I saw she
was even more beautiful at close quarters. I guessed her age to be early
thirties, there were fine radial lines around the corners of her eyes but the
rest of her skin was clear, young-looking.
'Please ...' She stole a glance towards
the door as a man walked into the bar.
He was rangy, wearing a tight-fitting,
double-breasted jacket. For a second or two the barman appraised him – they
exchanged nods – then the rangy man looked up and down the bar. He thinned his
grey eyes when he spotted the woman at my side.
' Please ...' she said softly. I
felt my hand gripped under the table. I turned, and at once fell into her dark
stare. My mind whirled as I tried to grasp this predicament, but all thought
was soon drowned out by the heavy footfalls I heard pacing towards our table.
This was Paris, a city I loved and knew
well; well enough to know that its quotient of madmen and carousers was high.
Did I want to get involved in these strangers' pas de deux? Did I want to read
about my involvement in yet another of the city's many torrid street crimes in
tomorrow's Figaro ? I had only come in for a quiet drink, an escape from
my small, deux-pièces apartment. I led a simple life: I worked; I ate; I
slept. I did not, as a rule, defend damsels in distress. I was a sales
engineer, by God, not a white knight.
'Who in the hell is he ?' the
rangy man spoke broken French; my new companion replied in what sounded like a
language of the east, Bulgarian perhaps. I quickly became lost in their
volatile exchange, only the flaring of eyes and shaking of heads allowing any
insight into the talk. She was calm, more composed than she looked at first,
but he was a hot-blooded type, eager to anger. He spoke quickly, scarring the
air with his brisk gestures. As his face coloured and sweat pustules sat out on
his broad, flat forehead an unhealthy agitation overcame his speech. The volume
of the man's voice rose, the woman looked away; at first she turned to me, but
then we both espied the barman taking an interest. He put down the glass he
polished with a white towel and strolled to our end of the bar.
'Is everything all right?'
The barman's intervention stilled the
air. The man and woman eyed each other over the table, but said nothing. A new,
gravid threat filled the room. I felt my shirt collar tighten, the heavy beat
of my pulsing neck hardened. In the second or two of uneasy silence it seemed
like we had entered an alternative reality – a parallel universe perhaps, where
this type of thing actually happened to me; surely this was not my existence
any longer. I couldn't comprehend the turn of events. Nothing seemed real. I
waited for someone to speak, but everyone seemed trapped, frozen in our surreal
tableau. I longed for the barman to intervene once more, but from the corner of
my eye I could tell he, too, was waiting for someone else to take the
initiative. Before I knew why, or even how, I had risen to face the rangy man.
It was instinctive, the thinking,
reasoning part of the brain had been overcome by some autonomic drive. No one
was more surprised than me. We stood eye to eye over the small table, for the
briefest moment my leg brushed the table's rim and the small glass of Pernod
trembled. We stared on some more and then he looked back to the woman and
turned down the corners of his mouth, revealing a jagged, uneven row of teeth.
He muttered, something in a Slavic tongue again, it was beneath his breath and
cut off abruptly by a sudden turn towards the bar as he strutted across the
open floor, all the way towards the door. A few customers in the bar followed
his brisk steps; he may have been muttering still. I watched him all the way.
As he went he loosened the buttons on his double-breasted jacket and ran an
open palm along his thick hairline. At the exit he turned and, swivelling on
his heels, he spat in our direction; he looked like an angry snake spraying its
venom.
I apologised to the barman – I still
heard the door
was even more beautiful at close quarters. I guessed her age to be early
thirties, there were fine radial lines around the corners of her eyes but the
rest of her skin was clear, young-looking.
'Please ...' She stole a glance towards
the door as a man walked into the bar.
He was rangy, wearing a tight-fitting,
double-breasted jacket. For a second or two the barman appraised him – they
exchanged nods – then the rangy man looked up and down the bar. He thinned his
grey eyes when he spotted the woman at my side.
' Please ...' she said softly. I
felt my hand gripped under the table. I turned, and at once fell into her dark
stare. My mind whirled as I tried to grasp this predicament, but all thought
was soon drowned out by the heavy footfalls I heard pacing towards our table.
This was Paris, a city I loved and knew
well; well enough to know that its quotient of madmen and carousers was high.
Did I want to get involved in these strangers' pas de deux? Did I want to read
about my involvement in yet another of the city's many torrid street crimes in
tomorrow's Figaro ? I had only come in for a quiet drink, an escape from
my small, deux-pièces apartment. I led a simple life: I worked; I ate; I
slept. I did not, as a rule, defend damsels in distress. I was a sales
engineer, by God, not a white knight.
'Who in the hell is he ?' the
rangy man spoke broken French; my new companion replied in what sounded like a
language of the east, Bulgarian perhaps. I quickly became lost in their
volatile exchange, only the flaring of eyes and shaking of heads allowing any
insight into the talk. She was calm, more composed than she looked at first,
but he was a hot-blooded type, eager to anger. He spoke quickly, scarring the
air with his brisk gestures. As his face coloured and sweat pustules sat out on
his broad, flat forehead an unhealthy agitation overcame his speech. The volume
of the man's voice rose, the woman looked away; at first she turned to me, but
then we both espied the barman taking an interest. He put down the glass he
polished with a white towel and strolled to our end of the bar.
'Is everything all right?'
The barman's intervention stilled the
air. The man and woman eyed each other over the table, but said nothing. A new,
gravid threat filled the room. I felt my shirt collar tighten, the heavy beat
of my pulsing neck hardened. In the second or two of uneasy silence it seemed
like we had entered an alternative reality – a parallel universe perhaps, where
this type of thing actually happened to me; surely this was not my existence
any longer. I couldn't comprehend the turn of events. Nothing seemed real. I
waited for someone to speak, but everyone seemed trapped, frozen in our surreal
tableau. I longed for the barman to intervene once more, but from the corner of
my eye I could tell he, too, was waiting for someone else to take the
initiative. Before I knew why, or even how, I had risen to face the rangy man.
It was instinctive, the thinking,
reasoning part of the brain had been overcome by some autonomic drive. No one
was more surprised than me. We stood eye to eye over the small table, for the
briefest moment my leg brushed the table's rim and the small glass of Pernod
trembled. We stared on some more and then he looked back to the woman and
turned down the corners of his mouth, revealing a jagged, uneven row of teeth.
He muttered, something in a Slavic tongue again, it was beneath his breath and
cut off abruptly by a sudden turn towards the bar as he strutted across the
open floor, all the way towards the door. A few customers in the bar followed
his brisk steps; he may have been muttering still. I watched him all the way.
As he went he loosened the buttons on his double-breasted jacket and ran an
open palm along his thick hairline. At the exit he turned and, swivelling on
his heels, he spat in our direction; he looked like an angry snake spraying its
venom.
I apologised to the barman – I still
heard the door
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