Memoirs de Paris

The first time I went to Paris I was already a man and I was in love. That was my second time, to be honest, but it felt like the very first one for when I left I kept telling to myself, ‘one day I am going to live in Paris’. I dreamed of living in the tallest apartment of a three story old building, in one of those steep cobbled streets of Quartier Latin that end in the Jardins du Luxembourg. I would spend the time writing in the esplanades around Rue de Saint Michel and would sit towards Notre Dame so I could see her coming home. One day she’d come pregnant and wearing a white casual dress and a ponytail carrying shopping bags with clothes for me. As soon as I saw her I would jump and I would hide in the corner and as she went by I would rush behind her and cover her eyes, She would gasp but before she could even say a word I would whisper to her hear ‘got you’. And then she would turn to me with a false inpatient smile and say, “for doing me that Coelho, you are now putting yourself inside this new suit I just bought you and you are taking me out to dinner to that restaurant I fancy and I will drink white wine and you will carry me home in arms. Then, she’d kiss me in the face and turn and walk down the street leaving me behind, frozen as if the clock had stopped for good. Those were the days I liked the most, in spring or autumn, when it was chilling but sunny. In winter it was sadder so I spend most of the time working home and looking to the snow outside. I was a correspondent and I was also studying political philosophy. I had a scholarship and I sold articles that kept me living. I was poor but I was happy. And this life went on forever.

I didn’t dream all this that second I took off from Charles de Gaule. It took me some time to make it all up but now I can watch the scene now over and over again and while I walk along the lane of perfectly cut trees of des jardins. And yet, those are my memories that have never been.

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