Ten

The phone rang just as I was drinking my coffee the next morning. I was still quite shattered after my night on the sofa, where I’d contentedly nodded off sometime in the early hours of the morning. I got up from my chair with a groan and looked for the handset, which, as always, wasn’t where it should have been. I finally found it under a pile of newspapers beside the bed I hadn’t slept in.

It was Robert, who had already, as he did every morning before his first lecture, jogged through the Bois de Boulogne and was now obviously taking a break in his office at the university. As usual, he came straight to the point.

“So, how was it? Did the supernova explode?” he yelled into the phone in his good-natured way. He was so alarmingly awake that it made me flinch. His voice seemed even louder than usual.

“Good grief, Robert, do you always have to shout into the phone like that? I’m not deaf!” I went back into the kitchen and sat down at the little table. “I’ve only had two hours’ sleep, but it was…” Words like magic, enchanting, and romantic came to mind—all words that would mean nothing to my friend. “It was great,” I said. “It was crazy. I’m over the moon. This is the woman I’ve been waiting for all my life.”

Robert clicked his tongue happily. “Well, well,” he said. “Once you get going, there’s no holding you, is there? I hope I’m not intruding. Is the chick still there with you?”

“No, of course not.”

“What do you mean, ‘of course not.’ Did you spend the night at her place? Not bad.”

I had to laugh. “No one spent the night at anyone’s place,” I explained to my perplexed friend. “But that doesn’t matter.”

Thinking fleetingly of the hesitant look in Mélanie’s eyes as we stood outside the green gate, I sighed.

“Well … not that I’d have turned down an invitation: I did walk her home, you see. But she’s not the kind of woman who jumps into bed with a man on the very first date.”

“Pity.” Robert seemed a little disappointed, but then his pragmatism once more gained the upper hand. “Then you’ll just have to stick at it,” he said. “Stick at it, d’you hear?”

“Robert, I’m not an idiot.” I peevishly cut a slice of goat cheese from the roll and put it on my baguette.

“Okay, okay,” he began, and then broke off for a moment. He seemed to be thinking it over. “I just hope she’s not one of the complicated ones. They’re no fun at all.”

“No worries. I’ve already had a great deal of fun with her,” I replied. “The evening was lovely, and our story is only just beginning.…” I thought back to the old man who’d croaked “Lovers” at us, to the way Mélanie would sometimes simply burst out with her refreshing laugh. I did so love hearing it.

“We laughed a lot and talked a lot.… You know, everything fits so well. She likes old things—just as I do. She even works in an antiques shop with old furniture and lamps and porcelain figurines. She likes cats and her favorite film is Cyrano de Bergerac. That’s one of my favorite films, too.… Isn’t that just great?”

Robert didn’t seem very impressed. He brushed off all the wonderful things that I thought we shared with a brusque “Good, good.” Then he added, “Still, I hope you two didn’t just talk?”

“Good God, no!” I smiled as I remembered the kisses under the old chestnut tree. “Oh, Robert, what can I say? I’m immensely happy. Everything just feels so right. I can hardly wait to see her again.… She’s the most enchanting girl I’ve ever met. And she hasn’t got a boyfriend, thank God! The Eiffel Tower always makes her happy, she says. Oh, and she loves bridges,” I continued with the euphoria of all those who’ve freshly fallen in love and are sent into paroxysms of delight by every aspect of the new beloved. “Especially the pont Alexandre—because of the Belle Epoque lamps, of course.”

“Do you know how lovely it is to walk over the pont Alexandre when the reflection of the city lights starts sparkling in the water and the sky turns lavender?” Mélanie had said. “I sometimes stop under those old lamps for a moment and look at the river and the city, and every time I think, How wonderful!”

“She says that every time she walks over that bridge she always has to stop for a moment. And that Paris is wonderful.” I sighed happily.

“You sound like a damn tourist guide, Alain. Are you sure the chick really lives here? I haven’t heard such tourist-brochure kitsch for a long time. I’ve also walked over the pont Alexandre, but I’ve certainly never stopped to breathe in the wonder of Paris—at least not when I was alone. My God, so much fuss about a couple of old lamps!”

“But bridges do have a magic all of their own,” I said.

Robert laughed, obviously amused by my ravings. If he found something good about a girl, it certainly wasn’t a predilection for old bridges and Belle Epoque lamps.

“Très bien. That all sounds very promising,” he said, ending on a jovial note. “When are you going to see her again?”

Five minutes later, I was having a fight with my best friend.

“You don’t have her cell number?” He was beside himself. “Oh boy, how stupid can you get? You waffle on for hours about some dumb films and bridges and you don’t even ask her the most important thing. Tell me it isn’t true, Alain!”

“But it is true,” I replied curtly. “At the time, I didn’t think it was the most important thing. It’s as simple as that.”

I was annoyed with myself. Why on earth hadn’t I asked Mélanie for her number? The shameful truth was that I’d just forgotten to. On that first evening, which we’d wandered through like sleepwalkers, with every confidence in the fact that there was more linking us than modern technology, something as profane as a cell phone had had no place at all. But how could I explain that to my friend?

Robert could no longer remain calm. “You meet the woman of your dreams and don’t even get her number?” He laughed in disbelief. “That really takes the cake. What planet are you living on? Hello! This is the third millennium. Do you really understand anything at all? Are you going to communicate by carrier pigeon?”

“Good grief, I’ll ask her next time. I’m seeing her on Wednesday, after all.”

“And if you don’t?” Robert asked. “What if she doesn’t turn up? I find it funny that she didn’t ask for your number. Or at least give you hers. My students always want my cell number.” He laughed with quiet self-satisfaction. “That doesn’t sound much like a very successful evening, if you ask me!”

“But I’m not asking you,” I said. “Why should I care about your students? We have a firm date, and even if it’s beyond your understanding, there are still people who can wait a week, looking forward to seeing each other again, and simply stick to a fixed date without having to call each other ten times and throw the whole thing over just because something better has turned up.” I realized that I was beginning to feel like wringing Robert’s neck. “It’s not always a matter of a quick conquest, even if that’s all you’re after with your little students.”

“It’s all a question of how attractive you are,” said Robert, unmoved. “But everyone has the right to his own views. Either way, I wish you a lot of fun with your ‘looking forward.’ I hope you’re not looking forward in vain.”

It was impossible to miss the sarcasm in his voice, and I began to get mad. “Why are you getting all bent out of shape?” I asked. “I mean, what are you trying to prove to me? That I’m a complete dumbass? Granted. Yes, of course I should have asked for her number. But I didn’t. So what? Mélanie knows where my cinema is, after all. And I know where she lives.”

“Her name’s Mélanie?”

It was the first time I’d mentioned her name to Robert. “Yes, funny coincidence. isn’t it?”

“And the rest?”

He had me there, and I was unable to speak. What could I have said? I was a complete dumbass. It was only now that I realized I didn’t know Mélanie’s surname. That was unforgivable. I tried to shake off the panic that was welling up in me. And what if Robert was right?

“Well…” I said, embarrassed.

“Boy oh boy, you really are beyond help!” Robert sighed.

And then my friend gave me a short lecture about why life is not a film where people find and lose each other, only to meet again by chance the following week at the Trevi Fountain because they’d both—at the very same time—hit on the idea of throwing in a coin and making a wish.

“But I know where she lives,” I repeated stubbornly, seeing in my mind’s eye all the nameplates beside the gate on the rue de Bourgogne. “If for any reason she doesn’t turn up next week, I can always go and ask around. But she will come; I’m sure of it. My feelings tell me that. You don’t understand these things, Robert.”

“Oh yeah?” he said. “Well, it may be so. Perhaps everything will run according to plan.” He gave a skeptical little laugh. “And if things turn out differently, you could always stand on the bridges of Paris, waiting for Mélanie to pass by one evening—she does love bridges, after all.”

*   *   *

Mélanie had left a message for me at the Cinéma Paradis that very same day. That was a triumph, because it proved my friend a liar. And a pity, because I wasn’t there to receive the message myself, because then I could have seen Mélanie once more before she left. And this time, I would definitely have asked for her number.

So it was François who gave me the white envelope as I arrived at the cinema at half past four. I stared at it in his hand. It had my name on it.

“What’s this?”

“From the woman in the red coat,” explained François calmly, giving me a quizzical look from behind his steel-rimmed glasses. “She asked for ‘Alain’ and then gave me this letter.”

“Thanks.” I literally tore the letter from his grasp, fleeing with it into the auditorium, which was empty at the time. I hastily opened the envelope in the rash hope that it might contain something nice. It was just a short letter. After hastily scanning the lines written in dark blue ink, I gave a sigh of relief and settled down to read the letter once more, sentence by sentence.

Dear Alain,

Did you get home all right last night? I would really have loved to walk back to the rue de l’Université with you, but in that way, we’d just have wandered back and forth all night, and I had to get up early this morning. But I still couldn’t sleep. I’d hardly gotten up to the apartment when I began to miss you. And when I looked out of the window after I got up, this morning and saw the old chestnut tree, I suddenly felt very happy.

I don’t know if you’ll be in the cinema later (that would be the nicest thing) or if I’ll just have to leave my letter behind the grille, so that you’ll find a little sign from me before I go away. I’m not adventurous, Alain, but I’m looking forward to next Wednesday, to you, and to everything that is about to happen.

Kisses, M.

“I’m not adventurous,” she had written, and it moved me, even though it was a quotation. Or perhaps precisely because it was. The words came from the film The Green Ray, which had been showing in the Cinéma Paradis the previous evening. The somewhat diffident Delphine says them to her friends: “I’m not adventurous.”

“Oh, sweet Mélanie!” I murmured in the semidarkness of the auditorium. “No, you’re not adventurous, but that doesn’t matter. That’s precisely what I love about you. Your vulnerability, your shyness. This world is not just for the rash and the fearless, for the loud go-getters—no, the shy and the quiet, the dreamy and the eccentric have their place there, too. Without them, there would be no nuances, no light blue watercolors, no unsaid words that give the imagination space to work. And isn’t it precisely the dreamers who know that the truest and greatest adventures take place in the heart?”

I would probably have continued my apologia for humanity from the second row for some time had there not been a rustling noise that made me look up. There in the doorway of the auditorium, Madame Clément in her flowery apron was leaning on a broom and watching me with fascination.

“Madame Clément!” I called, and cleared my throat to try to regain my composure. “Are you eavesdropping on me?” I stood up hastily. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Oh, Monsieur Bonnard.” She sighed, not answering my question. “Those things you were saying were so lovely, with the still waters and the blue pictures and the dreams. I could have gone on listening to you for hours. I had a box of watercolor paints when I was a child—I’ve no idea where it’s gotten to. At some stage in life, you give up painting, and dreaming. It’s a shame, isn’t it?” A dreamy smile played on her lips. “But when you fall in love, you start dreaming again.”

I nodded in some confusion, folded the precious letter, and put it in my jacket pocket. I hadn’t known that there was a philosopher slumbering in Madame Clément.

“Has she written to you? What does she say?” She looked at me with a conspiratorial grin.

“What!” I exclaimed. “Well, really, Madame Clément, I must say!” I felt like I’d been caught out, and I was not prepared to reveal the state of my heart to her. How on earth did she know that?

“François told me about the letter, of course.” She gave me a benevolent glance.

I raised my eyebrows. “Of course,” I repeated, glad to hear how well communications in my little cinema were functioning.

“We were all wondering how your evening with the pretty woman in the red coat panned out,” Madame Clément continued. She actually said “all,” as if she were part of a great royal court that spent all its time following the activities of its beloved ruler. “But if she asked for you today and even left you a love letter, it must have been a pleasant evening.”

“And so it was.” I had to laugh. “And why are you so sure it’s a love letter?”

She tipped her head to one side and put her free hand on her hip. “Now listen, Monsieur Bonnard, I wasn’t born yesterday, and you only have to look at your face to see what’s going on. She wrote you a love letter. C’est ça!” Her large hands grasped the handle of the broom and swept it along the floor to emphasize her words. “And now please get out of the way so that I can sweep this place before the performance begins.”

I sketched a bow and left the room. When I saw my face in the big Art Deco mirror in the foyer, I had to admit that Madame Clément was right. The tall, slim man with the thick dark hair, the telltale gleaming eyes, and that very peculiar smile was in love. Anyone with eyes in their head could see that.

I turned away and reached for the letter in my jacket pocket. Was it a love letter? I took it out once more and smiled as I scanned the tender words. I smiled, but little did I know that I would be reading this letter over and over again in the next few weeks, and clutching it as a drowning man clutches a straw, because it was the only evidence to show that that happy evening that ended under an old chestnut tree in the rue de Bourgogne had actually happened.

I stared at the poster for The Things of Life, which I’d hung in the foyer the previous afternoon with a notice saying “Next Wednesday in the series Les Amours au Paradis,” and wished it was already next Wednesday. I would gladly have done away with the laws of time and given up a whole week of my life to see Mélanie right then, but she was presumably already on the way to Brittany.

For the next few days, Mélanie’s letter sat in my jacket pocket like a talisman. I kept it with me all the time—as a kind of insurance policy for love. I read it in the evening as—under Orphée’s watchful gaze—I sat on the sofa with a glass of red wine, not wanting to go to bed; I read it the next morning as I drank my espresso at one of the round tables in the Vieux Colombier, staring absently at the rain pattering on the sidewalk.

Of course it was a love letter. And it was also the loveliest surprise that exciting week had brought me. At least that’s what I thought until the moment on Friday evening when I lowered the shutters on the cinema after the last performance and a little man in a trench coat stepped out of the shadows and spoke to me.

I knew the man, and I knew the woman beside him. But I only realized that a few seconds later.

No one could blame me for opening my eyes wide and letting the bunch of keys slip from my hand. The whole scene was—in the words of the shy bookseller from Notting Hill—“surreal but nice.”

As if he had fallen from the skies, the famous New York film director Allan Wood was standing in front of me, and at his side was a breathtakingly beautiful woman whom I had often admired on the screen.

Solène Avril, one of the best-known actresses of our times, shook my hand as naturally as if we were old friends. “Bonsoir, Alain,” she said, giving me a radiant smile. “I’m Solène, and I love this cinema.”