Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic April, Come He Will by Millefeuilles (3/3)

Part One (I & II) is here
Part Two (III) is here.

Comments go here.


Part IV – “…July, he will fly / And give no warning of his flight…”

Paris (France), July 1991

Sandrine was panting when she came to the landing. Between the summer heat and her being out of condition, the climb to Clark’s sixth floor was taking its toll.

Catching her breath with difficulty, she paused before knocking on Clark’s door.

No one answered. Zut! Where could he be?

Sandrine had had no news for a fortnight, and she was beginning to worry. The last time she had seen Clark was when he had dropped by at her apartment in June, comforting her after the assault from which she had escaped. It was a good thing he had come with her to the commissariat: the sour smell of sweat, dirt and fear would be forever imprinted in her brain when anyone would utter the words “police” and “policemen”. Of course, there had been no news of her assailant. Not that she had expected any.

Clark’s silence was unusual, and that increased Sandrine’s sense of something ominous hanging over her. She had been passing through the Quartier Latin. Usually, when she did so, she used the payphone standing on the corner of the Place Saint-Michel, near the River Seine. Clark usually laughed when she unfailingly called him, a few hundred meters from his building. He called that “checking on my progress like a mother hen”. Still, Sandrine would never have intruded on his privacy, dropping by without being announced.

But this time, she had. Believing in being prepared, she found her note in her handbag, and bending, inserted the envelope under the door.

Clark might be interesting in meeting Nathalie’s fiancé: he was an archaeologist and currently engaged in salvage excavation near Paris: on the site of his present dig would be erected an apartment building. A mechanical shovel had uncovered part of a Merovingian cemetery; this had stopped any additional progress on the building site, and the archaeologists had flocked it. They had six months to finish their mapping and excavating, before the builders returned. Nathalie had told her excitedly that one of the men still had leather shoes on, and that there were some funerary equipment. This was just the kind of subject Sandrine hoped one day to document, and a visit to the dig may interest Clark and provide him with a fine human interest article.

The white paper disappeared under the wood panel without a hitch, as the irregular floor left enough space for it to slide under.

She waited for a second, and then turned, preparing to reverse her effort.

She had barely put her foot on the first step down than the door behind her opened. Clark stood on the entrance of his abode, a little ruffled and short of breath himself, holding her envelope in one hand.

“I’m sorry, Sandrine, I didn’t hear you knock.” He gestured inside, “Won’t you come in?”

Wondering how her knocks wouldn’t have crossed the cubbyhole Clark called his room, she did.

Under the sloping tin roof, the heat was even more stifling than in the staircase. Sandrine’s brow was swiftly beaded with sweat, but Clark must have grown accustomed to it, because he looked nearly as fresh as if he had come out of a fridge. Although the window was wide open, there wasn’t any fresh air in the room; the sun beat relentlessly on the roof, sending off waves of heat. How could Clark stand it?

“Do you want some water? I have some Coke, if you prefer,” offered Clark. “Sorry, no Diet Coke. Do sit down.” He waved vaguely. Piles of clothes and a few miscellaneous items cluttered his bed, so Sandrine chose one of the hard wooden chairs.

“Water will be fine, thank you,” answered Sandrine, wondering how she could surreptitiously wipe her face without looking like a wimp. Fortunately, she wore no makeup.

Miraculously, the tiny fridge even contained real ice cubes. Pointedly looking at her, Clark filled a glass three-quarter ice and added some water. Sandrine took it with undisguised delight and emptied it almost in one gulp, then picked up a single cube and let it melt rapturously in her mouth.

Handing the glass back to Clark, she commented: “Just like I like it! Thanks, Clark. I’ll swear that you know me better than my mom does.”

“Want a refill?”

“Yes, thanks.” As he did so, Sandrine took better stock of her surroundings. “What are you doing? Sorting out your laundry?”

“Err, not exactly, I—” began Clark, while she went on with her teasing: “—remodeling your closet?”

She suddenly paused.

Indeed, clothing was piling up on the bed, but, as Sandrine focused, she also noticed that Clark’s suitcase lay open in a corner. It was already filled with toiletries and shoes wrapped in plastic bags. On Clark’s tiny desk, a stack of neatly labelled folders and FUSAC old issues were obviously waiting to be placed next to the portative typewriter that Clark had already packed. More telling than all these preparations for departure, the framed picture of Clark’s parents was no longer on his desk.

Sandrine blanched. “You’re leaving,” she stated accusingly. “You are. Just like that.”

Mechanically, she seized the glass that Clark was silently offering her, and drank. Her throat suddenly felt so parched she wondered how she would get on talking, far less speaking articulately.

“I wrote you a letter,” Clark said. He visibly squirmed under her accusing look.

“Wrote me a letter? And that absolves you of everything?” Sandrine exclaimed, springing on her feet.

“Oh, wonderful, he wrote me a letter,” she told no one in particular, raising her eyes to the ceiling and gesturing wildly. The ice cubes chimed in the half-filled glass she was still holding, and a little water sloshed on her hand.

Turning back to Clark, Sandrine added with stressed politeness: “Thank you so very much for writing it, Clark, you are so thoughtful and nice and…” Words utterly failed her, and she looked at him more closely. During her outburst, he had merely buried his hand in his jeans pocket, looking sheepish. His awkward body language calmed her ire… a little.

Anger faded abruptly, to be replaced by despondency. And an acute feeling of being betrayed.

She tried to push it away on the back of her mind, but failed. Clark owed her nothing, the reasonable part of her argued, he was free to do whatever he wanted. They were friends, not lovers. She wasn’t in love with him, or he with her; no, they didn’t have that kind of tie. However, friendship had its duties as well as its privileges. Friends were supposed to be compassionate and kind. Friends didn’t lie to each other. Friends didn’t ride away in the sunset without telling. Friends didn’t desert friends, unless they weren’t truly friends.

“Sandrine…” Clark began. “Yes, I wrote you a letter. I have to leave Paris in a hurry, and I couldn’t reach you.”

“Couldn’t you phone?” she angrily asked. “You never thought twice about doing so.”

Besides, her answering machine was now fixed, and Clark knew it. He had left her a message in early June, when he had needed some answer to a tricky French detail for one of his articles. That excuse won’t wash, she told herself fiercely. Let him extricate himself from his half-baked lies. “So? What’s going on?” she asked with intensifying exasperation.

Clark turned back to his suitcase. “Forgive me, but I have to go on packing. My plane leaves under four hours from Roissy airport, and I’m already late as it is.”

Without waiting for her answer, he began to fill his suitcase methodically; garish ties, shirts, t-shirts and suit joined his other possessions.

“Oh, fine. Go on with it,” Sandrine said. “Sorry to be such a hindrance. I’ll go.” Nevertheless, she made no move of leaving.

“You never were a hindrance, Sandrine”, he replied, bending over the suitcase. In a few minutes, he had filled it then he went over the room checking he hadn’t forgotten anything. “Surely, you know that.”

“It doesn’t look like it,” she snapped back. “If I hadn’t come here by sheer chance, I’d never have had the possibility to bid adieu [farewell] to you.”

“Not adieu, nothing so definite. Paris hasn’t seen the last of me,” he asserted with a smile. “You can trust me on this.”

“Where are you going?”

“London. I’ve had an offer from—”

“Oh, what difference does it make for me, this or that newspaper?” wailed Sandrine. “You’ll be gone all the same.”

Clark’s tense face stopped her spell of self-pitying. “I’m sorry, Clark,” she amended, “but I’m going to miss you dreadfully.” Sandrine took a last sip of her now tepid water, and added with a conscious effort, “I hope it’s a good offer and an excellent opportunity for you.”

“I hope it will be…”

Clark went on, explaining in hurried sentences that the vacancy was unexpected, that he merely was on a waiting list, and that he had to present himself the following day for an interview. Speed was thus of the essence, and only his knowledge that Madame Leroy would have a long list of applicants to fill his place in the chambre de bonne had lessened his guilt of leaving her so unexpectedly before the end of the month, or the customary three months warning.

His words felt on Sandrine’s ears like snowflakes on a hot ground, dissolving as they fell and melting away without a trace. She truly heard one out of three, not even registering the name of the paper where Clark would be employed as a stopgap, or where he would live in the London metropolis.

Clark was betting on an uncertain job, taking his chances in a different place. In Paris, he already had job offers, and friends and… This meant Clark was desperate to leave, and that something—or someone—had pushed him away. Who had? Whom was he trying to escape? Sandrine puzzled.

Clark’s next sentence suddenly brought her back to earth.

“… so, I’ll send you my address so we can keep in touch.” His voice held real regret when he added, “I wish I could see your next masterpiece. Please, tell me all about it… Remember,”–his voice lowered in mock-secrecy–“helicopters and Mozart don’t go together.”

Sandrine’s voice croaked as her throat constricted: “I shall remember.”

She went to the sink and washed her glass, dried it, and put it back on the near empty cupboard. The last time she would ever do this simple task here, she knew. The finality of the small everyday gesture nearly undid her.

His packing done to his satisfaction, Clark went to his desk and gave an envelope to Sandrine. “There, you may as well have it.” Not stamped, it was merely addressed to “Mademoiselle Sandrine Demazières”.

If he were so pressed by time, how would he have assured its delivery to her, if he wasn’t to post it? Probably through Madame Leroy’s goodwill, she supposed.

Sandrine took it with shaking fingers, and put it clumsily in her purse.

Frantically, because the clock was ticking away and she didn’t want it to be truly goodbye, Sandrine probed: “I can come with you to the airport, you know. We can talk on the way in the bus.” She added, trying to forestall his polite refusal, “Truly, it’s no bother.”

She must have been too pushy, because, all of a sudden, Clark’s face closed. Sandrine backpedaled, feeling like a fool. “Err… If you wish it, I don’t want to intrude, of course.”

“Sandrine—” Clark interrupted himself, then in a move that was as sudden as it was unexpected, engulfed her in a quick embrace. She went limp in his arms, acutely aware of the feeling of protection and ease she always felt in his presence, and already feeling more her future loss. Marc’s had never felt so brotherly; but again, Sandrine and Marc had been children together, while Clark’s friendship and support had come as they were both adults. Their choice and their mutual pleasure. Or so she had thought.

“Travelling hasn’t made partings easier for me, you know,” Clark whispered into her hair. “Don’t come with me: parting isn’t ‘sweet sorrow’, it’s the worst part of my life.”

“Sure,” she answered, half believing it. “I understand,” she added in a flat voice, but giving him a peek on the cheek. “Adieu, Clark.”

The hug ended as quickly as he had begun. Sandrine bit her lips, thinking that he didn’t really want to spend one minute more with her than he had to, it seemed.

Because she didn’t want him to see her cry, and because she didn’t want to humiliate herself further, Sandrine left the room, carefully shutting the door behind her, knowing as it closed that a part of her life had locked up with it, definitively.


***


Part V – “…August, die she must / The autumn winds blow chilly and cold…”

France, 1991-1993

For years, Sandrine castigated herself for this broken friendship, and her inability for keeping friends.

Telling herself that she had been too forward, too earnest.

That she had frightened Clark off.

That she had mistaken his politeness for attention, and his kindness for deeper feelings.

That calling her “friend” meant nothing, as he didn’t even want her to come say goodbye at the airport.

That he had mistaken her friendship for something more on her side.

Actually, years afterwards, Sandrine still squirmed when she imagined how embarrassed Clark must have felt, mistakenly believing that she had “chased” after him.

It stung. It really did.

It stung so much that she never understood that she had overreacted, destabilized by her two successive losses: a childhood friend whom she had considered as a brother; a newfound friend from overseas whom she had loved too quickly, because of the disappointment of the first one.

So, not trusting herself, Sandrine disdained all friendly overtures made by her fellow students. Her last months before her graduation were solitary ones.

She even scorned Marc’s awkward tries to mend their rift. After a while, Marc stopped, and Sandrine saw that he was chatting up a pretty young thing in her first year at the Fémis; a student he could easily impress with his expertise and seniority. Sandrine didn’t even really care.

What is worse? Sandrine sometimes asked herself. Being alone in a desert, pathetically eager for any human speech? Or being alone in a crowd? She never really found out.

She was outwardly friendly, but truly elusive. She talked, laughed, relaxed, chatted, did all the right moves with the right persons. People said that she was good company, entertaining and nice, but she knew otherwise. Inside, she felt hollow. Dead.

With determination and an almost manic energy, Sandrine buried herself with work. Work was good. Work was filling her days and furnishing her nights with dreams of achievements, aspirations of technical perfection, and new goals to reach. Work was something that kept her mind occupied and her heart gagged.

When her Fémis movie was played at the Cinémathèque française—as was the custom for all the students— it gathered much attention from the professionals who scouted new talents. So she didn’t have too much trouble finding both a producer and funds for her next venture: her first full-length feature, titled Perte [Loss]. Sandrine would have preferred to direct a documentary, as she always wanted to do, but she put that dream on the back burner. She could always direct one when she had made a name for herself.

France succored her talented daughters. Sandrine’s new project very quickly secured avance sur recettes [advance]. Two Foundations also helped: a French one which was noted for its intuition in detecting new talents, and –to Sandrine’s astonishment—an American one, LexArts.

Sandrine’s script, based on her experience, was allusive yet grounded in such a widespread reality: loss. The dialogues of her movie were so razor-sharp and humorous in a desperate way that it touched the audience.

Among the fluidity of her work, the professionals also observed an impossibly virtuoso shot that made the viewer almost believe that one was flying through the sky before crashing down, one’s metaphorical wings melted away by the scorching sun. The subjective strength of that emotional experience fascinated viewers and made the professional people pay notice.

Loss was even selected for the Cannes Film Festival, in the Un Certain Regard section. It became an instant hit when it was released in a few art theaters in Paris.

Word of mouth slowly grew among the cinema goers. It was the beginning of her successful career.

Sandrine may have been afraid to connect with people and bare her innermost feelings, but she found out that she knew how to make her crew respond to her directions. And people felt at ease before her and her camera. After a while she understood that she had the knack of making them express themselves through a camera lens, caressing their souls with respect, light and the camera’s eye. She knew how to listen, and they responded in kind. Because she didn’t bare herself before others didn’t mean she lacked empathy and sympathetic listening. At least, along with her inability to trust others, this was a quality she had borrowed from Clark. Clark…

Sometimes, Sandrine still wondered what kind of articles Clark would have written about the Cannes people. Surely, he would have enjoyed and relished the ridicules and idiosyncrasies of the professionals, the airs the actors put on at will, and the atmosphere. He would have especially appreciated the premieres of many foreign films and the public debates with filmmakers and actors. Clark was so curious and open about other people, other experiences, over views of the universe.

Perhaps, he would even have had the material for one of his wonderful human stories, written with his particular brand of perception and compassion. For who was closer to Terence’s maxim than Clark? “I am human, and I think nothing of which is human is alien to me”

Indeed, Clark would have understood what lurked behind some of the most outrageous statements of this peculiar crowd. Sometimes, Sandrine almost imagined what Clark would have said, and she smiled reminiscently. People stared, but they quickly learned that, when Sandrine was engrossed in watching nothing in particular, she was best left alone.

Yet, parting ways, Clark had gone on with his life and Sandrine with hers. Still, she missed him, and missed sharing her elation with a true friend.

But Sandrine had had a second chance. Ski Mask Man had saved her from being seriously hurt at least, and she was eager to seize the opportunities offered her. Maybe “Schwarzy-El’s deputy” had been sent for a reason. Maybe she, Sandrine, had something to achieve that no one else could do. She found courage in this, and it fed her determination when she had to fight for funds with a difficult producer; when she had to convince an actor to let go, or that presenting his best profile to the camera wasn’t what motion pictures were about.

Feeling like a survivor, physically as much as emotionally, Sandrine plodded on with her life, not daring to look over her shoulder for fear she would freeze in her momentum.

Then beginning in 1993, Clark’s postcards came sporadically from different countries. Because he didn’t know her new address, he sent them c/o the Fémis.

And it was like a spring rain for her parched soul.

***


Epilogue – “September, I’ll remember / A love once new has now grown old” [b]

[b]Paris (France), September 1993

Sandrine had been half-heartedly flipping through channels when it happened.

It was pure luck that she did so; she usually scorned TV. Not that there were a lot of choices to flip through: apart from the five channels most people received and Canal+, the cable channel which showed movies, a favorite of hers. There were two other cinema channels, but this evening she only had the choice between La Discrète—that she had already seen four times and wasn’t in the mood for another showing—and Edward Scissorhands, which she refused to watch.

She needed something to pick her up, not another proof of human nastiness and ingratitude.

France was not noted for an abundance of TV channels, Sandrine moaned. She sighed tiredly and settled for a late talk show, waiting for the late newscast. Sipping her chamomile tea, she nestled into her sofa, her mind reviewing all the things she would have to do in the morning.

The musical strains punctuating the credits of Le Journal de la nuit [late night bulletin] woke her up from her doze. Her empty mug had rolled on her stomach, burying itself into the folds of her dressing gown. Sandrine put the ceramic cup on a side table, and straightened up. Her hand extended towards the remote, intending to switch the television off.

Suddenly her half-asleep haze vanished, and she abruptly perked up.

The usually unruffled Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, star anchor adored by of most of the female French population, was introducing the late news bulletin with a voice trembling with excitement. Behind him, a photograph of a shuttle hanging in midair with a headline: “Apparition d’un homme volant [A Flying Man makes his appearance]”.

Completely awake, mesmerized, Sandrine stared at the footage of the rescue of the Metropolis Space Shuttle by a mysterious Flying Man. A—Flying Man?!

Her breath caught, and for a moment, she wondered if she would ever breathe again.

She reacted automatically. Sandrine sprang from her sofa, and frenetically searched for a video cassette. Fortunately, she saw one lying near the VCR, free of its cellophane wrapping. She pounced on it, freed it from its box and popped it into the video recorder, which made a burring noise as it began to record.

On her television screen, Poivre d’Arvor was still expressing an eager curiosity. Seated near him were two experts—one from the military and the other from the European space program—whose disagreement about the flying man’s nature bordered on hostile.

A few moments later, Poivre d’Arvor inquired, with a mildness that could not disguise his high opinion of himself, if the flying man could be labelled a ‘Little Green Man’. Sandrine could not help snickering. The ploy was so obvious. Startled, the experts stopped their argument, and in the ensuing silence, the anchorman inserted smoothly: “Let’s watch another time this exclusive footage, brought to you by TF1”.

For this second showing, Sandrine’s video cassette was smoothly recording the evidence Sandrine’s eyes half-refused to admit.

Yet, Poivre d’Arvor had still one trick up his sleeve. This time, the footage was a bit longer, with some shots closest to the hero of the hour than the previous showing.

Sandrine squinted at her television screen. The film was blurry and the hands controlling the camera had badly shaken at one point.

Still, the outline of the flying man could be made, but not really his face. The primary colors of his costume, so very like a 1930s circus acrobat’s, helped define him, nonetheless. And in the stark blue of the American sky, the red cape was a very nice touch.

A part of the young filmmaker admired the way it flapped in the currents of his flight; another one wondered how she could reproduce these Greek statuary movements on a screen. A tiny one –the tiniest, so small she wasn’t quite aware of it at this moment—wondered what seemed so familiar in this “Eighth Wonder of the World”.


***

That night, Sandrine dreamed of Clark.

They were both standing before the Fontaine Saint-Michel in the Latin Quarter, one of the preferred meeting places of the students of the nearby Sorbonne University. As usual, people were laughing, hailing each other, while others crossed the nearby streets or were busy clapping the street dancers that exhibited their skills on the central sidewalk of the square, in front of the fountain.

As dreams often did, Sandrine found herself in the middle of the crowd, as if she had been transplanted there, all of a sudden. As for Clark, he appeared before her, as if he had dropped from the skies, and it irritated her. Yet, his mischievous smile and kind eyes were the same.

Sandrine hesitated, and did what she never had done in the flesh: she threw herself into his arms. After a heartbeat, dream-Clark’s arms enfolded her, and she found out that he smelled like pines.

No, he smelled like that hiking trail she had trod when she was twelve years old, and her grandparents had showed her the old smuggler trail near Antibes. The pines’ fragrance, the warmth of the sun filtered through the pine needles, the waves of the Mediterranean caressing the rocks below; all these figments of her memories of an enchanted afternoon had somehow conglomerated in her brain, establishing the pattern of earthly security.

It was no wonder she reminisced about it. In his way, Clark evoked security, too.

Sandrine’s dream-self raised her eyes and saw that he was smiling at her. She told him, “I missed you, if you must know.”

He kept on smiling without answering.

The voice who answered Sandrine was rusty with disuse, “Whose fault was it?”

“Not mine”, she asserted.

“Humph. I’m not so sure”, the voice went on.

Clark’s mouth was still smiling and Sandrine was pretty certain he hadn’t uttered these sentences. So, she took a step back and looked around.

On his mock-rocky pedestal, St. Michael was lowering his arms. He deposited his sword of fire at his feet, as the figure of Lucifer—who used to wriggle precariously about at his feet—went limp, mumbling: “I’m taking five. Even the Devil must take a nap, sometimes.”

The Archangel stretched arms and wings. Meeting Sandrine’s astonished eyes, St. Michael shrugged, “I was getting crampy. You have no idea how difficult this is, staying like this, keeping Evil in respect for all eternity.”

“Oh, I can imagine”, Clark piped up.

“You will know…,” asserted St. Michael, portentously.

As both males – if one may be of the opinion that an Archangel is of the masculine gender—were discussing the pros and cons of sword fighting, Sandrine got bored. She raised her head higher. Above them, the twin sculpted figures of Power and Moderation holding the coat of arms of the flying wonder she had watched on television, instead of those of the City of Paris, nodded with approbation, seemingly smitten with Clark.

Sandrine felt a spurt of anger, and cried out: “Oh! Let me be, you two! You could not move a toe without falling off your pedestal.” The twin goddesses smiled benignly at her, their mouth corners extending upward.

Shocked out of their amiable discussion, St. Michael and Clark looked disapprovingly at her.

“Is she always like this?” asked the Archangel.

“Mostly,” sighed Clark. “But she can be reasoned with.”

“Hé, ça suffit comme ça! [Hey, enough of this!]” Sandrine exclaimed. “Don’t talk about me as if I weren’t here.”

The two guys didn’t pay any attention to her outcry, and continued their estimations of her strengths and foibles. Deciding that disdain was the better part of valor, Sandrine turned on her heels and wandered off to watch the street dancers, then clapped enthusiastically and very demonstratively when one of them did a perfect spin on the sidewalk.

The dance concluded, the crowd dispersed, and Sandrine found herself once more near the fountain. Clark and Michael were still absorbed in their discussion. Discussing her had obviously grown stale, and they now were on the subject of Schwarzy-El.

“Schwarzy-El?” Sandrine said, puzzled. “But… I made him up! He never existed”

“You shouldn’t say that,” reproved Clark. “A figment of imagination can occasionally spring into existence, you know.” Sandrine shrugged deprecatingly. “No, don’t do that,” he added. “Because you’re unaware of it doesn’t make it less real.”

“Less real? Like what?” Sandrine said. “An angel of my own making!”

“If I may say so,” a male voice intruded into their exchange, “I’m quite real.”

Sandrine glared at the Archangel. “You’re sort of real, I’ll grant you that. You’re made of bronze and I don’t know whatever else… Someone real designed you in his workshop, a long time ago. So… you were once a sculptor’s spark of fancy.” So there, her tone underlined. Don’t mess with me, I’m alive; you’re not. Not really.

Unfazed by her virulence, St. Michael looked at Clark: “Good luck to you, pal. I’m not sure she’s really getting it.” He sighed theatrically. “Such a pity. With all the hints we dropped.”

Not taken aback by this sudden change of topics, Clark winked back. “Oh, don’t worry, she’ll come round.”

The statue stretched once more, extending its arms towards the sky, then half-leaped half-flew back to its pedestal. With its toes, it nudged Lucifer lightly. Awakened, the prone figure of Evil groaned and twisted back into its awkward previous position, while St. Michael raised his arms in his usual posture. The surface of the bronze rippled in sparkling waves; a few seconds later, the fountain was back to its old appearance.

Startled, Sandrine looked around her: obviously, no one in the crowd standing a few meters away had noticed anything weird. For all they knew, it was just an ordinary day on a crowded square, favored by passer-byes and tourists who were taking photographs before the fountain.

“Don’t look so surprised. People usually see what they want to see.”

Clark’s voice. He was still here, then. Slowly, Sandrine turned and saw that her American friend was also watching the now-frozen Archangel, amusement obvious on his tilted face.

“Do they?” Sandrine asked, feeling breathless, all of a sudden.

“Oh, they do.” Clark assured her. “Besides, you also considered it, before you fell asleep.”

This is absolutely crazy, one part of her mind whispered. Of course, it is, the other one retorted. I’m dreaming. Anything can happen in dreams.

“Are you a mind reader?” Sandrine exclaimed in alarm.

Clark laughed. “Not yet, rest easy! Still, you should consider all the facts.”

Sandrine smiled back perfunctorily. “Am I supposed to take it personally? Picturing things is my job, as you well know.”

“I’m just here to help you remember,” Clark said cheerfully. “Even if I’m not really here at all.”

“How typical!” she said peevishly.

“You’re dreaming,” Clark said reasonably. “Of course, I’m not here at all. You’re not, either.”

“But what is the point of all this?” Sandrine asked no one in particular. “You’re not very helpful, you know, Clark. By the way, I never dreamed of you, isn’t it weird?” she wondered aloud. Shaking her head disbelievingly, she added with an honest afterthought, “Not that I can remember it, anyway.”

“Then, perhaps you should ask yourself why you’re dreaming this dream right now—” Clark suggested. As he spoke, he began to fade, from his feet up. The erasure of his silhouette picked up speed, and his face was half-solid when he let fall, “—and why this dream of yours is also populated with angels.”

The Place Saint-Michel was now shrouded in mist. Sandrine thought, with the weird logic of dreams, I’ve got to get in the métro before this fog gets too thick, and she ran into the nearest entrance of the subway.

That was the last image remaining in her retinas, when she woke up: the gray stairs getting grayer with cotton-like mist.

***

He is him.

That illogical, grammatically nonsensical sentence was the first which popped up in Sandrine’s mind when she awoke.

He is him. But who is he?

Consciously or unconsciously, Sandrine delayed meditating upon the question until her brain was nearly exploding with it. She engaged in her morning routine with an enthusiasm which was merely a way to avoid thinking about it.

She picked up her mail, threw away her garbage, bought some vegetables, then went to the bakery to get a baguette. As she exited the shop, her attention was drawn to the marchand de journaux [newspapers seller]. She crossed the street and bought a handful of them, then walked back home.

The front pages all told the same story:

Le Figaro’s displayed “Etats-Unis: sauvetage de la navette spatiale. Apparition d’un homme volant.” [“United States: Space Shuttle Rescued. A Flying man turns up.”]

Libération stated “La Navette Spatiale a eu chaud: sauvée par un surhomme.” [“A Little too Close for the Space Shuttle: Saved by a Superman.”]

As for L’Humanité, it merely said: “Lancement réussi pour la navette spatiale”. [“Successful Launch of the Space Shuttle.”]

All the copies of Paris Match had been bought before Sandrine could buy one. That was too bad, the pictures were usually of good quality in this magazine. She was pretty sure that the weekly had had to hastily redo its front page to accommodate the latest marvel of the world, and that one actress or a politician would curse the newcomer for being relegated inside instead of gracing the cover of the magazine. The issue would probably become a collector’s one, as it had been when Kennedy was assassinated. At least, the Flying Man had had the good sense to make his appearance on a Tuesday, the day before most of the Weeklies were published.

However, all the newspapers showed B&W grainy pictures of the shuttle; in its corner was pasted another, a close up where one could distinguish a human form holding up the shuttle, dwarfed by the thrusters next to him.

One of the less legitimate papers, the rag Sandrine had guiltily bought, was more inclined towards gossip and interviews of personalities who would stay “famous” for a few months, if not weeks. It also featured color pics and an interview of a witness—one understood after a while that the so-called witness had probably seen this on TV, and raved over the phone about it to her cousin, who happened to be the editor of the Weekly. Calling the hero of the day, “a God, a Miracle”, the obviously babbling woman also alleged that he was “an Angel of Mercy, and a Sign of—”

Sandrine never really knew what the man with the red cape was supposed to herald. She dropped the magazine, and it stayed there, at her feet, on her carpet.

An angel…

St. Michel. Schwarzy-El. The anonymous angel who had picked up the drunk from the Pont Neuf… a bridge not so very far from the Place Saint-Michel, as if by chance.

A memory came unbidden. Only angels have wings… Maybe, it was so.

However, a man—a man she once knew quite well—really flew without wings, and acted like an angel. His feet didn’t touch the ground, but he didn’t have to flap wings to escape gravity.

Maybe it was time to reconnect and admit one’s mistakes.

Maybe it was time to admit that a double misunderstanding had come in the way of a precious friendship.

Clark hadn’t been afraid of her, Sandrine.

He had been afraid of discovery, of the reaction she had had at first, when she had recalled his feet didn’t touch the ground.

Yet, years later, he had wanted to keep in touch, even if she never made use of the return addresses he had thoughtfully written down.

She went to the desk where she filed her correspondence. In a few minutes, she had browsed through Clark’s postcards. Where had he last written from?

Metropolis. So there.

Sandrine laughed aloud. Her laugh rang liberated and carefree.

Clark had written he was applying for jobs, and that he would let her know his address when he had one.

This time, Sandrine would write back.

And maybe, just maybe, in time, she could give Clark some little tips, to misdirect his audience, or to point them in the right direction.

Understanding how people saw reality was a great asset. But reality didn’t always have to be the naked truth.

Even angels needed their privacy.


Fin


(Frenchified) NOTES

Part V

The Cinémathèque française, located in Paris, offers daily screening of worldwide films; it holds one of the largest cinema archives, with 40 000 movies and related documents and objects. (More on Wikipedia)


Avance sur recettes [revenue/receipts advance system]: it was created in 1959 and is intended to encourage creation in the cinematographic field and to support original and quality projects which are considered unlikely to benefit from traditional and / or high funding from other economic actors. The funds are granted by the decision of a committee (composed of personalities of the sector). One of the three specialized colleges deals with first feature movies. Nowadays, about 60 films a year benefit from this system, which has helped young filmmakers.

Un Certain Regard [meaning literally, “a certain glance”, but it’s a play on words meaning also “in another point of view”] is a section of the Cannes Film Festival. It introduced movies that are more original and adventurous than the official selection. The prize was created in 1998. (See Wikipedia)

Colette Marchand (1925-2015) is a real French actress who was also a Ballerina. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1952 (for her performance in Moulin Rouge, directed by John Huston). I have absolutely no idea if she was living in France in the 1990s. Her performance in Sandrine’s fictional movie is a tribute, not an infringement on Madame Marchand’s public image. Biography on Wikipedia)

Epilogue

Timeline: The Pilot aired on September 1993, and for the purpose of this story, I decided that both Clark’s first interview for a job at the Planet and Superman’s first appearance happened during that time.

Canal+ (Canal Plus, meaning Channel Plus) is the first French premium cable television channel launched in 1984.

La Discrète is a very popular 1990 French movie. (See IMDB.)

Fontaine Saint-Michel is described on Wikipedia and you will also find a picture of it.

‘Chemin des Douaniers’ in Antibes: here are some pics and a map of this old “Customs walk” in the South of France, found on a personal weblog (not mine!)

I changed the headlines of the French newspapers. No one in France would write a headline with “C’est magnifique!” (Maurice Chevalier did in vintage American movies, but it’s an exception to the rule…)
Le Figaro is the oldest French daily morning newspaper, founded in 1826; it has a center-right editorial line.
Libération [Liberation] is a daily morning newspaper founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. It has a centre-left editorial position.
L’Humanité [Humanity, mankind] is a daily morning newspaper that was formerly an organ of the French Communist Party; it was founded in 1904 by Jean Jaurès, a leader of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO).
In Part I, Clark had a copy of Le Monde [The World]: this daily afternoon newspaper was founded by Hubert Beuve-Méry at the request of Charles de Gaulle (as Chairman of the Provisional Government of the French Republic) on 19 December 1944, shortly after the Liberation of Paris. It is one of the most important and widely respected newspapers in the world. (See Wikipedia)

And, on a last note, it may interest you to know that Sandrine is held to be the feminine version of Alexandrine, from the Greek “Sandre”. (The masculine counterpart is Alexandre, Alexander in English) It has two meanings: “the one who protects men” or “the one who pushes back men”, thus someone with a warrior’s virtues. Others believe that the name is another version of Cendrine [Little cinder], who is another name of… Cinderella. It also was one of the top female names given in the early 1970s.