Steve and Sylvie

He was, in effect, pope of an autocephalic church, and she was his cardinal sin, his one devotee, and that was that. Amongst the things he affected, apart from her, was the air of a louche boulevardier, the name Etienne, a yellow foulard worn as a cravat, and sunglasses. The latter he pulled down, along his nose, peering over them to read a newspaper or a slim volume of poems – usually his own – or perched on his head when he went inside; shades in the shade was only cool for others, not for him. Where he went, there went she, obedient as a dog, in matelot shirts or a shift dress, her own sunglasses plastic-rimmed and primary in their colorfulness. They would drink outside, at a table, ostensibly nonchalant but shifting their feet for fear of fire-ants. She read French Vogue languidly, understanding one word in fifty, the clattering bangles on her wrists emphasising the slenderness of her arms as the turned the pages of the magazine. Occasionally they would talk animatedly, and anyone sitting nearby, would catch references to music, literature, philosophy, esoteric enough but never too deep. Her voice held a trace of an accent, hinting at something exotic, but all too often slipping back to the gutter; when his eyebrows rose, she would blush and fall into silence again.1

Wherever they walked, in this city full of differences, they were indeed different. Beggars and street performers would take a step forward, then retreat, covering their embarrassment with a throwaway gesture or a yawn, realising they were not tourists. Not strictly tourists, but people, nevertheless, on a perpetual tour through their lives, jointly and severally. They relished their sloth, enjoyed seeming to stroll without lollygagging at the architecture, and to make others step around them, irritated but deferential. But occasionally she would react, with the exaggerated enthusiasm of a spoilt child, to something mundane – to a street vendor, or the sound of a cake-walk played on a Calliope – and beg, “Oh Steve! Can we? Can We? Please!”2

Once she was heard to say, “When I reach forty, I’m going to shoot myself.” She said it for effect, and it had little. He was looking across the street at the time, and his eyes merely narrowed. He gave the faintest wraith of a nod, and shot his unfastened cuffs.3

In private and after dark, their hearts beat arrhythmic, not-even-syncopated patterns, one across the other. It was feigned decadence, a relationship supposedly free and unfettered, one where imagined intrigues and infidelities were the subject of sulks and screaming-matches, but real liaisons were fearfully ignored. Sometimes they paid a street-punk ten dollars to guard the entrance to an alley, while they lurked in the shadows, fumbling at each other in mockery of gauche, teenage coupling. Sometimes she would tie a chiffon round her neck to hide a bite-mark, making an ostentation out of the concealment. Rarely enough to draw comment, she wore her largest sunglasses to hide a black eye, and at those times he would have an apologetic hunch to his shoulders, like a man who had been foolish enough to wear a hat in the hurricane season.4

Once or twice, each was seen lunching alone, feigning insouciance, humming a snatch of a Georges Brassens chanson. Mostly they remembered that they were joined at the hip.5

She pretended not to notice that his hands trembled, and while he exaggerated the effects of passing time upon his face, relishing the self-image of a roué, she picked out her own youthful aspects, accentuated them with admittedly deft strokes of an eyebrow pencil, hiding her maturity. When, at last, he succumbed to an ailment that murdered him almost overnight, she was dazed, disoriented, disbelieving, and perched herself ostentatiously in all their old haunts, as if she was daring him – half expecting him – to return to her, although he had long-since been entombed like a Parsee in a Tower of Silence. She wore a puzzled frown, which forced a tiny, forked fold into the skin between her eyebrows, and preying on her mind were the last words she had ever spoken to him – she had slapped her magazine down hard upon the table and stalked out of the coffee shop, calling out “Fuck you!” over her shoulder – a defiant gesture, a stratagem, un-meant but never to be unsaid. This was a ghost that could never be laid.6

When an August day washed away most of what remained of her life, as it did for many, her mind seemed to cling onto nothing more substantial than the color gray, dust, cobwebs. On her fortieth birthday she simply stopped her life-clock running, which was probably as good as putting a bullet in her brain.7