In Paris With You
Page 9
I’m sure that you recognise this feeling.
Love is so astonishing,
the way it gives sudden shape to our formless expectations,
intense colours to our inner landscape,
upgrades our life to high definition
and convinces us that everyone else
is still trapped in the cave
from which we have escaped.
Later, when we’ve come down
from this 3D IMAX romance,
when the happiness we feel is more balanced,
more gentle, more nuanced, less mental,
and we meet the eye of another,
someone who is obviously in love,
their vision razor-sharp, their eyes so wide, we know what they’re thinking of us, inside:
Poor girl, her life’s so grey.
And we envy them a little, even as we smile
at their arrogance
and we want to reply:
Ah, but I’ve seen
the same things you’re seeing now,
I’ve seen it all and I expect
that I’ll see it all again someday.
Because those love goggles that you’re wearing,
those universe-altering specs,
those glasses that make you feel so daring,
I’ve worn them before, and I daresay
that I’ll wear them again someday.
Crushed by the wait, he was tempted to write to
her. He started dozens of texts and emails. But he couldn’t
decide on anything,
not the beginning, not the middle, not the end
Dear Tatiana
Hello Tatiana
Hi Tatiana
Hola guapa
I wanted to warn you that I’ll be there on Saturday
‘warn’ sounds a bit threatening,
doesn’t it?
I’ll see you Saturday flat I will probably be able to
make it to the museum on Saturday
impersonal
There’s a chance I may be present on Saturday
stupid phrasing
It is possible that I will come on Saturday
it’s possible we’ll both come on Saturday
This was, he knew, becoming an obsession.
Dear Tatiana, I’ve been thinking about
you a lot, since the other day how to
Tatiana, I haven’t really thought about
much else since the other day make
Oh Tatiana, you are literally all I have thought
about since the other day a girl
My darling Tatiana, I find it completely
impossible to get you out of my head freak out
So, in the end, he didn’t write to her at all.
Besides, what would have been the point? He would be
there on Saturday – she would see that for herself.
All these hesitations
were also, in private,
connected to the uncertainty felt by Eugene
regarding the nature of Tatiana’s relations
with her thesis supervisor.
He could hardly make a grand declaration
before finding out if she had a thing for that moron.
Saturday would be his chance to observe them together
(how that word together made him sick),
to seek out clues as to whether
their relationship was more than platonic:
those singular glances, dense with significance, that pass
between two people caught up in a romance,
particularly when it’s a secret;
the way they keep touching each other on the arm or the
shoulder for no reason whatsoever,
those incomprehensible allusions,
giving rise to wry smiles
that vanish in confusion.
That week, the role played by Leprince in Eugene’s
fantasies, though relatively minor, was also intriguing:
sometimes he was an antagonist, the bad guy,
catching them unaware,
behind the statue of the polar bear.
Furious, he threatened them.
Tatiana then told Eugene
that Leprince was guilty
of sexual harassment, so the two men fought
and Eugene won, obviously.
In other daydreams, Leprince’s name came up in the
middle of a discussion
on the pillow that he shared with Tatiana:
she told him no, we’re not sleeping together;
we tried it once, but the poor man
suffers from erectile dysfunction.
So that was how Leprince was seen
in all the scenes of Eugene’s daydreams:
an old man, successively aggressive and impotent,
sexually obsessive, lonely and obscene.
It never crossed his mind that Tatiana might have her
heart set on someone else, someone younger, a student, a
childhood friend, some guy she met on Tinder.
Leprince was the enemy,
not some ordinary Lucas/
Thomas/Xavier.
It was Leprince, that loser,
that ancient, pompous poseur,
who he had to annihilate for her.
(I’m no psychologist,
and besides it’s really none of my business,
but don’t you have the feeling that
the evil/impotent old bore
in Eugene’s fantasies might have rather
less to do with Leprince and a little more
to do with Eugene’s relationship with his father?)
At last Friday night arrived. In his attic flat,
filled with demonic energy, almost a sort of rage,
Eugene cleaned and tidied, dusted and swept,
changed the sheets on the bed,
threw out all his old crap and kept
only what might impress his new love:
he reordered his books (Perec in front, Asterix behind),
put a pack of condoms in the drawer of his bedside table –
open the box or leave it shut?
open makes me look like the kind of guy who invites girls
to his pad every night – a slut –
but closed makes me look like a virgin,
either that or the guy
who bought the pack just for tonight,
what did I do the last time I brought a girl home?
(the last time was several months ago)
I don’t know. I didn’t care last time – that’s the reality:
I couldn’t have cared less what that girl thought of me.
In the end he opened it, left the twelve silver-coloured
blister packs twelve? is that all?
I should have bought more in the drawer.
Just before midnight he messed the flat up again
because he thought it looked too neat,
casually tossing a shirt
over the arm of chair
as no one ever does, anywhere,
untidying up his desk –
three paperclips, two pens
scattered improbably over a pile of concert tickets/bank
statements/an advert for a play,
and finally went to bed, and finally
it was tomorrow: Saturday,
finally, this day he’d waited for so long,
finally this bus he’d ridden a hundred times in his head,
finally this queue of tourists outside the Musée d’Orsay,
inexplicable
finally this glass door, rhinoceros
finally this polar bear,
against which they’d made love
a thousand times in his fantasies,
finally this Room 32, where she was preparing to speak …
finally her!
He drank her in,
noting things
haphazardly:
dark turquoise poplin dress, accentuating her hips,
black jacket, black boots, black hair tied back,
the curve of her calves matching the curve of her lips,
small watch – grey leather strap –
on her wrist
and a pair of pearl earrings, pale pink. That’s it.
Ten seconds of disappointment – That’s Tatiana? That’s all?
She’d starred
in his dreams in too many guises, too many roles,
that, in truth, it was hard,
inevitably,
not to be a little bit put out by the sight
of Tatiana shrunk by reality.
But then,
in the eleventh second … joy:
Yes, that’s Tatiana! That’s all
Tatiana!
Eugene felt stunned by her singular wholeness,
her only Tatiana-ness: it was her,
he recognised her,
and she was a thousand times more
than the thousand shes she’d been before.
Floored by this miracle,
he contemplated her the way
a mouse might contemplate the Milky Way.
As for Tatiana,
standing in front of her painting,
if she was surprised to see Eugene
in her field of vision
between
View of Rooftops and Pinks and Clematis
(Effect of Snow) in a Crystal Vase
(Caillebotte/Manet
in case you’re interested)
well, she didn’t let it show.
Tatiana was there
to talk about Young Man at His Window,
a Caillebotte canvas rarely shown in exhibition,
from the private collection of an American,
currently on loan to the museum.
The picture represented a man, from behind, observing,
through the window of a Parisian house,
an almost empty avenue,
where a young woman was walking,
dwarfed by the Haussmann-style buildings all around;
behind her, a horse pulled a carriage.
All was bathed in sugar-white sunlight.
Tatiana was there
to communicate her knowledge and love of this painting to
a motley group of people:
friends of the museum, tourists, students, and others
drawn only by curiosity;
and facing her on the wooden floor,
sitting cross-legged, wide-eyed and chubby-cheeked,
was a handful of children.
Tatiana was not there
to focus on any one particular person in the audience,
and while, yes,
she had to confess
she was a little intrigued by Eugene’s presence
I like that Fair Isle jumper (and beauty)
it shows off his shoulders
she wasn’t about to let that distract her from her duty.
TATIANA Thank you for coming, thank you, everyone,
for coming this afternoon, are you sitting
comfortably? not too cold on the floor?
everyone okay?
Good, then I’ll begin.
Who can tell me okay, we’ve started
nice easy question
who can tell me what they see in this picture?
CHILDREN A man!
TATIANA A man, very good. And what is he doing,
who can tell me what he’s doing, this man?
CHILDREN He’s looking out the window!
TATIANA He’s looking out the window. Very good.
And what is he looking at do you think?
CHILDREN A horse!!!
CHILD 1 I’ve been horse riding at Nan’s house.
CHILD 2 Me too. I rode a horth wonth.
ADULT 1 I reckon he’s looking at the pretty girl!
(Laughter)
TATIANA Maybe he’s looking at the horse, maybe he’s
looking at the lady in the street,
we don’t know maybe what he’s looking at
is
hidden from our view by his body,
or maybe he’s not really looking at anything
in particular.
Don’t you just sometimes look
through the window at nothing
in particular?
CHILDREN Yes!!! (sometimes I / but one time / shhh
/ I’ve got a window / my mum says /
[inaudible] / mustn’t lean out the window)
TATIANA In your opinion,
why is he there, this man,
looking out the window?
ADULT 1 He’s unemployed! He’s on benefits. He’s
got nothing to do all day but stare out the
window.
(Laughter)
Eugene added this man to his mental list
of people to be eliminated:
he daydreamed about shooting him in the head
right here, in this hall,
his brains spurting out in a gush of pink and red
splattering over the Pissarro on the wall.
Then he started thinking of gentler things,
lulled by the soft music
of Tatiana’s voice as she continued her presentation,
punctuated by the joyful cries of the children
and interrupted occasionally by that intolerable clever dick;
he watched as she restored order, subtle and serene,
with her diagonal voice, which piped up like a flute,
slender, silver, soothing,
slicing through the philharmonic murmur of the group.
He wanted it all to himself, that soprano calm,
all for him,
that sinuous melody,
winding itself around him like a dream.
This need he felt was more than desire,
a fact from which Eugene drew a weird pride;
he imagined not only
that he held her
tight to his chest,
not only
that he undressed her
while his tongue described
the curve of her breasts,
but also – and most of all –
that she embraced him in turn,
and took him by the hand,
delicately, aware of his fragility.
(Kind of surprising,
since up to then,
fragile was not something he thought
that he could be.)
TATIANA So, in the nineteenth century, there was
in the literature of the time,
a particular type of person
who observed, who didn’t
do anything very much
except observe the city, does anyone know
what we call people of that kind
yes, over there? no, not you, professor
that’s cheating, you already know the answer.
Even Leprince and his pompous pontifications –
‘Flaneur’ was the term in vogue for such people, it’s said
– and Tatiana’s teasing replies
Yes, a flaneur –
one who strolls, one who is idle
well done, professor, have a gold star
even the amusement of the crowd
did not render Eugene homicidal,
so at peace did he feel in his heart.
He felt a sort of certainty deep inside:
he and Tatiana would kiss, within an hour,
an hour and a half, and after that,
everything would be simple. No more anxiety
concerning performance or rivalry;
she would ditch the audience, come to his flat,
and everything would be all right.
He would be with her,
be with her,
be with her …
Applause.
Eugene awoke. It was over. He wasn’t too sure of wha
t
she’d said,* but still …
Confident, he advanced towards her, cleaving a way
through the crowd
of visitors who waltzed this way and that, headed
for the exits, until
they were left alone,
but no:
Leprince too had taken a few steps in her direction,
and then
she was surrounded by friends, in a hubbub of bravos and
congratulations.
But all the same, he noticed that Tatiana’s eyes
kept coming back to him, as if magnetised;
in fact, it looked to Eugene
as if she were keen
to get rid of all these others
as quickly as she could.
She thanked them for their thank yous
* That it didn’t matter, in fact, what the young man was looking at / that the fascination of the painting lay in its ambiguous gaze / the way nothing was resolved, all the ways / it failed to make things clear / the way it revealed itself by hiding / or hid itself by revealing / that art is not there to show / but that it can / place an opaque body in front of a window / and objects in the background /and yet speak only / truly, only / of what is invisible.
let’s have coffee one afternoon!
really nice to see you again,
yeah the thesis is going well,
I’ll tell you all about it soon,
I don’t want to keep you out too late …
all those things that we say to make someone go away,
she tossed them out like confetti to everyone
see you next time thanks for coming
while seeming to check
through the moving cracks
in the wall of human beings
that Eugene
was still there:
a smile at someone Eugene’s still there
a kiss on someone’s cheek great to see you, bye
yes, still there
a handshake with an American tourist who had just posed
a very long question –
an involuntary distress signal sent to Eugene:
don’t go I’m coming; I’ll just be three
seconds – thank you I’m delighted
you enjoyed it
and then, at last, the biggest obstacle
of all:
Leprince, who was strolling over
to her.
Eugene pretended to admire a work of art,
just for something to do.
Auguste Renoir, Alphonsine Fournaise.
What a godawful name