Visions of Isabelle by William Bayer

in hoods of dark brown wool.
    She spends hours in cafés reclining with her pipe, inhaling pungent, acrid, beckoning smoke that penetrates her nostrils then crawls deep within to balloon her head. She stares out into streets striped by sunlight burning down through overarching slats, and after blurred hours, she makes her way through the dark medina labyrinth, guided by oil lamps that glow like pinwheels. From there she wanders to the ramparts of the port where the sea, phosphorescent and still, seems to quiver at the pressure of her breath.
    She trembles with anticipation as she prepares to meet Eugène. What will he be like? Will all the confidences they've exchanged make them awkward, shy?
    Their rendezvous is set for the Café de France, central meeting point for travelers by the docks where the boats from Europe come in. Though they've long since exchanged photographs, they set up elaborate signals of identification which they then most scrupulously observe. He's to arrive in his uniform a half hour early, take a table, immerse himself in a novel by Dostoyevsky. When a tall young woman in a cape of rust-colored wool sits near, he's to offer her a cigarette.
    He looks as she's always imagined he would–tall, straight, blond hair cut into short curved locks. His face is sensitive yet firm–the face of a man who lives a double life, spends his days feigning excitement over maneuvers, his nights writing verse, humming Brahms, reading Aeschylus in Greek.
    As they appraise one another (to him she's always been a cipher, someone he's met by the sheerest luck, whose friendship he prizes but whom he dares not tell himself he's ever really understood), they fall into an excited intimate way of speaking that reminds her of a brother and a sister in reunion after a term away at school.
    "Good–you're happy," he says. "I can tell by your eyes."
    "Oh, yes, Eugène, yes! Now I feel that everything begins."
    "And you like it here?"
    "I adore it! I think that I really am an Arab at heart–born by mistake in a wrong country, you see, struggling all these years to find my real home. Now I can't imagine being anyplace else. The streets; the light; this African sun–look!" She reaches down, touches the pavement beneath the table. "These stones, even these stones! I feel as if I've known them always, have dreamed of them. As if they're a part of me, and have always been."
    He stares at her, amazed.
    "Really," she says. "You've given me the best gift of my life." She makes a great circle with her arm. "This," she says. "All this!"
    "You are extraordinary. I can't get over it. I don't know exactly what I expected. Someone very difficult, I suppose–someone moody, tormented, dark. But you are just like your letters. So full of life."
    Tears come into her eyes. She searches his face for some clue to the love that comes upon her so suddenly in this ordinary café.
    "People are looking at us," he whispers.
    "I can sense it. Yes!"
    "Listen. The tone of the café has changed. People are touched. They are watching us and inventing stories in their minds."
    "Yes! Yes!"
    And to her it does feel as if the whole café terrace, the quai, the port, the coast are coated in dark shadow, while shimmering sunlight dances only upon them.
    "All right," he says. "Now you've escaped. You're free. But what about the future? What will you do now?"
    "I don't know. I'm still struggling with that. I want to be a writer–to shock people. And–a great personage , like a character in a novel. My life should be full of struggles and passions. Great moments. Ecstasy. Fame."
    "Good. I like that. It's right for you, too. You will be a great heroine. Yes!"
    She is moved and remembers: he's always been so delicate with her in his letters, so careful not to intrude when she's written him turbulent accounts of the maddening tensions at Villa Neuve. Gently he's led her to this strange land, where she feels now she's found a place to grow