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One Saturday, Anjali felt compelled to go Cimetière du Père Lachaise, named after Louis XIV’s confessor. What kinds of things did Father Lachaise hear, she wondered. Wicked barbs exchanged between the courtesans at Versailles? Barbs, beddings, and betrayals. What great fodder for a screenplay.
She entered the huge gate on Boulevard Ménilmontant and checked the giant map of gravesites of notable people. Then she started up the hill into the cemetery and turned right on the narrow, cobbled Avenue du Puits. It felt like the right place to be, not at la bibliothèque, clacking the keys of her laptop.
The little stone tombs, with their small doors and windows, gave her the feeling of being in a miniature village. Except in this village, the residents didn’t talk to each other, ever, and not because of a grudge. Holding grudges was for the living. One of the crypts had its door open. There was a simple altar inside, and drawers set in the wall with knobs, like kitchen drawers, probably holding the remains of people. She didn’t feel like checking.
She passed a big stone building in the middle of the grounds. Lights on inside revealed half a dozen people working at desks. The living keeping track of the dead.
A girl her age was walking toward her, with long blonde hair framing her beautiful face. The girl met Anjali’s eyes, and instead of looking away as Anjali expected, she held Anjali’s gaze as she walked triumphantly toward her, so sure of herself and her good looks compared to Anjali’s. After she passed, haughty—must be a Parisienne—Anjali fingered the bump on her nose and thought to herself, hey, you mean girl, you’ll look like everybody else someday when you rot in one of these drawers.
Wow, pretty mean of me, she thought. Well, she was mean! That look of superiority, of triumph over me. Oh, Anjali, let it go.
She refused to give the girl any more of her energy. She became absorbed in the hunt for Jim Morrison’s grave. She had listened to The Doors in Mumbai, growing up, and had dreamt of visiting his famous tomb.
But she couldn’t find the exact spot. A tour group was approaching her, so she waited for them to pass and lead her to the grave. She found that it was set off the paved path and behind a bigger tomb—she wouldn’t have found it without help. Anjali noted the crowd-control barriers set up around the grave, with padlocks, like those on the Pont des Artes, starting to be added to the uprights of the barriers. One had the engraved inscription, “Sam & Kelly, together in Paris.”
People must have climbed past the barriers, because on his tombstone stood bouquets of fresh red roses and a small pot of live lavender. Someone had placed two white ceramic cherubs facing a photo of Morrison, which was propped up on top. He had been incredibly appealing, and utterly dangerous, at age 27.
“Does anyone have a cigarette?” a young woman with a pierced nose asked in an American accent. Maybe she had always dreamt of smoking a cigarette in Morrison’s memory at his grave. Well, Anjali couldn’t help her with that.
But it was incredible to have her own dream come true. Here she was. Dreams could become reality, but only if you worked toward them.
The tour group milled around, making jokes and laughing, ruining the ambience. Anjali left and paced deeper into the cemetery. Huge crows cawed in the trees. They were the perfect bird for this God-forsaken place, Anjali thought. As she meandered and read the French family names on the graves, she mused over the last few weeks. Pearl was digging her own grave with alcohol and prostitution. Anjali knew that she herself would die someday. What was she going to do to live, really live? Hollywood? Or Ravi and Bollywood, if she could find a chance to write while she was a wife and mother? If Ravi and his parents and his aunties wouldn’t pressure her to stop?
He had lied because he wanted her near him, he had said. Yet he was usually late to their scheduled phone conversations, and he cancelled them often for tennis.
A car approached, and Anjali moved slowly aside, resenting its presence and its tires’ noisy clatter on the cobbles in the hushed cemetery. People walked past, holding cameras, clicking off shots.
A monstrous black crow swooped from one tall oak to another, cawing. The sound was ominous, like death, like the enormity of the mistake she might make with her life. What was she going to do?
She prayed for guidance thinking of the mosaic of Jesus she had seen at Sacré Cœur, and she consulted her heart.
