In Paris With You

by Clémentine Beauvais

  a mole staring at its reflection.

  This is often how it feels when you find yourself

  deep in discussion

  with a smiley face, or a photograph,

  or a small green telephone icon.

  And below this, the words,

  which often have no real meaning

  other than the fact that they have been sent;

  there’s no point trying to read between the lines

  because there’s nothing there but white space; what’s meant

  is only to be found beyond the lines,

  in the fact of their origin,

  in the motivation behind them. But what is that?

  so

  any plans for your birthday?

  no not really

  it’s not an important one anyway

  The pencil began to move again. It’s true

  that this pencil could drive you crazy,

  but at least it seems to care about you.

  It knows it has a mission to fulfil,

  this little pencil,

  and it does its bit

  to make sure that you know

  that you are not alone.

  Which is kind of a big deal, isn’t it?

  The pencil soothes our abandonment anxiety,

  our dread of desertion.

  Its existence, symbolic of someone else’s presence,

  allows us to see

  the fingers of the other person, touching the keys of their

  keyboard. We know, at least, that somewhere

  someone is writing something

  for our attention.

  i’m sorry for my silence

  Eugene

  it was just that I had to concentrate on my departure

  you know what i mean?

  The word departure was a dart in his heart.

  no no I understand

  said Eugene, who did not, of course.

  Then he added:

  you know you can just tell me

  if there’s something going on between

  you and your supervisor

  Pencil. Pencil pencil pencil.

  FFS would you give it a rest

  there’s nothing going on with Leprince

  why are you so obsessed

  ah OK

  sorry i’m just an idiot sometimes

  i get all worked up about nothing

  i put two and two together and get five

  but I already told you

  yeah but it’s hard to believe

  i just have the feeling that there’s something else

  i ought to know

  well

  maybe there is

  Blank

  Eugene i keep thinking about something

  you told me once

  what?

  something you said to me on the stairs

  ten years ago

  what did i say?

  Another blank

  you don’t remember?

  no, i forgot all that stuff

  i don’t even know who i was back then well enough

  to guess. so what did i say?

  Pencil. Eraser. Pencil again.

  you really don’t remember?

  no, Tatiana, not at all

  you don’t recall

  the day when you came up to me

  at the top of the stairs

  and you said

  what did I say?

  that’s so like you, you know,

  to ruin people’s lives like that, and your own

  at the same time, and to forget it all a second later

  you said

  Eugene you told me

  you said that we’d be bored together

  He contemplated those words, and suddenly

  a scene returned to his memory,

  a scene acted out by someone else,

  like a solemn soliloquy heard long ago

  in a theatre,

  in the almost-dark,

  lines spoken with an actor’s art,

  perfect for the part,

  admittedly,

  but without any poetry

  or any heart …

  6

  … in which a character a bit like him had said:

  EUGENE

  You wrote to me, Tatiana, there’s no point saying you didn’t. You wrote to me and your message was actually quite well-written.

  It had a sort of rhythm, a certain poetic feel, of which I approved. In fact, I was even quite moved. You know that I like you. You’re like a sister to me, or maybe even … yes, maybe even more than that. So yes, we get on well, and if I was looking for someone, then, sure, I’d wait until you weren’t a child anymore, but I would have no difficulty thinking of the sweetness of shared moments, here in Paris – or even somewhere else – with you. Why not, after all?

  But I’m afraid that is not the case. I am not of a disposition that encourages affection. I rarely even think about such things. They don’t really interest me, in fact. When you have had as many love affairs as I’ve had, you’ll understand. It’s interesting to begin with, but you soon grow weary of it. The khandra crushes you in its tedious grip. Even if I was in love with you, after a while I’d get bored.

  We’d get bored.

  Tatiana, we’d be bored together.

  Maybe that sounds sad, but it’s the truth. I still haven’t found a remedy for the ills of existence, but if one does exist, I suspect that love is not one of the main ingredients. I hope you won’t be upset if I tell you this: that you’re still a kid, and that I know – unlike you – what love is, and what it’s not. And even if your feelings were what you imagine they are, they’re not worth a lot. You don’t fall in love like that just because fate presents you with a handsome face glimpsed over a garden gate.

  Thank you for your message. However, love is not what it seems. The truth is we’d be bored.

  We’d be bored together.

  Exit Eugene.

  7

  We’re such idiots in our teens.

  Well, no. Not all of us. Not them. Not Tatiana or Lensky.

  Just me, Eugene.

  Lensky was in love he was right

  Tatiana was in love she was right

  They were mature

  beyond their years,

  while I, so elegant, blasé and decadent,

  so damn incapable of sentiment,

  I was nothing but an idiot.

  Lensky and Tatiana understood;

  I thought they were naïve, but in reality

  the naïve one was me –

  I loved you both, you know,

  even though you sometimes did bad things

  – and I who didn’t love anyone, I who needed so badly

  to be loved,

  I drove them away, one after another.

  I let them abandon me.

  Oh, Lensky,

  oh Tatiana,

  all along

  you were right

  and I was wrong.

  I thought I was so mature;

  I felt sure

  I couldn’t go wrong as I planted

  the flower of my future

  in the most arid soil I could find,

  the least fertile, because

  I didn’t want my life to be too easy

  or too beautiful …

  shit, I was blind!

  I was wrong all along

  and they were right,

  and they did their best to make me a better man.

  I mean,

  I was seventeen!

  Why did I have to take everything so damn seriously?

  Why did I have to ruin all the good things in my life?

  Why did I have to be so dogmatic, so joyless,

  so me?

  What was stopping me from leaning in and kissing Tatiana

  before the inevitable apocalypse

  (I’m sure I would have adored her lips)

  or from telling Lensky that he was right

  to believe i
n his dreams

  (or even from sharing those beliefs)?

  Lensky. If he was here now,

  it would make him laugh

  to hear me soliloquising the way he used to do,

  simply, plainly, without frills,

  and with a few swear words thrown in too …

  Fuck, Lensky!

  If only I’d had your heart, your ambition …

  how I wish

  you could have been a ventriloquist

  and spoken through me to Tatiana so we might have kissed …

  how I wish that you had laughed

  at all my colourless, closed-minded convictions

  instead of always being in thrall

  to everything I said, and imagining that I, this loveless lout,

  was the one who knew what he was talking about …

  oh, the two of you, idiot savants,

  why did you believe all my rants?

  *

  ME Not bad. Sounds almost like Lensky. So you can

  be lyrical when you try …

  EUGENE I guess it comes with age.

  But listen, I need your help.

  What should I do? What should I say?

  Should I tell her about all my regrets?

  Tell her that I’ve changed, deep inside myself?

  ME I’m sorry, my dear, but I think

  that bird has flown.

  She has changed too, you know.

  She and I are very different, it’s true,

  but I understand her point of view:

  the life you’re offering her is not

  what she wants.

  She’s found her own way in life, without you.

  EUGENE But I love her!

  ME And she loves you too.

  EUGENE Really? How do you know?

  ME What can I tell you?

  I’m psychologically astute

  about things like that, and besides,

  I feel like I’ve heard a story a bit like yours

  once or twice before.

  EUGENE What should I tell her?

  ME ‘Tatiana, I’m so sorry.

  I’ve been an idiot – will you please forgive me?’

  Start like that.

  Tatiana, i’m so sorry

  i’ve been an idiot – will you please forgive me?

  listen, there’s no point in getting into all this

  i’m not angry

  the way you rejected me still chills me, even today,

  but you didn’t act badly

  you could have taken advantage of me, and you didn’t

  in a way you were quite gentlemanly

  i ought to thank you

  no no please don’t thank me

  i was wrong! i know it now

  Tatiana i have to see you somehow

  Silence.

  No little pencil.

  The silence goes on so long

  that for a moment

  Eugene thinks he’s been abandoned.

  And then she starts to write again:

  if you want we can meet for coffee before i leave

  the day after tomorrow i’m free in the morning

  my flight is at 5 a.m.

  p.m. I mean

  no

  The pencil shivers.

  Erases, then scribbles

  again.

  ok then never mind

  can I see you now?

  asks Eugene.

  Blank.

  no

  Blank.

  Pencil. Pencil.

  i can’t right now

  i’m at the library

  which one?

  the National?

  no at sainte geneviève

  i’m really busy i’ve got a deadline to meet

  i’m free in the morning the day after tomorrow

  take it or leave it

  Eugene’s telephone turned orange. Which meant

  Absent.

  *

  Tatiana slammed her MacBook shut,

  opened it again, closed it,

  ope … no, just halfway,

  shut it, and then

  thought about opening it once again …

  calm down, sweetie, it’s a computer, not a fan

  or an accordion.

  So … back to work?

  no? oh, you’re going home?

  I don’t know. Leave me alone.

  But you can’t leave yet –

  you haven’t finished taking notes.

  who the hell are you,

  my thesis supervisor?

  no

  then leave me the hell alone

  ooh I see, a little touchy …

  well, it was kind of a disaster, that conversation, wasn’t it.

  What exactly did you hope to get from it?

  I don’t need your

  hang on, don’t forget

  your library card.

  Are you upset?

  Do you want to talk about it?

  Not just yet?

  Poor, poor Tatiana.

  Her face aflame,

  she looked adolescent,

  even more than she did ten years before,

  if you can imagine that;

  what I mean is that, although her face had grown,

  of course,

  not only in size, but in beauty and elegance,

  yet it was possible to detect, beneath its refined features,

  flashes of maroon and purple like the blushes

  that flush across the skin of octopuses

  and other sensitive sea creatures;

  you know as well as I do how it feels

  to have those sudden hot red weals

  spread across your face, this blaze

  that time extinguishes, but can never quite erase …

  oh God he screws me up

  Oh dear, here we go again.

  Skype and long-lost loves don’t mix.

  He turns my life upside down, he devastates me.

  Hardly a surprise – I always knew it.

  From the day we first met, my fate

  was sealed; I was bewitched.

  Hey, me too!

  What do you know?

  I should have realised that I would never

  be able to rid myself of him – ever

  Same for me.

  He sticks to me like glue, and because of him,

  I stick to the kid I used to be,

  when I was young and naïve,

  a pathetic little nothing …

  I really was nothing back in those days.

  You’re hard on yourself.

  Maybe it failed back then; maybe you were

  small and weak, but not anymore.

  Maybe now you’re big enough to do something great.

  Look how filled he is with remorse

  and regret. It could work this time, I bet.

  No. We were always fated

  to pass each other by.

  Back then I was passionate

  and he was apathetic;

  he never even thought of tomorrow while I

  wanted all of eternity.

  Now I feel that the opposite is true.

  He needs someone in his life, and I don’t.

  Yeah, right.

  What?

  Nothing, sorry. Go on with what you were saying …

  I want to be free, so this would never work at all.

  I don’t want to end up like Olga, with her love so banal.

  Eugene’s the one stuck in a rut now;

  he’s changed his life story;

  truth is, we’ve always had opposing trajectories.

  Okay, if you say so.

  It’s strange though,

  because to me, it seems

  like he’s headed straight in your direction.

  What do you mean?

  He’s on his way.

  On his way?!

  He’s coming up Rue Soufflot

  towards the library as we speak.

  What? Right now?
>
  Yep.

  And he’s entering … with an old library card,

  which surprisingly has not expired.

  How do you know?

  I know everything.

  He’s climbing the staircase.

  What are you going to do?

  Pick up my stuff and go.

  Then you’ll bump into him

  at the top of the stairs.

  I’m trapped.

  I’m trapped.

  (She sighed.) Typical. I’m trapped

  just like I always was.

  Oh give me a break – you’re not some tragic heroine.

  Go and talk to him.

  You know, if I were you,

  I’d cover him with kisses and hug him till he’s blue.

  Tatiana looked up at the lacy arches

  of the library’s ceiling,

  perhaps searching for someone who could hide her,

  but all the other students’ heads were buried in their books,

  multi-coloured earplugs shutting out the world,

  a row of identical spiders

  spinning webs of knowledge,

  vacuum cleaners hoovering up philosophy

  in handy bite-sized quotes,

  perfect for college.

  Go on, Tatiana,

  the sole fly among all these arachnids,

  unplug your ears and spread your little wings,

  leave these nodding heads far behind …

  go on, buzz off

  and fly into his arms.

  No one’s paying any attention to you

  (except me)

  so let go of your qualms.

  You poor deluded girl

  (she says to me – can you believe her nerve?)

  there’s absolutely zero chance of that. We’re not on TV.

  Thankfully I have a little dignity.

  Okay then.

  At least I tried.

  Go ahead, I’ll watch you being dignified.

  Tatiana met Eugene at the top of the stairs,

  she holding her computer to her chest like the breastplate

  of a knight,

  he with eyes wide open, head spinning and light

  after running all that way, climbing all those steps, dizzy

  with the thought of all he still had to do,

  and he, who I understand so well

  (much better than Tatiana, in truth)