"If you don't need me, I might go to see the Kahlo exhibition."
"In case you see Sandrine there?"
Fabien shakes his head. "No! I like Frida Kahlo."
"Sure you do," says Clement, gazing out at the water. "You rarely talk of anything else."
"She said I never do anything with my life. I just . . . want to show her. I can do culture. I can change. Oh, and I tidied my apartment."
There is a short silence. Fabien glances over quizzically as his father slaps at his pockets, as if searching for something.
"I was trying to find you a medal," Clement says.
Fabien stands, smiling wryly. "I'll come back at four, Papa. In case you need help then."
Clement finishes the last of the salmon. He folds the paper carefully into a small square and wipes his mouth. He pats his son on his arm with his free hand.
"Son," he says as Fabien turns to leave. "Let her go. Don't take it all so seriously, eh?"
Sandrine always said he got up too late. Now, standing near the end of a queue that is marked with signs saying ONE HOUR FROM THIS POINT, TWO HOURS FROM THIS POINT, Fabien kicks himself for not getting there early, as he had originally planned.
He had joined the end cheerfully some forty-five minutes ago, thinking the queue would move quickly. But he has crept forward just some ten feet. It is a cold, clear afternoon, and he is starting to feel the chill. He pulls his wool beanie farther down over his head and kicks the ground with the toes of his boots.
He could just quit the queue, head off, and go back to help his father as he'd said he would. He could go home and finish tidying up the apartment. He could put more oil in his moped and check the tires. He could do the paperwork he'd put off doing for months. But nobody else has ducked out of the queue, and neither does he.
Somehow, he thinks, adjusting his hat over his ears, he might feel better if he stays. He will have achieved something today. He will not have given up, like Sandrine says he always does.
It is, of course, nothing to do with the fact that Frida Kahlo is Sandrine's favorite artist. He turns up his collar, picturing himself bumping into her at the bar. "Oh, yes," he would say casually. "I just went to see the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo exhibition." She would look surprised, maybe even pleased. Perhaps he will buy the catalog and give it to her.
Even as he thinks about it, he knows it is a stupid idea. Sandrine is not going to be anywhere near the bar where he works. She has avoided it since they split up. What is he doing here anyway?
He looks up to see a girl walking slowly toward the end of the long line of people, her navy hat set low over her bangs. Her face wears the look of dismay he sees on everyone else's when they see how long the queue is.
She stops near a woman a few people down from him. In her hand she holds two slips of paper. "Excuse me? Do you speak English? Is this the queue for the Kahlo exhibition?"
She is not the first to ask. The woman shrugs and says something in Spanish. Fabien sees what she is holding and steps forward. "But you have tickets," he says. "You do not need to queue here." He points toward the front of the queue. "Look--if you have tickets, the queue is there."
"Oh." She smiles. "Thank you. That's a relief!"
And then he recognizes her. "You were at Cafe des Bastides last night?"
She looks a little startled. Then her hand goes to her mouth. "Oh. The waiter. I spilled wine all over you. I'm so sorry."
"De rien," he says. "It's nothing."
"Sorry, anyway. And . . . thanks."
She makes as if to walk away, then turns and gazes at him and then at the people on each side of him. She seems to be thinking. "You're waiting for someone?" she asks Fabien.
"No."
"Would you . . . would you like my other ticket? I have two."
"You don't need it?"
"They were . . . a gift. I don't need the other one."
He stares at the girl, waiting for her to explain, but she says no more. He holds out a hand and takes the offered ticket. "Thank you!"
"It's the least I can do."
They walk beside each other to the small queue at the front, where tickets are being checked. He can't stop grinning at this unexpected turn of events. Her gaze slides toward him, and she smiles. He notices her ears have gone pink.
"So," he says. "You are here for a holiday?"
"Just the weekend," she says. "Just--you know--fancied a trip."
He tilts his head sideways. "It's good. To just go. Very"--he searches for the word--"impulsif."
She shakes her head. "You . . . work in the restaurant every day?"
"Most days. I want to be a writer." He looks down and kicks at a pebble. "But I think maybe I will always be a waiter."
"Oh, no," she says, her voice suddenly clear and strong. "I'm sure you'll get there. You have all that going on in front of you. People's lives, I mean. In the restaurant. I'm sure you must be full of ideas."
He shrugs. "It's . . . a dream. I'm not sure it's a good one."
And then they are at the front, and the security guard steers her toward the counter to have her bag searched. Fabien sees she feels awkward and does not know if he should wait.
But as he stands there, she lifts a hand as if to say good-bye. "Well," she says. "I hope you enjoy the exhibition."
He pushes his hands deeper into his pockets, and nods. "Good-bye."
She has slightly red hair and a smattering of freckles. She smiles again, and her eyes crinkle, as if she is predisposed to seeing jokes where other people might not. He realizes he doesn't even know her name. And then, before he can ask, she heads down the stairs and disappears into the crowd.
For months Fabien has been stuck in a groove, unable to think of anything but Sandrine. Every bar he has been to reminds him of somewhere they've been. Every song he hears reminds him of her, of the shape of her top lip, the scent of her hair. It has been like living with a ghost.
But now, inside the gallery, something happens to him. He finds his emotions gripped by the paintings, the huge, colorful canvases by Diego Rivera, the tiny, agonized self-portraits by Frida Kahlo, the woman Rivera loved. Fabien barely notices the crowds that cluster in front of the pictures.
He stops before a perfect little painting in which she has pictured her spine as a cracked column. There is something about the grief in her eyes that won't let him look away. That is suffering, he thinks. He thinks about how long he's been moping about Sandrine, and it makes him feel embarrassed, self-indulgent. Theirs, he suspects, was not an epic love story like Diego and Frida's.
He finds himself coming back again and again to stand in front of the same pictures, reading about the couple's life, the passion they shared for their art, for workers' rights, for each other. He feels an appetite growing within him for something bigger, better, more meaningful. He wants to live like these people. He has to make his writing better, to keep going. He has to.
He is filled with an urge to go home and write something that is fresh and new and has in it the honesty of these pictures. Most of all he just wants to write. But what?
And then he sees her, standing in front of the girl with the broken column for a spine, her eyes locked on the girl in the painting, her eyes wide and sad. Her navy hat is clutched in her right hand. As he watches, a tear slides down her cheek. Her left hand lifts and, still gazing at the picture, she wipes it away with her palm. She looks over suddenly, perhaps feeling his gaze on her, and their eyes meet. Almost before he knows what he is doing, Fabien steps forward.
"I never . . . I never got a chance to ask you," he says. "Would you like to go for a coffee?"
Chapter Eight
The Cafe Cheval Bleu is packed at four o'clock in the afternoon, but the waitress finds Fabien a table inside. Nell has the feeling he is one of those men who always get a good table inside. He orders a tiny black coffee, and she says, "For me, too," because she does not want him to hear her terrible French accent.
There is a short, awkward silenc
e.
"It was a good exhibition, yes?"
"I don't normally cry at pictures," she says. "I feel a bit silly now that I'm out here."
"No. No, it was very moving. And the crowds, and the people, and the photographs . . ."
He starts to talk about the exhibition. He says he has known about the artist's work but did not realize that he would be so moved by it. "I feel it here, you know?" he says, thumping his chest. "So . . . powerful."
"Yes," she says.
Nobody she knows talks like this, she tells him. They talk about what Tessa wore to work, or Coronation Street, or who fell over blind drunk last weekend.
"We talk about these things too. But . . . I don't know . . . I think . . . it inspired me. I want to write like they paint. Does that make sense? I want someone to read and feel it like . . . bouf!"
She can't help smiling.
"You think it's funny?" He looks hurt.
"Oh, no. It was the way you said bouf."
"Bouf?"
"It's not a word we have in England. It just . . . I . . ." She shakes her head. "It's just a funny word. Bouf."
He stares at her for a minute, then lets out a great laugh. "Bouf!"
And the ice is broken. The coffee arrives, and she stirs two sugars into it so that she will not make a face drinking it.
Fabien swallows his in two gulps. "So how do you find Paris, Nell-from-England? This is your first trip?"
"I like it. What I've seen. But I haven't been to any of the sights. I haven't seen the Eiffel Tower or Notre-Dame or that bridge where all the lovers attach little padlocks. I don't think I'll really have time now."
"You will come back. People always do. What are you going to do this evening?"
"I don't know. Maybe find another place to eat. Maybe just flop at the hotel." She laughs. "Are you working at the restaurant?"
"No. Not tonight."
She tries not to look disappointed.
He glances down at his watch. "Merde! I promised my father I would help him with something. I have to go." He looks up. "But I am meeting some friends at a bar later this evening. You would be welcome to join us, if you like."
"Oh. You're very kind, but--"
"But what?" His face is cheerful, open. "You cannot spend your evening in Paris in your hotel room."
"Really. I'll be fine."
She hears her mother's voice: You don't just go out with strange men. He could be anyone. He has a shaven head.
"Nell. Please let me buy you one drink. Just to say thank you for the ticket."
"I don't know. . . ."
"Think of it as Parisian custom."
He has the most amazing grin. She feels herself wobble. "Is it far?"
"Nowhere is far." He laughs. "You are in Paris!"
"Okay. Where shall we meet?"
"I'll pick you up. Where is your hotel?"
She tells him and says, "So where are we going?"
"Where the night takes us. You are the Impulsive Girl from England, after all!" He salutes, and then he is gone, kick-starting his moped and roaring away down the road.
Nell lets herself back into her room, her mind still buzzing with the afternoon's events. She sees the paintings in the gallery, Fabien's large hands around the little coffee cup, the sad eyes of the tiny woman in the painting. She sees the gardens beside the Seine, wide and open, and the river flowing beyond them. She hears the hiss of the doors opening and closing on the Metro. She feels as if every bit of her is fizzing. She feels like someone out of a book.
She has a shower and washes her hair. She sorts through the few clothes she brought with her--Pete is not a great one for dressing up--and wonders whether any of them is Parisian enough. Everyone here is so stylish. They do not dress like each other. They do not dress like English girls, for sure.
She heads down to reception. The receptionist is studying some figures and looks up, her hair swinging, glossy as a show pony's tail.
"Excuse me? Do you know where I could get a nice outfit? Like, sort of French-looking?"
The receptionist waits just a second before she answers.
"French-looking?"
"I may be going out with some people tonight, and I would like to look a little more . . . French."
The receptionist puts down her pen.
"You want to look French."
"Or just maybe not stand out?"
"Why would you not want to stand out?"
Nell takes a breath, lowers her voice. "I just . . . Look, my clothes are all wrong, okay? And you have no idea what it is like to be a not-Frenchwoman surrounded by very chic Frenchwomen. In Paris."
The receptionist considers this for a moment, then leans over the desk and looks at what Nell is wearing. Then she rights herself, scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, and hands it to her.
"It's a short walk down rue des Archives. Tell her Marianne sent you."
Nell gazes at it. "Oh, thank you. Are you Marianne?"
The receptionist raises an eyebrow.
Nell turns to the door. Lifts a hand. "Oooo-kay! Thank you . . . Marianne."
Twenty minutes later Nell stands in front of a mirror in a loose sweater and some black lightweight drainpipe jeans. The assistant--a woman with artfully tousled hair and an armful of clattering bangles--drapes a scarf around Nell's neck, fixing it in a way that seems to Nell to be indefinably French. The shop smells of figs and sandalwood.
"Tres chic, mademoiselle," she says.
"Do I look . . . Parisian?"
"Straight out of Montmartre, mademoiselle," the woman says with a suspiciously straight face. Nell would suspect that the woman was laughing at her, except she doesn't think these women actually do humor. It probably gives one wrinkles.
Nell takes a deep breath. "Well, I guess it's all stuff I'll wear again." She gives a little shiver of excitement. "I could wear the top to work. . . . Okay, I'll take it!"
While she is standing at the counter, paying and trying not to think too hard about how much, her eyes are drawn to the dress in the window, a 1950s-cut summer frock, a ridiculous emerald green with pineapples. She saw it when she walked past that morning, its shantung silk shimmering subtly in the watery Parisian sunshine. It made her think of old Hollywood film stars.
"I love that dress," she says.
"It would look very nice with your coloring. You want to try it?"
"Oh, no," says Nell. "It's not really my--"
Five minutes later Nell is standing in front of the mirror in the green dress. She barely recognizes herself. The dress transforms her: heightens the color of her hair, pulls her in at the waist. It turns her into a more sophisticated version of herself.
The shop assistant arranges the hem, stands, and pulls her mouth down at the corners in a Gallic expression of approval. "It fits you perfectly. Magnifique!"
Nell stares at this new Nell in the mirror. She even seems to stand differently.
"You would like it? It is the last one--maybe I can do something with the price. . . ."
Nell looks at the label and comes to.
"Oh, I'd never wear it. I like to buy things on a cost-per-wear basis. This dress would probably work out at like . . . thirty pounds a wear. No. I couldn't."
"You don't ever do something just because it makes you feel good?" The assistant shrugs. "Mademoiselle, you need to spend more time in Paris."
Twenty minutes later Nell is back in her hotel room, with a shopping bag. She puts on the tight black jeans and pumps and the loose sweater. She eyes the French magazine on the bed, and after flicking through its pages she props up a picture against the mirror and does her hair and her eye makeup like the French model's. Then she stares at her reflection and smiles, giddy.
She is in Paris, in Parisian clothes, getting ready to go out with a Frenchman she picked up in an art gallery!
She pulls her hair back into a loose knot, puts on her lipstick, sits down on the bed, and laughs.
Twenty minutes later she is still sitting on the
bed, staring into space.
She is in Paris, in Parisian clothes, getting ready to go out with a Frenchman she picked up in an art gallery.
She must be insane.
This is the stupidest thing she has ever done in her life.
This is even stupider than buying a ticket to Paris for a man who had once told her he couldn't decide if her face looked more like a horse or a currant bun.
She will be in a newspaper headline or, worse, in one of those tiny news stories that aren't important enough to be a headline.
GIRL FOUND DEAD IN PARIS AFTER
BOYFRIEND FAILS TO SHOW UP
"I told her not to go out with strange men," says mother.
She gazes at herself in the mirror. What has she done?
Nell grabs her key, slips into her shoes, and runs down the narrow staircase to Reception. Marianne is there, and Nell waits for her to come off the phone before she leans over and says quietly, "If a man comes for me, will you tell him I am ill?"
The woman frowns. "Not a family emergency?"
"No. I . . . er . . . I have a stomach-ache."
"A stomach-ache. I'm so sorry, mademoiselle. And what does this man look like?"
"Very short hair. Rides a moped. Obviously not in here. I--He's tall. Nice eyes."
"Nice eyes."
"Look, he's the only man likely to come in here asking for me."
The receptionist nods as if this is a fair point.
"I--He wants me to go out this evening, and . . . it's not a good idea."
"So . . . you don't like him?"
"Oh, no, he's lovely. It's just, well . . . I don't really know him."
"But . . . how will you know him if you don't go out with him?"
"I don't know him well enough to go out in a strange city to a place I don't know. Possibly with other people I don't know."
"That's a lot of don't knows."
"Exactly."
"So you will be staying in your room tonight."
"Yes. No. I don't know." She stands there, hearing how silly she sounds.
Marianne looks her slowly up and down. "It's a very nice outfit."
"Oh. Thank you."
"What a pity. Your stomach-ache. Still." She smiles, turns back to her paperwork. "Maybe some other time."
Nell sits in her room watching French television. A man is talking to another man. One of them shakes his head so hard his chins wobble in slow motion. She looks at the clock often as it ticks slowly around to eight o'clock. Her stomach rumbles. She remembers Fabien saying something about a little falafel stall in the Jewish quarter. She wonders what it would have felt like on the back of that moped.