“That’s what you eat when you have something else in mind, chéri,” Solène explained, the corner of her mouth twitching suspiciously.
“Would you believe it?” said Allan, shaking his head as he fearlessly dunked a big chunk of baguette in the egg mixture and chewed on it gingerly. “Interesting,” he said, and nodded a couple of times. “Tastes interesting. But I somehow prefer fried eggs, sunny-side up.” He quickly washed the gloop down with a big gulp of red wine, threw his napkin down on the plate, and looked at me. “Now I’m looking forward to my steak. But first you and I have something to discuss.”
With these words Allan Wood very quickly came to the actual reason for our meal, and Solène, who found everything to do with business “frightfully boring,” stood up and reached for her little black patent-leather purse to go and freshen up, as she said.
Even before she came back, the essentials had been worked out. Even if I’d previously had reservations about making my cinema available for the shooting of Tender Thoughts of Paris, these had quickly been allayed—Allan Wood’s engaging manner and the prospect of the not inconsiderable sum that the director was offering me for my inconvenience and the fact that I’d have to shut the Cinéma Paradis for a week were just too convincing. “A week should be enough to get those few scenes in the can,” he said, and it sounded so innocuous and simple.
As we happily raised our glasses to our “mutual project” and Allan Wood explained to me that he intended to start shooting in three weeks’ time, I had no idea what that would mean for my little cinema, and above all for me. I had not the slightest clue about the excitements of the coming weeks, nor about my despair, my hopes, nor about the whole complicated tangle, which had begun with a sad little story that had taken place in Paris many years before.
While our main course was being served and I listened to Allan Wood talking about his new film, I wondered what Uncle Bernard would have said about it all. Even if Tender Thoughts of Paris wasn’t, strictly speaking, going to be a truly impressionist film, the whole thing still sounded like a story he would have liked. I would have loved to have been able to tell him that his old cinema was being so highly honored. And that I had found the love of my life in the Cinéma Paradis.
Allan Wood had come to the end of his story. “So, what do you think of the plot?” he asked.
“Sounds as if it’ll make a really good film,” I replied, suddenly proud and happy. I thought of Mélanie and would have liked her to be with me. I was eager to see her reaction and was sure that she’d be just as impressed as I was.
In my mind’s eye I could already see another framed photo in the cinema. It was of Solène Avril and Allan Wood, and written above it in black pen was the caption: We loved it here in the Cinéma Paradis—Allan and Solène.
“I’m really glad that we can shoot the film in Alain’s cinema rather than with those boring people in La Pagode,” said Solène after we had, by mutual consent, given up on dessert and gone straight to cups of espresso, which were served on a little silver tray with cookies. “It’ll be a really fun week. I’m already looking forward to it.”
La Pagode, in the rue Babylone, was the oldest cinema in Paris. Uncle Bernard had watched Laurel and Hardy films there as a child, and he’d told me that La Pagode had originally been a Japanese-style dance hall built by the architect of the department store Bon Marché for his wife at the end of the nineteenth century. It was in the seventh arrondissement and was surrounded by an enchanting garden in which Solène had had her first kiss at the age of thirteen.
“The garden was lovely, but the kiss was gross,” she said with a laugh. “But I never went to the cinema itself. My parents lived in Saint-Germain, after all, and when we went to the cinema as children, which, to be honest, wasn’t very often, we always went to the Cinéma Paradis. We must have just missed each other there, don’t you think, Alain?”
I smiled at the thought that we could have met back then. There were, I imagined, about five years between me and Solène. Five years that are so important in childhood and so totally meaningless later. I thought of the many afternoons in the Cinéma Paradis, of Uncle Bernard, whom I had told them about the evening of my first kiss and the little girl with the braids, and somehow had a feeling that things were coming full circle.
“I have an idea! How do you feel about holding the premiere of the film in the Cinéma Paradis?” Solène was already back in the here and now and was completely carried away by her brainstorm. She picked a little white flower off Allan Wood’s jacket. “That would be very charmant, chéri, don’t you think?”
Shortly after midnight, we were sitting in the bar. Because after he’d charged the check to his room, Allan Wood had had yet another idea. “And now we’ll have one more little drink in the Hemingway Bar,” he’d said. “I think I could do with a nightcap.”
“Oh, yes, a last nightcap. Come along, Alain!” Solène had already taken my arm and guided me along an endlessly long corridor. Lining its sides, there were massive showcases displaying expensive jewelry and fine purses, cigars, and porcelain, dresses, swimsuits, and shoes for the rich and beautiful people of this world—certainly they would be out of most people’s reach. But Solène pulled me along with her, not even deigning to look at all the displays.
And so we found ourselves a little later sitting on a leather sofa in the wood-paneled hotel bar, surrounded by photos and sculptures of Hemingway, hunting rifles, fishing rods, and old black typewriters with little round keys. Mojitos in hand, we celebrated Paris, because Paris was a festival of life.
I must admit that my two new friends would have had no trouble fitting in with the wild party mood that had swept Paris in the twenties, when people were celebrating life to banish the horrors of war.
“ ‘If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man,’ ” Allan started for the second time, and his voice sounded a little slurred as he quoted the great Hemingway, “ ‘then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you …’ ” He waved his glass and the mojito almost spilled over the edge.
“To Paris!”
“To Paris!” we replied.
“And to the greatest writer of all time!”
“To Hemingway!” we shouted boisterously, and some of the guests looked over at us and laughed,
I was more than a little surprised when I realized that the weedy New York director, whom I could hardly imagine—if only for reasons of his own safety—with a shotgun, had, of all people, chosen as his idol the man who was a synonym for big-game hunting, war, and danger and who, so they say, never missed the opportunity for a fistfight.
“Do you know, Al-lang, I’m a big Hemingway fan,” Allan had confided in me as we walked into the bar. “I mean, what a man!” He’d run his hand over the bust of Hemingway standing in a corner near the bar. “I admire him. He could fight. And he could write! I’d like to see anyone else do the same.” Then he’d stopped at the black typewriter that stood on a pedestal to the rear of the bar and tapped tentatively at a couple of the keys. “Someday I’m going to make a film where Hemingway plays a role,” he’d said with a decisive nod.
It wasn’t the first time Allan Wood had been here. The bartender, a loquacious man who loved signing copies of his own cocktail book, which was on sale in the bar, had greeted him with a handshake, taken the RESERVED sign off the table, and invited us to sit down on the sofa.
While we drank our mojitos, Allan became talkative. He talked about his daughter, whom he had last seen a few years before in the Hemingway Bar. “I’m afraid it wasn’t a very pleasant meeting,” he said pensively. “I believe my daughter has never forgiven me for leaving her mother and marrying another woman. I’ve heard nothing of her since that disastrous evening.” He raised his hands in a gesture of regret.
I knew that he had three marriages and several relationships behind him, and that they had produced some children. But the fact that he had a daughter in Paris was new to me.
A y
oung woman in a white blouse with her dark hair wound in a perfect chignon put a new dish of nuts and salted almonds on our table. She had a little name badge on her chest. Allan Wood straightened his glasses. “Thanks … Melinda,” he said affably.
The tall, slim girl went away smiling, and Allan Wood looked sadly after her. You could see that he was thinking of his daughter. “She always walked very upright,” he said. “Like a ballet dancer.” Solène stood up, and several guests looked over with interest.
“Oh, come on, chéri, it’s been such a lovely evening, let’s not get miserable. I certainly don’t want that. You’ll see your daughter again someday. In the end, you always see people again.” She reached for her purse. “I’d like a cigarette now, and I’d like a little stroll in the fresh air before I go to bed. Who’s coming with me?”
Allan shook his head. He wanted to stay, and joined the barman at the counter. As we left the Hemingway Bar, the two men were already deep in conversation.
Two guys in leather jackets were lounging in the seats near the door. They were sitting under a photograph of Hemingway with a fish. They looked after us and whispered to each other.
It was only as I was giving Solène a light outside the hotel and she leaned toward me for a moment and puffed the smoke out with a satisfied sigh that I realized that we were alone. At this hour of the night, there wasn’t even a doorman standing at the entrance.
I lit a cigarette for myself, too, and looked up at the victory column towering like a golden obelisk against the night sky in the beam of the spotlights. Not that there was any reason for it, not that I had any intentions, but I felt strangely self-conscious, and, in the silence of that great square, I became suddenly aware of how extraordinary this situation was.
“What are you thinking about, Alain?” asked Solène.
“Nothing. No, that’s not true. I was just thinking … well … how quiet it is here,” I said. “Like on a lonely island.”
“Happiness is always a little island,” said Solène, smiling. “I guess we were both thinking the same thing. Come on, let’s take a little walk.”
She took my arm. Our steps rang out as we passed the stores, whose displays were still lit up even at this hour of the night, and the smell of our cigarettes mingled with the heady scent of her perfume.
“You have a very unusual perfume. What is it?” I asked.
She gave me a sidelong glance and with her free hand tucked back a stray lock of hair. “Do you like it? It’s Guerlain. L’Heure Bleue. A very old perfume. Just imagine, it’s been around since 1920.”
“Incredible. I like it a lot.”
“And I like you, Alain.”
“Me? Oh my goodness.” I grinned in embarrassment. “As a man, I’m a disaster. I don’t hunt, I don’t box, and I can’t even play the piano.”
“That really is a disaster.” She laughed. “I bet you can’t even dance, but that’s not important. What’s up here”—she tapped my forehead—“that’s important, that’s attractive, and that’s what I like so much about you. You know a lot, you’re intelligent, and you have imagination. I can see that right away.” She gave me a roguish look. “It’s true. You have a good mind. A real intellectual, a bit shy perhaps, but I find that very sweet.”
A shy intellectual! I shook my head. It’s astonishing what people project onto you just because you don’t chatter away the whole time.
“Come on, I’m not that intellectual!”
“You don’t know Texan farmers.” Solène sighed, then came to a sudden halt and looked at me. “And me? Do you find me attractive? Purely theoretically, I mean.” A few fine light blond hairs drifted across her face and she drew her lips into a smile. She stood there, a shining light in the darkness, and waited for an answer.
I felt very strange. Was I being propositioned by Solène Avril? Everything seemed unreal. The ground seemed to quiver beneath me and I could feel the earth moving. I swallowed and cleared my throat. “Goodness, Solène, what sort of a question is that? Of course I find you attractive. And not just in theory. Just look at yourself! You’re as far removed from theory as a summer day from a … from a filing cabinet. I mean, is there any man at all who could resist you? You’re so beautiful and radiant … and really very … very seductive …” my voice trailed off and I ran my hands through my hair.
“Do I hear a ‘but’ there?”
“Solène … I …”
“Well?” A strange glint came into her deep blue eyes.
It really wasn’t easy, and I was probably the greatest idiot the world has ever seen, because this was without doubt one of those moments in life that will never be repeated. But then another image crossed my view like the face of the moon. I saw an old chestnut tree and a girlish young woman in a red coat whispering, “Might this be the moment?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s not the right moment.”
“So there’s someone?”
I nodded. “Yes. And it’s not just anyone, Solène. I’ve really fallen in love—with a woman who’s been on my mind for several months. I kissed her for the first time on Wednesday. And it feels as if I’ve always loved her, even if I haven’t always known her. Can you understand that?” I put my hand to my heart. “I hope you’re not angry with me.”
Solène was silent for a moment. Then she smiled. “Oh dear, it obviously seems to be our fate just to miss each other.” She took my arm again. “Of course I’m not angry with you, but couldn’t you have waited a couple of days with that kiss? Then at least I might have had a slim chance.”
I laughed, relieved that she had taken it so calmly. Solène Avril definitely had all kinds of chances, as she very well knew. As we continued on around the square, she gave me a coquettish look and sighed. “Okay, fair enough, since you’re head over heels in love. Then I wish you luck—and I’ll drop by in ten years’ time.”
“In ten years’ time, you’ll have long forgotten me.”
“Or you me.”
“That’ll be hard, with you smiling down from every screen.”
“Serves you right.”
By this time we’d made a complete circuit of the place Vendôme, and Solène pulled me over to the display in a jewelry store a few yards from the entrance to the Ritz. She looked at the watches, the sparkling rings and necklaces that were on sale at astronomical prices. “Perhaps you should buy something nice for your girl?”
“I’m afraid they’re not exactly in my price range.”
“But they are in mine,” she said. “At least they are nowadays. Cartier, Chanel, Dior—all no problem. Have you got another cigarette for me?”
I held out the pack to her and gave her a light.
“Thanks.” She exhaled the smoke and watched it thoughtfully. “My parents didn’t have much money. They found it difficult to make ends meet. Our whole apartment was about as big as my bathroom today in Santa Monica. I was beautiful, ambitious, and obnoxious. As soon as I got the chance, I left Paris with an exchange student from San Francisco—Victor.” Her expression darkened a moment and she flipped her ash away. “Then I lived in Carmel for a couple of years.” Memory made her voice go soft. “Do you know Carmel?” I shook my head, but she seemed not to notice. “Carmel. Even the name sounds precious, don’t you think? A little place right on the Pacific shore. There’s an old monastery there, and an endless golden beach. You can hardly imagine the distance. When you’re sitting there, you forget everything.”
She smoked on in silence and I just stood there and waited. Night was a good time for confessions.
“Then I was approached on the beach at Carmel,” she said. “I had a job in a coffee shop to keep my head above water. Then I was suddenly the face they were looking for. Screen tests, auditions, my first film. And then everything moved very fast. It was uncanny.” She laughed. “All at once, I had money. A lot of money. I could hardly take it all in. Everything was so easy.” She shook her head. “With my first wages I gave my parents a trip to Saint-Tropez. To the Hôtel B
elrose.” She leaned against the wall of the jewelry store and pulled her dark stole around her shoulders. “My mother always dreamed of a once-in-a-lifetime holiday in Saint-Tropez with my father. They couldn’t afford expensive journeys. She thought Saint-Tropez was the greatest. There was an old poster of the Côte d’Azur hanging in her sewing room, and she always used to gaze at it. Before they set off, Maman called me one last time. Her voice was full of excitement—she sounded like a young woman again. She was so happy. ‘I think this is the happiest day of my life, child,’ she said.” Solène swallowed. All of a sudden, she seemed sad, and I wondered why.
“What a wonderful idea,” I said hesitantly. Solène looked at me, her dark eyes shining.
“No, not such a wonderful idea,” she said bitterly, and threw her glowing cigarette butt on the ground. She pressed her lips together, and I was afraid that she’d burst into tears.
“My parents had a fatal accident on the way. Some overtired truck driver who didn’t look in his mirror before changing lanes. They never reached Saint-Tropez.”
“Oh my God, Solène, that’s terrible!” Without thinking, I put my arm around her. “I am so sorry!”
“It’s all right,” she said, wiping her eyes. “It was all so long ago. I don’t know what suddenly made me think about it again. It’s so strange to be back here in Paris after all those years—perhaps that’s why.”
She attempted a smile, and then with a quick movement she brushed a lock of hair from my forehead. “Thanks for the walk anyway, Alain. You’re really very sweet. Your girlfriend is lucky.”
And then it happened. Out of the blue. At first, I thought a lightning storm had crept up on us. I hunched my shoulders and waited instinctively for the growl of the thunder. A blinding flash pierced the darkness, then another. I raised my hand in self-defense and closed my eyes, blinded. When I opened them, I was looking straight down the lens of a camera.
The Secret Paris Cinema Club Page 7