Unsuspecting Mugger

She entered the Paris metro clutching her blue bag. She was forewarned enough about the dangers of subways to make her a little extra cautious and maybe even a little paranoid. The doors to the next train opened and she quickly walked in and found her seat. She was careful not to make eye contact, and instead just stared out the window.

            The train accelerated and then slowed just as quickly as the next stop approached. The doors opened and two very French men entered. Esther hated those kinds of men. They made her feel slimy simply by sharing her space. They smiled at her in a way that sent a chill. They noticed the two empty seats on either side of her and sat down. They leaned over her as they spoke to each other. Their French words dripped with indecency even though Esther comprehended little of it.

            The next stop did not come soon enough. The train was now full and every seat occupied. An elderly woman with a large bag in one hand and a well-worn cane in the other entered just as the doors were to close. The train accelerated and she stumbled slightly at the movement. Esther carefully glanced at the men on either side of her with the expectation that they would have some sense of decency and would offer this woman a seat. Instead they sent the woman demeaning glances as she lightly bumped the leg of one of them. Esther was beginning to despise the French.

            Esther stood and made a hand motion for the woman to take her seat. She felt relief to no longer be so close to the greasy men and a little guilty in causing the woman to suffer the same punishment.

            She glanced at the map on the train wall and was thankful that the next stop was hers. She felt the train decelerate and made her way toward the door. She held on to the handrail with both hands as the train jerked to a stop and she waited for the ding of the doorbell.

            She never saw it coming. She didn’t feel a thing – until the very end. At first she was letting the other impatient passengers exit and enter until she finally let go of the rails and made a dash for the nearly closing doors. Suddenly she felt a push from behind and felt the bag over her shoulder be torn away. The next thing she knew, the doors of the train were closed and it bulleted away to its next destination.

            She stood in the station in shock. Everything was in that bag. Her passport, most of her money, the key to her hotel, a map of the city, her French dictionary, and her new camera – even her exit fare for the metro.

            She began to notice a man standing at her side.

            “Is everything good?” He asked with a thick French accent. He held a briefcase in his hand and was wearing a well-tailored pinstriped suit.

            “Everything’s gone, I can’t leave the metro.” Her broken English spoken in breathless tones was more incomprehensible than his.

            “You were robbed?” He asked as he led her to a bench.

            “My bag had everything in it. I have nothing.” The tears started to flow and the French man pulled the cornflower blue silk hankie from his suit pocket and offered it to her.

            “I can pay your exit fare and take you to where you are staying. Zees is no place for you to have a breakdown.” He led her by the elbow up the escalator and they shared a cab to her hotel. The man explained everything to the concierge who nodded in sympathy toward his young guest. The man in the suit then took Esther’s hand and lightly kissed it as he exited the lobby.

            The next day, Esther made her way to the American Embassy in Paris. The concierge offered her money for a metro pass, but Esther did not have the courage to return there. She chose to walk the ten blocks or so and maybe be able to get out some of her aggression in the process. By the fifth block her harried pace slowed to a casual stroll and she noticed the people around her. Some were dressed very fashionably while others seemed to never have heard of the word vogue.

            Then she saw it. The flash of blue with a silver logo. Her bag was slung over the arm of an older woman ahead of her. Esther wove through the crowds and neared the woman until they walked past a small alleyway. She grabbed the woman’s arm and pulled her into the alley.

            It was then that Esther saw her face. The elderly woman from the metro! “You have my bag,” she screamed as she reached for the strap of the purse.

            The woman yelled a torrent of French that Esther only partially understood. “This is mine,” she pulled the bag off the woman’s arm and the woman started to pull back while she continued to yell in French. Finally, Esther let go and the woman flew backwards toward the brick building behind her. Her head made contact with a protruding brick and with the sound of a melon being thumped, slumped to the ground.

            Esther gasped, checked for and found a pulse, and ran off with her bag, toward her hotel. Her heart was racing and her hands shook when she was finally locked in her room. She looked at the familiar clasp of the bag her father had given her years ago after a trip he took to Paris. It was not as scratched as the clasp was now. She opened the bag to see if her things were still inside. It was empty except for a few metro tickets and a blue coin purse with a matching clasp. Esther dropped the purse and screamed. She had lost her matching coin purse five years before. This bag was not hers.

Reviews

[Ama May Cooper]

I find it somewhat sick that im laughing at this tale. A innocent old lady now possbly dieing in a alley way but i find it humours despite the sick feeling hat should be travelling o my stomach. A very nice tale , loved greatly