Paris, 1921
A short story
Paris felt empty. Like an old suit of clothes still worn after losing so much weight, it just didn’t fit around the people the way it used to. How could it? The war killed so many and the flu decimated the rest.
Everything was cheap and that made it perfect for his purposes.
He was going to be a writer.
“There’s no water closet?” she asked, looking around their new, spartan flat.
“No, just the bucket.”
“I think we can afford better.”
“At the moment, perhaps, but if things stay the same and I’m not able to publish quickly or you can’t sell paintings, we’ll run out of money and end up in an even worse place.”
The room was little more than a box with a few sticks of furniture, a bed, and a bedpan. Coarse curtains, envious green, covered a window that looked out over a narrow, cobblestone street. In the evenings they opened the windows and the remnants of an autumn breeze waved the curtains like flags and the sound of absence outside filled their apartment, a constant reminder of the wounded metropolis.
Mornings gave him a choice. Did he lie there with her, their legs intertwined like creeping ivy, her sleeping head resting gently on his chest? Or did he sneak out to make his way to the café where…
