Without Reservations_ The Travels of an Independent Woman - Alice Steinbach [18]
In our conversation we exchanged little about the personal details of our lives, but, I realized later, what had been said revealed a good bit about what we each responded to in the larger world.
Finally, I asked: “Is there someplace in Paris that is special to you? That you might suggest I visit?”
“Yes,” he said, without hesitating. “Sainte-Chapelle. You must go there to stand in the light.”
His answer surprised me. I had been to this medieval chapel on the Île de la Cité to see its famous stained-glass windows, but had never thought of “standing in the light.” Although I’d dutifully studied the architecture and used my guidebook to decipher the stories in the windows, I realized I had never actually placed myself there, in the moment, in the light. But I did not tell Naohiro this. Why, I’m not sure. Instead, I said, “I will definitely put Sainte-Chapelle on my list.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes. Just when I began to feel awkward about the silence, he asked, “And what place is special to you? That I might visit?”
Unlike him, I felt self-conscious about answering, as though he would somehow judge me by my selection. Nevertheless, I knew what it had to be. “Père-Lachaise Cemetery,” I said. After a pause, I added, “You must go there to stand in the past.”
I told him about the Sunday I’d spent at Père-Lachaise, walking beneath the trees, picking my way up the crowded hillside through the tilting statues, searching for the graves of Colette and Proust, two writers I admired. I’d found Colette easily but had no such luck in locating Proust. And I told Naohiro of how, just before leaving the area where Proust’s grave was marked on the map, I’d come face-to-face with a gravestone engraved ALIX STEINBACH, 1880–1961. Although I had no idea who “Alix Steinbach” was, it pleased me that someone with a name so close to mine was now residing in Proust’s neighborhood.
“I feel at home in cemeteries,” I told Naohiro. “When I was little, my grandmother would take me on long walks through the cemeteries near our house. We’d read the tombstones and figure out from the dates how old the people buried there were.” I laughed. “I think it’s how I learned to add and subtract.”
Naohiro nodded, but said nothing. I was not surprised. What could he say? I didn’t expect him to understand, as most people didn’t, my choice of a cemetery as one of my favorite places in Paris.
We sat in silence until the train arrived at Vernon, a village three miles from Giverny. At the taxi stand, Naohiro suggested sharing a ride to Monet’s house. I agreed.
When we got to Giverny, the entrance was crowded with buses. Tour groups were heading off in every direction. It was very confusing. As I was debating whether to say good-bye to Naohiro and go my own way—whatever way that was—he asked if I would like to look at the Japanese prints with him.
“Yes, very much,” I said, following him through the gardens of trellised roses, irises, dahlias, delphiniums, and poppies bordering the paths leading to the house. Inside, Monet’s collection of rare Japanese prints lined the walls of nearly every room. Their simplicity and stillness provided a serene contrast to the wild lushness of the gardens outside.
In the dining room, where the walls were painted in two shades of vivid yellow, I stopped to admire a print depicting a mountain-ringed horseshoe of water that ended abruptly at a wide sandy beach. There was no perspective; the flattened-out blue water at the top of the print simply stopped when it met the gray semicircle of sand near the bottom of the paper. It was pure landscape. But its haunting loneliness conveyed something profound, I thought; something having to do with the human condition.