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Page 6.
 Though touched by occasional moments of grief or melancholy at the loss of both parents, and of the house in Salem, Hannah threw herself into the business of being at home in the 16th Arrondissement (of a total twenty such districts) on the Right Bank of the Seine. From her tiny apartment in Auteuil (if she owned a car, which she didn’t, but you could taxi or Yves) it would be a ten minute drive on a good day with little traffic to reach the Eiffel Tower in the Champs de Mars in the 15th Arrondissement across the river. The Yves thing was a little fond joke between her and Yves. Before meeting him, she’d take a cab (Uber, whatever); now she’d take an Yves. And he of course, typically nuzzling behind her ear and ready to make love at any moment, was only too happy to provide all the Yves she needed, until he tickled and she squealed to get away, until he caught up with her and overwhelmed her with affection that she so deeply loved.
She was on her tablette with Yves the minute she got off the plane that evening. He was quickly there to pick her up from De Gaulle and drive her home on the Périphérique (circumferential highway around the city) while they chatted excitedly in a mix of French and English, happy to be reunited. As he drove, she kept a hand on his thigh as if to make sure he couldn’t get away, and she admired him in the light of passing street lamps. Just as often, she’d catch him stealing admiring glances at his belle Américaine. They were a bit of a catch for each other, each in their own way. He was as close to the storybook French beau she could have imagined as a girl back in Salem. His male and female friends, and family, found her charmingly cosmopolitan without losing what made her uniquely a U.S. American, including her quaint ideas about women’s rights and all that sort of puritanisme obsessively driving U.S. minds in their opinions. Like all good people everywhere, they were prepared to adapt, adjust, and learn, just as she was doing, so they all got along well.
Along that highway route, looking forward maybe to a hot bath together followed by lots of oo-la-lah, she smiled quietly. She looked forward to sitting on the Métro that first morning back to work. Even more, she though happily of the nice personalities multiplying in her life here in Europe (Rob, Elise, Yves, and the people close to them). She was developing a bit of a family around herself, and it was nice. Now that Rob was latched up with Elise, it would be fun to double-date. She thought: two is twins, three is awkward, but four is a party. Let’s dance.
Dancing was exactly what she and Yves did the next evening when they were done with work. Since they both lived in the 16th, it was easy to get together. She had a tiny flat way up, while Yves had a little basement studio let to him by wealthy relatives who owned property in Passy (very expensive).
Yves was still struggling financially, and she was paycheck to paycheck. He’d just finished a 10,000 Euro contract for an up and coming rock group, so it meant a great deal to her when he treated her to dinner in a nice Marais restaurant on a narrow, winding street of small shops. They tarried over a light dinner of tiny pork medallions with small boiled potatoes, asparagus, and marinated red beets. Dessert came in the form of apricot brandies.
Hannah and Yves went dancing, had a bit more to drink than they should have, and took the Métro to his studio in Passy. They left his car at a curb near a cozy little bar in the Épinettes neighborhood. Better gamble on a parking ticket if that happened, he figured, rather than a very costly drunk driving arrest. They had a fun trip home and crashed in his flat in Passy.
Life was getting back to normal, except for a few stray moments of grief, and strangely some weird incidents. What had the psychologist Karl Jung written in the middle of the last century? That there are coincidences in life that are bound together by synchronicity, meaning you may not find a cause of B as a result of A, but A and B are related meaningfully in the nebula or cloud of self-understanding by which the individual navigates through life.
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