Travels Through Love and Time

by Christine Hall Volkoff

  My feelings about the evening with Lindy were mixed.

  At times, I felt that I had missed an occasion to create something by making some kind of a move, or at least a clear, honest verbal overture. After all, I was supposedly the one in charge here. How could I expect the other side to take the first step?

  Other times, I felt that I had done the best I could by being honest and not pushy. Pouncing did not seem exciting to me. Responding to something hidden but mutual was more my style. She would come to me when she was ready, as long as I kept the messages true, if not necessarily clear. If she did not, then, if nothing was gained, nothing was lost either.

  Alison liked to replay her relationship with Marie, and cast me in the role of herself as the weaker element. There was a ladder of abuse, and my part was to stand in as the lowest rung. She often made a point of showing me that I was the last thing on her mind … Maybe it was time to make things happen in a different way with somebody else. There was however some danger of encountering the same problem, as Lindy obviously seemed more interested in Julien than in me.

  On the other hand, she had sought me out, even knowing who I was, and my situation. Besides, she had already done the infamous deed, and told me so! What an interesting dilemma, and quite unexpected … In Paris, of all places.

  Paris, the city where so many had come to help their real lives unfold. It was the city of tolerance where Vita Sackville-West used to take Violet on outrageous jaunts, and where Natalie Barney would hold her court in total openness and freedom. Yet to me, Paris had always seemed closed and oppressive. Maybe it was just because I was from there and not from Oakland where there is no there …

  I kept waiting for her to call me. The days went by after our dinner, and every morning when my phone rang I was always hoping it was going to be her. Lindy Christoforos, American in Paris, straight woman in running shoes, lonely person who picked up strangers for no reason …

  By the weekend, she still hadn’t called.

  I kept myself busy, seeing friends and family, more movies, various museums and going on sightseeing adventures that I would undertake on my own. I would imagine that I was with Alison or Lindy, talking to them, choosing dark corners where we could kiss secretly and turn the excursion into an erotic adventure.

  Driving past the Rue de Nevers was especially difficult as I would crane my neck, hoping to accidentally run into Lindy. No such luck, and I almost had a couple of accidents as Parisian drivers don’t take kindly to unexplained slowing down.

  Sunday came and went …. still nothing.

  I felt discouraged, and started applying my methods for not thinking, without much success. Should I give up on the whole thing? Why hasn’t she called? Answering machines were common in California, but not yet inParis. These devices were akin to a modern version of what telegrams used to be in the old days. One could record little concise masterpieces that left a lot to the imagination. You could prepare your message in your head and entrust it to the machine, saying only as much as it was safe to say. I wondered if Lindy had one in her borrowed apartment … Well, there is only one way to find out. Why should I wait for her to call? Telephones work both ways … If Ruthie was here right now, what would she say? The same thing Françoise had said. Go ahead, you have nothing to lose. But what if I get hurt … She’ll be back with Julien, or maybe she’ll be with somebody new … you might not win … true. It’s like the Lottery. If you don’t play, you are sure not to win. Do it! It’s only a telephone call for God’s sake …

  Before I knew it, I was dialing her number. Here it was …. an answering machine. All right! I had never really noticed the tone of her voice … soft, husky, yet totally unaffected. “Hello, this is Linda, I cannot come to the phone right now, but if you would like to leave a message for me or Igor Metzguev who is now away till the end of October, please do so after the beep”, “après le bip sonore”, as she repeated the last part in French. I left my message in English.

  “Please call me in the mornings, if you want to do something …”

  Do something? What? How silly. Oh well, we’ll see, and leave it to fate.

  No call the next day either. I was going crazy. I was cursing my life and the stupid situation I had gotten myself into.

  First, I find someone who might be able to help me forget Alison. Second, she is just like Alison, and is leading me on or toying with my mind, or my heart, or some other ethereal and fragile entity within my system. And why would anyone do this? She does not get anything out of it, and I don’t get anything out of it. Once more, I had not asked to start this. I had come back to the café all right, but she was the one who asked to go to the movie with me, then to dinner. She had picked me up, there was no other word for it. Why can’t people stick to their original ideas? Maybe, just like Alison, she got tempted and then became scared when things got too close to really happening, and tucked her cold feet back in.

  The thought was infuriating me. Why can’t people just start living? I could remember myself as an adolescent, afraid and confused. Hopefully, I had learned something since then: the hardest part is to acknowledge what you are really feeling and not to give in to disguises, cover ups or rationalizations.

  Once you have mastered step one, things become more manageable. Becoming a sexual deviant is not so painful if you let yourself enjoy the good part. It sure made the bad part much more palatable.

  I had to keep in mind that my time here was limited and that there was none to waste. Maybe there was a way I could talk about this openly with Lindy, and at least play the game with all cards on the table. If she claimed not to be interested, then I had to go with that. It would be a waste, but there was nothing I could do about it. And at least, I would have saved myself the humiliation of pouncing only to be turned down.

  Two days later, I found myself dialing her number again.

  Again, the machine answered. Her exotic voice was soothing, and making me more impatient at the same time.

  “I think we should talk about things a little more. My phone number is blah blah blah … ” I said. “Hope to hear from you soon, I hope everything is OK. Please call me.”

  I hung up, reluctant to leave my room and eager to leave it so I did not have to wait for the phone call. Waiting for phone calls has to be one of the most horrible things in life. It is the daily grind of the betrayed. I knew all about it from my last days in the music business. Don’t call us, we’ll call you. Right. Dream on.

  I kept myself busy all day again, deciding at times that there was no more hope. Well, if she does not want me, she does not want me. She does not know what she’s missing, ha, ha. I slept with great difficulty, with a lot of Alison dreams, dreams of rejection, of disconnection, of the unreality that sometimes seeps from real life into our dreams.

  Then, early in the morning, the phone rang while I was still half asleep. It was Lindy.

  “Hi! Is this too early to call? Did I wake you up?”

  “No, are you kidding? This is great. How are you?”

  “Fine, especially now that I have your phone number again. I was going crazy looking for the piece of paper it was on, and you are not listed.”

  Oh, I had not left my number … I was flabbergasted at my own stupidity…

  “Sorry … I’m glad I thought of giving it to you again. Would you like to get together? It would be great to talk…”

  “Well, I was wondering if we could get together on Saturday night … ”

  I had plans with Françoise and her husband, but things could be arranged…

  “You mean tomorrow?”

  “Yes, Saturday as in tomorrow.”

  “I would love to. Where shall we meet?”

  I was sure she was going to say the Babylone, just for old time’s sake. Once more, she was ahead of me and surprised me.

  “Why don’t you come and meet me at the apartment?”

  “Great! I’ll be there! What time?”

  We decided on seven. A little early for a Frenc
h date but, after all, she was not French. I enthusiastically agreed and we talked a little bit longer about how busy she was at work and how idle I was for the time-being. I said goodbye, adding that I was looking forward to seeing her tomorrow. “Same here,” she said very sweetly, and that was it.

  I was ecstatic about the idea that I was going to see where she lived. It always struck me as unfair that I always liked to go and visit other people, and that it was very seldom the other way around. I always felt better outside of my home when I grew up, and the stigma had stayed with me. People sometimes came to visit me in California and it was fine, but it had taken me years of getting used to having my own house and being able to clean it every once in a while. Other people, normal people, had much cleaner, nicer houses … I did not really have a home of my own in Paris nowadays, and inviting her was out of the question. Even my little room was an extension of my mother’s apartment and, as we know, extremely noisy. Besides, it was much more fun to go there.

  I called Françoise to reschedule our plans for the next day. She was very excited and made me promise to tell her everything about my second evening with Lindy. The nickname just sounded so much better and more adventurous somehow. In my mind, it gave her a more assertive attitude, less ready to abide by the dynamics laid out by Julien who dictated that her role was to be sad and abandoned. There were other people in the world who could give her joy and excitement. I was definitely applying for the job if she was going to give me the break that Alison would not give me: being valued and appreciated, as a friend and, who knows, as a lover as well … I was certainly willing to give it a try …

  Chapter Seven

  I woke up in the usual racket after a sleepless night. How was I going to spend the day, to not be too impatient about the evening? It was all set with my mother; I was going to have the car. The weather was overcast, threatening to rain.

  I had lunch with some friends from high school, trying very hard to concentrate on a conversation. The real conversation was going on in my head about what I was going to tell Lindy tonight. Something had to be done and the situation had to evolve fast, or I would be going back to hell in California without having gone through to the end of this.

  After lunch, I took my mother with me to see a movie, a French one with a lot of style and very little substance. Neither of us really liked it, and we went home in the always hellish traffic. The clocks seemed to have slowed down to intergalactic time. I decided not to rehearse my upcoming encounter with Lindy, and leave everything to the moment. I did my best to free my mind of all expectations and concentrate on living in the present, the most difficult task ever attempted by mankind.

  Oh my God! Six-thirty! I’d better leave now, think of the time it will take to find a parking place! I said goodnight to my mother, and left in the still-crowded evening. At the end of this drive there is Lindy Christoforos, the carrier of Christ, an almost Greek woman with a French ex-boyfriend. As I drove, I cultivated my anger at Alison as a means of stopping myself from having too many expectations about Lindy. Oh, the tangled webs …

  I drove all the way into the Rue de Nevers, and had to back up because there was not a single parking place. I went back onto the quay and searched the side streets to no avail. Here we go, maybe there is some truth to the lucky in love, unlucky in parking saying after all. It was almost a quarter past seven. I could be fashionably late, but I did not want to aggravate Lindy for stupid reasons like being really late. Across the bridge, I finally found a place on the other bank. As I walked back, it was beginning to drizzle. Seven twenty-five. I arrived at her door and tried to open it. It was locked. I realized I did not have the security code and did not know where the apartment was. I needed to get to a phone and call her. Fortunately, I had the precious piece of paper with her phone number. I walked out of the Rue de Nevers into a café, got change and descended into the murky downstairs to call. She answered. “Allo?”

  “Lindy?”

  “Yes,” she said without questioning my use of the nickname. “Is that you?”

  I described my predicament, she sounded very sweet. Everything was all right. She gave me the code and told me it was on the fifth floor and there was only one door. I walked back, feeling much better. I punched in the code, and started going up the ancient staircase. It felt just like I did, a little bit slanted. She was on the last floor waiting for me, smiling, welcoming. Life was beginning to make sense again.

  “Hi! I totally forgot about the code and all that. Sorry … ”

  She hugged me, and I walked into the apartment which was definitely worth checking out. She looked stunning in the golden light, at home barefoot and in jeans, a white shirt, and a proprietary air about the place that gave her even more presence and beauty.

  The apartment was an attic with beams and whitewashed ceilings. The floor was covered with antique red hexagonal tiles with a Navajo rug here and there. The floor was at a different level in each room, and the walls were decorated with paintings by unknown painters, the Picassos of the future, a great investment for her friend Igor. The windows were looking out onto the roofs and the river. The night was misty, soulful and mysterious. Lindy was taking me into the kitchen, which was not really a kitchen, but opened up into the large living room. The lighting was soft and subdued, with candles and dimmed lamps. She had some Slavic women’s choir softly playing on the stereo.

  I was expressing my enthusiasm about the place.

  “You can see why I’d love to have this as my own. Unfortunately, Igor is coming back this fall.”

  “Then where will you live?”

  “Good question. Julien and I used to live together, so I don’t know where I will end up.”

  The kitchen was more modern and luxurious than one would have expected in a penthouse apartment. A whole dinner was prepared, ready on the counter, a salad bowl, oysters, clean dinner plates, and a bottle of Bordeaux. I looked puzzled.

  “Oh yes, she said, since this is Saturday night and it’s madness and lines everywhere, I thought we would have dinner here instead of going out. Is that OK?”

  “I think it’s perfect … ”

  We sat down for a while on the couch and had glasses of wine. The moment was truly magical. Outside, I could hear the horns, the senseless agitation, and the meaningless frenzy of Saturday nights in a working town. Inside, there was this feeling of safety with underlying excitement. Nothing can really go wrong. It’s all here, ready to go, just enjoy the ride and don’t pretend you are not really on it.

  Lindy was telling me what she had been up to since last time we had seen each other. The level of intimacy had definitely risen, even though things were still quite formal between us.

  She had seen Julien, and had had lunch with him.

  “He was all right, and making a real effort to redefine our relationship. I kept being torn between asking him about Sonja and refusing to talk about her. What would I need to know about her, except that she is richer, more famous, and more beautiful than I am? I don’t need to hear that.”

  I wanted to tell Lindy that I thought she was quite beautiful herself, but I kept quiet, saving all my nerve for later.

  We went on for a while, comparing Alison and Julien, and their ways.

  I described to Lindy, how Alison had made a specialty of rejecting me and never missing an occasion to tell me how she never really was in love with me, not now and not ever. If Alison hinted at a conversation she had had about us, I always hated myself for asking what had transpired. Somehow it came down to “This will hurt your feelings, because I don’t really love you”. Sure enough, my feelings got hurt really badly, and I hated myself for being so vulnerable.

  The fact that Marie was one of the most abusive people I had ever known did not seem to figure into her reasoning. Instead of being angry at Marie for leaving her and treating her poorly, she took it out on me in her normal pecking order. Yet, there were also times when I could have sworn that she still loved me. Where was the truth and where was
reality? Could there really be two realities?

  “Don’t you think, said Lindy, “that there can be two realities, one that is real, in harmony with some kind of universal flow, and one that’s an illusion … ? The hard part is to decide which one will hurt us the least. I think that Julien was happier with me than he is with Sonja however, right now, he needs to do this.”

  Somehow, it did not bother me that she sounded still so involved with Julien. I felt safe because she had not pretended to be in love with me or anything of the sort. We had a clean slate. I was still nervous because my grip on reality had been loosened by my experience with Alison, and I was not sure that my instincts were in any way to be trusted. It was a little bit like driving a Mack truck on a mountain road in the fog while blindfolded. How good a driver was I really? The only way to protect myself against drama and meaningless pain was to tell the truth about what I wanted.

  Then, and this was the hardest part, I had to train myself to deal with the reactions to any move I dared to make.

  Rejection is never fun for anyone. If the reactions feel cruel, shallow or standoffish to the point of absurdity, then we have to realize these are not our people and we shouldn't be involved with them. It was probably a symptom of my own sickness that I still loved Alison. Was Lindy a symptom of my sickness, or a definite sign of recovery? The only way to find out was to level with her, and I was committed to doing just that tonight. There are moments in life when you just know only the truth will do. We can’t afford to mess with lies, when we only have three weeks to express ourselves … Indeed we should never mess with lies at all, because what can seem like an extensive lifetime when we are young does not feel much longer than three weeks when we are older and the time comes to leave graciously …