CHAPTER TWO: ENCOUNTERS For characters in Story: check Biographies

#1


The rain started to come down in a drizzle, giving a sheen to the narrow streets. It was good to let the rain soak in, until it dripped on my cheeks, lips, sticking the shirt to my skin. The sweat workout of a concert is such a cleansing of the body. This too was a concert, the city singing with the rain, letting street lights, the people with their umbrellas, the crush of cars, the incessant need to find a space to park in cramp spaces, squeeze out the ecstasy of churches, spires, the smell of meats and spices, the men busy with their looks and the woman sure in their designs. Yes, this was a concert, with the crescendo of lightning, banging into the Seine, sending out waves of lights under bridges, along the parades of windows of the Louvre, the glittering of restaurants, and the shimmering bullets of boats resplendant with voices and laughter and music and ......... no rain, silence, and I sitting in the inner courtyard of the Royal Palace, amongst the maze of pillars poking out mischevously like chess peices. Silence again. In waves. Stunning like the sound of a gun, like walking into the dressing rooms and there was that emptiness except the brushes of fans, friends, who meant but their meaning overwhelmed in the silence. The emptiness. The emptiness that was here... where the bright lights smudge into darkness. Where words only hum their expression. Where the body falls limp on chair, down into itself, sucking in the sparks of air to bring back the breath pumped loud and wild against the microphone, the crowd, life itself.


"You are John? John Spring?"


She was standing to one side of one of the pillars. Pillars the sides of which were painted in alternated blacks and whites. She was alone. She had let her hair get wet.


I nodded to say no, but I knew I said yes. I had a hard time pretending, making up stories. Innocence gave me the edge. At least I thought so


"When you left the cafe - you left this..."


She held out the notebook I had left. Damn it! Songs, words, passing thoughts from one town to another.


I grabbed it from her hand and stuffed it in my back pocket. I had to get up and walk. She followed rag tag, talking at my back, sometimes striding shoulder to shoulder. "Goethe recognized you. He's my brother. At the table. We're here on holiday". Her words came and went as cars broke across the road as I headed towards the Bourse. The rain started again, and words for a song began to form in my mind. But it was the same song, the same melody. I needed some loud music. The press of people. I headed across the rooftop concrete domes of Les Halles.


#2


"Bring me that mirror."

A full length mirror on wheels was hurriedly placed by the side wall.

"Sit down."

Marine had no choice but to sit, in the old captain's chair. With a brushing of hands, a further thrust down the back of her neck.

"You are tight! Is Paris so tense?"

Joe worked her hands into Marine's neck

"Relax - you've got some nasty knots - relax!"

Marine had heard from the interviews about Joe's forward and extreme manners but she didn't expect without saying a word that she would be so swept away.

"Your head is a mess. If you've got attitude show it. They'll love you for it. Get me my bag - no hang on - you stay - I'll get it."

Her bare feet walked across the bare expanse of the studio. She loved the rawness of these industrial living spaces. Her bag where was it? Tossing her business files to one side she took out her slim valise of scissors and comb and returned to Marine. She loved preying on the unsuspecting.

Putting Marine's face firm in the mirror -"this is what you need - you have to have it" - pulling the hair this way that and with firm cuts of scissor, and then a final spray she put an edge of Marine that she didn't know she had.

Marine was caught - she had come to make sense of the studio space for an American fashion designer known for breaking the rules about hair, jewellery, clothes and more, - she had brought the plans - as had been arranged with the international property management firm she worked for. And here she was being given a work over. She could hardly open her mouth. All she was aware of was her quickened pulse, a tense excitement that was working away inside herself.

Without knowing it she was standing up and pushed against the wall.

"How do you feel. 100% ...... right?"

Joe pushed herself up face to face with Marine. She could feel her trembling. Her lips slightly parted. Her hair with the look that made Joe who she was. They were both about the same height.

Marine looked at these energetic black eyes, the hair still wet, and the body of a woman in her early 30's proud and arrogant. Standing naked, face to face with her, touching her thighs, her breasts.

"Well to business. Marine right? Clive has filled you in? You got the faxes, e-mail. You get an idea of what I want? Lined up a photographer? Someone young but knows how to be pushed?"

Joe turned round and went for the suitcase that lay on the bed and pulled on a robe, and slipped some army fatigues underneath.

"Let's see what you got....."

Grabbing the portfolio, unzipping it, she pulled the photographs and rough drawings and tossed them over the floor. "I want that. Not that." And proceeded to choose various items for furniture, decoration, for the studio.

"When? Tomorrow - end of the week at the latest?"

With the business over, Marine turned to leave, - she was exhausted. She put hand to the door as she left, pushing it open, so the reflection of waves from the canal came in. Joe was stretching her arms, legs, against the wall. Dropping her robe she proceeded to follow a series of aerobic motions, until there was a steady sweat from her brow. Turning she saw Marine, still standing, staring, at the door -

"Au r'voir - à bientôt! - hey come by tonight at 10 - bring the photographer - Jean - right?"



#3


Hitting back another pression, and the walls thumping, and the slapping of light against swirl of faces, expressions, people doing their business, themselves - it is the only place to think, to write, to create. The absence of silence was silence. Out of creation, anonymous energy en masse, comes inspiration. The words to the song came again, change this, change that, put in that long solo there. Yes, that will work..........

"This is Goethe"

A slightly bearded man put his bald head in my line of vision. Bring in Jeff on the drums, with that bit from 'fixated', ...... put in a repeat with a chorus - no too corny .....

"This is Goethe"

But perhaps something very black, sinister but sexy, about trouble, with a boy singing blues .... and then back to that song ......

"Goethe ..... my brother ........ John Spring"

The crucifix hanging, now with other bits of silver gold and the bare neck. A face of a man in a leather jacket, cigarette dangling, sticks out his hand and pulls over a beer.

"My brother"

Hold it. Save it.

"Yes"

Abrasive. Yes. What do you think? In the flow and they get you.

"Good to meet you"

Save it. Public image.

"You speak the truth"

Do I want this now?

"Look, we go south tomorrow. An uncle has château. You are welcome to come."

I finish the glass. Smile.

"Eva will talk. She talks better English than me"

Goethe looks towards the stage.

"I go now"

Somehow we shake hands. The bald head disappears into the flashing beams of light. And as he breaks through the bodies smashing the space with movement. I see that face again. But different. Harder. And then gone. She's swallowed and pulled into the swirls of darkness and smoke. Coffee, the plane, the morning, her eyes. Darkness and light jolted. A slender arm, thin fingers ......

"Dance with me"


#4


The rain was coming down hard, as Marine and Jean were pulled into the studio. One minute Marine was pushing the bell, another being pulled, more like grabbed. Joe had put her fingers to her lips -

" Don't say a thing!"

" You too Jean!"

Jean put down the photo bag he was carrying. Looked at this woman who had hired him, making her out against the blackness of the dark studio space. Calmly he slid out a small shiny object out of his coat's pocket, put it to his eye, and started clicking.

Against the back wall were the jagged pieces of broken mirrors that had been stuck, some against the wall, others impaled into it.

"Enough! Lights!"

And with a flick of her wrist Joe brought the full blare of light to the studio. She had decided on a bit of schlock for the night out. Putting on a marilyn monroe wig, a fuzzy pink cut off for a top, and a latex body suit, with a blatant joe emblem, was enough for the first night out. Informal, rough, nothing to get upset about, but enough to get the eyes looking.

Jean clicked some more, his tiny camera, a mere toy in his hand.

Joe had grabbed Marine's shoulder's

"Let me take your coat"

And to Jean

" Get your heavy equipment out - Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!"

Marine about to say something found Joe's warm hand in her mouth.

"No words" Within seconds she found herself naked, her carefully chosen clothes for the night in a heap. She felt drowned, but in no time was being pushed and squeezed into she did not know what. All she felt were the hands pulling, the pressure of a hand here or there, her inability to guess where next to move, and around her hovering Jean camera not stopping.

Her face was next, drowned, and massaged in oils and creams, paints until she tingled, all she could feel was that she had drunk too much. When the cab came, she was pushed into the back seat no time to make sense collect herself just feel the tightness in her legs, and the cigarette smoke weaving its way up her neck.

Joe said somewhere Digital? Jean answered affirmative. The buzz of the club pulled sucked Marine in like a doll on a string, It was pumping her up. And Joe was waving this way that knowing the moves and the words and works. The meaning of language was lost. Unnecessary. A flick of the eyes. The conversations were predictable. Only the moves made the action.

Joe had Jean follow Marine into the bathroom, following her as she looked into a mirror, made adjustments. He caught the glares of eyes but nothing would stop him.

Joe knew Jean was her man. Her work and his move with the camera could pull it off.

Marine fell back on the long couch at Joe's studio. She was exhausted. Jean leant over and offered her a cigarette. She declined. The night was one long energy high and now she was hovering. It was a good feeling.

Joe was already making coffee. Black and strong. Didn't she ever stop. Marine was jealous of this woman, this American with her sure moves, her exact taste her non stop non-stop being. She wanted to be her.

The making of coffee was a simple exacting task that Joe liked because she could put things in order. She saw that man she saw again on the plane standing at the bar, still the broken lost boy who had it but just was not worth it. But his lips, something about his lips, and his eyes ..... something .......

She bent down and pulled Jean's camera out of the case.

" D'Accord?" She questioned

Jean turned round to see Joe connecting his digital camera to her powerbook computer. Marine had started to put her hands through his long black hair. He turned back and put his tongue into her mouth, and they disappeared into the cushions of the sofa. The glare of the light bouncing off the jagged mirrors lining the wall disappeared into blankness.

Joe was on-line to her office, pulling out the relevant shots from the camera, and pumping them out to her agency in Minneapolis. Winding up she sent various messages to the captains of her crew, and their various salons across the good old usa. Keeping in touch. Keeping on the line. Keeping on the edge. That was her success.

As she opened the door to the street, light began to break the sky, and looking back a man and woman doing what was natural.

Paris at first light. This is Paris.


END OF CHAPTER TWO

Read CHAPTER THREE



© Giles Denmark/Giles Mitchell 1996. Worldwide Copyright.