Part One is here
and comments go here.

Part III – “… June, he’ll change his tune / In restless walks, he’ll prowl the night…”

Paris (France), June 1991

From the start, this evening had been an unbelievable stupid idea.

If there was something Sandrine hated more than spinach, it was nightclubbing. So, how she found herself in a cramped night club on the rue de Rivoli, on a Saturday night, she couldn’t quite understand.

That same afternoon, Sandrine had finished the last cut of her movie. Her first as a director. She hoped it wouldn’t be her last. She simultaneously felt dead tired and wonderfully elated.

“It calls for a celebration”, Nathalie, her temporary assistant asserted; and then she proceeded to convince Sandrine that one was in order.

As Sandrine already knew, restraining Nathalie’s eloquence was like trying to fend off a hurricane. Her discourse was another instance of her ability to convince even the most reluctant of listeners: Nathalie began her tirade, her speech hasty and her gestures jerky in her haste to persuade.

In the end, Sandrine relented. Anything to make her stop, she thought wearily, when all she dreamed about was to soak in a long warm bath and then, a quiet evening with a book. Sandrine’s two roommates were away, and she wished to make the best use of their common bathroom, and to indulge herself in the peace and quiet.

Conceiving and directing her first feature film had been huge and stressful work, as she knew that her travail d’élève [student’s work] would be a sort of business card, introducing herself to the professional world she wanted to make her own.

The realization that in a few months’ time, she would have to find a job in her field made Sandrine even more eager to grab any occasion she still had for a little R & R. She couldn’t very well count on her French lessons to tide herself over: her schedule and her need for solitary work had had precedence. So, the lessons had been ditched. This was too bad as they did increase her small income… And, honestly, she couldn’t expect her parents to supplement her basic necessities any longer. They had done enough; it was time for her to be on her own.

But her dream-evening was not to be. Even if a blanket of tiredness made her bones ache, Sandrine could not deprive Nathalie, “her” actors and “her” crew of this last collective outing.

Team spirit was a fine thing, and this very evening would put an end to her first venture into directing.

A shrewd part of her mind also knew that if she resisted, she would carve for herself a reputation of aloofness and snobbishness that would not serve her well in her career. Reputations travelled far, even from the Fémis, and she would have to inspire respect as a female director. Being respected without being too familiar; being friendly without inviting insolence. This was like walking a tightrope.

It was now past one in the morning. Standing near the bar, her now warm Diet Coke in her hand, Sandrine surveyed her surroundings. The closely knit crowd that had formed the Fémis people when they arrived, dancing and laughing together, had long since disintegrated. Everyone had scattered along the three floors of the discothèque [nightclub].

Glancing to her right, Sandrine saw that Philippe and Régis were still hanging together, trying half-heartedly to convince a redhead to dance some sort of dislocated-drunken mambo with them. Well, good luck to them! It would not be easy to do that kind of step over R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion”…

The vibrations of the next song invaded Sandrine’s body, the bass so loud that she could almost feel the sound reverberating inside her teeth. It seemed to flow along with the stroboscopic violet, green and yellow lights, to insinuate into the plush couches along the walls, and to glide on the gliding black floors and stairs.

The overall lights were so muted that sometimes, one merely saw the phosphorescent effects of the rotating beams on the white and light-colored clothes of the dancers. From Sandrine’s vantage point, on the top floor, looking down the stairs, it seemed as if all this shadowy dancing humanity were daemonic specters escaped from Murnau’s Faust or Häxan.

Unfortunately, they weren’t as mute as the characters of these silent movies. Suddenly, some of the nearby revelers began to bellow, in what passed for singing:

C'est dans la nuit de Rebecca [This is in Rebecca’s night]
que la légende parti-ra [that the legend wi-ill spread]
à cet instant et à chaque fois [at this instant and every time]
elle voudra le revoir au moins 3 nuits [she’ll want to see him again, at least for three nights]
à cet instant et à chaque fois [at this instant and every time]
ils se donnèrent rendez-vous 3 nuits… [they arranged to meet for three nights]

Their voices screamed louder, even more off-key than before, “Three niiiiiiiiiights…”

Horrified, Sandrine put down her Coke on the counter, covered her ears, and hurried down the stairs. Her head was beginning to pound as fast as the beat of the song.

This was more than enough. Nathalie or no Nathalie, she was going home.

Right now.

In any case, none of her companions would notice her flight.

La Scala nightclub had different levels that were so packed full of people that it took her twenty minutes to reach the bottom level, get her coat from the cloak room, and make good her escape.

Once she reached the street, she inhaled the still-warm air of the night and sighed in contentment.

***

Her relief didn’t last more than a heartbeat.

A quick look at her watch told Sandrine that it was nearly half past one. She cringed. She should have left earlier, rather than indulge the others’ feelings and stay longer than she had planned.

Now there was no Métro [Subway], of course. No buses either, except the few lines of the Noctambus that ran all night. She would have to walk along the rue de Rivoli till the Châtelet square, where the Noctambus bus stop was. And then walk again after reaching the more convenient stop, till she went home. At the best, she wouldn’t reach her bed till three in the morning.

Zut de zut de zut! She thought angrily.

Swallowing her bile at her own stupidity, Sandrine began to walk with a brisk stride. At least, she had had the common sense to wear flat pumps.

***

As she walked, her self-recriminations abated and something like nervousness took its place.

The rue de Rivoli was too quiet.

Sandrine could almost believe that she were the only human being left in the world. The straight street was one filled with tourists’ souvenirs shops, restaurants, cafés, take-away food on her side of the street, while the Tuileries Gardens were on the other. Then they were replaced by the Louvres Museum, while on the other side, the Palais Royal and its garden, hidden behind the square bordering the Louvre, briefly replaced the long arched gallery where the shops opened. After this short architectural respite, the arched gallery above the sidewalk went on, with its classical regularity. Ahead of her would be coming historical department stores, with the Samaritaine a few hundred meters ahead, and closed shops on each sides of the street.

But, despite her quick stride, Sandrine was still in the cultural side of the district. In a few meters, she would leave the Louvre behind, its imposing front obscuring the low moon.

A few cars hastened by in the deserted street, speeding away to the glory of the Place de la Concorde with its eons-old central obelisk, and the luxuries of the Crillon Hôtel, near the American Embassy. The sound of their passing disappeared as quickly as dreams do when one is about to wake.

Without intending to, Sandrine hastened her pace under the historical archways that covered her side of the streets. At regular intervals, the suspended stylish street-lights projected a yellower illumination than those on the other side of the street. In this tiny part of the district, opposite the Louvre, the shops went upscale; the windows offered antiques, textiles and leather goods, projecting additional light onto the pavement.

It seemed to Sandrine that the street, so crowded in daylight, seemed to stretch further in its deserted state. Even the evaporating leftover heat of the day contributed to this gloomy near silence, smothering the faraway sounds of the sleeping metropolis.

The silence was making Sandrine definitely nervous. She moved faster.

As she walked by the Oratoire du Louvre [a seventieth-century Protestant Church] whose end bordered the street with its backyard, Sandrine suddenly heard an echo to her footsteps. Unconsciously, she slackened her pace, in order to hear it better.

The attack came so suddenly Sandrine didn’t have the time to turn around. Suddenly, a hand grabbed her by the throat as another tugged on the strap of her purse. She let go of a muffled scream, and twisted desperately around in order to dislodge the weight that was squeezing her neck, her left hand flying to it to try to pry her assaulter’s fingers open.

The inflexible hand released a little bit of pressure, before taking another grip.

In between, Sandrine screamed louder, as the man took hold of her free arm and twisted it behind her back. Surprised, she nearly let go of her bag; in her panic, she had thought of protecting her purse first. It contained her keys, wallet, some change, and she could not risk losing it. She was still reflexively clutching it with her right hand, instead of trying to dislodge her attacker with both hands.

Infuriated, the man jerked harder.

Sandrine’s breath caught. Out of breath, she began to suffocate, feeling herself falling onto the pavement, under the cold eyes of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny. The commemorative effigy of the Protestant leader murdered during the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre seemed to look down on her with unrelenting irony, from his position behind the iron railings of the Church, as a memento of men’s atrocities.

Desperately, she felt her strength wane, as her lungs begun to burn. However, a sudden release made her stumble. Sandrine’s head hit the railings and things blurred for a while.

When she got her breath back, she was folded up on her side, her purse strap still draped around her shoulder, her bag a hard bulge between her thigh and the pavement. Uncertainly, she got up on all fours, and then tried to stand up, her hands grasping the nearby railings.

She could not have blacked out more than a few seconds, she later realized.

As she tried to get up, the street light for that part of the street went out unexpectedly.

The stylish lantern, which was hanging from the apex of the arch above them, had blown. It overhung the part of the pavement that bordered the street itself, so the scene of the action was plunged into additional darkness, as the next illuminated shop windows were across the perpendicular street to the rue de Rivoli.

In the increased dusk that enshrouded the street, Sandrine perceived that her assaulter—with brown hair, jeans and a dark long-sleeved sweater—was confronting another man.

Slightly dazed by her sudden freedom, Sandrine couldn’t really understand what was going on. She must have been knocked out and was unconscious or dreaming or something. There couldn’t be a man effortlessly preventing her would-be assailant from reaching her and moving so fast things were even more blurry, which made her head spin.

When Sandrine managed to stand upright on trembling legs, it was to see her would-be robber rush past her, in a burst of speed. Sandrine went sprawling on the pavement, surprised by the suddenness of this movement.

She stayed where she had fallen. She wasn’t hurt, but she preferred to sit there, on the pavement. At least, she wouldn’t fall further. Her legs felt like cotton-wool.

She looked around her, vaguely. Shards of glass littered the curb where the stylish lantern had been, she noticed.

Sandrine’s teeth began to chatter.

After a short interval, strong hands helped her to her feet.

“Are you hurt?” a very deep and gravelly voice asked her. Almost like James Mason’s, she irrelevantly thought.

“No. Just shook me up a little”, she answered mechanically.

She craned her neck trying to see her rescuer’s face. He held himself in such a way that she couldn’t see it. Sandrine squinted, trying to concentrate. It was difficult to do so. A delayed reaction settled in, and she leaned against the one of the pillars of the archway.

Good old Coligny hadn’t batted an eye during this succession of astounding events. The poor dear had seen civil wars, mass massacres and assassination, Sandrine thought light-headedly. Nothing here to get his knickers in a twist. Nothing at all.

A rumbling noise broke the silence, and the flashlights of a passing car briefly illuminated the face of her rescuer.

Sandrine gasped. It was covered with a ski mask, or the kind of mask thieves wore when they attempted a robbery in any self-respecting TV movie.

She backed away, sliding away from her cozy rest along the arch, and a step at a time, moved back from the man in black with a ski mask. She felt like laughing. How stupid could this be? Out of the frying pan into the fire.

Not daring to lower her eyes from the man without a face–as if it would make a difference!–she backed away from him, crossing the little perpendicular street to the rue de Rivoli.

Her luck held. She didn’t even stumble on the pavement, as she walked backwards, on the other side of the rue de l’Oratoire.

Her luck came back with a vengeance.

She turned her head, and there it was. A taxi was stopping a little farther away on that street.

Feeling a little more daring now that she was separated from the masked weirdo after crossing the street, Sandrine ran to the taxi as it discharged a passenger.

“I need a lift, please,” she breathlessly asked the driver.

“All right, come in,” he replied.

The door slammed. The car sped on its way, but there was no one to be seen at the feet of Gaspard de Colingny’s statue. Only shards of glass on the pavement, and the twisted and charred metal casing of the overhead lantern attested to the last few minutes.

***

Fortunately, Sandrine had enough change in her purse to pay the fare. This unexpected expense would mean more spaghetti on her menu next week, but for once, she didn’t mind too much.

When she arrived home, she immediately crawled into bed, letting her clothes remain where she had dropped them.

The ringing of the phone woke her up. Her alarm clock indicated 9:00 AM, and she smothered a curse.

Sitting up gingerly in her bed, she muttered “I’m coming, I’m coming”, and limped into the common sitting room, feeling like an eighty-year-old arthritic woman. Fortunately, the caller kept ringing.

Sandrine crashed on the battered couch in the common living room, picked up the phone and said, “Allô? Philippe-Demazières-Baron Apartment, here.”

“Sandrine, is that you?” Clark’s voice said on the other side.

“Err, yes. What’s left of me, anyway,” she said. “ Clark, how are you?”

“What do you mean?” questioned Clark, his concern obvious.

“Oh, nothing much. I was mugged last night. No problem!” Sandrine answered, with an attempt at carelessness.

It didn’t fool Clark. “I’m coming,” he stated. “Don’t leave. I’ll be there in about…” His voice trailed, “Half an hour. Is your code still the same?”

“No, err, yes,” Sandrine stammered. “Please, don’t trouble yourself. I’m okay, just a little sore.” This was a gross understatement. From the way her muscles ached and her derrière [backside] stung, she imagined it would be black and blue at least for a fortnight. “The code’s the same, but I don’t need…”

“I’ll be there in half an hour,” Clark reiterated more forcefully, and then he hung up, effectively cutting off her protests.

“Oh, zuuuuut!” Sandrine moaned, looking at herself with dismay. Hair standing on end, still wearing her night t-shirt, she was a sight. She groaned and hobbled to the bathroom.

***

Clark had been right to insist, Sandrine thought contentedly. Friendship, coffee and fresh croissants were the restoratives she needed.

She finished her tale, with as much animation she could. Her shoulder still hurt where she had bruised it on the pavement, so she gestured with the other hand, emphasizing her words: “It was just unbelievable; the guy was wearing a ski mask. A black ski mask!! In June!”

“Maybe he wanted to be a Zorro to his damsel in distress”, Clark offered falteringly.

“Pff! I don’t think so. He was really scary.” Sandrine paused. “No, he wasn’t, actually.” She collected her thoughts. “He scared me, though. It was so—so sudden…”

“He did help you, didn’t he?” insisted Clark.

“All right, so he did”, she agreed reluctantly. “You’re right; he did ask me if I were hurt. All the same…” She faltered, feeling ridiculous for doing so. She was in one piece, no great harm done. Her guardian angel—if she had one all her own—had been a busy little bee last night.

Sandrine’s eyes met Clark’s. As usual, she was met with gentleness and his usual determination to understand. His eyes begged her to go on with her tale, so she went on: “It happened so fast. I’m not sure I can recollect what really occurred. This was so weird, you know. Things kind of went in slow motion, and yet, they unwound so fast that I cannot—”

“Remember everything?” Clark interrupted.

Strange how Clark seemed almost… satisfied, when he said that. No, not that, he was… Busy sorting out her memories, Sandrine let the impression slip away.

“Non, non. That’s not it. There’s something…” she began.

Something lying in wait on the frontier between awareness and forgetfulness.

Something that felt a bit off.

Something she could not put her finger on.

Something she should remember.

She concentrated, and snapshots of the previous evening came back, in distorted shapes. Hand blocking her assaulter’s grasp. Hands helping her to get up. Hands she felt squeezing her throat, blocking her windpipe. Hands… feet…

The feet of her savior weren’t touching the ground—they weren’t touching the ground!

Sandrine’s face must have blanked out, for Clark’s voice intruded into her consciousness: “Sandrine… Sandrine! Are you all right?”

She hastened to reassure him: “Mais oui, stop fretting!”

Sandrine concentrated further, but nothing of value came flooding back. The editing was good, though. The images wound up in the canister of her brain flickered in their proper order. Yet, the film cutter had managed to give an impression of speed and urgency. Shots and reverse shots sped in her mind, with an oblique slant, then with low-angle shots, when she found herself on the pavement.

Still, whatever comparisons she made, she could not escape that rock-hard certainty. At one point, while he had made her mugger spin around with an impossibly regular arc, Zorro Man’s feet were slightly off the pavement. Meager, ridiculous millimeters, but still…

She was absolutely sure of it.

Her shocked stare had then focused on his feet, on her eyes’ level, as she was then half-sprawled on the street. The man was wearing dark sneakers, she dimly remembered. Jumble-sale ones. As if it would help her to understand who or what he—it was!

“Sandrine… Sandrine!” Clark’s voice intruded into her daydreaming. She lifted her head, and blurted out: “He was floating!”

“Hein?! [Eh? What?]”

As this typically French interjection escaped Clark’s lips, a flicker of a smile crossed Sandrine’s face. For a second, her thoughts diverted, as she considered how fluent her American friend was in her native language, down to the vernacular little turn of phrase most foreign speakers never really picked up.

“What do you mean? Floating?!?” Clark did sound sort of worried.

Zut, she had done it. Sandrine grimaced, realizing how daft she would seem to Clark if she’d really confide what she had really seen. His first impulse would be to run away, never to be seen again, if he grasped what she had meant. He would label her “tarée”, “folle/”, “cinglée”, “crétine” [wacko, mad, moron, etc], if he knew.

Best not to tell him too much. He was so kind he would pester her until she went to see her doctor, who would gorge her with antidepressant and sleeping pills and whatnots, and they would erode her mind, and she would feel like a tinned vegetable at a time when she needed reactivity and creativity to achieve her dreams.

No way. NO WAY.

Opting for some fast creative fibbing, Sandrine smiled sweetly at Clark and told him instead: “My guardian angel, he was floating around. I’ll bet he was.”

She took a sip of her now-cold coffee and made a face. “Ugh! This blend is really atrocious. How could you drink yours?”

“It was boiling hot”, replied Clark, deadpan. “No taste at all.”

“Eh! It’s all your fault. I told you not to come!”

“Are you sorry I did?” he countered.

“No. Of course not. Don’t think me ungrateful, Clark, but don’t you have better things to do than babysitting me?”

Sandrine got up and poured the offending coffee into the kitchen sink. “Want some tea instead? I’ve got some Oolong which isn’t half bad.” Without waiting for his answer, she filled the kettle. “Marianne hates tea. At least, I’m sure she hasn’t drunk mine.”

“These roommates of yours aren’t that wicked,” Clark said.

“Don’t bet on it. You’re always seeing the best in anybody, but I assure you, sometimes, I wish them to take off for parts unknown. I’ll be glad to have my own place one day, even if I’ll miss them… occasionally”.

“Where have they gone, by the way?”

Sandrine brought two tea cups on the table, and sat back. “Marianne’s boyfriend keeps her busy somewhere–she’ll come back in two days, and Jeanne is visiting her folks for the week.”

“Ah!” From his tone, this news didn’t please Clark one bit.

“Ah–what?” She frowned. “Don’t you believe I’m able to take care of myself? Schwarzy-El is a pretty good bodyguard, anyway”, Sandrine countered lightly.

“Schwarzy—”

“—El,” completed Sandrine. “My guardian angel. Lots of muscles, great timing, tireless, has been getting me out of scrapes for the last twenty-odd years or so.”

“I see.” Clark smiled. “Must be a pretty busy guy”.

“You can’t imagine! Although, sometimes, he sends up people to do his job. Like you or Zorro Ski Masque Man…” Her face fell for a few seconds, then she went on, brightly, “So, you see, I’m never quite alone.”

The shrill whistle of the kettle provided a welcome interruption. Sandrine got up, noticing with dismay that her legs seemed to ache more and more, while she brought it back.

“Thank you for your concern but I’ll be all right.” Her unconscious wince told the contrary.

“Hmm,” reproved Clark, obviously not convinced. “Did you take some aspirin?”

“There isn’t any left. I took them all this past week,” admitted Sandrine, pouring hot water in the cups.

“I’ll bet. But this project of yours is finished and done with. You could use some, from the way you’re tottering.”

“I know,” Sandrine snorted, “I move with as much poise as a drunken duck on a moving walkway!”

“You should rest this afternoon,” said Clark solicitously. “I can go and bring you some tablets.”

“No thanks. I’ll go to the chemist when I leave the police station.” Looking at his furrowed brow and the lines of concentration on his face, her train of thought halted abruptly. She wondered if he feared she wasn’t up to it. Hastily, she added, “It’s a chore, but I have to do it. I was lucky, but some poor other girl might not be...”

“Do you want some company?” he proposed.

Suddenly, the prospect of hours spent in a stuffy waiting room in order to report a mugger she could not even properly describe, looked a lot better.

“Would you really?” she asked, trying not to show how eager she was.

He smiled at her. “Hey, that’s what friends are for. Besides, it could be educational. I’ve never been into a French police station.”

***

This wasn’t one of their pleasant hours, or one of the funniest, but it certainly was one of the more insightful.

After Sandrine gave the reason why she was there, a young policeman directed them to the waiting room, assuming that Clark was her boyfriend. She looked at Clark, from the corner of her eyes, wondering how he would take it, then seeing he didn’t flinch, let it go.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” she whispered when they found a seat in the half-filled corridor. Chairs were lining the walls, not far from the office where a harassed woman welcomed the waiting people. On the other side of the wall, a woman was trying to keep her two children from bickering. An exasperated middle-aged man looked at his watch every five minutes; as if looking at it would make the time go quicker. Sandrine prepared herself for a long wait.

“The man at the front desk—he obviously thought we were together—”

Clark looked at her uncomprehendingly. “Aren’t we?”

“Together together”, she insisted. “I’m sorry about that.”

“No problem. Moreover, he’s obviously prejudiced. From the way he interrogated you, in his eyes, a poor frail lonely female is clearly a logical victim. Knowing that you’re not single raised you one notch in his estimation. This might help your case.”

“That,” Sandrine said gravely, “is the sign of a real moron. And it’s so unfair.”

“I agree. The problem is not the assaulted victim, it’s the mugger. Alas, this kind of attitude is fairly common. I’ve seen it in many places.”

Again, Sandrine wondered how many countries Clark had visited, and what kind of things he had seen and done to have such an intimate knowledge of the workings of the average policeman around the world.

“Yet, one wonders where the famed French galanterie [chivalry] has gone. Down in the sewer, with the man’s brain, no doubt,” she went on.

Clark laughed. “This is not your usual style to think in clichés.”

“But one does sometimes, doesn’t one?” retorted Sandrine. “And, yet, between the two of you, you are the true embodiment of supposed French gallantry.”

“Thus proving that clichés are vastly overrated.”

They sat in companionable silence for a while, watching people enter and leave.

The children kept quiet for a while, then began to run between the chairs, their mother ineffectively trying to keep them on their seats. Clark pulled a long rubber band out of one pocket and began to show the youngest girl how to create geometrical figures with it. The game provided them with twenty minutes of quiet. Fortunately, the woman’s turn came and she exited, cranky children in tow, at the obvious relief of the other people still waiting.

From time to time, when Sandrine looked at a perpendicular corridor, she noticed less savory characters being escorted to whatever place they had to go by policemen. She shivered. Maybe the man who had tried to strangle her was on the premises.

“Two hours, and how many to go?” grumbled Sandrine.

“Well, you can’t expect to be a high priority,” Clark told her.

“I know, I know… If I weren’t such a responsible citizen, I wouldn’t even be here… and you wouldn’t be losing your time, too.”

“This was my choice,” he replied.

Trust Clark to be always polite and gentle. The wait was making Sandrine edgy, and the hard chair wasn’t helping any. Being truly interested in Clark’s affairs as well as desirous to take her mind off her aching butt, she began to ask him about his latest articles.

Clark was always interesting and involved in whatever he happened to be doing, but when he was speaking about his work, he truly waxed poetic.

Sandrine realized it was people who were important to Clark. Neither the thrill of the chase for information nor mastering his craft by finding the right words to touch the reader were as important to him. He used empathy with his article’s topic as the hook to draw in the reader. In his writing, he endeavored to ensure that those he wrote about were accurately portrayed. He strove to paint with words a complete picture of the whole person, including mind, cares and issues.

Was that why Clark travelled so much? To see what was on the far side of the horizon, just beyond his reach? And once achieving it, finding it inadequate and looking beyond it, hoping to find that unseen something or someone?

Maybe it was, Sandrine wondered, looking at Clark’s animated profile, as he related with energy his dialogue with one of the bouquinistes [secondhand or antique booksellers] who were installed on the banks of the River Seine since the middle of the nineteenth century. His interview of a woman— whose “box” specialized in French literature—had degenerated into a discussion about Victor Hugo first printings, ending with various grumblings from the elderly bookseller about Americans who were looking for collector’s editions because they happened to have seen Les Misérables musical. Clark had turned her monologue into a very funny column about the evolution of a classical masterpiece into a piece of popular culture, also musing, as he stood watching the towers of Notre-Dame cathedral above the opposite bank, how real landscape benefited from imagination and fictional characters took a life of their own.

Clark ended up unearthing his first draft from his backpack. Sandrine read it avidly, recognizing in his writing the same carefulness to develop the woman’s point of view and her nostalgia for a literary past that probably never was; the balance in Clark’s demonstration that didn’t disguise his love of literature and the faint regret he also felt for the need the booksellers now had to propose cheap souvenirs among their wares. There were so many tourists promenading on the banks that the dark green metal boxes that held the merchandise could no longer specialize only in books, magazines and “old papers”.

There was not a sliver of smugness in Clark when he admitted that he was satisfied with his efforts. Merely the pride of a good craftsman, admitting that his skills gave his 2D words a third dimension and substance that others could contemplate and ponder, like a potter transforming unmolded clay into une œuvre d'art [a work of art].”

That was what made Clark the writer he was, Sandrine believed. He was good, and with more experience, he would be even better. He already had the tools of a good journalist. The ability to grab attention and make one read, however frivolous the subject.

“Mademoiselle, c’est à vous!” [Miss, it’s your turn!]

The woman in the office was standing before Sandrine. She was so intent on her reading, she hadn’t heard her. Blushing, Sandrine gave the sheaf of paper back to Clark, and hastily got up.

Time now to make her statement; to watch various photographs of would-be suspects and to be assured that the police would contact her if they found the mugger.

***

(Frenchified) NOTES

Part III

La Scala was a 1990s nightclub on the rue de Rivoli, not far from the Louvres Museum. It was then very popular because entrance was free for the women…

Murnau’s Faust is a silent movie filmed in 1926. See also Wikipedia. Häxan (The Witches or Witchcraft Through the Ages) is a very famous 1922 Swedish silent movie. (See also Wikipedia. Both are masterpieces.

Noctambus: they were buses running all night long in Paris and the nearby suburbs. The actual name is Noctilien. The name is a portmanteau formed out of the words Nocturne [nocturnal] and bus.

Place de la Concorde: need I really explain what it is? Have a look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_de_la_Concorde

As for Hôtel Crillon, the best explanation is here.

Oratoire du Louvre: it is a seventeenth-century Protestant church situated between the 145 rue Saint-Honoré and 160 rue de Rivoli in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, across the street from the Louvre. (See also Wikipedia)

If you want to visualize where Sandrine was assaulted, well, it’s here.

St. Bartholomew's Day massacre: in 1572, this targeted group of assassinations along with Catholic mob violence was directed against the Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants) during the French Wars of Religion, in Paris and in the country. There were 2,000 to 70,000 victims. Calvinist Admiral Gaspard de Coligny was murdered two days before.

Schwarzy-El[/i]’s name is the “angel-ization” of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Bouquinistes: second-hand book sellers whose ‘boxes” are situated on the banks of the River Seine. You’ll find pictures on Wikipedia.

Last edited by Millefeuilles; 05/14/18 10:44 AM.