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On rainy days, the city of Paris paints itself in black and white. Unlike most other places in the world, here, a grey sky leaves no traces of colour in the city air – and Michel Lavreau prefers it like this. Pretentious as Paris may be, it’s also consistent. If you must send a message to the world, the least you can do while being loud and obnoxious is leave your double-standards out of the equation.
The Basilique du Sacré-Coeur is, like their time period itself, a work in progress. He doesn’t waste many glances on it; to him, it’s been here only long enough to claim a safe foundation. Little else. In the background, it towers over Paris uncertainly, like a novice ruler wearing a crown too big for her head. Mireille will be back in a moment and they’ll leave the butte Montmartre behind. Just another place they’ve passed.
“It will be impressive.” Her voice is small but not as weak as it used to be. He keeps his back to her. “In time.” Her heavy winter’s cape rustles as she walks – Mireille may be a silent, unobtrusive woman, but to him, she’s also helplessly transparent. She pauses next to him, close enough for a minimal sort of body contact. The most they’ve managed so far. It doesn’t matter to him. Michel Lavreau has waited years and the man who would run himself breathless on the path to discovery died in Luxembourg, on the grave of his family. What’s left isn’t patience. At most, it’s an understanding; the knowledge that they have nowhere to go but forward, gravitating towards each other slowly, gradually, with no traces of haste.
At least, as things are now, they can’t end up with nothing.
He glances at her. The cold has left her cheeks rosy, in sharp contrast to her pale skin. But the look in her eyes is hollow still, gaze fixed on the horizon in a way that promises very little actual intervention. The truth has been harsh on the both of them and he isn’t so devoid of compassion that he doesn’t recognise himself in her. He is, however, incapable of feeling sorry for the two of them. It’s too late for that and so, he doesn’t reach out to her. Doesn’t attempt to bridge the distance between them. If they start fooling themselves into thinking that change happens through synchronized self-pity, they may as well drown their pitiful souls in the Seine.
“Perhaps you’ll live to see it,” he says. Pulls his coat tighter around himself and begins walking, knowing that she’ll follow when it suits her. They’ll find shelter tonight, before dusk. Tomorrow, they’ll be gone and Paris will bear their bloody prints with its usual grandeur: with excessive proclamations and dramatics in the broadest sense, washing the red into the river and leaving what’s left to history.