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= Woman in the Moon =

Mona Lisa Novel, or: Nocturne in Paris

by John Argo

Page 5.

Hannah was no fan of air travel, having done too much of it already at the seasoned age of thirty.

The trip was, as always, a long flight back on Air France to Paris from Portland PDX with a change of planes at Heathrow, London. She found no particular pleasure in the grueling twelve hour flight, cramped into the common area by a window overlooking sun-gilded, orangey cumulus clouds much of the way. Her one consolation was the idea of getting back to the home she had made, the job that sustained her at a major insurance company, and her boyfriend Yves Cartier who was a video producer for television ads and up and coming music acts. She closed her eyes, sat back, and dreamed of Yves like a pill to ease the discomfort of travel.

Yves was her age, thirty, tall, handsome, and slender with a body that snapped like a whip. He had grown up in a medium-sized, ancient town north of Paris called Beauvais, in the Oise region of northern France. He’d qualified to attend university in Paris, studying business administration, and now ran his modest but promising business. She’d known Yves for a year, and was comfortable with his character and personality. He was pretty much a low-key, straight-arrow guy. Like Hannah, he came from a small town and steadfast family, simply on a different continent; and was determined to mold his own life with the same quietly hard-pressing ambition. It was way to early to know which way the proverbial wind was blowing for ‘them’ (Hannah smiled to herself: is there a ‘we’? Is the answer ‘oui’?); but they were comfortable together.

After losing both of her parents in the past two years, besides having voluntarily displaced herself so far from home, Hannah appreciated the steady touch. Her brother Rob was just a few hours away by car or fast train. And Yves was always good for comfort at the right moment, and at other moments excitement when they needed it, whether to go dancing at night spots in the Marais, or a weekend trip to Geneva or Brussels or wherever. That was a major beauty of living in Europe in the middle of so much history and culture, without losing sight of all that was wonderful back home.

Hannah half-slept or dozed much of the way on her British Airways flight to London, and then remained groggily awake for the final hour or so flying into Orly in the southeast of Paris, ironically on British Airways. Paris was overcast—gray and chilly—as she emerged with her suitcase and two handbags, and took a cab home to her small studio on the other side of Paris. She was paying a thousand euros a month for a tiny studio, but she wasn’t complaining. It was furnished, on an upper floor in a solid old 19th Century bloc in Auteuil and Passy, 16th Arrondissement. Above all, it was clean, safe, and quiet. Not to mention private, not that she did crazy stuff like dance in her underwear or bake naked in the kitchen while gyrating to loud music. She was a quiet tenant, and appreciated coming home, closing the door, and feeling cozy in her nest.

When the cab dropped her off, it was all she could do to lug her stuff up three narrow flights of stairs, lock the door, and throw herself face-down spread-eagled on the bed, in her clothes, to fall asleep.

With good timing, she awoke at dawn, made herself a light breakfast of yoghurt, fruit, coffee, and toast with butter and jam, and felt ready for work. She was still a bit bone-weary, partly from the stress and loss, and partly from the long cramped trip. But she was glad to be home and moving on. She had the day off, but looked forward to returning to work.

She felt at ease on the Métro, about a half hour ride each way between home and work. That allowed her to sit idly and look out the window, or study the other passengers while the train windows threw alternate lozenges of light and shadow across everyone’s features. Or she might keep her head down, and read on the Android tablette she carried in her purse.

Her workday in La Defense was satisfying enough. The odd name of the business district west of Paris dated to a time, in past centuries, when the French capital was surrounded by military defenses to resist invasion and occupation.

Her job paid well, with total benefits including universal health care, paid vacations, benefits, and other human rights unlike her contemporaries back in the USA. She found working in Paris at a multi-lingual job to be challenging, but fun. It kept her in the company of many interesting expats who all adored living in Paris, despite its good and bad points—French, European, North American, Asian, South American. There was a sort of United Nations of skilled, intelligent workers recruited by this European Union insurance giant that had linkages on all other continents and their huge corporations as well. She enjoyed the diversity at her company—you could almost be a citizen of this global corporation; scary thought. Part of her clung to her notions of small town living in the U.S., but that was now just a back door.

Her brother Rob was working in finance while finishing his interdisciplinary doctorate in Humanities at Goethe University in Frankfurt, and had many passionate comments to make about current events as well as history. Of late, Hannah was happy to hear that Rob had a beautiful and intelligent girlfriend, who was working for the same firm in Frankfurt as a financial analyst. Hannah looked forward to meeting Elise Gillen. Elise was from Luxembourg-ville (Luxembourg City), capital of the tiny nation, which, despite its size, was a full fledged and founding mmember of both the European Union and the United Nations. Hannah regularly got selfies and ussies from the two, so she could be satisfied that Rob was taking a very nice path in life.

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