Leaving Madeleine - part 24

           A DAY BEFORE MY FLIGHT, I took a taxi to the post office with a couple of boxes to ship to Calvin’s place in Hong Kong. One box contained a multitude of books I felt I had to keep and the other a few pots and pans, some utensils, some clothes, and various other household items I didn’t wish to pack into a suitcase. I had given away or tossed approximately three-quarters of my possessions. A few I was still thinking about, but mostly I felt liberated. Anything I needed could be purchased where I was going anyway.

            The price of shipping turned out to be fairly expensive. I decided to lighten the weight by pulling out some books. The cashier gave me a plastic bag. I thanked her in French. I was nearly out the door when I remembered I had something else to mail. I returned to the cashier and handed her the envelope with my letter to Madeleine inside.

“C’est tout?” asked the cashier.

“Oui,” I confirmed. Exiting the post office, I heard someone behind me call my name. It was André, the server from Le Danton.

            “Bonjour,” I said.

            “Bonjour. Ça va?” asked André.

            “Comme ci, come ca,” I responded.

            “Moi même,” André offered. “Je n’ais pas te vu au restaurant.”

            “A tu retourné?”

            “Oui, pendant quelques semaines maintenant. Tu n'écrit pas?”

            “Oui, J’écris. Mais j’ai rencontré une fille, alors…” I trailed off not sure how to finish. “Je déménage à Hong Kong pour vivre avec elle.”

            “Vraiment?”

            “Vraiment.”

            “Félicitations.”

            “Merci.”

            “Quands?”

            “Quands je déménage?”

            André nodded.

            “Demains.”

            “C’est l’amour.”

            “Je pense que oui.”

            “Bien sur. Bon. Regarde, je veux te dire, quands tu a finis votre livre, put tu m’envoyé un copie?”

            “Si tu veut. Peut tu lissez anglais?”

            “Yes.”

            “Okay. If it’s published, I’ll send it to you.”

            André typed his address into my phone. I asked him what kept him from work those days following the note he left me. He told me his wife had cancer and passed away. I offered my condolences and he thanked me. What could I say? His demeanor was stoic in a manner not well known to my generation, nor the ones younger than mine. They had been married for thirty-five years. She had been sick for over a year before the disease defeated her. He had two children about my age, one lived in Paris, the other in the Chicago. André told me how he used to paint seriously, but turned it into a hobby when his first child was born. Somehow seeing me work inspired him. He was certain I’d be successful he told me. I had that look about me. Others had told me the same before. They put hopes in me they didn’t have in themselves. When I failed to live up to their perception, they found a strange relief in it, as if to say, he’s just like us. André offered to send me one of his paintings. I said I would be delighted and gave him Calvin’s address. We shook hands firmly and parted ways. I thought about my grandfather on my father’s side and felt the pain of nostalgia. I should call dad, I thought, and resolved to do so when I landed in Asia.

My encounter with André also brought my time with Madeleine to mind.  I was already thinking of her of course and the resolution of the mystery behind André's absence expounded my thoughts. Wife. Children. Staying beside someone's bed as life left their body. I imagined all those things with Madeleine, but still I allowed the idea that something was missing. I had those things before Madeleine too, but they were taken from me. It could get there with Brigitte, but it wasn't there now. I was chasing a ghost. I had resolved not to lie to myself when I came to Paris. My dedication to that ideal brought me to the pursuit of Brigitte. But could I really tell what was true? Isn't it all true? Weigh everything side-by-side and measure value, but not everything can be placed on scales. Morality, truth, beauty, love, all their weight gives way to time.

I shook my head in an attempt to clear my mind. This was all pointless. Make a choice and commit to it fully. I learned this long ago. I chose Brigitte. I chose Hong Kong. Prepare for the future, but don't presume to know what it is.

Forty-four K. A window seat at the very back of the airplane. The overhead compartments near my seat had already been filled with carry-on items belonging to passengers who had boarded ahead of me. I was forced to stuff my suitcase in a bin above row thirty-two. An older Chinese man occupying the aisle seat beside me kindly stood up to let me squeeze into my chair and shove my laptop and camera bag under the seat in front of me. I nodded my thanks. My travel companion returned to his seat. He nodded back and looked away quickly. I interpreted this as an indication he wasn't interested in any further communication. Fine by me, I thought. The last few days had been exhausting. My plan was to sleep as much as possible before landing at HKG. Despite Brigitte's dismay, I had insisted on starting my stay by hopping between Calvin's 2000 square feet in Ho Man Tin and Andy's extra condo in Tseung Kwan O where his parents stayed when they were in town. "Let's not put so much pressure on everything right out the gate," I told her over Skype. "I thought we weren't going to be careful," she argued. She had a point. But I didn't acquiesce. She agreed to discuss it further when I arrived.

The plane reached its cruising altitude. The captain came on the speakers to welcome us and tell us about the weather, the time, and how he was going to get to Hong Kong. The miracle of flight. The last time it impressed me I was nine years old. This time in particular, it felt bittersweet. I said goodbye to Paris and to France. My Paris would never be Miller's or Hemingway's. It wouldn't be Salter's or Maugham's either. I would never know it like they did. Not many will, but my attempt to even get in the same vicinity fell far short. The failure stung. Get this one right, I thought to myself.

The seatbelt lights switched off and a pair of flight attendants advised us in English, French, Cantonese, and Mandarin to keep the apparatus buckled whenever we were seated. I inserted my earphones, selected the classical genre on my iPhone, leaned my head back, shut my eyes and promptly fell asleep. 

I opened my eyes. An hour had passed. Meal service was underway. I looked down and saw that my table was unfolded and there was a tray with chicken and rice, a salad, and some kind of chocolate cake. I glanced at my travel companion to see if I owed him gratitude, but he stayed focused on the movie playing on the tiny monitor attached to the chair in front of him. The food on his tray had already been eaten in its entirety. I unwrapped my compartmentalized meal, squeezed the tiny packet of poppyseed dressing onto the salad, and began devouring the chicken.

Tea came shortly after I finished my cake. Chinese or English? My travel companion and I both opted for Chinese. Did I detect a glimmer of approval? All in my head probably. I turned on my monitor. Crimes and Misdemeanors was in the classics menu. I watched from beginning to end. As the credits rolled over the score, I switched the screen to see how much longer the flight would be. Nine hours, thirty-seven minutes. I shutdown the monitor, plugged my earphones back into my iPhone and close my eyes.

This time, I had a dream.

Two of my childhood friends, Ben and Jerome, are with me at my grandparent’s old house on Westchester Road. We are just about to step outside and take a walk to a nearby grocery store when we realize it's raining. I grab three umbrellas located conveniently behind me and divide them equally amongst us. Jerome protests against the overall femininity of the prints.

“I’d rather look gay and dry than cool and wet,” I say. A minor modification to an argument I formulated in high school to justify emasculating umbrellas. It's enough to convince Jerome.

As we walk to our destination, the sun overcomes the clouds and the rain dissipates. There seems to be an unusual number of people out for a weekday afternoon on a residential street. I am a few steps ahead of my friends, the only one with my umbrella still open, when a sudden gust of wind flies up and lifts me about three feet into the air. Ben and a woman I am unacquainted with standing next to him watch with gaping mouths and no words as I float in the air.

The wind picks up again and this time carries me to the roof of a two-story house nearby. Now everyone on the street is entranced. I too am in some state of awe, but lost somewhere between the dream and the knowledge that I’m dreaming. The wind picks me off the roof of the two-story house and carries me to the roof of a grocery store – only it’s no longer a grocery store but a warehouse of some sort. I am quite high up and, though in no visible danger, feel it immediately necessary to return to ground level

I call to a boy standing near the warehouse entrance and tell him to get help. His face is infused with urgency, which for some reason gives me a small level of comfort. He runs into the warehouse and gets the attention of an employee. While he explains the situation in great detail, I decide to take matters into my own hands and begin climbing down without assistance. A protruding brick here, a pipe or sign there, a door moulding, and I’m back on the street.

The boy and the employee emerge from the warehouse a little surprised to see me. How did I manage do get down on my own? Neither says a word. I look at my hand and realize I no longer have my umbrella. Instead, I’m filled with the knowledge of a new ability to jump several feet into the air and float to where I want to go.

I leap from the former grocery store and float back to the area where I left my friends. When I land however, I am not with my friends but in somebody’s house. Four or five members of a Spanish or South American family stand in a suburban kitchen. My sudden appearance has interrupted a conversation, but only slightly. Two of the women appear to be twins and are of considerable height for women of their ethnicity. Unexpectedly, with the same suddenness as the gust of wind that lifted me from the residential street, I am overcome with a tremendous urge to have intercourse.

I fix my eyes on one of the sisters. I don’t find either of them particularly attractive, nor do I find them unattractive, but I can’t help myself. I begin closing the gap between me and the sister closest to me. She seems to know exactly what I want and timidly begins to back away towards the sink. It doesn’t seem to matter to me that her entire family is still in the kitchen with us and it doesn’t seem to bother her all that much either. I catch her. Proceed to lift her shirt and undo her jeans. She helps me with my belt.

At this point, I returned to that area between dream and reality. I became fully aware that I was on a plane flying 32,000 feet over the North Pacific Ocean. I also became fully aware that I was about ejaculate.

I panicked. No, I thought. How could this happen? Stop it. Stop! But it was too late. I did not even have an erection.

My eyes opened. The dream was over and reality presented a predicament. There was music playing in my ears and the beauty of it made me momentarily forget my situation. I paused the song and pulled out my earbuds.

My travel companion was asleep with his own earphones plugged into his ears. Aliens played on his personal viewscreen. The entire cabin was in simulated night mode. Every window shade was down and most passengers were asleep or engaged in some sort of time-passing activity. It was too dark to tell if my pants were visibly soiled. The flight attendant had been passing at regular intervals to offer water. I decided before getting up, I would get a cup from her. I can blame the beverage, I thought.  In hindsight, it was a rudimentary solution, but expedience is paramount in such a quandary.

A few minutes later the flight attendant made the rounds with a bottle of Dasani. I motioned for a cup and watched her walk away before drinking it. My neighbor was still fast asleep. I waited until he woke up and informed him of my plans to use the restroom. While he organized himself to let me pass, I grabbed my jacket to cover the area that might allude to my accident.

Thankfully, the toilet was unoccupied. I entered and locked myself inside. In the mirror I could see that my secretion had indeed made its way through the material of my grey jeans. Luckily, if anything in response to the fix I found myself in can be considered serendipitous, my shirt was long enough to pull over the soiled area of my crotch. I could completely hide my impropriety.

I urinated. Used tissue, water, and paper towels to clean up as best I could, and returned to my seat to consider my options. I could go to my luggage and retrieve a new pair of pants, but with my bag stored multiple rows ahead of me, pulling it out would undoubtedly attract attention. Moreover, reaching for my suitcase would require me to lift my arms, which in turn would lift my shirt, exposing the soiled area of my pants to anyone with a line of site to my crotch. If I pulled out a new pair of jeans after that, I would almost certainly be exposed. No, I decided, as uncomfortable and unsanitary as it is, sit still and let it dry. 

As I waited for proof of my little incident to evaporate, I tried to deduce how such a thing could happen. This was not my first time sleeping on a plane. It wasn’t my first erection on a plane for that matter. Something about the altitude and blood flow I suppose. But it was most certainly the first time I had reached the point of no return. Was it because I removed my shoes? I only started doing that recently. Maybe that was it. Was I thinking of my reunion with Brigitte? Was I thinking of Kiyoko? I wasn’t sure. Why were the women in my dream South American? I couldn’t come to any sensible conclusion. I reached for my earbuds, inserted one into each ear, and pressed play on the phone.  

The haunting music that was playing when I woke up returned. Long, melancholy violin chords. I suddenly recalled the music was in my dream. The ascending and descending notes bringing the rain and carrying me on the wind. Kiyoko had sent me this piece before I left Paris and told me to listen to it on my flight. I lifted my phone so I could see the screen. The song playing was Hwit by Ryuchi Sakamoto.