Blind in the City of Light, Patricia walked carefully back through the Cimitiere Pere-Lachaise.
“Are you all right?” Mrs. Becque said again. “Now be careful here, the steps are a little slippery ...”
Patricia nodded and placed her foot tentatively on the first step. Through the soles of her shoes she could feel the edge of a slick patch of moss.
“Are you all right?” Mrs. Becque said again.
“I'll be fine,” Patricia said. “Really.”
All around, she could feel the shapes of sepulchers and headstones. The echoes they returned, the space they displaced, the subtle patterns of cold air they radiated; all these things gave the funeral monuments of Pere-Lachaise a weight and solidity that lay beyond sight. From the locked and chambered earth, a fragrance arose. The elaborate alchemy of decay released a damp perfume which combined with the scent of spoiled wreaths and hung like a mist around the stones. Rain drummed on the stretched skin of Patricia’s umbrella.
“So what did you think?” said Mrs. Becque. “Of Wilde’s monument, that is? Did you like it?”
“Lovely/’ Patricia said.
“Of course, the vandals have made a terrible mess, writing all over the statue, but it’s still very impressive, don’t you think?”
Mrs. Becque’s voice receded into a rainy drone. Patricia could hardly mention how amused she’d been when she’d run her hands over Epstein’s stone angel, only to discover that the balls of the statue had been chopped off by some zealous souvenir fiend. Mrs. Becque would most certainly disapprove of so ironic a defacement, but Patricia felt sure that Oscar Wilde would have found the whole thing thoroughly entertaining. Mrs. Becque, in fact, seemed to disapprove of almost everything and Patricia was growing desperately tired of the woman’s constant presence.
“We must get in out of this awful rain,” Mrs. Becque was saying. They crossed the street, found a cafe and sat down.
“What would you like, dear?” asked Mrs. Becque. “Coffee?”
“Yes,” Patricia said. “Espresso. And a croissant. Thanks.”
Mrs. Becque ordered, then eased herself up out of her seat and set off in search of a telephone. Patricia took her book from her bag and began to read with her fingertips. She found no comfort there. More and more often these days, books did nothing but increase her own sense of isolation and disaffection. They taunted and teased with their promise of a better world but in the end they had nothing to offer but empty words and closed covers. She had grown tired of experiencing life at second hand. She wanted something that she had never been able to put into words.
A waiter brought the coffee.
“Something else for you, sir?” he said.
Patricia started up from her book. Someone was sitting at her table, directly opposite. A man.
“I’m fine with this,” the man said. His voice was rich and resonant, classically trained. Every syllable seemed to melt in the air.
“I hope you don’t mind,” the man said. He was talking to Patricia now, using English. “I saw you sitting all alone.”
“No. Actually, I’m with someone,” Patricia said. She stumbled over the words, as she might stumble over the furniture in some unfamiliar room. “She’s over there. Over there.” She gestured vaguely.
“I don’t think you’re with anyone at all,” the man said. “You seem to me to be alone. It’s not right that a pretty girl should be alone in Paris.”
“I’m not,” Patricia said flatly. The man was beginning to disturb and irritate her.
“Believe me,” the man said. “I know what you want. It’s written all over your face. I know what you want.”
“What are you talking about?” Patricia said. “You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me.”
“I can read you like a book,” he said. “I’ll be here at the same time tomorrow, if you wish to hear more about the Braille Encyclopaedia.”
“I beg your pardon?” Patricia's face flushed. “I really don’t ...”
“Everything all right, dear?”
Patricia turned her head. The voice belonged to Mrs. Becque. Foreign coins chinked into a cheap purse.
“It’s just this man ...” Patricia began.
Mrs. Becque sat down. “What man?” she said. “The waiter?”
“No. That man. There.” Patricia pointed across the table.
“There’s no one there, Patricia,” Mrs. Becque said, using the voice she reserved for babies and dogs. “Drink up your coffee. Michel said he’d pick us up here in twenty minutes.”
Patricia lifted her cup in numbed fingers. Somewhere the espresso machine sputtered and choked. Rain fell on the silent dead of Pere-Lachaise, on the streets and the houses of Paris, covering the whole city like a veil, like a winding sheet . . .
Patricia raised her head. “What time is it?” she said.
In her room, in the tall and narrow hotel on the Boulevard St. Germain, Patricia sat listening to traffic. Outside, wheels sluiced through rain.
Rain sieving down through darkness. Rain spattering on the balcony. Rain dripping, slow and melancholy, from the wrought-iron railing.
She sat on the edge of the bed, in the dark. Always in the dark. No need for light. The money she saved on electricity bills! She sat in the dark of the afternoon, ate another slab of chocolate and tried to read. It was hopeless; her fingers skated across the braille dots, making no sense of their complex arrangements. Unable to concentrate, she set her book down and paced to the window again. Soon it would be evening. Outside, in the dark and the rain, Paris would put on its suit of lights. Students would gather to argue over black coffee, lovers would fall into one another’s arms. Out there, in the breathless dark and the flashing neon, people would live and be alive; and here, in this room, Patricia would sit and Patricia would read.
She sat down heavily and, unutterably miserable, slotted a cassette into her Walkman. Then she lay back on the bed, staring wide-eyed into her private darkness.
Debussy’s “La Mer” began to play—the first wash of strings and woodwind conjured a vast and empty shore. White sand, desolate under a big sky. White waves smashed on the rocks. Patricia was writing something on the sand. Lines drawn on a great blank page of sand. She could not read what she was writing but she knew it was important.
