We’ll Always Have Paris

‘Maybe you should come over on this side of the bed.’

‘Are you asking me over?’

‘I am, yes, please, come over.’

He turned and looked at her and finally rolled completely over toward her. A long way off the town clock struck three-fifteen, then three-thirty, then three forty-five, then four o’clock.

Then they both lay, listening.

‘Do you hear?’ she said.

‘I’m listening.’

‘The crying.’

‘It’s stopped,’ he said.

‘Yes. That ghost, that child, that baby, that crying, thank God it stopped.’

He held her hand, turned his face toward her, and said, ‘We stopped it.’

‘We did,’ she said. ‘Oh yes, thank God, we stopped it.’

The night was very quiet. The wind began to die. The leaves on the trees outside stopped trembling.

And they lay in the night, hand in hand, listening to the silence, the wonderful silence, and waited for the dawn.

We’ll Always Have Paris (#ulink_acd7b358-c128-5d2f-af67-059e22062142)

It was a hot Saturday night in July in Paris, near midnight, when I prepared to head out and walk around the city, my favorite pastime, starting at Notre Dame and ending, sometimes, at the Eiffel Tower.

My wife had gone to bed at nine o’clock and as I stood by the door she said, ‘No matter how late, bring back some pizza.’

‘One pizza coming up,’ I said, and stepped out into the hall.

I walked from the hotel across the river and along to Notre Dame and then stopped in at the Shakespeare Bookstore and headed back along the Boul Miche to stop at Les Deux Magots, the outdoor café where Hemingway, more than a generation ago, had regaled his friends with Pernod, grappa, and Africa.

I sat there for a while watching the Parisians, of which there was a multitude, had myself a Pernod and a beer, and then headed back toward the river.

The street leading away from Les Deux Magots was no more than an alley lined with antiques stores and art galleries.

I walked along, almost alone, and was nearing the Seine when a peculiar thing happened, the strangest thing that had ever happened in my life.

I realized I was being followed. But it was a strange kind of following.

I looked behind me and no one was there. I looked ahead about forty yards and saw a young man in a summer suit.

At first I didn’t realize what he was doing. But when I stopped to look in a window and glanced up, I saw that he had stopped eighty or ninety feet ahead of me and was looking back, watching me.

As soon as he saw my glance he walked away, farther on up the street, where he stopped again and looked back.

After a few more of these silent exchanges, it came to me what was going on. Instead of following me from behind, he was following me by leading the way and looking back to make sure that I came along.

The process continued for an entire city block and then finally, at last, I came to an intersection and found him waiting for me.

He was tall and slender and blond and quite handsome and seemed, somehow, to be French; he looked athletic, perhaps a tennis player or a swimmer.

I didn’t know quite how I felt about the situation. Was I pleased, was I flattered, was I embarrassed?

Suddenly, confronted with him, I stood at the intersection and said something in English and he shook his head.