April Come He Will

By Millefeuilles <supermillefeuilles_at_gmail.com (Replace _at_with@)>

Rated: PG

Submitted: June 2018

Summary: During his world travels, Clark befriends a cinema
student in Paris, France. Is their budding friendship strong
enough to overcome their separate fears in the aftermath of an
unfortunate encounter?

Story Size: 18,118 words (105Kb as text)

Disclaimer: The usual disclaimers apply: Clark Kent and his
family belong to DC, Warner Bros, etc. The original characters
are all mine, though. The real ones belong to themselves.

This fic was written for fun, not for profit.

"April Come She Will" is a song written by Paul Simon
([c]1965). I'm just borrowing the lyrics for a while. Please,
don't sue me. (You can hear the song, courtesy of YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYD-DIggB2k)

Explanatory notes are at the end of the fic. Even though I was
born and bred in Paris, some historical research was necessary:
Time flies and some details of the city as it was in the 1990s
were a little hazy...

All my gratitude goes to Cuidadora, my talented & wonderful Beta,
and to Brianna, my great GE.

***

Part I -- "April come he will / When streams are ripe and
swelled with rain..."

*Paris (France), April 1991.*

Sandrine Demazieres seized her shoulder handbag and slipped out
of the movie theatre seat. The end credits were still rolling on
the screen, and the lights were half lit, so she managed not to
tread on her companion's toes as she passed by him. *The big oaf
would have earned it*, she thought uncharitably. *Couldn't he
take "no" for an answer?* When she said she wanted to go to the
movies, she meant just that, not some groping in the dark.

When she had safely reached the central alley, she glimpsed back
at him and could not restrain a titter. The picture of an
obviously bored Marc still frozen in a daze struck her as funny.
Well, he had reaped what he had sown, sitting for nearly two
hours in the Action Christine *cinema *for a rerun of Albert
Lewin's *Pandora and the Flying Dutchman*. It was one of her
favorite movies and she never tired of endlessly seeing it every
time a Latin Quarter art theatre showed it. Obviously, he didn't
care for 1950s-*avant-garde*-fantasy movies with Surrealist
overtones.

Sandrine hastened her pace. Marc wouldn't be stuck in that daze
all day, and she wanted to be as far away as possible when he
snapped out of it. The last thing she wanted right now was to be
stalked by a man who was disappointed she didn't want him
romantically. Where he could have gotten the idea, she didn't
know; in the space of a few weeks, Marc seemed to have
transformed from childhood friend into a hopeful would-be lover.
Sandrine just wanted to reminisce about the finest parts of the
plot she knew by heart, as well as delight in James Mason's
charming broodiness and Ava Gardner's outstanding beauty. She
could *not* have enough of Mason's velvety voice. So, having to
engage in small talk with Marc instead would be no treat for
her!

Her musings were cut short when she suddenly ran into a brick
wall. She nearly bounced back from the impetus, but a solid hand
held her steady before she could trip.

"*Je suis vraiment desole! Vous n'avez rien ?* [I am really
sorry! Are you alright?]"

The "wall" had spoken to her.

She raised her head and saw a half-laughing, half-apologetic face
in front of her. The owner of both the face and the hand that was
supporting her elbow released her as she answered, "*Non, non...
**Tout va bien. C'est moi qui suis desolee, je ne regardais pas
ou j'allais ! *[No, no... Everything's all right. I'm the one
who is sorry; I didn't watch where I was going.]"

The man's grin reached his eyes, and he replied in French, "*Eh
bien*... [Well...] We *did* clash, but not by night."

He was alluding to a poem written by Mathew Arnold -- the one
that James Mason's character, the Flying Dutchman, quoted to Ava
Gardner's Pandora in one of the most moving scenes of the
movie.

Sandrine sighed as she recalled the beautiful yet tragic moment
between the doomed sailor and Pandora. He was about to reject
Pandora's love, because he knew that she would have to die to
redeem him and allow him to shed his cursed immortality. The fact
that the 1950's Pandora was the reincarnation of the wife whom
he had strangled in an unjustified fit of jealousy centuries
before, was an added layer in a myths-filled angst-ridden
fascinating love story. Sandrine didn't believe in such
supernatural stuff, but such romantic escapism was irresistible;
after many viewings, she had memorized the poem.

She laughed and replied in her native language, also referring to
the movie: "Yes, we did. Are you a Dutchman, too?"

He shook his head. "Nope, sorry. I'm from Kansas, actually."
The man's French was nearly flawless.

"Are you? Your French is very good."

Indeed, she could barely hear the hint of an accent -- one she
could not really define.

Regretfully, she took a step back. He was gorgeous, sure, and she
wouldn't have objected to some more ogling, but she *had* to get
away. As she looked around the lobby for any sight of Marc, he
came in from the crowd which exited the theatre.

*Zut* [Drat], *I'm doomed,* she thought. *I really can't dodge
him now.*

Her uneasy glance may have betrayed her, because the at least
six-foot tall, dark-haired hunk she had collided with asked, "Is
this man bothering you, *mademoiselle*?"

"I wouldn't say *that* exactly, but I don't really want to
speak to him right now."

Marc was homing in on them, his brows puckering in jealous
indecision. As he neared, Kansas Man told Sandrine, as if it were
the most ordinary thing in the world, "Zank you for shifting our
French lesson, Mamzelle. I am zorry for troubling you again, but
I abzolutely need a hand for correcting zis gunk. Deadline,
y'know." He vaguely gestured towards the backpack that was
hanging from one of his shoulders.

Kansas Man was now speaking in a preposterous, thick-accented
French. He sounded like a perfect bumpkin and even managed to
look the part, from his hunched shoulders to his thick
olive-colored coat that had seen better days.

Surprised, Sandrine answered, creditably enough: "*Ce n'est
rien, Monsieur... euh... *[That is nothing, Mister... err...]"

*Mon Dieu*, she didn't even know his name!

"Kent," her savior seamlessly supplied.

"Err, *oui*, *Monsieur* Kent. Glad I could be of some help."

"From what I hear, you really need it!" Marc exclaimed, glaring
at Bumpkin Man.

"Oh, stop it, will you?" Sandrine snapped, her patience wearing
thin. "You don't own me, and I never promised you anything. So
go home like a nice guy and let me do my job." Marc's body
language screamed he would do neither. "Scram, I said!"

Marc opened his mouth and, just as quickly, snapped it shut.
Puzzled by his sudden meekness, Sandrine looked at her new
"student." He hadn't moved a centimeter, but he somehow exuded
a... something... that wore away any willfulness Marc would have
had to tarry.

Shrugging his annoyance away, Marc left reluctantly.

Once they were alone in the *cinema* lobby, apart from a few
people waiting for the doors to open for the next showing,
Sandrine asked Tall Dark and Handsome Man slowly: "How did you
know...?"

"--That you're a French language tutor? Let me show you."

He opened his backpack and took out a stash of printed sheets, a
large notebook, a copy of *Le Monde*, another of *The Daily
Planet,* and then a worn out copy of the last *FUSAC* magazine.
He shoved everything back into the battered bag, except *FUSAC*.
The magazine was already opened and folded at the ads section,
and hers was circled by a red line.

Well-known to the English-speaking community of Paris, *FUSAC*
offered ads for nearly everything under the Paris sun and
articles explaining the finest points of French life for Expats
and foreign students in Paris. Sandrine knew the magazine well.
For the last three months, she had found some of her best
customers from the ad she had placed -- the one offering French
conversation and tutoring for a modest fee.

One of her most original and appreciated lessons was discussing
American movies with her customers after a movie theatre *seance
*[screening]. Being a movie buff, it enabled her to kill two
birds with one stone. Besides, as she always said virtuously,
being an impoverished student at the *Femis* [the French state
film school] didn't give her a lot of opportunities to increase
her income, apart from the occasional babysitting job. As a
result, her cinematic knowledge grew, and her customers were
satisfied. The true risk, obviously, was going to the movies with
a childhood friend.

Gorgeous Man explained, sheepishly, "I could not help hearing
you yesterday when you began discussing the latest movie with
your charge. I thought you could provide me with a nice story."

Sandrine let it slide, following his line of thought. "*Only
Angels have Wings*? Are you a Cary Grant fan, too?"

"Not particularly. But it appealed to me." He smiled
deprecatingly. "Friends of mine do fly."

"Do they?"

Clearly, this was a private joke of sorts, one she wouldn't be
privy to, so she inquired: "So, do you read all the ads in
*FUSAC*?"

"Actually, I do."

Her stunned expression had given her away, because he added:
"All part of the job. Looking for stories, I mean. I got the
last one that way. You cannot imagine what incredible tales are
lurking sometimes behind formatted ads."

He leafed through the magazine and showed her a page where the
headline stated: "*'Why is it called...? Pastries and
desserts' by C. K.*"

"I see."

"Your ad really stood out. And I couldn't help being reminded
of it, yesterday, when I heard you dissecting *Seuls les anges
ont des ailes*."

His French was really flawless. He had even given the movie title
in the French translation. It impressed her.

"I see," parroted Sandrine.

Suddenly, it seemed very important to know where the conversation
would lead. She thought quickly. *A* s*tory*. *He said something
about a story.*

Before she could have second thoughts, she grabbed his arm.
"Come on! You obviously don't need any lessons, but I *do* need
a coffee. I'm buying. This is the least I can do for a knight in
shining armor."

He went with her very willingly.

***

A teapot of green tea later, Sandrine knew a lot about her
companion.

Clark Kent was a journalist residing in Paris. He was freelancing
for *FUSAC* and occasionally sold articles to other magazines.
One of his most recognized works had been the coverage of the
anti-Gulf War marches in Paris earlier in January. He had managed
to convey the feelings of some of the protesters without losing
his objectivity, or so he believed. Obviously, he was quite proud
of that.

Clark was currently an *au pair *[lodger] in the *rue
Git-le-Coeur*, which was a short distance away. He did some daily
house chores for his old landlady, and in exchange, he was lodged
almost *gratis* in her ten-meters square *chambre de bonne *on
the sixth floor. He had found the arrangement through *FUSAC*, of
course. Obviously, he didn't mind climbing all these stairs. He
looked very fit under his heavy wool sweater.

"The room is spartan," Clark acknowledged, "but it is more
than adequate. After all, I just sleep there. And this is only
temporary."

"Oh?"

"I travel a lot."

She felt a stab of envy. Apart from some exchange student
sojourns in England, she merely knew a bit of Spain and Italy and
had never set a foot in America apart from her virtual trips,
courtesy of Hollywood movies.

Clark talked with enthusiasm of his trips to Nepal and Australia;
of ancient tribes and weird customs; of cultural
misunderstandings he managed to keep funny and entertaining,
deriding his own naivete; and of knowledge gained about the
relative values of humankind, and then the conversation veered
into arcane 30's and 40's movies. She could not help being
impressed with his large cinematographic understanding and told
him so. He reciprocated, and she told him about her cinema
studies, including her professional goal, to be a
documentarian--not a filmmaker -- even though she did like
immersing herself in fiction, living the character's lives, and
believing in them.

Reality was what fascinated her.

She longed to right some wrongs with a camera crew, bring into
the light a parcel of reality for all to see, and make it easier
for others to grasp the truth through her storytelling.

But there were tricks to be learned to ensure viewers got the
message, and the 30's and 40's professionals were masters at
it. So, going to the movies was as much work as pleasure.

He smiled. "A true workaholic, then?"

They were so engrossed in their conversation that, without them
noticing, the afternoon died and evening tiptoed in. The
deepening darkness reminded them of the late hour.

"Thanks for the tea," Clark said politely as he got up and
prepared to leave the cafe on the *Place Saint-Michel *[St.
Michael Square].

"Don't mention it. You're a cheap first-rate knight. But I'm
glad you didn't bring the horse," she joked. "Watering your
steed would be out of my league."

He chuckled. "The right answer would be that I left it at my
parent's farm, but alas, we only grow wheat."

"Your parents are farmers?"

"Yeah." A shadow passed over his face.

"You miss them?"

"I wish they were here. They always dreamed of seeing Paris in
the Springtime."

"The Gene Kelly Effect, huh? The reality is so much more
trivial, and yet, so utterly magical. Anytime I step on one of
our bridges crossing the river Seine, I feel like I own the
world."

He nodded. "I understand the feeling. I also felt the same on
St. Charles Bridge in Prague. It was so beautiful. One could
almost feel the centuries flowing under one's feet."

They let silence slip between them, each of them lost in memories
of crossing different bridges. Sandrine confidentially whispered:
"And, you know, when the wind is blowing hard, I feel like I
could fly, and I might reach the other bank without even touching
the water. Or maybe having to swim."

"I don't advise you to try the latter."

"I'm not such a fool." She shuddered. "A man nearly drowned a
week ago -- during the recent two days' thaw."

There had been an unexpected and sudden release of the
exceptional harsh weather. For two glorious days, summer-like
weather had interrupted the seemingly never-ending ice, cold, and
snow. Yesterday's snowfalls had left the Paris pavement
slippery. The pristine white of new-fallen snow had been replaced
by muddy grey after the streets were salted to prevent ice
formation.

However, February 1991 had heralded snowstorms, unprecedented in
France since 1987. The roads were blocked, aerial traffic was
problematic, and trains could not ride on frozen tracks. Night
temperatures had reached 12 degrees C below zero [10.4 degrees
F]. Newspapers had printed pictures of sleigh rides in Brest and
even Nice, as well as horrendous traffic accidents where vans
skidded and fell into the ditches. And miraculous near misses had
also occurred on the *peripherique* ring-road [beltway] that
circled France's capital city.

Sandrine wondered how Clark was enduring that kind of climate.
Living under the zinc roofs of Paris was notoriously romantic,
but it could prove hellishly cold during the winter and
oppressively hot during the summer, depending on the building's
insulation. *Rue Git-le-Coeur* was a pretty street parallel to
the *rue Saint-Michel* and conveniently close to the Seine and
the Saint-Michel Bridge, but it was also the heart of the oldest
*quartier* [district] of Paris. Many houses reached back to the
eighteenth-century; therefore, their main appeal wasn't modern
comfort, but grace.

She went on with her anecdote: "That drunken *cretin* [dolt]
made a bet with his best friend; he said he would swim across the
Seine. He jumped from the *Pont Neuf* ["New Bridge"] and nearly
didn't make it."

She shivered in empathy, almost feeling this imaginary cold seep
into her bones. The water was so muddy and dark; the currents,
treacherous -- one would be pulled unrelentingly under. The times
when people could bathe in the Seine belonged to bygone eras.

As the tale went, the two men were almost dead drunk when they
made that bet. The one who stayed dry had even taken photographs
to document the bet, while his friend had almost died by
drowning.

The photographs published in *Le Parisien* were blurry, having
been taken in the evening after sunset. But it was still possible
to see a dark dot surging from the water in one of the pictures.
And in another, one could clearly see the flabbergasted
expression of the suddenly stone cold sober man, sprawled on the
parapet that he had originally jumped from.

Both men rambled on with confusing tales of guardian angels and
UFOs, while the police had merely issued a request for witnesses
in order to close the file. A few days later, as winter came back
with a vengeance, the foolish swimmer wouldn't have made it,
even with a forceful nudge from his putative guardian angel. That
jump into the Seine water would have been deadly with the
addition of shock from cold exposure.

"Clark, this is too bad you weren't around. This would have
made a fine human interest story for you. This kind of *fait
divers* [short news item] is attention-grabbing."

Clark fidgeted. "This isn't exactly the kind of articles I'm
writing."

"You may be right. There's nothing newsworthy in inherent
stupidity."

Sandrine rose and picked up her coat. Clark hastened to her side
and helped her slip it on. She smiled at him. "You are a *preux
chevalier *[valiant knight], Clark. Not many men, even French
ones, do that anymore."

"My pleasure."

She hesitated, suddenly shy, and in a rush, probed: "If you
do... I mean... I'd like to see you again. That is, if you want
someone to show you around. Or go to a movie. I'd be delighted
to..."

*Zut*, she was babbling like a schoolgirl. She was pathetic. He
was just drinking tea with her to be polite, and he never even
got his story.

"If... if you think there is a story in my s*eances de cinema*,
well, I'm all yours."

She nearly bit her tongue in mortification. What had possessed
her to blurt that aloud? *I did, my girl*, her subconscious
sneered.

Thankfully, he didn't even blink. He was chivalrous to a fault,
even to a slightly bulky, short haired, 22-year-old brunette with
a taste for cheap and brightly colored ethnic clothes.

"I'd be delighted, Sandrine. Lewin's *The Picture of Dorian
Gray* is showing next Tuesday at 2:30 PM at the *Action
Christine*. Care to join me? I've never seen it in a theatre."

"Gladly."

Thus began their friendship.

***

Part II -- "...May, he will stay / Resting in my arms
again..."

*Paris (France), May 1991.*

Years later, when she looked back on May 1991, Sandrine realized
that all the evidence was there for her to see, scattered like
the pieces of an unsolved jigsaw puzzle. Despite what she had
told Clark, she hadn't been able to identify and assemble them,
revealing the full picture. However, she had been able to sense
some ominous undercurrents... which she dismissed as existing
merely in her imagination.

Snippets of unrelated events would flood her mind: her
then-delight at the appointment of a woman as French First
Minister, domestic annoyances like the misplacement of her jade
earring, and most of all, her obvious worry about her *Femis*
movie project.

As part of her curriculum, Sandrine was supposed to write and
direct a movie that would testify to her artistic and
organizational skills as a director.

Also, every fourth-year student, including herself, had to
volunteer as a crew member for her fellow students' projects. It
would be a pleasure to be involved with some of them, but she
didn't look forward to taking orders from Marc, as they were at
the time barely on speaking terms.

Their childhood friendship had been shredded. Nothing was left of
it. Now, both of them had erected a wall of silence to protect
their shattered feelings -- Marc's grew out of unrequited love
and Sandrine's sprung from the loss of their childhood
understanding. Yet, they had been as close as fingers in the same
hand, their nearness reinforced by their shared dreams and
successes. All these years had been obliterated by two hours of
sitting side by side in a movie theatre. Nowadays, they were
acting worse than strangers, only because Marc's ego was doing
its best impression of "jilted lover." How stupid of him, not
to have had the good sense to leave matters as they stood!

Well, that was Marc's loss. And hers, too, if she was honest
enough to admit it.

After many restless nights, Sandrine had chosen to weave the
restoration of the historic rooftop near Clark's place into her
fiction. The skill and precision of the workers and the sheer
romance of it appealed to her, and she believed she could manage
to convey the thrill of the centuries-old gestures without her
film being too *cliche*.

Clark had already agreed to let her cameraman use his *chambre de
bonne* as a starting point. She would begin with a tracking shot
from Clark's doorway, right through the window placed high in
the slanted ceiling of his room, so the audience's point of view
would soar in the sky and focus on the Paris skyline, and
then...

At that point, Sandrine had stopped talking and gesturing,
settling her half-filled cup carefully back on her saucer before
the brown liquid overflowed on the tablecloth.

"And then?" Clark inquired.

Sandrine shook her head. "It would spoil the surprise to explain
everything, wouldn't it?"

Clark neatly folded his paper napkin near his plate and leaned
back in his chair.

He had finished drinking his hot chocolate, and a few crumbs
remained on the china before him, reminding Sandrine that Kansas
Man, as she still privately named him, had consumed a
*Saint-Honore* and a *religieuse au chocolat* without strain.

How could he eat so much chocolate without feeling awfully sick?

She had barely managed to drink half of her cup. *Angelina*'s
hot chocolate was renowned for its potency on weak stomachs, but
still, she had wanted to introduce Clark to the delights of the
famed *salon de the* [tea room] where posh grandmothers and
neatly-attired children still mingled with tourists, snobs, and
chocolate gourmets.

Clark's faintly caustic voice cut into her chocolate-induced
heaviness. "So, you managed to draft the *Police nationale* into
it? Good for you. Helicopters will add a lot to your masterpiece,
I'm sure."

She removed her chocolate-stained napkin from her lap, crunched
it into a ball, and threw it with unerring accuracy at Clark's
chest. "Stop teasing me, will you?"

Undeterred, he went on, "And Wagner's '*Ride of the
Walkyries*' will enhance your big tracking shot along Paris
rooftops nicely."

"Not Wagner. Mozart. Mozart's *Elvira Madigan* concerto to be
specific," Sandrine told him smugly.

"At least, I know you're listening to me."

"Not to you. To Mozart."

Showing appreciation for her guided tours of some out-of-the-way
places, Clark had invited her to a concert in the *Theatre des
Champs-Elysees*. Their seats had been on the upper tier, but they
had savored the beautiful 1930's architecture, the sensual piano
playing of Maria-Joao Pires, and Sandrine's first real outing in
classical music. She had previously thought classical music
stuffy and snobbish, but Clark had persuaded her to the contrary.
It was a long shot from her usual *Indochine* and *Telephone*
rock bands obsession, but she was gingerly beginning to explore
some of the Austrian composer's masterpieces. And, as the icing
on the cake for their evening, she had also enjoyed
window-shopping outside the Dior boutique on the Avenue
Montaigne, laughing at the idea of wearing such eccentric
dresses.

"Helicopters and Mozart don't go together," asserted Clark
mock-seriously.

Sandrine deliberately frowned. "No use, Clark. I won't tell
you. You'll have to *see* it." She paused. "When I'm done."
She paused again and then playfully pointed at him. "And there
are *no* helicopters in the mix."

"Even when I let you loose in my *chambre*?" He wiggled his
eyebrows.

"Clark, your place is so cramped we won't all fit in here! Not
you, me, the cameraman, *and* the camera! Don't take it
personally, but in this instance, *you* are the superfluous
one." Clark's face fell with comical dismay. "Don't worry. I
promised you we won't trample your bed. Too much."

Too bad they'd have to stand on it to open the window and film
the opening shot she had envisioned.

Clark looked down at his empty plate. "I knew it. I've been
bribed."

"Yes, you have." Sandrine sipped her chocolate. "Want another
*gateau* [pastry]?"

"No, thanks. I'm full."

Sandrine raised her right eyebrow, or at least, tried to.
*Flute*, this was harder to achieve than Leonard Nimoy made it
look.

Shrugging the thought away, she asserted, "At least, think of it
as your contribution to art. When I'm famous, I'll give you an
exclusive: *My Long Road to an Academy Award*. People will fight
for the honor of interviewing me. No, better still: when I'm
running for the *Palme d'Or *at the Cannes Festival, I'll
invite you to the Carlton, so you'll have first pick of the
peroxided *starlettes*. Interested?"

The joke fell flat. Clark didn't show any enthusiasm at this
idea. Most males would have.

Sandrine added, more seriously, "Thank you for your help.
You'll be credited for the soundtrack idea and the sky above
your window."

Clark snorted. "I won't let you film it if you don't tell me
what you're using it for."

"Relax, Clark. My movie comes with a 'No Sky Was Harmed During
Filming' label," Sandrine retorted, capitalizing all the words.
"Besides, everyone is entitled to keep secrets from time to
time."

"You still haven't told me all your little filming secrets?"
Clark's face was so innocent it could have belonged to a
two-year old.

Sandrine blushed. Quite a bit.

To tell the truth, she had been inordinately open with him --
much more than a bare month's acquaintance warranted. Some part
of her knew that she had somehow elected him to take Marc's
place as her best pal, confidante, sounding board, and surrogate
brother. But she would have to be careful: someday, Clark would
leave Paris, and she would stay here, coping as best as she could
with the redoubled loss of friends.

And yet, Clark's leaving was also one of the reasons Sandrine
had allowed him to become such a good friend so quickly. Talking
to him was like baring one's heart to a complete stranger while
traveling by train. The odds of seeing each other were so
astronomical low that one could confide without damage.

So she unburdened herself with him, and he with her -- their easy
and natural relationship founded on the tastes shared by movie
buffs, as well as the same curiosity and openness.

They had compared their upbringing, as both their families came
from "redneck" areas --him from Kansas, her from the Creuse --
and their cultural shocks when they moved to the Big City for
college and university. And they had talked about everything
under the sun. With Clark, what you saw was what you got. This
quality was one Sandrine had enjoyed finding in many American
people she had met and befriended. Some of them had even become
regular pen pals after they went back home.

Sometimes, Sandrine almost believed that they were intimate
enough to metaphorically hold each other close, protecting each
other against professional hardships and drawing strength from
their closeness. Not that they ever did. For all his
friendliness, Clark had a very American upbringing, which
prevented the light touches and physical proximity Sandrine had
so enjoyed with Marc -- when he was still her best friend.

Clark's intent look reminded her she had not answered him. She
hastened to say, "Of course not!" She smirked. "As if you told
me all your secrets!"

"Now... Sandrine, you already know about me embarrassing myself
in Tokyo--"

"--Good blackmail material, by the way--"

"--And about my kindergarten girlfriend--"

"--kissing you full on the mouth. Really yucky--"

"--and, what about, oh," he lowered his voice, "my stepping on
the foot of a Nigerian Princess while waltzing?"

"It happened only once. Not secret enough."

He made a show of thinking then offered in a more thoughtful
tone, "Is my sending out resumes in London enough of an
admission for you?"

Sandrine inhaled sharply then hastily drank some chocolate to
hide her disappointment. Despite herself, she couldn't help
being sad, knowing he would not stay much longer in Paris. She
would really miss Clark.

"Will it be your next stop?"

"I'm not sure yet. My piece on the Iraqi refugees was picked up
and could be sold in syndication. It will help me find a more
permanent job. *FUSAC* was fine for a while, but..." He sighed.
"A source implied there is something big brewing, a national
health scandal or other. However, in France, I don't have the
network or enough weight to look into it. I drew a blank."

Sandrine put her hand on his arm and patted it. "Hey, don't you
worry. You'll have your big break. I'm sure of it."

"'Hope so." He seemed dejected for a split second then smiled.
"Till then, I'll keep out of your sky. When do you plan to
start filming?"

"Will next week be okay?"

"Fine with me. I'm planning a short trip to Montpellier. Madame
Leroy will lend you the key. She's quite excited by your film.
You'll have to credit her, too; technically, it's her
*chambre...* and *her* sky."

***

Tendrils of rose-colored streaks were expanding in the sky, grey
clouds barely covering the beautiful image, when Sandrine locked
Clark's window. The sun would soon plunge behind the horizon,
darting its last rays on the rooftops. The weather had turned
inclement as it had many times before, the frozen air spreading
other shades into the illuminated silver rooftops.

Sandrine's surroundings were as bare as their current lodger had
intimated.

The room held a single bed, a cupboard whose shelves were half
bare, a small desk and chair, a battered suitcase with "C.K."
initials embossed on the side, and clothes hanging behind a drawn
curtain. The bed was sagging in the middle, and not because she
had jumped up and down on it. From the look of it, many previous
occupants must have stood in the same place, stretching to
maneuver the opening of the window that faced the rapidly
darkening sky. Someone--Clark?-- had pinned a photograph of the
Taj Mahal palace on a wall and another picture of a formal French
garden on the one facing it. A framed small picture of a older
couple sat on the desk. In a corner, an electric hot plate sat on
top of a small fridge.

Olivier had already left, carrying the heavy bags containing the
camera and all the technical stuff. The staircase was so narrow
that he had had some trouble negotiating the curves.

God only knew how the bed frame had reached its destination. It
might explain why this battered bed was still there. Madame
Leroy's *au pairs* would not complain, as they were the
beneficiaries of her generosity; lodgings in Paris were quite
expensive for students, and if someone had one almost rent-free,
one would not look a gift horse in the mouth.

A sudden slithering sound echoed above Sandrine's head.

She froze and tried to identify it. Something skidded on the
rooftop. Not a cat, then. Not pigeons, either. '*Here be
Dragons,' *she irrelevantly thought, as she hastily picked up
her bag and left, feeling somewhat nervous.

As she went down the staircase, her mind was still trying to
identify the sound.

It had almost sounded like footsteps. How could it be?

***

Part III -- "... June, he'll change his tune / In restless
walks, he'll prowl the night..."

*Paris (France), June 1991*

From the start, this evening had been an unbelievably stupid
idea.

If there was something Sandrine hated more than spinach, it was
nightclubbing. So, how she found herself in a cramped night club
on the *rue de Rivoli*, on a Saturday night, she couldn't quite
understand.

That same afternoon, Sandrine had finished the last cut of her
first movie as a director. She hoped it wouldn't be her last.
She simultaneously felt dead tired and wonderfully elated.

"It calls for a celebration," Nathalie, her temporary assistant
asserted, and then she proceeded to convince Sandrine that one
was in order.

As Sandrine already knew, restraining Nathalie's eloquence was
like trying to fend off a hurricane. Her discourse was another
instance of her ability to convince even the most reluctant of
listeners. Nathalie had begun her tirade as eloquently as she
usually did -- her speech hasty and her gestures jerky in her
haste to persuade.

In the end, Sandrine had relented. *Anything to make her stop*,
she thought wearily. However, all she dreamed about was soaking
in a long warm bath and then, spending a quiet evening with a
book. Sandrine's two roommates were away, and she wished to make
the best use of their common bathroom, while indulging in the
peace and quiet.

Conceiving and directing her first feature film had been huge and
stressful work, as she knew that her *travail d'eleve*
[student's work] would be a sort of business card, introducing
herself to the professional world she wanted to make her own.

The realization that in a few months' time, she would have to
find a job in her field made Sandrine even more eager to grab any
occasion she still had for a little R & R. She couldn't very
well count on her French lessons to tide herself over: her
schedule and her need for solitary work had had precedence. So,
the lessons had been ditched. This was too bad as they did
increase her small income. And, honestly, she couldn't expect
her parents to supplement her basic necessities any longer. They
had done enough; it was time for her to be on her own.

But her dream-evening was not to be. Even if a blanket of
tiredness made her bones ache, Sandrine could not deprive
Nathalie, "her" actors, or "her" crew of this last collective
outing.

Team spirit was a fine thing, and this very evening would put an
end to her first venture into directing.

A shrewd part of her mind also knew that if she resisted, she
would carve for herself a reputation of aloofness and
snobbishness that would not serve her well in her career.
Reputations traveled far, even from the *Femis*, and she would
have to inspire respect as a *female* director. Being respected
without being too familiar or being friendly without inviting
insolence was like walking a tightrope.

It was now past one in the morning. Standing near the bar, her
now warm Diet Coke in her hand, Sandrine surveyed her
surroundings. The closely knit crowd that had formed the *Femis*
people when they arrived, dancing and laughing together, had long
since disintegrated. Everyone had scattered along the three
floors of the *discotheque* [nightclub].

Glancing to her right, Sandrine saw that Philippe and Regis were
still hanging together, trying half-heartedly to convince a
redhead to dance some sort of dislocated-drunken mambo with them.
*Well, good luck to them!* It would not be easy to do that kind
of step over *R.E.M*.'s "*Losing My Religion*."

The vibrations of the next song invaded Sandrine's body, the
bass so loud that she could almost feel the sound reverberating
inside her teeth. It seemed to flow along with the stroboscopic
violet, green and yellow lights, while insinuating into the plush
couches along the walls and gliding on the gliding black floors
and stairs.

The overall lights were so muted that sometimes, one merely saw
the phosphorescent effects of the rotating beams on the white and
light-colored clothes of the dancers. From Sandrine's vantage
point on the top floor, she could easily look down the stairs,
and it seemed as if all these shadowy human dancers were daemonic
specters escaped from Murnau's *Faust* or *Haxan.*

Unfortunately, they weren't as mute as the characters of these
silent movies. Suddenly, some of the nearby revelers began to
bellow in what barely passed for singing:

*C'est dans la nuit de Rebecca *[This is in Rebecca's night]

*que la legende parti-ra *[that the legend wi-ill spread]

*a cet instant et a chaque fois *[at this instant and every
time]

*elle voudra le revoir au moins 3 nuits *[she'll want to see him
again, at least for three nights]

*a cet instant et a chaque fois *[at this instant and every
time]

*ils se donnerent rendez-vous 3 nuits... *[they arranged to meet
for three nights]

Their voices screamed louder, even more off-key than before as
they continued, "*Three niiiiiiiiiights*..."

Horrified, Sandrine put down her Coke on the counter, covered her
ears, and hurried down the stairs. Her head was beginning to
pound as fast as the beat of the song.

This was more than enough. Nathalie or no Nathalie, she was going
home.

Right now.

In any case, none of her companions would notice her flight.

*La Scala* nightclub had different levels that were so packed
full of people that it took her twenty minutes to reach the
bottom level, get her coat from the cloak room, and make good on
her escape plan.

Once she reached the street, she inhaled the still-warm air of
the night and sighed in contentment.

***

Her relief didn't last more than a heartbeat.

A quick look at her watch told Sandrine that it was nearly half
past one. She cringed. She should have left earlier, rather than
indulging the others' feelings and staying longer than she had
planned.

Of course, now there was no *Metro *[Subway] and no buses either,
except the few lines of the *Noctambus* that ran all night. She
would have to walk along the *rue de Rivoli* until she reached
the *Noctambus* bus stop, which was located on the Chatelet
square. And then she would have to walk again after reaching the
more convenient stop until she arrived home. At best, she
wouldn't reach her bed until three in the morning.

*Zut de zut de zut! *she thought angrily.

Swallowing bile at her own stupidity, Sandrine began to walk with
a brisk stride. At least she had had the common sense to wear
flat pumps.

***

As she walked, her self-recriminations abated and something like
nervousness took its place.

The *rue de Rivoli* was too quiet.

Sandrine could almost believe that she was the only human being
left in the world. The straight street was one filled with
tourists' souvenirs shops, restaurants, cafes, and take-away
food, while the Tuileries Gardens were located on the other side
of the street. Then, they were replaced by the Louvres Museum,
while on the other side, the *Palais Royal* and its garden hid
behind the square bordering the Louvre, briefly replaced the long
arched gallery where the shops opened. After this short
architectural respite, the arched gallery above the sidewalk
continued with its classical regularity. Ahead of her, if she
walked for a few more minutes, she would see historical
department stores with the *Samaritaine* a few hundred meters
ahead and closed shops on each side of the street.

But, despite her quick stride, Sandrine was still in the cultural
side of the district. In a few meters, she would leave the Louvre
behind, its imposing front obscuring the low moon.

A few cars hastened by in the deserted street, speeding toward
the glory of the *Place de la Concorde* with its eons-old central
obelisk and the luxuries of the Crillon Hotel near the American
Embassy. The sound of their passing disappeared as quickly as
dreams do when one is about to wake.

Without intending to, Sandrine hastened her pace under the
historical archways that covered her side of the street. At
regular intervals, the suspended stylish street-lights projected
a yellower illumination than those on the other side of the
street. In this tiny part of the district, opposite the Louvre,
the shops went upscale; the windows offered antiques, textiles
and leather goods, projecting additional light onto the
pavement.

To Sandrine, the street, so crowded in daylight, seemed to
stretch further in its deserted state. Even the evaporating
leftover heat of the day contributed to this gloomy near silence,
smothering the faraway sounds of the sleeping metropolis.

The silence was making Sandrine definitely nervous. She moved
faster.

As she walked by the *Oratoire du Louvre* [a seventieth-century
Protestant Church], whose end bordered the street with its
backyard, Sandrine suddenly heard an echo to her footsteps.
Unconsciously, she slackened her pace in order to hear it
better.

The attack came so suddenly Sandrine didn't have the time to
turn around. Suddenly, a hand grabbed her by the throat as
another tugged on the strap of her purse. She let go of a muffled
scream and twisted desperately around in order to dislodge the
weight that was squeezing her neck, her left hand flying to it to
try to pry her attacker's fingers open.

The inflexible hand released a little bit of pressure before
taking another grip.

During the slight reprieve, Sandrine screamed louder, while the
man took hold of her free arm and twisted it behind her back.
Surprised, she nearly let go of her bag; in her panic, she had
thought of protecting her purse first. It contained her keys,
wallet, some change, and she could not risk losing it. She was
still reflexively clutching it with her right hand, instead of
trying to dislodge her attacker with both hands.

Infuriated, the man jerked harder.

Sandrine's breath caught. Out of breath, she began to suffocate,
feeling herself falling onto the pavement under the cold eyes of
Admiral Gaspard de Coligny. The commemorative effigy of the
Protestant leader murdered during the St. Bartholomew's Day
massacre seemed to look down on her with unrelenting irony from
his position behind the iron railings of the Church as a memento
of men's atrocities.

Desperately, she felt her strength wane as her lungs begun to
burn. However, a sudden release made her stumble. Sandrine's
head hit the railings and things blurred for a while.

When she got her breath back, she was folded up on her side, her
purse strap still draped around her shoulder, her bag maintaining
a hard bulge between her thigh and the pavement. Uncertainly, she
got up on all fours, and then tried to stand up, her hands
grasping the nearby railings.

She later realized that she could not have blacked out more than
a few seconds.

As she tried to get up, the street light for that part of the
street went out unexpectedly.

The stylish lantern, which was hanging from the apex of the arch
above them, had blown. It overhung the part of the pavement that
bordered the street itself, so the scene of the action was
plunged into additional darkness, as the next illuminated shop
windows were across the perpendicular street to the *rue de
Rivoli*.

In the increased dusk that enshrouded the street, Sandrine
perceived that her assaulter--with brown hair, jeans, and a dark
long-sleeved sweater--was confronting another man.

Slightly dazed by her sudden freedom, Sandrine couldn't really
understand what was going on. She must have been knocked out and
was unconscious or dreaming or something. There couldn't be a
man effortlessly preventing her would-be assailant from reaching
her and moving so fast things were even more blurry, making her
head spin.

When Sandrine managed to stand upright on trembling legs, she saw
her would-be robber rush past her in a burst of speed. Sandrine
went sprawling on the pavement, surprised by the suddenness of
this movement.

She stayed where she had fallen. She wasn't hurt, but she
preferred to sit there on the pavement. At least, she wouldn't
fall further. Her legs felt like cotton-wool.

She looked around her, vaguely studying her surroundings. She
noticed that shards of glass littered the curb where the stylish
lantern had been.

Sandrine's teeth began to chatter.

After a short interval, strong hands helped her to her feet.

"Are you hurt?" a very deep and gravelly voice asked her.
*Almost like James Mason's*, she irrelevantly thought.

"No. Just shook me up a little," she answered mechanically.

She craned her neck trying to see her rescuer's face. He held
himself in such a way that she couldn't see it. Sandrine
squinted, trying to concentrate. It was difficult to do so. A
delayed reaction settled in, and she leaned against one of the
pillars along the archway.

Good old Coligny hadn't batted an eye during this succession of
astounding events. *The poor dear had seen civil wars, mass
massacres and assassinations*, Sandrine thought dizzily. *Nothing
here to get his knickers in a twist. Nothing at all*.

A rumbling noise broke the silence, and the flashlights of a
passing car briefly illuminated the face of her rescuer.

Sandrine gasped. It was covered with a ski mask, or the kind of
mask thieves wore when they attempted a robbery in any
self-respecting TV movie.

She backed away, sliding away from her cozy rest along the arch.
Taking one step at a time, she moved back from the man in black,
staring at the frightening ski mask. She felt like laughing. How
stupid could this be? *Out of the frying pan and into the fire*,
she thought hysterically.

Not daring to lower her eyes from the man without a face--*as if
it would make a difference*!--she backed away from him, crossing
the little perpendicular street to the *rue de Rivoli*.

Her luck held. She didn't even stumble on the pavement as she
walked backwards on the other side of the *rue de l'Oratoire*.

Her luck came back with a vengeance.

She turned her head, and there it was. A taxi was stopping a
little farther away on that street.

Feeling a little more daring now that she was separated from the
masked weirdo after crossing the street, Sandrine ran to the taxi
as it discharged a passenger.

"I need a lift, please," she breathlessly asked the driver.

"All right, come in," he replied.

The door slammed. The car sped on its way, but there was no one
to be seen at the feet of Gaspard de Coligny's statue. Only
shards of glass on the pavement and the twisted and charred metal
casing of the overhead lantern attested to the last few minutes.

***

Fortunately, Sandrine had enough change in her purse to pay the
fare. This unexpected expense would mean more spaghetti on her
menu next week, but for once, she didn't mind too much.

When she arrived home, she immediately crawled into bed, letting
her clothes remain where she had dropped them.

The ringing of the phone woke her up. Her alarm clock indicated
9:00 AM, and she smothered a curse.

Sitting up gingerly in her bed, she muttered, "I'm coming, I'm
coming" and limped into the common sitting room, feeling like an
eighty-year-old arthritic woman. Fortunately, the caller kept
ringing.

Sandrine crashed on the battered couch in the common living room,
picked up the phone and said, "*Allo*? Philippe-Demazieres-Baron
Apartment, here."

"Sandrine, is that you?" Clark's voice said on the other side
of the line.

"Err, yes. What's left of me, anyway," she said. "Clark, how
are you?"

"What do you mean?" questioned Clark, his concern obvious.

"Oh, nothing much. I was mugged last night. No problem!"
Sandrine answered, with feigned carelessness.

It didn't fool Clark. "I'm coming," he stated. "Don't
leave. I'll be there in about..." His voice trailed as he
thought. "A half an hour. Is your code still the same?"

"No, err, yes," Sandrine stammered. "Please, don't trouble
yourself. I'm okay, just a little sore." This was a gross
understatement. From the way her muscles ached and her *derriere*
[backside] stung, she imagined it would be black and blue at
least for a fortnight. "The code's the same, but I don't
need..."

"I'll be there in half an hour," Clark reiterated more
forcefully, and then he hung up, effectively cutting off her
protests.

"Oh, *zuuuuut*!" Sandrine moaned, looking at herself with
dismay. Her hair was standing on end, and she was still wearing
her night t-shirt; she was a sight. She groaned and hobbled to
the bathroom.

***

Clark had been right to insist, Sandrine thought contentedly.
Friendship, coffee, and fresh *croissants* were the restoratives
she needed.

She finished her tale with as much animation as she could. Her
shoulder still hurt where she had bruised it on the pavement, so
she gestured with the other hand, emphasizing her words as she
spoke. "It was just unbelievable; the guy was wearing a ski
mask. A black ski mask!! In June!"

"Maybe he wanted to be a Zorro to his damsel in distress,"
Clark offered falteringly.

"Pff! I don't think so. He was really scary." Sandrine paused.
"No, he wasn't, actually." She collected her thoughts. "He
scared me, though. It was so -- so sudden..."

"He did help you, didn't he?" insisted Clark.

"All right, so he did," she agreed reluctantly. "You're
right; he *did* ask me if I were hurt. All the same..." She
faltered, feeling ridiculous for doing so. She was in one piece,
no great harm done. Her guardian angel--if she had one all her
own--had been a busy little bee last night.

Sandrine's eyes met Clark's. As usual, she was met with
gentleness and his usual determination to understand. His eyes
begged her to go on with her tale, so she went on: "It happened
so fast. I'm not sure I can recollect what really occurred. This
was so weird, you know. Things kind of went in slow motion, and
yet, they unwound so fast that I cannot--"

"Remember everything?" Clark interrupted.

Strange how Clark seemed almost... satisfied, when he said that.
No, not that, he was... Busy sorting out her memories, Sandrine
let the impression slip away.

"*Non, non*. That's not it. There's *something*..." she
began.

Something lying in wait on the frontier between awareness and
forgetfulness.

Something that felt a bit off.

Something she could not put her finger on.

Something she *should* remember.

She concentrated, and snapshots of the previous evening came back
in distorted shapes. Hands blocking her attacker's grasp. Hands
helping her to get up. Hands she felt squeezing her throat,
blocking her windpipe. Hands... feet...

The feet of her savior weren't touching the ground--*they
weren't touching the ground*!

Sandrine's face must have blanked out, because Clark's voice
intruded into her consciousness: "Sandrine... Sandrine! Are you
all right?"

She hastened to reassure him: "*Mais oui*, stop fretting!"

Sandrine concentrated further, but nothing of value came flooding
back. The editing was good, though. The images wound up in the
canister of her brain and flickered into their proper order. Yet,
the film cutter had managed to give an impression of speed and
urgency. Shots and reverse shots sped in her mind with an oblique
slant, then with low-angle shots of when she had found herself on
the pavement.

Still, whatever comparisons she made, she could not escape that
rock-hard certainty. At one point, while he had made her mugger
spin around with an impossibly regular arc, Zorro Man's feet
*were* slightly off the pavement. Meager, ridiculous millimeters,
but still...

She was absolutely sure of it.

Her shocked stare had then focused on his feet, which dangled at
her eyes' level, as she was then half-sprawled on the street.
*The man was wearing dark sneakers*, she dimly remembered.
Jumble-sale ones. As if it would help her to understand who or
what he was!

"Sandrine... Sandrine!" Clark's voice intruded into her
daydreaming. She lifted her head and blurted out: "He was
floating!"

"*Hein ? ! *[Eh? What?]"

As this typically French interjection escaped Clark's lips, a
flicker of a smile crossed Sandrine's face. For a second, her
thoughts diverted, as she considered how fluent her American
friend was in her native language, down to the vernacular little
turn of phrases most foreign speakers never really picked up.

"What do you mean? *Floating*?!?" Clark *did* sound sort of
worried.

*Zut*, she *had* done it. Sandrine grimaced, realizing how daft
she would seem to Clark if she confided what she had really seen.
His first impulse would be to run away, never to be seen again,
if he grasped what she had meant. He would label her
"*taree*,"* "folle*,"* "cinglee*,"* "cretine*," [wacko,
mad, moron, etc] if he knew.

Best not to tell him too much. He was so kind that he would
pester her until she went to see her doctor, who would gorge her
with antidepressants and sleeping pills and whatnot, and they
would erode her mind, and she would feel like a tinned vegetable
at a time when she needed reactivity and creativity to achieve
her dreams.

No way. NO WAY.

Opting for some fast creative fibbing, Sandrine smiled sweetly at
Clark and told him instead: "My guardian angel, he was floating
around. I'll bet he was."

She took a sip of her now-cold coffee and made a face. "Ugh!
This blend is really atrocious. How could you drink yours?"

"It was boiling hot," replied Clark, deadpan. "No taste at
all."

"Eh! It's all your fault. I told you not to come!"

"Are you sorry I did?" he countered.

"No. Of course not. Don't think me ungrateful, Clark, but
don't you have better things to do than babysitting me?"

Sandrine got up and poured the offending coffee into the kitchen
sink. "Want some tea instead? I've got some Oolong which isn't
half bad." Without waiting for his answer, she filled the
kettle. "Marianne hates tea. At least, I'm sure she hasn't
drunk mine."

"These roommates of yours aren't that wicked," Clark said.

"Don't bet on it. You're always seeing the best in anybody,
but I assure you, sometimes, I wish them to take off for parts
unknown. I'll be glad to have my own place one day, even if
I'll miss them... occasionally".

"Where have they gone, by the way?"

Sandrine brought two tea cups to the table and sat back down.
"Marianne's boyfriend keeps her busy somewhere--she'll come
back in two days, and Jeanne is visiting her folks for the
week."

"Ah!" From his tone, this news didn't please Clark one bit.

"Ah--what?" She frowned. "Don't you believe I'm able to take
care of myself? Schwarzy-El is a pretty good bodyguard, anyway,"
Sandrine countered lightly.

"Schwarzy--"

"--El," completed Sandrine. "My guardian angel. Lots of
muscles, great timing, tireless, has been getting me out of
scrapes for the last twenty-odd years or so."

"I see." Clark smiled. "Must be a pretty busy guy."

"You can't imagine! Although, sometimes, he sends people to do
his job. Like you or Zorro Ski Masque Man..." Her face fell for
a few seconds, then she went on, brightly, "So, you see, I'm
never quite alone."

The shrill whistle of the kettle provided a welcome interruption.
Sandrine got up, noticing with dismay that her legs seemed to
ache more and more as she brought it back.

"Thank you for your concern, but I'll be all right." Her
unconscious wince told the contrary.

"Hmm," reproved Clark, obviously not convinced. "Did you take
some aspirin?"

"There isn't any left. I took them all this past week,"
admitted Sandrine, pouring hot water in the cups.

"I'll bet. But this project of yours is finished and done with.
You could use some from the way you're tottering."

"I know," Sandrine snorted. "I move with as much poise as a
drunken duck on a moving walkway!"

"You should rest this afternoon," said Clark solicitously. "I
can go and bring you some tablets."

"No thanks. I'll go to the chemist when I leave the police
station." Looking at his furrowed brow and the lines of
concentration on his face, her train of thought halted abruptly.
She wondered if he feared she wasn't up to it. Hastily, she
added, "It's a chore, but I have to do it. I was lucky, but
some poor other girl might not be..."

"Do you want some company?" he proposed.

Suddenly, the prospect of hours spent in a stuffy waiting room in
order to report a mugger she could not even properly describe
looked a lot better.

"Would you really?" she asked, trying not to show how eager she
was.

He smiled at her. "Hey, that's what friends are for. Besides,
it could be educational. I've never been into a French police
station."

***

This wasn't one of their most pleasant hours, or one of the
funniest, but it certainly was one of the most insightful.

After Sandrine explained why she was there, a young policeman
directed them to the waiting room, assuming that Clark was her
boyfriend. She looked at Clark from the corner of her eyes,
wondering how he would take it, and seeing he didn't flinch, she
let it go.

"Why didn't you say anything?" she whispered when they found a
seat in the half-filled corridor. Chairs were lining the walls,
not far from the office where a harassed woman welcomed the
waiting people. On the other side of the wall, a woman was trying
to keep her two children from bickering. An exasperated
middle-aged man looked at his watch every five minutes -- as if
looking at it would make the time go quicker. Sandrine prepared
herself for a long wait.

"The man at the front desk--he obviously thought we were
together--"

Clark looked at her uncomprehendingly. "Aren't we?"

"Together *together*, " she insisted. "I'm sorry about
that."

"No problem. Moreover, he's obviously prejudiced. From the way
he interrogated you, in his eyes, a poor frail lonely female is
clearly a logical victim. Knowing that you're not single raised
you one notch in his estimation. This might help your case."

"That," Sandrine said gravely, "is the sign of a real moron.
And it's so unfair."

"I agree. The problem is not the assaulted victim -- it's the
mugger. Alas, this kind of attitude is fairly common. I've seen
it in many places."

Again, Sandrine wondered how many countries Clark had visited,
and what kind of things he had seen and done to have such an
intimate knowledge of the workings of the average policeman
around the world.

"Yet, one wonders where the famed French *galanterie* [chivalry]
has gone. Down in the sewer, with the man's brain, no doubt,"
she went on.

Clark laughed. "This is not your usual style to think in
*cliches*."

"But one does sometimes, doesn't one?" retorted Sandrine.
"And, yet, between the two of you, you are the true embodiment
of supposed French gallantry."

"Thus proving that *cliches* are vastly overrated."

They sat in companionable silence for a while, watching people
enter and leave.

The children kept quiet for a while, then began to run between
the chairs, their mother ineffectively trying to keep them on
their seats. Clark pulled a long rubber band out of one pocket
and began to show the youngest girl how to create geometrical
figures with it. The game provided them with twenty minutes of
quiet. Fortunately, the woman's turn came and she exited, cranky
children in tow at the obvious relief of the other people still
waiting.

From time to time, when Sandrine looked at a perpendicular
corridor, she noticed less savory characters being escorted to
whatever place they had to go by policemen. She shivered. Maybe
the man who had tried to strangle her was on the premises.

"Two hours, and how many to go?" grumbled Sandrine.

"Well, you can't expect to be a high priority," Clark told
her.

"I know, I know... If I weren't such a responsible citizen, I
wouldn't even be here, and you wouldn't be losing your time,
too."

"This was my choice," he replied.

Trust Clark to be always polite and gentle. The wait was making
Sandrine edgy, and the hard chair wasn't helping any. Being
truly interested in Clark's affairs as well as desirous to take
her mind off her aching butt, she began to ask him about his
latest articles.

Clark was always interesting to listen to and involved in
whatever he happened to be doing, but when he was speaking about
his work, he truly waxed poetic.

Sandrine realized it was people who were important to Clark.
Neither the thrill of the chase for information nor mastering his
craft by finding the right words to touch the reader was as
important to him. He used empathy with his article's topic as
the hook to draw in the reader. In his writing, he endeavored to
ensure that those he wrote about were accurately portrayed. He
strove to paint with words a complete picture of people as a
whole, including their mind, cares, and issues.

Was that why Clark traveled so much? To see what was on the far
side of the horizon, just beyond his reach? And once achieving
it, finding it inadequate and looking beyond it, hoping to find
that unseen something or *someone*?

*Maybe it was*, Sandrine mused, looking at Clark's animated
profile as he related with energy his dialogue with one of the
*bouquinistes* [secondhand or antique booksellers] whose shop was
installed on the banks of the River Seine since the middle of the
nineteenth century. His interview of a woman-- whose "box"
specialized in French literature--had degenerated into a
discussion about Victor Hugo's first printings, ending with
various grumblings from the elderly bookseller about Americans
who were looking for collector's editions because they happened
to have seen *Les Miserables* musical. Clark had turned her
monologue into a very funny column about the evolution of a
classical masterpiece into a piece of popular culture, also
musing, as he stood watching the towers of Notre-Dame cathedral
above the opposite bank, about how real landscape benefited from
imagination and fictional characters took a life of their own.

Clark ended up unearthing his first draft from his backpack.
Sandrine read it avidly, recognizing in his writing the same
carefulness to develop the woman's point of view, as well as her
nostalgia for a literary past that probably never was. He always
maintained a certain balance in his demonstration that didn't
disguise his love of literature. She also recognized the faint
regret he also felt once he learned that the bookseller now had
to propose cheap souvenirs among their wares. There were so many
tourists promenading on the banks that the dark green metal boxes
that held the merchandise could no longer specialize only in
books, magazines, and "old papers."

There was not a sliver of smugness in Clark when he admitted that
he was satisfied with his efforts. Merely the pride of a good
craftsman, admitting that his skills gave his 2D words a third
dimension and substance that others could contemplate and ponder,
like a potter transforming clay into *une ouvre d'art *[a molded
work of art]."

That was what made Clark a brilliant writer, Sandrine believed.
He was good, and with more experience, he would be even better.
He already had the tools of a good journalist -- the ability to
grab attention and make one read, no matter how frivolous the
subject.

"*Mademoiselle, c'est a vous!*" [Miss, it's your turn!]

The woman from the office was standing before Sandrine. She was
so intent on her reading, she hadn't heard her. Blushing,
Sandrine gave the sheaf of paper back to Clark and hastily got
up.

It was finally time to make her statement, to watch various
photographs of would-be suspects, and to be assured that the
police would contact her if they found the mugger.

***

Part IV -- "...July, he will fly / And give no warning of his
flight..." 

*Paris (France), July 1991*

Sandrine was panting when she reached the landing. Between the
summer heat and her being out of shape, the climb to Clark's
sixth floor was taking its toll.

Catching her breath with difficulty, she paused before knocking
on Clark's door.

No one answered. *Zut*! *Where could he be?*

Sandrine had had no news for a fortnight, and she was beginning
to worry. The last time she had seen Clark was when he had
dropped by her apartment in June to comfort her after the assault
from which she had escaped. It was a good thing he had come with
her to the *commissariat*: the sour smell of sweat, dirt, and
fear would be forever imprinted in her brain when anyone would
utter the words "police" and "policemen." Of course, there
had been no news of her assailant. Not that she had expected
any.

Clark's silence was unusual and that increased Sandrine's sense
of something ominous hanging over her. She had been passing
through the *Quartier Latin*. Usually, when she did so, she used
the payphone standing on the corner of the *Place Saint-Michel*,
ear the River Seine. Clark usually laughed when she unfailingly
called him while standing a few hundred meters from his building.
He called that "checking on my progress like a mother hen."
Still, Sandrine never would have intruded on his privacy and drop
by without being announced.

But this time, she had. Believing in being prepared, she found
her note in her handbag and bent to insert the envelope under the
door.

Clark might be interested in meeting Nathalie's *fiance*. He was
an archaeologist and currently engaged in salvage excavation near
Paris. An apartment building was going to be erected on his
present dig. A mechanical shovel had uncovered part of a
Merovingian cemetery; this had stopped any additional progress on
the building site, and the archaeologists had flocked it. They
had six months to finish their mapping and excavating before the
builders returned. Nathalie had told her excitedly that one of
the men still had leather shoes on, and that there was some
funerary equipment. This was just the kind of subject Sandrine
hoped one day to document, and a visit to the dig may interest
Clark and provide him with a fine human interest article.

The white paper disappeared under the wood panel without a hitch,
as the irregular floor left enough space for it to slide under.

She waited for a second, and then turned, preparing to reverse
her effort.

She had barely put her foot on the first step down when the door
behind her opened. Clark stood on the entrance of his abode, a
little ruffled and short of breath himself, holding her envelope
in one hand.

"I'm sorry, Sandrine, I didn't hear you knock." He gestured
inside. "Won't you come in?"

Wondering how her knocks hadn't crossed the cubbyhole Clark
called his room, she did.

Under the sloping tin roof, the heat was even more stifling than
in the staircase. Sandrine's brow was swiftly beaded with sweat,
but Clark must have grown accustomed to it, because he looked
nearly as fresh as if he had come out of a fridge. Although the
window was wide open, there wasn't any fresh air in the room;
the sun beat relentlessly on the roof, sending off waves of heat.
How could Clark stand it?

"Do you want some water? I have some Coke, if you prefer,"
offered Clark. "Sorry, no Diet Coke. Do sit down." He waved
vaguely. Piles of clothes and a few miscellaneous items cluttered
his bed, so Sandrine chose one of the hard wooden chairs.

"Water will be fine, thank you," answered Sandrine, wondering
how she could surreptitiously wipe her face without looking like
a wimp. Fortunately, she wore no makeup.

Miraculously, the tiny fridge even contained real ice cubes.
Pointedly looking at her, Clark filled a glass three-quarter ice
and added some water. Sandrine took it with undisguised delight
and emptied it almost in one gulp; then, she picked up a single
cube and let it melt rapturously in her mouth.

Handing the glass back to Clark, she commented: "Just like I
like it! Thanks, Clark. I swear that you know me better than my
mom does."

"Want a refill?"

"Yes, thanks." As he did so, Sandrine took better stock of her
surroundings. "What are you doing? Sorting out your laundry?"

"Err, not exactly, I--" began Clark, while she went on with her
teasing, "--remodeling your closet?"

She suddenly paused.

Indeed, clothing was piled up on the bed; however, as Sandrine
focused, she also noticed that Clark's suitcase lay open in a
corner. It was already filled with toiletries and shoes wrapped
in plastic bags. On Clark's tiny desk, a stack of neatly labeled
folders and old *FUSAC* issues were obviously waiting to be
placed next to the portable typewriter that Clark had already
packed. More telling than all these preparations for departure
was the framed picture of Clark's parents that no longer sat on
his desk.

Sandrine blanched. "You're leaving," she stated accusingly.
"You *are*. Just like that."

Mechanically, she seized the glass that Clark was silently
offering her and drank. Her throat suddenly felt so parched that
she wondered how she would continue talking, far less speaking
articulately.

"I wrote you a letter," Clark said. He visibly squirmed under
her accusing look.

"Wrote me a letter? And that absolves you of everything?"
Sandrine exclaimed, springing to her feet.

"Oh, wonderful, he wrote me a letter," she told no one in
particular, raising her eyes to the ceiling and gesturing wildly.
The ice cubes chimed in the half-filled glass she was still
holding, and a little water sloshed on her hand.

Turning back to Clark, Sandrine added with stressed politeness:
"Thank you so very much for writing it, Clark, you are *so*
thoughtful and nice and..." Words utterly failed her, and she
looked at him more closely. During her outburst, he had merely
buried his hand in his jeans pocket, looking sheepish. His
awkward body language calmed her ire... a little.

Her anger faded abruptly, only to be replaced by despondency and
an acute feeling of betrayal.

She tried to push it away to the back of her mind but failed.
*Clark owed her nothing*, the reasonable part of her argued.
*H**e was free to do whatever he wanted. *They were friends, not
lovers. She wasn't in love with him, or he with her; no, they
didn't have that kind of bond. However, friendship had its
duties as well as its privileges. Friends were supposed to be
compassionate and kind. Friends didn't lie to each other.
Friends didn't ride away in the sunset without saying goodbye.
Friends didn't desert friends, unless they weren't truly
friends.

"Sandrine..." Clark began. "Yes, I wrote you a letter. I have
to leave Paris in a hurry, and I couldn't reach you."

"Couldn't you phone?" she angrily asked. "You never thought
twice about doing so."

Besides, her answering machine was now fixed, and Clark knew it.
He had left her a message in early June, when he had needed some
answer to a tricky French detail for one of his articles. *That
excuse won't wash*, she told herself fiercely. *Let him
extricate himself from his half-baked lies*. "So? What's going
on?" she asked with intensifying exasperation.

Clark turned back to his suitcase. "Forgive me, but I have to
continue packing. My plane leaves in under four hours from Roissy
airport, and I'm already late as it is."

Without waiting for her answer, he began to fill his suitcase
methodically with garish ties, shirts, t-shirts, and suits
alongside his other possessions.

"Oh, fine. Go on with it," Sandrine said. "Sorry to be such a
hindrance. I'll go." Nevertheless, she made no move of
leaving.

"You never were a hindrance, Sandrine," he replied, bending
over the suitcase. In a few minutes, he had filled it; then, he
scanned the room checking that he hadn't forgotten anything.
"Surely, you know that."

"It doesn't look like it," she snapped back. "If I hadn't
come here by sheer chance, I'd never have had the possibility to
bid *adieu* [farewell] to you."

"Not *adieu*, nothing so definite. Paris hasn't seen the last
of me," he asserted with a smile. "You can trust me on this."

"Where are you going?"

"London. I've had an offer from--"

"Oh, what difference does it make for me, this or that
newspaper?" wailed Sandrine. "You'll be gone all the same."

Clark's tense face stopped her spell of self-pitying. "I'm
sorry, Clark," she amended, "but I'm going to miss you
dreadfully." Sandrine took a last sip of her now tepid water and
added with a conscious effort, "I hope it's a good offer and an
excellent opportunity for you."

"I hope it will be..."

Clark continued explaining in hurried sentences that the vacancy
was unexpected, that he was merely on a waiting list, and that he
had to present himself the following day for an interview. Speed
was thus of the essence, and only his knowledge that Madame Leroy
would have a long list of applicants to fill his place in the
*chambre de bonne* had lessened his guilt of leaving her so
unexpectedly before the end of the month or the customary three
months warning.

His words left Sandrine's ears like snowflakes on a hot ground,
dissolving as they fell and melting away without a trace. She
truly heard one out of three, not even registering the name of
the paper where Clark would be employed as a stopgap or where he
would live in the London metropolis.

*Clark was betting on an uncertain job, taking his chances in a
different place. In Paris, he already had job offers and friends
and... This meant Clark was desperate to leave, and that
something--or someone--had pushed him away. Who had? Whom was he
trying to escape? *Sandrine puzzled.

Clark's next sentence suddenly brought her back to earth.

"... so, I'll send you my address so we can keep in touch."
His voice held real regret when he added, "I wish I could see
your next masterpiece. Please, tell me all about it.
Remember,"--his voice lowered in mock-secrecy--"helicopters and
Mozart don't go together."

Sandrine's voice croaked as her throat constricted: "I shall
remember."

She went to the sink and washed her glass, dried it, and put it
back on the near empty cupboard. The last time she would ever do
this simple task here, she knew. The finality of the small
everyday gesture nearly undid her.

His packing done to his satisfaction, Clark went to his desk and
gave an envelope to Sandrine. "There, you may as well have it."
Not stamped, it was merely addressed to "Mademoiselle Sandrine
Demazieres".

*If he were so pressed by time, how would he have assured its
delivery to her if he wasn't to post it? Probably through Madame
Leroy's goodwill*, she supposed.

Sandrine took it with shaking fingers and put it clumsily in her
purse.

Frantically, because the clock was ticking away and she didn't
want it to be truly goodbye, Sandrine probed: "I can come with
you to the airport, you know. We can talk on the way in the
bus," she added, trying to forestall his polite refusal.
"Truly, it's no bother."

She must have been too pushy, because, all of a sudden, Clark's
face closed. Sandrine backpedaled, feeling like a fool. "Err...
If you wish it, I don't want to intrude, of course."

"Sandrine--" Clark interrupted himself, then in a move that was
as sudden as it was unexpected, engulfed her in a quick embrace.
She went limp in his arms, acutely aware of the feeling of
protection and ease she always felt in his presence and already
feeling more her future loss. Marc's hugs had never felt so
brotherly; but again, Sandrine and Marc had been children
together, while Clark's friendship and support had come as they
were both adults. Their choice and their mutual pleasure. Or so
she had thought.

"Traveling hasn't made parting easier for me, you know," Clark
whispered into her hair. "Don't come with me. Parting isn't
'sweet sorrow;' it's the worst part of my life."

"Sure," she answered, half believing it. "I understand," she
added in a flat voice but gave him a peck on the cheek.
"*Adieu*, Clark."

The hug ended as quickly as it had begun. Sandrine bit her lip,
thinking that it seemed like he didn't really want to spend one
minute more with her than he had to.

Because she didn't want him to see her cry, and because she
didn't want to humiliate herself further, Sandrine left the
room, carefully shutting the door behind her. She knew as it
closed that a part of her life had locked up with it,
definitively.

***

Part V -- "...August, die she must / The autumn winds blow
chilly and cold..." 

*France, 1991-1993*

For years, Sandrine castigated herself for their broken
friendship and her inability to keep friends.

Telling herself that she had been too forward, too earnest.

That she had frightened Clark off.

That she had mistaken his politeness for attention and his
kindness for deeper feelings.

That calling her "friend" meant nothing to him, as he didn't
even want her to come say goodbye at the airport.

That he had mistaken her friendship for something more on her
side.

Actually, years afterwards, Sandrine still squirmed when she
imagined how embarrassed Clark must have felt, mistakenly
believing that she had "chased" after him.

It stung. It really did.

It stung so much that she never understood that she had
overreacted, destabilized by her two successive losses: a
childhood friend whom she had considered as a brother and a
newfound friend from overseas whom she had loved too quickly,
because of the disappointment of the first one.

So, not trusting herself, Sandrine disdained all friendly
overtures made by her fellow students. Her last months before her
graduation were solitary ones.

She even scorned Marc's awkward tries to mend their rift. After
a while, Marc stopped, and Sandrine saw that he was chatting up a
pretty young thing in her first year at the *Femis *--a student
he could easily impress with his expertise and seniority.
Sandrine didn't even really care.

*Which is worse?* Sandrine sometimes asked herself. *Being alone
in a desert, pathetically eager for any human interaction? Or
being alone in a crowd? *She never really found out.

She was outwardly friendly but truly elusive. She talked,
laughed, relaxed, chatted, and played all the right moves with
the right people. Everyone said that she was good company,
entertaining and nice, but she knew otherwise. Inside, she felt
hollow. Dead.

With determination and an almost manic energy, Sandrine buried
herself in her work. Work was good. Work was filling her days and
furnishing her nights with dreams of achievements, aspirations of
technical perfection, and new goals within reach. Work was
something that kept her mind occupied and her heart muzzled.

When her *Femis* movie was shown at the *Cinematheque
francaise*--as was the custom for all the students-- it gathered
much attention from the professionals who scouted new talents.
So, she didn't have too much trouble finding both a producer and
funds for her next venture: her first full-length feature, titled
*Perte* [*Loss*]. Sandrine would have preferred to direct a
documentary, as she always wanted to do, but she put that dream
on the back burner. She could always direct one when she had made
a name for herself.

France nurtured her talented daughters. Sandrine's new project
very quickly secured an *avance sur recettes* [advance]. Two
Foundations also helped: a French one, which was noted for its
intuition in detecting new talents, and --to Sandrine's
astonishment--an American one, LexArts.

Sandrine's script, based on her experience, was elusive yet
grounded in such a widespread reality: loss. The dialogues of her
movie were so razor-sharp and humorous in a desperate way that it
touched the audience.

Among the fluidity of her work, the professionals also observed
an impossibly virtuoso shot that made the viewer almost believe
that one was flying through the sky before crashing down, one's
metaphorical wings melted away by the scorching sun. The
subjective strength of that emotional experience fascinated
viewers and made the professional people pay attention.

*Loss* was even selected for the Cannes Film Festival in the *Un
Certain Regard *section. It became an instant hit when it was
released in a few art theaters in Paris.

Word of mouth slowly grew among the cinema goers. It was the
beginning of her successful career.

Sandrine may have been afraid to connect with people and bare her
innermost feelings, but she found out that she knew how to make
her crew respond to her directions. And people felt at ease
before her and her camera. After a while, she understood that she
had a knack for making them express themselves through a camera
lens, caressing their souls with respect, light, and the
camera's eye. She knew how to listen, and they responded in
kind. Though she didn't bare herself before others, she never
lacked empathetic and sympathetic listening. At least, along with
her inability to trust others, this was a quality she had
borrowed from Clark.

Speaking of Clark...

Sometimes, Sandrine still wondered what kind of articles Clark
would have written about the Cannes people. Surely, he would have
enjoyed and relished the ridicules and idiosyncrasies of the
professionals, the airs the actors put on at will, and the
atmosphere. He would have especially appreciated the premieres of
many foreign films and the public debates with filmmakers and
actors. Clark was so curious and open about other people, other
experiences, and other views of the universe.

Perhaps, he would even have gathered material for one of his
wonderful human-interest stories and written an article with his
particular brand of perception and compassion. For who was closer
to Terence's maxim than Clark? "*I am human, and I think
nothing of which is human is alien to **me*."

Indeed, Clark would have understood what lurked behind some of
the most outrageous statements of this peculiar crowd. Sometimes,
Sandrine almost imagined what Clark would have said, and she
smiled reminiscently. People stared, but they quickly learned
that when Sandrine was engrossed in watching nothing in
particular, she was best left alone.

Yet, after parting ways, Clark had gone on with his life and
Sandrine with hers. Still, she missed him and missed sharing her
elation with a true friend.

But Sandrine had had a second chance. Ski Mask Man had saved her
from being seriously hurt at least, and she was eager to seize
the opportunities offered her. Maybe "Schwarzy-El's deputy"
had been sent for a reason. Maybe she, Sandrine, had something to
achieve that no one else could do. She found courage in this, and
it fed her determination when she had to fight for funds with a
difficult producer; when she had to convince an actor to let go;
and when she had to convince him that presenting his best profile
to the camera *wasn't* what motion pictures were about.

Feeling like a survivor, physically as well as emotionally,
Sandrine plodded on with her life, not daring to look over her
shoulder for fear of losing her momentum.

Then, beginning in 1993, Clark sent postcards sporadically from
different countries. Because he didn't know her new address, he
sent them c/o the *Femis.*

And it was like a spring rain to her parched soul.

***

Epilogue -- "September, I'll remember / A love once new has now
grown old" 

*Paris (France), September 1993*

Sandrine had been half-heartedly flipping through channels when
*it* happened.

It was pure luck that she did so; she usually scorned TV. Not
that there were a lot of choices to flip through -- apart from
the five channels most people received and *Canal+ *(the cable
channel that showed movies), a favorite of hers. There were two
other cinema channels, but this evening she only had the choice
between *La Discrete*--which she had already seen four times and
wasn't in the mood for another showing--and *Edward
Scissorhands*, which she refused to watch.

She needed something to pick her up, not another proof of human
nastiness and ingratitude.

*France was not noted for an abundance of TV channels*, Sandrine
moaned. She sighed tiredly and settled for a late talk show,
waiting for the late newscast. Sipping her chamomile tea, she
nestled into her sofa, her mind reviewing all the things she
would have to do in the morning.

The musical strains punctuating the credits of *Le Journal de la
nuit* [late night bulletin] woke her up from her doze. Her empty
mug had rolled on her stomach, burying itself into the folds of
her dressing gown. Sandrine put the ceramic cup on a side table
and straightened up. Her hand extended toward the remote,
intending to switch off the television.

Suddenly her half-asleep haze vanished, and she abruptly perked
up.

The usually unruffled Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, star anchor adored
by of most of the female French population, was introducing the
late news bulletin in a voice trembling with excitement. Behind
him, a photograph of a shuttle hung in midair with the headline:
"*Apparition d'un homme volant *[A Flying Man makes his
appearance]."

Completely awake and mesmerized, Sandrine stared at the footage
of the rescue of the Metropolis Space Shuttle by a mysterious
Flying Man. A--*Flying* Man?!

Her breath caught, and for a moment, she wondered if she would
ever breathe again.

She reacted automatically. Sandrine sprung from her sofa and
frenetically searched for a video cassette. Fortunately, she saw
one lying near the VCR, free of its cellophane wrapping. She
pounced on it, freed it from its box, and popped it into the
video recorder, which made a burring noise as it began to
record.

On her television screen, Poivre d'Arvor was still expressing an
eager curiosity. Seated near him were two experts--one from the
military and the other from the European space program--whose
disagreement about the flying man's nature bordered on hostile.

A few moments later, Poivre d'Arvor inquired, with a mildness
that could not disguise his high opinion of himself, whether the
flying man could be labeled a 'Little Green Man.' Sandrine
could not help snickering. The ploy was *so* obvious. Startled,
the experts stopped their argument, and in the ensuing silence,
the anchorman inserted smoothly: "Let's watch this exclusive
footage brought to you by TF1 one more time."

For this second showing, Sandrine's video cassette was smoothly
recording the evidence Sandrine's eyes half-refused to admit.

Yet, Poivre d'Arvor had one more trick up his sleeve. This time,
the footage was a bit longer, presenting a closer look at the
hero of the hour than the previous shot.

Sandrine squinted at her television screen. The film was blurry,
and the hands controlling the camera had badly shaken at one
point.

Still, she could make out the outline of the flying man but could
not really see his face. The primary colors of his costume, so
very like a 1930s circus acrobat's, helped define him,
nonetheless. And in the stark blue of the American sky, the red
cape was a very nice touch.

A part of the young filmmaker admired the way it flapped in the
currents of his flight; another one wondered how she could
reproduce these Greek statuary movements on a screen. A tiny one
--the tiniest, so small she wasn't quite aware of it at this
moment--wondered what seemed so familiar about this "Eighth
Wonder of the World."

***

That night, Sandrine dreamed of Clark.

They were both standing before the *Fontaine Saint-Michel* in the
Latin Quarter, one of the preferred meeting places of the
students attending the nearby Sorbonne University. As usual,
people were laughing, hailing each other, while others crossed
the nearby streets or were busy clapping for the street dancers
that exhibited their skills on the central sidewalk of the square
in front of the fountain.

As dreams often did, Sandrine found herself in the middle of the
crowd, as if she had been transplanted there all of a sudden. As
for Clark, he appeared before her as if he had dropped from the
skies, and it irritated her. Yet, his mischievous smile and kind
eyes were the same.

Sandrine hesitated, and did what she never had done in the flesh:
she threw herself into his arms. After a heartbeat,
dream-Clark's arms enfolded around her, and she discovered that
he smelled like pines.

No, he smelled like that hiking trail she had trod when she was
twelve years old, and her grandparents had showed her the old
smuggler trail near Antibes. The pines' fragrance, the warmth of
the sun filtering through the pine needles, the waves of the
Mediterranean caressing the rocks below had somehow conglomerated
in her brain, establishing the pattern of earthly security. As
these figments of her memories of an enchanted afternoon swirled
together, she felt a sense of safety and contentment.

It was no wonder she reminisced about it. In his way, Clark
evoked security, too.

Sandrine's dream-self raised her eyes and saw that he was
smiling at her. She told him, "I missed you, if you must
know."

He kept on smiling without answering.

The voice who answered Sandrine was rusty with disuse. "Whose
fault was it?"

"Not mine," she asserted.

"Humph. I'm not so sure," the voice continued.

Clark's mouth was still smiling, and Sandrine was pretty certain
he hadn't uttered these sentences. So, she took a step back and
looked around.

On his mock-rocky pedestal, St. Michael was lowering his arms. He
deposited his sword of fire at his feet as the figure of
Lucifer--who used to wriggle precariously about at his feet--went
limp, mumbling: "I'm taking five. Even the Devil must take a
nap, sometimes."

The Archangel stretched his arms and wings. Meeting Sandrine's
astonished eyes, St. Michael shrugged, "I was getting cramped.
You have no idea how difficult this is, staying like this,
keeping Evil at bay for all eternity."

"Oh, I can imagine," Clark piped up.

"You *will* know...," asserted St. Michael, portentously.

As both males -- if one may be of the opinion that an Archangel
is of the masculine gender -- were discussing the pros and cons
of sword fighting, Sandrine got bored. She raised her head
higher. Above them, the twin sculpted figures of Power and
Moderation were holding the coat of arms of the flying wonder
whom she had watched on television instead of those of the City
of Paris. They nodded with approbation, seemingly smitten with
Clark.

Sandrine felt a spurt of anger and cried out: "Oh! Let me be,
you two! You could not move a toe without falling off your
pedestal." The twin goddesses smiled benignly at her, their
mouth corners extending upward.

Shocked out of their amiable discussion, St. Michael and Clark
looked disapprovingly at her.

"Is she always like this?" asked the Archangel.

"Mostly," sighed Clark. "But she can be reasoned with."

"*He, ca suffit comme ca!* [Hey, enough of this!]" Sandrine
exclaimed. "Don't talk about me as if I weren't here."

The two guys didn't pay any attention to her outcry and
continued their estimations of her strengths and foibles.
Deciding that disdain was the better part of valor, Sandrine
turned on her heels and wandered off to watch the street dancers;
then, she clapped enthusiastically and very demonstratively when
one of them did a perfect spin on the sidewalk.

Once the dance concluded, the crowd dispersed, and Sandrine found
herself once more near the fountain. Clark and Michael were still
absorbed in their discussion. Discussing her had obviously grown
stale, and they were now on the subject of Schwarzy-El.

"Schwarzy-El?" Sandrine said, puzzled. "But... I made him up!
He never existed!"

"You shouldn't say that," reproved Clark. "A figment of
imagination can occasionally spring into existence, you know."
Sandrine shrugged deprecatingly. "No, don't do that," he
added. "Just because you're unaware of it doesn't make it less
real."

"Less real? Like what?" Sandrine said. "An angel of my own
making!"

"If I may say so," a male voice intruded into their exchange,
"*I*'m quite real."

Sandrine glared at the Archangel. "You're sort of real, I'll
grant you that. You're made of bronze, and I don't know what
else. Someone *real* designed you in his workshop, a long time
ago. So... you were once a sculptor's spark of fancy." *So
there*, her tone underlined. *Don't mess with me, I'm alive;
you're not. Not really.*

Unfazed by her virulence, St. Michael looked at Clark. "Good
luck to you, pal. I'm not sure she's really getting it." He
sighed theatrically. "Such a pity. With all the hints we
dropped."

Not taken aback by this sudden change of topics, Clark winked
back. "Oh, don't worry, she'll come round."

The statue stretched once more, extending its arms towards the
sky, before half-leaping and half-flying back to its pedestal.
With its toes, it nudged Lucifer lightly. Awakened, the prone
figure of Evil groaned and twisted back into its awkward previous
position, while St. Michael raised his arms in his usual posture.
The surface of the bronze rippled in sparkling waves; a few
seconds later, the fountain was back to its old appearance.

Startled, Sandrine looked around her. Obviously, no one in the
crowd standing a few meters away had noticed anything weird. For
all they knew, it was just an ordinary day on a crowded square,
favored by passer-by and tourists who were taking photographs
before the fountain.

"Don't look so surprised. People usually see what they want to
see."

Clark's voice. He was still here, then. Slowly, Sandrine turned
and saw that her American friend was also watching the now-frozen
Archangel, amusement obvious on his tilted face.

"Do they?" Sandrine asked, feeling breathless all of a sudden.

"Oh, they do," Clark assured her. "Besides, you also
considered it before you fell asleep."

*This is absolutely crazy*, one part of her mind whispered. *Of
course, it is*, the other one retorted. *I'm dreaming. Anything
can happen in dreams*.

"Are you a mind reader?" Sandrine exclaimed in alarm.

Clark laughed. "Not yet, rest easy! Still, you should consider
all the facts."

Sandrine smiled back perfunctorily. "Am I supposed to take it
personally? Picturing things is my job, as you well know."

"I'm just here to help you remember," Clark said cheerfully.
"Even if I'm not really here at all."

"How typical!" she said peevishly.

"You're dreaming," Clark said reasonably. "Of course, I'm
not here at all. You're not, either."

"But what is the point of all this?" Sandrine asked no one in
particular. "You're not very helpful, you know, Clark. By the
way, I never dreamed of you, isn't it weird?" she wondered
aloud. Shaking her head disbelievingly, she added with an honest
afterthought, "Not that I can remember it, anyway."

"Then, perhaps you should ask yourself why you're dreaming this
dream right now--" Clark suggested. As he spoke, he began to
fade, from his feet up. The erasure of his silhouette picked up
speed, and his face was half-solid when he let fall, "--and why
this dream of yours is also populated with angels."

The *Place Saint-Michel* was now shrouded in mist. Sandrine
thought, with the weird logic of dreams, *I've got to get in the
metro before this fog gets too thick*, and she ran into the
nearest entrance of the subway.

When she woke up, the gray stairs fading slowly into cotton-like
mist was the last image remaining in her retinas.

***

He *is* him.

That illogical, grammatically nonsensical sentence was the first
which popped up in Sandrine's mind when she awoke.

*He* is *him*. But who is *he*?

Consciously or unconsciously, Sandrine delayed meditating upon
the question until her brain was nearly exploding with it. She
engaged in her morning routine with an enthusiasm which was
merely a way to avoid thinking about it.

She picked up her mail, threw away her garbage, bought some
vegetables, and then went to the bakery to get a *baguette*. As
she exited the shop, her attention was drawn to the *marchand de
journaux* [newspaper seller]. She crossed the street and bought a
handful of them; then, she walked back home.

The front pages all told the same story:

*Le Figaro*'s displayed: "*Etats-Unis: sauvetage de la navette
spatiale*. *Apparition d'un homme volant*." ["United States:
Space Shuttle Rescued. A Flying man turns up."]

*Liberation* stated: "*La Navette Spatiale a eu chaud: sauvee
par un surhomme*." ["A Little too Close for the Space Shuttle:
Saved by a Superman."]

As for *L'Humanite*, it merely said: "*Lancement reussi pour la
navette spatiale*." ["Successful Launch of the Space
Shuttle."]

All the copies of *Paris Match* had been bought before Sandrine
could buy one. That was too bad, the pictures were usually of
good quality in that magazine. She was pretty sure that the
weekly magazine had had to hastily redo its front page to
accommodate the latest marvel of the world, and that one actress
or politician would curse the newcomer for being relegated inside
instead of gracing the cover of the magazine. The issue would
probably become a collector's item, as it had been when Kennedy
was assassinated. At least, the Flying Man had had the good sense
to make his appearance on a Tuesday, the day before most of the
Weeklies were published.

However, all the newspapers showed B&W grainy pictures of the
shuttle; in its corner, another one was pasted, a close up where
one could distinguish a human form holding up the shuttle, the
being dwarfed by the thrusters next to him.

One of the less legitimate papers, the rag Sandrine had guiltily
bought, was more inclined towards gossip and interviews of
personalities who would stay "famous" for a few months, if not
weeks. It also featured color pics and an interview of a
witness--one understood after a while that the so-called witness
had probably seen this on TV and raved over the phone about it to
her cousin, who happened to be the editor of the Weekly. Calling
the hero of the day "a God" and "a Miracle," the obviously
babbling woman also alleged that he was "an Angel of Mercy, and
a Sign of--"

Sandrine never really knew what the man with the red cape was
supposed to herald. She dropped the magazine, and it stayed there
on the carpet at her feet.

An angel...

St. Michel. Schwarzy-El. The anonymous angel who had picked up
the drunk as if by chance from the *Pont Neuf --* a bridge not so
very far from the *Place Saint-Michel. *

A memory came unbidden. *Only angels have wings*... Maybe, it was
so.

However, a man--a man she once knew quite well--really flew
without wings and acted like an angel. His feet didn't touch the
ground, but he didn't have to flap wings to escape gravity.

Maybe it was time to reconnect and admit one's mistakes.

Maybe it was time to admit that a double misunderstanding had
come in the way of a precious friendship.

Clark hadn't been afraid of *her.*

He had been afraid of discovery, of the reaction Sandrine had had
at first, when she had recalled his feet didn't touch the
ground.

Yet, years later, he had wanted to keep in touch, even though she
had never made use of the return addresses he had thoughtfully
written down.

She went to the desk where she had filed her correspondence. In a
few minutes, she had browsed through Clark's postcards. Where
had he last written from?

Metropolis. So there.

Sandrine laughed aloud. Her laugh sounded liberated and
carefree.

Clark had written he was applying for jobs, and that he would let
her know his address when he had one.

This time, Sandrine would write back.

And maybe, just maybe, in time, she could give Clark some little
tips to misdirect his audience or to point them in the right
direction.

Understanding how people saw reality was a great asset. But
reality didn't always have to expose the naked truth.

Even angels needed their privacy.

*Fin*

NOTES

Part I

*Pandora and the Flying Dutchman* is a 1951 British movie
directed by Albert Lewin, starring Ava Gardner and James Mason.
It mixes several myths or fantastic stories, like (of course)
Pandora's, the Flying Dutchman's and inserts into them some
reincarnation and Shakespearean subtexts, along with
surrealist's images. Man Ray and Giorgio De Chirico had a hand
in the imagery of this masterpiece. It has recently been restored
in a very good copy.

The *poem* alluded to is "Dover Beach," a poem by Matthew
Arnold. The relevant part is:

*Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.*

"Why is it called: Pastries and Desserts" is a real life
article. It can be found here:
https://www.fusac.fr/why-is-it-called-pastries-and-desserts.
Clark is such a trivia collector that I figured he might have
written something along these lines.

According to Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chambre_de_bonne), a *chambre de
bonne* is "a type of French apartment consisting of a single
room in a middle-class house or apartment building. It is
generally found on the top floor and only accessible by a
staircase, sometimes a separate "service staircase". Initially,
these rooms were intended as the bedroom for one of the family's
domestics, and the name originates from the colloquial name for
such maids: a "*bonne a tout faire*."

The *harsh 1991 Paris weather* is documented.

*La Femis* is the main French film school training future
professionals. Note that the fourth-year students spend their
last year fulfilling an individual end-of-studies project and
taking part in their classmates' projects. See also Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Femis

*Rue Git-le-Coeur*: the name of the street (meaning "Here lies
the Heart" in French) is a phonetic corruption of "Gilles le
queux" [Giles the Cook].

*Pont Neuf* [literally "New Bridge"]: it was the first bridge
constructed in stone in the late Sixteenth Century. Another
novelty was that no houses stood on it. The previous bridges were
built of wood, and many burned down, or were washed away in
flood. See Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pont_Neuf
(One may see houses on the other bridges, on the 1615 map.)

Part II

*Angelina* is a reputed tea room and shop, on the Rue de Rivoli,
in front of the Tuileries Gardens, and not far from the Louvres.
It was founded by Rumpelmeyrer in 1903. (See Wikipedia
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelina_(tea_house)%5D] and
TripAdvisor
[https://www.tripadvisor.fr/Restaurant_Review-g187147-d695078-Reviews-Angelina-Paris_Ile_de_France.html]
with pics.)

A *St. Honore cake* looks like this
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Honore_cake) and a *religieuse
au chocolat* looks like this
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religieuse). (There are
coffee-flavoured and chocolate-flavoured religieuses. Both are
divine.)

The *Theatre des Champs-Elysees*, built on the Avenue Montaigne
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avenue_Montaigne), is a beautiful
Art Deco theatre
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_des_Champs-elysees) which
offers operas, concerts and plays. It is very near the
Champs-Elysees Avenue.

Clark's piece on the Iraqi refugees relates to the "Provide
Comfort" operation, held in April 1991. One may assume Clark was
near the Turkey frontier before he went to France.

The pianist Maria Joao Pires did perform Mozart sonatas and
concerti at the Theatre des Champs Elysee in 1991, which was
Mozart Bicentennial Year.

The French national health scandal developed into the so-called
"infected blood" scandal. See Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infected_blood_scandal_(France)

*Indochine* and *Telephone* are two French rock bands. You can
listen to some songs on Youtube (courtesy of this topic
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfgRBz1e6uQ&amp;list=PL42KTx9z1CViTCtg9SaeHh7O39rFAGQBV)
and this one
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CvU1q1tPGc&amp;list=PLlSahFKvr0WaI_dsJFYbR_YjO7oMG2LKI).

Part III

*La Scala* was a 1990s nightclub on the *rue de Rivoli*, not far
from the Louvres Museum. It was then very popular because
entrance was free for the women...

Murnau's  *Faust*
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust_(1926_film)) is a silent
movie filmed in 1926. *Haxan*
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haxan) (*The Witches* or 
*Witchcraft Through the Ages*) is a very famous 1922 Swedish
silent movie. Both are masterpieces.

*Noctambus:* they were buses running all night long in Paris and
the nearby suburbs. The actual name is *Noctilien*. The name is a
portmanteau formed out of the words *noctambule* [night person,
night-bird] and *bus*.

*Place de la Concorde*: need I really explain what it is? Have a
look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_de_la_Concorde

As for *Hotel Crillon*, the best explanation is here:
https://www.rosewoodhotels.com/en/hotel-de-crillon

*Oratoire du Louvre*: it is a seventeenth-century Protestant
church situated between the 145 rue Saint-Honore and 160 rue de
Rivoli in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, across the street from
the Louvre (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louvre). (See also
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Oratoire_du_Louvre)

If you want to visualize where Sandrine was assaulted, well,
it's here:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/P1040511_Paris_Ier_rue_du_Louvre_Oratoire_du_Louvre_rwk.JPG

St. Bartholomew's Day massacre: in 1572, this targeted group of
assassinations along with Catholic mob violence was directed
against the *Huguenots* (French Calvinist Protestants) during the
French Wars of Religion, in Paris and in the country. There were
2,000 to 70,000 victims. Calvinist Admiral Gaspard de Coligny was
murdered two days before.

Schwarzy-El's name is the "angel-ization" of Arnold
Schwarzenegger.

*Bouquinistes*: second-hand book sellers whose "boxes" are
situated on the banks of the River Seine. You'll find pictures
on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouquinistes

Part V

The *Cinematheque francaise*, located in Paris, offers daily
screening of worldwide films; it holds one of the largest cinema
archives, with 40, 000 movies and related documents and objects.
(More on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinematheque_Francaise)

*Avance sur recettes* [revenue/receipts advance system]: it was
created in 1959 and is intended to encourage creation in the
cinematographic field and to support original and quality
projects which are considered unlikely to benefit from
traditional and / or high funding from other economic actors. The
funds are granted by the decision of a committee (composed of
personalities of the sector). One of the three specialized
colleges deals with first feature movies. Nowadays, about 60
films a year benefit from this system, which has helped young
filmmakers.

*Un Certain Regard* [meaning literally, "a certain glance," but
it's a play on words also meaning "in another point of view"]
is a section of the Cannes Film Festival. It introduced movies
that are more original and adventurous than the official
selection. The prize was created in 1998. (See Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_Certain_Regard)

Colette Marchand (1925-2015) is a real French actress who was
also a Ballerina. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best
Supporting Actress in 1952 (for her performance in *Moulin
Rouge*, directed by John Huston). I have absolutely no idea if
she was living in France in the 1990s. Her performance in
Sandrine's fictional movie is a tribute, not an infringement on
Madame Marchand's public image. Biography on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colette_Marchand)

Epilogue

Timeline: The Pilot aired on September 1993, and for the purpose
of this story, I decided that both Clark's first interview for a
job at the Planet and Superman's first appearance happened
during that time.

Canal+ (Canal Plus, meaning *Channel Plus*) is the first French
premium cable television channel launched in 1984.

*La Discrete* is a very popular 1990 French movie. (See IMDB:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099436/)

*Fontaine Saint-Michel* is described on Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontaine_Saint-Michel) and you
will also find a picture of it.

'Chemin des Douaniers' in Antibes: here are some pics and a map
of this old "Customs walk" in the South of France that were
found on a personal weblog
(http://danielle.les.photos.over-blog.com/article-20068610.html)
(not mine!)

I changed the headlines of the French newspapers. No one in
France would write a headline with "*C'est magnifique!*"
(Maurice Chevalier did in vintage American movies, but it's an
exception to the rule...)

*Le Figaro* is the oldest French daily morning newspaper, founded
in 1826; it has a center-right editorial line.

*Liberation* [Liberation] is a daily morning newspaper founded in
Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of
the protest movements of May 1968. It has a centre-left editorial
position.

*L'Humanite* [Humanity, mankind] is a daily morning newspaper
that was formerly an organ of the French Communist Party; it was
founded in 1904 by Jean Jaures, a leader of the French Section of
the Workers' International (SFIO).

In Part I, Clark had a copy of *Le Monde* [The World]: this daily
afternoon newspaper was founded by Hubert Beuve-Mery at the
request of Charles de Gaulle (as Chairman of the Provisional
Government of the French Republic) on 19 December 1944, shortly
after the Liberation of Paris. It is one of the most important
and widely respected newspapers in the world. (See Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Monde)

And, on a last note, it may interest you to know that *Sandrine*
is held to be the feminine version of Alexandrine, from the Greek
"Sandre." (The masculine counterpart is Alexandre, Alexander in
English) It has two meanings: "the one who protects men" or
"the one who pushes back men", thus someone with a warrior's
virtues. Others believe that the name is another version of
Cendrine [Little cinder], who is another name of... Cinderella.
It also was one of the top female names given in the early
1970s.