A Second Chance in Paris

by Ziv Amit

  “Enough with the mistrust, let’s fix it, it’ll be nice, we’ll go look for some silly museum like the rest of the tourists,” I try, but understand that with every new attempt of mine, his feeling of desire to shut himself in the room only grows.

  “And that’s really what you think, that museums will fix what’s broken?” he asks quietly.

  “Yes, museums will fix what’s broken, because the thing that’s broken isn’t that bad and doesn’t need that much fixing,” I choose to answer him back.

  “Of course, because you’re the only one who decides when to break and when to fix, not me, I just have to agree to it.”

  “Then you better agree to it, because there’s you and there’s me and there’s no more than us two in this room. We can always argue, fixing is harder.”

  “Yes, fixing is harder.”

  “Then let’s do what you want to do in order to fix our broken world, what do you want to do?”

  “I don’t want to fix, I want to stay in this room, leave it a little bit broken, it won’t make a difference.”

  “That’s what you want? To sit in this room for the entire vacation and ruin it? What will you do in this room? Is that how you think you’ll fix something? This room is nice but I’m not planning on sitting in it for our entire vacation and ruining it.”

  “I’m sorry that I can’t act according to your pace, now I’m breaking, now I’m fixing,” he tries to imitate me in a sarcastic and vicious way, “I’m not like you.”

  I’m running out of words a bit and I can’t decide whether to continue trying to be nice to him and humiliate myself a bit more, or to give up.

  “Come on, it’ll be nice for us together,” I offer him my hand and feel like I’m starting to repeat myself, I guess this is how it feels when you’ve run out of arguments.

  “I’m still broken, I want to stay in this room,” he repeats himself, ignoring my hand, I guess he too has now run out of arguments.

  “Then you’re welcome to stay in this room, see you in the evening, have a nice room-day,” I spout quickly, pick up a sweater from the open suitcase on the bed, grab the key card for the room from the chest of drawers, as well as my bag and the tears that are beginning to flow out of my eyes, and I go out the door into the hallway and down to the elevator. I have to do something with myself, take myself away from here.

  Boulevard Saint-Germain, Clothes Shop, End of Morning

  “Do you have these pants one size smaller?” I ask the shop assistant and try to force myself to have fun. I’m not really having fun.

  It was difficult for me to go down the elevator at the hotel with tears choking at my eyes. I quickly exited the lobby to the street, hiding my nose with a tissue I had in my pocket, hoping that if anyone noticed me, they’d think I was just blowing my nose. I don’t exactly remember where I went to and where I walked around, I just wandered aimlessly, crossing one street of gray houses after another, ignoring the autumn trees and the scattered leaves on the sidewalk. Even the sight of the boulevard with the white houses and the little balconies which signalled to me that I’m in Paris couldn’t lift my mood.

  I think I was mainly waiting for a phone call from him, a message ping explaining to me that he’s a nasty jerk, that he’s sorry and that he’s on his way to meet me, wherever I may be. A message saying he wants to search the city for me with a bouquet of flowers and a silly smile the way it once was, bring us back to who we once were. But the phone chose to be as silent as a grave, buried deep in the little bag I was carrying on my shoulder, not sending me any signs of life, and no matter how often I stopped to look at it, it wouldn’t ring, nothing, silence.

  “Don’t succumb to him,” I try to uplift my mood. Try to have fun, or at least make believe you’re having fun. For example, you can go shopping for clothes. “After all, you’re a woman,” I smile to myself bitterly, “And what does a woman do during a time of crisis in every mediocre movie ever made? She eats ice cream in front of the TV, or starts smoking, or goes shopping.” So go shopping, you like to go shopping.

  “Maybe the phone’s broken? Maybe it isn’t getting any reception?” Put the phone in the bag and stop looking at it all the time, it’ll end up breaking just from you turning it on and off over and over again. You’re so ridiculous, didn’t you just say you’re going to go shopping and spend some money? This looks like an appropriate shop.

  I’m standing in front of the mirror and trying on the clothes, they’re pretty, but they’re not fitting me the way I’d like them to. I really do feel like the star of a mediocre movie, trying on clothes and taking them off and not liking any of them. “If shopping doesn’t work then I can always situate myself in front of the TV at the hotel and eat ice cream,” I explain to myself as I exit the shop without having purchased anything and begin looking for another interesting shop. “I have to make do with shopping,” I explain to myself, The Tall One has already occupied the sitting-in-front-of-the-TV-in-the-room part and hasn’t left you any space next to him. I guess that’s how it is in life, the one most miserable is the one who gets to sit in front of the TV with ice cream.

  “Try to have fun,” I walk on the sidewalk and talk to myself, “There are loads of tasty places in this city.”

  A Small Café in the Latin Quarter, Noon

  “Come to us,” the fresh pastries in the display window whisper to me. To enter or not to enter?

  I’m standing at the entrance to a café that’s inviting me in with its scent of freshly baked pastries, deliberating whether to go in or give up. It isn’t really a crucial question, but for some reason it feels like it is for me. It feels weird for me to go in and sit down at a café alone, as if I went on vacation without a partner. I feel like if I even just cross the threshold, I’ll have declared to myself that our romantic vacation has failed and has left nothing for either of us but our own individual slivers. I know that it’s silly, I know it doesn’t really matter, I also know that I’ve sat alone at cafés numerous times in the past without giving it a second thought, but still, this time seems different and I stand before the threshold hesitating.

  “Come to us,” the fresh pastries in the display window whisper to me, “You won’t be sorry if you taste us.”

  “You really should,” the smell from the coffee machine on the counter tells me, “I taste wonderful.”

  “He’s not worth it, you deserve someone who’ll appreciate you,” the old waiter with the white apron silently smiles at me, he’s cleaning the tables, wondering to himself whether I’m coming in or not.

  I feel like I’m missing out by standing before the threshold like this. A woman wearing an autumn-colored dress, holding shopping bags full of new clothes, standing and assessing the café with sad eyes. Assessing the little tables which look like they were scattered around randomly, the older man reading a newspaper in the corner while his aging dog naps by his feet, the two men in dark suits who are standing at the counter and drinking a quick midday coffee on their way to a meeting, and the old waiter with the white apron who looks like he spent his entire life here.

  I look at them longingly for a few minutes and then I back away. “I’ll find something to snack on along the way,” I comfort myself as I turn my gaze and walk away with swift strides. Even though it may be silly, I’m still not ready to let go of the feeling that I have a partner and that we’re here together, I’m allowed to imagine that we’ll still take a walk on the bridge while embracing each other.

  The Bridge, Afternoon

  There’s a row of women in white dresses standing on the Alexandre III Bridge and mumbling quick words in Japanese or Chinese or some other language, and I slow down my pace for a moment and wipe away a tear. I stand in awe at one end of the bridge, looking at how it stretches from one side of the city to the other, decorated with a row of copper street-lamps with golden trimmings, which seem as though they were glamorous soldiers in f
ormation awaiting the order to light up for the night. Tourists and pedestrians walk across it and brides posing for wedding photos add little white love stains to it.

  “You’re so emotional,” I lovingly tell myself off and stop to look at them. They’re leaning motionless against the marble rails in various positions, listening to the photographers’ instructions. They look to me like big white flowers made of satin fabric, white-handed porcelain dolls with eternal smiles and immaculate makeup. Each porcelain doll has a proud partner standing at her side, holding a little bouquet of flowers in his hand, while the stately black limousines quietly wait on the side, as if they were a patient and well-mannered whale.

  I too am standing on the side, making sure to keep a polite distance, unable to take my eyes off of them. They look to me like an image out of a movie that may be called Life and may be called Illusion, and I wish them a pleasant movie along with their men in black suits who are holding their hands, including the one wearing a pink dress who decided to rebel against conformity and be a different flower, “You’re allowed to be a little bit different.” I wish upon myself to have her pink courage.

  Hunger disrupts me and I’m forced to disconnect my eyes from the white flowers as well as the pink one on the bridge and continue on my path. The pastry I ate at the airport in the morning is long gone, not having survived my wandering through the streets, and all this walking with shopping bags and aching feet is wearing me down. I can return to the hotel but that’s where The Tall One is, and he may be sitting in the room and waiting to have a fight with me, so I try to delay my return as much as possible, and look for more attractions and excuses to stay outdoors.

  “What about going to the museum like all the tourists do?” I debate with myself. I like to walk around in museums, stand in front of a big painting and picture myself inside it, to feel like I exist in the mind of a great artist who chose to add me to his creation. Sometimes I find myself standing like that in front of a work of art for a long time, imagining myself in a different reality. The crowd around me changes incessantly but I don’t care, I focus on the painting and my imagination. But that doesn’t feel right for me today, today it seems suffocating to me, caging me in silent and closed-off halls and I want air and freedom.

  I feel like I’ve run out of all other options, and so I reluctantly start walking back towards the hotel. Even the Eiffel Tower, which peers over the city’s structures, now seems distant, belonging to people who wish to experience the romantic city together. Now, with every step I take towards the hotel room I’m starting to feel the distress accumulating within me again, knowing that soon I’ll be fighting with him.

  “Remember,” I tell myself as I walk up the hotel stairs, “there’s no way you’re going to miss out on the show tonight.”

  Hotel in the Latin Quarter, Room 314, Evening

  “Is that what you’re going to wear this evening?” I hear his voice from the next room and try to understand if the sound of jealousy has replaced the sound of humiliation. A tight black skirt is laid out on the bed, coupled with a semi-shiny black button-up blouse, and the red suede boots are placed by the bed, as if declaring their owner’s intention of using them tonight. I’m focusing entirely on the eye-shadow which I’m carefully applying in front of the bathroom mirror, bluntly ignoring Adam who is wandering around my clothes suspiciously, around the ones carefully laid out on the bed as well as the ones drenched in today’s sweat which are currently tossed in the corner of the room on the wooden chair.

  He’s playing the game fully by not asking me where I was and what I did, I’ll give him that. And to my own credit, I’ll say that I’ve managed to banish the feeling of guilt and I have no intention of telling him anything. I feel bad about having wandered the streets of a foreign city without him caring about me, and I have no intention of letting him revel in the knowledge that he’s succeeding at making me suffer.

  I’m deliberating whether to give him a little ladder so that he can climb down off his high horse, or to leave him there with that I’m-always-right feeling that he so loves to take up during every argument. “How was it at the hotel?” I ask as I start drawing a line over my left eye with my eyeliner.

  Adam is ignoring my question and I can hear him turning the TV on. He’s playing with the remote and zapping between channels, skipping between a local news broadcast and a foreign channel and an Australian horse race, I think maybe he should go back to playing with his smartphone, he’ll probably enjoy that more.

  “Are you really going to go to a cabaret show? I told you already I don’t want to go there.”

  “A real surprise,” I explain to my eyes which are looking at me through the bathroom mirror, “you asked him what he wanted to do during the vacation, he didn’t want to do anything, you bought tickets to a cabaret show and now he’s explaining to you that he wants to ruin that.” I have a sarcastic side but I don’t think I’m very good at it, I just want us to go out to one show in one club in one city, together, as a married couple. I’m not looking to be right and I’m not looking to win an argument and I’m not looking forward to going out alone, but I’m slowly realizing that that’s probably what’s going to happen, and that I’m going to have to decide whether to break down in tears, or to collect my lump of a self and go out.

  “You’re not going to give up, you’re going out to the show, even if he doesn’t go with you,” I whisper empowering words to myself, trying to elevate myself way above reality.

  “Are you really planning on going by yourself to a pervert show? Naked girls and horny men?”

  “You’d be surprised, not all cabaret shows are about naked girls and horny men, cabaret was born as a wild satirical act and not as a local peep show, and you’re more than welcome to join me if you’d like,” I answer him as if I were a high school teacher as I squeeze into my skirt. He never used to be like this, I know he wants to go, but he also doesn’t want to forgive me.

  “It’s not my kind of thing,” he says as he wanders around the room, looking for some space for himself without having to look at me buttoning up my blouse. The room’s size, which looked warm and romantic to begin with, is now feeling tight and irritating and closing in on me, as if it doesn’t have enough air for two people.

  “Come with me, you’ll see that you’ll enjoy it, you’ll see that we’ll enjoy it together,” I try to go near him and hug him but he recoils. “I know that deep down you do want to go, and you should, maybe you’ll get to see other women’s breasts,” I try on my seductive tone.

  “I’ve already heard your opinion of other women’s breasts, that was enough for me,” he shoots below the belt and my seductive self loses her smile and backs away from him.

  “Shows like that are not my kind of thing,” he repeats himself, I guess he decided to stay on his high horse and test my bravery and determination.

  I’m ignoring him, so I open the little closet and stand in front of the full-length mirror that’s attached to the inside of the door, tucking my blouse into my skirt and checking myself out, I like what I see, but I have a lump in my throat.

  “So how was the museum today?” he breaks down and looks for something to talk about.

  “I didn’t get a chance to go today, I was doing other things, I’ll probably go tomorrow or the next day, you’re welcome to join,” I smile sadly, not really believing it’ll happen.

  “Did you have fun at the hotel?” Maybe he managed to climb off the high horse?

  “I won’t have you go to a cabaret alone,” he wipes away the remains of my smile.

  “Great, then you’re welcome to join,” I corner him.

  “No, I’m not going and I don’t want you to go either,” he’s flinging chauvinism into the room, I’m trying to keep cool but I’m finding it difficult.

  “I don’t remember marrying a bigot who thinks he’s allowed to tell me what to do,” I feel myself getting red and agi
tated.

  “I don’t remember marrying someone who suspects that I cheated on her,” he shoots dirty arrows at me.

  “I don’t remember marrying someone who gets messages from whores and buys them presents.”

  “Stop calling her a whore, she works with me at the office and she has a name and the present wasn’t a present, I just lent her a book. I lent her one book, that was all, one book,” he’s really pissed off now.

  “A book? And that was it? Just one book?”

  “So, she misunderstood me and sent me some stuff, so what?”

  “Some stuff? Some stuff? You mean some photos and messages and a few more interesting stuff. I don’t care what her name is, the way I see it any woman who sends stuff like that to my husband is a whore and it’s a shame you’re defending her and not our marriage, I already apologized once and I’m not doing it again,” I’m furious.

  “You never apologized, not properly,” he shouts and continues, “you never apologized for suspecting me. I’ve been waiting for weeks, maybe she’ll apologize, when will she apologize, will she apologize. But no, it’s beneath you to apologize, you’re above apologizing,” he says with a degrading and angry tone.

  “OK then, so I’m apologizing now, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I suspected you for having something going on with that whore, sorry, that whore from your work, I’m sorry I organized this vacation because I felt wrong for suspecting you, I’m officially sorry. I’m sorry,” I answer him, full of rage.

  “It’s too late already.”

  “Too late for what?”

  “Too late to apologize.”

  “Are you coming to the show?” I feel like he’s starting to exhaust me with his mantras.

  “It’s not my kind of thing.”

  “Of course, it’s not your kind of thing, your kind of thing is sitting in a hotel room sulking and feeling how right you are.”