Mélanie

32, Paris, France

The first time I met Mélanie, her hair was red. She and her boyfriend had rushed into our apartment on Saint-Denis to hide from the snowstorm that had covered Montreal. She sat on the chair near the balcony of our tiny kitchen.

She spoke French with a warm accent that matched her hair. “Do you mind if I smoke?” she asked pulling a pack of Du Maurier from her handbag. She lit her cigarette, aiming the smoke at the open window, and untied her long straight hair. Behind her, snowflakes were swirling around the halo of a street lamp, fighting their way through the openings in the walls of our cracked building.

Sitting across the kitchen table, the only thing that had prevented me from falling in love with her was my girlfriend sitting next to me, and her boyfriend sitting next to her. “You could never kiss a smoker,” I consoled myself.

The only world in which I could date her was one that I created — a story of art and revolution I never finished.

Seven years later, her hair was now white, hit by the cold winter sun on a Parisian terrace. I was married and so was she.

“We’re divorced,” she said looking at the bottom of her glass. “Michel left me six months ago for another woman.” I looked at her, surprised. She looked away.

The waiter came to take our order but we sent him away. We had barely glanced at the menu. I tried to understand how her husband, a former classmate of mine, could have left her. He was an average guy, trying to pass for more. I was dying for more details, but Mélanie pulled a forced smile and changed subject. Eventually, the tear in the corner of her eye slid along her cheek, drying up before her chin. An ocean away from her family, in a country she had moved to for a husband that had left her, Mélanie’s sparkling eyes were now empty, aimed straight at the lamp post, or the garbage bin. “This year was a bit rough,” she said.

The documentaries she had produced this same year had been remarkably successful, and the thought of Michel’s supposed suffering at the sight of her name on TV shows and street posters appeased me.

She pulled her purse and a smile from her handbag and gave a few coins to a street accordionist.

“Madam, Sir,” the waiter interrupted moments later, “I’m afraid you can’t stay here. The protest changed route and they’re coming this way. All terraces have to close.”

Mélanie’s face lit up. She picked up her handbag and pulled me inside the restaurant, now full at twice its capacity. We sat at the bar and ordered two beers that came in plastic cups. She pulled a camera from her bag and laid it on the bar.

“Are you expecting something?” I asked. “Always,” she said playing with the settings of her camera.

Minutes after, everyone froze at the sound of two loud bangs. The alarms of cars parked near the restaurant went off. People inside stopped eating, trying to peek through the tinted windows. The owner locked the front door, shouting into his phone. “I don’t know,” he screamed, “everyone is locked inside”. Outside, people were running in random directions through a dense cloud of smoke that started covering the street.

“Open the door!” one person screamed knocking on the door. “Open!” another one shouted. The loud banging sound, combined with the noise inside the crowded space, scared me. “Unlock the goddamn door!” one of the customers inside shouted.

The waiter who asked us to come inside rushed to the door and unlocked it. In an instant, a coughing crowd rushed inside the room, followed by a thick grey cloud. Tear gas was everywhere.

Mélanie grabbed her camera, tied her scarf around her face and walked against the stream of people, towards the open door. “Come!” she shouted at me.

Outside, we ran as fast as we could, away from the cloud of smoke. Riot cops were blocking side streets, hitting their shields with their batons in a slow and steady drumroll. In this confusion, I lost her. I hid inside a pharmacy, trying to buy ear drops. I could barely open my eyes.

I staggered outside, calling her name. Street Medics, wearing white lab coats with hand-painted red crosses, were running towards the crowd, carrying oxygen masks and first aid kits. The crowd was running everywhere, both towards and away from the riot cops, who stood in formation, shouting “back off” to passersby. It was impossible to distinguish demonstrators from shoppers taken in the crossfire.

One demonstrator, wearing a yellow vest and a black mask, picked up a cobblestone stone and threw it high towards the riot police. One cop fell flat on the floor and was dragged away.

All hell broke loose.

“Mélanie!” I called one last time hoping she was ok. “Here!” she shouted back.

There, in the middle of this chaos, she was waving at me with her camera, masked by her blue scarf and wearing pink swimming goggles. Another loud bang to my right made me jump. When I looked again in her direction, she was kneeling on one knee, aiming her camera at me.

For a moment, time stopped. Despite the chaos, I posed. In this black and white street revolution, her hair was red again.

Meet more Portraits in Motion