Free Allan Stein by Matthew Stadler Page A

middle of a dream, then a second morning. The night between was caricatured and flat, an emblem of night that fell and withdrew as suddenly as the backdrop of an opera. The sun appeared, a dull metal disk on an empty curved horizon that was stained yellow and blue by the sun's arrival. A woman across from me said good morning. She took her breakfast from the steward and thanked him. There is an easy camaraderie in business class. In coach I would not speak to anyone.
    "Hello," I said. "Herbert Widener."
    "Margaret Carlson." She had work to do and set up a small computer on the tray beside her breakfast. I took my meal from the steward but fell asleep again.
    On photocopied pages in my knapsack were these details: Allan Stein's journey with his parents, San Francisco to Paris, 1903 (age eight)—eating biscuits at a table on the train, crumbs on white linen; the pleasure of Allan's window at night, the soft rumbling of the engine, his head pressed to a pillow; the city of Baltimore, kissed by aunts and cousins; boarding the ocean liner in New York; torn bread thrown to diving gulls in the harbor, cold salt air billowing Allan's coat; bright sun; playing shuffleboard on deck with Mikey; a basket of pastry, coffee in a silver pot beside the bed; the sighting of a whale through binoculars, near to dawn, the coast of France; Allan, curled in a deck chair, wrapped in a blanket, watching land; the smell of manure, earth, and coal dust; crates hoisted by cranes onto docks; the weakness of Allan's legs, arriving; passport stamps and shouting; baggage carts, a vendor of pastries, then tea; trains like giant worms asleep in a cavernous station of iron and glass; steam and metal, fog, rain on the rattling window; Allan asleep until Paris.

    T he airplane shook, descending, and I woke up with my head pressed to a pillow by the small plastic window. My body felt awful, sick from the alcohol, and cramped. I had slept with the arm of the chair pushed against my ribs. What time was it? It was morning. There was land, bright and green, then patched white with snow or ice, spotted by clouds and crisscrossed by roads where I could see traffic. Buildings cast shadows to the north and west. There were towns with churches surrounded by checkerboard farmland. The shadows of clouds made patterns like swells in the ocean where they moved over hills below us. Paris could not be seen. I arranged my seat and strained to look forward through the scratched and cloudy window. I saw nothing but dull light. The airplane turned, descending, and I saw farms, again, and a busy highway. It all came rushing toward us, and then the airplane touched down and we had landed. A car waiting at the terminal had been provided by the Cite Universitaire. M. WIDENER, the hand-held placard said. Herbert was treated very well.
    "Paris is like a fruit divided into two halves by the gleaming steel of the river," [this from one of my books] "and over each half on either side rises a height which augments the impression of immensity. On the left bank it is the mountain of Sainte-Genevieve crowned by the Pantheon, with its belt of columns on which rests its enormous dome. On the right is the white church of the Sacre Coeur, gleaming on the hill of Mont Martre like some celestial vision. It is at its threshold, rather than from the Eiffel Tower or anywhere else, that you get the most poignant impressions of Paris as a whole. It lies spread out before you, with its setting of distant hills, its swarming expanse of houses dominated here and there by palaces, and broken by the green of gardens; and from that distance the sounds of the city come to you only as one great suppressed murmur, a murmur palpitating with this great heart of the old world."
    We drove along a raised highway. The driver was African and did not speak to me. Boxy modern flats sprawled below the road, half occupied and in disrepair. I watched the buildings grow closer and more busy. It began to sleet; then the sleet