Lonely Sunday in Paris by Eduard Schmidt-Zorner

On a late Sunday afternoon, after a date, I leave a house in Rue Gaston Gallimard.

The cobwebbed stairwell gives off the smells of a mixture of musty air, dusty stonework, fragrance, and exotic vegetables and herbs.  

Stepping onto the street, I have the feeling of leaving a sinking ship. Behind me is guilt, inner turmoil, and ambivalence, the street sinks into the silence of the incoming darkness. I walk down to the near banks of the Seine, pass the house on Quai Voltaire where Lagerfeld lived with his love Jacques de Bascher.

The setting orange sun sinks behind the Île de la Cité and envelopes me in a mood of melancholy, of finality, but also of security.

Last night I was startled by a dream in which I found myself in this bright, warm city and was suddenly afraid of waking up in the street where I had spent my childhood and youth.  Everything in me resisted the notion to return to that place. I woke up drenched in sweat.

Walking along the Seine, I see lonely men and women looking across to the other side as if they could get answers to their questions from there.

I often stood there and stared over to the island in the river.

What is a lonely brooding man or woman looking for in the water?

For something which got lost?

Surely, they will not jump into the water. Why should they? Worries, lovesickness, shame, inner conflict?

Should I ask them? Say, that life is beautiful? But that would be a cheap lie and a platitude. Perhaps they expect to be grabbed by the arm and pulled back. “Sir…Madam… do not do it. Do not run away from your life and destiny.”

“But is there any point?”

One may be laughed at. Find it an intrusion.

I turn away and walk on. I may never know if one of these jumped into the Seine or just finished their cigarette, and continued walking home.

There is no wind, but the plane- and horse chestnut trees rustle along the river which flows in deep grey-green. Time stands still on Sundays. On lonely Sundays.

I cross the Pont d’Arcole through the narrow lanes of the Marais, passing by libraries, wine shops, cafes, and bars. I think of Yves Saint Laurent. In these side streets, he acted out his desire in black dungeons, indulging pain, and new lust in a mist of alkyl nitrite and drugs.

The cracks in the plaster are like mysterious writings known only to those who can read between the lines. Moss lends green punctuation marks to the secret scriptures which speak of weird dreams. Street lanterns cast a dim light on the uneven cobblestone pavement. I am watching my steps. Silence surrounds me, only broken by music fluttering from a distance.

Something led me into this quarter. Was it the music in the background that ignites my thoughts, or was it providence, thoughts materializing in the subconscious?

The melodies come from a Romanian restaurant that I visited years ago. I enter and listen to the violins and cimbaloms performing music that lets the body vibrate.  

The blackboard outside says that Pheasant and wild duck with polenta and potato dumplings on sauerkraut simmered in white wine is served here.

My eyes adjust to the light of the many candles. Windows offer views over the street and the barges, which drift by, the chugging sound of boats on the river can be faintly perceived.  

Most of the places are occupied and I take a seat at the bar.

I recognize the woman behind the bar as the young girl who served at the time when I dined here. However, she has aged, black shadows under her big expressive eyes, her hair bound into a braid.

The place awakes sentiments of déjà vu and unsettling nostalgia, I shake off the dream pictures and order a Cardenal Mendoza cognac and smoke a Gauloise.

Somebody nudges me from behind. A woman with golden earrings, piercing eyes, and radiant black hair. The woman behind the bar tells her something in Romani, to ward her off, but she does not take any notice.

“Stranger, I will read your palm and tell you your future.” 

Hesitantly, I stretch my hand towards her, turn my hand and open the palm. The woman takes my hand into her warm soft hands with gold rings on every finger, looks at the lines in my palm, ponders a while, and suddenly looks at me with a deeply sad glance.

“You will never be happy, you are torn between two different directions.”

“What is happiness? We are not born to be happy”, I respond.

She puts a filterless cigarette between her lips ” Can you share the fire with me?” I nod and hold my cigarette to light hers. She disappears in an incredibly dense cloud of smoke, her eyes emerge once more from the smoke like an apparition and glow like a cat’s eyes.

The man next to me, an artist, judging by his appearance, sits in front of a glass of Absinth and addresses me:

“Do not take notice of these clairvoyants, nobody can look into the future. But they can look into your deepest self and tell you stories about yourself that you would not like to reveal, but they do not reveal the fates of those near you and do not give you forewarning.

A friend of mine, a good close friend, died yesterday of cancer. I never knew that he was sick. Why don’t people talk about these things with someone they are close friends with?

“Maybe to keep something to yourself”? I presumed. ” Not to burden others? Perhaps also to hide the suffering, and sorrows from others.

One cannot share suffering, as is often said, one cannot share the pain, and one cannot share sorrow. We are tempted to hide our own secrets, keep them for ourselves.”

“Do you have something to hide”? the man asks me.

“We all have something to hide,” I say.

The woman behind the counter points to a table that became free.
“I’ll set the table for you, just a moment.”

The artist murmurs: “Be careful, she can see your innermost as well, it’s amazing, she recognises all vices and dispositions.”

I sit down and order a small portion of pheasant with polenta.

A young musician starts to play the violin. He is absorbed in his music, and becomes one with his violin. His eyes with long dreamy eyelashes seem to see a parallel world, he wakes the notes from sleep and fiddles them into an exciting arousal.  

The pheasant was delicious and I leave the restaurant to look for a nightclub and a nightcap.

When I step onto the road, I see that the palmist waits at the end of the street.

I near her hesitantly, pass her, and she asks: “Can I help you?”

“No, nobody can help me. We are all alone, circling around ourselves with one foot nailed to the ground.”

“That are the shadows of your inner strife and struggle”, she says.

The stars radiate flickering light. The mercurial moonlight trembles over the Seine.

Dogs are barking. I cannot locate the barking, or where it comes from. Perhaps the sounds are circling through the cool layers of air as a sounding mirage. The space may have stored these sounds since last summer so that we hear them today or in the following century. Similar to the light from the stars that extinguished millions of years ago.    

I arrive at the doorstep of my abode. The light in the concierge’s lodge is switched off, and all windows in the house are dark.

My footsteps echo in the stairwell, I fear waking the neighbours.

A collection of love poetry talking about friendship, spring, and happiness lies open on my table, I like this soothing poetry by my favourite writer, but find it has fallen out of reality.

I write of the disappointed who lament their lovesickness and disappointments in the taverns to one another, of the endless adventures of loners lost in the darkness of the city on the track of sin or thrill.

But I cannot offer a solution. No writer or poet can.

I write about myself, lost in my own forlornness and ambivalence.

About the Author:
Eduard Schmidt-Zorner is a translator and writer of poetry, haibun, haiku, and short stories. He writes in four languages: English, French, Spanish, and German and holds workshops on Japanese and Chinese style poetry and prose and experimental poetry. Member of four writer groups in Ireland. Lives in County Kerry, Ireland, for more than 30 years and is a proud Irish citizen, born in Germany. Published in over 200 anthologies, literary journals, and broadsheets in USA, UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada, Japan, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Austria, France, Bangladesh, India, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, and Nigeria. He also writes under his penname Eadbhard McGowan.