In the distance the neighbour’s parrot squawks. The sound is adjusted. It squawks again at optimal volume.
“Are you hurt?”
Markus is a camera assistant reaching the end of a three-month contract who leaves crosses of coloured electrical tape all over the floors and ferries cables back and forward. Often Nina is removing props from a set while he is unscrewing lenses and cameras, but they have never spoken. All equipment is ticked off and put away after a shoot. This ad is due to last until the end of the week. A large blue crate of Strike’s Sauce depletes each day, but after-effects will apply more of it, matching the orange-red viscosity and increasing the glisten. Without the hand tossing it, the spaghetti will come alive, digitally manipulated to show the life-giving properties of blended tomatoes and spices for the busy Parisian worker for whom the miracles of modern convenience are invisible.
“No. Yes, a bit. It was unexpected.”
“You’re covered in dust.”
Chalky grey all up one side. Nina brushes herself down. “I’ve had better shoots.” The static on Markus’ walkie-talkie grows more frantic in pitch. “I better go, it’s dinner time.”
“Again and again and again, huh.”
“Between you and me, I hope that meatball actor chokes on his sauce.”
*
Nina is lying in bed one Sunday morning, laptop paused at a freeze-frame of the balloon bursting. You can almost imagine, if you pause it too, the very tips of her fingers approach from one side of the frame to catch the string. The basil she has been growing on the windowsill drifts in with the sound of a market down the street.
*
One evening, Markus is browsing yoghurt when Nina rounds the corner with a basket on her hip. Set talk gives way to searching for the newly launched sauce. They find it in aisle 6. Markus bobs a jar up and down to mimic the explosion of the advert. Hilarity bubbles up from inside. Nina holds his eye while holding a jar at arm’s length. It bursts when she drops it. A grand and jagged starburst appears immediately on the black-and-white tiled floor. A screaming orange scar with shards of glass like cat’s eyes. Tomato protest. A real mess. “Strike!” she stage-whispers the slogan while they rush, wheezing with laughter, under the exit sign.
Music For French Films
Nicholas Royle
1.
Some years ago, in a second-hand record shop, I found a CD called Music for French Films. I recognised the name of the artist. Christian Miller had been the resident pianist in a pizza restaurant in London where I waited on tables after finishing at university.
I listened to the album over and over. I liked it partly because it reminded me of those innocent times when I was in my early twenties and had, as they say, my whole life ahead of me. But, some time later, when I came to copy it into iTunes, just as in my twenties I would have recorded an LP on to a blank cassette so that I could play it on my Walkman, I unchecked the tick boxes for those tracks, dotted throughout the album, on which Miller sang. He sang well, but I prefer instrumentals and, after all, he never sang in the old days. He just played the piano, solo and as an accompanist to artists performing in the restaurant, which was a popular venue for live jazz.
Was the music on Miller’s album even jazz? It featured jazz musicians playing the instruments of jazz — piano, bass, drums, saxophone — but also a string quartet, which interpreted themes I vaguely recognised from films released between 1930 and 1968. Why that particular cut-off, you might wonder. It’s a light album, even whimsical. You won’t come across anything from Jacques Tourneur or Georges Franju or Jean-Pierre Melville. So why, whenever I think of the album now, do I feel as if the sun has gone in behind a cloud?
2.
I met Marie when we were both waiting at the counter for orders. Jose was reaching into the oven with his peel, pulling out pizza after pizza, which he slid on to plates.
“How do you know which one has extra cheese?” I asked her, staring at two Margheritas that seemed to be topped with exactly the same amount of mozzarella.
“The olive,” she said, balancing two plates on her arm. Or, more accurately, Zee olive. The first words she spoke to me.
“What if someone’s ordered extra olives, or it has olives on it anyway?” I said, wanting to extend the conversation.
Marie put her head on one side, her lips forming an embouchure for an invisible saxophone. With her arms already in the correct position for the classic Gallic shrug, she blew a tiny raspberry then walked off carrying five pizzas, a swagger in the sway of her black skirt.
“Hey, kid!” Jose shouted.
I turned to face him and he gestured at the waiting orders. Upstairs, there was a back room where waiters could eat and smoke. A French window led out to a tiny terrace. When it was my break, I carried my pizza up there and saw that Marie was sitting outside smoking. I sat inside and watched her through the window. Her cheek was drawn to a point, like sand sinking into an hourglass, as she sucked on her cigarette. Then she reached over the parapet and tapped the ash into the gap between the buildings. When she had finished, she ground out the butt and chucked that over as well.
3.
I was clearing a table near the entrance when Christian Miller came in. He returned my greeting with a smile and headed for the stairs down to the jazz room. Marie was laying a table close to the top of the stairs. He paused and I watched as they exchanged a few remarks. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I heard Marie’s voice. She didn’t speak much English beyond what she needed to take orders from customers, so I wondered if Christian spoke French and if he spoke it better than I did. She gesticulated, opening out her body towards him. When she had finished, he laughed. She smiled and I heard him say “See you later” as he started down the stairs.
As break time approached, I could hear Christian getting into it downstairs. Sometimes he would play to an empty room. I imagined that if he had a piano at home, it wouldn’t be a grand. I took my pizza down there and sat at the back of the room. It wasn’t long before Marie came down also. It was always dark in the jazz room, with black walls and spotlights, so there was no reason why she should see me on entering the room. She sat at a table closer to the piano and lit a cigarette, her pizza going cold on a plate beside her. She turned her head the other way and blew a perfect smoke ring. I watched it dissipate slowly as it drifted through the air. Only after she had finished the cigarette did she turn her attention to her pizza, and it wasn’t until I’d finished my own and pushed my plate away that she heard the noise it made and turned around and saw me sitting there.
4.
Marie hadn’t made many friends among the staff. She was the only French national and I the only other French speaker — a slight exaggeration, but I had spent four years studying the language, including a year in Paris, living in the 10th; Rue des Vinaigriers, if you want to know. If some of us went to the pub, she would sit with me and we would talk in French. “I wish I was better at it,” I said. She asked if I missed Paris. “Paris, maybe,” I said. “Not Parisians.” She said she was a Parisian and would be going back at the end of the summer. “Oops,” I said, in English. “You should come,” she said, in French. Or: “You should come back”. Or even, “You should go back”. Did those remarks carry different shades of meaning? I thought of the girls I’d known in Paris and how I’d never known where I stood with them. Whether I was expected to make a move when I slept on Isabelle’s floor. Whether Réjane would have been disappointed I didn’t call. Whether a drink with Laurence was meant to lead to anything. They all seemed so passive, indifferent. Perhaps they thought the same about me.
In September, Marie wrote on her order pad, tore the page off and gave it to me. I read it and asked, “Is this real?” “It’s in the 20th,” she said. It was her last shift. People went to the pub. We sat pressed close together. An Italian waiter said he’d see her in Paris. She smiled. Maybe she’d given her address to everyone. I walked her to the tube and kissed her. She tasted of cigarettes. I cou
ldn’t say whether she kissed me back. She turned and was gone.
5.
I buy two CDs by American jazz piano player and composer Bud Powell. Neither of them is one of the three albums Powell recorded while living in Paris, from 1959 to 1963: A Tribute to Cannonball, A Portrait of Thelonious, Bud Powell in Paris.
Looking like compilations, which I normally avoid, they are The Amazing Bud Powell Vol 1 and Vol 2, comprising standards and original compositions, such as “Parisian Thoroughfare”. They feature several alternate takes; there are two tunes on each album that each have two alternate takes, in addition to other titles that have one. In recent years, there has been a resurgence of enthusiasm for vinyl. Purists disparage CDs, but it’s the perfect format. It has more of that variable of which it takes up less — space. You can copy music from it on to a computer. The only downside, for me, is, precisely because of the amount of space, and perhaps to justify the higher cost (when introduced), CDs are often loaded with alternate — or, in British English, alternative — takes, which I don’t want.
When I copy these albums into iTunes, I think about leaving out the alternate takes, on the assumption that they were added when the albums were made available on CD. But, when I look them up, I find this is not the case. Volumes 1 and 2 were originally released on 10” vinyl in 1952 and rereleased on 12” in 1956 with alternate takes on Volume 1.
Sometimes I want to go back to the past because, in my mind, it was simpler than the present. But am I kidding myself? Was the past just as complex as the present?
6.
I hitched to Dover, got a one-way ticket on the boat, then hitched again. Dropped off in the banlieue, I was soon in the city, walking east along Rue des Vinaigriers. It was late afternoon; the shadows were long. I thought of Laurence, Réjane and Isabelle. Things would be different this time.
I climbed the steps to the Canal Saint-Martin, which I crossed by one of the footbridges, then hugged the perimeter of the Hôpital Saint-Louis, birthplace of Roland Topor. I remembered seeing Polanski’s adaptation of Topor’s novel, The Tenant, in London and in Paris. At the National Film Theatre there had been laughter during one scene — Polanski as Trelkovsky, dressed as a woman with make-up and wig, looking out of the window of his apartment on Rue des Pyrénées, the regular thump-thump of an unseen object, the slowly bouncing ball, exchanged for Trelkovsky’s bewigged and made-up severed head — but when I had seen the film at the Studio Galande there had been silence. Apart from the faint crescendo on Philippe Sarde’s soundtrack. London found it funny; Paris was horrified; I thought it was beautiful.
I walked down Boulevard de Belleville through scattered vegetable debris from the day’s market. I checked my map, turned left and stopped to take the folded slip torn from Marie’s order pad out of my wallet. It had acquired furred edges. I looked at the loops of her handwriting, measured the depth of the impression of her ballpoint on the cheap paper. I ran my fingers over the words, as if they were Braille.
7.
Passage des Soupirs was reached via a set of steps up from Rue des Pyrénées. There was no access for motor vehicles. Some of the buildings had front yards, which residents had filled with pots and shrubs. I found the address that Marie had written down. There was a light on in a window on the top floor.
At first she failed to recognise me.
“You said I should come,” I said, in French.
“I didn’t know you were coming,” she said finally, as if she hadn’t heard me or I hadn’t made sense. Her blank expression had creased up into a frown.
“Well, here I am.”
“Yes. Well. You’d better come in.”
She led the way up to a two-room apartment.
“Nice place,” I said, looking around at the kitchen.
“We share it. My flatmate is away. Where are you staying?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Nowhere.”
She took a cigarette from the pack on the table and lit it, pulling the smoke deep into her lungs.
“You shouldn’t smoke,” I said. “It’s bad for you.”
“You can stay one night,” she said, ignoring my advice. “In Cécile’s room. I have to get ready to go to work.”
“Where do you work?”
Another pause. Then: “In a restaurant, Place des Fêtes.
Most nights. Do you want a coffee?” She had yet to smile since my arrival, but the offer of a coffee was something. She filled a stove-top espresso maker and went off to get ready.
8.
I asked if I could walk with her when she went to work and then walk back. She gave a shrug, which I interpreted as a yes. She was wearing the same black skirt, with a white blouse. She put on a tailored black jacket and then, knotted at the side, a red silk scarf.
The other end of Passage des Soupirs gave on to Rue de la Chine, where we turned left, eventually finding ourselves on Rue Pixérécourt. These residential streets were quiet; it must have been just before or just after the hour at which men return home and then immediately go out again, for bread, and never come back. It was just me and Marie, walking fast with matching strides. Would I become one of those men? Would we marry or live together? Would I return home one day and then go out for bread? We crossed the end of a street that was angled away from our direction of travel. All I saw of it was the blue sign on the wall bearing its name — Rue de l’Avenir — and I said that that was what I loved about France. The poetry of street names: Passage of Sighs, Street of the Future.
“Can you imagine that in England?” I said. “Streets named after abstract ideas, things that don’t exist?”
“You think the future doesn’t exist?” “Yes. Well, not yet anyway.”
“So, it will exist — what, in the future?”
“Yes, but then it will be the present.”
“What about the past? Does that exist?”
“It used to.” I turned towards her but she didn’t look back.
9.
Parting from Marie in Place des Fêtes, but not before I had asked to borrow her keys, I wandered up to the Parc des Buttes Chaumont. Exiting on the north side I made my way to Avenue Secrétan, a busy street I remembered had everything, from supermarkets to boulangeries, hotels, bars, even locksmiths. I picked up a few things then headed back towards the 20th.
I put Marie’s keys down and unpacked my shopping. I opened the Beaujolais, tore the end off a baguette. In Marie’s room I sat on the edge of her bed. Pulling back the covers, I got in. Her pillow smelled of washing powder and an aroma I had never known was hers but now recognised. I relaxed and may have drifted off. After some time I got up and opened the closet, which had a louvred door. I held the material of a dress to my face and inhaled traces of perfume, sweat, cigarettes and that same personal scent. I dropped the dress on the bed and opened a drawer, running my hands through knickers and tights.
I took a shower, then walked around the apartment naked. At the kitchen sink I watched people go past along Passage des Soupirs. Back in Marie’s room I removed books from a shelf — Gide, Camus, de Beauvoir — and put them back in a different order. I picked up my watch. Half an hour remained before she was due back. I went into Cécile’s room, but her things didn’t interest me. In Marie’s room again I hung up the dress, then pushed back the clothes on the rail. I stepped inside, turned around and pulled the door to, peering through the slats.
From the kitchen came the buzz of the doorbell.
10.
Marie was tired and wanted to go straight to bed. In the morning she made coffee and we sat in the kitchen. She lit a cigarette and blew out the smoke in a ragged stream. I decided she brought out the smoke rings only when she felt relaxed.
“I have to go out soon and I’m working later. Will you head back or…?” She spoke quickly as if she had been rehearsing.
“I might find somewhere to stay, if we can see each other…”
“I’m busy.” She flicked her cigarette over the ashtray and glanced at me then turned away
. “I have these meetings, for this thing, and then I’m working. It’s not the right time.”
“What thing’s that?”
“Just a thing I’m doing with some people.”
“Right. OK, look, I’ll get going.”
She flicked ash again. “Good. Another time maybe.” “Right,” I said.
I got my bag, we kissed on both cheeks and I left.
It was dusk before I returned.
The kitchen window was dark. I let myself in using the keys I’d had cut on Avenue Secrétan. I put a light on and made a sandwich. I’d spent the day on foot and was tired. I undressed and got into Marie’s bed. When I woke, it was completely dark outside. I checked my watch. It was after ten. I got up and showered. I patted myself dry with tissues, then wiped down the shower. I sat on the end of the bed to put my shoes on and while I was tying my laces looked at the door to the closet.
I tidied up, switched the lights off and left.
11.
There’s a lot of talk about defining the relationship, less about the defining relationship. Some people are lucky enough to experience their defining relationship early in life and it works out for them. Others experience theirs later. Some never do, or they experience it early and it doesn’t work out.
After Marie, after Paris, I don’t get close to people, or I get close to them in the wrong way. Things don’t work out.
Older now, alone, I live in a continuous, perpetual present. I collect dying media. (I’m not interested in streaming. My life already feels streamed.) With CDs and DVDs, I have something. I’m rewatching French films I saw in the 1980s and 1990s when I was too immature or my judgement was skewed. I don’t know, though. I watch Trois couleurs: Bleu. How hard is it to find a blue lampshade in Paris, or a swimming pool? As for the soundtrack, the Zbigniew Preisner is good, but the way Kieślowski uses it — with these odd pauses — is bizarre. It may not be all bad, but I don’t think it’s all that.
We'll Never Have Paris Page 17