GOOD AMERICANS GO TO PARIS WHEN THEY DIE by Howard Waldman

for
Lazarus. But it’s even worse for the Five. They have no consoling
prospect of final spiritual resurrection after that second exit. Or
resurrection of any kind. Just the dead-end of permanent void. They
say there’s nothing after exit, proclaims the scratched message on
their wall. “No second awakening, ever, ever,” the fussily-dressed
young functionary had said.
    Which means that they can knock themselves
out trying to behave like saints this second time round, but still
they won’t be awarded immortality, although the Christian scheme of
the universe promises just that for deserving believers. Not even
(next best), Hindu-style successive reincarnation with suspense
about the outcome: next time round, bat or Brahmin, mouse or
Maharajah?
    Lazarus, then, had had better prospects than
the Five. They suspect, however, that even with that distant
promise of eternal felicity, Lazarus couldn’t have been a gay dog.
He’d died once and knew he’d have to go through the unpleasant
business again. So he probably didn’t quaff wine in merry company
or dance with abandon to the tinkle of cymbals. He must have
suffered from solitude. Probably nubile girls avoided him. What
woman could envision lying with him, knowing where he’d lain? He
must have spent a good deal of his renovated time in joyless
occupations like praying and fasting.
    No, it mustn’t have been a party for Lazarus
of Bethany in the sensual world he’d been cruelly summoned back to.
Still and all, there had to be comforting things there like, say,
wayside roses. He must have breathed in their purifying fragrance
for hours on end until the petals fell and reminded him of his
fate, past and to come. There must have been distant music and the
faint laughter of children blown his way. Also, midday sun on his
face, light shining in the wool of grazing sheep and birds
imprinted on dawn skies. Maybe, too, closer things, like a friendly
cat slinking against his leg in animal ignorance of his terrible
story. He must have had lots of minimal but precious things like
that.
    So, taking the good with the bad, secular
resurrection balanced out as a fairly positive experience for
Lazarus of Bethany.
     
    Not so for the Five despite the bonus of
rejuvenation that Lazarus hadn’t received. What can they do with
resuscitated youth? It’s like possessing a mountain of gold on a
desert island with nothing to spend it on. Where they’re stranded
the only sunshine is on distant facades and they’re separated from
it by inviolable glass. Separated too from all those other
tantalizing things out there. They can’t feast in those classy
three-star restaurants, can’t browse in the bookshops, can’t sip
amber cognac or green Pernod at sidewalk tables, can’t stroll along the Seine enwrapped
with a lover.
    They haven’t even got Lazarus’ minimal
consolations. There’s no laughter of children or music here. No
roses either. Or flowers of any kind. No cat or sheep. Or animals
of any kind, not even the company of mice or cockroaches or
spiders. There’s nothing living here except the zombie-like
functionaries and themselves, both condemned to a poor dusty sort
of half-life.
    Those aren’t the only things they’re
deprived of. If the Five have the consolation of existing, that
existence doesn’t amount to much. No cigarettes, no alcohol, no TV
or theater or movies, no books, no music. And food purely for
sustenance, nothing superfluous like pleasure involved.
    The food is fiendishly terrible. And here,
of all places, the gastronomical capital of the world. Breakfast is
half a stale baguette with a slab of margarine washed down with a
bowl of cold pissy coffee, probably not coffee at all but some
economical ersatz like grilled chicory-root. Lunch and dinner begin
with soggy grated carrots looking and tasting like cat-puke.
Unidentifiable boiled vegetables accompany chunks of boiled meat
that defy knife and teeth. Otherwise, left-overs in the form of
that same meat ground