I felt a violent mood swing coming on.
She and Ivan were going to visit his family in Russia for a while maybe six months or longer but when we said goodbye we arranged to meet again in exactly one year not on top of the Eiffel Tower but on the side & see if anything’s changed. She said I love you again & I tried to take her at her word & after we said goodbye I walked aimlessly feeling like my heart had swung open briefly then shut before I had a chance to see what was inside. I walked for a couple of hours wanting desperately to cry on someone’s shoulder but when I reached the Seine the sight of Eddie my only friend made me protective of my secret.
– Where have you been? You’re late.
– The boat isn’t here yet, is it?
– No he said absently gazing out upon the silent Seine.
One day I think history will judge me badly or worse accurately.
Night
It’s night now & am watching Astrid sleep & am thinking of van Gogh. When he was fired from an early job he wrote When an apple is ripe a soft breeze will make it fall from a tree.
Love is like that. Love was inside banked up & has poured out at
Maybe Caroline’s tacit rejection of me had the same effect on my love for Astrid as the cooling of the universe had in aiding the formation of matter. & who would have guessed the heart is spacious enough to love not one but two people at once? Maybe three? Maybe I can love my son too.
The End!
This is the end!
Everything has changed drastically & permanently. Last big change- life will never be same again.
It started ordinarily enough. Was in Shakespeare & Co. bookshop leafing through secondhand paperbacks when I heard a voice Hey Céline!
A familiar voice, a familiar ugliness. The Alaskan husky striding toward me not slowing down the way people normally do but walking at full speed stopping abruptly an inch from my face.
– I’ve been looking for you. Don’t go to the pier tonight, he said.
– Why not?
– Have you finished Journey yet?
– Not yet, I lied.
– Shit’s going down tonight. I can’t say any more than that.
– Go on.
– OK. We’re going to blow your boat out of the water.
– Why?
– You’re our rivals.
– Not me. I don’t even know what’s in those crates.
– That’s why you shouldn’t show up.
Ran around all afternoon trying to find Eddie & wrote notes & left them for him everywhere at his house at his favorite restaurant with his barber. Notes all identicaclass="underline"
Stay away from work tonight. They’re going to blow up the boat into a trillion pieces.
Even left note at my house on the kitchen table for Astrid telling her to pass on message should she see Eddie. She wasn’t home. Why was I so terror-stricken that Eddie might die? Friendships are an unforeseeable burden.
At 4 went to a movie then passed by Eddie’s place once more on my way home but he wasn’t there & when I came home I opened the door to see him sitting in my kitchen a beer in his hand as though it were just an average day tho I spotted gaps in his tireless optimism. I caught him sighing wearily.
– You just missed Astrid, he said.
– I looked all over for you today. What a business you got me into!
– Back pain again? Anyway, I thought we’d walk together.
– What do you mean? Didn’t Astrid tell you about the note?
– No, she said she was going down to the Seine.
I stood thinking for a few seconds before I got it. I looked at my watch. 7:40.
Left baby w/ Eddie & ran out of house & along wet pavement covered in a frosty sweat. Stumbling, I hurled myself toward the mighty Seine.
Suddenly I could see her just up ahead. A little thing in a black dress she was ducking & weaving in & out of streetlamps’ pools of light a willowy figure slipping into darkness and out again. Of course she’s crazy I know this I know she wants to kill herself in original fashion she’s been looking for. She’s running to do it- that makes sense. No one saunters to her own death. You don’t keep Death waiting like that. You don’t dawdle.
I lose her & then see her again running along bank of the Seine. Streetlamps cover the river in glitters. Boat’s chugging in. Above I see the Alaskan hiding behind a wall. He holds up a grenade w/ one hand and shoos me away w/ the other. Boat docks & our guys tie it up to the pier. Three Arab men come running down pistols blazing & grenades in hands. Astrid jumps on the boat. They yell at her but she ignores them & the killers don’t know what to do. They don’t want to kill a civilian, no extra money in it.
She’s on the boat refusing to move.
One of the men sees me. Takes a shot & I duck down behind the stone wall.
A siren.
The men consult each other in guttural screams. No time to lose. It’s now or never. I look up at Astrid & her face is small & colorless & braced for death. Her whole face contracted like expecting boat’s explosion to be nothing but loud pop.
– Astrid! Get out of there! I scream.
She looks up & smiles at me eloquently conveying the message that the lacerating misery of her life is taking its final bow. There was an adios in that smile, it was no au revoir.
A second later the boat went up in a series of little explosions. Just like Terry’s suggestion box. Astrid in the middle of it, a wholly unique suicide. Pieces of her everywhere. On the bank. In the Seine. She couldn’t be more scattered if she’d been dust.
People gaping, terribly excited to have witnessed my tragedy.
I walked home leaving Astrid in a million little pieces. No one looked at me. I was unlookable. But from every face I asked forgiveness. Every face was a link in a chain of faces, in one face broken up. Regrets came up & asked me if I’d like to own them. Declined them for the most part but took a few just so I wouldn’t leave this relationship empty-handed. NEVER would’ve imagined that the dénouement of our love affair would be Astrid blown up into bits. I mean metaphorically maybe.
Never imagined she would ACTUALLY EXPLODE.
Death is full of surprises.
Under the arch I stop & think The baby! Am now sole caregiver me cursed & unclean w/ soul like forgotten limb on battlefield. Thought for first time maybe I should go back to Australia. Suddenly & for no good reason I missed my sun-beaten countrymen.