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Authors: Peter Roman
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Champs-Élysées, and then I wandered down it until the rain turned into a grey mist.
When dawn burned the mist away, I found a café that had opened early—not an easy task in Paris—and went in for another croissant and espresso. I was hungry for more, for a proper meal, because it had been a while since I’d had one of those. But I was used to being hungry.
I could see the top of the Eiffel Tower from my table. Most people think it’s just an old communications tower. It is, but most people have no idea what it was used to communicate with. It’s probably better if they don’t know, but who am I to say?
I drank my espresso and ate my croissant and thought about Victory’s request.
I understand what it is to be separated from your spirit. I don’t mean Christ—he’s more like a fading dream to me these days.
I mean Penelope.
I wasn’t entirely honest earlier when I said the only things that make life bearable for me are grace and death. There’s also Penelope. Or rather, there was Penelope.
Penelope who raised me from the dead, in her own way, and who’s dead now herself.
I finished my breakfast and made my way to the Montparnasse graveyard. I wandered it for a while and listened to the sounds of the city fade. I thought of the last time I’d been here, with her. It was after the Nazis had been driven out of the city and everyone thought maybe that had been the war to finally end all wars.
This day was sunny, with clear skies, but that day had been grey and wet, more of a Copenhagen day than a Paris postcard. We were looking for angels, but the only angels we found were on grave stones. I revisited them all now. They didn’t have any more to say to me this time than they did back then.
I stopped in front of Baudelaire’s grave and nodded my hello to him. Penelope and I had kissed there that day, in this same spot. Our breath was visible in the air, and a breeze lifted her hair around our heads. It was a moment that could have lasted forever.
That’s the way I like to remember it now, anyway. The truth is I don’t really know what happened when we kissed in Montparnasse, because that memory has been taken from me. I know there was a kiss in the cemetery. It’s just that I can’t remember where or even when. But a made-up memory is better than no memory at all.
Just let me have this one.
It was time to see Alice. I couldn’t put it off anymore. I left the cemetery and waved down a taxi. I asked the driver to take me to the nearest library. He eyed me a little, because I guess his fares didn’t usually want libraries, but I threw some money on his lap and then we were friends again.
When he dropped me off at the library I patted the stone lions flanking the stairs to its entrance. You never know. If they were really something other than sculptures and came to life some day, I’d like them to have fond memories of me.
Then I went up the stairs and inside in search of Alice.
Here’s the thing about Alice. You can only find her in libraries. Well, and sometimes bookstores. But that depends on the bookstore. She’s a little moody about them. She likes most libraries, though, so that’s where I tend to look for her first.
This is the way you summon Alice: You find the right book in the library and start to read it. That’ll bring her to you from wherever it is she hides in libraries. Simple, right? So what’s the right book? Well, that’s the hard part. It depends on the library. Sometimes the book even changes in the same library. In the New York Public Library it had been a biography of Lewis Carroll for years, and then one day I tried it and it didn’t work. It took me three weeks to find the new book, a copy of Alberto Manguel’s
History of Reading
. Also, the book has to be misshelved. Did I mention Alice was moody?
And yes, I said summon. Alice is a lot like a demon in some ways, except she’s not a demon. And she doesn’t have any grace in her, which is why I’ve never tried
When dawn burned the mist away, I found a café that had opened early—not an easy task in Paris—and went in for another croissant and espresso. I was hungry for more, for a proper meal, because it had been a while since I’d had one of those. But I was used to being hungry.
I could see the top of the Eiffel Tower from my table. Most people think it’s just an old communications tower. It is, but most people have no idea what it was used to communicate with. It’s probably better if they don’t know, but who am I to say?
I drank my espresso and ate my croissant and thought about Victory’s request.
I understand what it is to be separated from your spirit. I don’t mean Christ—he’s more like a fading dream to me these days.
I mean Penelope.
I wasn’t entirely honest earlier when I said the only things that make life bearable for me are grace and death. There’s also Penelope. Or rather, there was Penelope.
Penelope who raised me from the dead, in her own way, and who’s dead now herself.
I finished my breakfast and made my way to the Montparnasse graveyard. I wandered it for a while and listened to the sounds of the city fade. I thought of the last time I’d been here, with her. It was after the Nazis had been driven out of the city and everyone thought maybe that had been the war to finally end all wars.
This day was sunny, with clear skies, but that day had been grey and wet, more of a Copenhagen day than a Paris postcard. We were looking for angels, but the only angels we found were on grave stones. I revisited them all now. They didn’t have any more to say to me this time than they did back then.
I stopped in front of Baudelaire’s grave and nodded my hello to him. Penelope and I had kissed there that day, in this same spot. Our breath was visible in the air, and a breeze lifted her hair around our heads. It was a moment that could have lasted forever.
That’s the way I like to remember it now, anyway. The truth is I don’t really know what happened when we kissed in Montparnasse, because that memory has been taken from me. I know there was a kiss in the cemetery. It’s just that I can’t remember where or even when. But a made-up memory is better than no memory at all.
Just let me have this one.
It was time to see Alice. I couldn’t put it off anymore. I left the cemetery and waved down a taxi. I asked the driver to take me to the nearest library. He eyed me a little, because I guess his fares didn’t usually want libraries, but I threw some money on his lap and then we were friends again.
When he dropped me off at the library I patted the stone lions flanking the stairs to its entrance. You never know. If they were really something other than sculptures and came to life some day, I’d like them to have fond memories of me.
Then I went up the stairs and inside in search of Alice.
Here’s the thing about Alice. You can only find her in libraries. Well, and sometimes bookstores. But that depends on the bookstore. She’s a little moody about them. She likes most libraries, though, so that’s where I tend to look for her first.
This is the way you summon Alice: You find the right book in the library and start to read it. That’ll bring her to you from wherever it is she hides in libraries. Simple, right? So what’s the right book? Well, that’s the hard part. It depends on the library. Sometimes the book even changes in the same library. In the New York Public Library it had been a biography of Lewis Carroll for years, and then one day I tried it and it didn’t work. It took me three weeks to find the new book, a copy of Alberto Manguel’s
History of Reading
. Also, the book has to be misshelved. Did I mention Alice was moody?
And yes, I said summon. Alice is a lot like a demon in some ways, except she’s not a demon. And she doesn’t have any grace in her, which is why I’ve never tried
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