Almost Midnight

Imagined Lives II

Julia was bored and the champagne wasn’t helping. It usually gave her a headache and she would have preferred something stronger, like a martini. But Madame Dubois had handed her a flute of champagne upon arrival, and now she was cornered by the fireplace by a pack of insipid hyenas mansplaining Paris to her.

They were conventionally handsome but in an undistinguished way. They all seemed to wear the same suit jacket and use the same pomade. Their hands were soft and delicate as they gesticulated in her face. The apartment was stuffy. She counted the minutes until she could leave.

The reason she was there was that Madame Dubois was an old friend of her maman and occupied something like the role of a godmother. Since Julia didn’t know anyone in Paris, she figured she might make an appearance at the soirée to please them both.

She had arrived in Paris two days ago and was still disoriented. Granted, she’d been slightly disoriented ever since her third nervous breakdown. After convalescing at maman’s house in Woodstock, the family had decided a change of scenery would benefit her nerves.

Since she had nothing better to do with her life, she got on a plane and departed for the city of her childhood, of which she remembered very little. She had lived there until she was four. Then maman and papi turned their marriage into a production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and maman returned to the States, daughter in tow.

Papi stayed in Paris for a while and then drifted from place to place, sending postcards. An ashram in Rishikesh. A kibbutz in the Negev. A fishing village in Cuba, pretending to be Hemingway. She had no idea where he was now. Maman called him a scoundrel. He had pretty much vanished.

So here she was at Madame Claire’s shindig, a quasi salon, except the guests were tedious. The young men had nothing of interest to say, but she felt their burning lust on the back of her neck and her arms. Soon she’d break out in hives. She looked around. Parisian chic everywhere.

The only interesting character was an odd little man with a waxed moustache and a pointy potbelly staring into his cognac glass. He looked stricken and out of place, as though he had wandered in from another decade. He spoke to no one, but she could feel his eyes on her whenever he thought she wasn’t looking.

To entertain herself she pictured his life. He must have a small dog. No, a cat. A white Siamese named Loulou. She was allergic to cats but liked them. She related to them, their slinky independence. She pictured him overfeeding Loulou with fresh liver and pâté, maybe a raw egg to make her fur shiny. She pictured him taking lonely strolls. She couldn’t picture him with a woman.

She figured he had had a tragic love story a long time ago and, after his beloved died, he was never able to love again. Some awful disease. Like in that Boris Vian novel. The girl with the water lily growing in her lung. Fresh flowers everywhere to save her. She died anyway.

The potbellied man became melancholy and morose. He got the cat. He talked to no one unless absolutely necessary, like the butcher or a shop attendant. She, Julia, didn’t talk much either. Not because of the lithium but by choice. She just didn’t have anything to say to most people.

She wondered if that strange bowlegged man would understand her. He could be the only kindred spirit in the world. She found him physically repulsive but still more appealing than the slick ogres clamoring for her attention.

Maybe he had a piano. Maybe he would play Chopin for her and bring her fresh croissants in the morning. He’d read her only the pleasant news. Or invent pleasant news to cheer her up. He’d bathe her in an old claw-foot tub filled with milk and essential oils.

She pictured the mélange curdle.

She pictured cottage cheese, that abominable American invention maman was so fond of, along with a sliced tomato for lunch.

She pictured telling him she needed rocks, heavy rocks and a lake. He would understand. He had experienced loss before. He’d carry the rocks for her, gently place them into the deep pockets of the dress she’d have to buy for the occasion. He’d watch until she disappeared beneath the surface. Then he’d go home and tell Loulou, who would meow and demand pâté.

Maybe she should go up and talk to him.

But when she looked, he was gone.

It was almost midnight.