The lamps are going out all over Europe, and we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”
The sentence reads like a prophecy, though you are not so sure. It’s printed in a book that has not yet been written. The memoir of Sir Edward Grey remains ten years from press, but it has still somehow found its way to the bouquiniste booth you are currently perusing. The quote itself was uttered last August, in a London office. Clearly London, for no one who’s set foot in Paris since then could say such things.
The City of Light has changed, certainly. Women no longer waltz about in gowns as big as circus tents. Fabric, like so many other items, has been rationed. A few resourceful souls have taken to using flare parachutes to make up the difference, but you find you quite prefer the Egyptian style tunics that have replaced traditional dresses. They have more flow. More freedom. Indeed, more mademoiselles are exploring the city than ever before, out after sunset without chaperones, stretching their wings.
Your own are shaped like a dragonfly’s, for you’ve already been to Montmartre this evening. You’ve stopped in the Fisherman of the Moon’s shop too, admiring a display of jewelry made of the shell casings of .75s. Beauty brought out of bullets. Such rings and bracelets are all the rage, these days, though it may take some time to understand their true magic.
The whole of Paris feels this way. It has changed, yes, but it is not darker. War’s shadow has done the opposite—the constant threat of death brings a new urgency to the city’s glittering corners. Joie de vivre is a precious commodity, but when you look up from the page, it is everywhere: Soldiers’ faces flicker orange at a café table across the lane, off-duty officers having a glass of good spirits. A singer strums his instrument nearby, his hair shining almost gold beneath the streetlamp. The butterfly that lands on your shoulder shines too—a phosphorescent pink.
“Find anything interesting?” the bookseller asks.
She is as distinct as her shop. Most of the vendors who sell stories on the Seine are old men. Too old to get sent off to war, so they sit by the river instead, selling postcards and antique books from their sage-green booths. Most of them go home at night, locking up their wares and disappearing with the last glow of the sun, but this booth keeps odd hours. It’s a strange color too. Not the herbal hue of the other booths, but a shade that matches the shopkeeper’s hair.
You hold up the memoir you’ve found. “A book from the future, I believe.”
“Really?” the bookseller asks, though she doesn’t seem at all surprised. “What year?”
“1925.”
She exchanges a look with the orange tomcat draped on the top of her booth. “That is interesting. And it’s written in English, I presume?”
Is it? You hadn’t noticed. Then again, you’ve had every sip of tea you can from Café des Langues. Russian, English, Italian, even Esperanto… it helps to be a polyglot in a city so filled with foreign fighters.
“These have been popping up every few days. I’ll open the booth come dusk and find books that shouldn’t exist yet. I must’ve missed this one,” the bookseller explains, as she takes the volume and flips to the end pages, where a bookplate is pasted to the marbled paper. “Ah, Ex Libris Ezra Bright,” she reads. “Same as all the others. What do you make of it, Marmalade? Are we the victims of a time-traveling thief?”
The tom yowls. You recognize him, now, as the same cat you saw by the base of Monsieur Cain’s tiger statue.
“You’re right. A thief wouldn’t leave items…” The girl frowns and flips through the pages once more.
“Maybe it’s a message,” you say, still thinking of the sculpture and its slightly changed stripes. “A secret code or something.”
The bookseller’s pink eyebrows furrow.
“Perhaps,” she says.
Down the river, by the east end of Île de la Cité, you can see the lights of the carnival, drifting. It is your next stop, but it will certainly not be your last.