Then it was Saturday. The morning felt no different than the night and by the time the afternoon came, she felt the day dripping off its face. She began to clean, to dust, to vacuum, to refold her towels and change the angle of her chairs.
Her gaze landed on the large white bookshelf. She went down the rows of books, until she got to the last shelf near the floor and stopped at that blue hardcover book, sticking out of its tight spot again.
She went to her closet, slid her hand into her coat pocket, and pulled out the card.
The Blue Angel bar
Aimée walked up the stairs of the Ledru-Rollin métro. At the top, she glanced around for context. At her shoulder, Le Faubourg café, its low-lit terrace half-filled with conversation. Across the street, the big supermarket Monoprix, and diagonally Générale d’Optique, with various pairs of glasses on display. She turned back around and walked towards the square blue P parking sign, continuing on Avenue Ledru-Rollin, away from the collective evening of others, into the dimming street that less and less people occupied.
She veered left at the Biolam Laboratory and spotted the path. Prague Street.
The road felt muted. Parked cars. Faint lamp posts. The trees, tall and bare, intervalled along the pavement, reluctant witnesses.
She eyed the door numbers as she walked, 2, 4, 6… Then she saw it, a couple of doors ahead. The façade was completely black, with two square windows at each side, both painted over in black, and in the centre, the door, as if no door, but there it was, as charcoal as the rest. Above it, the blue symbol glowed neon. An angel.
Aimée gave the dry black door a push, and it separated from its frame and slid heavily open, revealing two long blue curtains upon a curved railing around the doorway, the hem bunching at the floor. The door shut behind her and she slid her hand through the parting, pulling one side of the curtain open.
The place was small, both cluttered and somehow spacious. Ahead of her, there was a long counter on the right with four high stools in worn, dark leather, behind which were shelves of bottles of wine, all in dark blue glass. On one of the bar stools, a man in a grey suit was leaning over his glass.
To the left were small round tables with wooden chairs, all occupied by people, face to face across each table, a glass of dark wine in front of them or in their hand. Their bodies leaning in, nodding, listening, their eyes only on their companion’s in an overcast concentration, mouths loitering within their voices, speaking as if they had been speaking for so long they were no longer doing the speaking.
Across the top edge of the wall crawled blue fairy lights, faintly holding onto their colour. As Aimée followed their string, the lights flickered, then settled in their glow.
In the remaining corner, beyond the soporific clientele and the man leaning at the bar, was a small dance area. The walls of that corner were painted a bright blue, as well as the floorboards, as well as the ceiling. A small glinting disco ball hung self-consciously from a plastic grey wire in the middle, slowly turning in the empty space. Two speakers, also painted an opaque blue, were perched in each corner, filtering a steady stream of melancholic music. Jacques Brel’s voice crooned through an anxious string orchestra, exclaiming with romantic exhaustion.
The volume of the song was not louder or softer than the bar chatter, all the voices balancing inside each other, moving forward together, a clock’s hand.
The bartender, a tall, dark-skinned woman in her thirties, with a tightly curled afro and a thin nose, held a yielding surveillance over the crowd. She glanced over at Aimée and tilted her head.
Aimée made her way to the bar and sat down on the leather stool. She looked down at her watch. 8.51pm.
“Vous desirez?” the bartender asked as if giving condolences. What would you like?
Aimée looked at the row of identical bottles, then said, “Red wine, please.”
The bartender pulled a corked bottle off the shelf, uncorked it, and poured Aimée a glass. She took the glass, but her head drifted to the right, towards the figure sitting beside her.
The man in the grey suit lifted his glass and nodded at Aimée.
The song was ending, and another one taking its place, the soft repetition of piano chords, then the voice of Françoise Hardy, sing-speaking in crestfallen heartache.
“It’s nice music here…” the man said in broken English.
Aimée wasn’t sure if he was speaking to her or to his glass.
“You like sad music?” the man continued.
Aimée looked over at him and squinted.
“I do,” the man replied to his own question.
He tilted his head up towards Aimée.
“Do you know about loneliness?” he asked.
The music changed again. There was a heavy chord of an organ, then a man’s voice pushed fiercely through the reverb. He sang a couple of lines, then cut himself off, whispering abruptly, “Je t’aime!” The organ squeezed and expanded.
“This is beautiful song,” the man said, turning back to his glass.
“It’s Léo Ferré,” the bartender inserted as she wiped the counter again.
“Leyo Feray,” the man repeated as he looked deep into the remaining wine pooled at the bottom. “I try to remember.”
Je t’aime! the singer shouted out again into the mournful music.
The man took another sip, then began to cough. As Aimée turned towards him, he reached inside his jacket, and pulled out a sky-blue silk handkerchief and drew it towards his face.
The string of lights began to flicker again. The curtains shook as if the door on the other side had been opened.
Aimée looked down at her watch. 9pm.
The stool to her right was empty and the bartender was wiping its place clean.
The bloodstream
The Zentiva representative was younger than Jana had thought it likely for such a company to send to an important sales meeting. He looked not long out of university, her brother’s age just before she had left Prague. The rep shook the Frenchman’s hand, trying to squeeze it and smile at the same time. He thanked him for the thoughtful exchange at dinner, but before he could finish his own phrase, he added that he did not want to insist, but he felt it was important to underline that Zentiva delivers high-quality, cost-effective pharmaceuticals for the international markets, all their generic medicines have tested extremely well in relation to the original branded drug in the bioequivalence clinical studies, the active ingredient releasing into the bloodstream at almost the identical speed and quantity as the brandname medicine. Jana translated for the client as the Zentiva rep interrupted her, adding that they are the guaranteed ideal supplier of choice, then stumbling over a couple more statistics about their respiratory and central nervous system pharmaceuticals.
The client listened to Jana, then shook both of their hands and told them he had a generous amount of information to consider.
As the French client walked towards the main street to get a taxi, Jana shook hands with the Zentiva rep and told him she thought the meeting went well. The rep exhaled in relief and shook her hand again with gusto.
As she walked away, she imagined him on the plane tomorrow morning, back to Prague. She saw him fumbling with his seat belt and trying to close his tray. She saw his knees, awkward in the dry suit fabric, lean right, left, trying to find their place in the allotted aeroplane seat space. She saw the back of his ears, oddly clean, the habit he inherited from his grandmother of rubbing the corner of the towel there after he washed. She saw his head turned towards the window, watching the clouds squeeze from one form to another, like slow-beating hearts, and sitting there, trying not to wrinkle his business suit, watching the sky, the smile on his face, so unprotected, extempore.