THE CAFE

At a small Parisan sidewalk café, Henri the waiter is impatient as he waits for his customers to finish their wine for he wants to go home to his new bride in her near to nothing nightgown. Henri sighs in anticipation while he taps his scuffed black shoes on the sidewalk. He watches the evening fade and with a heavy heart, lights the gas lamps under the canopy. The weak flames cast strange shadows upon the tables. And as the shadows chase one another across stained tablecloths, rain drops dance upon the sidewalk as the customers linger over their glasses of burgundy.

Two women sit at the demitasse table closest to the Rue de Paris. They are well dressed and give off the air of proper French snobbery due their class and station in life. One of the women wears a red fox wrap draped elegantly around her long swan neck. Whenever she bends over to take a sip of wine her neck tilts in that lovely angle that only long necked women can do. Her face is flawless. She turns and says something to her companion.

Her companion leans forward and the first thing that one notice is her lips. They are large and painted a bright red. Her entire face slides into those lips. A set of teeth gleams yellow under the gaslights.

The women are discussing the lone occupant at the other small demitasse table at the far end of the café.

A dark skinned woman reposes comfortably upon her chair and appears not to take notice of the women. This woman wears no fur or painted lips. Her hair is wrapped in a bright scarf that matches her dress and shawl. She looks like a gypsy in her colorful clothes. She is the color among the gray, the pebble in the sides of the other two. This dark skinned woman had once been married to money, but was now poor and no longer welcomed in the best houses of Paris.

She glances down at the chair to her left and smiles.

Her smile is for the large orange tomcat curled comfortably upon a green silk covered pillow. He looks up and twitches one of his ragged and torn ears at her. She is delighted and coos to him.

"Look at her Mon Cherie." Sneered Red Fox.

"She is nothing but a drunk!"

"Garcon! Garcon! Look at that, will you. He is positively ignoring me."

"The beast. Well, don't leave him a tip."

'I won't Mon Cherie. He is probably thinking about his mistress."

"Oh that's a rich one. If you put all the waiters together who work here, not even as a whole could they afford to keep a tart on their meager menu."

The women giggle as if they had never heard anything so silly before.

"Look. She's ordering another." Whispered Ruby Lips through clenched teeth.

"She's the one who was accused of murder isn't she?"

Both women raise their crystal glasses and look at the woman over the rims. They shudder and place their glasses back on the soiled tablecloth.

Ruby Lips picks at a spot on the tablecloth.

"Mon Cherie, not only was she accused, but she got away with it."

"Oui! Now I remember. There was no body or motive."

As the two women sit in silence remembering, Henri approaches with the bill, but Fox Wrap gestures him away. He is tired and wants these women to leave. He thinks again of his new bride and how nice it will be to cozy up together under heavy quilts in front of a roaring fire. His feet hurt and he was now chilled from the wet evening air. He turns toward the other table just as he hears Ruby Lips speak to her companion.

"She stood not to inherit a dime. All his money was willed to a maiden sister and since the courts and police were unable to find a body, well, she was let off and . . . "

". . . . now here she is in her rag tag clothes, disheveled hair, and torn umbrella sitting at a fancy cafe sipping wine with an old dirty tom cat."

Ruby Lips gets Henri attention and motions for more wine. He moves toward them with a sinking heart. He will never get out of here until late. He pours red wine into their crystal glasses and is dismissed by Fox Wrap.

Henri glances at the other table and watches as the young woman reaches over and gently pets the orange cat. It flicks its tail at her as he stares at the two women. Its claws begin to knead the green silk pillowcase. His eyes narrow as he bends down and washes his left paw.

"Look at how she touches that filthy thing."

"Almost like the touch of a lover." She says with disgust as her fox wrap drops silently from her right shoulder.

"Her husband cheated on her you know." Ruby Lips watches as her friend grabs a head of one of the dead foxes and pulls it back into place.

"Oh, you mean he had a mistress. Well, who couldn't blame him being married to her.

"I hear he married her in one of those exotic islands. Found her really." Ruby Lips leans forward for a better look at the orange tom.

"She's as much an animal as that filthy cat is." Says Fox Wrap as she strokes a fox snout.

As the two women whisper in the chilly wet evening to one another, the orange cat raises his head and stares at them with his ice blue eyes.

"What a disgusting creature. I should think someone would have it killed by now."

"Yes, it goes everywhere with her." Spoke Red Lips as she took a sip of her wine. A small pearl shaped drop misses and slowly rolls down her bottom lip, and for the smallest breath of a butterfly, it hangs suspended above the unknown. But, it loses and plummets to the matronly bosom where it shatters.

The cat follows the journey of the drop.

"I have heard it even sleeps in her bed at night. Just imagine the fleas and other vermin that horrid creature must have." Red Fox shudders and takes another sip.

The exotic woman beckons to the waiter for more wine and Henri pours some in her small glass. The two women watch as she offers a sip of Sangria to the orange tom. He stretches his head and dipping his rough tongue in the crystal glass laps at it. Sangria drips on the green cover of his pillow. His mistress looks up and stares back. Her coal black eyes mere slivers and the two women pull their gazes from her.

"What nerve!" Fumes Fox Wrap.

"Don't push it. I have heard she practices the art of her ancestors."

Taking a sip to calm her, the red head with the fox wrap responds.

" What on earth are you talking about. Is that ragtag creature an artist?"

"Sometimes I think it is you who are nothing more than a bébé. Not an artist, a priestess in the art of voodoo."

Both women glance back at the table.

"You don't really believe in such nonsense?" Whispered Fox Wrap as she stroked the dead heads of the foxes wrapped around her neck. The mouth of each fox was holding its own tail and circled around the woman's long swan neck.

"I don't know . . . oh, garcon, more wine, s'il vous plaît. You must remember, she is a foreigner and black and dresses in those horrid bright colored clothes and scarves." Spoke Ruby Lips with her green eyes downcast staring at the tablecloth.

"The only magic she ever possessed was when she seduced poor old DeVore with all his millions. She probably thought the old boy was going to die and leave her his entire fortune.

"Maybe it is she who has the lover and maybe the both of them killed her husband."

Both women shiver at the thought of that female body pressed against some young and healthy French male.

The cat emits a low growl and raises itself. It stretches the way only cats can do and then sits where it washes the fur on its left paw. The paw is slightly deformed with two toes missing and has a slight tremble. His ears lie flat against his head, but his hearing is acute. A long brown hand descends upon his matted furred head and a purr escapes between his worn canines. He is content for he has not other choice. The dark skinned woman bends to him and whispers in his right ear, which twitches with the tickling of her sweet breath. He stops washing to listen.

"I heard from Madam Pére, that the old man was dying anyway." Slurred the green-eyed ruby lipped one.

"Oui, I heard that too. He had a stroke or something that left his left side weak. He probably couldn't have fought her and her rancid lover off." One finger strokes the lips of the smallest dead fox.

"Well, Madam Pére said the black vixen actually loved her husband. Now who in their right mind really loves their rich husbands? It seems that the Caribbean witch had told her that she would do anything within her power to make him well again."

A tongue tip peeks out from the ruby lips and catches wine dew from the bottom lip.

"I too have heard the same story. It seems he disappeared right after that. She cured him all right. Cured him for good. Look, she and that mangy cat are leaving."

The two women watch as the dusky woman rises from her chair and picks up the cat and the pillow. She drops some money on the table and retrieves a large cloth bag where she deposits the orange tom. The cat does not fight and the two women hear a sigh from the bag. The witch stands and places the long straps of the bag over her shoulder and with sandaled black feet, walks out into the street and the rain. The orange tomcat pokes his head out for one last look at the two women. She opens her worn umbrella, and the two of them disappear around a corner.

"You know there was something about that cat. Something I can't put together."

"Oh, mon ami, it was that the filthy abomination has two toes missing on its left paw."

"Oui! That is correct. Her husband had lost two fingers during the war and the stroke had left him with a permanent shaking of the hands. How odd."

Henri begins to clear away the empty tables and looks at the two drunken women. They try to ignore him but know not to ask for more wine.

"We really must be going." Slurred Ruby Lips as she stood, swaying. "Same time next Tuesday"

Her lover stands and holds her veined hand.

"Mon amour, we really must be careful. If we are caught by our husbands, we may end like the black witch."

The two fur laded women depart in separate directions and Henri moves to clean the table and collect the bill. He stares in anger for they had left only half the tab and no tip. He turns to yell at them but they have already blended into the rain soaked evening. He turns and hurries to the other table where the black with the strange cat had been. She had had only two small glasses of wine. He picks up the money and counts it. It is correct and no tip as he had expected from this poor table.

As he's about to turn something catches his eye on the seat of the chair where the orange cat had been. He bends over to get a closer look. A small, sharp yellow claw lies fallen having become detached from its owner, and beside it is a coin. He retrieves both and standing there in the darkening chill air of the night, Henri marvels at the wonders of the world that a dirty old orange tomcat would leave him a tip.