Café Fortuna

I met Nic at the Café Fortuna on a dreary June afternoon – the kind of day where the rain has stopped, but the scent of it mixes almost pleasantly with the typical Parisian arôme of smoke and exhaust.

The Fortuna lived on the second floor above a small space for lease, and was one of my favourite places to write, for its seclusion. The day we met, I’d accidentally followed Nic (a stranger, then) up the staircase. Chance timing, I suppose. He held the door for me, I thanked him quietly, and I thought that would be all until we both headed towards the same table. Realizing this, I backed off, and let him take my window spot while I sought out a new place. The encounter was long forgotten once I'd settled down and started writing.

Some hours later came an interruption.

“Qu’écrivez-vous?” I heard over my shoulder.

I froze. “Huh? Oh- just um, un roman.” I cringed at my accent, grammar, everything. The locals would’ve had a field day. While I was panicking over my French, the man had walked around the table so I could see him – the very same man who took my table. He pulled out the chair opposite me to sit.

“English?” he asked.

“God, yes please,” I replied, relieved.

He grinned, and started fiddling with a pen from his pocket, tapping it a few times on the top of my paper.

“Publisher breathing down your neck?” he asked. I noticed now his accent, or lack thereof. He wasn’t French.

“No, I uh, don’t have one,” I said. “Yet. That’s the end goal, though. Hopefully.” I forced a quick laugh.

“Funny, I just… thought I knew that look on your face,” he explained. “I guess the stress of getting published at all is similar to that of a deadline.”

“I suppose so,” I responded.

He ran a nervous hand through his hair, diverting his gaze out the window.

“So, I guess you live nearby… well, here or the Latin quarter.”

I raised a brow. “What gives you that impression?”

“Well, the Fortuna’s a long walk for anyone outside Montparnasse, and you’re here every day-” He quickly cut himself off. “…and I know that sounds very creepy once I say it out loud, but I swear, I live just over there, in that green one.” He leaned towards me and pointed out the window, at a building on the corner. “That’s my window, up there. I people-watch, a lot. Boredom. And I notice you, sometimes, around here, and I figured-”

“Maybe,” I interrupted, “try leading with your name?”

He leaned back in his chair, smiling, and stuck a hand out to me. “Nicolas – Nic. And I promise I’m not a creep.”

A month later and I was meeting Nic almost daily at the Fortuna, where we’d chat and write for hours on end. I can’t explain how nice it was to have someone to talk to in my own language. Not only that, but Nic… had an interesting point of view.

“See, see, look,” he said one day, grabbing my shoulder to turn me to the window. He pointed at a young woman standing on the corner, waiting for the crossing signal. “That’s Julie.” he explained. “She’s headed to the Panthéon – she’s the Assistant Curator. Only been there a couple months, but she’s quite the schmoozer.” He flipped open his notebook and showed me the page he’d been writing on, though all I could read was Julie at the top of the word-filled page. “There’s more – lots more, about her life, her girlfriend-”

“Girlfriend? Seriously, there is no way you got all that from her looks - is her name even Julie?”

“Is yours even Cassandra?”

I blinked incredulously. “No, no it isn’t – do you even know my name?”

He smiled at me. “Cassandra’s the one I gave to you when I first saw you – back when you were a famous author, hiding away in the obscure 14th arrondissement café to finish your magnum opus without the crushing weight of a deadline.”

“Gosh, if only.”

“Fame isn’t all it’s chalked up to be,” he said calmly.

“It’s not fame I want,” I replied. “The money, more like.”

“Oh, is someone living the coveted life of ‘broke artist’?” he joked, but the reality of it stung just a bit too much. My mind flashed to the eviction notice I’d received the previous morning, and I felt sick.

“Let’s… not talk about that.”

Nic was visibly taken aback by my response, but he didn’t pry, to my relief. We didn’t speak about anything personal again for a few weeks or more. The weather grew hotter, and instead of whiling away the hours at the Fortuna, we would stroll through Montparnasse, and occasionally the Latin Quarter. My favourites were the rare times he’d show me the stories he’d written, about people like Julie.

“Where’s mine, then?” I asked one day.

“Your what?”

“My story, where I’m a famous author, dodging deadlines in an alley café,” I said. “Where I’m called Catherine.”

“Cassandra,” he said, laughing, “you’re called Cassandra. And I don’t have it. Not here, at least.”

I pointed at his notebook, which he carried by his side.

“You're holding it,” I replied.

He flipped through the pages nonchalantly. “Yeah, it’s not in this one though. I have lots. Too many… I fill one up, add it to the stack, start another-”

“I want to be her,” I blurted. “Cassandra. I want to be famous, and carefree, and rich…” I trailed off, feeling a lump forming in my throat.

“Trust me,” he chuckled, “you don’t want that.”

“I really would, right now,” I choked out.

He stopped in his tracks. “Wait, what’s going on?”

I quickly brushed a tear from my eye before it could form.

“I have to leave, soon. Really soon, like, this week,” I stuttered. “I don’t want to – I want to stay. In Paris. I belong here, I’m a writer, this is… this is where I’m supposed to be.”

Nic brought his hand to my arm. “Why are you going?”

“I can’t afford it anymore,” I whispered. “I never could, really, I just thought I could make it- make it-”

“Make it work,” he finished. “Listen to me, you don’t have to go, not yet. I promise you.”

“How?”

“Just… trust me. I need some time, but do you think you could meet me at the Fortuna tomorrow afternoon?

“I – yeah, yeah, I can.”

“Okay,” he said, and at this point I could see the look of slight worry in his eyes. “Okay, yeah, just meet me tomorrow. Afternoon… the later the better,” he muttered.

Sensing he wasn’t going to elaborate, I just nodded.

Tomorrow came, and I did as he’d asked – I left my apartment just after 3, and walked to the tune of idle street chatter and distant sirens. I was nervous, as Nic hadn’t answered the phone the night before. I’d never known him to be so vague. It was no time at all before I was standing outside the Fortuna, lost in my thoughts. You’re meeting Nic like any other day, I told myself. I didn’t even notice that the sign still read “Fermé”.

I pushed open the door and was met with the same warm atmosphere I was used to, but something was off. Toni, the only bilingual barista (and my only other friend), was pacing the floor with her hands tangled in her hair. She startled when I walked in.

“Oh – mademoiselle, oh, did you see the cars? There was so many, so much happened…”

I frowned and shut the door behind me – it was then I realized that the café was completely deserted save for myself and Toni. Nic was nowhere to be seen.

“Toni, what happened? Where’s – I’m supposed to meet Nic, is he here?” Toni only looked back at me, opening and closing her mouth without a clue of what to say. I felt my heart drop.

A short time later, Toni had locked up the café, made the two of us some tea, and we were sitting down at the table by the back window. Toni dabbed at her eye with a tissue, careful of her mascara.

“Nico comes in here, like a storm," she starts. "About 12, not much after. At this time I’m barely open, you know – it’s Sunday – but it’s Nico, so I don’t mind.” I slowly nodded.

“So Nico runs in, very fast, very scared, and he’s holding a package. Not very big, about like this;” Toni held out her hands, shaping a box with her thumbs and forefingers. “It’s small enough to hide in his jacket.”

“A package?” I asked.

“Yes, that he gives to me, to keep for you. He's very serious that I keep it safe, and say nothing, no matter what. He scared me.”

I was getting nervous. “And then?”

Toni sniffled. “It was only minutes after that I heard the sirens outside. Police; they come up here, twenty or more, and it was like… mon dieu, miss, he was ready, he surrenders. He knew they were coming.”

Police. Sirens, the same sirens I heard walking. My head was swimming.

“He yells at me, when they’re taking him,” Toni continued. “Screams, ‘nothing, nothing, say nothing.’ So I did. They ask me lots, but I say nothing.” She got up then, and made for the back room. “This thing better be worth it, all I can say.”

I could only sit, stunned, while Toni brought Nic’s package out to me. What she laid in front of me was nothing but a rectangular parcel tied up with twine – though the sight was nauseating.

“Go on,” Toni pushed.

I pulled at the twine and undid the neatly folded creases, revealing a plain black notebook exactly like those Nic would carry around.

“His notebook,” she said.

“One of,” I corrected. I opened it to the first page, and a thick, heavy envelope fell out onto my lap. I picked it up and read Cassandra scrawled across the back. Toni peeked over.

“Cassandra, that’s not your name.”

I grimaced. “It’s… more like a joke. Here, you should open it.” I handed her the envelope. “I want to read this.”

The first page was topped with the same name, in the same scratchy handwriting. The page itself was filled top to bottom with words, and so was the next, and the next, and every single page to the very back cover. This was the only page left blank, save for two words in red ink – Your Story.

I could feel tears brimming my eyes, before Toni’s dramatic gasp caught my attention.

“Miss, I think this is… why he…” she trailed off, trembling.

I grabbed the envelope from her and peeked inside – and felt my mouth go dry, my heartbeat deafening.

“Toni, this is impossible.” I whispered.

“That’s... there could be ten thousand euro in there. Twenty, even.”

I dumped the envelope out onto the table, where she and I both grabbed a handful and began counting.

“I count nine thousand, three hundred,” she said, finally. She was shaking, as was I.

“I have ten and seven… dear God,” I muttered. “Twenty thousand euros. Nic, gone… and twenty thousand-”

“Take it!” she blurted, shoving her pile back into the envelope, and into my hands. “Take it, take it, run and hide it.” I sat with the envelope in my hands, too stunned to move, but Toni quickly shoved me up out of the chair.

“Go,” she instructed, low and calm, “and put this somewhere very safe. Nic told me to do this, and I tell you.”

“But-” I started.

“Don’t think about where he got it. You have it. It’s yours.” She turned me towards the door and unlocked it, pushing me out.

“Come back later, we talk about it. And Nico,” she added.

Yeah, I thought. Definitely need to talk about Nic.