Alors
I stood in the Gare du Nord and considered my options. There weren't any. I scanned a listing of Paris hotels and headed for the cheapest one: the Hotel Villedo, $10 a night. The place had an ambiance that I persuaded myself was antique, despite the red light above the sign.
The only accommodation available was "the bridal suite," a steal at $20. The glass door to my room didn't lock and there was a rather continual floor show, but at some point I must have dozed off. When I awoke the church bells were ringing, the sky was pink, and I felt renewed. No little setback was going to spoil my adventure.
I stood and stretced, then walked to a mirrow that hung above the sink next to the bed. I leaned forward to punctuate my resolve with a confident look in the eye.
The sink disengaged and feel into the floor. Water gushed. In panic I rummaged through my open suitcase, stuffed two pair of underwear into the pipe to quell the flow, and before the dame broke, I was out the door. I barreled through the lobby of the first bank I passed, asked to see the director, and told the startled my sad story.
Fot some reason, whether from shock or pity, he hired me at $1.27 an hour to be a cross-checker of foreign currency transactionsm and with two phone calls found me lodgings at a commercial school's dormitory.
From eight to five each weekday my duty was to sit in a windowless room with sex impeecably dressed people, all of whom were totaling identical additions and subtractions. We were highly dignified with each other, very professional, no tutoyering. Monsieur Saint presided, but the formindable Mademoiselle was the true power; she oversaw each of our columns and shook her head sadly at my American-shaped numbers.
My legacy from that summer, however, was more than an enduring penchant for crossed 7s. After I had worked for six weeks, M. Saint asked me during a coffee break why didn't I follow the example of other foreign students he had know and depart the office at noon in order to spend the afternoon touring the sights of Paris with the Alliance Francaise.
"Because," I replied in my halting Frenchs, "that costs money. I depend upon my full salary the same as any of you." M. Saint nodded gravely and said no more, but then on the next Friday he presented me with a white envelope along with my check.
"Do not open this until you left the Societe Generale," he said ominously. I thought I was fired for the time I had mixed up kroners and guilders, and, once on this sidewalkm I steeled myself to read the worst. I felt the quiet panic of blankness.
"Dear Sir," I translated the perfectly formed script. "You are a person of value. It is not correct that you should be in our beautiful city and not see it. Therefore we have amassed a modest sum to pay the tuition for a two-week afternoon program for you at the Alliance Francaise.
Your wages will not suffer, for it is your assigment to appear each morning in this bureau and reacquaingt us with the places you have visited. We shalle see them afresh through your eyes." The letter had thirty signatures, from the Director to the janitor, and stuffed inside the envelope was a sheaf of franc notes in various denominations.
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