Read Online Anio Szado by Studio Saint-Ex - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Studio Saint-Ex
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been the Aéropostale quarters.
“Guillaumet spreads a contour map on the table before my flight from Toulouse to Dakar. There is a lantern on the table. Everything is very quiet beyond our walls and within. Then the flame begins to pop. The map comes alive. First my friend points out a false clearing where the ground is said to lure pilots and hoard their remains. He sneers, but the landing has taken the shape of a Minotaur; I gape in awe.”
Antoine pinched the tablecloth to define a path. “Guillaumet says, ‘The trail gets very wide just here, after a red-roofed barn, but look carefully; often it is crowded with sheep.’ ”
His hands cajoled a napkin into a rising series of peaks. “ ‘Here the mountain plays with your compass, so watch that both you and it do not spin like skirts on the stage. There, if you come down, the nomads will find you, but perhaps not until your lungs are drier than your feet and a tenth the size.’ He says, ‘Best drink well now, Saint-Ex.
Salut!
Just keep everything in the air until you pass this big black mark.’ ”
The table between us had sprouted salt-shaker towers andcheese-knife runways. An ashtray that had done duty as a relentlessly ticking clock was overwhelmed by cigarette-butt hands. Lakes and rivers were marked by water glasses and wineglasses, though the latter repeatedly moved and ran dry. Pages pulled from a notebook had been creased into tent-like mountains and crumpled into impenetrable clouds. Other landmarks had been drawn by Antoine’s fingertips on the tablecloth: a hut where an old wrinkled man gave him shelter, the place where the trees grew crimson and seemed on fire in the sunset; the pass where a comrade, presumed perished, was finally found.
Antoine had lived his life by such maps, had flown through such drawings for two decades. At my prodding, he spoke of his first flight as a youth; of lessons marked by broken bones, crash landings; how the desert sands and dark seas were no softer, to a plummeting plane, than the bombs that blew craters into his country’s churches, roads, and homes. He spoke of silent flights lit by fire, of missions over enemy lines, his aircraft a heaving camera mount, no gun or gunner aboard. His hand moved again to mine, and it was all I could do to pull away.
“Mignonne, do you know how it feels to fly over one’s own country and see it smoldering?”
“I hope I will never know.”
“I hope that too, for you.”
“But to fly—that’s something I would like to feel.”
“One day you will. Leave the ground, leave your troubles, be alone within the sky. It is something perfect.”
“If you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t strike me as someone who yearns to be alone.”
“The solitude of the cockpit is not like that of cities and towns. It’s as though all of mankind is holding you up in the heavens. Loneliness is only possible on the earth, among men. I began to know it intimately only when they grounded me.” He moved a salt shaker next to its pepper-shaker mate. “To lose one’s duty and calling, to have it taken away, this is a special sort of torture.”
The bartender called across the room. “Bar’s closing, Mig. You folks want anything before I lock it up?”
When I turned again to the table, Antoine was rushing a hand along the corners of his eyes. I could only say, “I’m sorry, we should really end our lesson.”
Antoine folded his napkin. “You must tell me something before we part. Your uncle informs me you are a designer as well as an excellent tutor.”
“I’m in my last year at New York Fashion School.”
He nodded, thought for a minute, then started twisting the napkin into a coil. “You know, Mignonne, just before the Nazis marched into Paris, I sent word to my wife to flee south to the Spanish border.”
His wife.
“I instructed her to pack only her official papers and the bare necessities of survival. I should have been with my men. Instead, I hurried to Consuelo
“Guillaumet spreads a contour map on the table before my flight from Toulouse to Dakar. There is a lantern on the table. Everything is very quiet beyond our walls and within. Then the flame begins to pop. The map comes alive. First my friend points out a false clearing where the ground is said to lure pilots and hoard their remains. He sneers, but the landing has taken the shape of a Minotaur; I gape in awe.”
Antoine pinched the tablecloth to define a path. “Guillaumet says, ‘The trail gets very wide just here, after a red-roofed barn, but look carefully; often it is crowded with sheep.’ ”
His hands cajoled a napkin into a rising series of peaks. “ ‘Here the mountain plays with your compass, so watch that both you and it do not spin like skirts on the stage. There, if you come down, the nomads will find you, but perhaps not until your lungs are drier than your feet and a tenth the size.’ He says, ‘Best drink well now, Saint-Ex.
Salut!
Just keep everything in the air until you pass this big black mark.’ ”
The table between us had sprouted salt-shaker towers andcheese-knife runways. An ashtray that had done duty as a relentlessly ticking clock was overwhelmed by cigarette-butt hands. Lakes and rivers were marked by water glasses and wineglasses, though the latter repeatedly moved and ran dry. Pages pulled from a notebook had been creased into tent-like mountains and crumpled into impenetrable clouds. Other landmarks had been drawn by Antoine’s fingertips on the tablecloth: a hut where an old wrinkled man gave him shelter, the place where the trees grew crimson and seemed on fire in the sunset; the pass where a comrade, presumed perished, was finally found.
Antoine had lived his life by such maps, had flown through such drawings for two decades. At my prodding, he spoke of his first flight as a youth; of lessons marked by broken bones, crash landings; how the desert sands and dark seas were no softer, to a plummeting plane, than the bombs that blew craters into his country’s churches, roads, and homes. He spoke of silent flights lit by fire, of missions over enemy lines, his aircraft a heaving camera mount, no gun or gunner aboard. His hand moved again to mine, and it was all I could do to pull away.
“Mignonne, do you know how it feels to fly over one’s own country and see it smoldering?”
“I hope I will never know.”
“I hope that too, for you.”
“But to fly—that’s something I would like to feel.”
“One day you will. Leave the ground, leave your troubles, be alone within the sky. It is something perfect.”
“If you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t strike me as someone who yearns to be alone.”
“The solitude of the cockpit is not like that of cities and towns. It’s as though all of mankind is holding you up in the heavens. Loneliness is only possible on the earth, among men. I began to know it intimately only when they grounded me.” He moved a salt shaker next to its pepper-shaker mate. “To lose one’s duty and calling, to have it taken away, this is a special sort of torture.”
The bartender called across the room. “Bar’s closing, Mig. You folks want anything before I lock it up?”
When I turned again to the table, Antoine was rushing a hand along the corners of his eyes. I could only say, “I’m sorry, we should really end our lesson.”
Antoine folded his napkin. “You must tell me something before we part. Your uncle informs me you are a designer as well as an excellent tutor.”
“I’m in my last year at New York Fashion School.”
He nodded, thought for a minute, then started twisting the napkin into a coil. “You know, Mignonne, just before the Nazis marched into Paris, I sent word to my wife to flee south to the Spanish border.”
His wife.
“I instructed her to pack only her official papers and the bare necessities of survival. I should have been with my men. Instead, I hurried to Consuelo
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