8 I’ve Seated You Together at the Table #3
“Schubert was a romantic. To die young, to die of syphilis is a consistent ending for a romantic like him. He had a curious understanding of his own work. When he wanted to sing about love, it turned into sorrow. When he wanted to sing about sorrow, the audience turned it into love. He gave the best diagnosis of his own songs. He was spot on, exact, with what he said. Die schone Müllerin contains twenty songs. It begins with a young man walking along the stream, crossing the fields, and arriving at a mill. And then what happens? He falls in love with a beautiful blond miller girl. Die schone Müllerin. They are delicate and joyful love songs, full of happiness. But, as Schubert said, he wanted to write a song about love, but it turned into sorrow.”
“The miller girl wants nothing to do with him?”
“At first the miller girl pays attention to him. They have a relationship, yes—but it’s an ambiguous one, and soon she leaves him for a hunter.
The hunter is more mature, more of a man, and he wears a green suit that’s irresistible.
And the young man, feeling abandoned, becomes more and more obsessed, until he ends up imagining a grave from which flowers sprout to symbolize his eternal love for the beautiful miller girl.
And then—by this point we’re already at song eighteen or nineteen—the young man despairs, throws himself into the stream, and kills himself. ”
“You see? In the end, there is always someone who commits suicide.”
“Don’t you find it fascinating, Pauline?”
She was beginning to get a better idea of who this Jean-Pierre Zanardi was—a man perhaps fifteen years older than she was.
A man with tact, charm, and worldliness.
Dangerous. Very dangerous. A bachelor used to impressing people at first with art and conversation.
But later, when you go up to his apartment for what he insists is one last drink, you realize that the place is cold, that he doesn’t have even a crumb of bread in his house, and that he will age badly.
Once dinner was over, Alain and Julie stood up and cut the six-tiered cake with a samurai sword. Before tasting it, they opened the dance floor with a Strauss waltz that was different than usual—both the waltz and the Strauss.
“We are surrounded by culture,” Jean-Pierre whispered in her ear, to be heard above the applause for the newlyweds, “but they want us to believe that politics shape our lives.”
That was certainly not Paulina’s life. Politics, for her, consisted of the three consecutive news segments she watched on Telediario when Manuel had it on—nothing more.
Her father did buy La Vanguardia. He’d done it all his life, mainly to do the crossword after lunch.
In his thirty years as a subscriber, he had maybe finished it four times without waiting to see the next day’s solution.
“Should we dance?” Jean-Pierre held out his hand to Paulina. They got up from their seats and, hand in hand, walked to the dance floor. They arrived just as the band’s bald and stocky Paul McCartney started singing.
“Do you like the Beatles?”
“I like this song, yes. ‘Twist and Shout.’”
They danced and shouted. It was mostly Jean-Pierre who shouted unabashedly. Paulina still hadn’t let herself go. She danced shyly like she didn’t want to be perceived. As everyone applauded the band, Jean-Pierre slipped away.
“I’ll be back tout suite.”
He returned, having taken off the baseball-style jacket, rolled up the sleeves of his white linen shirt, undone the first button, and loosened his tie.
“Ready for some rock and roll?”
“Do you know how to dance to it?” Paulina feared she couldn’t measure up. Even if no one knew her, she wanted to spare herself the embarrassment.
“Follow my lead. Trust me.”
Alain and Julie were dancing to “Don’t Be Cruel.” You could tell they had worn out many pairs of shoes. The other guests on the dance floor made space for them so as not to step on the bride’s train, which, by that point in the celebration, was turning dark at the ends from being dragged around.
Alain set the pace like a model. But he made overly exaggerated faces.
One moment he sucked in his cheeks, the next he bulged his eyes as if he’d seen a UFO.
Or suddenly, as though shocked by electricity, he hunched his shoulders and thrust his neck forward with an exaggerated expression.
He danced, sang, and shouted between grimaces.
Some people must have chalked it up to the alcohol.
But that was just Alain. He was a serious philosophy professor at the Sorbonne from Monday to Friday, but he transformed the moment he set foot on a dance floor.
Julie, a more occasional dancer, had just married him—and in principle, for life.
Both had said yes, in sickness and in health, until death turns life into drama and, after mourning, into a memory.
Paulina watched the newlyweds from the corner of her eye but focused on following Jean-Pierre, who moved his feet skillfully, as if it were nothing to him.
He wore polished black lace-up shoes with tips so sharp that if he had kicked a distracted pigeon, he would have split it open.
The band followed one song with another without giving the crowd of dancers, who were more and more lively, a moment to breathe.
Next it was “Hound Dog,” also by Elvis. Jean-Pierre held both her hands, let one go, and spun her with ease, casually like he was twirling a spaghetti noodle.
His cheekbones were relaxed; he marked his steps with the raise of an eyebrow or simply by lifting his chin ever so slightly so she knew which way to move.
He danced effortlessly in cadence. He hardly needed to bend at all to give his movements a distinguished air.
Paulina followed him with less effort than she had feared.
She was having fun. They got along with each other in rhythm and harmony.
Suddenly, their eyes met, they smiled at each other, and that dandy—who had seemed so full of himself—no longer struck her as quite so vain.
Painted across his face was an inner passion, strong and silent.
“How old did you say you were—forty-something?”
“You shouldn’t ask someone their age. But I’ll tell you what, I’m going to need a slow song soon.” He was panting and sweating more than he would have liked.
“You looked like you were in good shape . . .”
“No need to make fun of me. Look . . .”
The band Julie and Alain had hired for the wedding—a bass, two electric guitars, drums, and a worn-out singer—played a song that let people catch their breath. There are worse things I could do.
“This one is from Grease.” Paulina recognized the slow song from the very first chords. “I love that movie.”
“I . . . Can I tell you something?”
“Bien s?r.”
“I can’t stand John Travolta.” He leaned in close to confess something in her ear. “He moves like the groom—too out of step, don’t you think?”
Jean-Pierre discreetly mimicked Alain’s fidgety movements. They laughed. Paulina had to admit that she found the man who knew everything about Schubert but moved like Elvis rather attractive.
“Don’t lose focus, Jean-Piegue. Are you dancing, or are you giving up?”
“You don’t know me. Not at all. Me, give up?”
It was the first time Jean-Pierre noticed Paulina, happy and beautiful, and her chest brushing against him.
It was the first time in many years that the scent of a woman stirred him.
And to think he had sworn to himself never again .
. . As the song went on, Paulina might have rested her head on his shoulder, casually, complicitly, to let him know she was enjoying herself too. But she held back—just in case.
When the slow Grease song ended, Jean-Pierre surprised her with a sweet and quick kiss on the ?le des Minimes. A bold move. Lips pressed against each other. A declaration of intentions.