The Illusionist
By John Ahlfors
Home from an extended work trip trouble-shooting communications installations in Africa, South America and elsewhere, a shy, unhappy Colby Saxton spent the day wandering about his adopted Paris, hoping to find himself. The descending darkness felt oppressive, as if the weight of the sky lay on his shoulders. Although he made fabulous money, he rarely had time to enjoy it. With no social life, no close friends, no hobbies given his busy schedule, he fervently wished for something to liven up his cloistered existence.
The lights of the Latin Quarter glimmered that November evening, 2008. He came out a side street onto the brightly lit Boulevard St. Germain with its crowded sidewalks and jam of traffic. Tired and feet hurting, he decided to ride the metro back to his apartment. Enough walking for one day.
He entered the Odéon station and took the stairs down to the nearly empty platform for Line 4. A man with a briefcase brushed against him. Lost in thought, Colby barely noticed. He knew circuit boards, wiring and network protocols the way a neurologist knows the human nervous system. To what end?
Across the tracks on the opposite station wall were black and red posters with giant, hypnotic eyes:
Marcel Croupier, Master Illusionist
See him perform amazing feats of magic!
Astounding! Baffling! Terrifying!
Through November 28 at Le Théâtre National de Chaillot
“I’ve no bandwidth for such idiocy,” Colby groused. “Who cares?”
Boarding the next train, he moved across the entry vestibule as the doors closed and the train started up. That was when he saw her. She was leaning back against a folded-up seat by the door he had just entered. She wore a blue jacket and form-fitting, stone-washed jeans over an athletic figure. Her honey-colored hair was pulled tightly back, setting off skin as smooth and soft as silk. Her eyes sparkled. In her two hands she held the cord handle of a shopping bag from the kitchen store Dehillerin’s in Les Halles.
Heart pounding, he debated introducing himself, but couldn’t think of anything to say. A beautiful girl like her would never go for the likes of him. Trying not to stare, he couldn’t help looking at her, resigning himself to enjoying her company from afar while the ride lasted.
Nearby stood a man in a green workman’s uniform. His eyes were intense and deep-set, not unlike those on the posters advertising the illusionist. Atrociously ugly, his jutting chin and pockmarked face looked sculpted by Picasso. A wiry ponytail sprouted from his billed cap. Like Colby, he was intent on the girl. Catching Colby eyeing him, he twisted his mouth into an arrogant smirk and turned back to eyeing the girl. Although Colby didn’t know the girl, he felt possessively resentful.
Colby was oblivious to the train’s three brief stops before its arrival at Montparnasse-Bienvenue, his transfer point. He had one last chance to introduce himself. Instead, he watched in dismay as the ugly man approached the young woman, tipped his cap and introduced himself. When the car doors opened, the pair, as if old friends, got off. Stunned, Colby got caught in the crush of people both exiting the car and navigating the complex station of four intersecting metro lines. He looked for the girl and the man and found them some distance ahead about to disappear around a corner.
The man turned and winked.
Colby’s heart stopped. “Asshole!” He glared at the man, who laughed.
By the time Colby reached the moving walkway extending through the station’s long central corridor linking the lines, the duo was far ahead and about to disappear onto the southbound Line 13 platform.
At that moment, time standing still, his encounter with the girl ended. By the time he reached the platform, the pair were on the train leaving the station. He was heartsick. It galled him to have a man ugly enough to be in the circus succeed where he had failed. Alas, he’d never see the girl again in a city of more than two million. Best to forget her.
His stop was Varenne, three stations up the line from Montparnasse-Bienvenue. When he reached the street, it was dark. In the distance, beyond the Invalides, the Eiffel Tower stood bathed in ghost-like blue light. Colby walked along the broad, leaf-strewn sidewalk past the Café de Musée on the corner. When in town—all too rarely these days—he stopped for coffee on sunny afternoons and watched passersby and traffic on the boulevard. It drove home to him that he had no choice but to quit his job if he was to be happy, even if it meant far less pay. Work, circuit boards and wiring weren’t everything. If only he could closet his suitcase and settle down.
Passing the Rodin Museum across the narrow Rue de Varenne from his apartment building, he again thought of the girl. Stepping up to the entry, he punched in the door code and went inside. “You weakling!” he yelled into the empty vestibule.
He couldn’t get the girl of his head. Could such a miraculously gorgeous creature even exist? Was she an illusion? He wondered what she might be doing this very moment. Nor could he expunge thoughts of the ugly jerk butting in the way he had. So superior! So arrogant! How did he manage to charm the girl so quickly? What did he have that he, Colby Saxton, lacked? How could the girl be such an idiot? Face it, Saxton, the girl is gone. Wishing for her is an illusion.
#
Exhausted from a night of torment, Colby Saxton struggled out of bed the next morning. The girl was on his mind to the exclusion of everything else. She was all he could think of: her, his failure to present himself—and the galling success of the ugly man. Why hadn’t he introduced himself? Why had he lacked the courage?
Once he showered and was dressed, he trudged down the narrow one-way Rue de Bourgogne in the darkness and the soaking rain to the bakery where he bought a croissant. At the stationers he picked up a newspaper. While he ate his croissant and drank tea in his tiny kitchen, he perused the front page of the paper. It had this headline:
BRUTAL MURDER IN THE SEVENTH ARRONDISSEMENT
Murders weren’t front page news in this conservative publication, so it must have been horrendous. Curious, he read the article, which continued on an inside page. Finding the page, he gasped. There, staring at him, was a photo of the very girl he had seen on the metro. Stunned, hands trembling, eyes barely focusing, he struggled to finish the article. The girl’s name was Jennifer Peters. She was from Oberlin, Kansas. The medical examiner set the time of her death at between six and seven p.m.
Colby’s heart sank. Clenching his fists, he recalled the man’s smirk on the train. He brutally kicked himself for his inaction. If only he had been daring enough to introduce himself, she might still be alive. He wallowed in agony.
The article appealed for anyone with information to call Inspector Eugène Doublier at the Préfecture de Police, Ile de la Cité, at the listed number.
#
The train Colby Saxton took to get to the Préfecture de Police ran the same route the train he had taken the day before when he saw the girl, but in reverse. The coincidence was eerie, even creepy. The whole trip he saw her ghost standing in the car’s vestibule with the Dehillerin’s shopping bag, staring out the window.
The Préfecture de Police was two metro stops beyond the Odéon station where he had boarded that fateful train the day before. He emerged across the street from the Préfecture de Police and went round to the plaza entrance that fronted the magnificent Notre Dame Cathedral in all its splendor and where Colby attended mass.
He was escorted to an interview room. The windows looked out onto a large interior courtyard. Inspector Doublier, a tall, robust man with jet black hair, dark eyes and bushy eyebrows, came in carrying a pen, a notepad and a file folder he set on the interview table. Introducing himself, he beckoned Colby to have a seat and asked for his ID, offering his own. The two spoke in French.
“How long have you been in Paris?” the inspector asked.
“Just over four years.”
“For an American, you speak the language extremely well. I noticed when we talked on the phone.”
“My mother is French.”
Leaning back in his chair, the inspector reached for the pack of cigarettes in his inside jacket pocket, but caught himself. “I deeply regret the day France contracted the American no-smoking disease,” he commented with a grin. With a playful wave of his hand, imagining his pen a phantom cigarette, he said, “Before we start, let me show you something.”
Solemnly, the inspector opened the file folder lying on the table in front of him. One by one he laid out gruesome crime scene photos in color of the dead girl. She had been gutted, her intestines and internal organs carefully laid out beside her as if the victim of a dastardly necropsy. Her hands were hacked off at the wrists and her severed head lay at an angle a foot or two from her severed neck. A bloodied meat cleaver rested nearby. In the blood that had pooled on the floor around her, shoe prints marred the pristine surface.
Colby struggled for breath. Gagging, he fought throwing up. How could anyone suffer such a horrible fate! He closed his eyes, put his hands to his face and shook his head back and forth in disbelief. Only an animal could have done this. And he knew who the animal was. He ground his teeth in frustration. Had he introduced himself to the girl, this wouldn’t have happened.
Observing the young man carefully, the inspector gathered up the photos and returned them to the folder.
“Horrific, aren’t they?”
Colby’s voice squeaked: “Unspeakable.”
“Let’s proceed with the interview, if you can.”
Swallowing hard, Colby nodded. He couldn’t believe the girl was dead. His fault.
“So, you got on the metro at Odéon?” the inspector prompted.
“Yes. The girl was on the train.”
“And?”
“She never looked at me. I didn’t want to stare, so I looked away. That’s when I saw the man I told you about on the phone. The way he ogled her made my skin crawl.”
“You think he did this?” The inspector tapped the folder.
“No question. You need to arrest him.”
“We don’t know who he is.”
“He did it, I tell you—”
The inspector waived his hand. “I appreciate that, but we police don’t jump to conclusions. We have procedures to follow.”
“He could kill again.”
The inspector leaned back in his chair and again worked his pen as if it were a cigarette. “So, what time did the train arrive at Montparnasse-Bienvenue?”
“Five o’clock or so, I think. Maybe a little later. I’m not sure.”
”We’ll review station videos. I see you live near the murdered young woman.”
“I do?”
“Rue Monsieur is just west of the St. Francis Xavier metro station, the stop before yours. It’s opposite Napoleon’s tomb.” The inspector stood up. “That’ll be all for now. Before you go, I’d like you to work with our police artist to get us a likeness of him.”
“Anything to catch the bastard.”
#
A traumatized Colby Saxton went directly from his metro stop to the butcher shop farther down Rue de Varenne from his apartment to get a chicken for dinner, something he regularly did when in town. Once there he regretted his decision. The cleaver in the butcher’s hand looked like a medieval executioner’s axe. Closing his eyes and clenching his fists, he listened to the resounding thuds as the butcher chopped off the chicken’s head and hacked apart the carcass. Images of the dead girl getting hacked apart assailed his brain. By the time the butcher wrapped the chicken parts in their shroud of white butcher paper, Colby was in a cold sweat. Trembling, he paid and left.
Once in his apartment, he put the chicken in the refrigerator and threw up in the toilet. Filled with remorse, he called his London office hoping to get out of Paris on assignment. He wanted to get as far away as possible, even Antarctica if there was work for him there. To the dismay of he who traveled constantly and hated it, no trips were scheduled for him. He was stuck. The irony made him laugh.
He started dinner, but the idea of eating sickened him. He couldn’t stand the smell of food. Nor could he sleep that night, beset as he was with nightmares of watching the killer hack the beautiful young woman into pieces just as the butcher had hacked the chicken.
#
After another sleepless night, Colby was summoned to the Préfecture de Police. He took the metro to Ile de la Cité, again following in reverse the ill-fated route. Again he was haunted by all-too-real visions of the dead girl standing in the car’s vestibule.
To his dismay, Inspector Doublier, who had been friendly the first interview, this time was ill-humored and cold. Gesturing Colby to take a seat, he said, “Monsieur, you lied to us.”
Dumbfounded, Colby gaped at the inspector.
“We reviewed videos from Odéon where you boarded the train, Montparnasse-Bienvenue where you transferred, the young woman’s metro stop at St. Francis Xavier, and yours at Varenne. We find no evidence of the man you described to us. We find only you and the young woman.”
“I-I don’t understand.”
“The video from Montparnasse-Bienvenue shows you walking alongside the victim. You boarded the southbound Line 13 train together.”
Colby stared aghast at the inspector. That couldn’t be true. He was there.
“You two got off the train at her stop, St. Francis Xavier, at 5:43 p.m.”
“I got off at the following stop!” Colby almost shouted.
The inspector calmly shook his head. “You accompanied her to her apartment.”
Colby paled. “I’ve no idea where it is.”
“Rue Monsieur, I told you. You’ve heard of Marcel Croupier, have you not?”
“No, who’s he?”
“Monsieur, his poster is everywhere in Paris. He’s the famous illusionist.”
“Oh yeah, I remember. The posters with the eyes.”
“That’s interesting because the sketch our artist drew of the man you say you saw is an exact likeness. A joke on your part perhaps? Why not have us draw President Sarkozy? At least he’s good-looking.”
Colby didn’t like the insinuation behind the inspector’s resolute questioning.
“I told you what I saw,” Colby growled. “Talk to Croupier, or whatever his name is. Find witnesses. If he’s so famous, a lot of people would have recognized him.”
“No one has come forward. And Marcel Croupier is not on the videos.”
“Are you suggesting I murdered the girl?” Colby’s hands shook. His eyes grew wide with alarm. “That’s insane!”
“We suggest nothing except that the videos contradict your earlier statement. We want to know why. At the moment, you, monsieur, are our only link to the murdered woman. I assure you the Paris metropolitan police do not accuse anyone of murder without evidence. But since you brought it up, did you kill her?”
“That’s stupid.” Colby was angry.
“Did you?”
“On a stack of Bibles as high as the Eiffel Tower, I did not!”
“Perhaps you did and then walked home?” The inspector paused. “Rue de Bourgogne, where you live, isn’t far.”
“Why would I follow her home and kill her?”
“You wanted to make love to her? Lust is a powerful drug. Maybe she rejected your advances and you went berserk.”
“You’re crazy! You can’t find the killer, so you’re pinning the murder on me!”
“Monsieur, we’re pinning nothing on you.”
“You’re trying to intimidate me. You have no videos. If you did, they would confirm what I said. I was there. You must think I’m one of those killers who come to the police with some wild story to learn what evidence has been collected against him.”
“Monsieur Saxton, I take offense. We do not accuse you of anything except lying. While the videos do not prove murder, they do tell us a story different from yours. Why haven’t you been honest?”
“I have been honest. I’m baffled by what you’re telling me.”
“Did you bring your passport as I requested?”
Colby reached into his jacket pocket and brought it out. The inspector eyed him unsparingly before glancing through it.
“We’ll keep this,” he said, gently smoking his pen. “As a matter of routine, we would like to take your fingerprints and get a DNA sample, with your permission of course, and photograph you. Oh yes, we’ll need to borrow your shoes.”
Whatever the inspector said, Colby realized the police suspected him. With a confident shrug, he declared, “I have nothing to hide.” He took off his shoes and went in his stocking feet for his photo, to have his prints made and the DNA swab taken.
#
Retracing the fateful metro route home after leaving the Préfecture de Police, Colby got off at the murdered girl’s stop across from Napoleon’s tomb and walked the brief distance to Rue Monsieur. The street, only some two hundred meters in length, was half the length of his own Rue de Bourgogne. Which building housed the dead girl’s apartment? Not knowing gnawed at him. The ghastly photos the inspector had callously laid before him paraded one by one inside his head. The repeated whack of the butcher’s meat cleaver cutting up the chicken resounded in his ears. Sickened, he deplored how life can suddenly shift course and leave one devastated in its wake. Jennifer Peters was dead and he could do nothing to alter that.
Walking the half kilometer home along Rue Barbet-de-Jouy, he barely noticed the frosty breeze and the overcast sky. He was beside himself to be implicated in a crime he hadn’t committed. Were the police so desperate to nail someone with the crime that they had made him their target? Is that why they concocted the video evidence? To trick him into a confession? He had identified the perpetrator, if they would just listen. It gave him solace knowing the DNA and fingerprint tests would prove him innocent.
For the next several days, Colby left the apartment only to pick up his morning croissant and his newspaper. The chicken in his refrigerator, uneaten, had started to spoil. A malaise such as he had never experienced settled over him. He read in the paper that the girl’s parents had arrived from the States to claim the body. She would be buried at home in Kansas with the memorial service held there. He was to be denied the opportunity to pay his respects. It was further punishment for his inaction, his passivity.
#
Inspector Doublier’s summons came as welcome relief. Wrung out emotionally, Colby was desperate for the police to get past the farce of his suspected involvement and arrest the real killer. No doubt the tests had come back clearing him. The police would now want to learn more of what he had seen and any additional information he might have. Haunted again by the girl’s ghost, he rode the ill-fated metro, wishing he had had the presence of mind to take a taxi or ride the bus. These repeated metro trips pounded at him like an unremitting migraine. The ubiquitous Marcel Croupier posters on the streets, the buses and the metro—the murdering degenerate—tore at him.
When he arrived at the Préfecture de Police, Inspector Doublier escorted him to the all too familiar interview room. A man Colby hadn’t met waited there. Well-fed and portly, he wore a dark tailored suit and had a full head of graying hair, arched eyebrows and probing eyes.
“This is Monsieur Fourny. One of our prosecutors.”
Colby’s heart rose in his throat. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. What was a prosecutor doing here? Unless . . .
The inspector gestured Colby to be seated. Taking out a small notebook, he asked a number of questions Colby had not answers for. The prosecutor, standing off to the side, said nothing. Instead he stared out the window into the courtyard. When Inspector Doublier finished, he said to Colby, “Come with me please.”
They went across the hall to a darkened room. Colby sat next to the inspector in front of a large flat panel TV. The prosecutor sat behind them. The inspector brought up videos from the several train stations, each with a running time stamp. They showed exactly what the inspector had said they showed: no ugly man, just Colby walking with the girl.
Colby was astounded.
“Well?” the inspector asked.
“They’ve been doctored.”
“Hardly. They were made in real time,” the inspector said, his tone matter-of-fact. “We’ve maintained the chain of evidence. What you see is what happened.”
Colby’s hands trembled. “It’s not what happened, I tell you.” His voice broke.
The inspector calmly shook his head.
“I didn’t kill her. I’ve no idea where she lives . . . lived. Except the street, Rue Monsieur.” In English he said, “I rue, monsieur, the day I laid eyes on her.” It was the feeblest of jokes.
“The murder weapon was a nine-inch Wüsthof cleaver, a hackmesser.”
Apt term, Colby thought bitterly.
“Your fingerprints are on the handle.”
“My fingerprints? Impossible!” Bewildered, exhausted, he couldn’t think clearly. “I need to contact the American Embassy.”
“In time.” The inspector pursed his lips. His eyes narrowed. “Your shoeprints were on Mademoiselle Peters’ kitchen floor in her blood.” His manner was calm but insistent.
“My shoeprints?”
“Yes.” Quietly folding his hands and observing Colby, the inspector said, “Although you cleaned them well, we found traces of her blood on your shoes.”
Colby’s breathing grew hard and heavy. His vision started to blur.
“I’ve never been in her apartment!”
“You were there, monsieur. Forensic evidence doesn’t lie.”
The three men returned to the interview room. A chagrined Colby and the inspector sat down. The prosecutor again stood silently by the window.
“The evidence against you is overwhelming.” The inspector calmly unwrapped a piece of hard candy and put it in his mouth. “What do you say for yourself? Are you ready to confess?”
“I didn’t do it! I didn’t! You must believe me! I didn’t kill her!”
Colby’s protest was vehement, a prolonged shout, utterly useless. His heart raced.
“As I said, forensic evidence is irrefutable.” The inspector eyed Colby menacingly. “What you did, monsieur, was heinous. It is regrettable France no longer uses the guillotine.”
Colby’s jaw dropped. His mouth went dry. His throat tightened. Struggling to speak, he felt the gleaming blade of the guillotine slice through his neck as it dropped from its ready perch. In desperation, he burst forth not with a confession, but with an impassioned account of what had happened, railing on and on about the ugly man with the deep-set, magnetic eyes. His future was at stake, his life either as a free man or as a despised convicted murderer. The inspector listened attentively. The prosecutor moved away from the window and watched him. When Colby finished, the prosecutor put his hand on the inspector’s shoulder and whispered in his ear. They left the room. Colby struggled to get hold of himself. When they returned several minutes later, the prosecutor took his post at the window. The inspector sat down facing Colby.
“We find your story remarkably consistent,” Inspector Doublier said, his hands and fingers interlocked thoughtfully. “Therefore, we propose a polygraph test.”
“Will you doctor that too?” Colby groused.
“We’ll expect you at nine a.m. tomorrow morning. I warn you, make no attempt to leave Paris. Remember, we have your passport.”
Colby was astonished they were releasing him. Then it hit him: they had no real evidence, including the videos, which had obviously been doctored. They were lying to him just as they accused him of lying to them. He figured that by letting him go, they hoped to unnerve him into making a slip that would lead to a confession.
But he wasn’t guilty!
Compelled to take the haunted metro route home, Colby searched in vain for someone tailing him. He wondered: Am I in a time warp? Beset by an evil jinni? What the hell is happening?
The Marcel Croupier posters he saw everywhere around him announced the final performance that night. Each gigantic pair of hypnotic eyes mocked him. This couldn’t go on. He had to act. If the police refused talk to Croupier, he would. Taking out his cellphone in the Montparnasse-Bienvenue transfer station, he called the theater and managed a ticket.
#
Croupier’s performance at the Théâtre National de Chaillot, scene of many avant-garde productions, was spellbinding. Each illusion outdid the last. Nearly all involved his assistant, the breathtaking femme fatale Medlana Vlasic. For his finale, Croupier, without warning, drew a samurai sword from inside his cape and lopped off her head. The audience gasped. Blood spurted. People jumped to their feet as pandemonium erupted. Croupier caught the body in his arms, the head dropping to the stage with a thud. The auditorium rang with shrieks and curses. Smoke enveloped Croupier and his headless assistant. Shocked silence descended.
The seconds ticked by like hours.
With a swoosh, the illusionist and his unharmed assistant emerged from the smoke holding hands, bowing and smiling. The stunned audience burst into applause and exuberant cheers.
#
As the auditorium emptied, Colby Saxton strode backstage to Croupier’s dressing room. Croupier was removing his makeup, looking into the large mirror above the makeup table. Without his makeup, Colby recognized him as the man he had seen on the train.
“What the hell are you doing to me?” Colby shouted.
“Ah, my very handsome and worthy young man.” Croupier wore his arrogant smirk. “You had me worried. I was fearful you wouldn’t show up. I’ve had my eye on you for quite some time.”
Croupier’s French had a slight accent Colby couldn’t place.
“Is Jennifer Peters some outrageous concoction of yours?”
“She is ever so real. And so, so beautiful, n’est-ce pas? Excellent choice you made, I must say. I heartily approved and wanted ever so much to help you.” He swung around to face Colby. “You failed to act, so I stepped in. The video you saw at the Préfecture de Police shows what should have happened.”
Colby glared at the illusionist. “That I should have stalked and killed her?”
“The video didn’t show a murder, just you with the mademoiselle.” Croupier’s smirk turned into a sneer. “You didn’t go after her, you who complain of your hollow, meaningless life.”
Colby hesitated. “How do you know what I—?”
“My eyes are everywhere. I saw you on the station platform. You expressed your doubts about me. I took that as a challenge.”
“But you killed her!”
The illusionist looked mockingly aghast. He burst into obscene laughter.
“I didn’t know. I thought mademoiselle’s death was an illusion.”
“You damn fiend.”
“Ingratitude, that’s what this is. And after what I’ve done for you.” He looked hard at Colby. “I see you’re determined and angry. At least now you’re acting like un homme viril, a real man. I shall have to leave you without so much as your grudging thanks for my inspired help. A pity. You’re on your own, Mr. Saxton. Don’t try to summon me. If you do, I can’t guarantee the consequences. Someday you’ll thank me.”
“You’ll rot in Hell before I’ll do that.”
“Such malice.”
Escorting the young man to the door, Croupier bid him adieu.
#
Avoiding the metro by taking a taxi, Colby reported to the Préfecture de Police at nine a.m. the next morning for his polygraph. Inspector Eugène Doublier appeared.
“May I help you?” he asked.
“I’m here for my polygraph.”
“We don’t give polygraphs here.”
“The murder on Rue Monsieur . . . the girl.”
Puzzled, the inspector said, “You want to see about a murder? Here we issue licenses, passports and residence permits—and we administer the Paris police. For criminal matters you need to go to the Direction Centrale de la Police Judiciare on Rue des Saussaies. I can give you directions.”
#
Frustrated and utterly mystified, an unsettled Colby Saxton set out on foot for his apartment on Rue do Bourgogne, hoping to collect his thoughts and arrive at some understanding of what was happening. As he passed the Odéon metro station, an irresistible urge of déjà vu drew him inside. The posters on the Line 4 station platform walls advertising Marcel Croupier the Illusionist were gone as they were everywhere else.
A train pulled into the station. Colby boarded. It took him a few moments to gather himself. Then, directly in front of him, there she was, leaning back against a folded up seat just as before, a shopping bag from Dehillerin’s hanging from both hands. Colby froze, unable to believe his eyes. The shock of seeing her again in a city the size of Paris took his breath away. Maybe she was an illusion.
He glanced about. No Croupier.
The doors closed and the train began to move. Colby lost his balance. He crashed hard against the collapsible seat behind him, straining a muscle in his back. He hit his head. Dazed, he barely managed to avoid collapsing on the floor.
Alarmed, the girl rushed to him, speaking French.
“Monsieur, are you hurt?”
She set her shopping bag down and stooped in front of him, taking his hands in hers. Her fingers felt soft and warm.
“I-I can’t get my breath,” he said in English. “I-I feel dizzy.”
“Are you hurt?” She in turn spoke English.
“Hurt? No, I-I don’t think so. Not badly.”
He stared, mouth agape. She looked real. Her hands felt real.
The train stopped at the next station, Saint Germain des-Prés.
She said, “Let’s get off. You need fresh air.”
Picking up her shopping bag, she helped him to the platform and led him to seats lining the station wall. Colby’s legs felt like rubber.
“I can summon help,” she prompted.
“Give me just a minute,” Colby rasped, waving his hand. “I’ll be okay.”
His back and head hurt, but physical pain wasn’t foremost on his mind—she was. Getting hold of himself, he said, “There’s a nearby café, Les Deux Magots—”
Picking up her shopping bag, she said, “Let’s go.”
She helped him up the station stairs. They crossed the side street to the bustling café where they were seated under its high ceiling. The noise of conversation enveloped them. Bursts of laughter accentuated the incessant clatter of dishes, the shouts of waiters and the hiss of espresso machines. The smell of coffee percolated through the air. The girl set her shopping bag on the floor.
Swallowing hard, throat tight, Colby managed to blurt, “I’m Colby Saxton.”
“I’m Jennifer Peters.” Her demeanor personified charm, her smile an elixir, a magical potion. “I do apologize. It’s good that you speak English. My spoken French isn’t so great. I’ve only been here a few months.” She laughed.
Charmed, he stared at her, his heart skipping beats.
They were served by an indifferent waiter.
As they chatted and drank their coffees, Jennifer’s easy presence calmed him down. To his amazement, she seemed to like him.
“What brings you to Paris?” Colby asked, heart pounding.
“I’m taking courses at Le Cordon Bleu.”
“The cooking school,” Colby said, nodding, impressed.
“I’m going to open a restaurant someday. I’ve just been to Dehillerin’s in Les Halles where I picked up some tart rings. It’s a dangerous place. I go there too often. I could spend everything I have there just like Julia Child did when she lived here.”
She smiled. Her voice was cheerful, bell-like. He could listen to her forever.
“When I get home to Kansas, my mother will be aghast at all the kitchen stuff I’ve picked up, stuff you can only get in France. She doesn’t know much about French cooking and the specialized equipment you need, especially for pastry. But she’s very supportive.”
She fell silent as if embarrassed by her sudden exuberance.
Mesmerized, Colby took in the lovely apparition seated in front of him. He wanted her to keep talking, to drink in more of her divine presence, her captivating voice.
“How long will you be in Paris, Jennifer?” He said her name!
“Until summer.” She glanced at her watch. “Look, I have to go. They don’t let you into class if you’re late.”
“Will I see you again?” he asked.
Jennifer grabbed her shopping bag and stood up.
“Please? Your telephone number? I’d like to take you to dinner.”
She hesitated, then said, “Okay. I can do that.” She wrote it down for him on a slip of paper. “I’m usually home by seven.” Her amused smile was electrifying.
A magnificently exhilarated Colby Saxton emerged from the café into the brisk but sunny Paris morning with Jennifer on his arm. Conjuring a devil, he had met an angel. He was in heaven.
END
