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By Root 1286 0

under the mattress, Mitchell had a thought. Traveler’s checks took the worry out of traveling. In the event of loss or theft, you presented the serial numbers of the checks to American Express and the company replaced them. This made the serial numbers just as important as the checks themselves, however. If someone stole your checks and you didn’t have the serial numbers, you were in big trouble. Since the checks came with a warning against carrying them in your luggage, it followed that you shouldn’t carry the serial numbers in your luggage, either. But where else could you carry them? The only safe place, it had seemed to Mitchell, was in the fly-fishing wallet along with the traveler’s checks themselves. And that was where Mitchell had stashed them until he could think of a better idea.

He had been aware of a central flaw in this reasoning, but it had seemed manageable until this moment.

The vision of returning home in humiliation, his round-the-world trip lasting two days, appeared to him in all its ghastliness. But then he looked behind the bed and saw the money pouch on the floor.

He was on his way out of the hotel when the concierge detained him. She spoke quickly, and in French, but he understood the essence of what she was saying: Clyde had paid half of the room rate; Mitchell owed the other half.

The exchange rate was just over seven francs to the dollar. Mitchell’s share of the room was 280 francs, or around $40. If he wanted to keep the room another night, he would have to pay $80. He was hoping to live on $10 a day in Europe, so $120 represented nearly two weeks of his budget. Mitchell fought the temptation to cave and pay for the hotel with the MasterCard. But the thought of the statement arriving in his parents’ mail, providing the information that on his first night out he was already staying at a hotel, gave him the strength to resist. From his money pouch he took 280 francs and gave it to the concierge. Telling her that he wouldn’t be staying another night, he went back up to the room and got his backpack, and went out to search for something cheaper.

He passed two patisseries within the first block. In the windows, the colorful pastries sat in crinkly paper cups, like nobles wearing ruffs. He had eighty francs left, about eleven dollars, and was determined not to cash another check until the following day. Crossing Avenue Rapp, he entered a park and found a metal chair where he could sit in the shade and not spend money.

The weather had turned warmer, the rainstorm leaving blue skies in its wake. As he had the day before, Mitchell marveled at the beauty of the surroundings, the park’s plantings and pathways. Hearing a foreign language coming from people’s mouths allowed Mitchell to imagine that everyone was having an intelligent conversation, even the balding woman who looked like Mussolini. He checked his watch. It was nine-thirty a.m. He wasn’t supposed to meet Larry until five that evening.

Mitchell had requested (cannily, he’d thought) that his traveler’s checks be issued in a denomination of twenty dollars each. Small valuations would encourage economizing between visits to the AmEx office. One hundred and sixty-four separate twenty-dollar checks made a thick stack, however. Along with his passport and other documentation, the checks packed the fisherman’s wallet tightly, creating a noticeable bulge in his pants. If Mitchell shifted the wallet to his hip, it looked less like a codpiece but more like a colostomy bag.

A heavenly smell of warm bread was wafting from a boulangerie across the street. Mitchell put his nose up in the air, like a dog. In his Let’s Go: Europe, he found the address of a youth hostel in Pigalle, near Sacré Coeur. It was a hike, and by the time he got there he was sweaty and light-headed. The man behind the desk, who had pitted cheeks and tinted aviator glasses, told Mitchell the hostel was fully booked and directed him down the street to a cheap pension. There a room cost 330 francs per night, or almost $50, but Mitchell didn’t know what else to do. After changing more