At that moment, I’m sure I believed what I was saying. But a lot did change. Everything, in fact.
Fourteen
There was a bright blue sky over Paris when I opened the window the next morning. I saw a little white cloud that seemed to be hovering just over my head, and my first thought was of Mélanie, whom I was going to see at last that evening. I remembered her cutely disheveled hair and her lovely mouth and sighed longingly. A week had passed since we had parted with a thousand kisses that night under the old chestnut tree, but it might as well have been four weeks—so much had happened in recent days. Most of the time, I hadn’t even had the breathing space to indulge in my new favorite activity, dreaming about the woman in the red coat, but all those extraordinary events had helped to shorten the time for me. And so this one week had seemed at the same time both longer and shorter than a normal one.
At the moment, nothing was normal anyway. On the previous day alone, three more journalists had called wanting to write something about the Cinéma Paradis and inquiring about the beginning of the filming. Monsieur Patisse of Le Monde had insisted on returning that same afternoon to ask his questions and then photograph me beside my old projector, which brought a gleam to his eyes of the kind you normally only see in six-year-olds when they get their first model train.
“Great, Monsieur Bonnard! Wonderful,” he’d said, looking at the display on his camera. I didn’t know if he meant me or the projector. “And now once more, please … smile!”
My reputation grew by the hour. Robert, with whom I absolutely had to go out for something to eat that evening—he’d even dropped the sensational Melissa to do so—was deeply impressed by my new, exciting life. And even my parents, who had probably seen the article in Le Figaro, had left a message on my voice mail congratulating me on my “great success.” “This is really great, son. Make something of it,” Papa had said, and I wasn’t quite sure what he’d meant by that. Should I make my cinema permanently available for filming? Did I have any say in the matter? Still, I can’t deny that I was pleased to hear his words of recognition.
The last few days had swept through my otherwise-tranquil life like a whirlwind, and yet the whole time I felt that I was carrying Mélanie with me in a corner of my heart. From time to time, I touched the letter, which I always carried with me, and asked myself what she would say about all these goings-on. There was so much I wanted to tell her about, to share with her. But there would be time for that. Because the most important things I wanted to say to her were only to do with us, and us alone. Waiting had increased my longing, and a thousand words came into my thoughts that I wanted to whisper in her pretty ear as the evening turned to night and night to morning.
I made myself an espresso, and imagined how Mélanie would come along the street in her red coat with her light upright walk and an expectant smile. I would wait outside for her and take her in my arms. No, I would run toward her, full of impatience. “You’re here at last,” I would say. And I’d never let her go.
It was a long time since I’d sung in the shower. That morning, I did. I sang the chorus of an old Georges Moustaki song over and over. I’d rarely felt myself to be so real as I did that morning. I was just waiting for Mélanie, who would be there that day. Everything was possible, there were no limits, and life was an endless spring day full of promise.
I hummed as I tidied the apartment. I put food and fresh water out for Orphée, who could sense my nervousness and kept rubbing herself against my legs, put two bottles of Chablis in the fridge, and ran downstairs to buy an armful of roses from the little florist’s shop in the rue Jacob, which I then spread around the whole apartment.
I decided to reserve a table at the Petit Zinc, a good restaurant diagonally opposite the church of Saint-Germain, just a stone’s throw from my apartment. I’d get a table right next to the window, in one of the niches with their pretty light green Art Nouveau pillars, which made you feel as if you were sitting in an arbor outside in a garden.
I put the rest of the roses in a glass vase and set it on my polished round cherrywood table. The opulent pink, red, and light yellow blossoms bent their heavy heads over the edge of the vase. A sunbeam, caught in the water of the vase, painted quivering flecks of light on the wood. For a moment, I saw this as a reflection of the state of my heart—so bright and warm and full of joyful agitation.
I stopped for a moment, ran my hand through my damp hair, and looked around the apartment, contemplating with satisfaction the results of my labors. Everything was perfect. I was well prepared for an extraordinary evening and for love, which would enter my home that day with the light-footed steps of a girl.
When I left the apartment that afternoon, I smiled at myself in the mirror. Never in my life had I been so prepared for happiness.
The Cinéma Paradis was sold out that evening. Half an hour before the first performance, there were already no tickets left. I think it was the first time I’d ever had to turn the tubby little man with the briefcase away when he, as usual, rushed into a foyer thronged with customers only a few minutes before the show began. Nor was there any room for the woman with the black curls, who that day had wound an emerald green scarf in her hair and come without her little daughter. I raised my hands apologetically and watched as my two regular customers left the cinema in disappointment, exchanged a few words of astonishment, and then crossed the street together. They were just as surprised as I was. Or, in the words of Madame Clément, “just as surprised as all of us.”
Of course, Julie Delpy’s 2 Days in New York was in every respect a remarkable film. And even more so was Claude Sautet’s The Things of Life, which was the late show that Wednesday evening: You could always find something new about what really matters in life in that film. But that didn’t explain this sudden invasion, which the Cinéma Paradis was barely able to cope with.
Like a tsunami, a wave of interest had swept over our cinema, engulfing everything in its path, and it would not ebb for the following weeks and months. The friendly reports in the press, which just for a change had capriciously chosen an art-house cinema where there was no popcorn—which was obviously felt to be both unusual and très sophistiqué—the forthcoming filming of Tender Thoughts of Paris, and the surprising suggestion of the film academy that the Cinéma Paradis and its proprietor should be given an award for “exceptional service to French film” drew in whole crowds of customers.
People I’d never seen before thronged to the performances and discovered their love for the cinéma d’art and the magic of an old, rather comfy, and almost forgotten cinema, where time seemed to have stood still and the monotony of everyday life was held at bay for a couple of hours.
Even if most of them came out of voyeurism, curiosity, or a desire not to miss anything at any cost, many of them left the Paradis different people from when they had entered. You could see it in their faces. The magic moment at the core of every good film seemed to be reflected in their eyes. The audience came out of the cinema borne on images that were bigger than they were, moved by gestures whose gentle fingers had imperceptibly left their mark on their hearts, and enriched by words of wisdom that they could take home like a handful of diamonds. And that was at least as good as the pleasing side effect that I was suddenly the owner of a relatively successful cinema—carried on a wave of sympathy and admiration, wooed by journalists and ultimately even by a major cinema chain that offered a friendly takeover with astonishingly good conditions and the assurance that even under their auspices “everything would remain the same” for me.
Even the owner of an upmarket Parisian discotheque approached me with the suggestion of turning the Cinéma Paradis into a kind of luxury cinema where the sybarites of the city could chill out with cocktails and exquisite finger food while watching the films.
I turned them all down gratefully, knowing all too well that the price of security was my freedom. In those turbulent weeks, the Cinéma Paradis seemed to be offering me both financial security and entrepr
eneurial freedom. And what could have been more attractive for a man who had followed his idea calmly and with determination and was now making the pleasant discovery that this idea was actually bearing fruit?
“Alain Bonnard has succeeded in doing something absolutely magical, something that has become very rare in our time. One could almost envy him,” Monsieur Patisse had written in his article.
It was clear to me that the catalyst that had produced all this sudden attention had been Solène Avril’s support. I was not so deluded as to think that Paris was going through some sort of nostalgic revolution, of which I had been the harbinger—but every success has its share of luck. And luck had just arrived on my doorstep. Without doubt—and in my father’s words—this was “the high point” of my professional career in the cinema business.
And so that second Wednesday in April should have been the shining prelude to the loveliest weeks of my life. It would have if something hadn’t happened, or, rather, had definitely not happened—something I would not have believed possible as I happily decorated my apartment with flowers that morning.
The woman in the red coat didn’t come.
The moon shone high over the city’s old houses. Its round disk snuggled up against a cloud that floated lonely in the deep blue sky. And as I finally made my way hesitantly to the rue de Bourgogne, I thought that the night seemed made for two people in love. But I was walking through the narrow streets alone, the echo of my steps ringing heavily from the walls—and my heart was heavy, too.
Mélanie hadn’t come and I didn’t know why.
Just before eight, as the audience for the second performance were sitting back in their seats to enjoy Julie Delpy and her unconventional French father, I went out of the cinema to meet Mélanie. When she still hadn’t appeared at twenty past eight, I was firmly convinced that she’d been held up. Perhaps she was one of those people who just couldn’t be punctual. I hadn’t learned anything about that aspect of her character yet. I smiled understandingly. Which of us has not been late at least once in our lives? These things happen. Perhaps a call had prevented her from leaving her apartment on time. Perhaps the train from Brittany had been late. Perhaps she’d been trying to make herself look particularly beautiful. There were a thousand explanations. I shook a cigarette out of the pack and smoked as I walked a few steps up and down outside the cinema. But as the minutes became quarters of an hour, my smile took on a degree of anxiety.
If something had cropped up, why hadn’t Mélanie telephoned the cinema? Even if she didn’t have my private number, she could easily have gotten the number of the Cinéma Paradis and left a message.
While the second performance of that evening headed to its conclusion and the culture-shock complications of the extended French-American family in New York reached their dénouement, I prowled back and forth in the foyer.
Could it be that Mélanie hadn’t returned from Brittany at all? Perhaps the old aunt had had a serious attack of pneumonia and Mélanie was sitting at her bedside, having forgotten our date in all the commotion.
Against my better judgment, I took my cell phone out of my pocket and looked at it. There were actually three missed calls on the display. I didn’t recognize any of the numbers, but I anxiously returned the calls.
Two journalists answered—no idea how they’d gotten my number—and a charming old lady who’d keyed the wrong number into her new cell phone, a gift from her daughter for her eighty-third birthday. She apologized to me a thousand times. “The keys are so small, I’m always pressing the wrong ones,” she said, giggling. I said, “No problem, really,” and put my cell phone back in my pocket. Then I went outside once more to keep a lookout. All of a sudden, I was no longer sure that Mélanie and I really had a date for that Wednesday.
Had she said she was going to her aunt’s in Le Pouldu for one week, or two? But I had the letter, her little billet-doux, which I’d been carrying around with me for a week, and whose lines I knew by heart. And there it was, unmistakably: “… but I’m looking forward to next Wednesday, to you, and to everything that is about to happen.” And the ‘next Wednesday’—that was today. I had no doubt about that. With a sigh, I put the letter back, stuck my hands in my pockets, and went over to stare out through the glass door.
Madame Clément, who was sitting in the box office reading the paper—I didn’t even notice that it was Le Parisien, which she shamefacedly put down whenever I came past—looked at me with concern. “Is everything all right, Monsieur Bonnard?” she asked. “You seem so nervous. Or is it just that there are so many people this evening?”
I shook my head. No, it wasn’t the number of people. It was just one woman who was making me nervous that evening. A woman who otherwise turned up automatically here every Wednesday, but who had not done so tonight.
The film was over, I opened the auditorium doors and the audience streamed out past me into the street. Some of them took the program leaflets that were lying near the box office, and their laughter and chatter mingled with that of the new audience coming in for the late show.
The foyer was almost too small for all the people who were looking around curiously and lining up at the box office to get tickets for a film from the seventies whose motto was that it told a story without telling a lie.
I saw the old professor among those in the audience for the late show. He arrived last, clutching his ticket in his hand, and as he entered the auditorium, he whispered to me in surprise that he’d never thought it possible that The Things of Life could attract so many people. “I think it’s great!” he said, smiling at me.
I gave a curt nod and closed the door behind him. In our Les Amours au Paradis series, an audience of just one woman would have been enough for me.
I looked in on François in the projection booth and stared through the little rectangle that gave a view of the screen. When Michel Piccoli crashed into the tree in his Alfa Romeo Guilietta and lay there silently on the grass recalling the events of his life, I was overcome with panic. What if Mélanie had had an accident? What if she’d run across the boulevard Saint-Germain, forgetting in her excitement to look right and left, and been knocked down by a car? I grimaced, chewing my lower lip, then waved to François, who was sitting over his books, as usual. Then I took a couple more turns of the foyer under the watchful eye of Madame Clément. Finally, I decided to go and have a café au lait in a nearby bistro.
“If a young woman asks for me, please tell her to wait for me no matter what,” I instructed my cashier.
“You mean the pretty girl you went out with last week?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. I nodded, giving no further explanation, then went out into the street.
In a few minutes, I was in the bistro, where I sat down on one of the worn wooden stools and quickly drank my coffee. The warmth that permeated my body did me good but didn’t banish my disquiet.
When the late show was over as well, I waited in the Cinéma Paradis for another hour. Contrary to all probability, Mélanie might just suddenly turn up, out of breath, with her light step, a smile that asked for forgiveness, and words that explained everything.
“Don’t you worry about it, Monsieur Bonnard,” said Madame Clément as she put on her coat to leave. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly simple explanation.”
There may well have been; in fact, there definitely must have been. Yet I had a bad feeling about it and decided to go to the building where Mélanie lived. Just as I had done the previous week, I crossed the boulevard Saint-Germain, passed the Brasserie Lipp with its orange-and-white-striped awning, and then hurried impatiently along the rue de Grenelle, which took some time, until I finally reached the drugstore on the corner of the rue de Bourgogne and turned left. Then I was standing in front of the big green entrance gate, which was, of course, locked. I looked indecisively at all the names beside the bell pushes. I couldn’t possibly get someone out of bed at that time of night, and I didn’t even know which bell to ring.
I hung about near the entrance
to the building for a while, then went over to the stationer’s where, the week before, the old man in the slippers had lurched past, shouting “Look at the lovers.” I was almost sorry not to see the old guy. I lit a cigarette. I waited—I didn’t really know what for, but I didn’t want to move away from the building, which had behind its walls a courtyard and an old chestnut tree, and possibly also a girl named Mélanie.
And then I got lucky. The gate in the old building opened with a low hum. A taxi drove up slowly, concealing for a moment the man in the long, dark woolen coat who now came out of the entrance and got quickly into the taxi. Before the taxi even stopped, I’d crossed the street and slipped through the gate, which closed behind me.
The moonlight fell gently on the courtyard and I heard a rustling in the branches of the old chestnut tree. I automatically looked up, but I couldn’t distinguish anything. Only three windows in the upper floors of the rear building were lit, and I thought I recognized one of them as the one behind which Mélanie had disappeared the previous week. But I wasn’t sure.
I stared helplessly up at the high window, which was wide open, spilling out warm golden light. I wondered if I should call out Mélanie’s name, or if that might be stupid or inappropriate. Then a white feminine hand appeared in the frame and pulled the window to with a decisive tug. The light went out, and I was left there distraught.
Had it been Mélanie’s hand I’d seen for a moment on the window catch? Was she therefore in Paris and had failed to keep our date? Or was it another woman’s hand and I’d been totally wrong about which apartment was which? And who was the man in the dark coat who’d driven away in the taxi a few minutes before?
There was another rustle in the branches above me, which startled me. Then something jumped, and all of a sudden a big black cat was standing in front of me, looking at me indifferently with its green eyes.
One Evening in Paris Page 9