that, a God-like male voice is making

announcements, arrivals, departures, track numbers. In French of course so I

understand none of it. Mon Dieu! There is no choice. Give up and drown or keep

swimming along after my wife who swore she knew the way.

Another problem is that I lug most of our baggage. In each hand's a hard

plastic, heavy, awkward suitcase on wheels. They weigh me down along with 64 years

of mistakes and misjudgments that have amassed rolls of fatty uncertainties. Catching

my leader is not my goal. Not losing sight of her is. But it's like following a mosquito in

a wind. Of course people intrude. They don't know I'm with her. I perspire heavily and

my hands slip. I'd holler if it would help. If anyone might hear.

Up some stairs dragging my weights. Down tunnels. Down stairs.

And there she is ahead, boarding a train, pushing herself through the crowd,

plunging inside a car. As I'm about to reach her, the doors slam shut. She finally looks

back, holds a hand flat on the window. Around her are statues of people frozen in

place with their backs to me, hands grasping seats or silvery vertical and horizontal

metal tubes, bracing themselves as the dammed-up momentum builds and begins

again. The cars shiver and bang together. My wife eyes me, and then she's shouting

something, gone before I can read her lips.

She's carried away beyond my reach to the airport. To Charles DeGaulle where

we have tickets for a Delta flight back home this evening so we need to check in soon.

She has our tickets in the big black leather purse slung over her shoulder. She's gone

and I have to catch her.

I know where I am: where our train, I hope, docks to unload and load every 10

or 15 minutes. At Gare du Nord. In the city of love, my love has been carried away,

and I am left alone in this underground chaos.

Imagining music. My near panic is making me hear things. I look around and

notice my lack of movement, the crowd dissipating, drying up, trickling off on the

train or in the tunnels that break off this platform on either side.

And the music seems actually here. It's not just a mental construct. A hundred

feet away, around a curve from my platform, I find a clarinet, violin, and saxophone.

They're playing a classic song I can't name. I listen, just one among four others in this

alcove, leaning against walls, a wide place where three tunnels converge. One of the

others, a woman, catches my eye and points to a sign beside a donation basket: Emigrés from Ukraine. I drop in a few euro coins.

"Merci," I hear.

I nod, unable to think of one song to request.

The trio launches into "Hava Nagila." They are good. It's lively. I imagine doing

the hora here underground. I'd like to do it here too, but a minute into it, a train

whistles loudly so I wave to the musicians and hurry as fast as I can under my loads

back onto my platform.

In time to see the name of my destination on the first car. So I step on board.

There are free seats and only three riders standing, holding a pole. I sit near the door

with room to put one bag on the seat beside me near the window, the other on my

lap.

More than relieved, I'm confident now. The tricky part will be to check for my

wife at the stop before the airport stop. We'd debarked there mistakenly once before

and had to re-board to get to the airport. This time I will, holding the bags to block

the doors open, step outside and see if my wife is waiting. If not, it's back on and ride

to the airport and look for her at the Delta counter where I'll wait until she shows up.

The song the trio played for me repeats mentally all the way north, and my

feet keep time, shifting slightly with the rhythms in my head and on the metal floor.

Bill Vernon

Bill Vernon has studied and taught English literature. Besides writing, he enjoys exercising outdoors and doing international folk dances. His poetry, fiction, and nonfiction occasionally appear in journals and anthologies, and he is the author of Old Town, a mystery novel.