The Travelling Companion

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“My French isn’t very good,” I told him.

“The seller’s English. You’ll be fine.” Mr. Whitman thrust the postcard towards me again. He had insisted I call him George, but I couldn’t do that. He was my employer, sort of. Moreover, if the stories were to be believed, he was a descendant of Walt Whitman, and that mattered to me. I had graduated with First Class Honors from the University of Edinburgh that same summer. My focus had been on Scottish rather than American Literature, but still — Whitman was Whitman. And now my employer (of sorts) was asking me to do him a favor. How could I refuse?

I watched as my fingers plucked the postcard from his grip. It was one of the bookstore’s own promotional cards. On one side were drawings of Shakespeare and Rue De La Bucherie, on the other my handwritten destination.

“A five-minute walk,” Mr. Whitman assured me. His accent was an American drawl. He was tall, his silver hair swept back from his forehead, his eyes deep-set, cheekbones prominent. The first time we’d met, he had demanded a cigarette. On hearing that I didn’t smoke, he had shaken his head as if in general weariness at my generation. This meeting had taken place outside a nearby cous-cous restaurant, where I had been staring at the menu in the window, wondering if I dared go inside. Money wasn’t the main issue. I had been rehearsing my few French phrases and considering the possibility that the staff, seeing me for a lone traveler, might mug me for my pocketful of francs before selling the contents of my heavy rucksack at some street market in the vicinity.

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