However, the Texan with the cowboy manners was not present at this congenial evening on the roof terrace of the Georges, where half the film crew had gathered to drink to Solène Avril’s health. In her anger, she had exiled her jealous lover to the Texas desert before he could do any more damage. To the great delight of Carl, who now never left her side.
And even handsome Howard Galloway, who was sitting farther down the table in an elegant gray Armani suit, must have been very relieved to hear that the belligerent American—who had apparently also turned up in the Hemingway Bar and, with the words “Let’s settle this like men,” challenged him to fisticuffs outside—had now been banished to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
“It’s all over with Ted. Çela suffit,” Solène had said to me when she invited me to her little birthday party. “You have to know when it’s finished.”
Even though the starters had not arrived, the mood at the table was exuberant. I toasted Solène, who was sitting opposite me with champagne-flushed cheeks. She was so lovely that evening in her sea blue gown, which seemed to reflect the color of her eyes. She was sitting there like a benevolent Scheherazade, telling one story after another and even allowing Carl to squeeze her hand from time to time. It was her birthday, and she was as happy as a little girl. Her high spirits carried us all along with them—even me, the most miserable of all.
I leaned back in my chair and let my gaze wander over the terrace with its atmospheric lighting. Three gigantic white tubes towering diagonally out of the floor a bit farther away transformed the restaurant into the deck of an ocean liner, sailing through the Paris night as if through an endless, sparkling sea. You forget from time to time, as you forget a beautiful hanging in the living room over the dinner table, but anyone who has ever sat up there on a spring evening knows once again why Paris is called the “City of Lights.”
On my left was the spotlit cathedral of Notre Dame; I could see the sparkling Eiffel Tower in the distance. I saw the lights on the grand boulevards, where the cars were traveling up and down incessantly, as small as children’s toys. I saw the bridges spanning the Seine like golden bows. I saw the laughing faces around me, and wished I could be lighthearted once more, experience the lightness I had sensed as I walked the streets of Paris by night, thinking myself the happiest person in the world.
Once again, I thought of the crumpled little letter that was now lying in the top drawer of my desk. How often I had taken it out and tenderly smoothed it flat in recent weeks.
Mélanie was not the adventurous type. That was what she had written to me. But wherever she was now, and whatever she was doing, she had given me the most adventurous weeks of my life. “We’ll always have Paris,” Humphrey Bogart said to Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. And I would always have a happy evening that ended under an old chestnut tree. The girl in the red coat would remain the sweet but sore point in my biography: the promise that was never kept; the mystery that would always remain a mystery. And yet I regretted nothing. Someday it would be less painful. Someday my heart would be light again. I had only to let it happen.
I finished my champagne. Solène was right. You have to know when it’s finished. Robert had arranged for us to have dinner with Melissa and her friend the following weekend. The friend was supposed to be exactly my type. We’d see.
Liz, who was sitting next to me, got me involved in conversation. After a while, I saw, to my astonishment, that half an hour had passed without my wallowing in my misery. And when the plates with the scallops were finally banged down on the table by a Claudia Schiffer look-alike, I got as annoyed as everyone else about the unfriendliness of the service, and like everyone else, I burst out laughing when Allan, in comic desperation, said that the lamb he’d chosen as his main course tasted somehow of ashes—and, in fact, the underside was black and charred—and Carl had to saw away so violently at his steak that the whole table rocked. “How are you supposed to eat steak with such a blunt knife?” he complained. “I might as well eat it with my fingers.”
Solène waved to the blond waitress, who, after awhile, tottered over on her stilettos.
“C’était?” she asked, and without waiting for an answer, she began to clear our plates away.
Solène shook her head. In a couple of short sentences, she put the waitress straight, pointing out Allan’s charred lamb and ordering a steak knife for Carl.
With a sigh of irritation, the blond would-be model with the coral red lips took the plate with the half-incinerated lamb, and then with a bored look at the steak, she said impertinently, “Excuse me, monsieur, that meat is soft as butter; you don’t need a steak knife for it,” and moved away from the table.
“Hey, wait a minute!” Carl shouted angrily after her. “Do you know who you’re talking to? And this steak is not as soft as butter. Just take it away!” You could see that he was just about to leap up from his seat and throw plate and steak together after the ignorant creature who didn’t give a damn that she had a world-famous star at her table.
Solène put her hand on his arm. “No, don’t, Carl—it’s such a lovely evening.”
And so it was, even if the food was mediocre and the service catastrophic. We’d all drunk and laughed a lot, and in spite of everything, it was an unbelievable privilege to sit here floating over Paris by night.
The dessert was delicious—unexpectedly. After the raspberries and strawberries, the crème brûlée, and the pistachio macaroons had been served and eaten, I excused myself for a moment and strolled over to the edge of the terrace to smoke a cigarette. I leaned over the railing, flicked the ash downward, and looked at the sparkling city.
“Magical, isn’t it?”
Even without turning, I knew it was Solène. She had quietly followed me and come to stand behind me. A waft of heliotrope filled the air and I could feel the warmth that emanated from her and her desire to share this quiet moment with me. So we stood silent for a while at the metal railing as if we were on board a ship, absorbing the view of the glittering city; it looked as if the sky with all its stars had crashed at our feet.
“Sometimes I long to be what I once was,” said Solène suddenly.
“What were you?” I said, turning around to face her.
Her eyes were deep blue as she swept Paris with her gaze. “So unself-conscious. No purpose in life. Happy in a simple way. As a child, I was happy without wanting to be. I mean, I never thought about whether I was happy or whether I wanted to be happy; I just was.”
“And today?”
She said nothing for a while. “Sometimes I am, but often I’m not. When you get older, there comes a time when you realize that what’s called happiness consists only of individual lovely moments, those special times that you remember later on.” She smiled pensively. “This is one of those moments. I feel overwhelmed by a sense of being at home.”
I nodded silently. The view over the city gave rise to a kind of longing in me. It was as if there was, over the evening horizon, something that I was missing terribly without being able to define it exactly.
“And you, are you happy?” asked Solène.
“I suppose I was very close to it.”
I didn’t want it to sound so sad, I really didn’t, but I suppose it must have, because Solène suddenly put both her arms around me and hugged me tight. “I’m so sorry, Alain,” she said softly. “I wish you had found her. If only I could do something for you. I know it’s not the same, but I’d gladly be there for you. I like you a lot.”
We stood together for a moment, and then I gently freed myself from her embrace. “Thanks, Solène. I like you a lot, too.” I sighed. “It’s dumb, but we often have so little influence on the important things in life.”
She smiled. “Sometimes we do.”
We looked at each other for a moment, considering our options. I was leaning with my back against the iron railing, and all at once I had the feeling that someone was watching us. Irritated, I looked over at our table. But they were all chatting away
and no one seemed to be missing us, not even Carl, who had slid over to Solène’s place and was talking to Allan Wood’s daughter.
I was strangely moved. Shaking my head, I said, “Come on, let’s go back to the others,” and just took a last searching look over Solène’s shoulder.
And then I saw her. At the other end of the roof terrace, right beside the entrance, stood a young woman in a white summer dress with a bright flowery pattern. She was standing bolt upright and perfectly still, her unwavering gaze fixed on us. And the color of her hair was reminiscent of caramel.
Twenty–three
It was Mélanie. There could be no doubt of that. It took me less than three seconds to realize it. Our eyes met across the laughing, chattering guests, and all of a sudden it was just as if the sound had been turned off. Everything that took place after that happened unbelievably quickly, and yet I felt that I was stuck in a slow-motion film.
The woman in the white dress saw that I had noticed her. She turned away and hurried toward the exit. I said “Mon Dieu!” pushed an astonished Solène aside, and ran as fast as I could after the white figure that was disappearing at the far end of the terrace. I rounded tables, narrowly avoiding two waitresses, who stared at me in outrage; I bumped into an old lady, who squawked and yelled a curse after me; I knocked over a tray, raising my hand in apology—but heard the crash of breaking glass behind me; I got caught in the handles of a purse that had been left beside someone’s chair and tripped, my shirt popping out of my pants; I staggered up and ran on, keeping my eyes fixed hypnotically on the exit.
“Mélanie!” I shouted when I’d finally fought my way through to the exit and saw the young woman in the flowered dress running down one of the escalators in its glass tube with her hair flowing behind her. “Mélanie, wait!” I waved wildly after her, but she didn’t turn around. She was running away from me; it was inexplicable, and I wondered for a moment if she’d gone mad. Then I decided I didn’t care. I had to stop her—at any price.
And so I charged down the Centre Pompidou’s five floors of escalators, barging past other visitors. At every turn, I saw the figure in white below me; then I heard hasty steps echoing through the entrance hall as she headed for the exit.
On the square in front of the Beaubourg, a few people had gathered to watch a fire-eater. A bit farther back, a Gypsy was sitting on a folding stool. He was playing a mournful tango on his bandoneón and singing about some Maria or other. A few couples sauntered past me. I stopped for a moment and looked around. My heart was hammering in my throat. Mélanie was nowhere to be seen.
I cursed quietly, ran a bit farther, and looked in all directions. In the distance, a white figure was running along the rue Beaubourg toward the Rambuteau Métro station. That must be her! I thought.
I ran as fast as I could. I was catching up; there were only a hundred yards between us. I saw her disappear into the Métro station. Pulling out a ticket, I shot through the entrance and rushed down the steps.
A scruffy guy with a guitar was heading toward me. He made way for me in surprise. “Hey, hey!” he said.
“A woman!” I gasped. “In a white dress.”
He gave an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. “That way, I think.” He pointed vaguely toward one of the tunnels that led down to the platforms.
“Thanks!” I blurted, heading down into the depths of the Paris Métro. A warm, muggy odor, which seemed to come directly from the interior of the earth, smelling of garbage and gravel, hit me in the face. I rushed onto the platform, where there were only a few people waiting at this time of night. A punk couple with green hair were necking enthusiastically on one of the benches.
At the very moment, a hot blast of air announced the arrival of the next train, and I saw her. She was standing on the opposite platform among a group of other passengers under a giant poster advertising shampoo, and she was just looking at me.
“Mélanie! Wait! What’s going on, damn it?” I shouted across to her, and a couple of people looked up before continuing to gaze vacantly into the distance. Loud quarrels between lovers were obviously an everyday occurrence on Métro platforms.
“Stay where you are, I’m coming right over!” I shouted, and then the train came in on my platform, separating us. I felt rage beginning to mingle with my desperation. What was wrong with this woman? Why was she reacting so strangely? Or did Mélanie have a doppelgänger who thought she was being pursued by a maniac? No matter, in a few seconds it would all be explained. I ran back up the steps to get to the other platform. As I reached the top, I felt a blast of warm air down the tunnel: The train was coming in on the other platform, too.
“No!” I shrieked, hurtling down the stairs. I jumped the last five steps and landed with one bound on the stone platform, where I fell over, losing a shoe. Never mind, I thought. I ran, hobbling on one stocking foot beside the train, looking in the direction where Mélanie had climbed into one of the rear coaches.
My heart was hammering; my throat was burning; I felt a stabbing pain in my left foot—and then I found her.
“Mélanie!”
It was too late. A shrill alert was ringing in my ears.
Unmoved, and beautifully synchronized, the Métro doors shut in my face.
“No!” I cried in wild desperation. “Stop!”
Through the glass I saw Mélanie and hammered on the window with my fist. I mindlessly kicked the door a couple of times. My face was bright red, my left eye was black, my hair was wild, and my shirt was hanging out of my pants. That’s what people look like when they’re totally out of control—combative types looking for a fight or running amok, shooting in all directions without rhyme or reason.
“Mais, monsieur, je vous en prie! What sort of behavior is that?” Some guy in a Lacoste pullover tried to put me straight.
“Ah, shut up, you dork!” I shouted, and he retreated behind a trash bin. The Métro hissed. My shoulders drooped, and I stood there staring at Mélanie, who had taken hold of the grab pole and was looking silently back at me. In her gaze there was a strange, fatalistic sadness that took all my spirit away. That’s how you look at someone you’re saying good-bye to forever. Someone you have to say good-bye to. I couldn’t understand what was happening here. I couldn’t understand what I’d done. I was the idiot in a film whose script I didn’t know. I stood on a platform in the Rambuteau Métro station, forced to watch the woman of my dreams disappearing.
With a final helpless gesture I put my hand to the window and looked imploringly at Mélanie. The train began to move and then, in the second before it finally left, Mélanie raised her hand and placed it against mine.
I slunk back home like a beaten dog. It was eleven thirty and I didn’t feel capable of returning to the Georges and explaining my strange behavior. What could I have said anyway? I’ve finally found the woman I love again, but she’s run away from me?
It was Mélanie; it definitely was. Was it? I was gradually beginning to doubt my own sanity. Perhaps I had just gone mad. Mad with love for a mysterious woman who had come closer to me than anyone ever had before and who was driving me to lunacy with her inexplicable behavior.
I hobbled unhappily over the pont des Arts—with one shoe and without any hope. Yes, it was hopeless! With every step, my mood became more disastrous.
The unexpected meeting on the roof terrace of the Georges had torn open the sweet wound that I had just managed to come to terms with. I was as sure as anyone in my confused state could be that it had been Mélanie looking over at me from the other side of the restaurant. It had been Mélanie who had run away from me like a frightened unicorn in a fairy tale, and it had been Mélanie on the other side of the Métro window.
I knew that face. I would have recognized it among a thousand others. I had touched it, traced its contours with my fingers. I had lost myself in those big brown eyes. I had kissed those soft lips again and again. Those lips had so often gifted me with that enchanting little smile—but this time they had remained serious, eve
n reproachful. Even if she had seen someone else briefly hugging me—and that was all it had been—that was no reason to rush away like that.
In my turmoil, I asked myself one question after another, but I found no answers. My foot hurt, but that pain was nothing in comparison with the pain that clamped my heart like a band of iron. As I finally dragged myself along the rue de Seine, a thought struck me, one that took hold of me with increasing anxiety and was not without a certain logic.
Until now, the woman in the red coat had vanished without trace. There could have been a thousand reasons for that which had nothing to do with me. And as long as I didn’t find Mélanie, I could at least pretend to myself that some stroke of fate had been the obstacle to our love. Even the idea that Mélanie had never returned to Paris would have been easier to bear than the shattering realization that evening had produced: The woman I’d been looking for was here in Paris. She was obviously alive. And even more obviously, she wanted nothing more to do with me.
A young woman in a white summer dress had run away from me, and whatever reasons she may have had for that, it had indubitably been Mélanie. I knew it from the moment I saw her in the distance on the roof of the Centre Pompidou. And even if I had had the slightest doubt in the beginning, that had finally turned to certainty on the Métro platform.
We had only been a few inches apart as she stood behind the train window, and I could see by her look that she also recognized me. What could possibly have caused a total stranger to look at me like that? What could have caused her to press her hand against the inside of the window—against my hand, with the kind of yearning gesture two people use to assure each other of their love before the train rolls out of the station?
I laughed bitterly. The whole thing made no sense. I was suddenly struck by the memory of those first few seconds of film history showing, in grainy black and white, the train drawing into the station; I thought of the painting of the train shrouded in steam that I had so admired long ago in the Jeu de Paume, and of the childish conclusions I had drawn from it about the meaning of Impressionism. French cinema is deeply impressionistic, Uncle Bernard had said.
The Secret Paris Cinema Club Page 17