My English isn't good enough. I know! Philippe pleaded in hopes of quieting his colleagues' laughter. A cadre of free-spirited professional men, they were making their way back to the office after lunch. And, Philippe was the current target of their fun. He could sense his face, turning colour with embarrassment. By the feel of it, it had to be the bright red of his neck tie by now. Philippe sensed that he was in danger of spontaneous internal combustion. He was struggling to have appropriate words at the ready should it come to that. I'm melting. I'm mel-ting! he rehearsed the line from The Wizard of Oz when the wicked witch surrenders her life to a well-intentioned Dorothy.
Moments before, Philippe had spied a Deux Chevaux on the street. It had been the car of his childhood dreams even while others his age dreamt of sporty Mini-Coopers or Alfa Romeo Spiders. It would have been sufficient embarrassment now to have been teased for his enduring love of the plodding Deux Chevaux. The name meant "two horses"; and, even back in the day, other cars well exceeded the horse-power of two. That was to say nothing of the fact that a Deux Chevaux looked like a Clydesdale rather than a sleek stallion. A stallion was sent out to stud. A Clydesdale only ploughed the field. It was a tortoise amongst hares. That is where Philippe got himself into trouble.
Rather than saying, deux chevaux, two horses, Philippe said, deux cheveux, or "two hairs" in English. He hadn't noticed his faux pas until his colleagues drew long-suffering attention to it. Philippe's hair was noticeably thinning; and, his fault gave his colleagues the liberty to draw attention to it. At the age of thirty-two, it might have stung less if he weren't turning into his father. The face that greeted him in the morning mirror and, now, in afternoon reflections cast off of glass doors and windows was no longer his own.
His father's reaction, of course, would have been to strangle the nearest of his colleagues with his own neck tie. But, not Philippe. Oh, no. Philippe was the antithesis of his father. It was here, safe in the knowledge that he was about to implode, that Philippe uttered those words — My English isn't good enough. I know! — as a kind of defence, a shield. It was a shield, however, that his colleagues saw as the puny, plastic kind of thing that a child would bring to Norse history day at school. It only intensified what, to Philippe, seemed their mean-spirited humour. Some of them had even begun literally ribbing him. He was certain that he would go home with bruises.
Philippe's one salvation was safe in the knowledge that he could just walk away. He knew that, among men, as among boys, the pack is as strong as a neodymium magnet. Without drawing any more attention to himself, he fell out of step, slowed and finally stopped, before turning away down a side-street. None of them seemed to have noticed. Not one looked back. No one followed. Their banter could be heard, continuing unbroken, even after he turned out of sight. It was comforting, to him that, in a city this big, Philippe could be alone with himself.
Of course, he knew, ... the difference between two horses and two hairs. His English should be better. Mon Dieu. Sacrebleu. Philippe muttered beyond the hearing of passers-by. He was, after all, the President's secretary, for God's sake. — Dog nabbit! He stopped in his tracks. There was no one to hear him, let alone to answer, when he asked, What am I? A parody of all the cartoons and movies I've ever seen? There was a tiny but growing voice inside, shouting, That ... th-th-that's all, folks! It needn't say more nor say it louder. Philippe heard it clearly. If he were atop any of the surrounding buildings, he'd throw an anvil tied off to one of his legs over a parapet wall. Cartoons and movies were perfectly good means of learning English.
As he stood there on the street, a young man brushed by. He'd probably stolen Philippe's wallet. That didn't matter. The young man had brought Philippe back, down to Earth safely. I remember! he told himself. It was the moment that he fell in love with the Deux Chevaux. Look, his father encouraged him to focus on the approaching car. A 2CV Sahara, one of the Deux Chevaux models. — Roll-back, lipstick-red canvas roof, Philippe recited, the dull monotone of his voice sounding like that of a child with Aspergers and a fascination for cars. — It was the last moment when his father seemed human to him. Look, it's a Trojan horse! It was heading into the city's centre. It's motor, silent as a statue.
There were women inside, most of them using the mirrors to fix their make-up. Pointing to them, Philippe's father suggested, See, they're getting ready for battle, applying war paint. "War paint" was a term from a bye-gone era. Philippe's grandfather used it when he came over to baby-sit. The words referred to his mother's long absences before dinner out. She fix'n the war paint? he'd ask his son, Philippe's father, mockingly. The question sprang off his tongue with a country twang, as if for emphasis. He would relent only when he and his daughter-in-law came face to face. All dolled up, you? Now, his tongue swayed to the wag of a city-slicker. And, Don't you look good enough to eat, yourself, he'd call out as she stepped over the threshold. There was more than a touch of irony in his voice, so much so that, even at his young age, Philippe sensed a bit of what might have been hatred.
Except for the woman behind the wheel, all seemed not to notice the world outside, and, especially not the men, like Philippe's father, staring from the road-side. The site of the Sahara, its two engines, each parched of petrol, pushed by as many men as there were women inside, was something indeed: The beauty of the women — The spectacle of the men — The mystery of how they all fit and jockeyed for position inside the car's cab before the engines had run dry. A Deux Chevaux was more than a car; it was a metaphor. Its mechanics were all manner of probable, even possible, interactions of those associated with it. "Women love a sports car," one advertisement proclaimed, "but, men love women who choose a Deux Chevaux."
It was only as the men in his company returned to their building that they noticed. Philippe had gone missing.
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