This Parisian Girl Does Not Love You

So I was sitting at a cast iron cafe table on un rue de boulevard in Paris. I had four or five of those little coffees. The kind that come in old lady tea-cups, the ones the Italians sip with their heads cocked back.

I had a small set of charcoal pencils and sat about making sketches of the French streetlights and the men with their unshaven faces. They grimaced with their coat buttons undone and their scarves trailing. It was late winter here, the people were stubbornly bating the spring.

I ordered a small plate of dessert chocolates, something I had never done before. I took up a piece and with my warm breath scoffed at it until the edges started to melt.

It was dark and bitter and I could taste some of the charcoal dust that had gotten onto my fingers.

Across the cafe sitting at the raised bar was a slender French girl. With tapered leggings and one of those wool sweaters that hung loose around her neck and arms. She was sitting on a tall stool propped up with her arm crooked around a bottle of wine. She pulled the cork and gave the wine-key back to the server.

I began to trace her outline on a fresh page. She was round lines touching sharp edges. She had all the right angles in all the right places. I smudged the black stick a bit where her hair cut the line around her shoulders. Occasionally she would turn a bit and I could make out her face. She had bangs and smiled.

The woman sat staring at her empty glass. She had yet to pour herself a drink. She cocked her elbows out and shifted a bit as if she had caught herself from falling asleep.

Very slowly, she raised her arm and pointed to the ceiling. I followed her finger as she turned her hand a bit. I traced the line out from her finger tip to where she seemed to be pointing.

There behind the bar, running along the wall was a polished mirror. I could see the French girl smiling.

She had been watching me in the mirror. She could see my pencils moving the whole time following my eyes, as I studied her.

She winked and called for the server. She said something to him in French and he brought her a second glass.

She turned around and smiled. As she crossed the cafe I closed my sketch book and put it back into my bag.

“Bonjour, American.”

“Hello, ah I mean bonjour.”

“It’s all right American, I speak the English.”

She sat down and put the glasses and bottle onto the table.

“Would you mind pouring us a drink?”

While I poured, she plucked a piece of chocolate and held it in front of her lips. She scoffed at it until the edges began to melt.

“Excuse me, but how did you know I was an American?”

“Well now, it’s quite obvious you’re not Parisian, and you’re certainly not French, so you may as well be an American.”

“Oh, ah, look I’m sorry I was staring earlier, it’s just,-”

“That you were drawing me into your little black book. Don’t worry I won’t ask to see it, I can tell you’re embarrassed. Look how you little red-blooded Americans blush.”

I drank some of the wine. It was heavy and red, I think. I don’t really know anything about wine. “My name is Luke.”

She was truly beautiful with black eye makeup and no jewelry. She made me nervous. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Luke, you can call me Nina. What are you doing in Paris, Luke? It doesn’t look like business. Are you and your pencils on vacation?”

“Sort of. Except it’s the kind of vacation where you don’t know exactly when you’re supposed to go home.”

“So mysterious. Aren’t you just a dark little doodler. Tell me Luke did you come all the way to Paris to find love or to forget it?”

“Both, neither.”

“You are a deep one. I tell you what my Luke. You have a room here in the hotel. Take me to it, and let’s fuck.”

“I thought you Parisians only made love?”

“You Americans have taught the world how to fuck and we very much prefer it.”

“You French have taught the world how to make love, and we very much admire it.

“I like you Luke, you don’t scare easy.” She poured another glass. “But let me warn you, you who find the vulgar distasteful, run the risk of becoming a classy celibate.”

We laughed, and I breathed the night air. I poured another glass of wine. “French wisdom?” I asked.

“No, I worry about you. An American eating chocolates in a Paris cafe. You can barely take care of yourself.”

“I’ve managed so far.”

“You Americans always manage. None of you are happy. Why don’t you tell me about her?”

“Who?”

“Oh Luke, don’t be coy, tell me of your lost love.”

“I don’t believe in love.”

“Says the man admiring French women at dusk.”

“Wait, what do you mean?”

“Nothing, I don’t mean anything by it, forget it. So Luke, just what is it about love that makes life so difficult for you.” She stared right at me, and I couldn’t move and I grinded my teeth a bit as I talked.

“I refuse to believe the delusions of the truly lonely.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“No, honesty is misleading. Conviction is damning. I keep coming to this point where I only feel like doing one thing, and instead of just doing it, I flew to Paris.”

“Luke what happened, what are you doing here?”

“I’m sitting in a cafe entertaining a sullen conversation with a worried admirer.”

“You’re a literal fellow aren’t you?”

“Like from a book or something?” I cringed and crossed my legs under the table. “It’s just that where I come from people tend to say what they mean, and they tend to mean what they say.”

“And where might that be?” She wiggled her nose a bit and I softened.

“Nowhere, I ain’t found the place yet.”

“What are you doing here, Luke?”

I watched the wine slosh around, and I began to speak.

I was in Detroit. I worked as photographer for a newspaper. Everything was fucked. Detroit was a hell-hole and nearly everyone was out of a job, out of luck. Half the buildings were vacant. Crime was unbelievable, sometimes the power went out.

Newspapers on the whole, were dying. The paper in Detroit was affiliated nationally, but we we’re all out of a job in a few months regardless.

Everyone’s in a lousy mood, ragged fucking dolls, hungry, tired, and cruel. So it’s the dead of winter and I’m supposed to meet this reporter across town. She’s doing a story on some such load of shit, and I’m supposed to snap a few shots of the landscape.

It’s snowing terrible and you can only really see around the street lights. I’m driving this little piece of shit with bald tires and no exhaust. I come up on an intersection and sitting in the middle of it is a blue station wagon, the engines running and the driver side door is wide open, the headlights were still on.

The snow was falling, and this car was stranded idling and abandoned. I grabbed my camera and got out of my car. I began to photograph it. The shutter was clicking and the car was sputtering, and the snow was silent. I don’t know, the photos probably came out like shit.

So I check out the interior. What the fuck? This is that reporter’s car. Her name was Laura Terne. Her purse was sitting in the driver’s seat.

I tried her mobile phone. It went to voicemail. I called out for her. I listened for a while and heard nothing.

I got out of the car and found a set of tracks, little boot prints. I walked around to the other side of the car.

Under the passenger side wheel well, was a wadded up mess of bicycle and cloth. I turned my head and vomited into the snow. It was a body, blood on the fender, bike frame warped and smashed. The guy was gone, he had a basket on the back and his groceries we’re spread across the ground.

I snapped a few photos. Chicken soup and a fucking corpse in the middle of the street. I followed the little boot prints. Laura had paced in front of the car. Then darted off down the street. I crossed over onto the bridge. No one else was out tonight.

The tracks led down the sidewalk, of the east bridge. The wind was terrible, I felt empty headed, and my stomach still turned.

Her trail led to the guard rail of the bridge and stopped. I looked over the railing, the snow had been disturbed. The water was black, and I could barely see all the way down to it. I could hear it. I stared into that black water and listened to it cut the banks.

I think I knew what had happened. But I didn’t understand. What was I doing here? Laura and the bicyclist, and I’m standing here freezing cold staring at the water.

She had killed him. Took the corner and collided with him. He was an out-of-work father of two. He was out getting the groceries, riding his bicycle because no one had money to fix their piece of shit cars. He was riding down the middle of the street, because no one was out in this fucking weather.

She must have gotten out of the car and found him. Maybe she watched him die. She walked around cursing to herself. Her phone records showed that she had called the police and given the address. Then she turned her phone off, and threw it into the darkness. Walked a straight line path to that bridge and just jumped right over the side.

She had had it. That was it. It was over. Cruelty god-damn unspeakable abhorrent brutal black reality crushing the insignificance of human kindness. So she fucking jumped off that bridge and fell into the bleak hope that it was finally over.

I was staring at the water, my hands were near froze when the police arrived. I was sick, hypothermia, pneumonia, I couldn’t talk. They took me in the ambulance.

I was released a few days later, never said goodbye to my family, didn’t even tell the paper I quit. I just bought a ticket, Paris. I ordered a plate of fucking chocolates and other than that I don’t know, what the fuck, else is going on.

I grew quiet and her eyes focused again.

“Luke I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, one thing I’m not, is sorry. You French people are always smoking cigarettes, have you got one?”

I opened the package, I took a cigarette, I flicked the lighter, I breathed into the smoke.

Nina was silent just staring at me. Her look was like clear glass where I could only see the edges.

“So Nina, what are you doing here?”

“I’m nobody, I’m nothing. I’m about to fail out of university this semester. I’ve been studying La Psychologies, but I’m a fucking wreck. I’ve got until the end of spring before they kick me out. But I don’t think about it.”

We both got quiet and stared at the candle. It hissed in the cold. A wind came by and shook us.

“Thank you for the cigarette and for the wine, good night Nina.” I gathered my coat and avoided her face with my eyes.

“Luke wait, just wait, just wait a god damn second, I have a little place, in this quarter, I’ve got a little coffee pot, we could go there.”

I turned towards her and scowled. “Yes, but give me another cigarette first.”

Sunday, January 24, 2010-01:23:35 AM