L'AMOUR According to St. Rocco

     Jacques Prévert, the heavy drinker and chain smoker poet Jacques Prévert is still to this date, one of the most influential figures in the literary arts.  I really never understood why all the fondness about his poetry, and to be honest, for me, his work has always been as over-praised and simplistic as any soulless song, that only stays in your head for a while for the sake of repetition, not appreciation.  Jacques Prévert, the overrated, charismatic and unembellished French poet “Jacko le perv” introduced me to Saint Rocco, and through him to Mrs. Adelaide Laurent.  Perhaps I should explain myself in detail before I begin telling the story of Mrs. Adelaide Laurent, which is also the story of Saint Rocco and Jacques Prévert.  If we look at eventualities as the consequence of a conglomerate of random actions that collide at the precise time, we will better understand that the notion of fate and predisposition has nothing to do with chance; which is the true fueling force that moves everything around us, the only authority capable of bringing us together or set us apart. In simple words, this is, and this is not, the tale of anyone; this is a story about chance, about a series of unfortunate events that happened, like I previously stated, at the precise time.  Events that made me change my lifelong conception of fate after I found myself waking up half naked and semi-unconscious at the lobby of a populated building in the heart of Paris; with a reliquary of St. Rocco hanging from my neck and a small book of poems written by “Jacko le perv”, which I later used to cover the shameful image of my exposed midsection from an curious crowd.

     But how did I end up like that?  Well, now that is something worth to talk about…

Paris, February 2008

     The smoking restrictions had come in effect a month before I landed in Paris.  One of the liberties I enjoyed the most while in Europe had always been to be able to enjoy a cigar and a good glass of wine unbothered almost anywhere, but those days were a thing of the past.  After being asked out of a library that was also a bar nearby the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, they gave me no other option but to throw away my “Cuban”; and to make it less shameful, I purchased the first book I found on my way out:  Jacques Prévert, Paroles.  In order to avoid unnecessary confrontations –in France, when you are a foreigner, they just don’t inform you, they command you– I decided to go back to my flat and enjoy the misery of boring French poetry combined with the smoking prohibitions.  A few hundred meters from my building, I found the first gem in the middle of Paris:  Le square René-Le Gall.  Also known as Jardins des Gobelins, René-Le Gall is a small park near the city center where I found refugee.  At the park, artists and musicians, and even more appropriate, book readers with suicidal faces who carried their books with one hand and a cigarette with the other.  "This is the Paris I came to see", I thought.

     After walking twice around the park, I found an empty space on a bench next to an old lady who was discretely sharing her reading with a long cigarette and a drink. From a few steps away, the image carried me.  She was at least in her eighties, refined, and wearing a long black dress.  Her face was rugged but gentle; and even when she seemed to be exhausted of suctioning her cigarette with great force, she inspired reserve and harmony.  I felt stupid when a moment later she asked for “fire” and I offered her my lighter, and she corrected me by saying that it was rude from a gentleman not to light the cigarette of a lady.  The evening was coming fast upon us, and when I got up, so did she, swallowing the last drop of a greenish liquid and said with a vivid and crisp voice:

–Latin Americans usually have better taste for poetry… Tell me what makes you waste more than a minute with Prévert?

–Well, I bought it a moment ago, when trying not to be…

–You strike me for a young man with a great taste; –she interrupted– I will considered it inappropriate and vulgar not to invite you for an afternoon of good poetry over a few memorable drinks...  –she added while getting up with admirable agility.

     I couldn’t set aside the noticeable scent of mint combined with herbs and strong alcohol on her breath; but learning that Mrs. Adelaide Laurent, who had been, decades ago, the head librarian at the Institut Protestant de Théologie and a fervent catholic, gave me a sense of tranquility. I accepted her invitation.  And, what could ever go wrong with an 82 years old lady who had dedicated her entire life to books and theology?, I wanted to reassure myself. Several minutes into our walk, she took another long cigarette from a discrete pocket in her dress and stopped short.  She looked around, as if looking with for a place to hide with urgency.

–There!  –she said with a noticeable sense of relief while pointing to what seemed to be a cemetery–. Look at us! –she added and resumed walking–  Pushed to a cemetery in order to smoke...  These laws are ridiculous, wouldn’t you say?  What a beautiful reminder of what await us all…

     The Montparnasse cemetery seemed larger than the first time I visited it years before. The Sun was low at the horizon, and its rays, reflecting on the glass windows of the buildings that surrounded the cemetery, gave it an eerie but serene aura.  

–This will make a perfect place for a breather.  Let us sit down.  –she added.

     I had remained quiet for most of our walk.  Mrs. Adelaide Laurent had surprised me with her energy, her cleverness and sense of humor; and above all, with her candid nature.

–Come on you now, sit down. –she insisted.

     But I was lost somewhere else...

–Oh!... Is that what is taking your attention?  Is that right? 

     Mrs. Laurent was right. Something did caught my attention. Right in front of us, there was a real size statue of a man covering his face with both hands, and I couldn't   interpret if it attempted to express deep sadness or shame. A moment later, Mrs. Laurent got up and walked towards it, and while placing her cigarette, still burning at its feet, she added:

–Looking at it, it sure does look like Jacques Prévert; would you agree?  Perhaps the reason for his sadness is because there are no cigarettes or young girls in hell; I suppose.  –she said and instantly broke in laughter.

     I sat down next to her, purposely putting my book in between. I lit a cigar and took a long drag, and she continued explaining to me with great enthusiasm and wit the process of Sainthood and her younger years as a rebel Christian. For an instant, I returned to the statue and got distracted once again, only to be rapidly brought back when she began telling me the story about her first and only love, Rocco, a young seminar student who she had met decades before while on a trip to Italy.  Their prohibited and unfulfilled love had turned her against the church but closer to God, she assured me.  After that, she turned her life into one of abstinence, literature and prayers.

–Open your silly book in page 33. –she asked me– And don’t read the whole thing, it is monstrous! Please, just read the second paragraph.

I looked at her but her old eyes were lost, somewhere else; so I began to read:

This Love, by Jacques Prévert

This love
So real
This love
So beautiful
So happy
So joyous
And so ridiculous
Trembling with fear
Like a child in the dark
And so sure of itself
Like a tranquil man in the quiet of the night
This love
Which made others afraid
Which made them gossip
Which drained the color from their cheeks
This love
Watched for
Because we watched for them
Snared, wounded, trampled, finished, denied, forgotten
Because we snared, wounded, trampled, finished, denied, forgot it…

     I panicked.  I took me a moment to realize that it wasn't the emotions caused by the poem or the memories of her long-lost love what was causing Mrs. Laurent to touch her heart.  For a moment, I thought that she was having a heart attack when she continued pressing harder and harder her hands against her chest. And for the first time ever in my life, I did something that was completely unknown to me:  I prayed.  I closed my eyes to hide my fear and to remain calm.  The old lady was dying in front of me. She was sobbing, out of air, trembling! "What should I do?"  I dropped the book, put my hand on her shoulder and asked her:

–Mrs. Laurent!  Are you alright?

     But she didn’t respond.  I closed my eyes once again and I believe that at least one sentence managed to escape from my lips: “Oh God, don’t let her die!  Oh fuck no, not now!”

     Immediately after I finished my request to God, she screamed.  She screamed and began laughing uncontrollably. For my surprise, her laughter was the one of a little girl. She laughed louder and louder, and then laughed a little more; still pressing her hands against her chest. A moment later, she made an attempt to fix her gray hair and then unbuttoned the top two buttons of her dress, showing me her "pain", which was also one of the motives of her laughter. 

–Is that a reliquary? –I asked her.

–Not just a reliquary, my young and silly companion. This is St. Rocco; my holy, my guide, my everything!

     I understood.  I did right away.  But before the last trace of light gave up, she told me the story about her young lover in Italy, who coincidentally happened to share the same name as her patron saint.  She also told me with great enthusiasm how she had met him, in a small café near the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, same cathedral who quietly witnessed their brief moments of passion in the summer of 1946, shortly after the war had ended. He was reading “This Love” from Jacques Prévert in its original French, sounding giddy and childish –as she said– and what made her fall in love with him instantly. Their story was brief but intense, just like the one she was telling me then and which she unfortunately had to cut short.

–You looked as silly as him when you were reading it. Come on, a promise is a promise.  We still have time for a memorable drink before we die; don’t we?

     The short walk to her flat was very pleasant.  Mrs. Laurent ended up being a box filled with unusual surprises.  I mentioned that I would only stay briefly and she agreed. The building was magnificent; located in the very heart of Paris. Before we went inside, I remembered that I had forgotten my book at the cemetery, but she assured me that there was no reason for my concern by saying that there was no such thing as “two coincidences”, and that the book ended up at its right place.

     Her flat was small but elegantly furnished and arranged. There were religious art on almost every wall, and even a private library with the best works on a single shelf that covered the far wall of the main room. She turned to be such a great host, that a moment after I sat down at the coffee table she brought me a copy of Paroles.

–I feel guilty for you losing your book. Oh!... The look on your face when you tough I was dying was priceless.  Take this one, please. -she said.

–Mrs. Laurent, I think I shouldn't…

–Take it or I will die, and for real this time!  –she finished and a new and almost juvenile laugh came out of her–. And now, the memorable drinks!

     From a drawer, she took what resembled to be laboratory gadgets; and from a top shelf, she took a bottle with a green liquid on it.

–Are you trying to poison me Mrs. Laurent? –I asked her, forcing myself to be humorous.

–You are silly.  Haven’t you heard of Absinthe?

–Isn’t that illegal in most countries Mrs. Laurent?

–Americans!  Always trying to police the world! –she replied.

     Shortly after she poured the greenish liquid into two glasses, she began singing, accompanied by the smell of burning sugar cubes. The flames melted the sugar over the Absinthe turning it into a ghostly white substance.

–La vie en rose, Mrs. Laurent.  I know that song.

–I’m sure you know.  But did you know that La vie en rose  also came out in 1946?  The same year that I went to Italy and met… Well, you know.

–You have some good memory Mrs. Laurent.  A good memory for an old woman. 

      

–A good memory is just one side of it; but let us enjoy our “Green Muse”; after all, you don’t have much time. –she said and her face suddenly changed into someone else’s.

She turned on the stereo and magically the same song she was singing before now played in low volume.

–You call it “green muse” Mrs. Laurent?

–It has many names my silly companion, but I prefer calling it:  The Saint’s Blood.  Come on, drink up!  You won’t be able to try this anywhere else, I’m afraid.

–Who painted that?  -I asked her while pointing to a wall, attempting to change the cryptic subject.

–That would be St. Rocco, my patron saint and also my lover…The same one I carry next to my heart. –she answered confidently.

     I felt my lungs collapse and I began coughing instantly after my first sip; and I felt the burn on my stomach shortly after.

–May I have another, Mrs. Laurent?

–Young soul, rebel and ambitious!  Yes, you may… –she answered.

     The same song kept playing over and over and over. And after the third drink, everything started to spin out of control.  Everything went black and white and then in full color. Slow. The thick smoke coming out her mouth made it impossible to distinguish anything around: pulsating sounds, numbness, static, Edith Piaf…

What is this...? What is happening to me...?

I felt a warm masculine hand followed by a bright light over my face. 

–Where am I?

–Sir, you must leave now! –a young gentleman whispered.

The fucking poem! "Jacko le perv",  I remembered. It had been there all the time: the warning had been there all the time...

     In simple words, this was, and this was not, the tale of anyone.  This was a story about chance; about a series of unfortunate events that happened, like I previously stated, at the precise time <<or not>>.  Events that made me change my lifelong conception of fate after I woke up half naked and semi-unconscious at the entrance of Mrs. Laurent’s building; with her reliquary of St. Rocco hanging from my neck and the small book of poems from “Jacko le perv” that she had given me earlier, which I was then using to cover my penis from the curious crowd.  My skin felt sticky and wet. Covered in a gray coat that one of the members of the crowd courteously gave me, I left the building.  My entire body smelled of Absinthe and I couldn’t believe the new bright green color I had now on my mid section. Incredulous and still dizzy, I instinctively looked back inside the building; just to read the lips and to catch a glimpse of the evil smile of the young doorman who escorted me out:

Bienvenue!

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