Man Out of Sequence

Lost in Paris, he walks through memory and fear, invisible to a world that has moved on.

Man Out of Sequence

Dolf felt uneasy. More than uneasy. Actually, he felt awful. But if he was honest, even that was an understatement. He was afraid. Almost panicked. Nevertheless, his breathing was calm, and his legs moved on their own. He had once read that if you breathe evenly and calmly, you can’t be anxious at the same time. But he was anxious. So he walked. He had been walking for hours. By now it was late. Very cold.

Cursed Paris. He hadn’t even wanted to come. He was only here for her sake. Brigitte. His wife of sixty years. Yes, Dolf was old. Just turned eighty-two. That was why he didn’t stand out—not at first, in the chaotic crowd around the Eiffel Tower, and later, as the streets emptied. Old people are invisible. He had known this for a while.

Dolf was average. Middling. Neither tall nor short, at 1.73 meters. Slim, maybe even skinny, but wearing a thick black puffer jacket. It was drizzling, and his brown leather shoes—and under them, his beige Hugo Boss socks—were damp. He had no idea where he was. Arrondissements meant nothing to him. Neither did French. Or English.

He sneezed. “Probably catching a cold,” he thought. Definitely. He cursed and turned another corner. Corner after corner. He smelled something good. Roasted meat. Döner, maybe. He saw the crispy meat on a skewer in the yellow light as he passed a shop. His stomach growled. He was thirsty too. Lips and throat dry. Slight headache. Two glasses of wine at dinner. When? Seven? Eight? The meal had been excellent, despite the French cooking: steak with peppercorns in a rich, creamy sauce, with thin, slightly salty but crispy fries.

He had discussed hiking the Alps with Dieter and their planned vacation to Kos. After dinner, they had seen the Eiffel Tower illuminated in the dark. Impressive. Especially the base. Massive, far more striking than the tower itself. Then they wanted a boat ride on the Seine. But Brigitte walked too fast. They were running late. He saw her light blonde hair bouncing through the crowd. Sometimes it disappeared, then reappeared. Sometimes he caught a triangle of her light-blue wool coat. Then she was gone.

He quickened his pace, pressing past tourists and garlic-scented men. “Sorry. Excuse me.” But she was gone. Brigitte was gone. Dieter and Netty too. He was alone. Alone in Paris. He, Adolf Schuster, born February 12, 1938, in Schwäbisch Gmünd. They had lost him.

Where was that damn river? All he saw were taxis, drivers smoking while waiting for customers. Some called to him. “Taxi?” He silently shook his head. He couldn’t remember the name of their hotel. No money, no phone, no ID. All in Brigitte’s handbag. She handled those things. His pockets were empty. He checked again. Yes. Empty.

His heart raced, irregularly, making him gasp for air. Were they looking for him? Why couldn’t they find him? But how would they even be able to? He had been walking for hours through this miserable, enormous city. He stopped and looked at his watch. 10:23 pm.

He thought of his cozy, familiar bed at home. How he wanted to be there, warm and quiet. He was often in bed. Most of the day, actually — except for mealtimes. Usually up around nine, he washed his face, brushed his long, yellowing teeth, shaved, and ran a comb through his thinning white hair. Then he headed to the bright dining room, where Brigitte had set the breakfast table. Coffee ready. He sat. She poured a cup, kissed his head, and said, as always, “Good morning, my darling. Slept well?” He mumbled something, took a fresh roll. Brigitte had been to the bakery, as usual. Fresh rolls. He cut one in half, precisely, spread soft yellow butter and homemade strawberry jam, and ate it while reading the local newspaper: obituaries first, front page, then sports.

Brigitte was calm and pleasant. She knew he didn’t like to talk in the morning or listen to the radio or the news. He abhorred any kind of noise. She sat very straight in her chair. Small and blonde. She had very good skin, barely any wrinkles at seventy-nine. Slim. Still attractive to him. She stood, went to the kitchen, returned to pour him a second cup. As always: “Another roll?” He shook his head. She cleared the table. He went to the toilet, then back to the bedroom to remove his robe and lie down again. His favorite part of the day. Morning in bed. Sometimes he cried a little. Exhausted, he slept deeply again despite the coffee.

He dreamed that Silke sat at the edge of his bed and whispered: “Sorry, Papa. I just went away for a moment. But I’m back now.” He took her warm, delicate hand. She withdrew, gone, then reappeared on the terrace with her skull shattered, dark blood pooling rapidly. He woke with tears in his eyes. Too bright. Sun shining. Birds chirping. He closed the window, lay down. Forget. Reverse time.

At midnight they had searched for him for almost four hours. Around the Eiffel Tower, then the restaurant where they had had dinner. A bus driver and his wife helped. They all called his name repeatedly. Netty kept muttering: “It’s impossible.” But it was true. Dolf was gone, in a city of two million. Finally, they had given up — cold, feet sore — and took a taxi to the Hotel Penta in Marais. Dieter explained the situation at reception. The police were called. For adults, a missing-person report couldn’t be filed for forty-eight hours. But the officers were kind, called hospitals.

Brigitte shivered. She was certain Dolf had drowned himself. Or some Russians had cut out his kidneys and he was bleeding in a dark corner. “Impossible,” said Netty. Dieter shook his head. What now? Where could he be? No money, no ID, no phone. Alive? Dead? Beaten somewhere?

Dolf kept walking through the night. Nothing looked familiar. Wrong sex shop, wrong bar, wrong tobacconist. He thought he saw Silke, her long blonde hair. Then Dieter, but not Dieter, a French doppelgänger. Then Brigitte’s blue coat. He smelled her perfume, lunch roast, toothpaste, roses in a crystal vase on the table. He heard children. Saw his white couch, wanted to lie down, walked toward it but saw it was soiled with dog excrement.

He spotted a couple kissing, two skinny cats slinking along a wall. Suddenly he found himself in a narrow alley. A man in a peacoat approached, smiling. Couldn’t be. Nobody knew him here. But the man came quickly, grabbed his arm, tried to drag him with him. Dolf resisted. The man was strong. Had him. Dolf screamed, like a madman. Kept screaming. The man let go. Dolf opened his eyes. Two young men, maybe twenty, looked at him oddly. The man ran off. Thank God.

“Hilfe,” he said to them. The taller one replied in French, then English: “Sorry, Mister.” They strolled away. He couldn’t believe it. He had finally asked for help after hours. Which way now? He trudged on, damp clothes, cold socks, helpless. Nothing right. Legs moving again on their own. Cold. Looked at his Breitling watch. Stopped. What time? Paris time different. Sit somewhere? Bench? Church? Yes, rest. Life so long, walked so far, without plan, direction, sense.

He walked on. The streets twisted and folded like pages of an old book he could no longer read. Lights flickered in puddles. Somewhere a bell tolled — faint, distant, steady — marking a time he did not know. He paused, listening: the whisper of his own breath, the soft shuffle of feet passing, the muted laughter drifting from a café. He smelled bread, faint smoke, the river somewhere beyond the walls.

Alone. Lost. Invisible. And yet, still here. Still walking. Still noticing. Still breathing. And in that fragile rhythm, he felt a tether to the world — a world that had moved on without him, without his daughter, yet in which he still mattered, in his small, unremarkable way, amid the city that had gone on without him.