and she looks like a tart
why would anyone want to paint someone like that
Suddenly
the hall seemed strangely
empty:
a white cube mounted with
impressionist rectangles;
silence;
the mouse-like squeak of Leprince’s shoes.
‘Thank you for coming,’ said Tatiana, ‘although you might
have let someone else answer a few questions’ (laughter),
‘I’ll see you next Monday –’
(quick glance at Eugene: yep, still there)
But Leprince had no intention
of being expelled from Room 32
before he was through with his oration:
‘Remarkably articulated, exquisite Tatiana;
Formidably fascinating … what feeling, what fantasy!
What a fine way to start this beautiful Saturday …
Would you care to spend the rest of it – ahem! – with me?’
He coughed, noted Eugene, in some alarm,
Bloody hell, he must be serious about her
if a smooth-talking toff like him
can’t even finish a sentence without coughing
‘It would be my pleasure,’ replied Tatiana,
(in that instant, Eugene died)
‘but I’ve already made plans to eat lunch with
a friend –’
(Eugene, resurrected, wondered who)
‘he’s waiting for me over there.’
Over where?
Eugene looked around: Tatiana was pointing
at Alphonsine Fournaise …
no, wait! look! she was pointing at him!
She was pointing at him – and him alone – standing
in front of good old Alphonsine.
What a nice girl she was, this Alphonsine! He could have
kissed her two oily cheeks.
Leprince had recognised Eugene, and looked as if
he was grinding gravel between his teeth. He spat out:
‘Ah, I see! Well, if you have other plans
With, shall we say, other types of friends,
Then that is, of course, fine; see you anon,
If you still have a yearning for macarons …’
Dot dot dot
Oh shit thought Eugene
if he’s ending his speeches with ellipses
we’re not out of the woods yet, by any means
A fraction of a second later, Tatiana was there; standing in
front of him, kissing his cheek;
he was so surprised, he didn’t even put his hand
on her arm,
as he’d planned,
to disarm and arouse her
(he felt pretty disarmed and aroused himself, just at the
thought);
instead he stood there, straight as a stick,
‘It was kind of you to come,’
Tatiana said.
‘Ha!’ replied Eugene.
Not the most eloquent reply, got to admit.
He’d prepared several lines in his head – damn,
what were they? Oh yes, say how tired she must be
and he really didn’t want to detain her,
but that if she happened to be free,
perhaps they could eat lunch together; ah, but,
shit, she’d already got the first word in, so what now?
‘That talk was very good,’ he said.
One more time with feeling.
‘It was … wow!’
‘Thank you.
Are you free for lunch?’
‘Yeah, absolutely.’
Worry about her being tired.
‘You’re not too exhausted?’
‘No, no, I’m fine.’
‘Okey-dokey, great, I’d love to eat lunch if you’re
not feeling too dead. But you should definitely
tell me if you’d rather go to bed.’
Silence.
oh god no did I really say that
‘I will certainly let you know if that’s the case,’
declared Tatiana. Eugene, initially devastated,
that is not what I meant at all
that is not it, at all
chose in the end to find it amusing,
and they left the hall together,
Tatiana racked with laughter,
Eugene still cursing himself,
but smiling,
wondering why his life had suddenly become
a romantic comedy – a film starring Jennifer Aniston, say,
or a musical … anyway,
one of those corny love stories
full of coincidences and hilarious blunders …
and what do you know? Wonder of wonders:
it was raining outside;
have forgotten her umbrella?
yes! and him? no!
Were they going to dance?
No, but she held his arm,
pressed herself tight against him;
six layers of clothing between their skins, and yet he had
trouble walking upright.
Conclusion?
That plan with the polar bear was doomed from the start;
he’d never have stayed on his feet, in all the confusion;
it’s far too acrobatic, far too precarious,
too hard to keep your balance when you’d lost your heart.
You can’t make love standing up when you’re in love –
that’s obvious:
being in love unsettles you internally;
when someone steals your heart, they also steal
your centre of
gravity.
*
They continued to walk.
‘Do you know anywhere around here?’
‘Yes, on Rue de Seine there’s a sandwich place
that plays opera all the time.’
‘Fair enough.’
They spied on each other as they checked out the menu.
Eugene ordered first – vegetarian option.
‘Are you vegetarian?’
‘No, but that sandwich looks nice.’
and more to the point I didn’t know if you were, so it
seemed like a bad idea
to chew up half a little piggy
while you looked on, completely grossed out
Both of them carefully avoided
the hummus that gives you garlic breath,
the raw pepper that makes you fart,
the evil multinational Coca-Cola,
the pesto that leaves green leaves all over your smile,
and the tuna, probably caught
while collaterally damaging dozens of dolphins;
amazing the number of questions we ask ourselves these
days that we didn’t give a toss about when we were
fifteen – a kebab, a Sprite, and we’d end the evening doing
smelly burps in someone’s messy room
this, by contrast, was very civilised: ethical
choices and tasteful music
(currently Lakmé – the flower duet).
They went over to sit on fake leather armchairs:
thigh-squeak and paper-rustle as they unfolded
their fifteen-euro sandwiches
and examined them
with interest:
his was asparagus
and grana padano;
hers was tomato/mozzarella/prosciutto.
Each took a bite; how to start?
So what have you been up to for the last ten years?
As the flower duet reached its climax, Eugene
remembered an old French pop song:
you can’t put ten years on the table
like you spread out your letters in Scrabble
Sad but true.
Thankfully, Tatiana
began the conversation,
guiding it by remote control towards a certain piece of
&nb
sp; information.
‘You’ve never been to this place?’ ‘No.’
‘Do you live far from here?’
‘In the ninth arrondissement,
behind the Grévin Museum –
you know, where
the waxworks are?
I bought a small apartment there last year.’
‘Wow, how’d you manage that? Buying an apartment in
Paris! The prices are crazy …’
(property-price digression necessary
for the remote-control guidance)
‘Oh, it’s hardly even an apartment – just a glorified studio,
an attic room. You’re welcome to come and see it if you like.’
She nodded as she chewed.
that means he probably lives alone >>> dig deeper:
‘Do you have a roommate?’ ‘No.’
‘So you (chewing)
(casually) live alone then?’
‘Yep, I’m on my own.’ But alone because he’s single
or because his girlfriend’s somewhere else? ‘It’s cool to
have no ties,’ she added, a gentle prod
in the right direction. A nod
to the information she required.
Girlfriend or no girlfriend
and if he has a girlfriend, is it an open relationship?
So many things to be clarified.
He had fun secretly staring
at her green distorted face
through his bottle of San Pellegrino (he didn’t like to drink
from the glass)
and Tatiana blushed
a slightly darker shade of green;
as if Eugene had guessed her question
but wanted to hear her ask it,
he did some prodding of his own:
‘No ties? Well, it depends what you mean by that.’
‘I don’t know … I mean,
do you have a dog, for example, or, you know …
um, I don’t know, just something that you’re
tied to, you know? that means you can’t be … er …’
He’s doing it on purpose she thought
he wants to make me say the words
‘I do have a job though,’ pointed out Eugene
and yes I know that that’s not what you mean
‘A job, sure, but that’s not what I mean,’
and her subtle remote-control guidance system guided
the conversation crash
straight into a wall.
‘I mean other kinds of ties
like
I don’t know, do you have
a girlfriend, for example?’
Eugene savoured his victory, smiling into the neck
of his bottle of San Pellegrino.
‘No,
no girlfriend. Is that what you mean by a tie?
I mean, it’s not the kind of tie that I
would have a problem with, personally.’
‘Ah, right.’
She was happy and embarrassed:
happy that he was single,
embarrassed that she’d had to be so obvious.
She wanted revenge, she made to leave him in limbo:
I can’t get a boyfriend anyway, I’m off to San Francisco –
I might live there, post-doc, great opportunity,
I might live there for years maybe,
but something inside her told her not to tell him,
what would be the point? To confess …
to let him know – what for? Just out of politeness?
It was none of his business,
and it was still so uncertain,
and – and she’d rather
he continued to think of her
as freer,
she’d rather he continued to entertain
those fantasies that she could see they shared …
But already Eugene, as if to make things equal,
was asking a question of his own:
‘So maybe I’m imagining this, but is there
anything going on between you and your supervisor?’
‘Professor Leprince?
What makes you say that?’
‘I don’t know, just the way he talks to you,
about macarons,
and so on.’
‘Oh, that …’
‘Tell me if you don’t want to talk
about it,’ added Eugene (illogically).
‘Oh, no, I don’t mind talking about it,
but there’s nothing to say, really,
I mean, he can be a bit overbearing, of course,
but nothing’s going on between us – you know
what professors are like sometimes, obviously
he wouldn’t be the first one or the last one to try
to pull a student, but from my perspective,
there’s nothing there at all, honestly.’
Yes! Jubilation.
‘So you sent him packing, in fact!’
‘Well, not directly. I need his support for my thesis and
the postdoctoral research. So I just play the innocent, you
know? I act as if I hadn’t noticed, as if it were just self-
evident that nothing could ever happen.’
Eugene was struck by how mature
she sounded now; how much more at ease
with boundaries,
with the desires of others, and her own,
how after him had followed, he could guess,
so many men in her life, and she knew how to say no,
when to say yes,
while he, Eugene,
who slept with more or less anyone,
who never offered any resistance at all,
was now writhing with impatience,
desperate to know
if she would yield to his advances,
yes or no,
no or yes;
he imagined her opening up to him,
letting him in
(this image flashed inside his head
and sped his heart, like caffeine
mainlined into his veins)
and then the thought that she wouldn’t,
that she might say no,
as casually as he had said it to her, years ago …
the thought of this made Eugene’s throat clench tight,
But the fear only lasted a second or two,
and then he relaxed,
remembering that he was with her now,
and that was all that mattered.
And he was not in such a rush
as he had been in his dreams, allowing their conversation
to take another deviation –
down a different path, winding, wooded, tranquil, through
forests and past lakes:
changes of subject, changing points of view –
they spoke about films and books, their families,
their ambitions, about François Hollande and
politics, their jobs, Ryanair, war and peace,
about Sasha the cat and Twitter and the new
Star Wars movie (better than the last three but
not as good as the original trilogy),
and as they talked they both felt confident and fulfilled,
serene and slightly thrilled;
they weren’t walking on eggshells anymore,
but skating on nice thick ice;
this was a duet, an improvisation,
the harmony so sweet,
the segues so neat,
that you suspected them of having rehearsed together;
not cloyingly perfect, but joyfully alive,
with a rare complicity,
the kind that makes other couples yearn
for the same intimacy.
And, like you, I can’t help but envy Eugene and Tatiana
sitting in that sandwich restaurant, by the window,
the view softened by a layer of condensation,
the accumulation of all their breaths and words.
I know – and they knew too, albeit subconsciously –
that they were experiencing, in that moment, a revelation
granted only to the lucky few, and even then infrequently;
one of those instants like a bead of mercury,
elementary,
where everything is simple, whole, perfectly right,
where all the parts mesh – the things that you say,
the tone of your voices, the crossing of legs,
the nodding of heads –
everything is in its right place,
here in this clear, compact space;
nothing could be added or subtracted
without ruining the balance.
As they chatted,
they felt like two peas in a pod,
Adam and Eve in an Eden where God
had gone away for the evening
and apple pie was on the menu.
Time passed, and the restaurant grew dim
as night fell outside:
it was only four-thirty – hardly late,
but it meant that they’d been here,
the two of them,
for three and a half hours.
They realised at last when a waitress came over and asked
if they had everything they needed
Oh yes, absolutely
but it’s true:
they’d been there longer than anticipated!
‘Oh, maybe you’ve got plans,’
(suggested Eugene – or Tatiana, I can’t remember)
‘No, nothing, no plans at all,’ replied the other.
‘We could go for a walk if you like.’
‘Sure, if you like.’
So they grabbed their winter coats,
wrapped their scarfs around their necks,
and went off for a walk like old friends – nothing to report.
Yeah, right.
I’m not fooled. Are you?
When we spend three and a half hours deep in talk
(you know this, and so do I),
we don’t just go off ‘for a walk’
without the pleasant anticipation
that – having left the restaurant
and begun our ambulation
through charcoal streets,
breathing little clouds of steam,
avoiding the glare of streetlights –
that we will reel each other in
with sighs, smiles and silences,
and that, at a given moment
(I know this, and so do you) you will
point out a Space Invader on a wall,
your hand edging towards
my sleeve …
So imagine Tatiana and Eugene,
on Rue de Seine or anywhere you like –
in your own town or in Vladivostok, doesn’t matter –
doing the same things you and I do,
the same things we all do:
shivering it’s got cold all of a sudden
where shall we go?