Late springtime, early summer. The banks of the Seine were full with tourists and the RATP busses passed by almost regularly. Even though it was nearly 6.30 pm the sun still shone straight upon the Trocadero, passing through the bars of this great edifice: the Eiffel Tower. There was more traffic on the river than usually, the cars rushed through the streets, hardly respecting the lights, but still accurate enough to avoid accidents. The bus arrived, slowed down, and the young couple climbed in it and tried to find a seat, at least one, if possible. But, because of the habitual lack of politeness this was something hard to achieve.
The days in Paris were warm in those days. Paris had since become a part of my own tiny self. I really became a parisien, this was the beginning of my thinking and feeling like an inhabitant of the city, trying to find the cheapest places in town. But the map of the unexplored quarters still lied open in front of me: I got to know the quarters then. That evening had started as a meeting of friends, of so-called “old high-school friends” even though only one year separated them, then, one from another. Started on one side of Montparnasse, at the angle of the rue de Vavin, and they moved on along the boulevard. Much alcohol was poured during that evening, filling empty stomachs.
A lightheaded atmosphere reigned wherever these friends were, then. Only a while later did they decide that a generous feast might be appropriate for their health, in regard to the percentage of alcohol that already circulated in their veins. Maidenlike hee-hee’s and tee-hee’s proved her youthful condition and, somehow, her immaturity. In front of Cynthia’s behavior my friend and I appeared as though we were much older than we actually were, older than her for sure, as though we possessed more experience than we actually did, more experience than hers indeed. We were students then. It’s strange how sometimes you feel like you’re stronger than the world when actually you are less than a dust-ball. Had I known then what I know now, I would have been aware that this same path had once already been strolled by Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and other such legendary authors from the Lost Generation. Anyway, I ignored it then, and just lifted my glass of red wine and said something like: “Happy to be here, let’s celebrate our meeting again, my friends, and drink until our thirst would be cooled down!”
After dinner, our livers black and our visions slightly diminished, we decided to reach the banks of the Seine and on the way we could still find a bottle of Champagne in one of those late-selling stores as there were plenty in Paris at that time. That night balanced between poetry and remembrances, anecdotes from schooldays and drunken twaddle and claptrap. Pretty hard to seize the truth from the pretending then, and pretty hard to remember the waddle we pronounced then properly right now. And still now, just the remembrance of it reminds me that when we hanged about at Notre Dame it already felt like a dream. We were waving at the tourists on the many “Bateaux Mouches” passing us by on the Seine, we were leaning against the ramparts made of stone, trying hard to stay awake. There was mist all around us, three voodoos left in the city of crime and vice…
We reached one of the finest, and then most expensive quarters in Paris. This side of Paris was very different from others, there were great alleys and trees, big buildings but nice buildings, most of them dating back to the Haussmann-days: if you lived there you needed to afford it. And yet, Cynthia was just a student and didn’t seem to fit in the social range of the folks living there. But she was living thanks to the help of her family – a rich father in the background – as it is often the case. Amy and I had been contacted just the day before, in the late afternoon, when we got home a little earlier, for once. Our appointment had been fixed in a hurry, very rapidly and almost unforeseen, as it always happened between the three friends of us. The idea had been Cynthia’s, the youngest of us, and she had it arranged à l’imprévu and we all reacted positively to her invitation.
As usual, years had gone by since our last meeting and meanwhile we had all made our ways, so it seemed as she announced: “We’ll meet all three of us with our close friends.”
Only the three of us knew each other, but our fiancées still ignored anything about Cynthia and her lover, nor did I know the guy. Amy and I had wished this night to be all fine and we brought some flowers for Cynthia while my old chum brought a highly alcoholized bottle. Of course, his bringing the bottle had been enough to start the evening and, eventually, to announce the state my friends would be in at the end of the invitation. But the state our host was in amazed me more than once. She must have had a few drops of alcohol in her veins already before we arrived, just the look of her seemed to tell me there was something even worse than alcohol in her blood… Her enthusiasm for the flowers we brought along was repeated more than once during the evening, and she almost sniffed the flowers in her joviality, as if these were a special sort of drug.
After the inevitable apéro I went into the kitchen with my young friend and politely offered my help. Maybe I should not have done this and had better acted as indifferently as my fellows had, as I soon found myself all alone in the kitchen, preparing dinner. A little later Amy joined me in the kitchen and I asked her whether she enjoyed the company of my friends but from the look in her face I could tell she was pretty shocked by what they did. What I like best in our relationship is that Amy and I have almost the same things on mind, we were really made one for another, and if something shocked her it would most probably also shock me. She took me by the hand and led me into the living room where I could picture a cloud of smoke. The smell of tobacco and I ignore what other drugs even reached the entrance of the flat. They were all seated around the couch, Whisky bottle, Gin and Vodka on the table. Cynthia and her friend were sitting on the floor smoking some illegal mixtures of tobacco and cocaine or I don’t know what. Dumbfounded we were standing at the corner of the half-open door: kids in front of us. How come it be? Each of us had made his own path through the great mess of the city and each of us had grown. Each of us had learned, indeed, but if you pictured Cynthia sitting knee-crossed on the floor beside her poor suburb-punk first-year student who’s addicted to drugs, you might really wonder. Well, my friend knew better how to hide his surprise in such a situation, he sat just for the sake of politeness in front of Cynthia and that already-lost Banlieusard. But I could tell from the look in his face and from his holding tight the hand of his fiancée that he was most deeply shocked by the scene. He and I had had the reputation of heavy drinkers. So what? Sure, I enjoy alcohol but I know as well as my friend when to stop to drink and if the bottle gets empty I know how to deal with the facts. There were times when we both got drunk -it seems that this needs must happen in everybody’s life (at least once!)- we both have learned and we have both evolved ever since.
“Alright then, bye, and hear from you soon, not in a year or so but earlier! We stay in touch, O.K is that fine ?”
Then she closed the door and leaned down against it, sitting on the floor so uncomfortably in this flat which, yet, offered so much comfort. She’d rather sit on the creaky floorboards of the parquet than in comfortable armchairs, she’d rather suffer a little physically in order to relieve her mental- and heartaches. The idea of meeting her two old boyfriends had been hers, alright, but she had never thought that such a meeting could become so devastating to her! Now she didn’t feel like washing up, cleaning the floor or putting bottles back in their place, she just felt sad and she cried. All night long she had been strong enough to keep her tears from falling down or if her eyes managed to get wet she pretended those were tears of happiness she felt for either of her high-school friends. But in truth those tears expressed the sadness in her heart. Her former school-friends had become young men and presented her their fiancées, alright then their lines were drawn. Soon there would be marriage, children, house and home. But where was her place in it? Nothing but a wayward soul searching in Nowhere Land, spending time with unknown folks and wasting her time…
“What you think about Cynthia’s comrade?” I asked my fiancée on the way home or rather once we had passed Cynthia’s door.
“Incredibly high and really somewhere else, I really wonder where she found such a queer fish!” Amy announced and her words certainly told the truth.
“A first-year student, you know, they’re kind of dumb. Feel like they’re kings when they’re nothing but crooks. But I guess we all went through there, you know…”
“Anyway, Cynthia was really somewhere else tonight. I mean, I’ve observed it from her actions, her looks, really an odd feeling as though she were high or so.”
Of course I shared the same opinion on Cynthia’s behavior than Amy expressed then but deep inside myself I had a foreboding and I could sense my old friend’s depression. I didn’t know whether I should call it frustration? I felt as though I knew exactly the reasons that pushed Cynthia on to get drunk that night - I thought I could see the depression in her eyes - but I didn’t have any evidence for acting this way, I didn’t have any proof but did I really need some ? This is the matter of a concept, a judgment people can make of others, their opinion being only meant to matter to themselves, in the end.
“Well, Cynthia is still pretty young, she still needs get some more experience, just let her live her life and experience the pros and cons as she would, in her own rhythm,” Amy claimed, quite coolly.
“But she has some experience already… didn’t I tell you ‘bout her?” I interfered.
“Hey, cool, give her a break. Anyway, talking in the back of others has never been your kind. Am I mistaken?” She put me back in the line.
“Alright. Then let’s just forget about it. But I think there are a certain numbers of rules in a society and that are to be respected by everyone.” I replied almost automatically, always satisfied to pronounce the last words.
We eventually reached the bus stop and stood there for nearly a three quarters of an hour. Both of us were suspicious about when the next and last bus would show up. But, according to the schedule, the last one still had to pass by and, as we just started to head off to the subway station, there it was. Then there was this old man sitting right in front of us. It felt so odd, that night, it seemed as though the heat was still present although it was almost midnight. I didn’t know what happened to me then and I still ignore it now. A strange feeling overwhelmed me and it felt as though I knew the man sitting there in front of me. His whole life seemed to lie open in front of me as an old book. Or should I rather say an ancient book, the pages of which were altered and partly rotten. An old man, a former businessman who had kept a certain class from his past life – he was wearing a black tie and a suit of the same color, a gray raincoat with the collar turned upwards. Retired since a few years now, he turned weary of his life, no longer believing in anyone but himself. And still, he hardly believed in himself. Living from the welfare the state granted him, but mostly from the wealth he summoned since long ago, the picture was that of good fortune gone bad. It’s been long since there was no more physical relationship between his wife and him, whether she still lived I simply couldn't tell. His eyes betrayed so much loneliness and solitude which proved his weariness and tired condition. A strong gust of alcohol was lifted when my companion knocked upon my right forearm and whispered something like: “stop starin’ at the poor man like that, your eyes as big as fire-balls!” The remark struck me as bizarre, usually it was not my kind to look so intensely at people surrounding me. But then it was different, I thought I knew the old man, and with the help of drunkenness I could even match some resemblance with some relatives of mine, evidence which proved of course to be false.
His look betrayed some sort of vicious attitude, the man was longing for sex. Sure he was, why else should he be awake at this time of day (though late it was) and make his way through one of the cheapest hot quarters of Paris? It appeared strikingly true to me, from the way in which he was dressed and the way he looked like that he couldn’t be one of our neighbors. Actually, we lived on the edge of one of the best known – should I say sadly best known – whore-quarters in Paris. Well, the public certainly is not great but the buildings, at least some of them, are wonderful.
The strong blow of the accelerator – our road is a steep one – eventually announced that our bus had reached destination. The man stood up, just like we did, and walked up front of the bus, we were all three sitting at the rear. I ignore why the driver solely opened the front door – that is where we had to get off - but I believe it was for safety measures, and this I would entirely understand. Once the bus had left and crossed the round-about-crossroad set in front of us, the old man was already meters away from us. He hurried up the road which led into the hot and dirty side of the city. There were still a lot of people out on the streets even though it was late when we returned to our home.
August in Paris is a most relaxed and lazy time. All true parisiens have left the town for some southern destination, seeking sunshine even if it also remains in the heart of the Capitale. The city is cleared out and offers a new image to tourists. If the surroundings were full with people it did not necessarily mean that they were attracted by this ugly atmosphere but restaurants and cinemas and theaters were plenty around. Maybe they were also trying to seek picturesque traces of the formerly independent town of Montmartre, on the search for the charm of its narrow streets. Now we went straight towards our building which was set in one of the worst streets of Paris: amidst sex shops and whores there was that small door, the entrance to an eight-floor Haussmann building. A narrow staircase was right at the back of a dark and gloomy corridor. It was an old and nice building dating back to the mid-nineteenth century and, despite the poor surroundings where it stood, it appeared such as one of the prettiest ones in all of Paris to me. As for many very old Parisian houses there was no lift to lead to our apartment. We lived on the last floor and each was at least a five meters high. When we reached our apartment I was so tired from climbing the stairs that my sole desire was to go to bed and fall asleep.
I turned on the light on our bedside-table and pushed the sheet backwards. The warm light on the cushions and cloth seemed comforting and tender, the look of it inspired tenderness and I had a strange feeling. Maybe this was what moved me, a while ago, in the bus.
As the old man in the bus, Amy could suddenly feel that same deep need for sex and, despite the late hour she wanted her boyfriend to love her madly, to love her physically, yeah she wanted to feel him get inside of her! But, of course, she was aware of his passivity, his solitude. Yes, somehow he felt solitude even though he loved was in love with Amy. Did he really love her? She couldn’t tell. “Of course I do,” he said “You know I could never live without you…”
Yes, I love him but he somehow lacks something. He does not seem to notice the women down there in the streets – well, that’s a great thing for they are shameful – he seems to lack some feeling. He is much too straight. Amy undressed in front of the mirror and lay naked under the sheet and waited for his return. When he finally left the bathroom he reached his bed at last and mumbled the usual words, as if these were undeniably bound to routine: “Good night honey, I love you, sweet.”
A few moments later she could hear his snores, and she silently started to weep.
© 2017 Matt Oehler
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