
The Sunshades Are Not What They Seem to Be
“A half-finished love affair is, after all, a half-finished book.”
Mitchell David
We were on a balcony in Paris. On top of a high building overlooking the Seine. We were standing or maybe we were sitting on a bench near the west wall. You didn’t say much at first. You never do actually. You always leave me guessing, reading between the lines reading the silent movement of your lips while you imagine words that you never say.
“The food was good. Lunch.” — you articulated in a still voice.
“Yes.” — I answered although it was not a question it still felt like one. “I enjoyed that very much.”
Or maybe that happened the day before or it was something I imagined. I sometimes fail to differentiate between what was real and what only happened in my head. It does, sometimes, feel like a dream, and sometimes it is one.
You were looking over the rail but somehow I wasn’t able to figure out the aim of your gaze. And then, I am pretty sure, you leaned into me. Your warm back pressed against my left shoulder. And the hair. Lots of it. Suddenly all over the place. I got lost there for a second or two or maybe for eternity. It was prickly and messy and I felt like I wanted to bite through it like I would bite through cotton candy until I reach your neck and then bite in again tasting the salt of your skin. But then the sun came through and I forgot all about it. The last rays of it painting every single one of your hairs gold. Or was that the full moon with its cold silver?
I could feel you inhale and exhale just by the change of the pressure of your spine digging through my shirt and leaving soft, almost invisible marks on the surface of my skin. Marks that are warm but then gone in an instant.
“What’s that?” — you asked still looking over the railing somewhere between the leftmost and the rightmost of the city skyline.
“What’s what?” — I uttered back changing my focus from a dead pigeon decomposing in a far corner of the balcony back to you. It was an unkempt corner if you must know — trash all over the place and it was also closed to visitors with a hanging line of plastic tape prohibiting access with stark words. It was red and white or yellow that safety line with a “Do not pass!” sign printed over it and spaced equally between each iteration of the command. Terrific, right?
“That over there” — you waved over to one of the buildings on the other bank of the Seine, slightly to your left. “The white thing with black spots on it.”
It took me a bit but I located the point of your immediate interest and it looked like an old bedsheet stretched over a tiny balcony like a sunshade would be stretched over there maybe it was like that a makeshift solution for the lack of a better one. Paris is no stranger to poverty and it sometimes climbs even to the very top of the most central of blocks. It was probably put up there quite a while ago that sheet and it was now covered in holes or the shit of other not-dead pigeons. Or maybe it was meant to be like this — with a spotty pattern like those on dalmatian dogs printed on it. To its right was a larger balcony with a brand new and yellow sunshade. Paris is no stranger to riches either. And comparing both — the one you were looking at looked like something sick, something dying.
“I don’t know” — I replied after a short moment. “Looks like a sunshade.”
“All these people with all these sun shades. Is it that bad here? I mean, the sun?” — you followed with another question.
“Probably. Yeah. Or maybe they just want to cover things up. To hide. To remain unseen. Beyond the eyes of you and me and everybody else.”
“You think?”
“Looks like it. If you are at the same level as they are you will be able to see right into their kitchens, and into their living rooms, and even into their bedrooms, right into their lives. So they cover it all up — with sunshades and drapes. And the latter is the better alibi of the two I think. If those were signs or billboards they’d read “We are not hiding from you — just hiding from the sun — keeping the scorch away, not the scorn away.”
You nodded softly pushing your backbone even further into my shoulder. I used my index finger to draw a squiggly shape without any meaning just the meaning of touch through your blouse passing over the backline of your bra. Was it pink I’d wonder? Like a rose-bud. It felt like pink at that very moment. But it was probably black. With black lace all over it.
“The lives of others” — I broke the silence yet again. “Have you seen that movie?”
“No.” — you answered, your reply inviting me to elaborate further with just its simplicity and innocence. And I did even though I knew you’ve seen it. Or maybe that was a different you from a different time?
“It’s about a Gestapo agent spying on people. Not having a life of his own he breathes and feels through the ones he surveils. He’s happy when they’re happy and cries when they cry. It’s a really good movie. It won an Oscar I think. You should see it.”
“Yes. It sounds decent.” — maybe that’s what you said or maybe you just went all silent again.
There were other people on the balcony too. Over there at the north end. A couple clasped together in a corner. Her dress long, red with tiny white dots sprinkled all over the fabric like dandruff or like fresh snow over Santa’s coat. Him wearing a dark blue jacket with a dark blue tie hanging over his pure white shirt. And also two other boys and one other girl smoking and laughing a couple of feet away — between us and the couple. And they were gone soon those three and the other two too, and two elderly women took their places. They had loud voices and occupied a lot of room with their tart dresses and large glasses full of red wine. Like two large dark animals roaring against the sun or moon in a primal bidding. Thankfully the wine was gone soon enough, gone down their large throats. Gone with a loud gargle. And gone were the humongous twilight beasts that carried the wine glasses — gone back to the source of their basic delight.
And then we were alone for a moment and I took a deep breathtaking your smell deep in my lungs and every molecule of your fragrance dissolved in my imagination creating new colours, new textures taking my fantasies in a wild rush from your neck down, over your shoulders, sliding in your armpits and back up again swirling between your breasts and up your neck and then dissolving like champagne foam over the cracks of your lips. And then the stampede started all over again my mind roller coasting over your entire body diving suicidally in the molten core of your aroma, like jumping off the edge of a volcano straight into the lava pit. I was consumed entirely, and I burned from the inside, my cortex melting, my lungs drying up and evaporating into thin air.
“You smell nice.” — I said taking a step back into consciousness or what I thought was consciousness.
You let out a brief laugh.
“Thanks.” — you puffed plainly.
The aftertaste of your scent hit me hard and I got lost in daydreams again. I imagined my body crushing your chest, your stomach, your hips, your knees protruding against the inner brick wall of the balcony. My nails pitting into the dimples of your small back; forearms and bicepses bloodshot pulling you closer and then lifting you above the Seine, and Paris and that there world. Almost like that night in Marakesh when we got high and became a mess of flesh, and sweat, and linen sheets that would stick to our backs and thighs, and in the morning you’d wake up with a drowsy voice hungry and with bright pink sleep lines on your left cheek. Almost like that.
Or maybe I just imagined you and me on one of those rare trips to Bombai giving water to the elephants right before we head east to board a ship from Vladivostok to Osaka.
And when I came back to my senses there were more people left and right, new people. A fine-looking middle-aged man in tight black jeans and white t-shirt the first to grab my attention. His hair brown and combed to one side. His beard and mustache trimmed into a smart Van Dyke. He lit a hand-rolled cigarette and took out a smartphone from his right jeans pocket. And then the world was lost to him or he was lost to the world, not quite sure which. His time was now running with the speed of a hundred small sparks incinerating tobacco and paper and turning those into grey ash and grey smoke. He was done with it all in a minute and was also gone — like the ash was gone between the cracks on the tiles beneath his feet and like the smoke was gone without a trace in the vast atmosphere above our heads.
More people had come by the time he left though. A girl and a boy wandered around and were for a minute fascinated by the deceased pigeon I was telling you about. They were quite soon joined by two other girls and all four drifted towards the railing at the north end thus obscuring our own view over the river and the buildings on its bank and their hidden inhabitants under their sunshades. That wretched white sheet covered in black spots was also lost to us of course. Maybe for the best. The girls leaned with their backs to the outside of the building and the boy leaned forward over the upper part of his torso hanging into the night or day beyond the edge. They were all smoking and gossiping about the people they knew and they had had sex with and would have sex with or hated or loved or didn’t care a tiny bit about. Because that’s what three girls and a boy usually talk about. Right? They all carried champagne glasses and were seldom pointing towards the door through which we had walked onto the balcony and through which you could find a whole other universe.
And we could hear the music of it. Of course, we could. Soft jazz with a deep sax playing our heartstrings to the best of rhythms. Wiping away small talk, and pointless dialogue and faceless people with champagne glasses. Or maybe it was a waltz and we all danced in the middle of a big room with a big glass chandelier above our heads — busy waiters flying around in an effervescent supernova of bodies, and bubbly, and music. And if you would close your eyes you’d feel the static of it all — the music, the people, the universe, and me, and you. But then again, why bother.
I wondered for a bit then if you gave a single fuck about any of it, any of them. And I knew you didn’t but maybe, I wondered, what if you did? Maybe not now of course, maybe later or a couple of centuries ago when we weren’t here and nor was the tall brick building we are on top of, just the Seine and some plains around it. Or not even that.
“Maybe we should go.” — I said without really speaking.
“If you want to.” — your silent reply.
I stood deaf and mute then. For at least an eon. As far as time is concerned every moment lasts as much as either of us wants it to last. Deal? Deal! Not much point of it of course but it makes perfect sense in the grand scale of things. Right? Right!
Of course, I didn’t want to go but it was time. A clock somewhere, probably nearby, had both its hands on the “Time to go” sign or there was a concierge calling everybody back in. Back in the flat on top of the building overlooking the Seine, or back in a tent on the southern shores of the Black Sea, or back in between the four stone walls of the tower on Devil’s Island. Just back to where we came from.
We took the stairs. Because it was now no longer a door there back to a party but a window back to a small room with a single bed with beige sheets on it and my clothes and your clothes and shoes and books all over the floor. And there were stairs leading us through that window to the belly of the large brick structure itself. Just three steps of those but quite enough for a journey back in.
We took the stairs back in and you let out a soft shriek:
“Wait! My shoe is untied!”
As it always was in the morning or during your treks through the Himalayas or on that boat on the Ganges when you were traveling the world with that famous motorbike racer from Italy or Spain or Brazil.
“It’s not an affair.” — you told me then. But, darling, we both well knew it was. It always is. But that’s fine. Because I know we’ll meet again sometime, someplace, or another. And you will then again lean against my shoulder and leave a bunch of one-second creases on my shirt and skin. Of course, it won’t be quite as it is now or it as it were back then. It’s never quite the same. Maybe you’ll be wearing that dark blue dress with pale white dragonflies all over it. Like the one, you wore on the casino steamboat on the Mississippi in 1928. Remember? Or you would have had your hair dyed red and straightened. Or you’d wear heels or sneakers or no shoes at all. But even then you’d lean back into me pressing through my flesh, and bones trying to pierce my heart.
I looked back at you tying your black Chuck Taylors but I was too far ahead to get back to you and help. I waited by the window until you caught up with me. I was still holding the last bits of your warm scent tight in the cavities of my lungs, still feeling the shape of your vertebras on my chest.
“Wouldn’t it have been funny if you had tied my shoes.” — you chirped as you had just read my mind.
“Quite funny.” — I confirmed remembering that I am yet to meet another person who ties their shoes exactly as I do. But I won’t tell you that because you’ll ask me to show you and I don’t quite want to do it right now. But after a brief struggle against that very proposal, I will and you’ll laugh your ass out of course you will as it makes zero fucking sense the way I do it and is completely detached from logic but it is what it is and it might be, yes, “Quite funny.”. But that won’t happen now, not here. Trust me I’ll pick the right time and place for it
And then I was through. Through that gate or window or door. Back to where we came from. And while I was crossing that Rubicon I told you that I had a great time, and I think you told me you had a great time too and you even smiled, maybe. But I was too far ahead and I wasn’t able to distinguish the exact words.
And I didn’t turn back because I had gained momentum and there was no stopping me, no turning me back this time. Like all times I’d just rush ahead and leave you behind. And then there was this sound, like always — the sound of pages rustling back one on top of the other with the hundreds, and then again the hardbacks slamming onto both sides of you and me to finish off what’s left of this story of ours, this time around.
And then I had you whole — my palms firm against your sides and back, not wanting to let go but quite sure I had to. And I lifted you one last time, all hardbacks and pages now, and, of course, memories and fantasies — dark blue with dragonflies all over the fucking place. Right? Was that in Tibet in 1964 or were we simply dodging bullets on the coasts for Normandy in 1944? You’ll tell me. You’ll tell me next time we meet on a balcony in Paris or maybe even in New York. I know you have tickets for that gala next weekend and I might as just follow you there.
Until then I will keep you close. Just an arms-reach away — right there where you always find me and where I always find you — on top of my bookshelf just next to or under or on top of every other you I’ve seen, loved, hated, adored, and, actually read.