Jazz

By Cristian Mihai

Copyright 2012 Cristian Mihai

Smashwords Edition

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First edition, July 2012

Cover Illustration Copyright © by John Patterson

www.cristianmihai.net

Table of Contents

DedicationChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14About the AuthorAlso by Cristian Mihai

Dedication

To John Patterson

Chapter 1

Bartenders were pouring drinks into glasses, releasing a strong miasma of liquor into the air. Behind them, a mirror covered the wall. Coming from the booths, chatter and laughter danced along brick walls.

I looked around for Jay. He was nowhere in sight, so I took a seat at the bar.“He’s in the other room, talking with Oliver,” one of the bartenders said. “What’ll be?”“The same as my cousin.”He put a bottle of Corona on the bar. I took a long sip, and then I began to slowly peel off

the label.A few moments later, Jay came out through a double door. His tie was undone and his white

shirt, all plastered around his body, had its sleeves rolled up to the elbows. His face was swollen, and a rugged beard went all the way up from his Adam’s apple to his cheekbones, close to his eyes. It was as if he were trying to choke himself to death with his own facial hair. We shook hands.

“What? You’re a king now?” Jay shouted as he took a seat next to me. He pointed at my hands. I smiled sheepishly and looked down and noticed that I still had my gloves on. I took them off.

“Sorry,” I muttered. We shook hands again.It felt strange sitting there at the bar, with Jay staring out at me like a doctor inspecting a

newborn baby. “Did you go to the bank?” he asked.I nodded.“Let’s hope things are going to change,” Jay said.“Yeah, let’s hope.”He eyed me sullenly. “What’s with this thing your father told me about? You’re going to

Paris?”“I’m leaving tonight,” I said.He glanced at the bartender and raised his hand in the air. “Give me another beer.”“I have to see her,” I said staring at people’s shapes quivering across the mirror’s cold

surface.He looked back at me and eyed me with a profound mime, his face contorted into a web of

wrinkles, as if he wished to see through my skull and into my brain. Finally, he said, “I know, Chris, I know…” Then he took a long drink from his beer. He put the bottle down on the bar and shook his head violently. “I miss her too. Don’t think that I don’t.”

“Maybe I can make her come back.” He didn’t answer. Instead, he put the bottle to his mouth and tilted his head back. In a matter

of seconds, he gulped away what was left of the beer. “You’re different,” he said. “You’re not like us. You want…” He stared out at me and smiled. “You want the perfect ending. Something that doesn’t exist.” He began to tap his fingers against the bar. Stronger and faster, and it felt as if it was never going to end. Stronger and stronger and stronger, until, all of a sudden, he stopped and looked back at me. “You know, Amber’s not the person you think…” He shook his head pathetically. “Trust me, cousin, you don’t want to…” He scratched his cheek.

Thinking back at this moment, after having played it again and again inside my mind so many times, I’m certain that if he would have finished the sentence, if he would have had the

courage to say what we all wanted to say, what we all thought when we felt that we could truly hate Amber, I wouldn’t have left for Paris.

I walked out of the bar and, instantly, the night, cold and bitter, seeped into my body. I felt the need to walk, to just walk for a couple of hours. So I began wandering the streets as if I were a lunatic searching for an absurd form of redemption. The stars shined hard against the dark sky, and the moon, lusterless and dead, had been reduced to a thin nail clipping.

A blistering wind blew off from every direction, and the quiet light that came from lamps and enclosed the grey skin of the sidewalk couldn’t stop darkness from wrapping itself around glass and concrete and flesh in what resembled a tight and desperate embrace. I could feel the harsh air painfully playing inside my lungs. It hurt to even blink.

For a city that never sleeps, New York seemed the coldest and most desolate place to be in.As I made my way through the freezing air that bit my cheeks and neck, it felt as if time had

stopped specifically so that I could gather all the memories of Amber I could find.We never perceive the passage of time in the same mechanical manner the ticking of a

watch implies. For us time is subjective, a sinuous river, sometimes viscous, almost grinding to a halt as we zigzag our way among pedestrians wearing heavy jackets, and sometimes fast and turbulent, leading our lives with indescribable fury.

Fragments of a wild and bizarre beauty would appear and disappear fast, never settling for more than what felt as a second. My mind couldn’t put together all the glints that my past kept throwing at me. But then the incessant moan of the city night faded away into silence, and my mind began to weave an intricate web of memories. What had started off as a waffling and erratic cocktail of images, condensed to such a degree that I could barely discern Amber’s face, had now grown into a fascinating and yet frightening labyrinth.

I took pleasure in building Amber, piece by piece, until my mind contained a fully fleshed version of a thin and gracious young woman, a white dress sculpted around her body and her black hair falling down to her waist.

It was a two year old memory, but it felt as real as the people I was walking around with.We were at my father’s restaurant. I was watching her from afar. She was thin, but there was

still flesh underneath her rigid dress, there were still thighs and hips and breasts, all tailored together with delicate mastery.

Love at first sight is not complicated. In our dreams we build a woman, we give her life from our own life, and then we have to wait. Through trial and error we try to find that nameless ghost that’s haunting our most lonely of nights. And I felt as if I had found what I was looking for. Finally, my ghost had a name and a face.

On the stage, surrounded by people clapping and cheering, a band was playing a vivacious jazz song. In front of them, his back against the crowd, a painter was drawing on a canvas. I tried to keep my eyes on that strange symbiosis, I tried to listen to the music, to gently shake my head with the rhythm, but I couldn’t.

I tried to look the other way. My eyes would dart around for a while, but then I would glance back at her, hoping to find her again among all those nicely dressed strangers. It was all a miraculous occurrence that carried with it the faint perfume of hope. It was destiny, I thought, but I didn’t feel the need to rush for the sake of going and talk to her. We had all the time in the world. We had spent twenty years apart, oblivious to each other’s existence, and now it seemed to me that it was destiny for us to spend the rest of our lives together, as some sort of compensation.

In all honesty, all I wanted was to go up to her and press one finger against her skin, to see if she was real or not. To see if it burned or if it could make me happy or destroy me. But I just stood there, constantly making sure there was a safe distance between us, a no man’s land I wasn’t willing to cross. There was far too great a promise on the other side; of love and happiness, or maybe of a terrible agony, one that all the morphine in the world couldn’t kill.

Maybe I’m being melodramatic, but then and there I perceived everything around me in such an amplified way, and my veins were filled with a strange, bitter sweet excitement, as if I were ready to embark on a strange and perilous odyssey.

I don’t know how, but Amber had noticed me as well. She walked over to where I was standing. “Don’t you think it’s time we met?” she asked.

I could tell by her smile that she knew who I was.“I’m Amber,” she said, extending her hand. “Jay’s girlfriend.” “I know, I know.”She laughed, an odd happy shriek, as if I had said something funny. She grabbed my hand.

“Come,” she said and began to lead me through the crowd. We moved cautiously, bumping dancers, keeping our heads lowered, and making our way toward a table where Jay and one of his friends, Jack, were playing cards.

Little clouds of smoke rose from the cigar that rested between my cousin’s fingers. He looked at me and puffed another smoke ghost through his nostrils. “Looks like you’ve found yourself a muse,” he said, peering up at me.

I noticed that Amber was still holding my hand. I pulled away and sat down next to him.“How long were you going to stand there?” He did a quick gesture toward the dancing ring.“Don’t you know it’s rude to stare?” Jack asked.“He wasn’t staring at you,” my cousin said with a grin.“You’re drunk,” I said.“Nobody’s drunk,” he replied quickly. “We’re playing poker.” He waved the hand with the

cards, some of which fell on the table. “We’re having fun.”“Jesus Christ!” Jack exclaimed, giving my cousin a disgusted look. “Could you be more

careful with those?”I smiled and leaned back in the chair. “You’re not drunk. You’re just having fun.”My cousin took a long drink from his glass. “You should loosen up a bit,” he said, shaking

his finger at me.“He’s like a grumpy old man,” Jack said.I shook my head and tried to laugh it off. I glanced over to Amber. She was laughing.Have you ever noticed that the gestures and expressions of beautiful women carry with them

a certain echo of grace, in a way that their whole being is radiant and requires only quiet contemplation from our part?

Women of rare beauty are aware that they have been granted something that can’t be forced, or invented, or surgically grafted, and act accordingly. That grace, oddly passionate and sometimes perverse, takes a long time to master.

But Amber was different. She was aware of the effect she had on people, no doubt about it, but she was acting in such a strange way; there was a certain warmth in her gestures, in her gentle smile – as if she meant to assure people that they could stare at her for as long as they’d like without her minding. And it was infectious, her smile. No matter your mood.

We sat there for a few hours, talking and playing cards and drinking, while the band played their instruments. Their repertoire had changed from wild and crazy to slow and suave tunes; notes floated around us, giving the place a lazy, melancholic undertone.

“So, what do you do? You know, for a living.” Amber’s voice shattered the incessant chatter of people and the nostalgic melody.

“Nothing,” Jay said, and he and Jack laughed.“Nothing?” She looked over to him and wrinkled her eyebrows.“Nothing at all.” Jack chuckled.I gave them a bitter smile.“Yeah, yeah,” my cousin said and turned over to Amber. “He’s a writer.”“A writer?” Amber looked at me with interest. “What do you write?”“Short bios about himself. 140 characters or less,” Jack said.“All sorts of stories. But I haven’t found my voice yet.”“You’re a writer or a singer?” my cousin asked. “What do you need a voice for? Do you

want me to lend you mine?”“I’ve never met a real writer before,” Amber said. “When do I get to read some of your

stuff?”“I don’t know. When I’ll have something worth reading, I guess.”“What’s wrong with what you have so far?”“It’s not me.”She gave me a suspicious look. “What do you mean?”“All great writers write like themselves,” I said. “I don’t. At least, not yet. I write like a

bunch of other people.”Jay gave me a friendly slap on the shoulder. “Come on, you’re killing us.”“Write like yourself then,” Amber said and stood up. “I’m sure you have a story to tell.

Something that only you can write about. You just have to find it.” She looked around. “Maybe you need to live it first.” She walked over to Jay and kissed him on the lips.

Chapter 2

I got home, had something to eat, drank two glasses of red wine, and then I packed my bags. When I pulled my luggage out in the hallway, I noticed that it was too early to be leaving for the airport, so I headed back into the living room and turned on the stereo.

I selected my favorite song, an upbeat performance by the band that used to play at my father’s restaurant. Life began to blare out of the speakers; ripple after ripple of loud music. I turned up the volume, clenched my fists and jolted in the middle of the living room, my feet sliding across the rug.

Whenever I hear the intricate murmur of a saxophone, I end up thinking about Amber. It’s an uncontrollable process.

When she and my cousin were engaged, they used to live in a penthouse that overlooked Central Park. There were a lot of flowers; in the living room, gamboling on the walls, or on the terrace, cooking in the sunlight.

I used to visit them so often that in time I became some sort of furniture – an extension to the couch on which I sat.

For reasons unknown to me, my cousin was rarely home. So in the afternoons that I went there, I would enter the living room and explore the surrounding air, trying to capture Jay’s voice; if I heard him talking, I would shout my name just so they would know it was me – someone who didn’t want to bother or be bothered. Of course, whenever my cousin was home, the rest of the day lost its importance.

When he was away, I would pretend Jay was the one I was looking for, ask Amber for a cup of coffee or a glass of water, and sit on the couch for as long as I could. I tried my best not to talk to her. I would answer quickly to any of her questions. Somehow I think she considered me rude.

But she didn’t know that all I wanted was to see her take care of the flowers. It was a moment that depended on a lot of meager circumstances. Sometimes she didn’t feel like it, other times I arrived a few minutes too late.

She talked with the flowers, she caressed their leaves, as if wishing to sculpt them into perfection, she sprinkled them with water, and every one of her gestures carried with it a sort of nostalgic beauty which stirred in me a strange faint, the same way it happens when you stare at a point on a wall for too long.

“You have to take care of them,” she would say, moving back and forth, from one garland of lilacs to another. “They feel everything.”

It was always such a bizarre and quiet moment that I wouldn’t have minded if it had lasted forever. On the contrary, I would have accepted this situation, I would have spent the rest of my days watching Amber take care of the flowers with nothing more than solemn contemplation on my part.

One day she changed the meaning of my visits, giving them a new purpose and new frights. It was her birthday, and I had no idea what present to buy her, so I brought her one of my stories.

“You’re the first to read it,” I said.Amber looked startled. “Oh, thank you.” She kissed me on the cheek. “Then I have to read it

now,” she said, tugging at my arm.

“Now? You wanna’ read his God damn story now?” Jay asked.“Of course,” she said calmly.Her voice had a strange effect on him. He glanced down at the floor for a moment, as if

ashamed, and then he shook his head and said, “Fine.”I looked around at all those faces surrounding us, all of them living and breathing in this

confused silence. At the back of the living room, the band from my father’s restaurant were setting up their instruments.

I followed Amber into my cousin’s office. We stood there for a few minutes while she read my story. The band had started playing. At one point Jacques, the saxophone player, performed an intricate solo, but it all reached me vaguely, the same way reality gets absorbed into a dream.

I was watching Amber’s every gesture, trying to decipher whether she was enjoying my story or not. But I couldn’t. When she finished reading, she folded the papers in half and placed them on her lap. She looked up at me. ”This is good,” she said. “I loved it.”

I spent the rest of the night watching her as she walked around, exchanging pleasantries with her guests, wanting nothing more than to sit down with her somewhere and talk for a few hours. About anything, about everything, about nothing. I would glance around the room at all the handsome, well-dressed, surgically enhanced people with the desire to engage them in all sorts of meaningless conversation. I was feeling friendly and giddy and a bit drunk.

At one point I noticed William, the painter. He was holding a cocktail glass in his hand and was looking down at it, as if trying to comprehend the reason for all these strangers being here.

My cousin and Amber used to keep him as some sort of pet. During the day he had to cook and run errands, and during the night he would play the piano while me, Amber, and my cousin sipped cocktails on the terrace. He slept on a mattress in a room with no windows that used to be a closet. We never went there, in his private space, where he used to paint whenever he had the time.

“Having fun?” I asked him as I walked over to where he was standing.“More or less,” he said, staring emptily through the crowd. He glanced back at me. “I heard

about your present. I didn’t know you were a writer.” He leaned closer. “Is it hard? You know, writing.”

“It depends.” He looked at me with a dazed and confused mime on his face. “What’d you mean?”“Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s not. It depends on your mood, I guess.”“Do you think I can become a writer?”I shrugged.“I bet I can,” he said, smiling to himself. A waiter passed by, and he put his glass on his tray. “You know, it took me just six months

to learn the violin,” he said and played at an invisible instrument for a few seconds. “I bet I can learn to write in half that time.”

The band was now playing at a frantic pace and most of the guests were engaged in a sort of careless swagger. Amber was seated on a couch, talking with Jay and some of his friends.

I turned my back on William and blended with the crowd. My body bent, my chest trembling like a drum. I couldn’t even feel my own heartbeat. I pursed my lips and twisted my feet on the floor.

This was life, this was freedom.

Chapter 3

In the cold glare of the afternoon sun, Paris exhaled a certain vibe. I could feel it vibrate inside my veins, the chaos and anxiety of a bustling metropolis, but most of all, I could feel life.

As I sat in the backseat of the cab that was taking me to my hotel, I looked around at billboards resting on top of brick buildings, at buses, at people rubbing life back into their numb hands, and for a while, didn’t think about Amber.

When I got to my hotel room, I went out on the balcony. It wasn’t as cold as in New York, so I stood there for a while, listening to the city’s chaotic symphony – the sonic wallow of car engines invading a labyrinth of cobblestone streets and old buildings that decomposed in a golden mist of light.

I went back inside and fell asleep fast. It was nine in the evening when I woke up. I took a shower and then I went out on the streets. I knew where I had to go. It was a restaurant in the 1st Arondisment, which meant it had to be close by, but since I had never acquired the sense of orientation required to fully understand a map, I hailed a cab.

“Oui, oui, monsieur,” the driver said and smiled when I told him the address.We passed art galleries and exclusivist shops and bars and pubs and banks and glass covered

telephone posts, and scooters and bicycles neatly parked against the sidewalk, and people sitting at small tables sipping wine, and all the buildings looked alike, rigid and old, as if carved out of miniature mountains.

The driver didn’t seem to like traffic lights. Whenever we had to stop, he would mumble something in French and rub the bridge of his nose in an exasperated manner. It was a busy and narrow, one-way street, so his frustration was somewhat natural. We passed a turnaround with a fountain in the middle, and after a few more minutes we turned right on a much wider, two-lane street. We turned left, and the Seine was to our right, sublime and quiet, the moon’s shadow dancing across its surface. Massive trees stood on each side of the street, and people sold paintings and souvenirs in small, wooden booths. We turned left once more, and after a few more minutes of excruciating progress on another narrow, one-way street the cab stopped in front of a cobblestone alley.

The driver turned around in his seat and smiled. He waved his hand toward the alley. I paid for the fare and stepped out of the cab.

It was a very narrow alley, maybe less than five feet wide, and the buildings surrounding it, dull and old, made for an almost peaceful atmosphere.

I walked for a while and found the restaurant I was looking for. I went inside, and a tall brunette wearing a black, sober dress greeted me.

“Bonsoir, monsieur,” the woman said with a broad smile.“I’m sorry,” I said and spread my hands in an apologetic shrug, “I don’t speak French.”“Good evening, then.”“Good evening. Do you have tables for one?”“Of course, sir. Right this way.”I was seated at a small table from where I could see the entire restaurant. At the bar, a group

of men wearing white shirts and silk ties were laughing and talking energetically. One of them

was performing some sort of strange pantomime. He grabbed and threw, pulled invisible strings, punched and yelled, and all the other men were nodding and laughing. At the tables close to the windows sat a few couples, holding hands and talking in low, whispering voices.

Hopefully the menu was both in French and English, and even though I wasn’t hungry, I ordered some food and a glass of wine, so people wouldn’t think I was one of those alcoholics who go to restaurants all by themselves and drink steadily for a few hours until they end up talking with the bottle or worse.

After I finished eating, I saw that the hostess who had greeted me was at the bar, talking with the man who had performed that bizarre pantomime. There seemed to be some flirting going on; he was smiling wickedly while her fingers were strolling across his tie and shirt.

I raised my hand in the air, hoping she would notice me. The man did, and he laughed, grabbed the woman by the elbow, and whispered to her ear. She turned around and walked over to my table.

“What can I do for you, sir?”“I have a question for you.”I glanced around the restaurant and, for the first time, noticed that there were a lot of flowers

resting on built-in shelves in the walls; a rainbow of flowers fluttering in the warm breeze of the air conditioner. I must have been smiling like an idiot, like I always do when a specific detail intrigues me, a detail I didn’t notice before, because when I looked up, the hostess was glaring me suspiciously.

“The flowers,” I said.She gave me a nervous, almost concerned smile. “Well, what’d you want to ask me?”I shook my head. “Never mind,” I said and stood up. “I found my answer.”She nodded thoughtfully. “Aha.”“You must think I’m crazy or something,” I said. “But I’m not.” I held out my hand. “My

name is Chris Sommers.”She looked down at my hand as if it was holding out a gun.“I’m a friend of Amber’s,” I said. “She works here, right?”She smiled and grabbed my hand. “Rose.” She looked around the restaurant, laughed, and

then she glanced back at me. “The flowers, now I get it. Amber loves flowers.” She scratched her wrist. “She’s not here though.”

“I’ve come here from New York and I would like to meet her but I don’t know where she lives so if you could help me I would be…” I ran out of breath before I could finish my plea.

The woman waved at the man from the bar, who was now standing in the middle of the restaurant, talking with two of the customers.

He came toward us with one of those arrogant strides, when you shake your shoulders one at a time. When he reached us, he smiled politely without trying too much. There was something about his face, either the arrogance or something else I couldn’t quite place, that reminded me of my cousin.

He rubbed his hands together. “What can I do for you?”“He’s friends with Amber,” Rose explained.“Chris Sommers,” I said.He stared at my chest for a while. “David Witter,” he finally said.We shook hands, but he didn’t bother to add much pressure to his grip. I always take that as

a sign of disrespect. You either shake hands like a man or not at all.“He wants to know where Amber lives,” Rose added.

David shrugged. “If he doesn’t know, maybe it’s not his business to know.”His reaction made me feel as if I were irrelevant at best, maybe even invisible. “David, don’t be rude,” Rose said.He gave her a poisonous glance but his anger quickly dissolved into a placid expression. He

looked at me and scratched his chin. His glare was intense, menacing, and untrusting at the same time. I did not like him. “Okay, okay. I can take him on my way home if he wants,” he replied.

“That would be great,” I said and pulled my coat of the back of the chair. I followed him through a maze of halls and doors. He swung open a double door, and we entered the kitchen. There was something friendly about that room. It probably had to do with all that organized chaos; a steamy atmosphere redolent of grease and spices in which a small army of men dressed in white were handling sharp tools and frying pans with profound mastery.

A small, black-haired man noticed us. His creased face formed a vague smile. “You leaving, David?” the man asked as he pressed a paper napkin against his burning forehead.

David smiled. We left the kitchen through another double door and then passed through what seemed as an endless hallway, until we found ourselves in front of a metal door. He pulled a key out of his pocket and unlocked it. He gave it a gentle push and it swung open.

I followed him into an alley. “You the owner?”Without stopping he said, “The guy in the kitchen.” He turned left into a wider alley, and I

followed. “He’s the owner.”We reached his car, a black Mercedes, and David took a look at his watch. Still staring at it,

he said, “I’m the manager.” He looked up at me and frowned. “It’s almost midnight. You sure you want to go to Amber’s place?”

“Yes.”“You can come by the restaurant tomorrow and see her.”“I have to see her now.”“Okay, then.”

We were speeding along a two-lane boulevard. Stretching off on both sides were four story brick buildings that reminded me of Brooklyn. They soon dissolved into small, decrepit apartment buildings, and the shops and pubs disappeared almost entirely. This made me feel not as much as if I’d travelled back in time, but more as if I’d travelled in a part of Paris that wasn’t meant to be seen, some terrible secret hidden away in the most sinister of manners.

The car stopped in front of a yellowish building, rusted iron bars covering its windows. The window frames were half-eaten as well and large chunks of plaster had fallen off. Beside the front door, a couple of kids, no more than seventeen, were talking and smoking.

“This is the place,” David said.There was a moment of silence – then he leaned over and opened the door on my side of the

car. I glanced at him and shook my head. I thought it was some sort of joke. “This is it?”“What’d you expect?” He looked over to me and grunted. “Second floor, first door on the

right.”After David left, I stood on the sidewalk for a while, trying to decide whether this was real

or not. I decided it wasn’t, but somehow I found myself climbing the stairs all the way up to the door David had indicated and stopping there, with my hand against the wood, like a doctor trying to find a heartbeat; some sign of life, a murmur, a voice. But there was nothing of the sorts, so I decided to go back to the hotel.

I left the building and made my way toward the main street hoping to find a taxi. Someone shouted my name. I turned around and saw Amber standing on the balcony and glaring down on me with a shy, little smile on her face.

Chapter 4

It felt strange sitting there on the couch next to Amber. And it wasn’t because the air inside the living room felt like steam. It was because I felt as if were an actor who has rehearsed his lines so many times and then, when he has to utter them in front of an audience, the rest of the cast change their lines.

“Do you think I’m crazy?” I asked her.“You? Why?”“Because I flew all the way to Paris just to see you.”She laughed. ”Don’t be silly. It’s a sweet thing what you did.” She leaned over and kissed

me on the cheek. “Do you want something to drink?” I nodded. She stood up and went to the kitchen.This gave me the chance to look around. The room was colorless and dull; the walls were a

washed up shade of grey, and stains covered the corners of the ceiling. There wasn’t much furniture, only the sofa I sat on, with a small coffee table in front, a plasma TV resting on a glass table, and a small bookshelf filled chaotically with books of various sizes.

Amber came back with two glasses filled with a rainbow colored liquid. She handed me a glass and I took a long swallow.

“This is delicious,” I said as I watched her fall back on the couch.“My invention. I haven’t figured out a name for it yet…”Amber seemed happy in such a peculiar way. There was something simple about her smile,

infecting me, making me smile as well, the same way we do when we see two elders holding hands.

“How come there are no flowers here?”Amber stared down at the floor for a while, then looked up at me. “I had some, but I

couldn’t take care of them. I have plenty of flowers at work though.”“I know…”She smiled and curled her legs beneath her. “David called. He told me about this lunatic

standing in front of my apartment building.”I shook my head. “I thought he wanted to get rid of me. Taking me to such a –”“I know this is nothing like New York.” She did a quick gesture with her hands. “The

neighborhood, the apartment.”“Well, life in New York isn’t how it used to.”She stared at me for a while, her lips shaking as if she were struggling to keep her mouth

closed. “William.” She took a long drink from her glass, then stared back at me.“Because of William, we’re going to have to file for bankruptcy.” I groaned. “Damn

pricks!”“I’m… sorry,” Amber said staring blindly at the floor. She kept rubbing her hands together

in a frantic manner. There was a delicate illusion of sadness that engulfed her face. “That’s why I left. I thought he’d stop.” She bit her lips. “Do you ever feel sorry for what we did to him?”

Before I got a chance to answer, someone opened the front door. Amber stood up. The saxophone player, Jacques, walked into the living room and kissed her on the lips. He then

noticed me sitting on the sofa, staring back at him. He looked at me with a dumbfounded expression on his face.

“Is that you, Chris?” He grinned. “Qu'est-ce que tu fais à Paris?” He walked over to me, and I stood up. He kissed me on both cheeks. He scratched his thick beard. “C’est magnifique,” he said and turned over to Amber. He began to walk around the room like a child searching for hidden Easter eggs.

I didn’t know what to say so I kept smiling nervously at him.He was wearing a black leather jacket over a white shirt dirty with grease stains and a pair of

black trousers. On top of his head he wore a flat cap, and every time he moved around, the cap quivered, ready to fall on the floor.

“How are you, Jacques?” I asked, trying to sound cheerful, and patted him on the back.“Très bien, très bien,” he said quickly and grabbed me by the shoulders. He shook his head

in disbelief. “Très bien, mon petit ami, très bien…” His pale face contorted into a smile, he looked me in the eyes and said, “This calls for a celebration. No, Amber?” He looked over to Amber and she shrugged.

He headed for the kitchen in a hurry and began opening drawers and cabinets, pulling out bottles from the fridge.

Me and Amber sat down on the couch. I felt relieved that Jacques was busy, because I had time to gather my thoughts. I looked over to Amber. She didn’t say a word, nor did she look back at me. She had turned on the TV and was lying on her back with her arms folded across her stomach.

“I’m sorry,” she said so softly that I could barely hear her over the murmur of the TV.“You could have told me.”She didn’t bother to answer.“Unbelievable! It was him, it was him all along.” I shook my head. “My cousin was right.”“About what?” Amber glanced back at me.“About you.”“What about me?”I leaned back on the couch. “I didn’t come here for this.”“Why did you come? What do you want?”Jacques came out of the kitchen struggling to hold on to three large glasses filled with what

resembled a nuclear explosion in liquid form.We sat there drinking for a while, Amber saying nothing and Jacques doing most of the

talking, in a confusing mixture of French and English.All of a sudden, he got up and said, “Let me show you something.”I lay down my drink and followed him into the bedroom. He turned the lights on. There was

no need for words, there was no need for him to be thrusting his arm in the air and pointing his gun finger at what he wanted to show me. The wall behind the bed had been painted.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. A picture to tell a story. The story of a saxophone player and a beautiful woman.

At first you would notice the piano keys, waving in the lower side of the wall, just above the bed frame. Then, slowly, your eyes caught the next detail. Notes flying out and around a golden sax like smoke from a cigar, as if carried away by a lazy gust of wind. Then you would undoubtedly notice the red pickup truck, with plate numbers reading “Jazz.” After a few moments, or maybe longer, your eyes would dart around once more and notice Jacques and

Amber, both of them sharing the same ambiguous form that seemed to melt together as to create a sense of a whole, a sense of fragile perfection.

I couldn’t think, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t see anything else but that wall. I was experiencing what some might describe as a Stendhal Syndrome reaction. I turned toward Jacques, who was breathing inside the same moment of quiet surrender, and said, “If you’re going to move out, you’ll have to take the wall with you.”

“Yes, yes,” he murmured. He looked over to me and smiled. “I can’t leave this here,” he said. “This is my story, my life.”

This is Genesis, I thought. This is how each and every one of our stories begins. With a woman and a man. But there was something elusive attached to this moment. And I tried and tried to find the feeling, to pin it down and find its source and meaning. But then the entire room faded to black as Jacques hit off the lights.

“Come,” he said. “Let’s have another drink.”

When I arrived back at the hotel, it was almost dawn. I unbuttoned my shirt and collapsed on the bed. I didn’t feel tired, but still, I closed my eyes and thought of what had happened during my first day in Paris. I was making an inventory, adding names to faces, but mostly I was desperate to wrap my head around the idea of me travelling thousands of miles to see Amber happy with another man.

Why did you come all this way, Chris? What for? I felt as if I had been nurturing a bizarre dream into a monster. With my eyes closed, it was frightening to be me, to rummage through my mind for possible courses of action.

I sat up in bed and looked out the window. The sky was dark, and heavy clouds had gathered, ready to unleash a fury of thunder and rain.

We all live in this wonderful century of technology and knowledge, but it feels to me that the world is still as flat as a sheet of paper, and it requires but a gentle push for you to fall off the edge.

Chapter 5

One night, after ten or so hours of steady drinking in a number of establishments throughout New York, my cousin and I decided to go back to his apartment.

Amber wasn’t pleased to see us drunk and did her best to stay out of our way. After we watched TV and sipped beer in the living room with all the lights turned off, my cousin offered to take me to Will Bower’s closet. The Crazy Room, as he used to call it.

Every time I think about that room, I can feel the murky, dust filled air trickling down my nostrils and throat, I can feel an atmosphere so dense that it presses hard against my chest. Besides easels and canvases and all kinds of papers and brushes and colors, there was a dirty mattress with a wrinkled bed sheet thrown over it and a small table.

“How can he write at that thing?” my cousin asked.I shrugged. “I guess he sits on the mattress.”We stepped in and saw a beautiful painting resting on an easel. It was a portrait of Amber.

She was painted from the waist up, and she had her breasts covered with her right arm. It wasn’t about what was hidden, but about what was revealed. Her expression had a certain playful shade, an undertone of amusement that had curled her lips into a childish smile. Her eyes were bright and her hair fluttered in an imaginary breeze. And all around her a sunset colored background filled every inch of free space. I could almost feel the burning air melt my skin away as I let my imagination alter that musty closet into an altar where I could freely worship Amber.

We stood there for a long, silent time, rubbing our hands and shoulders and scratching our cheeks. The more we looked at the painting, the more we realized how little we knew Amber.

All of a sudden, Jay took the painting of the easel and began to walk through the apartment. For lack of a better thing to do, or maybe because I felt attracted to that odd portrait, I followed him. Never before did the penthouse feel as lifeless and huge and dark as during those few seconds as we made our way to the terrace, where Amber and Will were sitting on lounge chairs, talking.

He stopped in front of them and held out the painting. “What’s this?”Amber stood up and raised her arms around her body. “Jay…”“What’s this?” he chuckled. “You fucking him?” He threw the painting on the floor and

began to jump on it in such a sadistic manner that I took a few steps back. Slowly the painting died, and all was left was something that resembled a messy rag. He grabbed William by the back of the neck and maneuvered him like a puppet in front of Amber. “You fucking this fool?”

After that there’s a mixture of shouts and pleads and cries, and I know that my mind is providing me with false memories, always new and more intricate, but I honestly don’t remember much. What I do recall is that a few hours later, when the alcohol wore off, I was standing in the doorway of William’s closet, watching him pack his stuff into plastic bags and cardboard boxes. Every two minutes or so, he would stop, sit down on the mattress, and mutter, mostly to himself or maybe to some invisible confident, “What am I going to do? Where am I going to go?”

His face was pale, and exhaustion had carved black rings around his eyes. He stood up and began to trudge around the small room like a trapped animal. “I didn’t do anything wrong, I

didn’t even… I never… I did not…” he whispered and glanced at me as if I could somehow redeem his soul. I thought he was being melodramatic.

I noticed a paper stretching out of an open box. I pulled it out and saw that it was a sketch of Amber’s face. I stared at it for a while. “Can I have it?”

“What?” He looked at me with glazed eyes and then added hollowly, “Of course, of course…”

I pulled out all the money I had in my pockets, a couple hundred dollars, and gave it to him.

A few months later, a scrawny kid came to my father’s house and told us that we were all going to pay for trying to destroy such a brilliant artist as William Bower. “And a great friend,” he added in a solemn tone.

His hand gestures were intricate, almost hallucinating, and he went on and explained how we were going to pay, how all our friends were going to abandon us.

All the time my father listened to him, nodding his head thoughtfully and scratching his chin, and when the kid finished what he had to say, he rose from his chair and said, “I’m sorry, but you should go.”

When the restaurant business went under and we needed money, that’s what all the bank managers told us; they smiled politely and said, “I’m sorry, but we can’t help you.”

Apparently, the kid was a guy named Chris Packlem, a hedge fund manager whom all the bankers and CEOs in New York called “The Oracle.” They said he never lost a bet, never lost a single investment he made. And everyone was trying to find out what he wanted to invest in next.

“He’s either a freaking genius or one lucky bastard.” That’s what everyone was saying.No wonder no one was willing to loan us money.

Chapter 6

I got up early the next morning and went for a walk around the hotel, wishing to get the feel of the city. It was a warm day, so I walked for a couple of miles, peering into windows of stores and dodging people on the narrow sidewalks. They all had such a peculiar stride, ambling down streets as if they had no destination to reach and they were walking just to walk, simply because that was what everyone did in Paris when the sun was bright and gentle.

After thirty minutes of aimless wandering, I stumbled upon a street called “Avenue de New York” that ran along the Seine. The water glistened in the sun and boats were carrying tourists along and across it. On the other side was the Eiffel Tower, rising from the ground and cutting through the air like a blunt knife.

I stopped at a café and took a seat at one of the tables on the sidewalk. A mixture of music and chatter came from inside and the faint smell of croissants rode on the breeze. I ordered an Irish coffee and sat there, watching as the street got busier and busier, until all the cars and buses and scooters formed a string of multi colored marbles.

As I sat there listening to the incessant roar of car engines and the lethargic rumble of motor boats gliding across the Seine, I thought that I should call my cousin and tell him about Amber and Jacques and ask for advice on whether I should stay or not. Instead I ordered another coffee.

A French tune was blaring from speakers hung on the outside wall of the café. I spent the rest of the day at the Louvre. Even though it was delightful to stare at paintings

and sculptures for a few hours, it was too crowded for me to properly enjoy such an intimate experience. Too many people taking photographs in front of the pyramid, too many people strolling through the Tuileries Garden. Year round, Paris is like Mecca during the Ramadan, packed with tourists, voracious beings trying to leave with as many souvenirs as they can get their hands on. Not that Paris will ever experience a shortage of souvenirs. I brought some myself; a small golden ashtray with the Eiffel Tower engraved on the bottom, a key-ring, and a couple of fridge magnets.

After that, at around seven, I went to the Eiffel Tower, where I brought my cheap souvenirs. At the top floor you could feel the strong wind as a hiss inside your ears. Thousands and thousands of lights glittered in the night. At that height I didn’t feel that much as being on top of the world and looking down at a city wrapped in darkness, but I rather felt like being in no world at all, as if I had been granted the magical ability to watch over everyone without having to bother about my own life and troubles.

At eight-thirty I hailed a cab and went to the restaurant.When I arrived I noticed that the place was almost deserted; only a couple sat at a table next

to the window, drinking wine. I looked around for Amber, but neither her nor Rose or any other hostess were in sight, so I took a seat at the bar and ordered a beer.

After a few minutes, Amber came out through a back door. When she noticed me, her smile faded. She sat next to me and said hello.

“Hi,” I said in a dull voice.

“I’m sorry.” She glanced nervously around the restaurant. I said nothing, so she added, “I was scared…” She looked back at me. “That’s why I left,” she said, rubbing her hands against her shoulders.

I nodded.“I swear I never cheated on Jay.” She glared around one more time, and then she looked

down at her hands. I noticed they were slightly shaking. “William and his mindless feud,” she added. Suddenly she looked up at me, and I thought she was going to burst into tears. Instead, she put a shy smile on her face and said, “I never thought he’d go so far.”

The place was starting to get crowded, and a few of the customers were staring at us.“So… you and Jacques, ah?” I said, trying to change the subject. “What’s with you and

artists anyway?” I added.She shrugged.Before I could say anything else, David walked over to us and grabbed Amber by the arm.

“Can’t you see we have customers?” he said through clenched teeth.Amber mumbled something and left.“Jesus!” he exclaimed and shook his head. He glanced at me.I smiled nervously and said, “Hi. How are you?”He didn’t bother to answer.A couple of minutes passed, me sitting on a stool, feeling guilty and ashamed for what had

happened, and David standing with his back against the bar, watching impassively as Amber fumbled around the restaurant.

He looked over to me. “What do you make of Paris so far?”“It’s nice.”He laughed. “Paris is like a fat kid wearing a tight T-shirt.” He must have realized that I

didn’t understand what he had just said and so he added, “One of the biggest cities in the world, and it’s pretending to be just a small town, with narrow streets and old buildings glued together as if we’re living on an island.”

I rummaged through my mind for something to say. “The people seem to be nice though.”He looked over to me and frowned. ”The French act like they invented everything. Art,

fashion, cuisine.” He groaned. “There’s this guy who owns a restaurant down the alley,” he said, “hosts a cooking show on national television. He acts as if people were eating shit and stones before he came along.” He might have sensed disbelief in my stare, and so he added, “Trust me about the French. I’m married to one.”

There was a moment of silence as David lit himself a cigarette.“I’m hungry,” I said and pressed my palm against my stomach, as if trying to make sure that

my body was telling me the truth.He puffed the smoke out through his nostrils. “Order yourself some ravioli,” he said and

walked away.“That’s an Italian dish.”He turned around, smiled, and held out both arms. “And this is an American restaurant. In

Paris.” On his way out he stopped over to Amber’s stand and talked to her for a while. I ordered the dish David had recommended and drank a couple of glasses of wine. I spent a

few hours at the bar, enjoying the pleasant atmosphere. The restaurant was alive with chatter and laughter and loud music blaring out of the speakers.

Amber looked happy, walking customers to their tables, handing down menus and talking with the older patrons of the locale. Maybe it was the wine, but she looked as beautiful as I’d

ever seen her. Her cheeks were filled with life, burning red in the neon lights, her skin glowed and her hair hung loose and free on her shoulders. Her slim body, wrapped in that black dress, seemed ready to explode with energy.

I watched her from afar, while thinking about how it is both a curse and a blessing to be born beautiful.

I remember one night sitting with my cousin on the terrace of his apartment, watching over the never-ending expanse of glass covered buildings. That night he told me something that seemed so out of place that had a lasting impression on me. He said that beautiful people had it in them to suffer because they did nothing to acquire their beauty.

“We all have to pay for what life has granted us,” he said.I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, if his statement was directed at Amber, but I

didn’t. She had always been a delicate subject, and after their breakup, she had become persona non grata and even mention of her name was considered taboo.

But on that night, with Amber looking happy and beautiful and intoxicatingly sensual, I couldn’t even imagine that someone would be capable of hurting her.

Around midnight, she came up to me. “My shift ends in a few and after that I’m meeting Jacques and some of his friends at a bar. Do you want to come?”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, but I’m feeling a bit tired.”“Some of Jacques’s friends are really interesting.”“I’m really tired, Amber.” I yawned.She looked at me, her face serious, and said, “Don’t you start acting like a grumpy old man

now.”“I’m not,” I said quickly. “I really am tired.”“At least let me give you a ride back to the hotel,” she said. “Just wait here until I get

changed.” She walked away before I got a chance to protest.A few minutes later she came back, wearing a pair of jeans and a tight leather jacket. She

had tied her hair back in a ponytail.Her car was the red pickup truck I had seen painted on the wall, only that its body had been

eaten away by rust and its red paint had already begun to peel off. The engine roared in agony as we made our way through the busy streets.

When we parked in front of the hotel, she killed the engine and said, “You sure you don’t want to come?”

I nodded. “Sorry, Amber. Not tonight.”She punched me playfully in the shoulder. “If you change your mind, it’s a bar called “Le

Petite Prince” down on Rue de Rivoli.”“Maybe some other time…”I was desperate to get out of the car and organize my thoughts. I needed clarity most of all,

and I couldn’t find any inside a car that reeked of cigar smoke and alcohol.“Sweet dreams,” she said as she started the engine.“Do you want to go out tomorrow? Just the two of us?”Amber laughed. “You know, I’m not just sharing the rent with Jacques.” She gave me a

pitying smile. “If you know what I mean.”“Like friends, just friends, if you know what I mean. Talk and stuff.”“Talk and stuff,” she repeated, amused. “Okay. See you tomorrow.”I waved her goodbye and watched her drive off, and then lit myself a cigarette. I felt as

helpless and frustrated as a child lost in a supermarket. There was this odd silence around me,

and all I could see where Amber and Jacques kissing, cuddling, making love in their bed, with the painted wall glaring in the silvery light of the moon. I felt suffocated by a sense of complete hopelessness. My heart was pumping blood with amplified beats and the wine was wallowing inside my brain.

Back in my hotel room, I walked around for a while, trying to make sense of things.People search for miracles when they get stuck in the mundane. They want revelations and

signs and usually see them when they need them the most.That night I saw my miracle out the window. It was a clear and beautiful night, with the

stars shining hard against the dark sky and the moon’s light cascading down on the city. I went out on the balcony and stood there for a while. As everything around me slowly drowned in the dreamless lethargy of the night, I found myself filled up with hope. I knew what I had to do.

I was going to write. For the first time in my life, I felt free, as if a simple statement followed by the act itself was capable of unshackling me and offer me purpose and direction.

Chapter 7

I spent the next day with Amber, strolling down boulevards jammed with tourists headed in all directions with their heads high and cameras ready to capture every square inch of the city.

We took four or five different cabs, going from one place to another, and for the first time I could just sit back in my seat and stare out the window without worrying about the driver telling me all kinds of insipid facts about his life.

It felt as if Amber wanted to show me as much of Paris as possible. And all the time I kept thinking that people had always wanted to show me something, as if I’d be easy to impress.

Sometimes I think that my tombstone should read, “Here lies Chris Sommers, the guy who has seen it all.”

After a few hours of wandering, Amber said she was hungry. We were in Place du la Concorde, and she suggested we go to a restaurant called “Les Ambassadeurs.”

The restaurant, located at the first floor of a luxury hotel, can be best described using the following words: marble, mirrors, and gigantic windows. The décor was extravagant, the clientele exclusivist.

“I love this place. It makes you feel small, small, small,” Amber said in a childish tone.The waiter came over to our table.“I’d like some spaghetti carbonara,” Amber said.“Pasta? Really?” I asked incredulously.She laughed. “Yeah, the chef here has a special recipe.”“Does anyone eat French food around here?”Amber smiled nonchalantly. “You can eat French food anywhere.”“But this is Paris.”The waiter looked over to me. “And you, monsieur?”“Bring me something French.”He looked down at me with a stunned expression glued to his face. “Something French?” he

muttered and stared into his small notepad.“Yeah, French. Nothing fancy, though,” I said. “None of that haute cuisine stuff.”The waiter scribbled something down in his notepad and left in a hurry. I glanced around the

restaurant one more time.“Didn’t know you go to these kind of places,” I said and instantly regretted my tone.Amber smiled. “Well, yeah… Jacques has a friend -”“Who’s a snob?”She shook her head. “No, no, far from it. He’s different. He likes the very best in life. That’s

how he was raised, I guess.”I shrugged.“He’s helping Jacques with his music,” Amber said defensively.The waiter brought us our order, and we ate in silence. After we finished our dinner, Amber

said it would be nice to go to the hotel’s bar and have a couple more drinks there, so I finished my wine and paid for the dinner.

Then we went at the bar. Black and white sketches covered the wood paneled walls, and blood-red armchairs circled small rectangular tables. It seemed to me to be one of those places where a murder mystery might unravel. We ordered more wine.

I felt empty. My mind had been blurred by the intimate décor of the bar; there were few customers, and the music was but an empty vibration. The dim roar of the city night whispered through the slightly ajar windows.

“What are you thinking?” Amber asked.“Nothing.”“Can you, please, use more than just one word sentences?”“Okay”That made her laugh. She gave me a serious look. “You know you can talk to me.”“You know me.”“What’s that supposed to mean?”I lit myself a cigarette. “Strangers don’t judge.”“Strangers don’t judge?” Amber said in an arid tone.“I don’t care what a stranger might think about me.”Her eyes were quiet and empty. Neither they nor her lips said anything. “I sold my apartment. I gave half of the money to my father, so he could cover some of his

debts. I was supposed to help him with the restaurant. Instead, here I am.”“Oh!” She stared at the floor for a while. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “It’s not your fault…

they went bankrupt.”“Then whose fault is it?”“I don’t know.” She smiled shyly. “I’m not living the best of lives either. I didn’t want to

leave. I had to. Because of William.”“So it’s all William’s fault. This has nothing to do with Jay kicking him out of the house. Or

why he kicked him out.”“If you want to blame someone –”“Do you know why I left New York? I read this interview Chris Packlem gave for a

magazine.”She looked startled. “Chris Packlem? You shouldn’t be –”“He said that the world is big enough for all of us to get what we want.”She took a long sip from her drink.“Are you happy? Is this the place that you needed to find in order to be happy?” I asked her. Amber looked emptily at her glass. “Happy is a big word these days.” She glared back at

me. “I’m content,” she said. “I’m content with my life here. With my job, my boyfriend, my apartment.”

“There’s a difference –”“I know,” she said quickly. “I know, but moments of happiness are rare and short.”“Do we deserve to be happy?”“You’re asking the wrong question.”“What’s the right question?”“Should we fight or wait?”I stared at her.“What do you want to do?” she asked me with a brittle smile “Why did you come here? To

fight? To wait?”

I leaned over the table to put out my cigarette. I was tempted to tell her the obvious answer, the one she could reply to with, “But I love Jacques.” Instead, I looked back at her and smiled. “I’m just here to write. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Chapter 8

My life can be defined by the following words: a long string of compromises. I learned to accept the fact that Amber would take Jacques to most of our meetings.

But there was always a moment, pure and innocent and pathetic; Amber would sometimes arrive a few minutes before him. I never asked why, but having a few minutes alone with her felt as enough. There was a tone of urgency, given the circumstances, to tell her as much as possible. Those few minutes were ours, a pleasant and intimate moment stretching under the faint moan of the city, a moment in which we ordered our drinks and food as quickly as possible, so we would have more time to talk. These brief conversations were mostly stupid; I couldn’t say what I wanted to say, so we talked about everything without actually saying anything.

When Jacques would arrive, I could feel this solicitous solitude well up inside my chest. I felt as if sitting across from me was a different Amber, one I couldn’t touch, as if she were too far away. It was not as if they didn’t involve me in their conversations. On the contrary, they were always telling me about the parts I had missed out on, about their life in Paris, and Jacques told me a great deal about French painters and writers, while Amber listened to him with the acuteness of a judge.

But every once in a while she would rest her head on his shoulder, lock her fingers around his, or kiss him on the lips. And in that moment I felt as if I weren’t part of the story. I was just a minor character in their lives, a simple witness.

I would smile politely at them and tell them how great they look together, how happy they seemed when they stared into each other’s eyes.

Seeing Amber burn with this charming joy would always blur my vision for a minute or two. I could feel anger poisoning my veins and chest. I wanted to fight. But, and I know that every man has felt this one time or the other, I felt as if I were destined for failure no matter how much I’d try. It was all out of my reach, and I thought that Amber was engaged in a sort of strange, superior world, like when you were a child and your parents wanted to have a serious conversation, so they said they were going to talk grownup stuff, implying that it was a topic vastly superior to your understanding of life.

We are the prisoners of our own ideals. We have to follow a strict pattern, a set of rules and laws, and play the role society designed for us. We are taught that our choices don’t matter, that at best we are insignificant, and at worst we are invisible, shadowy figures wandering around a desolate landscape filled with rigid concrete boxes and bleak lights shivering in the night. I guess that what I’m really trying to say is that our freedom is limited only by what we believe to be the perception others have about us.

And so I decided it was best to wait.

One night Amber called. She was crying and asked if I could come by her apartment. When I arrived, I saw her standing disconsolately by the window, staring out at the night.

It took me at least fifteen minutes to understand what had happened. Jacques had been drinking, had been drinking heavily, and he had no money and no job, and they were two months

out on the rent, and the car had just broken down, and Amber was ragging and crying under the decomposing light of the moon.

I stood there listening, nodding thoughtfully, but I felt buried underneath the weight of the painting. The wall flickered in that alien glare, glistening like silver, and it felt as if there was nothing that could break that bond, nothing that could erase Jacques from the painting.

“Why do I always have to fall for drunks?” she cried scornfully.I couldn’t help but laugh, even though I knew she meant my cousin as well.“I don’t know why, but I’m working real hard on becoming an alcoholic.” I brushed some

tears of her cheeks.She laughed. “I just want to be happy, you know?” She stood up. “To love and to be loved

back. I want a happy ending to my story,” she said, moving restlessly around the room.“You know what Orson Welles said about happy endings.”“Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to be happy. That was my first dream, and I don’t

think I’ve ever stopped dreaming about my perfect ending.” She sat down next to me. “What was your first dream? Your first ambition.”

“When I was six, I was playing in my father’s office and found a brochure from a mall. On the back, it had the logos of all the companies that had a store there. And I thought, “How great would it be to own them all?” It took me a few seconds to decide that I wanted to become the richest man in the world.”

“Silly thing to wish for.”“But things change. When I was fourteen, I decided to become a writer. I had this great

dream… that people from all over the world where going to read my stories. I wanted to inspire, to make them feel what I felt, to make them understand how my mind works.”

“I’ve always been jealous of artists. It just seems to me to be easier to make one million strangers love you for your art than it is to make one person love you for who you are.”

Somehow, her statement made me laugh. A nervous, bitter laughter. “Let me tell you something about artists,” I said. “We’re all broken beyond repair. And neither fame nor money can bring back what’s been taken from us. We all build these wonderful things, we all create art that inspires, that makes people cry or laugh, but, in the end, all we ever want is to be normal. We aspire for greatness because we know we’re never going to find that one person who loves us for who we are.”

“I’ve been searching for that person all my life.”In my twenty three years of life, I’ve always been subject to this strange moment. It always

happens. With the women I’m interested in, with friends and family. Something happens; they either say or do something, and I get overwhelmed by this bizarre sense of fragility. In a fraction of a second, my perception of them changes, and I see them in a different way – I feel about them the same way I feel about a beautiful sculpture missing an arm or a leg. There’s no going back, no way of repairing the respect and admiration I had nurtured for them all this time. You could say that I hate weakness in all its forms. And there was a clear, distinct voice ringing inside my head, going over and over again that I had to leave, that this version of Amber was not the woman I was searching for.

But I just smiled and said, “I can’t imagine you not getting your perfect ending.”

That night I had a dream. I was floating on my back inside a dark room. I stared up at the ceiling and a strange, alien glare shimmered across its surface. There were no sounds, and it was

as if this thick silence insulated my body from the rest of the room. No doors, no windows, and, slowly, I was evaporating into the darkness like a pot of boiling water.

And then, all of a sudden, I woke up on an alley. The golden sky whispering warmth and light, and poplars guarding each side of the alley. Then I saw Amber standing next to me, gazing around that little paradise. And she was counting. Soon I found myself whispering along her, ten, nine, eight… it felt like New Year’s Eve, but I was terrified and addled by this strange countdown… five, four, three, two, one, and then all the branches, the boughs, the leaves turned into translucent popsicles, watery rays trapped inside them, light breaking apart, metamorphosing trees into cold rainbows.

We stood there, watching breathless as the sun turned red, blood-red.As the sun hid beneath the thin line of the horizon, I kissed her.I kissed her and felt what others had felt and never stopped feeling. And light dissolved into

darkness once more.

Chapter 9

The next couple of weeks were mostly uneventful. I found it easy to indulge myself in a lazy routine. I had stumbled upon a small café on Avenue de New York owned by an American named Herbert, and every morning I used to go to there and eat my breakfast: bacon, eggs, coffee, and, as the saying goes, “When in Rome…” I always ordered one or two butter croissants.

Herb was the owner, the manager, and sole employee of his small café, and he slept in his office, where he had one of those sofas that turn into a bed. He was skin and bone and had a milky moustache that curled around his upper lip.

I think that we befriended mostly because we shared the same type of character. We were like turtles trying to keep up with a pack of lions. The world was too fast and too hungry for us.

His wife had died and he had no sons or daughters, so I think he was happy to share his life with someone. He had few customers in the morning, and so we would talk for an hour or two.

At around noon I would walk around Paris, or if the weather was bad, I would go and visit an art gallery or museum. After that I would go to the restaurant and spend a couple of hours at the bar, drinking wine and talking indulgently with other customers or one of the hostesses – there were three hostesses employed at the restaurant, each working in twelve hour shifts, from 12 AM until midnight: Amber, Rose, and a third woman, whose name I have forgotten.

Sometimes I talked with David. He wasn’t such a bad guy, even though I hated the way he spoke, with a certain confidence and arrogance that only money can grant you. He told me about his gambling addiction – he used to steal money from his parents as a child and gamble it away in all kinds of stupid street games.

“We would sit on the sidewalk at six or seven in the morning and bet on the plate numbers of cars passing by. Odd or even.”

Most of the time he was fun to talk to, but sometimes he had one of his “David moments” as all the employees called them, meaning that he would start grabbing waitresses by the ass and punching bartenders in the shoulder.

“Truck driver jokes,” Rose once complained.I was fortunate enough to be spared by his shenanigans. However, he would walk over to me

in a strange stride, with his knees bent and his arms hanging loose around his body and say, “Oh, l'écrivain, l'écrivain est arrivé. What’s up, Steinbeck?”

He always came up with a different name for me, from American classics to French writers and philosophers like Sartre or Derrida.

It seemed to me that these inept jokes and insipid pranks acted as a sort of odd mechanism; he was afraid to show people he had emotions and so acted like a clown.

Every once in a while, I would go out with Jacques and Amber. Sometimes I was granted my five minutes of freedom, those five minutes that ticked away faster than usual. And sometimes Amber would complain about Jacques, about him drinking too much or never finding enough gigs.

I would nod and smile compassionately and give advice while feeling addled by this intense pleasure, as if I were living inside someone else’s body. Like those strangers you meet in a bar,

the ones who always tell you this or that story that happened to a friend, but they never have any stories about themselves, as if they lived all their lives on a deserted island in the Pacific.

I would always go back to my hotel room before midnight and do some writing. Sometimes it was easy. Words flowed in such a way, as if I’d somehow managed to establish a partnership between me and a higher consciousness that allowed me to build words on paper with ease. And, of course, sometimes it was an ordeal. I would stare at a white screen until I felt my temples burn, and then I would go to sleep.

Chapter 10

One Friday in early December, when it was clear that the warm days of autumn were over, I went to Herb’s café for my usual breakfast. We were sitting inside at the two opposing tables that were closest to the window, and at one point I noticed that his eyes had caught a strange glitter.

I turned around in my seat. Two women were walking on the sidewalk. Thin and gracious, they were talking and laughing, their giddy joy reaching us in waves of colors and emotions. They peered inside, noticed us staring back at them, and smiled. We waved.

“To be young again,” Herb said as he leaned back in his seat. “This is what life’s all about, kid. Love.” He stood up and went over to the bar, where he took out a cigarette from the pack that lay on it. “Love is everything.”

Suddenly, I had a moment of revelation. Herb was still talking, and I could hear him as a low hum inside my head. He used the word “love” a couple of times, then said something about Paris, and then he said something like, “You’re a good looking fella’, why don’t you find yourself a nice lady?”

I thanked him for everything a couple of times and paid for my breakfast.He eyed me suspiciously. “Where are you going?”“You gave me a wonderful idea.”It’s a shame actually that certain depths of the human spirit cannot be explained using

conventional words. Those who have dealt with words for some time know it better than anyone else. For them moments of extreme clarity, of powerful inspiration, are rare, and they approach them with fear and respect, the same way you’d approach an ancient relic.

I arrived at the hotel and began to write, my fingers fueled by a strong vision, and it felt not as much as if I was writing a story, but more as I was living, breathing inside a micro-universe that was, at the same time, my own creation.

After a few hours I stopped and looked around the room, trying to regain it, trying to discern what was real from what was not.

Stories develop inside the writer’s mind in such strange ways. This one started with a few simple questions. The story, whose title was “Amber, our goddess,” had started from the simple question “What if love was all there is in this world? Love as the only thing worth fighting for.” And then more questions followed. “What if you could live forever with the person you love? What if love could make you immortal?”

We’re all searching for something in our art. There are questions, and we always feel close to finding the answers, but we never do.

Artists never create art for what they might find. Some want to free themselves from nightmares, others want to inspire, or raise questions, or make people understand the world around them. Some want to entertain, others want to get rich, but it seems to me that no matter our reason for choosing to become artists, we all find more happiness in the stories or paintings or songs we create than we find in the real world. This is the sad truth: artists choose to live with one eye always closed to the world, the here and the now, and use that awareness to see what others can’t.

Inside the artist’s soul there is always a part that feels no remorse or fear when it comes to all that is dark in human nature. It seems to me that a part of the artist’s soul gets damaged to such an extent that it grows impervious to pain, heat, or cold. Like a scar.

Later that night, I went to the restaurant and found Amber sitting at the bar.“You seem to be in a good mood,” she said.“I’m happy.” I took a seat next to her. “I’m writing a new story.”“Oh! And what’s it about?”“Love,” I said. “Love and a goddess of love, and love being everything worth having in

life.” “Oh.” She smiled. “And who inspired this story?”“Who inspired the story? The goddess?”Amber nodded. “Who’s your muse?”I shrugged, and she looked at me as if I didn’t understand the question. “Who is your goddess of love?” she asked.I fumbled idly with a paper napkin. “Well, there this guy Herb who has a –”Amber laughed. “There’s this guy Herb?” She frowned. “No, silly. Who’s the person who

inspired you to write this story?”“Well… Herb…We were talking in his café and two women passed by, and he said that love

is the most important thing in life.”“If you say so,” Amber said in a dull voice. Then she added, “I almost forgot. David invited

you to his place on Saturday.”“Me? Why?”“He said that you have to see how the French really are. Not the ones who smile at you

‘cause you leave them tips.” She chuckled. “This is the address, if you want to come.” She handed me a piece of paper folded in half. “I have to go now and smile at bored Americans who want to eat overpriced ravioli.” She left me there, alone at the bar. I felt like drinking myself into a coma. I didn’t know if she was putting on an act or was genuinely unaware of my feelings towards her – the first one was obviously more painful and less selfish.

Before I got a chance to drown my mind with alcohol, David walked into the restaurant. He was with a man I had never seen before; a stout looking fellow. His features were rough, as if carved in stone, and a red scar ran from his cheek to his jawline.

Amber greeted them, and they stood in the entryway, talking and laughing. David was as cheerful as I’d ever seen him. After a few minutes, the man went to the bathroom, and David walked over to the bar. He asked the bartender to pour him a glass of the finest whisky.

“Don’t put any ice in it,” he demanded.“What’s with the grin?” I asked.He glanced over to me. “A smile, my friend, is the key to success.” He tapped his fingers

against the bar. “That guy,” he pointed his gun finger toward the bathroom door, “he’s one of my father’s friends. He wants to invest some money here.” He hit his chest with his index finger. “And I’m going to help him.”

I nodded and took a sip from my drink.“I’m going to make a lot of money,” he said with a mischievous grin. “A hell lot of money.”The man came back from the bathroom, and David pushed the glass of whisky toward him.

They stood there for a while, with their backs against the bar, talking loudly and chuckling at each other’s stupid jokes.

I caught snatches of their conversation: “… don’t worry, there are plenty of opportunities… we’re going to get everything ready… I’m here to help you… I said it once and I’ll say it again, the prices are going up, up, up…”

The man was swilling down one glass of whisky after another and every two minutes or so he would wipe the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand and say, “My God! Is hot in here, David. Is hot, isn’t?” His face was covered in sweat, sliding down his hairline and temples. Droplets of sweat hung from his earlobes and fell, splashing spots around the shoulders of his shirt.

Amber passed by the bar and grinned at us in her cheeky, cheery manner.The man shook his head. “God, David! This girl of yours,” he cried and shook his head one

more time. “Where’d you find her?”David smiled. “She applied for the job.”The man glared back at him, bewilderment scribbled across his face. “Really?”David nodded.“Amazing!” David looked over to me. “What you drinking?”“Cabernet.”He looked over to the bartender and signaled him to pour some him some as well. “Just a

sip,” he said. The bartender complied. “You coming on Saturday?”“Maybe,” I replied.The man turned around and stared at me with the complexity of an irremediable drunk.“My wife wants to meet you,” David said and took a small sip from his glass. “She always

wanted to meet a writer.”I shook my shoulders.Amber walked over to David and took the glass from his hand. She drank the rest of the

wine and put an innocent smile on her face.“Hey, no drinking during work hours,” David said in a cheerful voice. Amber glared at him

for a while, then turned around and walked away. He glanced back at us and gave a hopeless shrug.

The man rubbed his cheeks and forehead with his palm. “I’m tired.”“Let me give you a ride back to the hotel,” David said.“But you… but you drank wine,” the man protested.David smiled. “Half a glass of wine? That’s not drinking.” “I guess so,” the man said. “Just let me get my keys.”“Yeah, okay.” His eyes darted around the restaurant for a while, then he scratched his cheek

and yawned. “Tell me, son,” he said as he watched Amber lead two customers toward a table close to the window. “Don’t you dream about this young lady here?” He gave me a wicked grin. “You know…”

“I know.”“I’ve been here for, what? One hour? And I can’t get her out of my head.” He closed his

eyes and shuddered. When he opened them, his face was dazzled and tired at the same time, as if he had just woken up after a pleasant dream.

Suddenly I felt overwhelmed by this burning defeat, slowly scratching its way out of my chest. “She’s beautiful,” I said with a sigh.

He looked at me and frowned. “She’s delicious,” he whispered. “De-li-cious. That’s what she is.” He stared hollowly through the restaurant for a while. “I have no doubt about it, kid, I have no doubt…” David came back, and the man raised his hands in the air shouting, “David, David, David…”

David smiled and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Come on, Jerry, let’s get you back to the hotel.” He grabbed the man by the arm. He glanced over to me one more time and said, “If you’re coming on Saturday, don’t bother to suit up.”

They took a few steps, but the man stopped and turned around and shouted, “It was nice meeting you, chap!” He raised his hand in the air and bowed his head in a ceremonious manner. Then he and David fumbled their way through the restaurant.

I looked up at the bartender, signaled him to pour me another glass of wine, and drank it all in one gulp. After that I paid and went back to the hotel to get some sleep.

Chapter 11

David’s apartment was on the top floor of a building I had passed by at least a dozen times on my way from the hotel to the restaurant; a dark-cherry colored building, four stories tall, with an imposing double door at the entrance.

I climbed up all the way to the top floor and knocked. After a few seconds David opened the door.

“Come in,” he said, stepping back to clear the doorway. We shook hands. As he had demanded from his guests, his attire was casual; a pair of blue jeans and a black sweater.

I stepped into the entryway, and Amber appeared, holding her arms out. “Chris, you came.” She tried to kiss me on the cheek, but missed, and her lips met mine for a brief moment. She curled her arms around me for a while. There was a dazed and ecstatic expression on her face, and her eyes had a wild shine.

“Where’s Jacques?”“He had to go to some audition in Toulouse,” she said in a dull voice. She curled her arm

around mine and put her head on my shoulder. “He’s going to be away for a week or so.” Then she looked up at me and laughed, filling the lobby with her sweet, exciting laughter. “Don’t worry, we’ll have a lot of fun, just the two of us. Like we used to.”

I smiled.“Come, let’s introduce you to everyone,” she said, tugging at my arm.The living room, with its high ceiling and large windows, bathed in the pale fire of the

winter sun. The guests sat on two half-moon shaped leather sofas that drew a circle in the center of the room, and inside that circle lay a large coffee table made from marble.

“You should meet the folks,” David said as he stepped in between me and Amber. He grabbed my arm and took me over to where Jerry was sitting. “You two have already met.”

Jerry stood up and grabbed my hand. “Jerry Durham,” he said with a grin.“Chris Sommers.”“L’ecrivain,” a woman said and put her hand on my shoulder.David laughed. “”Yeah, he’s the writer I’ve been telling you about.” He turned to face me.

“My wife, Amelie.”“I’m pleased to meet you, mister Sommers,” she said.“Likewise.”Amelie was an almost beautiful woman – there was something missing, something that

ruined the pleasant warmth of her eyes. We talked for a while. David tried to make some jokes, so I would feel more comfortable, while his wife asked me a few questions about how it feels to be a writer – one can never offer a satisfactory answer to these sorts of questions. She spoke perfect English, and yet I couldn’t understand half of what she was saying. I suppose it was so simply because she spoke the language so perfectly that it sounded foreign.

Then David introduced me to Amelie’s younger brother, Philip. He spoke in English as well, but in such a manner that it showed he only did it as a favor, so we can understand him, and at the same time it was clear that he regarded us inferior for not being able to understand his native

language. He was eighteen at most and blindingly handsome. It was as if he had been made from plastic in a factory from a sketch drawn by an overly hormonal teenage girl.

It was hard to believe that two inherently different humans such as Amelie and Philip could be brother and sister.

Rose was there as well, sitting on one of the sofas, chatting with Amber. “Well, let me show you around,” David said, grabbing me by the elbow.I could see that he took immense pleasure out of this improvised tour of the house. “This is

the bathroom…. this is another bathroom…. this is the dining room, this is the balcony… you can see the Eiffel Tower from here…. this is the master bedroom…. this is the master bathroom…Look! This is my office.”

As I followed him idly through the apartment, I half-expected him to say, “And the plumbing is made from gold, and, you know, the tap water is actually Evian.” I realized that he was poor. He had money, or as I would find out later on that day, his wife had money, but that was it. There was nothing left, nothing great or worth knowing about him, nothing that would define him more than his expensive silk suits and the hundred or so photographs taken from cruises around the world that hung on the walls in his office.

David stopped in front of a door and turned around. “I think you’re going to like this,” he said with a broad smile. He opened the door and stepped away.

I walked in, and at first I noticed the windows, if you could call them that. The wall opposite the door and the ceiling were made of glass. Then I noticed the bookshelves that occupied two of the walls and rose all the way up to the glass ceiling. They were filled with books of a variety of colors and shapes, and light trickled down on them and sipped into the Persian rug in a cascade of watery rays, giving the room a certain frantic freedom. I glanced around, fascinated and terrified.

“This is my favorite room,” David said, and his voice was sincere, as if he were sharing with me an intimate experience.

I turned over to him. “I didn’t know…”“I just read them,” David said. He then sighed. “But I haven’t had time to come here lately.”

He sat on the divan that lay beside the window. “God! Jerry’s driving me nuts!” He shook his head pathetically. He glared up at me and added, “All the time he wants to get drunk and get laid. That’s all he thinks about.”

I nodded.“I’m going to get in trouble with Amelie soon if I have to keep this up,” David said and

stood up.“Good thing she’s leaving tomorrow, huh?”He frowned. He went over to one of the bookshelves and pulled out an old book. He looked

at it for a while, caressing its decrepit cover with his fingers. “I know you’ll think I’m such a cliché of a reader, but this is my favorite novel,” he said and handed me the book.

“The Great Gatsby,” I said as I ran my fingers across the book’s jacket.“A first edition copy of The Great Gatsby. Signed by Fitzgerald himself.”I smiled and looked down at the book, at those bizarre eyes on the cover staring back at me

with unscrupulous intensity.“Amelie brought it as a birthday present for me last year,” he added.I handed him the book, and he put it back in the bookshelf.“Who doesn’t like unrequited love stories?” I gazed at the books, neatly placed on the

bookshelves and felt as if this room, marbled with shining waves of light, was hermetically

closed from the rest of the world. It contained secrets, it contained a part of David’s soul which he always left behind whenever he stepped out into the real world.

“Yeah! Too many fucking happy endings these days.”There was a moment of silence as I glanced around the room one more time. “I think I should go back… check on Amber,” I said.“Yeah, you do that,” he muttered. “Tell her to take it easy with the wine,” he shouted as I

walked out of the room.

In the living room a wild song was trembling across the floor and walls. Philip and Rose were dancing together. Their movements were full of lust, a swinging and thrusting of hips which made me feel a bit self-conscious, or maybe regret that I wasn’t drunk enough to join in.

Amber was sitting on the couch, holding a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other, looking idly at the two dancers shaking and twisting their limps to the beat. She glared up at me and smiled lazily. I took the glass from her and put it on the coffee table.

“What’s up?” I sat down next to her. She took another drag on her cigarette and then crushed it in the ashtray.

“I’m bored,” she whispered to my ear. “This is boring, boring, boring.”“Well, Philip and Rose are having fun,” I said and noticed that Jerry was sitting across from

us, staring in a perplexed manner at the two dancers swinging furiously across the marbled floor.Amber laughed. “Yeah, David’s going to freak out.”A maid came in and brought croissants and muffins. Amber put her head on my chest,

pinning my back against the couch. I put my arms around her shoulders. We stood there for a while, smiling contemptuously. Then David came in, looking puzzled and angry, as if something had awakened him from a good dream. He turned the volume down until the rhythm of the song became but a murmur travelling along the walls, then he went over to Philip and Rose.

“What is wrong with you?” David shouted.“Amelie said it’s okay,” Philip said defensively. They both argued for a while in French,

then David walked away and took a seat next to Jerry.Philip was still standing there, staring blindly at the stereo and breathing brokenly like a fish

out of water. He went over to the stereo and turned the volume up a bit. He looked around, but Rose had left. He smiled and walked over to Amber. He gave her a wicked smile. “Wanna’ dance?” he asked confidently. She looked up at him and shook her head. “Come on, I’m a pretty good dancer,” he added as he looked over to me and winked. Again, Amber just shook her head. “Come one,” he said in a whinny tone and pulled out his hand palm-up. “I’ll teach you if you don’t know the steps.”

“I’m sorry,” Amber said.Philip stared down at her with a complacent smile on his face. “Just one,” he said. “Just one

dance.”“You’re wasting your time,” I said.He glared down at me and frowned. “And why is that?”I didn’t bother to answer, but David rose from the couch, holding Jerry’s empty glass, and

shouted, “Because she doesn’t like to dance, jackass.”“Ah.” Philip scratched his cheek. “Why didn’t you say so?” His arms dangled around his

body.“David, my friend,” Jerry said, “this time put two ice cubes in it, will you?”

David, who was standing at the bar with his back against us, mumbled something. Then he pulled a crystal glass filled with whisky out of a drawer and poured some into Jerry’s glass.

Amelie came in and walked over to David and kissed him on the cheek. “What’s with all the fuss?”

“Philip,” he replied. “You spoil him too much.”She smiled nonchalantly at him, and then they both walked over to the sofas. David put the

glass on the coffee table and sat next to Jerry.“Thanks,” he said, and gobbled down a croissant, then took a long slug from the glass.

When he put it down, only the ice cubes rattled inside.As the sun sailed away on the sky, we sipped bottle after bottle of wine, knowing that after a

few drinks laughter comes easier. As time stretched under the pale echo of the music, and faces mingled together to form trembling shadows under the ever changing light, it felt as if we were all suspended in one joyous moment.

Jerry did most of the talking, moving his sweaty hands in the air, as if trying to draw faces and people and scenes. We spent a few hours listening indulgently to his inanities; how he left England when he was a young “chap,” how he made it big in America, how he got his scar in a car crash. His eyes had a strange glimmer, as if his memories were breaking out of the most hidden drawers of his soul and into the living room.

“I’ve been lucky enough to invest in a small company a few years ago,” he said, his creased face contorted into a broad smile. “Made me a very rich man.”

David kept nodding and smiling his greedy smile. Whenever Jerry’s glass went empty, he would walk over to the bar and pour more, until at one point Jerry suggested that he should bring the bottle over to the table. “Saves some time,” he said. David glanced at him with a stupefied grin, then shrugged and complied with his request.

But there was something I couldn’t quite pin down about Jerry – there was a certain fury that governed over his body; it was as if he were going to explode, and he was drinking a gallon of whisky a day just to kill this restlessness.

All of a sudden, he sprung up as if startled by a nightmare, rubbed his hands together and said, ”I think I have overstayed my welcome long enough.”

Half an hour later, Philip left as well, saying that he had to meet with some friends.Among Amelie figuring out that it would be a great idea to make dinner, and Rose offering

her help, and David saying that he had to do some work in the office, and Amber mumbling God knows what and leaving the room, I found myself all alone, sitting on the couch and staring around such a deserted and alien landscape that I felt, in the oddest way possible, free; not as much as if there were no rules to bind me, but more as if there was no one around to enforce them. So I stood up, went to the bar and poured myself what was left of the whisky. I lit a cigarette and walked over to one of the windows.

It was almost eight in the evening, and the sky was dark and filled with a cluster of shy stars. I stood there for a while, taking small sips from my glass. Suddenly I felt this inexplicable urge to go to David’s reading room and stare at the sky. I wanted to spend some time alone, admiring the stillness of the night, until my brain would stop wobbling around in my skull. The urge overcame me, and soon I was staggering along the hallway. I heard people talking in David’s office, and curiosity overwhelmed me, so I peered inside.

David was sitting on his desk, with his arms crossed on his chest, smiling. “Not here,” he whispered, and then I saw Amber leaning over and kissing him on the neck. He pushed her away. “I told you, not here.”

She glanced at him, confused. “Come on, David. Kiss me,” she begged, and her feet danced chaotically across the floor. She curled her lips into a devilish smile. “Are you afraid?”

He glanced at her and shook his head. “I told you! Amelie could walk in any minute –”“She’s… she’s… cooking,” Amber said and lunged forward with her arms held out. She

tried to kiss him on the mouth, but he shook his head. She gave him a bitter, disgusted smile and took a few steps away.

I stood there watching, as they argued playfully, with all my senses numb and defeated, and my heart beating so fast inside my temples that I feared it might pierce through my skull. I felt invisible, a ghost with no powers, and to be honest, it felt as if I was watching TV.

In a way, this moment reminded me of when Jay had found Amber’s nude portrait. Well, it reminded me more about the argument that had followed. I was sure that I could have walked in on them and they would have carried on. This is how insignificant I felt.

I stepped away from the door and carefully made my way down the hallway. I felt this cruel certainty burn inside my brain: the image of David and Amber, no matter how much I’d try to forget, would be one of those memories that always come back and haunt you with an unscrupulous level of detail. I walked into the reading room, closed the door behind me and pulled out the old copy of The Great Gatsby. I sat down on the divan, and, as a boring reader who loves unrequited love stories more than anything else in life, I began to read.

Chapter 12

The next morning I called Rose and asked her to meet for coffee. I knew it was going to be a rotten day from the moment I stepped out of the hotel.

The sky was covered in a dull shade of grey, and the cold air tore into my lungs. Every breath I took sounded like the painful groan of a dying animal. When I reached Herb’s café, Rose was already there, her feet drawing circles on the sidewalk.

“You could have went inside,” I said when I noticed she was shaking.We walked in and saw Herbert sitting alone at one of the tables and reading a copy of The

Old Man and The Sea. When he looked up and saw Rose standing next to me, he fumbled around the bar, then rushed over to us holding two menus under his right arm. He greeted us with a broad smile and seated us at a table close to the window.

“Did you decide to follow my advice?” he asked and winked.I shrugged. “What advice?”“You know.” He looked over to Rose, then back at me. “When we saw those ladies the other

day…” He glanced around the bar, tapping impatiently with his foot. “Anyway, what can I get you?”

Herb was as excited as I’d ever seen him. He was wearing his usual uniform; a pair of black trousers and a white shirt, too loose for his skinny body. I ordered an Irish coffee and Rose a double espresso. After he brought us the drinks, he walked away quickly and began bustling around the bar, taking bottles of wine out of cardboard boxes and placing them on shelves, throwing out empty beer cans and filling the espresso machine with water, but I knew he was eavesdropping.

It was the first time I had brought someone to his café, and I felt ashamed for him having to listen in on a conversation like the one I was about to have with Rose; somehow I felt as if I had tainted my morning ritual by asking her to meet me here.

We talked for a while about work and the weather and other nonsense, and Rose told me about a guy she was interested in, and I kept nodding complacently until I seized the right opportunity. A moment of silence; a second long break in the conversation.

“Are David and Amber having an affair?”She gulped. “I don’t know… where did you –”“Come on, Rose,” I interrupted her. “I saw them kissing.”She shrugged and took a long drink from her cup.“I know you know,” I said confidently.She looked at me with a pained expression. “Maybe they are having an affair. Maybe it’s

true. So what?”“It’s wrong,” I cried. “It’s wrong, and they’re both cheating.” I shook my head violently.

“It’s wrong. You know –”“What do I care?” Rose snapped.I realized she was right. Life was as simple as that; we care only about ourselves. We want

what we want, and we do what we have to do, no matter the consequences. And we lose any semblance of dignity in the process.

“You’re not like the rest of us,” she said.I leaned back in the chair, looking out the window at the busy street and the matted sky and

the Seine and all the people passing us by on the sidewalk, and thinking how there was an unbreakable wall separating me from the rest of the world.

“You dream of the perfect life, the perfect love, the perfect ending,” Rose added. “There are no happy endings in life.”

“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story,” I said and faked a smile. “Orson Welles said that.”

Rose closed her eyes and shuddered. “Amber’s not who you think she is. She’s not worth the trouble.”

“What trouble?”“This is not the best time to reveal your self-righteousness.” She gave me a disapproving

glance. “Trust me, you don’t want to get involved. Too much trouble.”“I’ve gotten myself in quite a lot of trouble lately.” “You don’t want to get into this kind of trouble.”“Is it David?”“Please, try to keep out of it.” She looked at her watch and stood up. “I have to go to work

now. Just forget all about it, okay? Please.”I shrugged. “Fine.” There was something in her gaze and tone that made me say it, and in

the most complacent manner possible. I watched her walk out of the café, and then lit myself a cigarette. There was no reason to rummage for answers. I just had to wait.

At around nine in the evening, I went to the restaurant. I took my usual seat at the bar and ordered a beer. I swilled it down fast, and then ordered another one. The place was crowded, which meant Rose was going to be busy, and so I could get drunk without worrying that she could try to stop me.

After the sixth beer, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Jerry, looking a little dazed. “What’s up, chap,” he said with his usual grin and took a seat next to me.

I shrugged.“Hey, you said you’re from New York, right?”I nodded. “Then I have to introduce you to this guy. I think you’ll get along.”“Why is that?”“He’s just like you.” He leaned closer and pressed his greasy hand against the bar’s surface,

as if to tell me a terrible secret. “Smart fellah, but pretty shy around the ladies.” He closed his fist and began thrusting it through the air. “Might have heard about him. Chris Packlem.”

“Chris Packlem.”“Yeah. We’re friends,” he said and leaned back in his stool. “Friends.” I tried to find the word and its meaning inside my brain, but couldn’t. All I

wanted was to get as far away from Jerry as possible.I don’t know how, but I found myself out on the streets, wandering through poorly lit alleys

– not the best way to find comfort or clarity. There wasn’t a single soul on the streets. I lit a cigarette and tried to relax, but the silence that had engulfed the city seemed to dangerously amplify the sound of my footsteps.

As I made my way toward the hotel, I noticed Amber’s red pickup truck parked on the sidewalk. I stopped and peered through the windshield. What was Amber doing out so late at

night? I took a quick look around for a bar or restaurant or nightclub, but there were none. A few cafés, long closed, and a few shops. Then I realized that the car was parked in front of David’s apartment building. I looked up and saw that the lights were out. I leaned with my back against the car, staring up at the dark velvet of the sky.

I felt disgusted and angry and ashamed. And for the first time in my life, I felt like hitting something. I wanted to hurt something, to set it on fire, to watch it burn until it turned to ash. I felt tempted to tell everyone about Amber, being as thorough as possible. I wanted to call Jay, to call Jacques, even William Bower, and offer them the same hideous vision that was haunting my mind, to tell them where she was now, and what she was doing. Instead, I stood there quietly, staring up at the clouds sluggishly travelling across the sky.

Chapter 13

For a few days I stopped going to the restaurant, I stopped eating my breakfast at Herb’s, I even stopped going out on my long walks around Paris.

What I did was write. I couldn’t write on the story about the goddess, no matter how much I wanted to punish Amber, to make her suffer, at least in my own little Universe, so I wrote about myself, trying to see things for what they really were. One might call it introspection; the attempt to understand oneself, to understand the quiet mechanisms of one’s soul. Maybe it was retrospection. I was writing down what had happened from the moment I had met my cousin before leaving for Paris to the day I had realized Amber was not who I had thought she was.

There are certain delicate illusions that make life bearable. Love, in its most pure and pathetic form, the one before we get to genuinely know the person we love, is one of them. Ignorance is bliss, and the less you know, the more you love, the less you have, the more you want.

We all miss the most the things we never had.Then I started going out with Rose again. I told her about Amber, about Jay and William

Bower, all the secrets that I had tried to forget. She never offered much advice, but she always listened to what I had to say. She said that was the most anyone could do.

I think that I was telling someone about my mistakes not because I wished to redeem myself, but because I needed to admit them out loud, to utter the words and hope for redemption.

One night she came up with the idea of doing a tour of all the bars on Rue de Rivoli. We started at around seven in the evening and made our way down the street in one hour long sessions. We kept mixing strong liquors with beer and wine, hoping that we wouldn’t end up in a coma before we’d reach Place de la Bastille.

At around ten we bumped into Jacques and Amber in one of the bars. They were celebrating the new contract Jacques had signed. They both insisted on us staying there. I was so drunk that I didn’t care much.

The few hours we spent there are best described as a drinking marathon. We sat at the bar, watching over the bartender as he labored on extravagant looking cocktails, while we drank beer and ate peanuts and pretzels.

Amber must have sensed a certain aridity in my tone towards her, so she tried her best to make me smile. She was as cheerful as I’d ever seen her, and I couldn’t help but laugh at some of her jokes.

All of a sudden, Jacques stood up. “It’s time to go,” he said, looking at his watch.“Go? Where?” I asked.“The Garage.”I furrowed my eyebrows. “The Garage?”“Yep,” Amber said. “Wanna’ come?”I glanced over to Jacques. “What’s the Garage?”He smiled. “You’ll see.”Amber grabbed my arm. “You’re going to love it there.”I pulled my arm away. “We’re all drunk. None of us can drive.”

“We’ll take a cab,” Jacques said.I could have said no, I could have gone back to my hotel, I could have explained Jacques

that me and Rose had a tour to make. We had plans, just the two of us, plans that didn’t involve him or Amber. I could have said no, but I didn’t.

We hailed a cab and made our way through Paris until the light filled boulevards turned into narrow, cobblestone alleys. All the houses had an elaborate architecture and screen porches and neatly trimmed lawns. The cab twisted around a dark alley, then stopped at some sort of bulky concrete box with no windows. A huge neon sign was flashing red and white above a wooden double door, “Jazz Garage.”

We went inside, where two models wearing elaborate cocktail dresses greeted us. We left our coats and jackets at the wardrobe, and then made our way toward an archway that led to a stairway.

Jacques patted me on the back. “You first.”I reluctantly obliged. We climbed down the spiraling staircase and found ourselves in the

“garage” itself. I looked around for a while, breathless. The place’s interior was lavish. Paintings rested against dark colored wood panels, gamboling up toward the arched ceiling, and the marbled floor was as white as salt and glimmered in the clean light of the chandeliers. The air was alive with chatter and laughter, and a certain aroma floated around us, hazy and pleasant, like the smell of flowers after a rain.

The extravagant décor made me feel a bit self-conscious. We weren’t dressed properly; Jacques was wearing his usual white t-shirt and black trousers, Rose was wearing a blue cardigan and jeans, and I was wearing black corduroy pants and a mauve shirt. Amber was the only one who might have walked in without raising any suspicion as to her intentions there; she was wearing a white sleeveless dress that came all the way down to her knees – simple but elegant enough for her to be able to mingle among all the tuxedos and the glittering cocktail dresses.

And to make matters worse, we were so drunk that we all looked as if we hadn’t slept in three days. We could barely keep our eyes open.

The maître’d, a thin middle aged man, glanced at us from behind his stand in such a way that I thought he’d pull out a broom and chase us out.

I walked over to him and smiled nervously. “Good evening, we would like a –”“Je ne comprends pas,” he said in a flat voice.Jacques stepped in. They stood there for a while, talking in French. The maître’d was

holding his chin between his thumb and index fingers, listening carefully. Then he smiled and grabbed four menus from his stand and began leading us through the restaurant.

We passed the scene, where a few men wearing silk suits were setting up their instruments; saxophones and violins and trombones, and I even noticed a piano at the back of the scene. We stopped in front of a large, round table, where a man was staring indulgently through the smoke filled atmosphere. He was wearing a white tuxedo. When he noticed us, he sprung up and shook hands with Jacques in an affable manner, and then he kissed the girls on the cheeks. He glanced over to me with contemptuous interest.

“Robert, I’d like you to meet Chris Sommers,” Jacques said.“He’s a writer,” added Amber.He smiled and held out his hand. “Robert Bisset.”“I’m not really a writer,” I said with a grin. “I just write.”

For a moment he looked at me as if he failed to understand, then looked over to the maître’d, who was standing beside the table smiling awkwardly at us, and dismissed him with a quick gesture of the hand. The maître’d gave a short bow and left.

Robert insisted that I sit next to him. “What’s the difference?” he asked as he pulled out his gold cigarette holder and put it on the table.

“Between?”He lit himself a cigarette. “You said you’re not a writer. You just write. What’s the

difference?”“Well… a writer writes because he expects to be read. I just…”“Write.” He nodded thoughtfully. “I guess that means I am not a painter. I just paint.” He

grinned and pointed at all the portraits and sketches dancing along the walls.“No, you’re a painter all right,” Amber protested. She tugged at my shirt. “He painted our

bedroom wall,” she said quietly.“Oh,” I exclaimed. “Oh.”“Thank you, Amber.” He pronounced her name like a soft, charming roar. Then he glared

back at me and smiled understandingly, as if he wanted to assure me that he knew what I wanted to say, that he knew that I had been worshipping his wall ever since I had first seen it.

There was this strange image inside my head: Robert standing in front of the wall with a brush in his hand, his cheeks and forehead smudged with paint, wearing a black tuxedo, and painting and painting, his gold watch rattling on his wrist. I couldn’t picture him painting in any other way, no matter how much I tried.

“And then you painted all these,” Amber said and waved her hand at the wall.Robert put his hand on my wrist. “Correct me if I am wrong.” He leaned back in his chair

and took a long drag from his cigarette. “You say you’re not a writer simply because you don’t share your art with the world.”

“Indeed.”“Sharing your art with the world doesn’t make you a real artist.”“And what does?”“Creating art,” he replied.I rummaged through my mind for an answer, but I was feeling tired and drunk, and all this

talk about art and artists felt pointless.“Why do you paint?”He smiled. “It makes me happy.”“Just like that?”“It’s so simple, isn’t it?” said Jacques. “That’s what we all want… to be happy.” He kissed

Amber on the lips.A waiter came to our table, and Robert ordered champagne. The band started to play, and

after a few tunes that seemed to gently melt together with chatter and laughter, people began to walk over to the dancing ring, swinging their arms and hips and shoulders. A mixture of expert moves and graceless stagger; some could, others couldn’t but tried nonetheless.

At one point, I stood up and walked over to the bar. I ordered a glass of whisky. I tried to pin down the feeling that kept sliding up and down my veins, to give it a name, to find its source. It wasn’t about the loud music or the commotion or even the alcohol that was floating freely through my body. Across from where I was standing, people were shaking and twisting their limbs to the beat, and beyond them I could see Jacques and Amber, talking, laughing, kissing.

But it wasn’t them, it was something else, slippery like quicksilver. And I felt desperate to catch this feeling and analyze it, but then the music stopped and my mind went silent as well.

Robert walked over to me. “Jacques is going to join the band in a few,” he said, his eyes darting around the restaurant.

I nodded.He glanced over to me and smiled. “You seem like an interesting individual,” he remarked.I stared back at him for a while, puzzled. “Wait ‘till you’ll see me sober,” I said and blinked

a couple of times, trying to regain a bit of clarity in my vision.He laughed. “That would be great.” He glanced around the restaurant one more time. “I

should go back to the table. You get the best view from there.”“Do you know those people who can tell a stranger all about their lives?” I shouted. Robert turned around and smiled. “Like those cab drivers who only need a fifteen minute

fare to tell you how their daughter just got a scholarship at the University of Orleans, how their boiler broke down –”

“How they’re doing this just because they get bored at home,” I added, and Robert laughed. I stared him straight in the eye. “Do you want to listen to my story?”

“What do I get in return?”I fumbled through my mind for something to say for a while. “I can email you one of my

stories. Something no one has read before.”“Sounds like a fair trade.”There was a moment of silence as Jacques climbed up on the scene. He was now wearing a

black suit that seemed to be a size too small and was holding a saxophone in his right hand. He looked over to the people on the ring, closed his eyes, and started to play. His mastery was undeniable, his performance brilliant. He gave a quick solo, then there was another brief pause, and then the band joined him and began to play a crazy jazz tune. I knew the song, I knew it all too well, but the trumpet’s blast and the sax and the piano had morphed into this bizarre, muffled sound that appeared to come from miles away. Amber was standing in the front row of the crowd, slowly shaking her head. I was hoping she’d turn around and look at me, I was hoping she’d recognize the song.

I looked over to Robert, who was staring at Jacques with profound admiration in his eyes. “I love Amber,” I said, my voice weak over the trumpet’s blast.

He gave me a serious, almost concerned look.“I’m in love with Amber,” I said, louder. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he yelled back.I waved my hand toward the scene. “That’s it! All of it! My life, my story.”I felt suspended in that moment, as if I was wallowing in a tank filled with salt water. My

eyelids were heavy, my eyes wet, and my head dizzy. I wanted to go up to Amber, but there was a force, undeniable, strong, keeping my feet glued to the floor. Then the song ended.

Robert glared back at me and said, “If you want to talk about it…”I shrugged. “I just wanted to say it out loud. Now you can have your story.”Robert smiled half-heartedly. “What’s it about?”I stared at the stage. Jacques gave a quick bow, then climbed down. Amber rushed over to

him and curled her arms around his neck. She kissed him on the lips; a long, long kiss. And I thought that I had never been at the right time and place, I had never been lucky enough as to stumble into a perfect situation armed with nothing but hope.

“The truth,” I said.

“The truth?”“It’s not finished though.”“How much do you have?” he asked.And I knew what I was feeling. I wasn’t happy. “Just until tonight,” I said and knew that all

I wanted was to be happy. No matter what.

Chapter 14

The next day I waited for something to happen. I waited and waited, sitting at my desk and staring out the window. I kept checking my email address, my cell phone, but nothing happened.

At two in the afternoon, I felt like eating a proper breakfast, so after a few minutes of arguing with the receptionist on the phone, a waiter came and brought me apricot jam, croissants, butter, and coffee. I ate and then sat at my desk to wait some more.

Then it began to snow. Snowflakes zigzagged their way down from heavy clouds and settled on rooftops and streets. It snowed for a while, thick and fast, until the entire city disappeared beneath a white, perfect layer of snow. At around four, the sun came up and filled the room with a pale haze.

Time was just stubborn. Every second ticked shyly inside clocks and watches, and nothing felt constant; not the beating of my heart, not the sun sliding across the matted sky. When the day died, I didn’t turn on the lights and soon fell asleep in my chair.

I was awaken in the middle of the night by a tapping at my door. I stood up and glanced around the room. There was a clear voice ringing inside my head, “Don’t open the door, don’t! Just let it happen, just stay quiet until it stops.” But the taps grew stronger and stronger and this odd curiosity overcame me. I wanted to know who it was and what was going to happen, so I walked slowly over to the door. Whatever happens, happens, I thought as I opened the door.

She looked haggard and tired; her hair was soaked wet, and droplets were falling onto the shoulders of her coat and around her feet. Seeing Amber like that, breathing fast and brokenly, her little mouth agape, her arms dangling at her sides, made me shudder.

“Hi,” I said. She said nothing, so I said the next thing that went through my mind. “Is it raining?”

Amber kept staring at me in such a strange way; she seemed more fragile than ever. It was frightening to see her like that, and inside that moment of silence, all I could think of was that I was responsible. Finally she nodded, then walked in and took her coat off. “Snowing, raining,” she said in a low voice, glancing around. She put the coat on the back of one of the chairs.

To be honest, I was waiting, wanting to know what was going to happen with nothing more than strange curiosity, as if I was aware that all this was but a dream. Or maybe in that moment, as Amber kept stroking her hair with her fingers, I felt as if my life was not my own; someone else was actually living it, and nothing that could happen to me would actually affect me.

She gulped. “Was it you?”I shook my head. “What?”She closed her eyes slowly, and I thought she’d fall asleep on her feet. She opened them and

said, “Jacques, David… Did you do it?”“Amber, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My own voice scared me. It was flat,

cold, and empty, and everything around me was happening in such a precise manner. It felt almost as if I could hear what Amber was going to say before she’d open her mouth.

“I know, I know,” she said wearily. She kept looking around the room in such a way that I felt compelled to stare at the same things: the chairs, the couch, the bed, the desk. It was as if she were seeing something different.

“Amber! What happened?”She glanced back at me. “Jacques…” For a moment she put her head down and stared at the

floor. Then she looked up and said, “He left me.” She opened her mouth in a pose of utter terror, as if she had just realized a terrible truth, and then she began to cry.

I grabbed her by the shoulders and walked her over to the couch. “Why?” I asked as I watched her sit down.

She looked up at me. “He found out…about David,” she blurted and put her face down in her hands. I sat next to her, and she curled around me, sinking her face in my shirt. I sat there, gently stroking her hair for a long time, until she stopped crying. Suddenly, she looked up at me, smiled, and said, “You’re not like them.” She caressed me on the cheek, staring me intensely in the eye. “No, no.” She shook her head. “You’re not like them. You never left me, you never abandoned me.”

I was tempted to ask her about what had happened, to find out her side of the story, to relish in all the painful details. I was quite certain that no words could ever hurt me more than the sight of David and Amber kissing. But I didn’t ask her anything.

She stood up and walked over to the window. She stared out for a while, then turned around and looked over to me, as if startled from a nightmare. “Do you have a stereo?” Before I could answer, she walked over to the stereo. “Is it strange that I know what the first song that’s going to play is?”

There was a moment of silence, and shy, ash-colored shadows rose from every corner of the room, slowly pushing forward, until they evaporated into a narrow strip of light on the floor.

She pressed play and said, “It’s the song Jacques and his band played at my birthday, right? When I read your story.” She took her shoes off and moved over to the middle of the room. “I can’t dance, you know I can’t. Can’t sing, can’t paint, can’t write. There’s nothing special about me.”

I stood up and walked over to her. We stood motionless for a while, with the music blaring around us.

“I’m not funny or smart.”“Amber,” I said and leaned over close to her face, “you have to move your body, you know,

that’s how…”She stared at the stereo, and then glanced back at me. She smiled. “I don’t know how to

dance.”But we danced. And it didn’t matter that we were probably doing it wrong, that we probably

looked stupid or drunk or both. But we didn’t care. The beat swallowed our feet and we felt free and careless.

We danced together for a while, but I soon realized it was better for me to sit down and contemplate what I knew was a moment of rare beauty. So I pulled out of that tight embrace and sat down on the couch. For a moment she stopped dancing and glared down at me, and I feared she might be tempted to join me on the couch. She laughed, a happy shriek filled with giddy life and passion, and then her feet began to spin around the room, her skirt swirling around her, drawing endless circles in the air.

She seemed pretty and young, doing her crazy dance, and there was a tone of urgency in her movements, as if there was an intricate choreography that had to be done before the sun would rise; some sort of primordial ritual. She had closed her eyes and seemed oblivious to everything but the music.

She looked happy as she danced, twisting and twirling her waist and hips, and bending her legs as if to ride on the sonic waves of the trumpet. It was as if she was controlling the rhythm, as if her movements were the driving force behind that jazz song.

When the tune ended, Amber smiled, a strange, crazy smile, and said, “Will you take me home? Will you stay with me tonight? I don’t want to be alone.”

There was an eerie sense of quiet inside her apartment, a strange emptiness. The first thing I did when I walked in was look at my watch. I expected for time to stop, but seconds kept ticking away carelessly inside. I looked around, trying to decipher what had happened. Probably I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a handwritten note on the coffee table – a relic Jacques had left behind. But there was nothing of the sorts.

“I’ll make us some coffee,” Amber said and went into the kitchen. I took a seat on the couch. It was all so quiet that I could almost hear the water boiling. I

closed my eyes. It was so silent, all so silent, just my heart relentlessly pumping blood through my body.

I must have dozed off for a while, because when I regained control over my senses, I could hear Amber crying in the bedroom. I was so dazzled by the strong light that I just sat there for a moment.

When I walked into the bedroom, I saw her standing by the window, staring blindly at the night. And there was a poignant smell, something I couldn’t put my finger on. The lights were off, and when I turned them on, she didn’t flinch. She kept gazing out at the darkness, the way you’d imagine crazies doing in asylums. I wanted to go up to her, but something caught my eye. The wall behind the bed had been covered in white paint, still fresh. Jacques must have done it, I thought. But it was a very poor job – probably he’d just thrown a bucket of paint against the wall and let it slide down, because in some parts the layer of paint was superficial and certain details were still visible: the red pickup truck, a part of the golden sax, a few of the notes. But both Jacques and Amber had disappeared beneath the white paint.

I walked over to Amber and looked out the window. It was snowing again. Little snowflakes fell on the wet ground and dissolved quickly, but more followed, impetuous like white soldiers. Without taking her eyes off the window, she grabbed my hand, locking her fingers around mine.

Outside, the snow kept falling undisturbed, white upon white upon white, erasing everything.

About the Author

Cristian Mihai (born 25 December 1990) grew up in Constanta, Romania. And he’s still growing up, or at least trying to. Sometimes he writes. Sometimes he gets lucky and writes something good. He can’t, however, draw a straight line. No matter how much he tries. Not even with a ruler. And, please, don’t ever ask him to sing.

Visit him at www.cristianmihai.net

Also by Cristian Mihai

short stories

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