Chapter Text
The year was 1945. Having successfully vanished a theater-full of Nazis– during a Christmas play, no less– and taking requisite time off commensurate with the lack of rest our intrepid time-travellers had been missing these last weeks (or really seven years), this group of *friends* began the grueling task of creating and implementing a curriculum for a boarding school. A boarding school in a particularly whimsical former-Nazi castle in the foothills of Germany full of theatrically-inclined Jewish orphans. Welcome back!
The friendly group of – God help us– * educators* , took to their work with aplomb, spending the rest of the winter and spring building class schedules and removing SS propaganda from every room and toilet stall on the premises. As there was still a war on, the school kept a low profile, but with the turn of the season came the Nazi surrender. Right in time with the end of the school year, wouldn’t you know! With summer term on the horizon, an excursion to Paris was arranged to deliver Lilith to her sabbatical hunting down a few leads on the Vanished, and provide some outside-classroom enrichment for the students.
Which is how we find ourselves here– Paris, 1945. Augie Eckart, our theatrical obsessive, and his merry band of former time-travelling companions – one worldly inventor, one newly-turned-headmaster, one pint-sized scenic intern, two lovestruck writers (one the winner of the Pulitzer Prize *in 1933), and a veritable cacophony of Jewish orphans – made their way through the streets of Paris like the finale of a mid-tier production of Les Miserables . Rather, a mid-tier Les Miserables if it also felt a bit like a suburban school trip. It was quite unlike the Paris Augie remembered.
“Isn’t that where the Bistro Bistro used to be?” Conrad asked Augie, pointing out a pile of charred rubble on a street corner.
“The what?”
“Yes, it must be! It’s where we convinced those American women that we knew the Amazing Vincenzo. You remember, Bistro Bistro?”
“I’m pretty sure you were the one who did that all on your own, and I have no memory of this bistro. Saying it twice won’t jog my memory,” Augie rolled his eyes.
Really, with how infrequently one has to convince tourists they are in the presence of illusionist royalty, you’d think Augie woud have remembered this local watering hole.
“No, it was called ‘Bistro Bistro’, and when you came in they all would shout ‘Bistro–’ Oh never mind.”
Augie was never known for his memory, unless it related to the grudges he held. One of which, he was having a very hard time letting go of. One of which, was standing right on the other side of his best friend, gazing at said best friend adoringly in a way that made Augie’s eyes roll. One of which, was the reason Augie and Gigi had put up sound-proofing around the faculty dormitories, as acoustically-sound castle walls and “Novel-writing-jam-sessions” did not mix. Augie was desperately trying to forget hearing a recent “note session” and planning additinal egg-crates when he was interrupted by a smaller, cuter, more structurally adept version of himself on his other side.
“We have to go check out that cartography shop. It says it has updated maps of Paris,” Gigi pointed out.
“You can read?” Augie asked.
“Can you?” Gigi snapped back.
Trying for once in his life to be the bigger person, Augie corrected, “...French. You can read French?”
“Everyone in the Uber-liner Ensemble can read French. Herr Zimmer taught us before he left.”
“Seriously?”
Herr Luther Zimmer, Hunther & Gunther’s youngest brother and newly-appointed history teacher at Hirschfelder’s School for Yarmulked Youngsters, appeared over Gigi’s head. “Of course. French is one of Hunther’s favorite languages. He would have made certain they were prepared for the many French phrases used in the theatre.”
To Augie, this was absolutely unacceptable. It was one thing for Lilith Hitzler, one of the most talented and beautiful women he had ever met, to speak French, but for a cynical eleven-year-old to have the same capabilities was unthinkable. And then that cynical eleven-year-old twisted the linguistic knife.
“Wait,” Gigi stopped. “Can you read French?”
It was clear that Augie would have to come clean. There was no way that he would be able to sustain the fiction of reading French in Paris, for fuck’s sake. So Augie told the truth.
“...Uh, yeah, of course I can,” Augie scoffed. “What, am I wandering around Paris not reading any of the signs? Like that one that says ‘New Maps of Paris’?”
“I just told you that’s what it said,” Gigi scoffed.
“And I… already knew that.”
“Sure you did. What does that one say?” Gigi asked, pointing to the smaller sign below it.
Augie squinted in his traditional bullshittery way. “It says… None toilet-teh… which means no…toilet, aka no bathroom. You can’t pee there. Ha!”
Really not a sentiment for vindication, but I digress. After a short reading quiz resulting in the confirmation that Augie indeed did *not* speak French, the delegation of Hirschfelder’s School for Yarmulked Youngsters continued down the street toward their hostel, a child-friendly boarding house owned by Maurice Picquart, of all people. Since Conrad spent the better part of the train ride to Paris bloviating about his superb taste in French cuisine, Augie volunteered him to pick up some food for the hungry little mensches. Conrad took Rudyard with him, though it didn't take much convincing.
As chaperoning pre-teens on a school trip is not what one would call “fun”, we will leave the Youngsters and their faculty to the check-in paperwork. You can thank me later. We instead follow our smitten writers down the street to a promising location – a corner locale called “The Patriot”.
Inside the only functional food establishment in sight, Conrad felt an unsettling sense of familiarity. Clearly the kind of place that catered to American ex-pats, the restaurant was littered with soldiers and journalists, all chatting in the President’s Engish, if you will. He had definitely been here before. It was no Bistro Bistro in the memory of his Parisien days, but he had definitely knocked back a pint or two in these now-faded booths.
Conrad inhaled deeply, taking in the warm aura and familiar sounds. “This is almost like being home. When I was in Paris before–”
“You mean when we met for the first time that you don’t remember?” Rudyard pointed out, much softer than he ever had brought up the meeting before. The glow of reunited love and escaping near-death experiences will turn even the sourest moments fond, it seems.
“I don’t believe that ever happened, but if you say so, Rudy,” Conrad grinned, lightly adjusting the strap of Rudyard’s eyepatch. “Anyway, last time I was in Paris I had a hell of a time finding a good delicatessen until someone pointed me in the direction of this place. It’s the only place I can remember having a decent Reuben this side of the Atlantic.”
“Isn’t it just a sandwich?” Rudyard asked, raising the eyebrow above his patch in a way that absolutely was not charming.
Okay fine, it was.
“A sandwich, Rudy? How could you– No. A Reuben is not merely a sandwich. A Reuben is a piece of art. It is the manifestation, nay the pinnacle of deli eatery. A Reuben is a formative experience–”
“Connie, is now the moment I find out you are a man with strong opinions on sandwiches?” Rudyard asked, teasing.
To which I ask our dear Rudyard T. Codswallop, you have met this man, right? Twice, you maintain. Conrad is a man with strong opinions on everything.
“Reuben sandwiches are important! Why, in my hometown, the only place to get a good Reuben was at the deli down the street called Doc’s. It was a little corner deli that all the locals flocked to, and the only place Griffsteins and Pinkases could commune in peace without throwing sauerkraut at one another–”
A light voice came over the booth wall. “I used to go to a place in Boston called Doc’s with my family, before… but it was the best place for a pastrami sandwich. It had cole slaw, instead of sauerkraut, which was a much brighter complement to the rich meat.”
Conrad’s eyes widened and called back over the wall. “My dead ex-fiancée used to say the same thing. But what is cole slaw when there is sauerkraut in the world?”
“My dead ex-fiancé used to say the same thing back. How funny!”
Both Conrad and the disembodied voice laughed softly, each remembering their deceased lovers wrong opinions of sandwich pairings.
“Thank you for reminding me of an old friend, old sport. And of Doc’s Deli,” Conrad replied, standing up from their table and making his way to the other side of the wall. “My name’s Conrad, pleasure to meet… you.”
In that booth, dear listener, right on the other side of the wall, was someone that made Conrad believe in fate. He always had, but it’s always good to have a reminder that Fate is a fickle woman who, with her best friend Destiny, try their hardest to lift you up when you’re down, but also, kick you in the face when you’re at your highest. It was the latter on this occasion.
In that booth, making Conrad stutter to a stop, hand outstretched like a malfunctioning robot, was a person he believed he would never see again. A person whose earthly departure set in motion the plot that brings us to today. That brought Conrad to his best friend Augie Eckhart and his own ghostwritten Oscar-winning screenplay. A person, dear listener, who kick-started a bout of celibacy only remedied recently by a certain eye-patched blond Pulitzer-Prize-winner, currently staring at Conrad as if he had lost his mind.
The person sitting in the booth started to respond, still looking down at the menu in front of her, chuckling softly to herself. “Conrad? How funny. My name is Phoebe.”
Phoebe Pinkas looked up at the man in front of her, and at that very moment, off in the general vicinity of the kitchen, a bell rang. Ding!
“Fuck.”
Queue Titles…