Paris Adieu

by Rozsa Gaston

  Sitting around the apartment in the final hours of privacy left to me before my hosts returned, it occurred to me that Larry would be having another soirée that evening. Someone there might know of a nightspot where I could find a gig. Why not go? As I dressed, I thought about social events Arnaud might have attended over the past week in bloody Bangkok or wherever he was. Foreign correspondents partied like fish swam – everyone knew that. I put on a more or less conservative sundress as a concession to him in absentia and made my way over to Larry’s flat near Parc de Vincennes.

  The party seemed more muted this time. Perhaps it was the lack of Arnaud’s outsized presence. The usual suspects were there – the older, well-dressed gay guys and Scott from Omaha. I sought out Sam, hoping he might have some leads on where I might find my next gig.

  “Ava! How have you been? Has Paris been treating you well?” he asked, propelling me into the kitchen, where he handed me a glass.

  “Hi Sam. Yes, it’s been delightful, thank you so much.” I sipped, thinking how much I liked the older, courtly man. He made me feel welcome.

  “Paris is always delightful. That is – until one day it isn’t. But you’re nowhere near that time, love.”

  “What do you mean?” I was curious. Was this drunken party talk or was he making a point?

  “Don’t worry, Ava. You have many more mornings to wake up to a Paris that’s delightful.”

  “Will I know when the tide turns?”

  He looked thoughtful. “You’ll know. But the bigger question is – will you act on it?”

  “What do you mean?” I didn’t want to play the dumb American, but I hadn’t a clue as to what he was talking about.

  “Ava – just about everyone in this room is an ex-pat. You’ve heard the term?”

  “Yes, of course.” Everyone knew what an ex-pat was. It was someone who chose to live abroad. Glamorously, preferably.

  “Some of us have been here for years. Decades. Do you think Paris is still delightful for us?”

  “Ummm – I hope so.”

  “Dear girl. You are so very sweet and so very young.”

  “Not really, Sam, but thanks anyways.”

  “Every foreigner who comes here and stays for awhile wakes up one morning and realizes Paris is no longer in love with him or her. And never was. Then, it’s decision time.”

  “You mean you need to decide whether to go home or stay?”

  “Precisely.”

  “But don’t you think you’ve made the right choice?”

  Sam sighed. It was the deepest sigh I’d ever heard.

  “Ava, have you ever been in love with someone who didn’t love you back?”

  I recoiled. How did he know my secrets? No one knew that. No one ever would. “Fake it till you make it” was my motto. “Fake it till you move on” was another variation I’d relied on at times.

  “Umm – let’s just say I know what you’re talking about.”

  “So which is better then? To continue loving someone who doesn’t love you? Or to move on, cherishing your memories but giving yourself a chance to be loved by someone a little less glorious?”

  “I guess it depends on what type of person you are,” was all I could offer. It would take years for me to figure out the answer to his question.

  “Brava. I think you’re right. And what type of person do you think you might be?”

  It was my turn to sigh.

  “I don’t know, Sam. Many types. I thought of a millefeuilles pastry, the “thousand-leafed” pastry that had contributed toward adding extra inches to my hips the year I’d been an au pair.

  “But which type above all?” he pressed.

  I thought hard. Artistic? I’d like to think so, but probably not. Intellectual? I’d met enough intellectuals at Yale to know I wasn’t really one of them. Ethereal? Only in my dreams. Practical?

  Yes.

  “Well – I’m sort of a practical person at heart.”

  Sam nodded approvingly.

  “Good. Very good.”

  “Why’s that good?” I asked, curious. Talking to Sam was better than paying to see a shrink.

  “You’ll go home, you’ll find someone to love who’ll love you back. And for the rest of your life you’ll cherish your memories of the time you spent here.”

  “But what if I want to stay?” I asked, rejecting his mapping out of the whole rest of my life. Who did he think he was?

  “Many do. The dreamy ones, the aesthetes. Those who have no home to return to,” he gestured behind his back to the corner where his gay friends clustered.

  “But I am dreamy – I mean, I’m a songwriter. And I love beauty, too. I’m crazy about Paris!” I protested.

  “Don’t be too crazy, dear. Don’t love à la folie as the French say. It won’t get you where you need to go.”

  “But what if I want to stay right here? Why shouldn’t I be crazy about this place?” Paris was the most gorgeous, elegant, well-appointed city in the world. Anyone with taste would be mad about it.

  “That’s the point, my dear. You’re crazy about this city, but this city will never be crazy about you.”

  “How do you know that?” I was miffed. I would be the next Josephine Baker, except I’d be a singer-songwriter instead of a cabaret dancer.

  “It’s nothing personal, Ava. Don’t take it amiss. You see – Paris is the Queen of Diamonds. She’s so far above and beyond us all, she can’t possibly partner with any of us.”

  That sounded like a lot of single women I knew back in Manhattan. “But isn’t that sad and lonely for her?” I asked. Somehow Paris didn’t fit the bill of a sad, lonely queen. Not by a long shot.

  “Ava, you’ve just revealed why it is you’ll ultimately leave.”

  “I have? No, I haven’t! I haven’t made that decision at all,” I objected. What was Sam talking about? Maybe I’d stay in Paris forever. Sooner or later, I’d be discovered by a French record producer while playing somewhere like The Blue Cactus, just as the Gypsy Kings had been. We’d make a debut album together with at least one mega-hit. And depending on how things went with Arnaud, we might marry and live happily ever after in a high-ceilinged Parisian apartment with occasional visits to his country house. Our children would be French, and I’d learn how to cook coq au vin. Who was Sam, who didn’t even know me, to predict otherwise?

  “Ava, you’re a smart woman. You won’t waste your time beating your head against a stone wall. Paris has a heart of stone. She’s the Queen of Diamonds, girl. Mark my words.” He moved off, leaving me baffled.

  I refilled my wineglass, mulling over Sam’s parting words.

  Putting aside his advice, I spent the next two hours chatting, drinking and information-gathering. The name of one nightspot in particular kept coming up – Teddy’s. It was in the twentieth arrondissement – a largely African neighborhood in the north of the city, known for rollicking nightlife and good bargains by day. It was where young, hip Parisians had begun to hang out – mostly because it was affordable. I took down the address and decided to check it out the next day. If I got lucky, Teddy’s might be a place like The Blue Willow back in New York, where I could line up a steady weekly gig as a house pianist.

  On Tuesday afternoon I visited Teddy’s. While waiting for the owner to show up, I sat down at the beat up, old upright piano and improvised on one of my favorite instrumental jazz standards. Then Teddy himself walked in.

  “Is that Song for My Father you’re riffing on?” he asked, his accent Liverpuddlian. I’d briefly dated a musician from there back in New York. Things hadn’t progressed, partly because I had only been able to understand about forty per cent of what he said.

  “Yes.”

  “I like your sound. Looking for a job?”

  My heart jumped. Yes! This was the way things were supposed to go, but rarely did. As long as I could negotiate a reasonable fee with Teddy and when I should start, we’d be all set. On the spot, he booked me for Wednesday and Thursday nights starting the
following week. His usual pianist was just about to leave to go teach English in Thailand. What was it about Thailand that pulled so many people to it? One day, I’d find out myself, perhaps with Arnaud at my side.

  On Thursday afternoon, the call I’d been waiting for finally came.

  “Ça va, Minou?”

  “Oui, ça va bien. Et toi? How was your trip?” There was no way I would let him know how much I’d missed him.

  “It was fine. Can you meet me at Café de la Bastille at six?”

  “Uhhh.” I paused, pretending to consult my engagement calendar, New York-style. I wondered if Parisian women did the same thing when dating a man. “Yes, six should be fine.” I had no plans for the evening whatsoever. And if I had, I would have changed them. But he didn’t need to know that.

  Three hours and several outfit changes later, we met at our usual spot. I wore a coral and pink striped silk top with tight chocolate brown jeans that took me entirely too long to decide on wearing.

  “Bon soir, Minou. Tu es ravissante. You’re ravishing,” Arnaud greeted me enthusiastically. He kissed me four times, then picked me up and swung me around in his arms. It was like being in my own hair commercial.

  With a tan, he looked even more chiseled than he had before.

  “Hello Arnaud,” I said calmly, pretending I didn’t feel like a golden retriever greeting her master returning from work. Play it cool, Ava.

  “Did you miss me, cherie?” he demanded.

  “Bah – un tout petit peu. A tiny bit,” I teased him, just a tad put off by his reflexive question. Was it all about me missing him? What about him missing me? I reminded myself this was a Frenchman I was dating – not John Boy Walton who would have told me how much he’d missed me and left it at that.

  We entered the café where we ordered omelettes aux champignons, mushroom omelettes and then talked nonstop for the next hour and a half. Movies, books, music, politics – we discussed everything except what he’d been up to in Thailand. Finally, he suggested we go back to his place.

  It was small, like most Parisian apartments I’d been inside. Built-in bookcases lined the walls, loaded with books and magazine journals. The titles I recognized were like old friends to me, Vol de Nuit or Night Flight by Antoine de Saint Exupéry, the author of The Little Prince, and Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan – both among my top ten favorite books. I wanted to know everything there was to know about Arnaud de Saint Cyr, especially what roamed around the halls of his brain.

  The next seven days passed gloriously, drenched in sensation and passion. Our connection went far beyond the physical. Each day I woke with wonder at what he would do or suggest next.

  Arnaud’s interests were eclectic, along with his neighborhood. He lived in the poor and ethnically diverse twentieth arrondissement next to the nineteenth, where Teddy’s was located. Directly next to his flat on Rue Pierre Bayle was Paris’s most famous cemetery, Père Lachaise. We visited it several times the first week of his return. A galaxy of Somebodies lay in repose there: Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Chopin, Colette, Sarah Bernhardt, and a host of other notables. Even Héloise was in residence with Peter Abelard at her side. Separated for most of their lives after their love affair was discovered, they had come together in a final reunion.

  By the end of the week, I wanted to stay by Arnaud’s side forever. We electrified each other. His acquisitive, searching personality elevated me to a level of aliveness I’d never experienced before with a man. At times, it was exhausting, but only because I wanted to match him at every level, clever phrase for clever phrase, sultry pose for sultry pose. I was no longer just performing at my job, but also in my private life. We wandered around Paris’s ethnic neighborhoods, which were filled with Arabs and West Africans, seeking out exotic shops, and cafés serving spicy teas and honeyed pastries I’d never seen in the United States. We took long walks through the magnificent environs of Opera, Place de la Concorde, then on up the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe. But those areas ultimately left us cold. The shop windows were filled with consumer goods designed to appeal to the most haute bourgeois tastes, which neither of us possessed. We were much more interested in exploring the exotic, hidden, dark sides of Paris as well as each other.

  New York and Paris were both cities where everything fun and affordable to do was from somewhere else. The best nightclubs were West African, the best restaurants either North-African, Middle-Eastern, Vietnamese, or Thai. The best bars were English or American. The only truly French establishments we frequented on a daily basis were Paris’s sidewalk cafés and its parks.

  We returned to Chavignol a few times in the month of August. Wrapped up in each other, we took long walks in the countryside, read books, made picnics, and visited a few chateaus nearby. The woman in the photo by the fireplace in the living room continued to taunt me, until my curiosity got the best of me.

  “Cheri, tell me about the woman in the photo,” I asked one rainy August evening, as we lay on the living room couch listening to Billy Holiday.

  “What photo?”

  “The one on the wall there.” I pointed to it.

  “What do you want to know?” Had he stiffened or was I just imagining it? It was like pulling teeth to get a word out of him about the woman with the hard, beautiful face.

  “Well – was she someone from your past?”

  “No. She is not from my past.” He looked strained, as if he’d rather talk about something else.

  “Then who is she? You said she was your mentor, your guide. What did you mean by that?”

  “Minou, did you ever have someone you learned everything from? I mean – everything important there is to know?”

  “Hmm.” I didn’t want to answer. Arnaud was the one I felt that way about. Pascal had taught me how to unlock my own body, but Arnaud’s canvas was broader, larger. He painted ideas on it – not just how to love, but how to live; how to think critically.

  “Perhaps,” I finally said. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he was the one.

  “So when did you know this woman?” I continued.

  “Is it so important for you to know?” he asked, stroking my chin and throat.

  “Well – I’d like to,” I ventured, then fell silent.

  Arnaud’s sigh filled the room.

  Was I moving down the wrong track? Was this akin to the moment when the snake asked Eve in the garden if she’d like to eat an apple from the Tree of Knowledge? Did I really need to bite into that apple? What would it gain me?

  Finally, he spoke.

  “Would it be okay with you if I tell you I’d like to keep it to myself?”

  “Uh – sure.” I wrestled with myself, not wanting to come across as a pushy, insecure girl insisting on hearing more. I was a woman of mystique in full possession of Arnaud’s heart right here, right now.

  At least, I thought so. Perhaps one small follow-up question was in order, just to find out her name. As I opened my mouth, he pulled me toward him.

  “Je t’adore, Minou. I adore you, little cat,” he whispered, then kissed my moment of uncertainty into oblivion. It was the first time I’d heard him say those words, so compelling in French. I kissed him back, swept away by his confession of adoration. The rain beating on the windowpanes serenaded us until rhythmic sounds of our own drowned out all others.

  The next morning, as Arnaud loaded up the car for our return to Paris, I took one final peek at the woman in the photo. She stared back disdainfully, baiting me with her cool imperturbability. I wouldn’t bring her up again to Arnaud. It was between me and her now. But I needed to know who she was.

  Quickly taking the picture frame off the wall, I pulled out the photo inside and turned it over.

  “Mélanie 1986” was scrawled on the back. It was now 1988. I pushed the photo back into the frame and returned it to its place on the wall. Then I walked outside and hopped in the car.

  In September, Arnaud got another assignment – this one, in Vietnam. By then, I wa
s teaching English to French aeronautical students in exchange for a room over Teddy’s Bar. John, the former pianist there, who’d left to teach English in Thailand for three months, had worked out a deal with me. Not wishing to give up his lucrative contract as an English teacher at an aeronautical school, he’d subcontracted me to take over teaching his students in exchange for the use of his tiny studio apartment. Our arrangement was perfect. I’d moved out of Henri and Marceline’s flat the week before baby Simone arrived. In my own place, I was able to retain a modicum of independence from the man I was falling in love with.

  My grandmother had always advised holding back with men. “Let them chase you. Don’t make it easy for them, otherwise they won’t think you’re anything special.”

  It was hard advice to follow.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stay here at my place while I’m gone? You could water my plants, look after the cat, collect the mail,” he’d suggested one night as we snuggled together in his bed.

  “You don’t have a cat, darling,” I’d giggled.

  “Yes I do.” His finger stroked my throat. “Right here, Minou.”

  Inside, I purred then flexed my kitty claws.

  “If you want me to come over to water your plants, I will, but I’m staying at my place,” I said, thinking this cat can look after herself while you’re away. Arnaud had two plants, exactly. I had no desire to spend time in his apartment with him not there. I would miss him then think unreasonable thoughts such as why he hadn’t invited me to join him in Vietnam. Better to stay busy at my own place, practicing new material and writing songs.

  He left the second week of September just as the rentrée began. The rentrée, or return, was an annual event in France when the work and school year swung into full gear. Paris was abuzz, its rested, tanned population back from their mandatory four or five-week vacations. Teddy’s was busy, with song requests coming with greater frequency than in previous weeks. The ex-pat crowd loved hearing Eric Clapton’s Wonderful Tonight, and Carol King’s Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. Another huge favorite was Elvis Presley’s sentimental I Can’t Stop Falling in Love with You; the evergreen standard most people wrongly refer to as Fools Rush In.