The Blue Bath Read Online Free PDF Page B

maps of erstwhile places. Through the dark, silent catacombs below the streets, among walls of bone and incoherent graffiti—lamentations of the living or prayers for the dead. Although it seemed they talked about everything, never once did he ask her what she was doing in Paris or how long she would be there or where she was from or even her last name. He made no overtures toward her. To the contrary, he seemed to actively avoid any physical contact with her.
    Facing into the sunset on the Pont Neuf at the end of that week, she saw that the Seine was on fire. Orange flames jumped from the waves to ignite the windows of the buildings facing the embankment. The melting blue sky dripped into the river, punctuated by the dots of the boats and the dashes of the bridges. She felt the warmth of the light on her skin and tasted the city in her mouth.
    The light was changing so quickly. Feeling the urgency of the setting sun coloring the passing seconds, each different, Kat reflexively brought her camera to her eye. Standing behind her, Daniel moved his hands up on either side of her, pushing the camera down gently, away from her face. She felt his arms surrounding her, his hands on her hands, his breath in her ear. The sudden physical contact shocked her.
    “If you really see it, then it becomes part of you.” His whisper made her shiver and he pulled her closer to him. “You can never lose it.”
    She had half turned in to him by then. In the moment before she closed her eyes, she saw that the color around his right eye was now a sallow yellow, the last traces of it nearly gone from his skin. She thought that she would miss it—the daily newness of it.
    She had never understood how people could kiss that way in public. She saw it all over Paris. Couples in the middle of the pavement, in crowds, pushed up against buildings, coiled around each other. The kind of kiss that could mean only one thing, that led to only one place. The kind of kiss that embarrassed you just to look at. Indecent, insistent, undeniable.
    She didn’t think. About the people around them, about whether an appropriate amount of time had passed, or about the importance of making him understand that this was not something that she did regularly. She didn’t think about the larger questions or consequences. She had no idea how long the kiss lasted, but was slightly surprised to find that it was still light out when they broke apart—briefly, necessarily—to cross the wide boulevard in front of her building. The sun had sunk lower and the light seemed somehow to be emanating from under the pavements.
    Inside they began the climb up the narrow staircase as his hands moved up her body. They were about five feet from her door. His shirt was open and the buttons on her dress were undone when one of them tripped and they both fell, landing hard and breathless on the tile floor. Her keys flew out of her hand and skittered across the floor. She listened to them bouncing off the railings on their way down the stairwell. And so then, on that particular evening, on the small landing outside her door, with the dust swirling in the waning light that shone through the small round window, the only sound was their breath.
    In the weeks that followed they showed each other what they loved. Kat waited for a particularly bright morning and led Daniel over the little bridge that leapt the Seine in a single bound. The chestnut trees along the banks of the Île de la Cité were newly dressed and the wind sent their full skirts waving. They climbed the spiral stone staircase to the vaulted upper chapel of Sainte-Chapelle and stood under the soaring windows, the web of intricate, slender tracery all but obliterated by the sheer volume of radiance, any narrative shattered into pieces of pure color. Daniel stood silently, watching shafts of light illuminate faithful and unfaithful alike in otherworldly hues of rich red and blue. Kat watched his face.
    Daniel took her to the Musée