The newsstands were not yet plastered in postcards of my face, and there were no cigarettes, cigars, or bath lotions with my name. I was still an illustrious unknown, but I had made the most important step; each member of the audience had left enthralled, and this would be the best publicity I could ask for.
"It's a good thing that people are ignorant," Madame Guimet said, "because nothing you performed belongs to any Eastern tradition. You must have hatched each step as the evening wore on."
I froze, and wondered if her next comment would be about the fact I had spent the night--one simple, single, unpleasant night--with her husband.
"The only ones who would know that, however, are those deathly boring anthropologists who learn everything from books; they'll never be able to give you away."
"But I..."
"Yes, I believe you went to Java and you know the local customs, and perhaps you were the lover or wife of some officer in your army. Like all young women, you dreamed of one day making it big in Paris; that's why you ran away at the first opportunity and came here."
We kept walking, now in silence. I could go on lying--I'd done it my entire life, and I could lie about anything, except for what Madame Guimet already knew. Better to wait and see where this conversation was going.
"I have some advice for you," said Madame Guimet, when we started across the bridge that led to the gigantic metal tower.
I asked if we could sit. It was difficult for me to concentrate as we walked among the crowds of people. She agreed, and we found a bench on the Champ de Mars. Some men, serious and pensive, tossed metal balls and tried to hit a piece of wood; the scene was ludicrous to me.
"I spoke with some friends who attended your performance, and I know that tomorrow the newspapers will have you up on a pedestal. But don't worry about me; I won't say a word to anyone about your 'oriental dance.' "
I continued listening. I couldn't argue about anything.
"My first piece of advice is the hardest, and it has nothing to do with your performance. Never fall in love. Love is a poison. Once you fall in love, you lose control over your life--your heart and mind belong to someone else. Your existence is threatened. You start to do everything to hold on to your loved one and lose all sense of danger. Love, that inexplicable and dangerous thing, sweeps everything you are from the face of the earth and, in its place, leaves only what your beloved wants you to be."
I remembered the look in the eyes of Andreas's wife before she shot herself. Love kills suddenly, leaving no evidence of the crime.
A boy went up to a pushcart to buy ice cream. Madame Guimet used that to launch into her second piece of advice.
"People say life is not that complicated, but life is very complicated. What's simple is wanting an ice cream, a doll, or to win a game of petanque like those men over there--fathers, with responsibilities, sweating and suffering as they try to get a stupid metal ball to hit a little piece of wood. Simple is wanting to be famous, but staying that way for more than a month or a year, especially when that fame is linked to one's body, is what is hard. Simple is wanting a man with all your heart, but that becomes impossible and complicated when that man is married with children and wouldn't leave his family for anything in this world."
She took a long pause. Her eyes filled with tears, and I realized she was speaking from experience.
It was my turn to talk. In a single breath I told her that yes, I had lied; I wasn't born, nor had I been raised, in the Dutch East Indies, but I knew the place well, not to mention the suffering of the women
who went there in search of independence and excitement but found only loneliness and boredom. As faithfully as possible, I tried to reproduce Andreas's wife's final conversation with her husband, seeking to comfort Madame Guimet without revealing I knew she was talking about herself in all the advice she gave me.
"Everything in this world has two sides. People who were abandoned by the cruel god called love are also culpable, because they look into the past and wonder why they made so many plans for the future. But if they searched their memories even more, they would remember the day the seed was planted, and how they tended it, fertilized it, and let it grow until it became a tree that could never be uprooted."
Instinctively, my hand went to the place in my bag where I kept the seeds my mother gave me before she died. I always carried them with me.
"When a woman or a man is abandoned by the person they love, they are focused on their own pain. No one stops to wonder what is happening to the other person. Might they also be suffering, having left behind their own heart to stay with their families because of society? Every night they must lie in their beds, unable to sleep, confused and lost, wondering if they made the wrong decision. Other times, they feel certain it was their duty to protect their families and children. But time is not on their side; the more the moment of separation grows distant, the more their memories are purified of the difficult moments and turn into a longing for that paradise lost.
"The other person can no longer help himself. He becomes distant, he seems distracted during the week, and on Saturdays and Sundays he comes to the Champ de Mars to play ball with his friends. His son enjoys an ice cream, and his wife watches as the elegant dresses parade before her, a sad look in her eye. There's no wind strong enough to make the boat change direction; it stays in the harbor, venturing only among still waters. Everyone suffers; those who leave, those who stay, and their families and children. But no one can do anything."
Madame Guimet kept her eyes fixed on the newly planted grass at the center of the garden. She pretended she was just "tolerating" my words, but I knew I had opened an old wound that would begin to bleed again. After some time, she stood up and suggested we go back--her servants were likely already preparing dinner. An artist of growing fame and importance wanted to visit her husband's museum with his friends, and the evening would end with a visit to the artist's gallery, where he intended to show her some paintings.
"Of course, his intention is to try to sell me something, whereas my intention is to meet new and different people, to get outside a world that is beginning to bore me."
We strolled leisurely. Before crossing the bridge near the Trocadero again, she asked me if I'd like to join them. I said yes, but that I'd left my evening gown at the hotel and might not be dressed appropriately for the occasion.
In truth, I did not have an evening gown that even came close to the elegance and beauty of the dresses we'd seen women wearing for a "stroll in the park." And the "hotel" was just a figure of speech for the boardinghouse I'd been living at for two months, the only one that allowed me to take "guests" to my bedroom.
But women are able to understand one another without exchanging a word.
"I can lend you a dress for tonight, if you like. I have more than I can ever wear."
I accepted her offer with a smile, and we headed back to her house.
When we don't know where life is taking us, we are never lost.