by Paige Elwood
He was particularly taken with The Gates of Hell, recognizing it as a representation of Dante’s Inferno before they’d even read the information plaque. Sophie was impressed, although she found the sculpture itself a little morbid for her own tastes.
“Have you seen The Inferno on the stage?” Sophie asked him.
“A few times. It’s very popular,” he said.
“Yes, it’s still very famous now,” Sophie said. “I haven’t seen it myself, though.”
They looked around the other external exhibits. Sophie found that she much preferred The Kiss to the slightly disturbing Gates of Hell. Edouard on the other hand, found The Kiss a little more shocking and improper. They both enjoyed the paintings, particularly the Van Gogh exhibits. She found him a good companion, easy to chat to, and they settled into a comfortable friendship.
When they’d had their fill of the Musee Rodin, Sophie had one more museum that she really wanted Edouard to see. She giggled as they entered the sewer tunnels of the Musee des Egouts.
“This is what your Paris smells like,” she said. “At least, it’s what some of the streets smelled like to me.”
He nodded, his nose wrinkling. “I think you are right. Perhaps I shall come here if I am feeling homesick!”
When they exited the sewer tunnels, they walked arm in arm through the Champ du Mars, taking the time to appreciate the sweeter smelling air before getting lunch at a terrace café.
People sometimes stared at them as they walked, and Sophie wondered what they thought their connection was. She guessed they thought he was her grandfather or elderly uncle. They’d be astounded if they knew the truth.
They stayed out all day, exploring the city together. They visited more landmarks and ventured off the beaten track to see what still remained of Edouard’s Paris. Sophie was thrilled to see that the Petellier mansion still stood, albeit now separated into several grand-looking houses instead of one large residence.
When they reached the spot where Edouard’s home should have stood, they were disappointed to find instead a selection of modern office blocks and a shiny new Starbucks. Sophie sighed. She supposed it was unrealistic to have expected all the familiar buildings to have survived.
“I’m sorry your home isn’t still there,” she said.
“It would not really be my home anyway in this time.” He shrugged. “You are in this time, and that is why I am here. Houses are just buildings made of stone and cold materials. You, are my home,” he said, taking her hand and kissing the back of it.
Tears prickled in her eyes at the genuine sentiment in his words. It was true, she thought, that home was not a place. It was a person, or a collection of people that you tethered your soul to, and not a physical structure. Was it true then, she wondered, that home was also not a specific time.
Her head whirled again, and she put the thoughts away. They were too overwhelming, and she’d been enjoying the day so far. She didn’t want to spoil it. She quickly wiped at her eyes to brush away the dampness, and smiled. The sun was beginning to set, and she was starting to feel hungry.
“I must get back to my hotel,” she said. “But would you like to join me for dinner?”
“Of course,” His eyes lit up at her suggestion, but then he seemed crestfallen. “I have no money to pay.”
He looks desolate, Sophie thought. It must be strange having come from his own time where he was one of the wealthiest men in the city, to looking like a beggar and having nothing to his name.
“That’s ok, it’s not unusual in this century for a woman to pay.” She laughed at his aghast expression. “Honestly. You paid for all of my things in your time when I had nothing.”
“That was different, it was my fault,” he said.
“Still,” she said, smiling. “Let me have the honor of repaying the favor a little anyway.”
He nodded. “It would be very nice to spend the evening with you.”
“Then it’s a date,” she said. He screwed up his face in confusion. “I mean, it’s settled. We’ll go for dinner.”
He walked her back to the hotel, and she left him chatting to Sabine while she changed. “I will make sure he has better clothes,” Sabine called after her as the elevator doors began to close. Sophie flashed her the thumbs-up sign in the brief seconds before the doors slid shut.
Sophie changed quickly, wanting to make the most of her time with Edouard. She chose her clothes in record time, opting for a simple royal blue shift dress and the buttery soft ankle boots she’d purchased the other day.
When she arrived back in reception, Edouard was dressed in a dinner suit that was obviously good quality but hung off his frail frame and accentuated his elderly appearance. His eyes lifted to hers as she walked through the plush carpeted reception, and once again she was transported back to the moment on Notre Dame when they had kissed and she’d fallen head over heels in love.
It was a bittersweet, but not unwelcome memory, and she was moved by it. They’d only known each other a few weeks, and yet she and this man had experienced so much together. So many beginnings and endings and an intensity of emotion that most people would never discover they were capable of.
The taxi pulled up out front, but before they went out to meet it, Sabine stopped Sophie and said, “I have made you a reservation here.”
She handed Sophie a small piece of paper. Sophie read it and gasped. It was one of Paris’ finest, most exclusive, and most expensive restaurants. “I can’t afford this,” she whispered to Sabine. She’d promised Edouard dinner, but she’d been thinking more rustic bistro than Michelin stars.
Sabine waved her away. “It is taken care of.”
“How?” asked Sophie, her eyes wide as saucers.
“Magic?” Sabine shrugged. Sophie smiled. Maybe she didn’t need to know. Why not just enjoy it?
It was a fairytale evening in the city of love, and as they talked and laughed over fine food and wine, she could almost forget that the man in front of her was an aged, wrinkled old man. Sometimes, she would look at him from the corner of her eye and see him as he was when she fell in love. Young, strong, handsome.
She was having a lovely evening, but she wished with all her heart that they could have enjoyed it together in both of their real bodies, the one that had saved her from being run down by a carriage and lifted her over the banks of the Seine.
By the time she climbed into her bed, she was full of food and thoroughly contented apart from that one thing. What would she give to have time together as it should be, and not with the barrier of his artificial age? There wasn’t very much she wouldn’t give, she thought, before sleep claimed her.
Chapter 36
Edouard waited for Sophie to enter the hotel and go to her own room before he followed her inside and went to his room on the floor above. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t want Sophie to know he was staying there. He supposed he just thought she should feel like she had some space to think.
Sabine was sitting behind the desk, fiddling with the flowers in the vase. Edouard thought it unnecessary—they already looked fine. She looked up and saw him standing there.
“How did it go? Sophie looked happy,” she said.
Edouard shrugged. “I think we are friends now. We saw the city together. We had dinner together, and it was very nice.”
“But…?”
“But I do not know if she is just being kind to an old man, and she is simply happy to spend a few days with me before returning home,” he said miserably.
“You’re expecting too much, too soon,” Sabine tried to reassure him. “Give her time.”
“I don’t have as long as last time, and I’m disadvantaged in this form. I look old enough to be her great-grandfather.” He gestured to his wizened body.
“Yes, you do.” She said in her usual matter-of-fact tone. “But Sophie remembers what you looked like before, and love doesn’t just vanish, Edouard. It retreats occasionally, but it never goes away.”
“How do I ma
ke sure it comes back?” he asked. “What can I do?”
“You give her the courtesy of making her own choices and hope that she makes the same one as you. That is the only option I can think of.”
“What if she doesn’t choose me?” He couldn’t bear the idea that he couldn’t fix what he’d broken. This was his real curse—the old curse was nothing compared to this.
“Then she doesn’t.” She paused. “You know, you could tell her you’ll stay here. It might persuade her.”
He shook his head. “I need it to be her choice, to decide again that she would sacrifice everything like she did before. That way we both know it’s real and not just pity.”
“True. I would like to stay here regardless.”
“Why? You have a husband back home.”
“He doesn’t love me. It’s a convenient partnership. Here, though, I can be without a husband and nobody cares.”
“This time does seem to suit you.” She was still the straight-talking woman he’d known in his own time, but she was a little less sharp and aggressive here.
“I like being Helene. I like the convenience of this time.” She held up one of those metal rectangles that everybody seemed to own in this time. “I got a cellphone,” she said proudly.
“What do you need one for?” Edouard asked.
“You can send people short letters on it so that you don’t have to speak to them in real life,” Sabine said.
“That sounds depressing.” Edouard wasn’t sure they were a good idea. Sophie seemed to enjoy hers, though. She had shown him a kind of navigation system on hers that was a talking map. It was amazing and terrifying in equal measures.
“I like it.” Sabine shrugged. “Anyway, I think you can speak to people through it as well.”
“Who would you speak to?”
“David,” Sabine said. At Edouard’s blank look, she said, “the man who works here too.” She smiled coyly, and Edouard couldn’t help but grin too. It was the first time he’d seen Sabine’s softer side.
“Perhaps you could stay here somehow, then.”
“You brought me here. If you stay, the ring’s magic will keep me here too.”
“If I go back?”
“I’m hoping you won’t. I can attempt my own magic, but it might not work.”
Edouard smiled sadly. “I can’t go back anyway. If Sophie won’t forgive me and agree to be with me forever, then I will stay here anyway.”
Sabine eyed him warily. “What?” he said. “One of us might as well be happy. I have nothing to go back for.”
If he couldn’t be with Sophie, then nothing seemed to have meaning. He certainly didn’t want to go back to his own time and have his father marry him off to a noblewoman he could never love.
“Your body here won’t last very long,” she said.
“No, maybe not,” he said. He didn’t care.
“That doesn’t concern you?” She frowned.
“No.” He had nothing to live for if Sophie didn’t choose him. He could stay in this time and live out the few years left in this body. Nothing would matter to him anyway, and if it would make Sabine happy then at least he could do something good.
Sabine nodded, apparently understanding his morbid thoughts. “Do you want me to send anything up to your room?”
“No, actually, I think I’ll go for a walk.” He slipped out of the door into the cool night air. He needed to clear his head a little.
Edouard took a stroll to Notre Dame. He hadn’t intended to go there, but it had always been like a beacon to him and so he drifted there anyway. He took a seat on a bench that was almost in the same spot as the one in his time. He looked up at the stars as he had done only days ago, although it was technically centuries.
The stars were still there, but they were harder to see now. The city never seemed to be dark with buildings and street lights shining brightly all of the time. Edouard was awed by the fact that these stars were the same as they had been then. They’d watched over him in both versions of Paris. At least something was constant.
Somebody took a seat on the bench next to him. Edouard glanced over, and saw it was a priest. “You seem to be contemplating something important,” the priest said.
“The stars,” said Edouard, “and eternal love.”
“Big topics,” the priest said. “You seem more melancholy than a person contemplating eternal love, if you don’t mind me saying.”
Edouard turned to look at the priest. He was middle-aged with graying hair at the temples and kindly gray eyes. “You remind me of the priest in my hometown. He was… is… a friend.”
“You could always talk to me instead,” the priest said.
“Do you believe in eternal love, Father?” He asked.
“Of course.” The priest seemed surprised at the direct question.
“What if someone found it and lost it? Could they ever be happy again?” He was sure they couldn’t, but he asked anyway.
“You can’t lose it. It’s eternal,” the priest said.
Edouard nodded. “Has she passed away?” the priest said, clearly taking in Edouard’s drastically-aged appearance and making an assumption.
“No,” he said. “I drove her away by telling a couple of lies. I thought I was doing it for the right reasons, but really I was being selfish.”
“What kind of lies?” The priest leaned forward.
“I got her to travel back to my time,” Edouard said. Why not tell the truth, he thought? Lies got him in a terrible mess, so he might as well see if the truth could help him out of it.
The priest leaned back and scrutinized Edouard, as though trying to tell if he believed his own story or was trying to play a trick. Edouard smiled. “I’m not crazy. Although I know why you think I am.”
The priest just looked at him silently a while longer, and then acceptance passed through his kind gray eyes. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter how you came to believe you lost eternal love. It’s just important that you realize you can’t lose it.”
“I’m running out of time,” Edouard said. “If she doesn’t forgive me soon then it will be too late. I don’t want anything in this world except to be with her. I would give everything up for her. My title, my land, my riches, my life back home…”
He put his head in his hands. Nothing was worth losing her, nothing at all. He’d give up anything she asked if she would rekindle their love.
“If you can get her to see that you are truly sorry, then she will likely forgive you. True, eternal love cannot exist one-sided. If it is what you say, then she will certainly forgive you in the end.”
“I wish I could have as much faith as you, Father.”
“Ahh. Yes. Well, it’s in my job description.” The priest stood. “I must go now, but I will pray that your faith will be strengthened.”
“Thank you,” Edouard said. He returned his gaze to the stars as the priest walked away. He thought of Sophie and the time they’d spent together in both centuries. He’d enjoyed courting her in his time, and she’d enjoyed the fine dresses and the balls, but seeing her here, he understood it was where she obviously belonged.
He had nothing to return for. His life was here because she was here. If she would have him, he would leave his time behind permanently and stay here with her. He could only hope that she’d have him. He closed his eyes and said his own prayer, his face still tilted to the stars.
Chapter 37
Sophie skipped breakfast again, eager to see more of the city with Edouard. Today was her last day in Paris, and she wanted to make the most of the time she had. She couldn’t believe it had only been two weeks since she got off the plane at Charles de Gaulle. It felt like a lifetime had passed. In the space of that time she’d found love, lost it, and rediscovered it in the form of a deep friendship.
She wanted to revisit Notre Dame today, properly. To see the inside of the cathedral and the reliquary. She’d regret it if she didn’t visit again in the current century. The fact that she wou
ld be visiting it with Edouard seemed right somehow.
Sabine was on at reception again when Sophie passed. She stopped on her way past the desk, and Sabine looked up quizzically.
“Why do you work in the hotel if it’s not really your job?” Sophie asked. Now that she knew who she was and why she was here, Sophie found it strange that she didn’t just enjoy her time in this century.
“I like it,” Sabine said. “I like this century too, I may even stay.”
“Can you do that?” she asked, incredulous. “What about your husband?”
“What about him?” shrugged Sabine. “He’s a lazy oaf and he won’t miss me. Here, I can be truly independent in a way that could never happen back in my time.”
“Can you stay?”
Sabine shrugged. “I don’t know. Edouard’s magic is in the rings. I’m unsure of all they can do now that the curse has been broken. I hitched a ride on that magic, but my own power may keep me here if I wish to stay.”
“I think this century suits you,” Sophie said. Sabine smiled, and Sophie decided she was a much nicer person in this time than in her own. Maybe it was best that she stayed.
She pushed open the heavy door, the creak it gave off now a familiar sound, and stepped into the spring sunshine. Edouard was waiting outside already for her. His smile when he saw her lit up his face, and she found herself looking into the same amber eyes that had belonged to his younger self. They said that the eyes were windows to the soul, and Sophie thought that when she looked into his she could see the exact same soul that had been the other part of her own at one time.
“So where shall we go today?” he asked, those deceptively youthful eyes twinkling.
“I thought we could visit your hospital,” she said.
“It is still there?” he looked astounded.
“It is, I Googled it last night,” she said. His look of alarm gave her a fit of giggles. “It just means I checked last night, on the internet, and it exists.”