Emma’s Last Night

There had been concern when Jean and Emma got together that he was too serious, macho. I perhaps had it wrong that he had in art school driven to Chernobyl, uprooted a tree, and brought it back to France—a foreigner, I was capable of wild misunderstandings—but this was the story that had come to seem defining. Now he made a dance out of crumpling a wrapper, hopping up to throw it in the trash. He snapped his fingers to the music. It was cheerful music, music from my country though not from my era. In a city famous for ways of living developed, cultivated to exquisiteness, over centuries, we were engaged, that night, in a rare shabby tradition, that of the apéro dînatoire . Emma was throwing one ahead of moving in with Jean. Possibly the tradition was not exclusively Parisian. “They do it systematically in Greece,” Jean said. On a cutting board were resting chocolate bread from Chambelland, a slab of Comté, a “beautiful” radish Jean had brought, and chips: “I have chips because you said there must be chips for the feuilleton ,” Emma said to me, referring to my plan to write about the evening. Having touched down that morning I was making such demands on top of being welcomed back. Stefania, who came late, brought sticks of crabmeat, olives, and a two-liter bottle of Coke. Stefania was “a musician and artiste d’art vivant ,” Emma said. “Easier,” said Stefania, “I’d say artiste sonore, performeuse .” Romanian, she had been living in Paris for four years and liked it, though her own apartment was, like Emma’s, too small. “That’s the toilet?” she asked. “It’s not very far from us,” Jean commented. “Sorry,” Stefania said, “but I have need. Put the music back on.” Emma’s boxes were piled two high on a bed she called “the sofa” and Jean called “the divan.” Plants remained unpacked and cast exaggerated shadows. She had done such a good job, remarked Haydée. “ C’est vraiment très bien rangé .” A mover, Patrice, would be there tomorrow. “He […]

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