I like to travel, read, write, dance and pretend. At the moment I am suffering an insufferable phase of self-aggrandizement, premature maturity and lack of wit.
If you think you can help me out of this funk, write me at idaman.z@gmail.com
The urgent knocking at the door woke me up with a start early that Friday morning, and I found a very worried looking ex-boyfriend outside my room when I finally opened it.
“Where were you last night? We lost you in the crowd.”
“You didn’t lose me. I lost you.”
“Oh.”
“Did you even look for me?”
“No, not really. You speak French, so I figured you would make it back OK.”
“I did.”
“I got worried when I saw you weren’t back yet.”
“I got in late.”
“Where did you go?”
“I went for a walk. I didn’t quite want to see you kissing that girl.”
“Oh.”
“Were you very drunk last night?”
“Yes. I think I might still be hung over.”
“OK.”
“OK.”
It was an awkward conversation.
“So. Shall we go?”
“I’ll wait for you downstairs.”
We walked the Left Bank that morning. I saw many things, but I didn’t quite see them. At that time he was still my J, and I could read him like my books. I knew more or less what he was thinking of. I felt many things that morning – anger, confusion, sorrow, regret – and I think, at that time J felt the same.
It was hard trying to remain collected. I told him, while staring at nothing on the bridge to the Île de la Cité, that I had a date that evening with a Frenchman I had met the night before. He nodded, and that was the end of it.
Late that afternoon, resting at the hostel after our strained stroll, I put on a dress. It was cut low and clung desperately to my curves; it was sexy and it was black. I felt like a widow venturing out after years of mourning. I knocked on J’s door, and it took a couple of minutes before he finally opened it. He was sweating and his shirt looked as if it had been hastily put on, and I saw, from the narrow opening that he allowed, the creamy calves of the Californian girl on his bed. A lump threatened to form in my throat, so I coughed, to exorcise that bit of weakness away.
“I am going on my date. I see you are keeping busy. I will call you later to see where you are.”
I turned my back on him, and stepped down the stairs. I was young and gorgeous in Paris, and my heart hurt very much. I was sad, but also determined to be fair to J; we had been broken up for months now, and in that time apart I had met and enjoyed the company of other men.
I was on the street, soldierly marching on to my destination, when J’s voice called out.
“Idaman.”
I turned back and he was there, out of breath. He must have hesitated for a few minutes before running after me. I wanted to go to him and hug him, but I didn’t. We stood two feet apart, but I felt there was an ocean between us.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to see that.”
“It’s OK. I understand.” I tried to sound like the voice of reason. I think I succeeded. He stepped closer and put his hands on my shoulders. If things had been normal that would have been the precursor to a kiss. But things weren’t normal, so we stood there in silence. Neither of us moved.
“Enjoy your date. I think I will be at the Eiffel Tower this evening with the rest.”
I nodded. I wanted very much to hold and be held by him, to ask him to forget that we were ever broken up, but I didn’t. I felt I did not deserve to ask such a thing. He opened his mouth as if to say more, but stopped, and the silence was unbroken.
He kissed me goodbye on my forehead. He turned back and I walked ahead to the cafés facing the Gare de Lyons. It was like a scene from a movie, I thought, beautiful, picturesque, and unimaginably sad.
Daniel was already there, ignoring pedestrian and vehicular traffic like every other Parisian lounging at the cafés. He looked up, saw me, stood up, gave me an appreciative once over, and kissed me on the cheeks – once, twice, thrice – in greeting.
“You look very sexy.”
“You look very Parisian.”
“Your compliments are pretend compliments! What is this, looking like a city, it is not a real compliment!”
I liked his sense of humor. If I understood more French and him more English, our jokes would’ve been more complex and much funnier.
Daniel ordered from the snooty waiter – “The service is very bad in Paris. You think it is because you are a tourist, but really, they are rude to everyone” – and we got our drinks half an hour later.
“Do you still want to go to that party?”
“Of course, if you will take me.”
“OK, we shall take the Metro.”
Les Champs Élysées in the day looked much different from the way it did the night before. There was no trace of the mess that was everywhere last night. People were dining, shopping, arguing, talking; it was business as usual for the riot of humanity.
Daniel took me to an establishment that looked like a club masquerading as a chic café during the day. He flashed some sort of pass and we were waved in. Inside, loud music rolled over us in waves, and bottles upon bottles of beer were passed out.
“It is the launch of the new design for the bottle. This is what I do. I don’t much like it, but it pays well enough.”
He showed me around, introduced me to some of his friends who greeted me cordially. My lack of fluency in French impeded all but the simplest of communications. It was amusing, for a while, talking with my hands and my face, but we soon grew tired of it. Daniel grabbed my arm and we escaped through the back door, relieved to be out of that den of cigarette smoke, thumping beats, kisses on the cheek and free flowing beer.
