Paris Christmas, 2007

The thick snowflakes fell upward as I stepped back.

They floated from beneath my shoes, past my eyes, into the darkened night sky above. The smoky chill of my breath was drawn back into my lungs, full of joy, because she was out there waiting, in Paris, for me.

It was Christmas Eve on the Eiffel Tower. I was wrapped in a fine black coat, a present from the girl I loved. The thick grey scarf around my neck had also been a gift, but from another side of my heart.

“You should never go chasing across the world for any girl,” my brother had warned with a wink as I opened his present. “They always end up doing the screwing in the end.”

I leaned against the rail and looked over the city below. The horizon was aglow in reds, and greens, and molten gold. It was a trick of the eye, reflections from the Christmas themed lights sparkling from the tower behind me. I could see her face in every flicker of light. How did people find a way to wedge themselves so deeply into you, I wondered. How could they fit into the corners so hidden away from the rest of the world?

As I straightened a woman leaned against the rail a few feet away. She was the only other person on the platform standing alone. Everyone else was coupled up together in the most Parisian way imaginable, giving a hearty shout of “Joyeux Noël!” before diving back into their shared holiday embrace.

The woman gave me a friendly smile and pulled out a cigarette. I didn’t want to stare but she had the most unusual feature. Her face was olive tanned and she had a youthful appearance of someone younger than me… but her long hair was colored as sheer white as newly fallen snow.

I lingered too long and she caught my glance. I nodded politely, “Joyeux Noel.” I cursed at my poor pronunciation. Language muscles were like any other, if you didn’t use them over time they wasted away.

“Joyeux Noël à vous aussi,” she replied.

I smiled shyly and turned away, back toward the city below us. My own love was out there somewhere in those canals of cars and dim streetlight, making her way here to the top of the world to meet me. I just had to be patient.

“Il fait froid ce soir, hein?” the white-haired woman said, crossing her arms for warmth.

I nodded, “Wee.”

“Est-ce que tu allais dire quelque chose au sujet de mes cheveux?” she asked, nodding to wave the silky white hair that draped long and straight over her shoulders.

I cleared my throat and shook my head, “Non, je pense que c’est très beau. C’est juste… disons… unique.”

She laughed the rich laughter of a woman with an oceans depth of confidence. This was a man eater I knew, the type of French femme that men searched the world over and dreamed of on long nights with lesser women.

“Ce n’est pas tres passionant comme histoire,” the woman said, feigning sadness, breaking her eyes away from me and back across the cityscape of Paris. “En fait, je n’ai pas tellement eu le choix!”

“C’est… ta couleur naturelle?” I asked.

“Oui,” she said, “Ma mère, ma grand-mère et même mon arrière grand-mère avaient des cheveux completement blancs. Ne t’inquiètes pas, je ne suis quand même pas albinos! C’est juste un gène de famille, je pense.”

“Ah,” I said. “I see.”

We lingered in shared silence for a moment. In an odd way her presence just orbiting nearby made me feel more alone. It had been too long since I had last seen the girl I loved. I could imagine her saying goodbye to her coworkers and bosses from the holiday party, trading kisses on cheeks and wrapping her long red scarf around her auburn hair.

“Would you like a cigarette?” the woman asked me in English.

I did not smoke but it was a cold night and a friendly offer so I stepped over toward her and took one. She lit it for me.

“J’adore ces nuits où l’hiver est tellement clair,” she mused staring at the open sky, “que l’on peut voir toutes les étoiles dans le ciel.”

I agreed. At this closer view I could tell she was not a day over twenty-five. She might even be younger, but the shadows and colors from the tower cast her in melted light, hiding her true form. She was beautiful in any case, no matter her age or color of hair.

“You’re American?” she asked.

“Yea, from New York,” I replied, “e toi?”

She smirked childishly and laughed again, “Je suis français bien sûr! Ton français est très bien.”

I shrugged and did not say anything. If you married someone from another culture it only made sense to learn a bit of their language.

Across the field of lights below us bells began to toll across arcane cathedrals. It was midnight. The sound echoed beautifully from one end of the city to the other. It reminded me of a deep sound in the cold sea, where whales called out for each other in sonar longing.

“Are you waiting for someone?” she asked.

I nodded. “Et toi?”

“Oui, my boyfriend,” she said with a grin of a girl very much in love, “Both of them are very late.”

“That they are. It’s already Christmas morning.”

“Do you have a holiday wish?” she asked.

I held my silence for a moment. I thought of my wife walking over ancient Parisan steps, finally out of her office party and running late as always. Marrying into the fashion industry had been a severe pain due their schedule, but she had married a lawyer so I supposed we had both known the sacrifices required going in.

“Oui,” I said, sadly.

“J’ai aussi un désir,” she said quietly and then went silent. I was considering pressing her for the wish when she spoke up again, “Je voudrais des cheveux normaux et une vie agréable. Mais c’est un souhait de gamin non? J’ai l’impression que même lorsqu’on est déjà heureux, on en veux toujours plus.”

She sighed and smashed her cigarette underfoot and our eyes met.

“C’est vérité,” I said. I looked back at the dark city, and the woman did the same. Time seemed to slow in the cold and I was aware of all the space between us, the heaviness of it. Neither of us spoke another word as we waited. There was a spark of understanding across that silence that bonded us deeper than any shared words could have done.

Then we heard a loud shout and both turned. A tall, broadly shouldered Spanish man with a bottle of champagne had made a boisterous entrance on the viewing deck and the white haired woman shrieked in rapturous reply. The two ran towards each other, shouting vivid exclamations of love in French and Spanish. Then they kissed and murmured in the others arms, before splitting apart and walking away hand in hand. The woman paused for one moment to turn back to me and shouted, “Merry Christmas!”

“Joyeux Noël!” I replied in the cheeriest voice I could manage, and then they vanished into each other and out of my night.

I turned back to the clear, cold Christmas morning and thought of another Christmas, exactly one year earlier before.

It had been 2007 and snowing was blanketing the city in soft ivory, subduing the grand Eiffel Tower like a Christmas tree dampened by the rich glow of open presents and family and friends.

Falling snowflakes had bounced off her cheeks when my wife had finally burst into the top of the tower as the first bells of midnight began to toll. She ran towards me, crunching patches of powder under her steep heels. I grabbed her and kissed her and lifted her again thanking her for my new black coat. The snow drifted down over us, filling the gap between us, and we laughed loudly because we were so happy to be together at last. Two small and busy people had found each other again, and oh God was it good to be loved on the longest nights of the year on the top of the worlds grandest city.

Now on Christmas Eve 2008 I stepped backward and the snow fell upwards as the scene replayed again and again in my head. She was gone now, in another place, perhaps with another man, lost to me. Next year there might be someone else to wait for once more. But for now… c’est la vie, je pense.

I finished the cigarette and left the viewing deck, the city of lights sparkling below me like an open sea shore.

Carlos F. Romero, Copyright 2008