Travels Through Love and Time

by Christine Hall Volkoff

  Lindy was standing on the doorstep looking quite regal, wearing a fluffy terrycloth bathrobe from a famous hotel on Cap d’Antibes that I had once visited a long time ago. She had to go to work. I had to go. We stayed on the landing and kissed until the temptation to go back inside became unbearable. Someone had to make a decision. Bravely, I lightly kissed her neck just where I always saw her heart beating, and next thing I knew I was racing down the old uneven steps.

  I was out in the light, out on the street. The car was still there, illegal, out of place. I backed it up to the Quai, and sped toward the darker western skies. I felt elated and shaky. My mind was full of memories of the night and expectations of nights to come.

  There was a God, or a Goddess, someone watching over me, who had put me on the path of this unknown woman, and had given me the nerve to come back to her, back to the café after jumping off the train at Sèvres-Babylone …

  Chapter Nine

  The taxi was getting stuck in traffic by the Porte Clignancourt on its way to Roissy Airport. On the right side was a building under construction with a huge billboard. It showed a scantily clad woman with deep cleavage and an enticing smile, requesting that one dial 3615-ORGASME on their minitel. Minitel was the computer network installed by the French bureau of communications. They gave you the terminal for free and then collected on your various calls and time online. “Hi, said the woman … “I am Pamela … I am shameless, you are faceless, call me …”

  I suddenly thought of the loneliness everywhere that people tried to escape from through minitel networks, singles groups, pick up bars and gay bars. I had been so lucky!

  “Are you going on vacation?”

  Hassan, the taxi driver, was trying to break my daydream so I could join him and bring some friendly company to his day.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Are you going back home, then?”

  “No, not really either … I guess I’m just going away.”

  Hassan smiled … “Should I take you back?”

  Ah, the temptation … I smiled back. “No, no … thank you.”

  There I was, on Tuesday, on my way back to California. I usually always took the Sunday flight. But Lindy and I had made other plans. Lindy had taken Monday off, and we were going to get our 48 hours together. So this time, I had packed, and called a cab to leave on Sunday. I had said goodbye to everyone. I think Françoise and her husband were the only ones who knew of my secret plans.

  Climbing into the taxi, I had told the driver to take me to the Rue de Nevers instead. I had jumped off the train of time. I was off to Cythera … in a taxi.

  Rue de Nevers, I entered the code and proceeded to wheel my suitcase up the five flights of stairs. Without any prompting on my part, Lindy came down to help me. The bag was not too heavy and we quite enjoyed negotiating the narrow steps and tight corners.

  Then we closed the door on the stairs, the streets and the city, and under Igor’s skylights we made love in the bright sunshine. It was as if we were on a beach. It was hot and sultry, and we were mellow, slow and gentle. It was as if our souls were somehow directing our bodies into a dance around the light as it kept changing. Once more, I could not figure out whether I had stepped into a dream or if I had finally awakened to reality.

  Lindy told me she had a previous engagement with her friend Diego who lived on a barge on the river. Diego was a painter in his mid seventies, born in Argentina. His beloved wife Antonia had died a couple of years before, and he and Lindy had been a comfort to each other. She did not want to cancel. She said she would love for Diego to meet me and for us to have our first dinner as lovers, with him.

  We went down to the Vert Galant to watch the golden hour descend upon the center of the city. On a clear summer day, the setting sun graces the river with sparkle while it sets ablaze the windows of the Institut and glows through the glass roof of the Grand Palais. I was in my home city, but it had suddenly become a mysterious undiscovered place of striking beauty.

  The Vert Galant is a place for lovers, and many couples around us were holding hands or kissing. We agreed that while it would be great to be able to make out in the open like these people, we also enjoyed keeping a tantalizing distance.

  “As long as it is temporary!” Lindy said it as she leaned her head on my shoulder and stole a kiss on the base of my neck.

  We walked along the still crowded square and up to the bridge. The strangers around us seemed more interesting and friendly than usual. We were in love with each other, we were in love with the world, and the world loved us back.

  Diego’s barge was anchored not far from the Pont Neuf. It was small but had the looks of a converted seafaring vessel. We climbed aboard and right away I loved it and wanted to move in and stay forever. The deck was decorated with flowers, lounge chairs, a green and white umbrella and a couple of small palm trees. The door was open on an interior full of paintings, seafaring lore and framed photographs. By the window on the river side, a table was set for three, with candles and a bottle of wine. Diego saw us walk in from an old fashioned bar where he was busy mixing some South American cocktail in a silver shaker.

  “Welcome! I am honored that you chose to bring beauty and love under my roof!” he said smiling broadly and waving us in.

  He took us on a tour of the barge. It had a bedroom and a living room that Diego had turned into his workshop. His paintings were abstract, yet exuded calm, with an exuberance of color. By the door there was a crisp black and white photograph of Antonia, young, happy, posing by a dangerous looking waterfall. The kitchen was a perfect boat’s kitchen. Every item had its place as if to protect it from being shaken by storms on the high seas.

  Dinner was delicious. Diego was a great cook and he said he had prepared food especially for us from his mother’s ancient recipes. There were sweet and sour vegetables to soothe the heart, he said, and grilled sweetbreads on a wooden board. Good for sex, according to him. I laughed with him, and cared for him as if I had known him all my life. We toasted to all of us, to friendship and love.

  “Always be good to each other, and always be true!” Diego said … there was a second of unease as Lindy and I had not yet speculated on where we were going from here, but it swiftly passed as our conversation continued by candlelight, interrupted by the soft rocking of the barge whenever the tour boats glided by in an explosion of flood lights.

  For dessert we had dulce de leche, and Diego and I entertained Lindy with an improvised duet of 'A Media Luz', one of the most erotic tangos ever written, he said. Then Diego took two Polaroid photos of us, and gave us each one, to always treasure as a souvenir.

  We finished the evening with yerba mate, sipped Argentinian style through silver straws from carved gourds. Finally, we said goodnight to our host, my friend Diego, our friend and protector, and walked off into the night holding hands.

  It was only the beauty of the full moon over the river and the bridges that held us back from running full speed ahead to the moonlit garret awaiting us on top of the Rue de Nevers. That night, exhausted and overwhelmed, we managed to fall asleep in each other’s arms before the skylights had a chance to turn purple with the first signs of dawn.

  The next morning, we woke up giddy with renewed energy. We had some coffee and some fruit, but could not stay apart for too long. Our lovemaking had become more sophisticated and quite intense. So, when lunch time came around and we felt hungry for food, we decided it was time to take a real break and spend some time doing more mundane things together.

  At first we thought of going to a movie, but we wanted to look at each other and not be in the dark. So we went to have a light lunch on the Place Dauphine. Lindy was laughing a lot, and the names of Julien or Alison were conspicuously absent from our conversation, which was more about reminiscing and commenting on our last twenty-four hours. We were stunned that everything was going so well. Maybe that first day at the Babylone, some unconscious part of us already knew what was in store. I told her I loved Diego and
never wanted to lose touch with him. I pointed out how easy it is to lose oneself in Paris, and how once you dropped out of the everyday routine the chances of running into someone you knew were quite slim. Lindy said she did not care who she ran into. Unfortunately, I had escaped with a lie, so I did care.

  We decided that we wanted to discover something together, so we would always remember it as ours. The closest virgin territory was the towers of Notre Dame. Neither of us had ever been up there, as typically in Paris they were always under construction. We entered from the side, and started up the stairs. Climbing up was surprisingly tiring and I confessed to Lindy that my legs were a little bit shaky. She admitted hers were too, and we were still laughing when we reached the top.

  It was not very crowded up there, and the view was sweeping and breathtaking. We were pointing out landmarks to each other, remembering incidents, sometimes hilarious, that had happened to us while visiting or being near those places. I told her I had gotten lost in the Cluny museum as a kid. I had accepted I was going to have to live there forever and was almost disappointed when my mother finally found me. She talked about her Greek family on her father’s side. A few of them had come to Paris for a brief visit with her. They had taken over a restaurant near the Pantheon. The men had danced until dawn, while the women sang, and both consumed the little restaurant’s entire stock of Ouzo.

  Standing by the chimaera with the horns, we remembered reading the Victor Hugo novel. She told me she had identified with Esmeralda. I told her I had identified with Quasimodo, the hunchback who lived in the tower, rang the bell and saved Esmeralda from hanging. Of course I was in love with Esmeralda then, and now, unbelievably, she was in love with me.

  Going down was even harder than going up, and we needed a rest. So we crossed to the Ile Saint Louis, and walked to the lower bank by the Pont Saint Louis, and sat down below the stairs. There was nobody there, nothing but cobblestones and the milky flow of the river.

  In between the rumble of tour boats, there was a sweet summery stillness in the air as we took in the beauty of the spot. There is something about a moving body of water that brings on a contemplative mood.

  As we were talking, Lindy’s eyes were joyful and limpid, and looking into them it suddenly occurred to me that the two of us might be more than a mere sexual adventure.

  “You know that I love you.” I said … ”You know that?”

  We had said it to each other many times in the heat of the night, but it was a different story to say it like that, flatly, sitting out on the stone steps, in broad daylight and in complete consciousness.

  She replied softly. “Yes … I’m afraid that I feel the same way about you.”

  “Nah, you’re not afraid … you’re never afraid!”

  She laughed, but then dared to ask the hovering question. “What do you think we should do about it?”

  “You mean other than what we’ve been doing?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  We stayed silent for a while. I watched a speedboat going upstream and a flight of pigeons burst out from under the bridge.

  “How about…” I stopped mid-sentence.

  I did not know what to say. I could not stay in Paris, and I could not bring myself to ask Lindy if she had plans to move to California.

  “How about … nothing?” she said it looking at me with the sweetest and most glorious smile.

  Wow. I was shocked. Part of me was hurt that Lindy had not said that her utmost desire was to live with me forever and ever. But I was also surprised at the relief I felt.

  I took a deep breath, hesitated for a while staring silently at the current creating little wakes around the pillars of the bridge, then finally I smiled back.

  “All right … We can try that … I’m with you … I am … ”

  We were still all alone on the stone bank. We kissed in the shadow of the stairs, under the protection of the trees, the cathedral and the old Pont Saint Louis.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let's go home … ”

  We went back up the steps, then walked briskly across the bridge and rushed by the book and print vendors on the upper bank, past the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Quai. Lindy was running ahead, slender and graceful and, as always, trying to control her hair. I caught up with her.

  “Now I know why you wear running shoes!” I said, out of breath.

  I guess we had found our legs again.

  Once in the Rue de Nevers, we did not waste any time. We were so well-tuned by then. We had learned to move together and to be attentive to each other. It did not take much effort to get where we wanted to go. We stayed as long as we could and held each other through the sometimes overpowering emotions that would surface in both of us afterwards.

  Lindy insisted on going down to the Rue de Buci to do some shopping for dinner, and I stayed alone in this beautiful apartment, letting myself believe that, at least for these few hours, it was also my own.

  I repacked my suitcase, carefully putting away in my wallet the Polaroid print from Diego. I called a cab for the next morning and sat down at the desk to write the first love letter I had ever written in my life. It was long, daring and lighthearted. I kept picturing Lindy reading it and the words flowed as easily as if they were dictated to me by Eros himself, son of Aphrodite, shooter of arrows, and lover of Psyche.

  Once done, I folded the letter, and tucked it next to the bookmark in the pages of the book on her nightstand. Ha! Imagine that! It was Marguerite Duras’ 'The Lover'. The TV station must have been preparing a special on our dear Marguerite.

  Lindy returned, and we sat down to dinner, elated by the memories of our day together and the ease with which we had solved our future. It was simple: no upheaval, no obligation, just live in the present and make the best of it all.

  She had put on a jazz CD. I am not a fan of jazz but this one sounded like Miles Davis. It was slow, and dreamy, the kind of music that made you want to move slowly and lean back while blowing smoke rings and absorbing some forbidden substance. All we had was champagne, but that was just fine. We were feeling euphoric, not eating very much and toasting to everything.

  At some point, we put our elbows on the table and held our left hands palm against palm as we pronounced some unlikely vows. I started with the obvious. “Will you always love me?”

  “Yes, I will always love you.” Then she took her turn. “Will you always desire me?”

  “Yes, I always will. Even if I can't do anything about it, it will always be there.”

  She smiled in the candlelight. “Will you always be good to me?” she asked as our fingers folded around our left hands and held tight.

  “Yes! I will! Now I realize what Diego meant last night … good to you and true to you, I will be.”

  We sealed the vows with a kiss, and soon we had to forget about dinner and proceed with all the living to be done, the loving ahead of us, before the next morning. We set the alarm for two hours before we had to get up as we didn't want to fall asleep and then have to just get up and go.

  We eventually did fall asleep but we woke up in time, without the alarm, and made love for what we felt could be the last time. Suddenly our lovemaking became more emotional than skilful. Not surprisingly, it was harder to let go than we expected. I looked up at the wispy pink clouds of dawn through the skylight one more time. It was only a few days ago that I had first seen the sun rise from Lindy's bed. A lifetime had gone by, but it could also have fit within the blink of an eye.

  “Next time you come to Paris, I probably won't be living here … ”said Lindy. I think she meant the apartment, but she could have meant Paris. There was promise and regret in her tone. I did not know which one to go with, so I just held her and tried to engrave these few moments with her in my memory forever.

  Finally, the time came. Lindy took a shower while I deliberately did not. I cleaned up the dishes from the night before, and finished packing. Lindy's shooting crew was supposed to come pick her up a little before my cab was d
ue. I made some coffee which I drank a little too fast and burnt myself.

  Lindy said she would call me and leave a message on my answering machine so that I would get it when I got home. I said I would do the same. One last kiss, and then we rushed down the stairs to escape the feeling that we might be doing the wrong thing after all. I was bouncing my suitcase on its rickety wheels without paying any attention to noise or damage.

  The entrance to the Rue de Nevers is marked by an arch made of a more recent building that had been constructed over the narrow passage. We saw the van was already there in the frame of the arch. A man and a woman in the cab waved at Lindy. She waved back, and then we held each other tight standing on the street inside the arch. My heart and my breathing seemed to be fighting each other. When we pulled apart, her eyes were down, but she looked at me briefly and I could see how impending tears could bring out the jade in her eyes.

  “Lindy” I began ...

  The van started honking.

  “J'arrive, j'arrive!” she yelled back.

  Her cheek against mine … briefly … "I love you".

  She was gone, hopping into the van and waving.

  I waved back.

  I turned around and felt lightheaded as quiet tears started flowing down my face. I was suddenly exhausted and had to sit down on my suitcase. What had we done?! I was leaning against the wall behind the arch trying to make sense of it all. I lit a cigarette, trying to compose myself and think my way out of this sudden despair. Had we missed the chance of a lifetime?

  But I knew that my life had completely changed already … I was a different person than I was three weeks ago … My body, heart and mind had reconciled for the first time ever, even if my heart was a little the worse for wear at the moment. We had crossed a threshold past the barriers of isolation, conformity and stereotype, and there was no turning back.

  Lindy had taken me by the hand and effortlessly walked me through it, after all these days of excruciating hesitation.