The boulevard was empty of traffic when I walked back down it. There was the smell of tear gas in the summer air and random groups of policemen stood under the linden trees, sweating under their visors in the intolerable heat. There was no more sign of riot, though, and whatever passers-by there were kept to the shaded side of the street. I saw a yellow balaclava hanging on a parking meter, streaked with the colour pink. I picked it up, saw the round open O of the mouth and realised the pink was the stain of blood, some young girl’s blood. Or boy’s, since it was impossible to tell, under those pastel-coloured ski masks, which may have been the point. The blood and the bright childish yellow made a miserable contrast and I dropped it, as if it had been some young thing’s undergarment, which again may have been the point. Blood and pastel.
Some of the shop windows were broken, their owners patiently sweeping up the shattered glass, as if they had done it before and would soon be doing it again. I passed a jeweller’s, with miraculously unbroken plate-glass windows behind a metal mesh, and saw a display behind it, gleaming pinpoints of white light against a green baize cloth. There was a bracelet there, of black pearls curled into a figure of eight. And I thought maybe he was right, it was time, the man should do what the man does and buy his wife something with sentimental associations. A gift.
I walked inside and thought of opera and pearls, and wondered why. That opera by Bizet, The Pearl Fishers, with its duet that I had always found so anodyne. Did Sarah ever like it? I couldn’t remember. But I knew she liked pearls, black ones particularly, and I was reaching through to the window display to take them out, when the shop assistant came up behind me.
Let me, she said.
I stood obediently back and she hooked them round her finger, and held them up to the sunlight coming through the window.
You like pearls?
My wife does, I said.
Black pearls. Japanese. Uncultured.
I can see that, I said.
You know pearls?
I shook my head.
You know the duet, though. The Pearl Fishers.
Was this a sales pitch, I wondered, or some kind of osmosis. Then she nodded her head, to the building across the street, and I understood.
I heard Andrea Bocelli sing it over there. In the State Opera. He was blind, so had no idea how beautiful the setting was.
I could see it through the grilled mesh. A fin-de-siècle attempt at grandeur, like a miniature of the Garnier in Paris.
His voice, though, was even better.
Better than what? I asked.
Than the beautiful setting. That he couldn’t see. You’ve been inside? The opera?
Never, I said.
Though I must have passed it so many times without even a glance.
Well, you should visit. Though maybe it closed, with the trouble on the street.
You like pearls? she asked again. Black pearls? You want to read about them?
She turned and took a small booklet from the counter.
A symbol of hope, it says here. For wounded hearts.
Aha.
And every heart is wounded. Once or twice.
Is that you talking now, or the booklet?
Me, she said. And she held the pearls up against her salmon-coloured blouse.
Your wife’s colouring? Like mine?
A little, I said, although I didn’t mean it. She had the palest of skin, like a nun’s.
May I?
I took the booklet from her hand and saw how expensive they were.
We can talk of discount, she said, again reading my thoughts. If you pay cash.
I’ve only credit cards.
Even so, she said.