Light

Slip into a black, slim, sleeveless sheath dress, zip up from behind with a bit of inelegant contortion.

After all, who can see you in an empty hotel room? A room with zigzaggy orange carpeting, yellow faux stucco walls, and a view of the Eiffel Tower if you press your cheek against the glass and strain your eyes very far to the left?

Slide bare feet into high-heeled, peep-toed pumps, black kid leather. Regain balance.

The walk to the café is not so very far, and besides, in France, it’s expected that women will be able to walk in very high heels, and not to appear pained, even if they are.

Wrap body in khaki trench coat, lined, beltless, but cinched above the waist, a bit Empire.

Seems like the sort of thing Audrey would have worn, except with a belt around her waist, and extra belt to spare. She likely never worried about eating too many slices of foie gras.

Encircle neck with scarf, giant, silk, rippling Pucci design, vivid colors. Tie knot and pull the corners of the silk taut, elongating the neck as much as possible.

Every Frenchwoman wears scarves. Women admire the colors, the design, the beauty, the texture of the silk. Men dream of untying the knots and using the silk again to tie other knots.

Finally, cover eyes in sunglasses, oversized, black – despite the overcast skies, a must for that look of mystery, a bit of don’t bother me, I’m in my own world at the moment.

And I am in my own world, a world that is overcast, and in this world, I do not wish to be scrutinized by passersby. Luckily, in Paris, people on the street may glance your way, but they do not look you in the eyes. If they wonder why you look wistful or sad, they do not let on. They do not ask.

Grab best black shoulder bag, hard as a barrel, and aim for the door, one last check on the Blackberry to clarify meeting time at the café. I know I will be too early. Always too early. Yet at the same time, too late?

Down the elevator, nine stories, down to the street, pulling the trench coat a bit tighter around my body as I react to a chilly blast of wind. Is it really June? Only a block or so to the café, the café I have made my after-work haunt each night of the week spent in Paris, a café lined with photos of Chaplin, an American’s stereotypical vision of a Parisian cafe.

Yet I am too early.

I decide to walk for a bit, as it is Paris, and it is the point where afternoon turns into evening, and people are hustling along the street, leaving the metro station and bound for meetings with friends, drinks, dinners, stops at bakeries or little shops on the way home. I walk slowly, with no agenda or destination, just watching everyone pass by in both directions. There are trees lining the street, but as I walk beneath them, I scarcely notice their branches and leaves overhead. But I hear them rustling in the brisk wind.

I stop at a window. A real estate office. The window is papered with flyers advertising homes for sale or let. Chambres, fenetres, deuxieme etage, etc. I read the details, translating the words in my mind, and scan the prices. Not that I am looking for an apartment in Paris. How could I ever live in Paris? How could I ever find a job, rent a room, live a life, in such a place?

I know that this will never be a possibility, and I feel the sadness well up inside me again.
I feel the tears brimming in my eyes and spilling over, just a bit, enough to wet the skin at the top of my cheekbones.
Luckily, they are obscured by my sunglasses.
No one can see them.
No one will ever know.

I step away from the window, breathe the cold June Paris air deeply, and head for the café. I meet my friend, who is sitting at an outdoor table on the sidewalk. He is gregarious, excited to see me, wrapping his arms around me in a hug. He does not look around Paris and think about what he is missing – he thinks about what is present and drinks it in.

We order, we talk, we drink, we eat. Wine. Cheese. Bread.
Is this what French people eat after work at cafes? Or is this what we think French people eat after work at cafés?
I realize that he is on an uncertain path as well, one different from mine. Yet he faces it with confidence.
I feel ashamed, as I face mine with fear, uncertainty. I discourage myself.
I try to draw strength from his strength, light from his light.

He flirts, but without sexual overtones.
How does he do this so well?
He makes me feel hopeful and confident about the future.
Anything is possible.
He laughs and we comment about the French businesspeople passing by, carrying bags with baguettes sticking out of them, as if we were in a movie.
Are we really in this place? So different from our hot, humid home? Are we really in this café?
He pays the bill and then stands to hug me good-bye, a firm grasp around my shoulders and back, holding me for a second.
He can sense that I am in pain, that I am uncertain. He is trying to make me feel confident again. Confident about myself.
I hug him back.
I feel a bit uncomfortable because beneath my surface feelings of friendship, my admiration for my friend, there is a deeply buried seed of passion, one that would never surface.
This must be how one flirts without sexual overtones. One’s mind is so firmly in control, that one is aware of the presenc e of the seed, but wisely leaves it buried.
I say goodbye, and I turn to walk away, to walk back to the ugly hotel, to the room with the view of the Eiffel Tower if you press your cheek against the glass and turn your eyes all the way to the left.

I did not realize it on that night, but I would never see him again. My friend. I would write to him and speak to him, but I would not see him. Only in that city would I see him, in Paris, at a sidewalk café, a café lined with photographs of Chaplin, where we drank wine and ate cheese, where we talked and where he reassured me, without saying anything overt, that I was on the right path after all. A path that would not involve him, but one where he would be with me.

And the seed would stay buried, but it would sprout nonetheless, beneath the surface.
Love does not need to always come to the surface, or breathe the air, or see the light.
It is the light.

Back in my hotel room, with the hideous orange carpet and yellow faux stucco walls, I walked to the window.
The night sky was growing darker.
I pressed my cheek against the glass, and turned my face and my eyes as far to the left as they would go.
And there, just visible, was the Eiffel Tower. I could just make out its narrowing, basket-weave spire in the fading evening.
Suddenly, as night set in at last, it was set ablaze with electrical illumination.
A tower of light, pointing to the sky, pointing the way.
There was light on that night.
There is light.