An Arrival in Three Acts

In which a small car becomes a medium car, a dry streak becomes a damp one, and a secret is guarded with the discretion of a man who has clearly never kept one before.

There is something almost suspicious about a smooth Air France flight. TLS to CDG came and went with the kind of quiet competence that makes a seasoned flyer nervous — no delays, no drama, nothing to complain about at all, which for a Frenchman is its own small crisis. I landed slightly disoriented by the absence of grievance.

The universe, ever balanced, corrected course almost immediately. Anyone who has passed through Charles de Gaulle knows that Terminal 2F and Terminal 2D exist in a kind of geographic estrangement, connected by a walk best described as aspirational. I arrived at the car rental counter having earned my rental car the old-fashioned way: on foot, with luggage, questioning several of my life choices.

We had reserved something small and sensible. We were handed the keys to a Renault Captur instead — a perfectly respectable upgrade that I accepted with the theatrical reluctance of a man being handed a larger dessert than he ordered. Who am I to argue with a rental agency’s generosity?

The Germans have a word for it — Stau — which sounds exactly like what it is: a low, grinding syllable stuck behind a truck on the périphérique.

The drive west to Orgeval delivered precisely the traffic one budgets for emotionally before even leaving the terminal — not a surprise, barely even an inconvenience anymore, just the toll booth every arrival in the Paris region insists on collecting. I paid it without complaint, mostly because I’d used up my complaint quota on the walk between terminals.

My brother’s dogs, unlike the traffic, were a genuine welcome — bounding out with the unwavering conviction that I exist primarily as a playing partner who occasionally travels internationally for the sole purpose of being tackled in a garden. I did not disappoint. Reputation, once earned with a dog, must be maintained.

Aperitif outside, dinner outside, and a small betrayal of my recent sobriety in the form of two glasses of wine — poured, I should note, with the specific gravity of a man not remotely trying to talk me out of it. Dinner itself was a homemade Thai affair, expertly done, and good enough to send my thoughts drifting several thousand kilometres east toward our own upcoming Asian holiday. A dangerous thing, a good curry — it makes you homesick for a trip you haven’t taken yet.

Bed came early. Coffee comes now, along with the planning of a day that I’m told, with some ceremony, involves a surprise. I’ve been sworn to a discretion I intend to honour for at least the length of this sentence — so for now, dear reader, that’s all you get. More once the secret has the decency to reveal itself.