“I think I’ve been here once before.” Cecilia says, looking around. We’re seated at a table for two at a small, dress-down café in my neighbourhood. It’s the kind of place where you order a ceasar salad and green tea. In the back there is a lounge section with bookshelves and a small - no, tiny - stage. The books have worn pages and scratched spines, I’ve come across pages coloured with coffee and occasionally wine, the stains telling stories of those who come here alone. I still do, sometimes. But not today.
”Really? That’s a coincidence.” I point out.
The barista brings us our teas and our salads. “Anything else for you today?”
”No thanks. Thank you.”
”Yea, I can’t really remember - it just feels familiar.” She continues.
”I’d say it’s designed that way. I know the couches back there were bought second-hand from a garage-sale in my building.”
”That’s cool.” There’s a pause, we’re not yet back at where we left off the night we met. I sip my tea.
”Is the music here any good?” She indicates the raised stage.
”They rotate bands,” I say, “some of them are amazing. Others - well, I’ve played here once or twice, and I barely even know how to hold a guitar.”
”You’re kidding.”
”Well, it’s a bit of an understatement, but I’m not good by any standard.”
”No, I mean, you’ve played here? That’s cool.” She’s said that twice now.
”I dabble.” I smile slyly as I pick at my salad. She too begins to eat, proceeding in that murderous American way, using only her right hand, stabbing with her fork like she has to kill the lettuce before she puts it in her mouth. I decide not to say anything.
”So,” she covers her mouth as she talks, “what made you come to New York?”
I whittle down the story into one sentence as I finish chewing. “It’s where stuff happens, I suppose.” That’s technically evading the question. She meant: why did I leave where I was before. She’s searching for history, not foresight.
I know this because she tries another angle: “You moved from Paris?”
”Yea, I was there for half a year before.”
”And nothing happens in Paris?” She half-smiles.
I laugh: “I like your style.”
So I tell her about my botched attempt to woo Anette, stopping at certain points to see her reactions. I leave out my travelling through half the city just to eat breakfast at the bakery where Anette worked. I leave out her boyfriend. And I leave out my writing that French poem on a napkin and getting all the tenses wrong and her blushing and saying simply: “Merci. Tu as fini?” and busily taking my half-empty coffee cup away.
I tell her about Adam and how we drifted apart after Sarkozy and the UMP took the Presidency. I leave out the nightly political debates fuelled by bad whisky. I leave out his girlfriend and trying to decide whether or not to tell him I knew she was seeing another man. And I leave out just packing my bags and going. All these things, I might tell you later, but for now, you’re left out too.
And I tell her about Briquet.
”Briquet was a writer and a good friend of mine. I met him at a bookstore. It’s quite funny, actually. I had picked up one of his books, but this guy walks up to me and tells me it’s crap and not to bother. So I asked if he’d read it and he told me no, he wouldn’t go near it with a stick. ‘I wrote the damn thing,’ he said.
”He was getting grey hair at thirty-five, had a pipe that he smoked non-stop, and deep wrinkles on his forehead. I think he was in a rush to get old; he looked about sixty. He had this 18th Century chess set and he always kicked my ass with it. He used to - he was one of those rare people who can talk sense out of Foucault and Derrida. He taught me a lot, you know, about life and stuff. That’s a cliché, but -“
”Clichés are clichés for a reason.” She says, like I could have said it myself.
”Yea. Yea they are. Anyway, after his wife and kids left, he became more and more depressed. He lost the satirical wit that had been humming under his prose, his voice became raspy and wheezy and you could see - just see him falling apart.”
”What happened to him?”
”Well… It’s not really appropriate when we’re eating… but yea…” It was unsaid, but understood.
”Just like that?”
”Yea. No word to anyone. A writer all his life and he doesn’t leave a thing.”
”Wow. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have -“
”No, no that’s ok. No, he was a good guy, Briquet, I don’t think he really expected to live to be forty. He was a romantic, you know?”
”Yea. I guess. Still sad though.”
We eat quietly for a while.
