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One

One evening in Paris—it was about a year after the Cinéma Paradis had reopened and exactly two days after I had kissed the girl in the red coat for the first time and was on tenterhooks in expectation of our next meeting—something incredible happened. Something that was to turn my whole life upside down and turn my little cinema into a magic place—a place where yearnings and memories came together, where dreams could suddenly come true.

From one moment to the next, I became part of a story more beautiful than any film could invent. I, Alain Bonnard, was dragged out of my workaday rut and catapulted into the greatest adventure of my life.

“You’re periphery, man, an observer who prefers to stand on the sidelines watching what’s going on,” Robert said to me once. “But don’t worry about it.”

Robert is, first, my friend. And second, he’s an astrophysicist and gets on everyone’s nerves by applying the laws of astrophysics to everyday life.

But all at once I was no longer an observer; I was caught up in the middle of this turbulent, unexpected, confusing series of events that took my breath—and occasionally my senses—away. Fate had offered me a gift; overwhelmed, I had accepted it, and in so doing almost lost the woman I loved.

That evening, however, when I stepped out after the last showing into the dim reflected light of a lantern on the rain-drenched street, I had no inkling of all that was to happen. And I was also unaware that the Cinéma Paradis held the key to a mystery on which my whole happiness depended.

I lowered the shutters to lock up, stretched, and breathed in deeply. The rain had stopped—just a brief shower. The air was soft and springlike. I turned up the collar of my jacket and turned to leave. It was only then that I noticed the weedy little man in the trench coat standing there in the semidarkness with his blond companion, inspecting the cinema with interest.

“Hi,” he said in an unmistakably American accent. “Are you the owner of this cinema? Great film, by the way.” He pointed to the showcase, his gaze lingering on the black-and-white poster for The Artist, whose old-fashioned lack of sound had been completely mind-blowing, especially for the inhabitants of the modern world.

I gave a curt nod and was convinced that he was going to thrust a camera into my hand and ask me to take a picture of him and his wife in front of my cinema, which, though admittedly not the oldest in Paris, is nevertheless one of those little old plush-seated cinemas that are today threatened with extinction. Then the little man took a step closer and gave me a friendly look through his horn-rimmed glasses. Right away, I got the feeling that I knew him, but I could not have said where from.

“We’d like to have a chat with you, Monsieur…”

“Bonnard,” I said. “Alain Bonnard.”

He reached out his hand to me, and I shook it in a state of some confusion.

“Have we met?”

“No, no, I don’t think so.”

“Anyway … nice to meet you, Monsieur Bonnard. I’m—”

“You’re not related to the Bonnard are you? The painter?” The blonde had come forward out of the shadow and was looking at me with amusement in her blue eyes. I had definitely seen that face before. Many, many times. It took a couple of seconds until I caught on. And even before the American in the beige trench coat had finished his sentence, I knew who was standing before me.

No one could hold it against me for opening my eyes wide and letting the bunch of keys fall from my hand. The whole scene was—in the words of the shy bookseller from Notting Hill—“surreal but nice.” Only the sound of the keys rattling as they hit the sidewalk convinced me that all this was really happening. No matter how unlikely it actually was.

Copyright © 2012 by Nicolas Barreau

English translation copyright © 2014 by Bill McCann