Excerpt of Plum Blossoms In Paris by Sarah Hina

Mathieu insists that we walk along the quay first, that the
restaurants are empty at this time of the evening, that
nobody in his right mind—he’s excepting Americans—eats at
ten before seven. He wants me to see something.

The beauty of the evening and the hum in my heart are in
such harmony that I readily agree.

It is the magic time of the evening, dusk, when the burnt
sun at our backs slips past its horizon, and the Paris sky
inflames to a purplish fever. The sky is larger in Paris,
panoramic. There are no skyscrapers to choke its view, and
like everything in Paris, I have no doubt that it was by
design. You have to admire a city and its people for having
such perfect consideration for one another. Ahead, rooted to
its isle, is Notre Dame, her chameleon sandstone absorbing
the last light of the evening and alchemizing it into this
fiery façade that glows from within. Like an opal, she is
Paris’ fairest jewel.

Mathieu and I walk in silence, our hands joined, the Seine
flowing languidly beside us. I marvel at the day’s thread. I
have experienced years that unspooled faster, and with less
to show for them at the end. I haven’t grown so much as
enjoyed many lifetimes. Was it just last night that I called
Andy, that schoolboy, with whom sex was as satisfying as a
wet sneeze? This morning that I fantasized about a vigilant
autonomy, a sacred aloneness? Now I belong to Mathieu, and
he to me. I do not feel any kind of sacrifice at the giving.
He has not stripped me of my independence, but sharpened
every particle of my being until I am downright
aerodynamic—a woman made to fly—making more of this thing I
call my self than I could have been looking across my
balcony, a Juliet without her Romeo.

With no great fanfare, the lights of Paris blink on.

“Ahh,” I sigh, my heart thumping its admiration. Mathieu
smiles. This is what he wanted: to flood my darkness with
light. The bridge ahead, one of nineteen straddling the
Seine in Paris, illuminates as a bateaux mouche tucks under,
and the happy couples on board, drunk on life, clap their
joy. A lone artist, desperate to finish his painting, fights
against the darkness on the quay, squinting into the light
above his easel, dabbing color onto the canvas while a
thicker paintbrush remains slung behind his ear. He curses
under his breath, disgusted with the night’s claim. His
painting of slaps and dashes is unremarkable, but his fierce
commitment fills me with pleasure. I breathe in his
turpentine as we pass. It is the pungent scent of someone
following his bliss.

Musicians are out, filling the lovers and flâneurs with
song, trading on their talent for the sporadic drop of a
coin. It seems a hard existence, until you think of
languorous Paris nights, the charm of the open-air concert
hall in which they perform, and the deliberate choice to
shun convention and embrace a life of unimpoverished
poverty. Ahead, the ubiquitous accordion player stands, too
stiff-lipped and dignified for parody, and squeezes the
sound out of his instrument with the care of a surgeon
massaging blood into his patient’s heart. The notes are
tremulous and sad, a quivering sob pulled from his fingers.
Tears fill my eyes, for when the heart is full, it does not
take much pressure to make it burst, splattering the
contents in an emotional carnage. I wipe my eyes and
scavenge for a euro from my sweater pocket to drop in his
case, to repay our earlier debt. If only there were some way
of letting him know it’s not charity. I look at him, wanting
the connection, but his eyes, including the paralyzed,
droopy one, are closed in meditation. He hears the plink of
my little tribute and nods gravely, maintaining his inward
focus. I come to a realization: these people are not here
for our money. This is prayer.

If I relaxed my eyes, blurring the electric lights into gas,
it might be a hundred years earlier. This is why Americans
come to Paris. It may wax and wane in our collective
imagination, but it’s gravity is as reliable as the moon’s
upon the oceans’ tides, its effect on us undimmed through
the ages. It, like the Matisse, remains the same. It’s we
who change.

I look up at Mathieu to find him lost in thought. His
remoteness pleases me. It feels good to ignore one another,
to reclaim the quiet of solitude, if not its heavy sentence.
I want to walk all night by his strong, silent side . . . I
want to sail under dark bridges and whisper sweet nothings
to the reflectionless water, as we push toward long horizons
. . . I want to seize an instrument, any instrument, and
pound out the fugue inside my heart . . . I want to swallow
time and hold it pregnant within me . . . I want to dance on
the graves of saints and sinners . . . I want to suck out
all the marrow out of the marrow of life . . . and belch
when I am full.

I want to live so deep that I cannot find sunlight.