Lynne

She looked like an elven queen: a long green skirt; a yellow shirt, adorned with lace and fluttering in the wind; a flower crown; no shoes. For five minutes she stood on the pedestal at the square of St. Bartholomew, where the statue of the saint used to stand before the French revolution. She observed a white cloud that leisurely passed above us. It looked like a dragon, ready to eat the smaller clouds in front, then changed into an elephant, and then into a heart. She didn’t notice the kids that were chasing the pigeons next to her, the two old men who were playing chess, or the vendor in the crêpe stand who filled the piazza with the aroma of chocolate.

After the cloud had dissipated and the pigeons had flown to the other side of the square, she raised her hands and started dancing. Her movements were slow, as if she was moving under water. She smiled and her fingers caressed the air, like she was Snow White fondling the dwarfs. A moment later, as if recognizing the witch, her eyes became serious.

The old men started another chess game, the kids ran to the other side of the piazza, a priest exited the church and hurried away. She looked so fragile, so lonely, so sad. In my mind, her closed eyes conceded her solitude at home. Her flowing hands were swans flying to a warm country in the autumn. Her green skirt was her wish to roll on fresh herbs with friends.

The more I looked at her, moving gracefully on the pedestal, the more I realized she had been the lady meant for me. The courage to expose herself to a stranger, to be completely vulnerable and reveal her deepest secrets, drew me to her, made me want to tell her about my difficulties at home and my fears from leaving it and going to college.

I got my guitar out of its case and started playing a tune. I tried to make the music match her dance, twirl around her hands. I felt that she adapted her movements to the music, slowed down when I slowed down, picked up the pace when I put in more energy in the tones. It was like we were connected with unseen cords; my fingers moved her limbs, and her movements moved my heart.

After ten minutes, or maybe ten hours, she stopped dancing. She stood erect, her white skin shining in the sun. Her gaze was fixed on the church, and she watched carefully each statue that decorated the façade of the old building. When she was done, she climbed down the pedestal, nodded towards me, and started walking away.

“Wait,” I called.

She ignored me.

“Wait!”

No response.

I strummed the guitar. She stopped and turned.

“Hi,” I said, “I am Tom.”

She pointed at her ears and shook her head.

“Je suis enchantée, je m’appelle Lynne.”

Her voice was deep, as if coming from the depth of the sea. Her smile filled me with joy, and her bright eyes pulled me to her. The world disappeared behind an invisible curtain that silenced the giggles of the kids and the shouts of the crêpe vendor.

I tried to collect the basic French that I had learned during my stay in France.

“Voulez-vous boire du café où du thé ?”

“Tu es gentil, Tom,” she said, “demain, peut-être.”

She vanished into a narrow alley, between a pâtisserie and a fashion boutique. The following day she did not show up. Nor the one that followed. For a week I’ve been waiting in the square with my guitar, next to the naked pedestal of the saint who was tortured to death in Armenia. Every day I hoped that she would show up, and every evening I lost another part of my innocence. At the end of the week I left for Amsterdam, and two months later, my grand tour of Europe was over, and I started my undergraduate studies.

“This is how my youth ended,” I finished telling Ryan, my son, about the first real disappointment of my life. “I am glad that yours did not end with a broken heart.”

“That’s it?” he asked, “an adolescent with whom you exchanged ten words and left your life even before entering it.”

If I could only explain the connection that the music created between us, the knowledge that that dance could have lasted forever, the dreams that made my sleep pleasant throughout the years, his own mother saying, before she moved out, that she felt I’ve never been entirely with her.

“Yes,” I said.

“No moral?”

If you find your true love, don’t let it go, even for a single night, I wanted to say. But he would dismiss the event. “Ten words,” he would repeat himself, “ten words is not love, dad.”

“No moral,” I finally said. “Sometimes, incidental encounters scorch your soul and change the course of your life, yet they have no moral.”

“And then we do not share them with others.”

What could I say? That each one of my memories is a piece of my personality, and hence a piece of his personality as well? That I am glad to share those memories with the ones I love? He would roll his eyes and think that his father’s experiences are as interesting as last year’s snow.

 * * *

Five years have passed. Ryan had graduated, found a job as a salesperson in a large company, and travelled the world selling all sorts of machines. One day he called me.

“Dad, you wouldn’t believe what happened,” he said. “I’m visiting a potential customer in Fougères. After our meeting we went to a restaurant in the main city square. When the waiter brought the aperitif, an old woman climbed the pedestal in the square and started dancing. I asked my host who she was. He told me the legend of the countess de Grie. Apparently, her grandfather had been a minister, and the family lived at a large estate on the outskirts of town. The countess was deaf yet energetic, and as a girl she used to spend her time in the fields and in town. Her grandfather didn’t like her adventures, and tried to keep her locked in the estate, but she always succeeded in running away from her guardians. They say that every afternoon she came to this square and danced on the pedestal.

“One day, a young tourist came to town, and played the guitar while she was dancing. They exchanged a few words and then she left.

“When the girl’s guardian told the grandfather what had happened, the grandfather ordered the girl to stay in the house. The legend says that he commanded the servants to lock the doors and windows of the mansion.”

A tear left my eye, as I thought of the distress our short chat had caused Lynne.

“The poor tourist waited for her next to the pedestal day and night. The expectant tunes he was playing in the first days changed into mournful hymns. At the end of the week, he smashed his guitar on the pedestal and disappeared. Nobody knows what happened between the girl and her grandfather, but since that day he never prevented her from leaving the house, and she had never missed a single dance.”

I remembered the beggar who hosted me company during that week, the priest who brought us a hot bowl of broth at midnight, the moment I realized that Lynne will never come again, the guitar crashing on the stone, the panic of the beggar during my trance of violence, the priest who came running and hugged me, the long march to the train station while I was still hoping that Lynne would miraculously appear, the never-ending trip to Amsterdam, my first grass cigarette.

“This is how it happened,” I sighed. “Did you talk to her?”

“I am sorry, dad, I couldn’t. Her gestures made me think of a bird who looks in vain for an island in the middle of the ocean. And I am not an island, I am a vagabond.”

“Are you still in Fougères?”

“Yes.”

“Tomorrow, can you purchase a flower bouquet and give them to the countess? And tell her that Tom has never forgotten her.”

“Sure. Something else?”

“No, that will be all. I love you, son.”

“Love you, dad. Bye.”

I disconnected the call, switched to explorer, and googled “flights to Paris”.