Parisian Promises

by Cecilia Velástegui

  Quickly bored by the Japanese couturier’s antics, everyone began making out with everyone else, but Lola wasn’t wasting her lip gloss until she assessed the pecking order of the club. If this Paris club was like the private clubs in L.A., then the super-wealthy men were sitting in some dark corner assessing the available women––that is, those women who were not professional hookers. Just as it began to dawn on Lola that the table where Charles sat at the club fit that precise description, and that he was her potential sugar-daddy, and that he was young and handsome, Charles surprised her by reappearing on the dance floor.

  He wasn’t dancing: he just stood next to her like a dead tree.

  “Let’s go sit down for a bit, okay?” Lola shouted in his ear, deciding that was the smartest move she could make right now, and followed him back to his table upstairs. Nobody else was there.

  “Where are the others?” she asked, a little out of breath, though secretly she was glad that Annie and Karen had marched their boring butts and clunky clogs away from Le Sept.

  Charles answered in the softest voice. “Your friends left right away, and Xavier had to drive Bertrand to the airport so he could fly back to Colombia for his grandfather’s funeral.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Lola frowned. “It’s so sudden, isn’t it? We just saw you all, like, eight hours ago, and now your buddy has had to fly back home.”

  Charles swallowed his drink and seemed to be fighting back tears. “I, I knew his grandfather, too. I’m sure that Bertrand will have to stay there to help the family.”

  “What about his doctoral program?”

  “It was all just a dream. He, he won’t be coming back.”

  “Not even after the funeral?” asked Lola, perplexed. “So, are you all from Colombia, then?”

  Charles didn’t answer Lola. He was at a loss as to what to do next. He had waited for instructions from Jean-Michel, but none came. His clandestine training told him to continue with the plan unless otherwise advised, and that is why he’d decided to meet the American women at Le Sept––despite the tragedy. Charles was used to being glib and dismissive when his lifelong buddy was with him. Bertrand might have been much taller than Charles, but they were like brothers: they knew how to finish each other’s sentences and how to impress women as a dynamic duo. Together they also enjoyed unnerving Xavier, whose whereabouts were now a mystery. The anonymous man Charles had contacted after the accidental explosion that killed Bertrand told him that no one had heard from Xavier and that all communication among the squads would be curtailed indefinitely.

  Charles was alone now––forever––and he didn’t know how to get out of this predicament. He looked around the club, expecting Xavier or Jean-Michel to stroll in at any moment. But instead of seeing the men that he trusted, he thought he detected Jean-Michel’s other secret friends stalking him. Watching him, just in case he got weepy and remorseful and went to the authorities to divulge how his best friend’s only remaining body part could provide missing the puzzle piece to the homegrown European terrorism sprouting in cellars and dank apartments from Rome to Madrid. The student movement of 1968 had unearthed deeply buried sentiments of dissatisfaction with the status quo. This new generation demanded societal changes and wasn’t afraid to use the proven tactics of guerilla warfare––explosively loud and randomly executed––to get everyone’s attention. Since anyone could be a victim, everyone feared that these spores of malcontent would germinate into hardy vines that would strangle their cities.

  “What about your friend at the café near the Arc de Triomphe? Shouldn’t he be here too?” Lola asked, draining a flute of champagne. “We haven’t seen Monica since she stayed behind with him.”

  “I’m sure that she is in good hands and having a wonderful time with Jean-Michel.” Charles put on a show of false enthusiasm, not just for Lola’s benefit. He needed to convince the stalkers who might be studying his behavior across the club to determine if he was no longer an asset; that, in fact, everything was back to normal, and that he was ready and able to execute the plan.

  “I guess I thought they’d be here at the club,” said Lola.

  “They may have already shown up and left. I really don’t know.” Charles hoped that nobody could notice his hands shaking, or see the profuse perspiration soaking through his shirt.

  “Well, I’d really like to call Monica and talk to her. May I have Jean-Michel’s phone number?”

  It was all Charles could do not to lose patience with this meddling American girl. Eight hours ago, all he could think about was taking this voluptuous redhead to bed, but now he was devastated by Bertrand’s death, and the last thing he wanted now was to be intimate with this woman.

  “Those pills you took are putting you on edge,” he said. “Why don’t you go out on the dance floor again?”

  “Sure, but first I want to talk to Monica. Why won’t you give me his phone number?”

  Lola was feeling the effects of the pills, but she wasn’t so stoned that she couldn’t detect the same gnaw in her gut, the same anxiety she’d felt when they left Monica behind at the café. She was determined to find out how Monica was doing, especially after Karen and Annie’s observation that Monica’s innocence could lead her astray. Besides, Lola truly believed in her motto––whatever Lola wants, Lola gets––so she tried again.

  “It’s just that Monica needs some medication and I have to get it to her. It’s for her asthma.” Lola slung her arm around his neck and ran her fingers through his wavy hair. “I’m a good friend. I would take care of you, too, if you needed me.”

  Lola purred, slipping her other hand under his shirt and gently massaging his chest. Charles responded with a guttural sigh. Her soft touch on his skin uprooted his deep need to release his pain––not just over losing Bertrand, but also because of the dangerous, violent path his life had taken. He had been his family’s prize orchid, cultivated in their pampering hothouse; they’d indulged all of his whims. They thought that a European stint at an expensive boarding school and a prestigious university would turn him into a cultured, cosmopolitan man who would return to Colombia in impressive form. Little did they anticipate that his core beliefs would be altered by the stranglehold of radical politics prevalent at the Sorbonne, and that he would be risking imprisonment or even death here in Paris.

  Charles wanted to believe this flirtatious redhead, but he feared Jean-Michel’s draconian retaliation. Bertrand had witnessed first-hand Jean-Michel’s ruthlessness when he disposed of a German woman he believed had overstepped her jurisdiction and not obeyed his instructions. Bertrand had told Charles the whole story, describing in vivid detail how, on a picture-perfect azure day sailing in a yacht off the coast of Capri, Jean-Michel cold-bloodedly sank her lifeless body with one hand, while in the other hand he held a sparkling glass of champagne.

  After today’s accidental explosion, apparently caused by Bertrand’s oversized enthusiasm and his inversely undersized caution, Jean-Michel would be out to divide blame among the other squad members. It was even possible that he had disposed of Xavier, but it was more likely that Xavier made himself invisible––not a difficult task in light of his bland, unimposing appearance and his tight-lipped disposition.

  These three were the only other guerilla warriors that Charles had met in person. Jean-Michel jealously guarded any facts about the extent of the larger group of combatants––not only their identities and whereabouts, but also their sheer existence. Jean-Michel had the affected habit of proposing a toast to himself every time the media covered a terrorist act by any number of insurgent groups causing havoc in Europe. It was this callous display that had disgusted Bertrand just a week ago.

  “Compañero, it’s time to go home––back to our mothers,” Bertrand had muttered to Charles. “What the hell are we really doing here? Who cares if we live or die in this gray drizzle? We need the sunshine of home.”

  Remembering this conversation, Charles felt even more nervous. Perhaps today’s explosio
n was an accident, or perhaps Jean-Michel had discovered Bertrand’s desire to abandon the squad and had taken his revenge. There were two things that Charles knew for certain: that he was now under suspicion and surveillance, and that if Monica had not contacted her friends by now, she was under Jean-Michel’s spell. As long as Jean-Michel wanted to use Monica, he would. It had happened before, with the German student and then with the religious Spanish woman–– and it would happen again.

  The Charles of old forced himself to resurface. He ran his hands through Lola’s hair and kissed her with bottled-up passion.

  “I will take you to Jean-Michel’s apartment later,” he lied. “But first, shall we dance until sunrise?”

  To his relief, Lola nodded and smiled, and stopped her annoying demands. Charles refilled her glass, and then glanced at his watch. This lie had bought him some time, either to assist in the squad’s original plan or to come up with a way to leave this dangerous Parisian life behind––hopefully, in one breathing piece.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Breaking Monica

  The opulence of Jean-Michel’s apartment overwhelmed Monica’s far more modest sensibilities. In total contrast to the weathered reins, dented helmets, and nearly forgotten dreams that hung together on rusty nails in the ranch house back in California, Jean-Michel’s lair overflowed with a sophisticated, bohemian mélange of prized paintings and sculptures, antique furniture, and boiserie walls lined with ancient tomes. As she tiptoed across the Persian rugs, Monica resembled a new hatchling that had fled from a meager three-twig nest into the engulfing luxury of a beckoning roost.

  When she first arrived at this grand high-ceilinged apartment, shivering in her new diaphanous blue dress, Monica had peeked from the library to the dining room with awe, and lingered open-jawed at the virtual aviary inhabiting Jean-Michel’s bedroom. Monica had read about collectors who cherished their cabinets de curiosités, but Jean-Michel’s room was a taxidermist’s dream. She inched her way in, agog at the incredible display of stuffed miniature birds, fossils and shells, and flinched when she glimpsed, hanging from the corniced ceiling, a falcon with its wings extended menacingly. It was all very strange but quite spectacular. Instead of feeling repulsion toward a colony of shiny bats hanging upside down above Jean-Michel’s bed, forming a canopy of eerie mystery, Monica found herself yearning to lie beneath their fangled grimaces and to absorb their dark cloud of silent threats. When she looked up at the bats, her body tingled with fear and excitement.

  Monica leaned her aquiline nose up to the oversized hooked bill of an Ecuadorian toucan sitting near the tall window. She ran her index finger along its stiff, glistening feathers of bright yellow and scarlet––and wondered where these creatures came from and why they inhabited Jean-Michel’s bedroom. She felt a particular kinship with this glorious creature, as if they’d both blown in from afar on the same turbulent air current, finding themselves strangely at home in this opulent cage on the banks of the Seine.

  Jean-Michel leaned on the bedroom door, watching Monica intently. He set down the tray of snacks on the nightstand, and walked over to her.

  “That loyal lady is named Isabel,” he said, “and she’s my favorite among the birds that share my home.”

  He swooped-up Monica off her feet and laid her down gently on the eiderdown comforter. Monica reached up to him, her arms wide open, and pulled Jean-Michel towards her. She held her breath as Jean-Michel undressed her and pressed himself against her with a firmness and control that reminded her of the way she trained Rocky. During their long trail rides into the Santa Rosa Plateau, Rocky would follow the directions given with just the slightest pressure of her legs. Tonight Jean-Michel dominated her with a similar tender determination, and it made Monica feel that here, in this baroque, exotic apartment, overlooking the comings and goings of the Seine, she had finally landed in her own natural habitat. She let herself go, panting and almost braying with abandon at the satisfaction Jean-Michel gave her.

  Afterwards, Jean-Michel poured her a glass of still-cold champagne.

  “Why did you name her Isabel?” Monica asked him, propping herself up on one elbow and gazing over at the stuffed toucan.

  “She’s named after Isabel Casamayor de Godin, the heroine of the most romantic story you will ever hear. Shall I tell you?”

  “Of course! I love romantic stories.”

  Jean-Michel kissed the length of her leg and bit her inner thigh––just a little bite, but enough to cause pain. He would have loved to draw blood to get her attention––and to jump-start her on her mission––but he couldn’t risk failing yet another assignment, particularly after the fiasco with Bertrand. The giant fool had not only blundered and set off an explosion; he’d left behind his leg as evidence. Jean-Michel took a swig of champagne, trying to push that ghastly image out of his head. He set down his glass and pulled several plump pillows towards Monica, so she could make herself comfortable.

  “Before I tell you the tale,” he asked her, “tell me something. What is it about love stories that you love so much?”

  Monica gave him a shy smile, stretching her naked body languorously towards the pillows and closing her eyes.

  “Don’t move a centimeter,” said Jean-Michel, jumping off the bed. “I must draw you in that pose!”

  On his way to the door, he grabbed her blue dress and shoes from the floor, bundling them out of the room unobserved.

  “Why didn’t you didn’t tell me that you’re an artist as well?” Monica called. In the next room she could hear drawers being opened and shut. “Well, I mean, I’m trying to be an artist, I guess.”

  Jean-Michel returned, sketch pad in hand, and stood over the bed. For a few minutes he sketched Monica feverishly, saying nothing, and then he tore the page out.

  “No, I’m not doing you justice,” he said, crumpling the paper and flinging it to the floor. He started sketching on a new page. “Only Manet could have painted you and your remarkable beauty. Do you know that you remind me of his Olympia?”

  “I think we saw that painting at the Jeu de Paume. You mean the one of a naked woman resting on pillows, with a black cat at the end of the bed?” Monica readjusted herself in the same position as Manet’s Olympia in repose. “Wasn’t she a prostitute? Isn’t that what the black cat represents?”

  “No, no. Manet’s composition was inspired by a reclining nude by Titian.” Jean-Michel bent over to kiss Monica. “What I’m saying is that you are a classic beauty. And here is my tribute.”

  He produced a small pale-green Ladurée box and handed it to her.

  Monica pulled the delicate green ribbon from the box, and smiled with delight at its contents: delicate, pastel-colored macarons.

  “You asked me what I like about love stories,” she said, nibbling on one of the sweet and airy macarons. “Well, I suppose that all love stories are about a profound passion, right?”

  Jean-Michel nodded, frowning down at his sketch.

  “And many of them are about forbidden love, like in Romeo and Juliet, where both families and society were against them.” Monica paused while Jean-Michel licked the colorful crumbs that had dropped onto her breasts. “And lots of times the ending is really tragic, like in Tristan and Isolde or Anna Karenina. I really admire Anna’s love for Count Vronsky. But can you believe that she killed herself over that guy? He was such a cad.”

  She licked her lips, and Jean-Michel handed her another macaron in order to stifle any more rambling about her favorite love stories. He wanted Monica to realize that in a heroic love story, the people who fall in love fall hard. Sometimes they even mix up their love with a bit of hate, and above all they face immense conflict. It was this type of torrid love affair that Jean-Michel wanted to manufacture in a hurry––one that would make Monica fall off a cliff for him––but in her ignorance, she was resisting him, gushing on and displaying her girlish, superficial understanding.

  “My favorite stories are the ones about desperate love,” she told him, “where
the lovers overcome all the odds, like in Jane Eyre. You know how she––”

  Jean-Michel threw his pad to the floor and kissed her fiercely, just to shut her up. Right now he wanted a break from Monica’s infantile rendition of great love stories, but he had to rest assured that he understood her true character, especially her weaknesses, before he would allow her to become his carrier pigeon of death. As far as Jean-Michel was concerned, the only love story he wanted filling Monica’s brain was the one where the heroine renounces everything for her lover.

  He drew away at last and poured a dazed-looking Monica a third glass of champagne.

  “But don’t you think that a lasting love story requires considerable sacrifice?” he asked her.

  “Um––give me an example.”

  “How about Antony and Cleopatra or Odysseus and Penelope?”

  Monica looked perplexed, her eyes hazy with ignorance.

  “Uh, well, I’ve never even read those stories. Give me another example.”

  Her birdbrain frustrated Jean-Michel, and he was struggling to remain engaging and tender.

  “Surely you must admire the story of Abelard and Heloise,” he demanded, unable to resist the intellectual jab. “It takes place right here in Paris, the very city of your dreams. Are you in Abelard’s camp? After all, the lascivious priest lost his testicles on account of Heloise.”

  Jean-Michel glanced down on his own impressive endowment. Monica looked even more confused.

  “Or are you a feminist and pro-Heloise?” he continued. “Are you in the camp of the nun who cried out for more of his lovemaking, though Abelard had nothing left to give her? Please enlighten me on this matter.”

  Monica bit her lip and fluttered her eyes, playing for time.

  “I seem to have forgotten that story,” she said at last. “But in the movie Love Story, they both sacrificed a lot, don’t you think?”

  Monica was embarrassed at her skin-deep cultural knowledge and lack of sophistication. Why did she open her mouth and reveal her miniscule knowledge of literature and art history? She resolved to allow Jean-Michel to be her teacher, to elevate her understanding, to guide her. At this moment she wanted nothing more than to succumb to him, and learn everything he had to teach her.