A Coffeehouse in Paris

A Story by modesty blaise

At the end of a little street leading to the imposing gates of Père Lachaise cemetery, a cluttering of small round tables stood together on the rainswept sidewalk outside a typically parisian coffehouse, almost hindering the passers by in their trenchcoats and umbrellas walking hurriedly past the couple sitting at one of the tables, drinking their coffee undisturbed, enclosed in their own little world.

“Our last day here… I’m going to miss this city.”, she said smiling at him. "Well it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you are here with me", she went on as she grasped his hand from under the small table. “This means everything to me. Sometimes I wonder, why did you come here with me?”

“Well, I enjoy spending time with you. I like talking to you. I like having a cup of coffee with you while smelling the rain. I like it that you are so fond of me, that you have done so many sacrifices for me even though you shouldn’t have. That you love me so genuinely, almost desperately so. I could never reject that, a sensitive and warm human being who feels so deeply for me. Don’t you know how empty this world is of live people?”

“I should thank you… that you let me love you. I think I need loving someone more than being loved. I’m used to not being loved and I’ve always felt like I don’t deserve it somehow. I’d be very skeptical of someone loving me, I would never believe them.”

“You shouldn’t say that.”

“Well nobody has ever loved me. But I need to love with all my being and to act towards the person whom I love. Love is an action, it is that splendid triggering of human vitality, it is the supreme activity which nature affords anyone for going out of himself toward someone else. You know it’s like in that song… Love is a verb, love is a doing word... Meeting you was like having woken up from a deep slumbler and after a long period of hibernating, I became alive at once and wanted to do so much… I was afraid that if you rejected me my whole being would be crushed and all my emerging impulses would suddenly be annihilated. It means a lot to me that you let me act and feel as I wanted to and didn’t smother this overwhelming life incentive that my feelings for you flooded me with…”

“Don’t you find it hearbreaking though, being friends with someone you are in love with? Isn’t it too painful to receive less than you are willing to give?”

“No, it eases my pain a lot. Your friendship healed me in many ways. You didn’t turn your back on me when I was down and needed your help, you gave me your hand and slowly pulled me back from the edge where I was standing. You didn’t let me fall. I’ve always yearned for affection and searched for it everywhere, in books, in films, in the kindness of strangers… in dreams. I’ve dreamed of you a lot, I’ve dreamed of you the most and when I woke up scared I wanted so much to hold you in my arms and tell you about it. This lack of affection has worn me out, made me a wreck, a shadow, “a bright blot upon this gloomy scene, a spirit that strove for truth, and like the preacher found it not.”

„Well maybe if you stopped reading poems and novels and lived more in the real world... maybe you could have found what you were looking for all along...”

„I don’t want anyone else. I found you... that’s all I ever wished for.”

„I can’t offer you everything you want , but I can be your friend and I can understand you.”

„That’s fine, as long as you don’t mind that I’m madly in love with you and understand that I can’t help that.”

„I don’t mind, I actually find it moving. I just wish I could help you.”

„You already did, more than you’ll ever know.”

„Well... what if I’ll be with someone at some point and for some bizarre reason I couldn’t jump on a plane on a day’s notice and come to Paris with you just to comfort you?”

„I don’t know really... I guess I’ll commit suicide then.”

„Please stop joking with that.”

„Would you suffer?”

„Of course I would, you sadistic little witch.”

„I think you are the sadist here.”

„Right, I’m so evil, that’s why I listened to your endless pleas and accepted to be dragged here by force and spend this rainy weekend in Paris with you.”

„Yes you are, but I like you anyway. I like everything about you. When I’m with you I feel like I’m at the seaside, on top of the mountains, on Mars, travelling across far away constellations, anywhere I’ve always wanted, that I own castles, fortunes, that I have everything, I don’t want anything, I feel complete at last. You are the only person who doesn’t make me feel lonely.” She paused sipping from her coffee and then continued. „ Anyway, if you are ever in a relationship with another girl, would you let me live with you two? It’d be like in Jules et Jim.”

„That’d be rather kinky”, he laughed. „Besides, they didn’t end up too well as far as I remember.”

Suddenly a tear fell on the table and was immediately washed away by the raindrops that started getting larger and larger.

„What’s wrong?” he said, looking curiously at her.

„I’ve always dreamt of kissing you in the rain and never really got to do it. And I suppose since we are just friends we couldn’t do that, right?”, she said and broke into tears.

„Don’t be silly. Who says we can’t?” he said as he pulled his chair by her side, then grabbed her shoulders and kissed her while she caressed his beautiful hair.

„I don’t want you to do that out of pity”, she said. „Everything you do seems to be out of pity for me. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me or do anything just for me.”

„I’m not. I really want to kiss you.”, he answered and kissed her again.

„You are a compassionate being and that makes me love you even more... besides being so cool and handsome and wholly awesome. I know I’m not good enough for you.”

„There, there”, he said and embraced her frail, shivering body.

„You should start eating you know. I won’t talk to you anymore if you don’t eat.”

„It’s your fault, you know that. My love for you is consuming me a lot. One of these days I’ll be strong enough to let you go. But I just want to be around you for a little while longer, I want to enjoy your presence as much as possible. It would be too cruel to lose you so soon after I have found you. I want to really look at you, your eyes, your hands, your smile... I want to examine every scar on your body and discover every single little detail about you and take delight in every minute of it, absorb as much as I can of you, as much as you’ll let me, as much as there’s still time, before you vanish from my life forever.”

„Excusez-moi, mademoiselle. We are closing the café soon”, a rather bemused waiter announced the woman and quickly vanished behind the door. She hadn’t noticed that her feet were frozen and wet from the dripping rain and her green coat with golden buttons barely kept her warm now in the chilly evening air. The rain had stopped and the street was empty now. She got up from the table a little confused, as if woken up from a dream, and buttoning up her coat started walking down the street, looking at times both fearful and in awe at the large, intricately woven art nouveau entrances of the elegant buildings that bordered it. She soon found herself at the gates of the Père Lachaise cemetery that was closed now, and strolled along its high, fortress-like enclosing walls, stopping now and then to catch glimpses of the magnificent memorial graves and ghostly trees that cast eerie shadows on the leaning statues made of stone. The wind started blowing harder, playing wildly with her long silk scarf that swirled round her silhouette, encircling her in mild wafts of her vanilla and bergamot Chanel scent. She started walking faster, aimlessly crossing the little streets, passing by gothic churches and closed window shops, a lost soul wandering further into the perfumed night with only the cold, sparkling stars above her and the smiling moon keeping her company.