IN PARIS

It took Emma several minutes to find her way through the fairly dark streets of Paris in a taxi trying to locate a nearby hotel after a three hour flight from Switzerland to France. She had taken quite a few clothes from her house back in Geneva alongside in her luggage before she took a late flight to Europe and arrived there in the evenings of the same day with the hope of having a good chance of getting to meet with the professor in the capital city of France whom she believes might still be living there in spite of numerous skeptic speculations trying to make her doubt her intention of finding the current location of his whereabouts which was yet to be known, and which plagued her mind as she was being transported in the street fairly illumine by street lights erected on each sidewalk near the corners of the road to enable drivers to see clearly whenever the darkness falls on the cityscape as well as the entire region. The cab driver slowly steered the taxi, riding steadily on a narrow route below tall buildings past many restaurants and retail shops that were still open to receive customers with the aim of reaching the hotel at the south side of the city just in time before they close their services for the night.

Before long, the driver hit the brakes and parked the automobile by the side of the road bringing an end to her irksome journey from the airport. Her hasty coming to Paris was a location she had pinpoint in line with what was written in her father's old note and she didn't expect that the entire atmosphere would be different from Geneva since the air was a bit chilly mixed with the hot crispy July wind enough to make a young infant feel cold at night.

Emma stepped out of the cab after the driver turned off the headlights and walked straight to the front door of the car. The driver lowered his window slowly and stretched forth his hand to received the fare for his service from the passenger.

"Merci, Madame",

The driver said in French as he peered at Emma and grinned childishly before turning on the car's engine.

"You're welcome, sir",

Emma replied in English and waved him goodbye with her luggages held by the other hand as the cab driver drove away back into the next street and crossed the road headed towards the hotel. The night air was somewhat cold for her to stay outside on the street but thankfully, she wore a black sweater and black skinny trousers cozy enough to keep her warm inside. She slowly approached the front porch of the hotel above a staircase which was quite smaller than she imagined it to be on the internet where she had booked a two days stay in Paris. A spherical electronic billboard with lights radiating the alpha characters built on the board, was erected outside a bit higher at the fifth floor of the building which wasn't as taller than the two buildings beside it.

"Welcome to Notre Dame Hotel suite",

She said to herself, puffing out cold air from her lungs and climbed the stairs till she got to the porch carrying alongside her hand luggage. She knocked twice before ringing the doorbell and waited for any response from within the house.

Sooner than she anticipated, the door swung opened and a chubby woman dressed in a green gown with with a French braided hairstyle, stood right in front of her. She wanted to speak but the woman whom she speculated to the hotel attendant, already knew that she was coming and took her inside for a brief tour around the rooms till she got to her room already prepared for her by the butler, an old fellow serving some of the guests she met downstairs.

Afterwards, she was left alone in her room to make adequate preparations for the next day she had planned on paying a visit to the mansion of professor livingstone. The room had no lights on but she didn't bother about it and went straight to the bedroom to get changed into her pajamas. Instead of arranging her clothes in the closet at the bedroom, she took her laptop computer she burrowed from her lawyer friend before leaving for France from her luggage and sat down on the soft bed placing the system on her laps.

She scoured the internet for the home address of the professor as well as his personal phone number only to find out that the professor retired early to the remote countryside of France twenty years before her father died and had been living there ever since though he was still ranked as amongst the affluent prolific teacher renowned for his tutoring experience in the federation of France. As she searched his details online, she came across his landline which she dialed on her cell phone only for a female voice answered the unexpected call. At first, she fearfully ended the call, thinking that she might have called a wrong number and she tried again but she heard the voice again for the second time. The respondent replied her in French and couldn't quite decipher the words of the female voice which too fast for her to comprehend though she could understand and speak French but not that fluently like the lady that answered her phone call.

"Hello, ma'am, let me speak with Professor Livingstone",

She said aloud in the dark room, trying hard to let her voice heard over the phone and luckily the receiver replied back in English instead of French.

"Hold on a minute while I inform him about your call",

"Okay",

She responded and waited for twelve minutes only for the receptionist to reply back to her instead of the professor himself.

"Uh.. The professor is not in town currently and will be back by tomorrow afternoon. I can book an appointment with him if that's okay with you",

"Fine. When will he be free tomorrow so that I can come visit?",

"Maybe lunch time",

"That's sounds great",

"I'll let him know about it and get back to you as quickly as possible",

"Alright",

"What's your name just in case the professor asks?",

"Emma Williamson",

"Got it",

"Thanks for your help",

Emma replied and hung up the phone. Then she kept the laptop aside on the bed and went straight to get her bath on the bathroom leaving her cellphone on the bed as well beside the laptop.

Few minutes later, she was done getting a hot bath at the shower inside the bathroom and returned back to the room, drying her wet hair with a soft towel whilst wearing a robe that covered her nakedness. As she came close to the bed, she noticed a new text message sent to the inbox of her cell phone and picked it up to read its contents.

"Meeting appointment has been scheduled by the professor himself to take place at a sushi restaurant near the city Square of Paris around noon before lunch time",

She tossed the phone back on the bed after reading the message and quickly prepared herself to spend the night inside the regardless of the darkness which seemed to suit her tastes better since the moonlight was shining into the room through the curtains behind a door made of glass which was opened enough for her to get a good bird-eye view of the cityscape from the fifteenth floor of the building and there was a little terrace outside where she could stay outside to enjoy the cool wind as well as the serenity mixed with the low sounds of movable cars and sirens wailing in the far distance of the broad city.

The next morning wasn't much of an hustle for Emma to get herself dressed up, fully ready for the appointment and she arrived at the meeting place much earlier than the expected time at eleven o'clock. She used the subway as the fastest means to convey herself from the hotel and to be amongst the first customers to get a relaxing seat inside the fancy restaurant which was more comfortable with the air conditioner as well as an opera song keeping the customers entertained whilst being served their respective meals by the neat and tidy looking waiters.

Emma found herself reading the food menu with no interest in purchasing a meal to eat and had her handbag which housed the cylindrical wooden container she saw in her attic the other night before she flew to Paris on a late flight to France, kept on the table beside some empty flat plates neatly arranged in the midst of a fork and a short narrow knife.

She was engrossed in checking out the fancy dishes the restaurant rendered to hungry customers and didn't notice when professor Livingstone took his seat facing her at the opposite end of the small table after walking in through the door without her knowing that a minute had passed the scheduled meeting time and did not know that he had arrived as planned.

"Hello there, young miss",

He said and cleared his throat after keeping his briefcase beside his feet below the table.

Emma raised her head only to see the professor sitting right in front of her and she did not know what to do at that point for his facial appearance gave her a false impression about his personality, though at first, he appeared to her to already be in his late eightys with the strands of his stylish white hair covering a small portion of his bald head while his eyes as well as brows were black. He was no doubt a white hefty man with a rigid face of a fighter rather than a teacher that seems to match his black overcoat and his black trousers including his leather brown shoes. He wore two black socks on each shoes and white scarf rested on his abdomen running down from both corners of his neck around the back of his collar but he did not wear any glasses like most professors of thought do.

"Good afternoon, Professor",

"And to you as well"

He rejoined and beckoned at the waiter who came to him as soon as his gesture was noticed.

"How may I help you, sir?",

"We need something good to eat and I want you to serve us your finest sushi, if that's okay with you",

"No problem. We'll bring it right away, sir"

The waiter said and turned around hoping to deliver an order to the cook inside but he yelled instead like he usually did each time he served the customers.

"Order for two!"

He shrieked on the top of his voice leaving some of the customers including appalled with disgust at the croaked sound of his voice but the professor was already chuckling before the waiter left the hall into the kitchen reserved only for the staff.

" What's so funny?",

Emma inquired.

"They always do that whenever they want to deliver orders from everyone else. One of the reasons why I like eating here in this place"

"You find pleasure in that?",

"Their sense of humor amuses me profoundly" ,

"Good to know. I think you really want to know why I wanted to see you",

"Oh yes, I do. Your father must have mentioned me to you before he passed away, right?",

"No, he didn't. How did you know that he's dead?",

Emma questioned with perplexity.

"Come on, lady. The sad news of his death was publicized in the newspaper and even reported on a live broadcasts for two weeks after he died",

"Fair enough. But you never did attended the funeral even though my father was a good friend to you",

"I decided to stay away for reasons best known to him and I believe you are aware of some of them",

"You mean, because of the remains of the undead emperor?",

"Part of it. I see that you have been snooping around your father's personal writings, haven't you Emma?",

"Guilty as it may seem, yes, I have and that's what led me to you. You see, my dad never mentioned you to me, not even a single memory of your visits to our old mansion and if it weren't for my curiosity in finding his last letter addressed to you, I wouldn't have known you existed in my father's life ",

She replied and took her handbag, scouring for something that she kept inside. Emma took out the wooden container from the bag and opened it only to bring out the old note her father wrote to the professor. She quickly handed it over to him the moment she brought it out.

"Then, How lucky you were to find it after all these years",

Professor replied reading the contents of the letter while Emma watched him.