-- Edith Piaf
It was a few nights later, after the epiphanous dream, lost in the Pigalle's
old, hilly and curvy cobblestone streets, ash cement buildings, cracked paint
and steep lamp-lit stairways, that I wandered into the basement of a
candlelit club and seated myself at the first available table, never
once allowing my eyes to leave the girl I'd been following.
I’d followed her walking through the red light district in full swing
and with everything; the burlesque shows, sex shops and prostitutes
all gashed in neon, all clamouring for attention, all equally ignored
as I followed single-mindedly.
From Place Blanche I'd followed her down Boulevard Rochechouart until
she took a right on Rue des Martyrs and appeared to lose me near St Georges until I spotted her again on Rue St Lazare. I stopped when she did, to light a cigarette beneath a light late summer mist and when she entered, so did I.
I hadn't bothered once whilst I followed to wonder why I was doing
so. Perhaps it started simply as a little game at first. Sure, she'd
caught my eye but so had many others in so few hours since I‘d arrived in
Gare du Nord; the mystery in their exotic faces their hidden histories, the allure of curiosity and foreign culture converging and secretly conspiring and
out of them all it was this diminutive figure I finally myself incapable of
avoiding.
Yet as I settled in at an even pace a half block behind her I didn't imagine
that I was following her as much as I was following an instinct or perhaps
just following to have something to do, a break in an otherwise monotonous series of drifting movements from one café to the next as the afternoon
hours blurred into the evening and almost imperceptively into a nocturnal
lagoon of listlessness that neither the casual drinking, fastidiously applied
for just such reason, nor the languid pace, were able to overshadow.
And of course gradually, perhaps just after I'd become aware that I'd made
a left when she'd made a left and I’d made a right after she'd made a right, after I'd slowed when she stopped to peruse a shop window, gradually, I began to realise that there was a purpose to my movements. That I was
in fact following her and this wasn’t simply a series of random coincidences.
Sure, buried in the subconscious, it might have even started as a little game.
Like seeing how long I could follow until she disappeared somewhere I
could not follow. And in that game, fate would determine how long the
following would continue.
Yet once I was aware I was following her I considered that instead of
simply following, I was actually engaged in the deeper purpose of finding
a little opening in a stranger’s anonymous existence and tearing it open
Wider until I could see myself what was inside.
But let’s forget for a moment the little game which was nothing more than
a pretence, the pretence of a man desperately bored, vulnerable and lonely.
Was it mere coincidence that I’d been in the red light district of La Pigalle to
begin with? Mere coincidence that once I was there I’d started following a
female, tailing her like a suspicious flic
No, of course not.
Despite what I tried pretending to make the act of following her seem less
seedy, the fact was I was following what I’d thought at first glance was an
attractive female. If I’d caught more than glance perhaps I’d have even considered her striking but in the opening moments of following I would
have only remarked, let’s say if I were describing her to Albert, that she was almost unforgettably small.
Not in a freakish way that might strike you had she been a modern, real life
Thumbelina but small enough that she made me consider she might have
been a miniature of her real self, like one of Matryoska dolls, a figurine
inside a figurine inside a figurine.
But more than anything her attractive features, those I could spot from
varying angles of disparate lighting, those which I might have caught
from her reflection in a shop window as she passed, played some role in piquing my interest to begin with.
I could suss this out even from watching the back of her, watching her
move from behind. Her steps purposeful yet light, a confident cat walk,
the ringlets of her dusky hair bouncing with each demure stride against
the back of that black halter braided summer dress.
A scarf set strategically around her neck modestly covered the bare of her
back where the dress opened just enough to reel in the gaze but never enough to allow any tantalising views and of course, breathlessly I might have taken in her curves as they realigned with each step, figuring and refiguring yet
never in a lurid manner, simply watching with fixation.
Even from behind at my discreet distance I noticed a seemingly imperceptible grace in her movements. Not precisely those of a dancer, a ballerina, but perhaps of a woman accustomed to being watched. Someone conscious of her every move under observation, a conditioned self consciousness of sorts, someone who might have even practiced in mirrors how she looked to
passers-by or how she might appear to paparazzi.
No, the more I considered her as I followed the more I was certain there was
something special about her, something more than could be described simply
following at a distance, something bizarre and compelling that would only
be revealed if I continued following, if I continued this extemporaneous stalking.
And once I knew, having realised I was following and yet continued to
follow anyway, that there was some purpose to my following, some means
to this end, I then allowed myself the luxury of imagination.
As I ambled casually behind her at a safe distance I began drafting opening lines I thought might be useful to try and pry a smile or a spark of interest
from her before realising that knowing nothing about her personal history,
her personality, her likes and dislikes, I might well handicap my chances
with transparent clichés So in lieu of predictable come-ons I tried to
imagine as many scenarios as possible which might appear obvious once
she’d tuned and I found myself looking into her eyes. Clichés need no rehearsal, time and humanity has done that for us already. Preparation, on
the other hand, required seeing as many possibilities as I could imagine.
I imagined her replies even before I‘d imagined my questions. I imagined
her in innumerable different versions of her own life before my having
stumbled into her, of her routines and schedules, the estimable heartbreaks such routines arose from, the defences and built-in obstacles to approaching her.
Oh it was quite an elaborate amount of daydreaming passing between
my eyes to the back of her as she walked, quite a pastiche of scenarios and possibilities before without warning, it came to an abrupt end as she stopped
in front of the club, glanced at her reflection gleaned from some indiscernible location, lit her cigarette and went inside.
Confronted with the sudden end of movement, this urgent need for a next step decision, I panicked.
I continued walking past the club, my heart racing, continued on as though
some further direction had been my intention all along, taking a few deep drags of air to calm myself, and then stopped, turning back to the club as though I’d suddenly remembered an appointment, silently urging myself forward, fighting off fear, internally stomping out every fiery little outbreak
of doubt as though my life suddenly depended on it.
Inside the club, the first floor was a fog of smoke and bad lighting. Tables were filled with people, shadowy faces emitting conversations in unintelligible languages, laughter and drinking. I attempted with great concentration to
unite myself with her again yet amongst all these anonymous faces I could make out in the shadows at these tables or standing idly impervious to the smoking and laughing of others I could not find hers.
Again I was seized by an inexplicable panic although whereas the first had overcome me outdoors in attempting decide the next step to take, to carry
on walking or to turn back and continue following, this second wave of
panic was one of potential loss, an opportunity extinguished as quickly as
it had been lit.
I became aware of the thought that people seemed to me to be staring at me
somewhat openly, sometimes out of the corner of their eye as people do in the middle of conversations they're only listening to one side of, but staring at me
nonetheless as though they knew I didn‘t belong in here, had no business in
here, had only entered for some nefarious purpose.
Yet no one approached me and I could only approach shadows. These people were like props set up as camouflage. I walked in what I’d hoped were casual circles around the tables. Perhaps appearing to some who chanced a glance in my direction like a poorly cloaked undercover cop seeking a fugitive, a lost suspect.
I had almost given up hope yet incredulous that she could have simply disappeared into thin albeit smoke-choking air, before I spotted a passage, followed, and cautiously made my way down the narrow stairway which led down into a cavernous sort of opening with another stage and a still-smokier area.
And there I spotted her once again, this time standing alone at the far side of the bar, her back to the wall as though she were standing look out, a sentinel protecting herself. Having fixed my sight on her only for a second, I turned to try and find an empty table.
Once seated, and down here the vacant tables were in more ready supply, I attempted take in as much of her as well as decency, decorum and the dim light would allow without overtly staring.
I imagined that the shadows muffled her beauty or imagined beauty where I could see no details. I could make out her head and the shape of her face at the
other end of that bar but the details were entirely inaccessible.
It became important to not simply sit there paralysed because failing to communicate or even attempt to communicate with her after following her over that time and distance would be not merely wasteful but humiliating.
I rolled a cigarette with the nagging half-expectation that any moment another man would emerge from the shadows, her man, and they would embrace or perhaps kiss lightly on the lips and that would be the end of it,
the end of this ridiculous charade once and for all, before I had even gotten
up from the seat or begun screwing up some courage to speak to her.
My mind purred with possibilities while my body remained in neutral, seated. Should I wait for table service and continue my distant spying or should I simply drop all pretence and stand, amble casually to the bar, angled as close to her as possible and order my drink? If I stood beside her waiting for my
drink would I know the appropriate thing to say or would I stand there like an
idiot, tongue-tied and silent? Would she understand me if I spoke in
English, (as if I had a choice) or would she simply look at me, her eyes
dull with impassive incomprehension?
Finally, I stood back up from the seat after the private, subliminal pep talk
I'd given myself about seizing the moment and taking the bull by the
horns and a half dozen similar clichés recited like a rosary litany.
During the course of all this internal turmoil of indecisiveness she had
been speaking briefly with the bartender but once another patron had
arrived she then stood alone again, comfortably alone, and looked off into
the general direction of the stage, entirely oblivious to my intentions.
As I walked towards her in what in movies would have been slow motion
but in reality was simply small, cautious steps forward, careful not to
angle too far in her direction yet still angle in her general direction despite
the relative emptiness of the space around her, the square footage of choice
of anywhere I could stand other than next to her, I imagined what it might be like to be moving with the intention of ordering a drink and then suddenly pretend to discover her as though I hadn't just followed her all that way into this place to begin with.
Ah, it all seemed so transparent; my awkwardness, my indecision and then finally, some half-baked scheme, feigning nonchalance as though she were some rube just in from the countryside, first night out in the big city, naïve as a child. Who was I kidding? It was going to be a bad acting job.
What could I possibly say to excuse my intrusion on her private thoughts? What pretext could I give whilst waiting to order my drink that would not appear immediately contrived, that might engage her in polite conversation?
To try and relax I considered my potential opening lines as though instead of
some desperate pick-up line this was a simple game of chess and my opening line would be my opening move as White, a variation known as the
Staunton Gambit which I recalled, to calm my nerves, had been named
after Howard Staunton who played it against Bernhard Horwitz in a match
in London in 1846 and which had been included in his famous Chess-Players Handbook published a year later.
You see, I hear myself telling myself again, to exude calm in the face of the
coming storm of nerves, the Gambit attempts boldly, by giving away White's central pawn, to expose Black's king and here, in the instant case, by giving myself away, walking slowly towards her, taking the initiative, I would hopefully expose her vulnerability rather than my own.
Still, as I approached, I debated the merits of establishing early pawn control of the centre, to allow myself to linger at the bar with a glass of house red
wine pretending that I hadn't come there all along with the explicit intention
of chatting her up.
Dozens of ideas ran through my brain before I'd even considered how
to order the wine: to contemplate if while waiting, whether to simply address her in English in the hope that she wasn't solely a Francophile or muster
up some mangled mixture of what few French phrases I had attempted
to memorise on the train to Paris earlier that morning.
In the end, I said nothing, muttering red wine please to the barman in
plain English and standing there staring at the bottles arrayed along the
back of the bar, whistling in the dark to a mindless tune and before I could
even kick myself for my inaction she was beside me with an unlit
cigarette between her fingers, wordlessly requesting a light.
Oh, I fumbled with the lighter at first but after the second try and
trying to laugh off the embarrassment, I regained some sense of verbal
clarity and before she could edge away again I blurted out a
breathless and disconnected dictum in English about "Le Bel Indifferent",
Cocteau's play written for and starring Edith Piaf, perhaps still
dreaming in a foggy, alcoholic trance that this woman in front of me
was somehow Edith Piaf, or her ghost. Had my casual afternoon of sidewalk drinks and delusional strolls rendered me into an unmistakable incoherency?
My sudden unravelling seemed to catch her off guard.. Perhaps she had
expected more sophistication from a man who had followed her over many
city blocks for nearly an hour. She regarded me with a look of vague
amusement, a carnival in her eyes, engaged, then disengaged,
considering the rapid development of her own pieces on this imaginary
chess board.
I will be going soon on stage to sing, she explained in heavily accented English, nodding towards the tiny stage where currently sat an experimentational jazz trio who were still, it appeared to me anyway,
tuning up their instruments. In all likelihood, what I mistook for tuning up
was the actual performance. I feigned interest for a moment but suddenly extinguished any look of interest in the trio when it appeared she was inhaling again, preparing to finish a thought, it was difficult to discern.
Perhaps you will like to speak with me at a more opportune time, for example, when I have finished singing? Perhaps in one hour's time, or so? Her voice
was almost indiscernible in the noise of the band yet as if my life depended on it, I was able to tune in, ignore the ice water shock of her speaking to me to begin with, and stand back, nodding slowly and wordless as if in fact this was
the result I had expected all along, as though we’d known each other all along
or that in fact, she had been expecting me.
But the reality that it had all been too easy, too sudden, crept in like a cat burglar to rob me of any satisfaction I might have allowed myself. Certainly, even though I couldn't even remember my words, I hadn't said anything particularly profound – I was confused and instead of catching her off guard she had made a move I hadn't seen coming in staring at those imaginary pieces assembled on the chess board in my mind I‘d set up to distract me from my
fear. I'd expected a polite brush off perhaps or a slight flicker of interest at best. Certainly not an appointment.
Sure, I said finally, hesitantly, watching her out of the corner of my eye. I
didn't realise you'd be singing, I found myself apologising. I'll just take a
seat and…well, watch the performance, I shrugged.
But she shook her head lightly as though I'd lost myself in the translation.
In my confusion I noted that I could not discern the colour of her eyes which were somehow lost anyway in the shadows.
I must explain…she began, angling closer to my ear, leaning in so that I could
hear her over the music. I cannot bear singing for the first time in front of
people that I know. I can only sing for strangers. Otherwise I get too nervous.
I found myself mental-noting that although yes, she had a heavy accent, her
English was certainly and easily understandable. And of course, that she hadn’t referred to me as a stranger, but someone she knew! More games?
But I will meet you instead. Later. After I’m finished singing. There's a little café at the corner, one street over from here called Café Saint Amant. Why
don't you wait for me there? It's just a short distance from here. I can meet you inside or just outside the entryway between one and one and a half hours from now...
Well, sure…I answered in the voice of a man pretending he didn't
realise he was being brushed off. Her voice had the effect of
intoxicating me with expectation, the room felt unbalanced and out of focus. I'll meet you at Café Saint Amant, I repeated as though it was something we
did on a regular basis. In an hour or two.
Sure, I thought to myself. I'll sit there. I'll wait and wait and
wait. I shall place myself in the trust of her sincerity. I will beat
back the voices of derision in my head and wait patiently as though
doing so would be enough to guarantee her appearance.
Ok, I'll see you there? Her eyes did not hide from me even though it
was apparent her thoughts were already moving from me to thinking of
the set she would perform. It was the possibility of meeting her
where she suggested, when she suggested, that compelled me into
compliance even though I doubted the outcome. I was curious to hear
her sing yet the facility with which she had first allowed me in,
then made arrangements for later, then turned back to the business
at hand of the stage with barely a second thought, was unnerving and
I convinced myself that I'd be better off leaving before my nerves
got the better of me.
Yeah. See you in a bit, I confirmed again, half aloud, backing off and
leaning in the direction of the entrance. I wanted to look back to catch her
looking at me but instead I imagined her gaze stayed fixed to the
stage, focused without giving me a second thought.
I'll wait until you get there, I noted, suddenly enthusiastic. The
experimental jazz trio had morphed into one tune together, at the
same time, something vaguely familiar before it hit me: The "West
End Blues" 1928 recording performed by Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines,
Fred Robinson, Jimmy Strong, Mancy Cara and Zutty Singleton. Or
perhaps it was the jukebox. The room was far too smoky to discern
the stage any longer.
She was smiling at me blankly as though she knew I was already supposed
to have turned around and left but in seeing me still standing there she had
no idea what sort of smile to leave me with and had decided, at the last minute, to remain neutral. Had I remained standing there, I imagined there was quite a
good chance her smile would melt, her eyes would seethe and a few
strong-arms would grab me and dump me outside the door without
further notice, back out into the spattering rain and the cold and
the strangers.
See you then... I waved, turned on my heel in an effort at
careless optimism and headed for the exit. Fate indeed. Whether our
conversation went any further or not was entirely her decision.
*****
It wasn't too difficult to find the Café Saint Amant. Especially
considering I only half-expected it to exist at all. I knew there could
have been a myriad of potential road blocks. Was it the corner one
street over to the left or to the right, one street further down before
being on the left or right? Did it exist at all or would I just wander the
rest of the night in search of it?
But there it was, as soon as I'd reached the corner, one block over
to the right, lights on, a few people scattered around the outdoor
tables, fewer still inside. I took a seat outside, nearest to the sidewalk
and waited, taking in the neighbourhood around me.
Toulouse-Lautrec had once painted the surrounding area into a
district of cabarets, circus freaks, and prostitutes and at this hour, with
the remaining stragglers lurking and leering and drooling a dazed sort
of enthusiasm as they passed and bumped into me and threw up in the alleyways, I imagined I could see what he'd have seen, the nocturnal circus
of haphazard humanity.
I'd read somewhere that Toulouse-Lautrec had broken both of his legs
in his early teens, and because neither had ever properly healed, both had stopped growing. It could have simply been urban legend but I couldn't
help wondering that this Tom Thumb genius had abnormally short legs
as an adult and was less than five feet tall. I'd read that he'd been a heavy
drinker in Montmartre and that because of his heavy drinking he was eventually confined to a sanatorium, battling the drink, battling his
insecurities and his pain, despite his talent, or perhaps because of it.
I spent my waiting time in the café in a variety of fashions. First, the effort
of waiting for the waiter. I tried looking at and listening to other customers
sat around me, trying to decipher their conversations; a pair of middle aged women speaking to one another in secretive tones, laying out, no doubt, the case against the lover of the other. Another lone man sipping a wine and engrossed in a book whose title I could not make out. A pair of young
students speaking to each other in German, battling philosophies.
With no one to speak to for some reason my mind wandered to the things
I'd lost forever due to my own carelessness or apathy, or by virtue of
someone else's fuck up. I began to sketch a list of them, a dispassionate
list because you had to become dispassionate about such losses in order
not to let them gradually destroy you like the slow leak of air from the
pinprick of a rubber inner tube. In the end, I concluded rather randomly, it is
about denial and the acts and losses which deny you are like angry, self- loathing little people who derive great pleasure from denying you over and over again.
The list grew impossibly longer as I thought about it further and stared past people seated around me as though they were ethereal, temporary visions.
As I choked down an Anise aperitif served with water that I'd ordered
solely to appear as though I knew what I was doing, I began to feel
sickened at the losses and resolved to make up for the losses with gains. Monumental gains that dwarfed the world. Explosions of personal insights
and epiphanies.
The list I'd begun to sketch had become a doodle, an incomprehensible, unhinged triptych growing darker and darker with each subsequent swoop
of my recollection: childhood toys destroyed in fits of rage, writings and drawings ripped to shreds in frustration, musical instruments bent and
dented beyond repair at the most subtle, corrective hints from strangers
when I played on street corners, acquaintances discarded because of
distance or because they'd grown intolerant of appeasing me, lovers, dead
in the heart, wilted, ashed and forgotten. An entire gawking collective of
memories and strangers mocking me. My blood pressure was rising, I
was sure of it. The anise tasted terrible and the water was as warm as piss. However intrigued by this girl, I didn't know if I could bear it even another minute of sitting alone in bitter recollections that stormed in from out of nowhere.
So there, you've found your spot and look, you've even begun to sketch the customers!
She seemed delighted to see me, far more delighted than a stranger would
be meeting another stranger after a few seconds of introduction and a completely blank history of conversation.
But the cloud which had stuffed my head and my ears and was adumbrating everything around me passed suddenly and quickly as she removed an imitation velvet cloth coat with a fake fur collar and shook the mist from it before setting it down along the back of her chair. May I have a look? She attempted to remove the sketch from beneath my hands as she seated herself across from me but I kept my palms flat on the table, the paper snug inside.
I cannot bear to allow strangers see my drawings, I teased, trying to poke fun at having to leave the club for her, relegated to this table alone for nearly two hours yet immediately feeling guilty for not simply rejoicing in the fact of her arrival, which I’d secretly doubted all along, I simply restated by admitting I wasn’t very good and didn’t want to ruin her eyes.
Do you know that Toulouse-Lautrec used to sit like you in this
neighbourhood, in crowded nightclubs, drinking and laughing with
patrons and drawing sketches. Then he would take those sketches with
him to his studio and work on them as bright-coloured paintings. Is
that what you're going to do, take these sketches of yours back to
your studio and turn them into paintings?
I scoffed. Hardly worth the bother. Besides, I don't have a studio.
I don't even have a room for the night.
Oh, she said quietly. I didn't mean to pry. I didn't realise…you are
without shelter?
I suppose, in a way, yes. But not in the way you're imagining. I've
just arrived here this morning and in the excitement of being here,
I guess I just sort of forgot to look for a place to stay. I don't
really mind actually. There's something romantic about going to a
place without a plan, not knowing where you will end up when it's
all said and done, wandering around a new place without a specific
purpose…
Ah, but you seem to have had a specific purpose, haven't you? After
all, you followed me for quite a distance, yes, I knew it, but I
wasn't sure why and then when you appeared again in the club, well,
I was rather curious to know why you'd been following me. I thought
perhaps you knew me and in the club, as dark as it is, well, it was
difficult to tell whether or not your face was familiar and yet now
that I see you here it seems quite apparent that I don't know you at
all, so still, I am curious. Why were you following me earlier?
I marvelled again that her English was spoken with a heavy, nearly
caricatured accent yet she spoke with few grammatical flaws as though she were nearly as comfortable in the language as I was.
I didn't realise you'd been aware I was following you, I began with
embarrassment. I guess I wouldn't make much of an undercover cop,
would I?
She laughed nervously and I imagined I could sense her reassessment
of having agreed to meet me at all in the first place. Any minute I
expected her to realise the business of solving the mystery of my
having followed her was no mystery at all, merely one lonesome man
prowling the streets who happened upon her and decided to see where
she was headed for lack of anything better to do. I expected her to
allow the mistake to sink in for only a few moments before politely
excusing herself mentioning the lateness of the hour and
disappearing back into the night she'd emerged from, gone forever.
But for some reason she didn't appear eager to go anywhere.
So tell me, stranger, she asked, touching my hand lightly, why have
you come to Paris then and why did you chose to follow me?
For the same reason you agreed to meet me here, I replied easily,
relief in the knowledge that she wouldn't be taking her leave of me
just yet, that the interview wasn't quite concluded, I was curious.
Her eyebrows were raised remarkably, the habitual, beaten path lines
of comers-on etched in the cynicism of her expectations.
And so tell me then, stranger, what precisely were you curious
about?
Unfortunately, I had no good answer. I suppose in the world of
flirtation, male bravado and self-confidence there are answers that
lend momentum to a snappy, comfortable rapport which would have
fallen from my lips as effortlessly as the tongue of a panting dog, But
in this world I inhabited, there were no well-honed comebacks. I was
like a heckled comedian who had lost his nerve on stage.
She must have sensed my unease because her hand returned to mine
again with reassurance and she smiled, turning her head slightly as
though seeing me from a different angle might provide some clue.
You could begin by telling me your name….mine is Anastasia.
And so it began, the stuttering lack of timing and grace gradually
succumbing to an unexpected outpouring of detail beginning with
Albert's arrival on my door step, flowing into the personal injury
claim, the departure for Utrecht to discover ourselves, the success
of one gig that made us believe we might actually be able to
subsidise ourselves through a combination of guile and music, waking
up the other morning suddenly with that dream still lingering and
deciding to take the train, just on the whim of the dream, finding
myself here almost as suddenly as I'd decided to come, wandering
aimlessly all afternoon in expectation that something unexpected
would happen to justify my having come at all.
It's funny. At one point in the early evening I’d been readying myself to
pack it in for the night, find a room and start again tomorrow in a different arrondisement, wander more until that inexplicable something would reveal itself to me. I mean, it's odd because I had faith in it, faith that it was bound to
happen, bound to be discovered, if only I were patient and diligent…
and then, I spotted you.
So, she said cautiously, am I to infer then that I was the dream?
She laughed to herself softly, amused by me in a way that a mother
is amused by some unexpected expression uttered by her child.
Well, not entirely…certainly if I wandered long enough, something
was bound to grab my attention, fulfil the expectation of finding
something, whatever it was. For all I know it could have been a
painting or the view as I turned down a particular side street. As
it turns out it was you. Not the dream of course and not even
necessarily the purpose of being here. But when I saw you, I wanted
to know where you were going because perhaps where you were going
held some answer…
And as it turned about, a jazz club, she inserted. How ironic, for a
jazz musician.
Well, not that I got to hear any of it, I answered shyly.
Perhaps there is some sort of internal yet cosmological magnet
between musician and singer that brought tyou to this point? I could
discern in her engaging eyes, whether she was teasing or sarcastic - her
accent somehow hid the nuances and vocal inflections you might normally
use to detect.
I can't deny that Albert and I would certainly be aided by a chanteuse but somehow I have the feeling there's more to it.
Her cheeks pinkened and her pupils dilated slightly, perhaps a reaction to
the fatigue of the evening or perhaps out of the game of the curiosity, I
wasn't in a position to tell.
Strands of mist still lightly tinged her eyebrows and even the nape
of her neck was damp. I wondered what her singing voice had sounded
like. I wondered what those other dark and anonymous faces had
registered as she sang.
Well, there's always a chance of almost anything happened, if you're
in the right position, she teased, smirking, took a cigarette from
the pack she'd tossed down next to the ashtray and lit it quickly
before the act registered in my brain and my hands could reach for
my own lighter. She exhaled quickly, tracing an absent circle with
her index finger in a small pile of salt that had spilled several
diners before.
I felt certain that she wanted to witness me squirm from the discomfort
of having been misinterpreted. I felt certain this was a little game she
was playing to amuse herself, but I wasn't feeling charitable enough
to push these certainties to the background and ignore them.
The train ride had disembowelled a section of the dream yet again,
reality had crept back.
So as the waiter approached finally, the waiter who no doubt knew her,
greeted her uncharacteristically with a kiss on each cheek, who spoke her
name with a reverence that betrayed his infatuation with her, fumbling
around her as though she were royalty before regarding me with thinly
disguised scepticism as in, what are you doing with him, I realised she
must simply be humouring me, perhaps out of pity or perhaps because she
had some deeper, more deviant plot to take me back to her apartment,
finish me off with a bottle of Absinthe back in her rent-by-the-week
abode in some still seedier section of town, take off enough clothes for
the later dream sequence to appear as though we'd actually fucked, then
allow me to pass out before stealing my wallet, grabbing what few personal
belongings she had in the room that she wanted to keep and then
disappearing forever into the buxom night of Paris. I felt sick and
lonely all at once, a wave of self-pitying nausea.
I shook my head, perhaps shocked at the vivid absurdism of my imagination
and stood quickly, clearing my throat.
Well, I suppose we've had our fun…your curiosity is satisfied, I
know where I can find a jazz club and perhaps I should be pushing
on…I mean, I’d really like to go for a walk, see more of the city…
Both she and the waiter were puzzled by the sudden change of heart,
the random shifting of gears, and looked at me, I believed, with the
disappointment of a conspiracy gone sour.
I'll go with you, she volunteered suddenly, perhaps surprising even
herself, dropping the cigarette to the ground and grinding it out with
the toe of her shoe before standing.
The top of her head barely reached my stomach. Suddenly she seemed
harmless.
The three of us were suspended in eternity it seemed. I almost sat down
again in my embarrassment before she continued; Besides, what do you
know of the city? You don't know what neighbourhoods to steer clear of,
you don't speak the language and you have no place to stay. I couldn't very well just leave you to wander through the mysterious night of your Parisian dream without a guide, could I?
The waiter seemed to nod, standing there, as though they were coaxing me down from a ledge.
Besides, as Guillaume can confirm, I'm always too wound up when I finish singing at this club. I usually come here to wind down.. I can't sleep for hours. So if you want to stretch your legs, walk for awhile, I’d be happy to
accompany you. Usually I just go home alone and sit quietly in the dark, drinking wine and listening to music. It would be interesting to try something different. After all, you’ve made the effort, why shouldn’t I?
Don’t you think it’s odd, I thought to myself, having ingested the ease with which she’d invited herself along, ignoring my sudden paranoia with the cool confidence of a woman accustomed to getting her way.
Of course she would get her way, but why did she want it that way to begin with, I wondered, my brain suddenly scurrying to keep pace with the events unfolding. I’m a complete stranger. Nothing striking or exotic; life’s experiences had made that quite clear. So what was in it for her? Even as the bill was being sorted, chairs pushed back in, this question turned in my head again and again, each time pushed back down like a jack-in-the-box by my curiosity and natural need to see this through, irrespective of the let down that would surely rear its ugly head eventually.
Her questions ran along with her trying to keep up with me as I pushed out into the night air which I gulped with great relief and satisfaction, the dyspeptic dread finally departing as though I'd already showered and changed and was seated on a living room sofa with my feet up on the coffee table, a pipe in my mouth and the evening paper beside me.
You were magnificent I exclaimed in a sudden fit of manic euphoria, taking her by her tiny shoulders and looking down at her as stood in the middle of the street.
How? What do you mean? Did you spy on me, stay for my singing this evening?
Nothing of the kind. I meant to say, you are magnificent, a tonic. I feel
better already. Maybe I won't even bother with the train back to Utrecht
after all. What would you say if I told you that? What would you say if I
said I wanted to stay a few days, or a week even? Would you let me hear
you sing?
I began walking again without waiting for her reply. The night air had suddenly filled me with unassailable buoyancy. I kicked myself inwardly nevertheless for having made the decision back in Utrecht to leave the horn behind.
Now would have been the most appropriate time! I could have
latched onto the banks of the Seine just as the dawn began and lent
my own dissonant blaring to bounce off the hours and airs of Paris.
All the while these incessant fluctuations of doubt with euphoria flashed, Anastasia followed behind, or as closely to my side as possible, double
timing her half steps to my determined yet absent-minded strides as we
went in no particular direction, street corner after street corner until she
finally begged, in exhaustion, that we stop, that the incessant marching
cease.
I could see myself enjoying her company. Not just because she was
attractive and I was alone in a foreign city. I was drawn to her paradoxical qualities often seeming to sway unintentionally between bitterness and
naiveté that had revealed itself even in our brief walking conversation.
She seemed at times to have come to know too much too soon and clutched
at a past tightly as if by relinquishing her hold of it she would lose
her grip entirely and plunge forever into some unknown abyss.
I didn’t pry. What could I have said? I understand? Surely I didn’t. If
she was indeed struggling to hold on she was experiencing her past in precisely the opposite manner that I repressed mine, the one I’d released, extinguished forever.
And even as we walked and talked, stopped occasionally on benches, I couldn’t help but hear an inner voice asking me all the while - you know
what YOU are doing with her but what is SHE doing with you? After all,
she must have had some sort of life before you fumbled your way into it.
She seemed to pretend there was nothing, as though she’d been a simple drawing waiting for more drawings and a hand from the outside to turn all those drawings rapidly in an animation loop to give her the appearance of living.
Yet I waited all the while we were walking and talking for the other shoe to drop; for the casual mention of a boyfriend or girlfriend, for the admission she’d only recently been released from prison or a mental hospital, anything really, that flaw which she was certain to have which would finally explain why she was spending this time with me to begin with.
It was late, the sky was littered with traces of dawn.
So if you are a horn player, why have you no horn, she asked somewhat winded, as though just making the observation tired her as she pushed open the vaulted front door of an apartment building. I had no idea where we were.
She had led me through a labyrinth of winding, ascending streets,
alleyways and across sudden boulevards to get here.
I left it behind in Utrecht. I didn't see the point of bringing it. I wasn’t particularly interested in that point of answering the question, my curiosity piqued of course by our direction, our destination, but small-talk or not as she attempted to ignore that she was bringing me home, or as I pretended to ignore she was bringing me home, I answered.
I hadn't been intending on performing any serenades although in
hindsight, that lack of foresight seemed crippling. Not that I'd
have impressed you with my playing anyway, I admitted as we ascended
the stairs leading to her flat.
She opened the door, flicked on the light and tossed her keys on the
table beside the door which was already overflowing with things
having been tossed on that same table without having been picked up. I imagined build ups of things tossed to this table for days or weeks at a time before in one ambitious afternoon of flat-cleaning she‘d have finally swept it clear again.
There was smallish front parlour and to the left a kitchen nook that
further led down a slight hallway. In the very front of the parlour,
facing the door was a television set which had been gutted and then
stuffed with as many teddy bears as could possible fit inside, all
crammed in against the inside of the screen facing outwards, all with the
same blank expression of teddy bear enlightenment, despite the cramped quarters.
What do you think about strangers when entering their flats?
A quick glance at the wall coverings before making a beeline for the
bookshelf.
That's what Albert taught. Nothing reveals more about a person than
their books.
In Anastasia's case, there was no book shelf. But the studio reflected
a passion for collecting, certainly. The teddy bears stuffed into the empty television screen, a few posters on the wall announcing gigs in cafes
I'd never heard of by musicians I was utterly unaware of and then, the photographs, everywhere, spread out on tables, on the floor, clipped and cropped, pasted on boards, everywhere little scraps of lives and even
glancing at them casually it was apparent that none of those pictured were Anastasia.
Shall we have wine or coffee she asked, already moving into the
kitchen and taking a bottle from the cupboard.
As it transpired, as the predawn wine flowed, we spent a great deal of time looking at photo albums, scrapbooks of people she didn’t know, people
she’d never met, photographs from piles of postcards with 50 year old postmarks.
It was an interesting assortment and yet I couldn’t help turning over in
my mind what a display of anonymity; histories of strangers connected only
by her having plucked them from a multitude of sources and her having
placed them all together, much like the teddy bears in the gutted television.
A vision of a grander scale she was formulating, a random, disjointed display? A road map to her own personal place of connectivity, a statement about herself or who knew, perhaps nothing more relevant than a simple hobby?
I collect photos, she admitted sheepishly but without further
elaboration when she noticed my expression, sensed the questions rolling around in my head, contemplating the significance of one collecting and showing random photos of strangers to strangers. Photos of anyone other
Than herself, her friends or her family. As though she had no history and constructed her own based on those of others.
There are so many of these lives I imagine, she attempted to explain. Maybe I’m completely wrong about all of most of them, but I look at their expressions like pieces of a puzzle of each of their humanities whose final form can be known only to themselves and those who knew them. It isn’t insight precisely, more guess work or imagination, but I try to see into these photos something about each person without knowing anything about them.
I read somewhere, she said finally, that there are two types of refugees. Those with photographs and those without. Which one are you?
What makes you think I am a refugee?
Well, you’ve fled your country for another, or a series of others, perhaps not to escape danger or persecution but to escape something, perhaps even yourself. But you are a refugee nonetheless, even if it is only yourself you are trying to escape. So. Are you with photographs or without?
I am without photographs, I admitted quickly and without much further elaboration. I’d been considering myself more an immigrant and this reflection that I was escaping something instead of simply moving in a random, chaotic fashion made me pause - was she reading me or reading too much into me?
You don’t have one photograph, she asked, her voice registering an off key disbelief. Not one? Not even in your wallet?
No. The meaningful moments, the life-shifting instances, were never photographed. Only the before and after. Only in unnatural poses attempting to look natural. How often do photographs ever capture the precise moment anyway? Yeah, a moment is captured, but not the moment. Sure, when it comes to something like world news; ongoing tragic theatre like the starvation of other humans or that blotch of human blood on the ground after a gun shot, photographs capture some certain profundity but as far
as my own life, no. I’ve never even owned a camera, have you?
No, I don’t actually take my own photographs. I recycle those of others. Perhaps I feel sad thinking about discarded photographs of people as though there’s no one around any more to want to see them and if no one is around who cares about seeing them, perhaps their very existence fades as well as though they were never here to begin with. I find that thought disturbing. So probably not just because I like to imagine some insight about these people or these places or moments in time captured by a photograph but also because they shouldn’t fade forever simply because no one cares about the photograph or the person it is of or the person it was taken by or the thoughts behind someone who reached out communication to another in the form of something as mundane as a postcard. All of it was real once and the thought that not only they would be forgotten but unimportant, ignored forever, well, sometimes it makes me sad. I know, I know. Probably ridiculous, right? Childish perhaps. Especially to someone like you who sits there perhaps proudly revealing you have no photographs, not of yourself, not of your friends or your family. I don’t either. I am the refugee without photographs and whether you wish to admit it at this point or not, I can sense, so are you.
She stared at me a long time in an unnerving way, without a word, her brown eyes through which I imagined I could see the neighbouring candlelight flicker, focused on my face as though looking for a hint of a break in the
stoic poker player's face. My defences were taut, disciplined for
even then there was something about Anastasia that told you to keep
up your guard. Perhaps it was simply the mystery of why. Or that
lack of trust in why. It wasn't as though I didn't believe I belonged with her – it could just as easily be me as anyone. More a question of why she had
chosen me when just as easily, I could have failed to advance past the initial introduction.
I shrugged and stood up to pour us both another glass of wine.
I, on the other hand, had merely shown up, having followed her
without any particular reason or purpose. I never considered she might have asked similar questions herself as to why I’d chosen to follow her. I felt certain it wasn't as simple as a matter of timing – well, perhaps timing in that she was between relationships rather in the middle of one, but certainly
not that if I had arrived through the doors of the café a day
earlier or five weeks later all chance would have evaporated.
Well yes then, I admitted shamelessly carrying both glasses back. She was still seated on the sofa and I returned to my position at the foot of it on the floor, back against an armchair beside the sofa. Perhaps I too am a refugee without photographs.
No comments:
Post a Comment