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to crumple like a napkin being scrunched after a meal. Right, here comes the crying, I thought. I glanced into the café: his mother was leaning against the bar, talking on the phone and playing idly with a coaster.
The baby didn't cry: his face grew redder and redder, as if he were trying to but couldn't. Then he turned purple and blue in quick succession.
I jumped up, my chair falling backwards with a bang. ‘He's choking!’ I shouted.
I was only ten feet away but by the time I reached him a ring of customers had formed around him. A man was crouched in front of the baby, patting his blue cheeks. I tried to squeeze through but the proprietor, his back to me, kept stepping in front of me.
‘Hang on, he's choking!’ I cried. I was facing a wall of shoulders. I ran to the other side of the circle. ‘I can help him!’
The people I was pushing between looked at me, their faces hard and cold.
‘You have to pound him on the back, he's not getting any air.’
I stopped. I had been speaking in English.
The mother appeared, melting through the barricade of people. She began frantically hitting the baby's back, too hard, I thought. Everyone stood watching her in an eerie silence. I was wondering how to say ‘Heimlich manoeuvre’ in French when the baby suddenly coughed and a red candy lozenge shot out of his mouth. He gasped for air, then began to cry, his face going bright red again.
There was a collective sigh and the ring of people broke up. I caught the proprietor's eye; he looked at me coolly. I opened my mouth to say something, but he turned away, picked up his tray and went inside. I gathered up my newspapers and left without paying.
After that I felt uncomfortable in town. I avoided the café and the woman with her baby. I found it hard to look people in the eye. My French became less confident and my accent deteriorated.
Madame Sentier noticed immediately. ‘But what has happened?’ she asked. ‘You were progressing so well!’
An image of a ring of shoulders came to mind. I said nothing.
One day at the boulangerie I heard the woman ahead of me say she was on her way to ‘ la bibliothèque ’, gesturing as if it were just around the corner. Madame handed her a plastic-covered book; it was a cheap romance. I bought my baguettes and quiches in a rush, cutting short my awkward ritual conversation with Madame. I ducked out and trailed the other woman as she made her daily purchases around the square. She stopped to say hello to several people and argued with all the storekeepers while I sat on a bench in the square and kept an eye on her over my newspaper. She made stops on three sides of the square before abruptly entering the town hall on the last side. I folded my paper and raced after her, then found myself having to hover in the lobby examining wedding banns and planning permission notices while she laboured up a long flight of stairs. I took the stairs two at a time and slipped through the door after her. Shutting it behind me, I turned to face the first place in town that felt familiar.
The library had exactly that mixture of seediness and comforting quiet that made me love public libraries back home. Though it was small – only two rooms – it had high ceilings and several unshuttered windows, giving it an unusually airy feel for such an old building. Several people looked up from what they were doing to stare at me, but their attention was mercifully short and one by one they went back to reading or talking together in low voices.
I had a look around and then went to the main desk to apply for a library card. A pleasant, middle-aged woman in a smart olive suit told me I would need to bring in something with my French address on it as proof of residence. She also tactfully pointed me in the direction of a multi-volume French-English dictionary and a small English-language section.
The woman wasn't behind the desk the second time I visited the library; in her place a man stood talking on the phone, his sharp