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After Midnight
Paris is a lamp for lovers hung in the wood of the world.
James Joyce
Hand in hand, Claire and Ronan walked down rue de Rivoli as far as the Hôtel de Ville, then cut across the square to walk along the quays. They stood on Pont des Arts and watched a fairy-lit tour boat glide under the bridge. An accordionist playingbal musettegave them a nod from below. In the wake of the boat, a trail of heart-shaped linden leaves floated on the water, like green and gold confetti. The lights on the Eiffel Tower glimmered for a bit, then shone steady, then glimmered again, then went dark.
‘It goes out?’ asked Claire, taken by surprise.
Ronan wrapped his arm around her shoulders. ‘Energy saving measures,’ he said.
* * *
It was after 2am when they crossed to Place du Carrousel, the courtyard of the Louvre. Holding three sides of the courtyard, the museum was still dimly lit. The view from the open side extended all the way to the Arc de Triomphe. Like a toy in the distance, it stood at the head of parallel rivers of car lights, white on the left, red on the right – the opposite of home. Right in front of them, the glass pyramid shone as if it was the final destination at the end of a fantastical game, as if it had been waiting for them all along.
They walked around the pyramid, then sat on an ancient stone bench beneath an old-fashioned street lamp. Claire put her head down on Ronan’s shoulder and closed her eyes. Her head was swirling. Too much booze, she thought, drawing oxygen into her lungs. She could feel her brain attempting to process the day, landing on a scene, replaying snippets of conversation, moving on, and all of that playing on one reel while her conscious self listened to the persistent rumble of traffic on the quays, smelled something floral on the night air, felt the rise and fall of her husband’s chest.
‘Ro.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Can we talk?’
His breathing stopped. A beat. ‘Of course.’
‘Why did you want that picture with Mabel? I mean, why did you want it taken?’
‘It’s hard to explain.’
She didn’t say anything.
He was quiet for a long moment before going on. ‘You see, I was just so proud of her. I know that’s weird.’
‘It’s not.’
‘No?’
‘No. I don’t think so. I felt proud of her, too.’
‘I think I wanted some sort of evidence that I was a father. Does that make sense?’
‘It does.’
‘It’s not that I thought I’d forget, but I sort of thought I might not be able to tell, later on, what was real. It was so .?.?.’
‘Nightmarish?’
‘I was going to say dreamlike. It wasn’t all bad.’
‘I know. That was the hardest thing. For me, I mean.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘It’s that I was completely overwhelmed by this great big wave of good feelings for her – you know, like a horrible, unstoppable euphoria. It just bubbled up inside of me like a flood coming out of a burst pipe, and it wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t make it stop no matter how sad I was. No matter how dead she was. I just kept feeling this – not joyful, but sort of glowing feeling.’
‘Love.’
‘Yeah.’
