In Paris With You

by Clémentine Beauvais

  wanted to take her in his arms the moment they met

  (and how I would have loved that, had she been me),

  but she

  whispered icily,

  detaching herself from his embrace,

  ‘Eugene,

  I don’t want to have a scene in this place.’

  But why not?

  It’s the perfect backdrop,

  this palace of paper and leather and stone,

  with its extraneous extras exhibiting no emotion,

  but already she was in motion,

  hurtling down the stairs,

  and he followed.

  ‘Tatiana, I have to talk to you …

  listen to me, please!’

  and his bass voice, thickened by the passion he felt,

  echoed

  down the stairway, bouncing off the walls,

  and she slowed,

  exhausted by this suddenly powerful voice,

  his desperate pleas,

  and on the staircase he managed to grasp her hand.

  And when his fingers pressed

  against her flesh,

  it seemed to both of them that the steps

  turned upside down, plunged and climbed,

  abruptly,

  and they saw

  the library staircase

  redesigned

  by Escher,

  and the only thing

  that stopped them falling

  was his hand

  holding hers.

  ‘Tatiana, listen,’ breathed Eugene, ‘listen to me,

  this is all wrong. I mean,

  I understand that your work is

  important to you, and,

  you know, Caillebotte,

  all that stuff, too, but

  listen … I promise: never

  would we ever

  be bored together.

  I swear it: I was off my head ten years ago; today,

  everything is so utterly different.

  If you stay with me here instead of going over there,

  we’ll be together forever like you wanted back then,

  like I want now …

  listen

  listen to what I want …’

  And he told her what he wanted, in an undertone,

  while all around them swirled

  the flood of rushing students:

  for Tatiana he enumerated

  the millions of billions of possibilities,

  a world of their own;

  for her, he narrated

  the chapters of their life to come,

  and he told them so sweetly, so softly, all those stories,

  tales of epic journeys and secret caves,

  little details like their wet footprints at the

  entrance to a Roman shower,

  breakfasts shared in bed, the tray of food sailing

  on the duvet’s waves

  in the striped Tuscan sunlight that pierced the

  Venetian blinds.

  He described them all so sincerely and so wittily,

  these joys both tiny and sublime:

  the palazzos, the museums, the Chianti wines

  (and yes, obviously he had a thing about Italy).

  We can learn to ski together –

  I’ve never tried.

  You can watch me fall headfirst into the snow.

  And one day I might take you on a surprise trip

  to the Venice Biennale, and while you survey

  the works on display,

  I’ll put my arms around you and nuzzle

  your neck and stroke your hip.

  One afternoon in Place Alphonse-Deville

  we’ll sit on the bench in the square

  and read each other passages from books that we feel

  are too special not to be spoken in the open air,

  and then that night,

  while the two of us are strolling hand in hand

  we’ll bump into a colleague on the street

  ‘hey there how are you I’d like you to meet

  my girlfriend Tatiana’ and he’ll see you

  and stand there stunned, so dazzled he’s practically blind,

  and I’ll smile and say, ‘sorry, mate, this one’s mine’

  and then

  one day we’ll meet your best friend

  and I’ll tell you afterwards ‘wow she’s pretty

  and she seems like a really great person too’

  (whereas in truth she’s nothing next to you)

  just to see a little rush of jealousy

  sting your face, so I can apologise and kiss it away

  and

  our bodies like eels in a bath of foam,

  tedious meals at my parents’ home,

  the liquorice smell of your hair,

  two glasses of white wine at the bar downstairs,

  all of this and more will be ours …

  coming home on the train

  from a weekend away,

  on my shoulder your tired head,

  on my leg your slender wrist,

  and sparkling there,

  in the train’s harsh light,

  a little bracelet that I bought for you

  to commemorate our first kiss

  and all these moments, Tatiana,

  when we’ll be so close,

  the two of us,

  the hairs on my forearm pricked from static

  after I roll up the sleeves of my jumper,

  reaching out to touch the hairs on your forearm,

  forewarned

  that you are

  so near that I

  can turn my face

  a few inches

  to the left

  and your

  lips will

  brush

  mine

  and we’ll

  thrill

  to the touch

  even though it happens every day,

  even though it’s normal,

  our hands and thighs and hair and hips all touching

  all the time …

  in air-conditioned airport lounges,

  behind rain-streaked windows on creaking trams,

  at tables in friends’ houses as we eat dinner,

  while yawning in endless traffic jams

  (because even when we’re bored,

  we won’t be bored of each other –

  and at least we’ll be together),

  in hotel rooms where sheets and pillows

  have been kicked to the floor and suitcases spill clothes,

  in the cinema on a Saturday night

  in the flickering light

  from the screen,

  in all these places where all I will have to do

  in order to kiss you

  on your temple

  is lean down

  slightly,

  in all those moments when we lightly

  turn out the light.

  And then …

  And then, what?

  What else would Eugene have to do or say

  to Tatiana before she yielded to his passion?

  How could she say no after such a declaration?

  Just to be on the safe side, he began a negotiation

  (let’s not forget that he is Chief Business Adviser

  for his company);

  attempting to sound tougher and wiser,

  he set out to demonstrate

  that there is always a solution.

  ‘Tatiana, there is always a solution –

  you know what, I’ll go with you

  screw my job, I don’t care about that:

  for you, I’d jump on the first plane to San Francisco

  and live with you there, I’d make it my home …’

  Gripped

  by this vision, our Eugene starts making lists in his head

  of all the things he’ll do to make her happy:

  I’ll cook for her every day, and keep

  the kitchen well equipped

&n
bsp; with food and all that stuff,

  and I’ll massage her feet and her back and shoulders

  long enough

  to destress her after a hard day at work,

  I’ll accompany her to every exhibition,

  I’ll read every article she writes,

  and if she ever feels down,

  say one November morning,

  when the world is cold and ugly and brown,

  I’ll arrange a miniature bouquet of mimosas

  in a shot glass for her

  and I’ll put it on her bedside table before she wakes up,

  bright yellow, like a little bursting shrubbery of

  Honey Loops,

  and by its side

  I’ll leave a Post-it saying: ‘hey lover,

  I’ll see you this evening –

  and I hope everything goes well for you at the meeting.’

  And perhaps Tatiana’s mind was filled with similar ideas,

  because she squeezed his hand tighter

  and her eyes blurred with tears

  and she

  You know what? I really think

  that I can see her hesitate, gesticulate,

  stare at the floor, stare at the stairs,

  stare into Eugene’s eyes stare through the window outside,

  stare into a future filled with all those moments,

  as yet unlived,

  stare at the prospect of those two Americas:

  one towards which she sailed already,

  loyal captain, compass steady –

  that promised land

  of a life she’d elected.

  The other a continent unexpected,

  in the way of her navigation:

  Eugene,

  and oh that way he affected

  her body, her emotions:

  here be dragons,

  the map warned her;

  no – no – we’ll be – say it! –

  we’ll be bored together …

  And, faced with these two directions,

  Tatiana was in agony,

  burning up, torn apart,

  her poor heart

  aflame,

  while her brain

  screamed in vain;

  despite herself, she was in love …

  IN LOVE!

  again!

  …

  and yet

  all the same

  she was aware

  that something was not quite right here:

  something was off,

  a grain of sand between the gears,

  a pea beneath her thick thick mattress

  so tiny, and buried so deep,

  but still … enough to cause her some distress,

  enough to disturb her peaceful sleep;

  her conscience, like a thousand darts

  pricking the pincushion of her heart,

  the certainty that this

  would not be happiness,

  this unsatisfactory compromise;

  Eugene, so impassioned and adorable,

  but Eugene also like the heavy ball

  attached to the chain around her ankle.

  And her life – her own life – like a guilty pleasure,

  a desire she could never completely meet …

  Tatiana had a vision of those two passions, each defused;

  she saw herself alone and together with Eugene,

  in an American living room, sprawled on a

  gigantic sofa, staring at a huge TV screen,

  caressing each other sadly, their dreams dented,

  bruised,

  forgotten,

  the two of them sunk in silence,

  not wishing to blame the other

  for an existence

  that could have been

  so much better …

  ‘No.’

  She said it.

  I don’t believe it.

  She said no. She refused.

  ‘No, it’s impossible,

  the time isn’t right.

  I don’t know what else to tell you

  except:

  I’m sorry, and I have to go;

  except:

  this hurts me as much as it hurts you;

  except:

  of course I’ll regret it, we both will;

  but that’s the way with everything, don’t you see?

  I’m sorry, Eugene,

  I really do have to go.

  I’m already not really here, you know.’

  Eugene realised that she wouldn’t surrender,

  that she would leave him behind,

  and he resigned

  himself to this fate, almost as if …

  … as if he’d felt the pea under his mattress too

  and realised that even a thousand nights of making love,

  pounding the pea down from above,

  would not be enough

  to make the bed smooth.

  There was only one thing left to do,

  one sole concession that he might tear

  from the hands of fate

  before this love vanished forever,

  one last resort before it was all over:

  Give me a night or two.

  Give me the chance to show to you

  what it is that I mean when I speak

  of my love;

  and then I’ll bow out. Enough.

  Unless you ask for more.

  And taken with this thought he heard himself implore,

  ‘You know, it’s not too late:

  we still have two days,’ he whispered,

  ‘when we could be together …’

  This thought made his whole body tremble with desire

  and he caught hold

  of Tatiana’s cold

  white tense hands

  and

  he said

  please. This was his only reality now,

  this breathless vow,

  and she, in his eyes, was radiant

  with hesitation …

  Tatiana murmured,

  ‘Eugene, it wouldn’t be worth the suffering –

  two days is nothing.’

  ‘No, two days is better than nothing;

  two days is so much; it’s a glory, it’s a prize;

  go tell a butterfly that two days is nothing.

  Two days is twice as long as the

  butterfly lives before it dies.’

  And suddenly,

  I remember –

  I remember a story about a butterfly,

  and the fleeting vision of a fine dark line of hairs –

  *

  Oh I believe that it was that fleeting vision that saved

  Eugene and Tatiana this time,

  because ten, a hundred, a thousand times before,

  at this point in the story, she’d have run away,

  she’d have left the library,

  she’d have passed through the curtain of light and

  disappeared,

  just as Eugene feared;

  and he would have been left alone,

  the diamond of his happiness turned to sand

  escaping between his fingers,

  stunned at having held it in his hands

  so tightly, only to see it slip away,

  and he’d have knelt on those twisted stairs,

  collapsed in despair,

  and on a final, deafening note,

  we would all have wept with him

  (yes, even I,

  and I hardly ever cry) …

  we would have wept for the Tatiana

  he had lost forever,

  for the vast void at the centre

  of his life and,

  in the centre of that centre,

  another empty space:

  Lensky

  and Olga and the huge tiny nothingness of his life;

  we would have wept

  for these Russian dolls all taken apart,

  all emptied of their hearts.

  But this time, things a
re different.

  Because this time, there is this memory,

  this sudden flash of lust,

  this arrow loosed from the depths of adolescence,

  and personally, I have absolute trust

  in the power of such a remote reminiscence

  and all the others that it trails in its wake;

  I believe they are capable of changing the course

  of a story,

  even a story written and played

  and played again so many times,

  even a story that we know by heart,

  even a story barricaded by the masters of their art

  in a famous opera, a long poem;

  and it seems to me –

  I believe this truly –

  that when we are confronted by the past,

  even accidentally,

  when we are brought suddenly

  ten thousand feelings

  back in time,

  then this padlocked poem, deathless,

  perfect, so fine,

  thick with the dust of two hundred years,

  can be made to change its final lines.

  And so,

  at that moment, as if swift fingertips

  were reaching through the distance

  of centuries to place between Tatiana’s lips

  a blueberry, ripe with the taste of her teenage past –

  the taste of that summer so tragic and sublime,

  the taste of nights spent watching the stars

  spark and die,

  imagining embracing and being embraced,

  wondering which path she should take –

  and if, when lying next to Eugene,

  she would have known

  how to touch, caress and taste,

  then at that moment, ten years on,

  when all her dreams

  suddenly acquired the blueness and roundness of the real,

  Tatiana opened her lips

  to

  reveal:

  ‘Two days, and that’s all.’

  ‘That’s all,’

  replied Eugene,

  immediately swearing to himself

  that all would be everything.

  Everything: every possible rectification.

  Everything: every possible justification.

  Everything: every wrong righted, every sin redeemed.

  Everything: the endless night of lovemaking he’d dreamed.

  Everything: all their greatest and their least desires,

  and everything:

  every pleasure and every fear

  hoarded over the last ten years,

  over the last two hundred years,

  theirs, of course, but also yours and mine,

  and those of the whole wide world,

  all of them, compressed into an attic bedroom

  in the ninth arrondissement,

  behind the Grévin Museum;

  everything: the two of them

  among the waxwork figures,

  so that when they came to the end of their life

  they could say: