Motion Sickness

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I am in my hotel room, on the bed, reading The Portrait of a Lady, and nursing an illness I might not have. As I am unhappy, I might just be unhappy and not suffering from the flu or la turista, but a Frenchwoman named Arlette has sent me a get-well card. She seems to take my illness seriously. The card has a Tibetan symbol on it whose meaning I don’t know and which might have significance if I did. Her concern might also be ironic and when she appears at my bedside the next day, I can’t read the gesture as graciousness or solicitude only, since I don’t really know what she means. I both feign surprise at her visit and feel surprised, a mixed response for what might be a mixed get-well visit. She talks about adjusting to changes of all sorts — the weather, leaving one city for another, a friend’s betrayal, the end of a love affair — some of which she knows I’ve experienced. Leaving a city, a lover, good weather for bad. I want to get back to my book, the heroine of which, Isabel Archer, has an end that must be worse than mine, something I’ve always loved novels for. I decide to leave Paris when I’ve finished it. There are Turkish baths, hamams, in Paris, which reminds me of Istanbul, but I try none of them as I don’t feel well enough to leave my hotel room. Except to go down the street for some bread. Or pain, as they call it here.

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