20
“Tell me what happened after you watched the two of them on TV.”
“I paced around my apartment for a while. Then, at midnight, just when I thought I was going to snap, I picked up the phone and called you. I had no idea you’d be ringing my doorbell the next day, but I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you.”
“I came as fast as I could. You might recall doing the same for me, way back when.”
“Way back when, I only had to cross town.”
“You look awful, man.”
“Are you on your own, or have you got Lauren stashed away in your bag?”
“Why don’t you make me some coffee instead of just standing there blabbering?”
Arthur stayed with Paul for ten days, during which their friendship rekindled something like happiness in Paul’s heart.
In the mornings, they ate breakfast at Moustache’s café and chatted. In the afternoons, they strolled around Paris. Paul bought all sorts of useless objects—kitchen utensils, knickknacks, clothes he would never wear, books he would never read, and gifts for his godson. Arthur tried to curb his sudden shopaholic tendencies, but to no avail.
They had dinner at La Clamada two nights in a row.
Arthur found the food delicious and Daisy charming.
During one of these meals, Paul explained the bizarre, crazy plan that was occupying his mind. Arthur warned him of the dangers he would face. Paul could easily imagine the consequences, but he had no choice. It was the only way for him to reconcile the past, for both his job and his conscience.
“The day I saw Eun-Jeong at the Book Fair,” he said, “it was a long time before either of us could even get a word out. And then she started trying to justify her actions, which of course hadn’t done me any real harm, nor would they in the future. Thanks to her, I experienced fame and earned quite a bit of money, while she got to use my name to tell her story. A story that would never have been read beyond the borders of South Korea, because no one else cared about the fate of her people. In the end, everyone was a winner. All the same, I couldn’t just accept that I’d been living off her work. And even aside from the money, I was truly fascinated by her courage and her determination. She told me everything. How she would use her stays in Paris as a front in order to visit her networks. She swore her feelings for me were sincere, even though deep down she does love another man, a prisoner of the regime she’s struggling against. You probably think I should have put her in her place, but let me tell you, she was magnificent. And most of all, for the first time in months, I felt free. I wasn’t in love with her anymore. It wasn’t seeing her again that made me realize that, and it wasn’t discovering the truth about her, either. It was Mia . . . all Mia. When we said good-bye, I swore to myself that I would rewrite Kyong’s story, partly to reveal it to the world. And, I admit, perhaps partly to prove to myself that I could write it better than she could. My editor doesn’t know anything about this yet, and I can only imagine the look on his face when he cracks open that manuscript. But I’ll do everything I can to make him publish it.”
“Are you planning on telling him the truth?”
“No, I won’t tell a soul. You’re the only one who can know. Don’t even mention it to Lauren.”
At the end of the meal, Daisy joined them. They drank to life, friendship, and the promise of all the happiness yet to come.
Arthur went back to San Francisco. Paul took him to the airport and solemnly swore that he would come and visit his godson, now that he was barely afraid of flying anymore—just as soon as he’d finished his book.
Arthur left feeling reassured. Paul was in top form, and the only thing that mattered to him at that moment was his novel.
Paul worked relentlessly. He only stopped to visit Moustache’s café, and occasionally La Clamada.
One evening, while he and Daisy were sitting on a bench chatting, a caricaturist came by with a drawing.
Paul looked at it for a long time. It was a picture of a couple, seen from behind, sitting on the very bench he and Daisy were on at present.
“It’s from the summer,” the caricaturist told him. “That’s you, on the right. It’s nearly Christmas, so consider it my gift to you.”
As he was leaving, the caricaturist brushed Daisy’s hand, and she smiled at him with an air of mischief.
Two months later, as he was writing out the final lines of his novel, Paul got a call from Daisy. It was late at night, but she urged him to come as quickly as he could.
Paul detected a thrill in her voice that convinced him she’d heard from Mia.
In order to avoid getting stuck in traffic, he took the métro and then ran up Rue Lepic. He passed the Moulin de la Galette, panting and sweating despite the bitter cold. He burst into La Clamada, his lungs on fire, exultant, sure she would be there.
But the place was empty except for Daisy, who was standing behind the bar.
“What’s going on?” he asked, sitting down on a stool.
Daisy continued wiping glasses.
“I won’t tell you I talked to her recently, because that wouldn’t be true.”
“I don’t understand.”
“If you keep quiet, I’ll be able to tell you what I know. But first, let me make you a little cocktail. You look like you need it.”
Daisy took her time. She waited until he’d drunk it. The drink was so strong that Paul felt a sort of instant intoxication.
“Damn, that’s powerful!” he coughed.
“They used to give this drink to people who’d been lost in the Alps at night. Something to tear them from the jaws of death.”
“Tell me what you know, Daisy.”
“It isn’t much, but it’s something . . .”
She walked over to the cash register and took out a manila envelope, which she placed on the countertop. Paul was about to pick it up when she grabbed his hand.
“Wait, I have something else to bring up first. Do you know who Creston is?”
Paul remembered Mia mentioning the name in Seoul, talking about him as if he were a close friend—without, of course, ever revealing his true role in her life. He had even felt a little jealous.
“He’s her agent. Or rather, he was,” Daisy went on. “We have something in common, he and I, but it has to remain a secret, in case things work out one day.”
“What does that mean, ‘things work out’?”
“Shut up and let me finish. Creston and I have both taken her absence pretty hard. Initially I thought he was just hurting financially, but that’s not the case.”
“How do you know all this?”
“He was here last night. It’s always kind of strange, putting a face to a name. I thought he would look like one of those old English farts with a bowler hat and an umbrella . . . but he was nothing like the cliché. He’s in his fifties, very handsome, with a bone-crushing handshake. I like that. A firm handshake like that says a lot about a man. Your grip is like that, too. Anyway, he dined here alone last night. He waited until he’d paid the bill and the room was empty before he spoke to me. That was a classy move; if I had known who he was, I would never have allowed him to pay. In fact, I was the one who approached him. It’s possible he wouldn’t have even introduced himself if I hadn’t. As he was my last customer, I went to ask him if he’d enjoyed his meal. He hesitated for a moment, and then simply said: ‘Your scallops are outstanding. Now I understand why she was so in love with this place.’ He handed me this envelope, and when I opened it I understood what it was. He hasn’t heard from Mia in months himself. She only called once, to tell him she wanted to sell her apartment and everything in it, but she refused to say a word about where she was. When Creston saw the moving vans taking away her things, he went to the auction house to buy them back. He got everything. She was his protégée, you see. He couldn’t stand the idea of a stranger sitting at her desk or sleeping in her bed. All Mia’s furniture and belongings are currently in a storage unit on the outskirts of London.”
“So what’s in the envelope?” Paul demanded, nerves on edge.
“Be patient, just listen. He came to spend a night in a place she loved. I can’t blame him for that; if you only knew how long I’ve spent staring at the table where we used to eat together, or at her bench on Place du Tertre. I’ll let you in on a secret. I only give our table to customers when the restaurant is completely packed. Sometimes I even turn people away and leave it empty, because every night since she left, I’ve dreamt that she’ll walk through that door, asking if I have scallops on the menu.”
Paul couldn’t wait any longer. Without asking Daisy’s permission, he tore open the envelope. Inside were three photographs.
They had been taken from a distance, probably from the seating area of the restaurant that ran the length of the Carrousel du Louvre. People were lined up in front of the pyramid. Daisy pointed out one of the faces.
“She knows how to alter her appearance until she’s almost unrecognizable—I don’t need to tell you that—but Creston has no doubt: the woman in the middle of the crowd is her.”
Paul peered at the photograph, his heart racing. Daisy was right: no one would have recognized her, but they both knew it was Mia.
He felt a huge sense of relief when he saw the dimples on her cheeks. When they were in Seoul, he’d noticed that her dimples always appeared whenever she was truly happy. He asked Daisy how Creston had obtained the pictures.
“Creston has contacts in the paparazzi circuit. Sometimes, he pays an even-higher price than the newspapers to keep her photos out of print. For Seoul, he was too late to make a difference. Anyway, he told all the photographers he knew—and he knows quite a few—that he would pay top dollar for a photograph of Mia, wherever it was taken, as long as it was dated. And yet, these were sent to him free of charge.”
Paul was about to ask Daisy if he could have one, when she gave them to him.
“She must have started a whole new life,” Paul said.
“She’s alone, isn’t she? Why do you seem so hurt, if she’s all alone?”
“Because . . . it hurts to have even a shred of hope.”
“You dummy! Not having hope is what makes people miserable. She was in Paris and she didn’t even come see me. That means she was on her own. Rebuilding her life. Creston received these photos a week ago. That’s why he decided to go looking for her. Before turning up here, he spent two days wandering around Paris, with the crazy idea that he might just bump into her on a street corner. The English really are mad! But you and I are here every day, so who knows . . . maybe with a little luck . . .”
“How do we know she’s still here?”
“Trust your instincts. If you really love her, you’ll be able to hear her heart beating . . . somewhere out there.”
Daisy was right. Paul didn’t know if it was just his imagination, or the powerful sense of hope he was trying in vain to ignore, but in the following weeks, he sometimes caught the scent of Mia’s perfume on street corners, as if she were walking ahead of him and he’d just missed her. Whenever it happened, he would quicken his pace, sure that he would see her around the next corner. He even found himself calling out to strangers and walking around at night, looking up at illuminated windows and half expecting to see her.
His novel was published. Or rather, Kyong’s story, which he had entirely rewritten, was published. It was the first time he had moved beyond the realm of fiction. Each night, he asked himself the same questions: Had he turned truth into fiction? Had he over-embellished or dramatized her story? He was aware of having given flesh and blood to Eun-Jeong’s characters. Where she had been content to list their trials and tribulations, tragic as they were, Paul had described their actual lives, portraying their suffering and their deepest emotions. He had done what any writer must do when he takes hold of a story he did not invent.
The press, too, took hold of the story. As soon as it was published, it provoked a whirlwind of interest that Paul couldn’t comprehend. Maybe it was just a passing trend, but at a time when everyone still wanted to believe in the virtues of individual freedom, turning a blind eye to the tightening noose beyond the borders of the East, ignoring the growing influence of dictators seeking shelter behind the power of national economies they had simply pocketed, a story denouncing what was undeniably a dictatorship hit a nerve and helped raise awareness. Paul was happy to accept this idea, especially as he did not take any personal credit for the book. In his eyes, it was all due to Eun-Jeong and her incredible courage.
The reviews were glowing, and Cristoneli’s desk piled up with interview requests. Paul refused them all.
For the first time, Paul saw his name on the cover of a book in the bestseller pile. He even found it in the self-declared temples of fashionable thinking.
And then rumors of a literary-prize nomination began to buzz in the corridors of his publishers’ offices.
Cristoneli took him out to lunch more and more often. He spoke of society events in Paris, opening his Moleskine diary and taking on a serious expression as he listed the cocktail parties and soirées where it was crucial Paul make an appearance. Paul avoided them all, and after a while stopped listening to the messages on his answering machine.
All the noises around him seemed to echo as if bouncing off the walls of an empty apartment.
It was six weeks before he saw Cristoneli again, this time at Café de Flore.
People stared at him, smiles of admiration or envy on their faces. But that evening, Cristoneli ordered champagne before announcing that about thirty foreign publishers had acquired the rights to his novel.
How ironic: his translator’s story would now be translated into thirty languages. As Cristoneli toasted this triumph, Paul could not help but wonder what Eun-Jeong would think. He had not been in touch with her at all since the book fair in Seoul.
Paul’s mind remained elsewhere, despite the celebration. He was going to have to brace himself, however, because it was only the beginning.