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The delay

July 5, 2012


Line 89 to Cardinal Lemoine-Monge | By Francis-Noël Thomas

I see her for twenty minutes. We don’t exchange a word.

I am waiting for a bus on an autumn evening after leaving the Bibliothèque nationale where I have spent the afternoon. I’ve been in Paris for a month and am about to go back to Chicago in three days. The bus is late; it starts to rain lightly; the bus shelter is overfull; strangers begin to talk to one another.

“How long have you been waiting?”

“Is there a strike?”

“The indicator says the next bus will come in five minutes.”

“Yes, but it’s been the same for the past half-hour.”

Then, I see her in the crowd. She has an arresting face. As soon as I see her, I want to know her. I listen to her voice. She is taking the delay as something to be laughed at, as if it were an agreeable surprise. I ignore everyone else waiting for the bus in order to pay attention to her. She does not seem to notice. The bus comes at last; crowded, but I get a seat. I am facing her, but we are separated by a seat. She’s reading, her face reflected in the window of the bus, and she’s more compelling than any of Vermeer’s women reading letters. The face is not beautiful; it is better than that – it is interesting. Absorbed as she is in reading, her face becomes an icon of intelligence. The bus reaches my stop.

The next time I am in Paris waiting for that bus I think of her. I remember her face, intent on her reading. I would recognize her in an instant. She has become the picture I want on the cover of the book I will never write, the book about being passionate.

*

NER Digital is a creative writing series for the web. Francis-Noël Thomas and the cognitive scientist Mark Turner were awarded a Prix du rayonnement de la langue et la littérature françaises by the Académie française in 1996 for their study of classic prose style, Clear and Simple as the Truth.

Filed Under: NER Digital Tagged With: Francis Noel-Thomas, Line 89 to Cardinal Lemoine-Monge

Cover art by Ralph Lazar

Volume 41, Number 4

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