It
also happened that autumn that I came to meet
sweet Katell—fair cast-away child who’d
wandered awhile, and then settled on the Boulevard
Magenta. This
is how it happened:
....I was obliged
to meet with a certain German composer staying
in the north of the city. The whole thing was
against my better judgment, and I thought to
cancel the meeting, but something that I read
that was printed about him in Le Monde made
me take a liking to him. It was said that he
only
spoke French and German but didn’t like
speaking his native language, that he didn’t
like other composers, that he hated artists
in general and had a distrust of all foreigners.
This, and the rumor that he only composed songs
late at night when crudely drunk, made me change
my mind.
....I
found myself the night before at the
Café L'Entracte
across the street from the Opéra.
I decided I would stay in the neighborhood
rather than wander back to Saint Germain
where I’d been working. That way
I could take my time in the morning and
wouldn’t have to take a taxi
to meet the German.
....I found a simple hotel on the boulevard Magenta and booked a room for the night.
The girl working at the desk was the fair Katell, an itinerant youth. She had
made a deal with the owner that she would work the desk without pay, in exchange
for the room she lived in upstairs.
....When I entered the hotel, Katell
was reading a magazine and wore a citron yellow décolleté top.
She also wore a hint of bright yellow on her lips and eyelids, and
this freshness came out in gleaming rays of sunlight, slyly beaming
from eyes that were light brown; lynx-shaped eyes that seemed to follow
whatever object was moving in the room until they would come back to
you and bat themselves coyly, with confident timidity. Katell was as
short as Adélaïde was tall. Her coquine lips were naturally
and seductively swollen and when she looked at you, they would come
together to smooth her shimmering lemon lip-gloss.
....Katell turned her back to get the
key to my room and I noticed her back was small and beautiful shaped
and deeply suntanned without the slightest blemish. We talked and
she told me she’d been all over. She left home at sixteen to travel,
had worked for a year in Asia, had met all sorts of people, and never
returned home. She’d liked Greece the best, though she didn’t
like the smell of the little streets and the churches. But she liked
the smells of the cafés and the songs of the musicians who played
there. She like the bravery in the Greek tales and songs. She’d
read Homer in French and was trying to read him in Greek. She liked
the valor of Zeus, she liked his promiscuity, and she admired the craftiness
of Athena. She also liked Artemis, although she was convinced her chastity
wasn’t intentional. “It’s like Mary,” she told
me, “You know in the original Greek, Mary wasn’t described
as a virgin. She was just described as ‘a young girl,’ but
not ‘a virgin’ . . . somewhere, someone got it all wrong!”
....Katell said
she would always be catholic. She said she believed
in God and loved him (she insisted that him be
spelled all in lower-case), and would always
love
him, though she didn’t like his books. The
characters in the Bible were sorry people, she
said. “They’re horribly meek!” she
told me, “And worse, they’re proud
of being meek! . . . Can you imagine?!” Katell
liked Jesus but she preferred Achilles.
....I asked for a room and furnished priceless
papers to ensure the young miss of my honest identity. The passport
I presented was one I used in all hotels scarce of amenities, in want
of luxury; rooms I planned to stay in a mere night and no more. It
was a weathered passport, and had to be smoothed out to be read correctly.
....“ Monsieur…” she
began, trying to make out the type.
....“ Frederic” I helped her, “Frederic
de Quincy.”
....“ Frederic!” She looked
wildly at me. I liked the way she pronounced that strange name with
her tender lips.
....Later in the evening I sent for
wine and she asked to drink some with me, and I asked her if she
wanted
to hear a new song. “It’s a heroic piece,” I insisted,
and she was glad about that. I asked if she had an instrument.
....“ There is a flute downstairs.”
....“ A silver flute?”
....“ Yes.”
....“ That will do fine.”
....Katell went to get the flute and
when she came back we went to her room and played and sang and she
learned
the words to my song. Her room was bare, even for a hotel room, and
when it was late and we thought to sleep, she asked if I had any
toothpaste or soap. I didn’t. I was traveling without luggage and had hoped
the hotel would furnish such toiletries. She blushed when I told her
this, and said she hadn’t either these items and said she always
seemed to have trouble ‘taking care of the necessities,’ as
she put it.
Katell then left to the hall and called one of her girlfriends to
come over. It seemed she was helping a friend with a place to stay
while the hotel owner
wasn’t around to object. The friend was called Julie. She was a dark-haired
creature with shy, cervine eyes. She was obviously less experienced than her
older friend Katell. Julie brought toothpaste and soap and the three of us
washed and sang and played the silver flute and kissed each other’s lips
and were happy until, at the blue light of dawn, we fell asleep—all three
of us tucked in a tight-sheeted bed. When the hotel maid rang in the morning,
I rose and pressed my lips to the girls’ sleepy foreheads and snuck
away to meet the German.
4th
Soliloquy
Winter came quickly that year. I
hadn’t remembered how much I enjoy the chill
of late November, but when it came I was glad. Many
things changed but much stayed the same. I saw friends
of old—writers and actors, scholars, bankers
and merchants, loafers and peddlers of pleasure—we
often gathered in private houses where we feasted
on hot soups and fragrant wines. Nadja had finally
come to Paris to study as she’d always wanted
to, and I was doing my best to introduce her around
Rive Gauche Society. She took a fortunate place in
a golden-heated room on the rue Jacob, near the École
des Beaux-Arts; and she spent her days there amid
towering easels—or in the museums where she
copied the Impressionist’s lilacs and sketched
the marble beauties. I often saw her at night.
....Katell
too was back in Paris after having wandered
away. She now had a place on the avenue
de l’Opéra. Her kitchen
lacked soap and salt but her bathroom
was furnished with scents and creams
and she had acquired furniture too. They
were prosperous times for young Katell.
She had gone to Rome for a few weeks
and had returned with a good amount of
money.
....The
invitation came on a Wednesday.
Katell had cooked and asked if
I was hungry and if I could bring
some candles. I wrapped a well-knit
scarf around my neck, found a coat
in the armoire, and descended to
the Place Colette and up the avenue.
....In
her tiny studio, Katell and I sat
at a well-made table, laid with
good bread and ample
wine. A generous radiator brought forth heat and the sky outside
the window gave night. Katell had been reading from Herodotus.
When I arrived the book was set by an old aluminum Bialetti
kettle that chugged as it cooked coffee on the stove. We ate
with great praise for the delights of well-prepared food. There
were sturdy bowls piled with hand-rolled semolina cakes stuffed
with cèpes and chevre cream. Blushing oils were strung
over tender cooked legumes.
....After the rich meal, Katell
and I rinsed the plates with clear water. I then went to the
window, as was my custom after a meal, and I began to wonder
about all that I had to be glad about—now, again, in
my life, in the world. Everything, I decided. They were joyous
times. I had the pleasures of wine and prosperous meals, the
lips of sweet Katell. This, and I had the fortune of solitude.
That, and the season of winter: blessed time when one can walk
out into the peaceful morning and find silent streets steeped
in frigid darkness. Blessed empirical season! No one could
say that my life was lacking…
Sitting softly on the edge of the bed, I sang to Katell with an old wound
guitar. We then clasped hands and kissed, and when the shards of moon out
the window passed by and the frost on the sill was black as an unused hearth,
I took to her bed with wool and down and made love to her. We slept warm
that night, and close beside.
....I woke early the next morning,
before daylight broke, and left the sleeping girl to dream. In
that tender room, a little brass mantle clock ticked along the
fifth hour. Into the basin, I drew water, warm, and washed my face
and shaved. I cooked coffee in the kettle and drank it silently
at the window. Those candles I’d brought, I lit anew, yet
they did hardly a thing to light upon the dark wood floor where
lay scattered pieces of Katell’s clothes. No longer citrus-hued
cotton tops; now it was winter. The beige straps of Katell’s
bra showed like muddy rivers running along the burnished earth
that was her long burgundy scarf. Her winter stockings were rolled
and set about her shoes: black heels, pointed like javelins. Books
were scattered on the floor. I saw she had been reading from Cities
and Countries; it lay face-down to mark the page. I walked again
through the silent room to the window to inspect the dawn. It threatened
not to be light for a long while. Before I left Katell’s
room, I sat beside her and studied her in the darkness. She spoke
in her sleep and I kissed the soft down of the back of her neck
and she clung to me for a moment and then let go. I took my winter
frockcoat from the closet, and dressed in my leather gloves, my
scarf of winding cashmere. After buckling the sturdy leather satchel
where I kept my papers, I descended the stairs and headed down
the Avenue de l’Opéra. A winter wind was howling.
....Back at the room to which I
held key in holy Saint Germain, I drank my coffee and opened
the letters that had been piling up beneath the door. A wax-stamped
note had been delivered by the fair Adélaïde. She
was back in Paris after much success in Vienna. She now lived
on the quai Voltaire, and had new clothes to enjoy the cold.
All this and she wanted to see me right away. I looked at the
calendar and thought of the season. Days were over-passing. I
realized I had much to accomplish if I wanted to seal the projects
I had started. Ambitious projects they were. It was still early
in the month but there was no time to waste. I was in heroic
form, strong of mind with a fine-formed body. There were no limits
to the greatness I would create on that hearty desk where I lay
pen to holy craft. Still, I had to avoid the company of women
for awhile.
[End
of sample. Return to main excerpts page.]
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