9 Like the World Around Them Didn’t Exist #5
“It took my mother years to save up for a small bottle, and she prized it and guarded it like a jewel to the point that she wore it only one night a year. On her wedding anniversary, when she dressed up for dinner with my father at a nice restaurant, she would open the perfume and spritz a few drops like this on her neck. I loved watching my mother dress up in front of the mirror with the bathroom door open. She curled her eyelashes, put on her eye shadow, touched up her lips, and always—always, always—the final step of the ritual, once her dress was on, was spritzing on the perfume. She used just a little, carefully, like restraint itself made it more effective. You know those childhood things that stay with you, you’re not sure why?
I loved the way my mother smelled on the nights she put on the Chanel and went out to dinner with my father.
He would also come home first to change, shave, and put on a tie.
It was their night, and the whole house took on a special scent.
I thought it was worth it for my closest cousin’s wedding.
It’s a special occasion for me too, a good day to honor my mother. ”
“I think that’s wonderful. Do you know why that happens?”
“What?”
“Why we remember very specific things from our childhood, but forget so many others.”
“Because the things that impact us leave a mark?”
“Because memory chooses for us, for better or for worse. A moment, a conversation, or a scent. Like right now, maybe.”
“Like now. Do you think that?”
“You said it yourself. The things that impact leave their mark. Memory engraves, like wood carving, the things you want to keep forever. I’m sure it’s happened to you, but at other times, you memorize a phone number for five minutes because you have nowhere to write it down.
A short-term memory, according to what’s needed at the time, and then it’s gone into the garbage. ”
“Memory can be trained.”
“Oh yes. I have a friend who makes a living doing that it. Antoine performs in a basement on the rue de Rivoli, not far from home. It’s the kind of bar where they do close-up magic, mentalism sessions, and je ne sais pas quoi.
He, a bald man with a white beard, a bit of a belly, no charm at all, gets up on a small platform that acts as a stage.
The audience yells words at him, one after another, without any rhyme or reason, all the way up to a hundred in a row.
And he memorizes them and then repeats them. ”
“And does he get them right?”
“Almost never.”
They burst out laughing. Once they recovered from the joke, they continued following the river in the distracted step of those without a destination.
“You have to meet him—Antoine Fernández—what a character.”
“I’m here until Tuesday.” And it’s already Saturday, Paulina thought.
Between the bridges, five tramps, with more sense of the clock than the calendar, started to prepare the cardboard boxes that marked their territory.
As was custom, they arranged their bundles—their homeland—to serve as mattresses.
They minded their own business. They said nothing to the few passersby still enjoying the last light of dusk.
They didn’t even look at them. Paulina didn’t turn her gaze away either, but she clutched onto Jean-Pierre’s arm.
Without saying a word, they both decided it was time to climb up the steps to the Pont des Arts.
At around half past nine in the second half of June, the building containing the Institut de France and the Mazarin basilica, visible from the bridge, changes color.
The clean white stone shifts into an increasingly lighter and more tenuous burnt hue, until in the last gleam of light, it resembles a pink house.
Looking north from the bridge, the sky is a spectacle that melts away moment by moment, second by second, racing against the clock.
Almost against its own will. It is a great curtain, glowing red, that gradually darkens the silhouettes of the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais.
The Eiffel Tower is always the last to vanish.
On the other side of the bridge, the water becomes denser until at twilight it’s hard to guess whether it is flowing up- or downstream.
You look for clues through the boats, the way their hoists creak, or through a disoriented duck, to know whether the river is rising or falling.
Growing ever more still, the night swallows the Seine right where it branches off, at the angle chosen by so many painters with easels and watercolors who, before the day fully dissolves, also pack up their palettes and satchels.
Jean-Pierre, pipe between his teeth, knew how to choose the perfect moment and landscape.
“Will you come up to my place?”
Paulina opened his blazer slightly and slipped inside, resting her head on Jean-Pierre’s chest. She didn’t want to answer.
She stepped back and looked him in the eyes.
He turned his head slightly so the pipe smoke wouldn’t bother her.
Her answer was not the one she wanted to give or the one he wanted to hear.
“I’m grabbing a taxi, Jean-Pierre. It’s time to go back to Croissy.”
“Not a glass of wine at my place . . . ?”
“Let’s not push things. It’s been a magnificent night.”
“I’ve got a chilled Anjou white . . .”
“Let’s leave it at that.”
“. . . for a special occasion.”
“Let’s leave it at that. Do you understand?”
“Will I see you tomorrow?”
She took a deep breath.
“Is your friend performing? Antoine . . .”
“They close on Sundays. It’s a shame. But I have to show you my favorite place. You can’t say no. It’s important that you see it. If I ever get lost, someone should know where to find me.” He knew how to play the Mastroianni role when he needed to. “Will I see you tomorrow?”
Paulina took the pipe out of his mouth and gave him a quick kiss.
“Which side of the bridge is better for hailing a taxi?”