February 13th

This story originally appeared in my collection ‘Stop Coming to My House’, which is available here.

It’s like every day at the Sacré Cœur. In between the many tourists, professional womanizers are stalking ladies from all over the world. On Place Saint-Pierre at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the cathedral, next to the merry-go-round, street vendors are trying to sell plastic toys from China to tourists from Michigan and Wales. The sun is shining, and from the square in front of the cathedral I can see the skyscrapers of La Défense in the distance.

I notice a beautiful woman among all those people, leaning against the balustrade nearby and taking pictures of Paris with a small camera. Her red hair is long, growing over her waist, and she’s wearing only black. A black coat, black trousers, black sneakers. Apparently she’s alone, as three of the womanizers try to chat her up and no rugby-playing Ivy League boyfriend appears to push them away. She ignores the men and after a while they leave her alone, and she continues taking pictures. If someone would talk to her now, not acting as crude as the locals and maybe showing some wit, and as it’s a beautiful winters day in Paris, this might actually work. Like in the movies. Stranger meets stranger in Paris, she’s from Vancouver and he’s from Dortmund, but they hit off and she laughs about his stupid jokes, so they decide to have a coffee, and dinner later. It’s the evening of Valentine’s Day in the City of Lights, and later that night they have sex in his small hotel room in Montmatre, in a small room with PVC flooring that reeks of disinfectant. The next day her plane leaves from Charles-de-Gaulle airport and his train departs from Gare du Nord. Whatever happens next, if they meet again and in the end he moves from Germany to Canada; or if they never see each other again — those hours in Paris will always seem like a daydream, one of those strange but beautiful occurrences that life has in store, sometimes.

I ask her for a lighter, in English, and she answers ‘Sure, here.’

She looks at my face while I’m lighting my cigarette, her blue eyes wide open, looking interested. It seems she is waiting for me to say something else. But I don’t know what, so I hand her back the lighter and walk down the stairs towards the merry-go-round.

That evening I buy the cheapest red wine I can find, one that comes in a plastic bottle.