They were known as “C & C”. That’s what happens when you frequent a place. You become known… known and identified. Maybe it’s the funny hat you wear or the drink you order. But sooner or later, at a place like the Ash Creek Saloon, you will acquire a handle. It is to be expected… ask any of the regulars. In this case, C & C referred neither to a hat nor the name of a drink; but to Christopher and Colette, patrons in long standing of Ash Creek.
It was agreed by one and all that their presence in our place uplifted the ambiance. Not that Ash Creek is a trashy dive. But there is something special in guy who wears a blue buttondown shirt with a navy & green striped tie and who draws back a bar stool for a lady. Something special in a lady who enjoys a Manhattan served straight up … a lady who can’t remove her eyes from her man. In a very fast world, Colette and Christopher seemed to step from a different time.
After graduating from Yale, Christopher (never Chris) entered the Foreign Service. I guess that it was to be expected… expected if you were raised in a good family from Lloyd Harbor, NY… expected when you went to Hotchkiss and was Skull and Bones at Yale… it was expected that you would enter into something noble.
No one could mistake the way Colette looked at him when he called her ma petite chou. She would sip her Manhattan, narrow her eyes a bit, bring an eyebrow down, squinch her nose and smile… a smile slightly crooked to one side. Everything in her expression said, “I love you.” And more… “I know you”.
Christopher, for his part, maintained a lofty, dignified yet not stuffy air that spoke of good schooling and sensible restraint.
It was Lou Reilly, Ash Creek regular without peer who offered, “I bet they fuck like rabbits.”
That might be true, although the concept seemed at odds for a guy who wears a shirt and tie to a saloon, and a lovely lady who leisurely partakes of blended whisky served up. Out of place for Christopher age 84 and Colette a spry 68.
But, you never know.
You have to understand this about saloons. Even regulars drift away. Maybe they move to other saloons, follow a departed bartender, give up booze for a bit or just move. But sooner or later folks stop asking “Hey! It’s Thursday, have you seen C & C?” And that’s the way it was when we didn’t see them for well over a year.
Then there came a Thursday evening this past September when I was stationed at one of Ash Creek’s high tops, papers spread out, attempting to chart a recollection from my childhood. It was a night when words didn’t flow as easily as my whisky. Well… some nights the words are there for the taking, other nights they are elusive. Just the way it is, I suppose. I didn’t fault the whisky, I looked at a page filled with cross-outs and put my pen down, and as I looked up…
“Mind if a Lady sits down?” It was Colette.
“I’d be honored.” I looked around, Christopher was not to be seen, so I shuffled my pages to the side, got up and pulled back the stool next to me. She put her pocketbook down on the other stool, looked at me and smiled that famous smile. If she detected my surprise, or if she felt that it was an awkward moment that had to be crossed, she didn’t hesitate to push on…
“What does it take for a Lady to get a Manhattan around this place?”
Perfect. Just the perfect thing to say to cut thru the surprise. If I had missed Colette’s entrance, her arrival had not been missed by Pauline who appeared with a Manhattan served properly in well chilled up glass just after the question was posed. That’s a good bartender.
“Pauline, you look great! Thank you so much for remembering… I know it’s been awhile.” She picked up her glass and looked at me and continued, “Yes, it’s been awhile… and I see you are still busy writing about looking up the skirt of your history teacher in 12th grade.”
“Yes, the memory occupies me constantly. Nice to see you Colette! Here’s to you, here’s to your smile… and here’s to the women of the world who know how to enjoy whisky!”
Sure, the toast and the whisky were fine; but that didn’t cover what was missing… what was missing was a gentleman wearing a blue buttondown shirt and a navy and green striped tie. And I was reluctant to call attention to the missing person.
Colette didn’t hesitate to fill the gap of brief silence. “I’m very happy that Pauline still knows how to build a Manhattan. Christopher would be pleased, and I am sorry that he could not be here to enjoy your company… and more importantly enjoy Pauline’s ample build!” The smile spread on her face with this last thought. She sipped her Manhattan, “Oh, please… why do you think we came here on Thursday’s? Christopher loved looking at Pauline’s breasts!” She shook her head and laughed. There was nothing tawdry in the way Colette said this, nothing harsh or resentful. There was nothing hidden. We always had the sense that between Colette and Christopher there was always trust.
“I can remember one time we went to see a performance of La Boehme at the Met. It was a Thursday night… dress night. Black tie and gowns. My, Christopher looked great in black tie. So distinguished. So handsome. Of course, everyone was dressed well. After all it was the Metropolitan Opera, and it was New York. Well, there was this woman who was wearing this stunning red gown, very low cut, and my she was built! Talk about cleavage! I think if she had sneezed everything would have come out! There wasn’t a man in the lobby of the Met who wasn’t staring at that cleavage. Christopher included!”
She looked at her drink, dipped her pinky to retrieve the cherry, thought the better of it, licked her pinky… took another sip. “So I asked Christopher, ‘What are you staring at?’ He didn’t deny it, he just said, ‘I know her! I met her in Paris. She was married at that time to some guy, a much older guy who had been a leader of the resistance.’ And I said back, ‘So you are looking at her because she was married to a hero or because she is wearing a dress with a plunging neck line?’ Then he turned to me, held my hand and said, ‘That is some dress, and if I couldn’t appreciate how beautiful she is, how could I appreciate how beautiful you are?’”
That sounded like Christopher, very noble. I raised my glass. “Well said.” A warm story; but where is our noble gentleman?
Colette acknowledged my toast, took a healthy sip of her Manhattan. Her expression paused… as if she had just been stung. Then she shook her head slightly, tilted her head upward, her eyes brightened and that smile opened like a flower, “Did I ever tell you the first time we met? It was a pure chance occurrence.”
She took another quick sip.
“I was in Moscow on business, of all places. I got some time to myself and decided to take in the Tretyakov Gallery. I had been to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg a couple of times; but the Tretyakov showcased Russian artists. I was making my way thru the rooms and I saw this rather large painting that I found riveting. The artist was Ilya Repin and I think the name of the painting was called ‘The Surprise.’ And I just found myself drawn into the subject matter of the painting. An exile from Siberia who shows up in ragged clothes by surprise at his cottage after years spent in a gulag. The entire story could be seen in that painting. I just kept looking at it, imagining what was going on in the minds of the characters portrayed in this dimly lit room. I approached the painting, walked to the left and then to the right, and examined its fine detail… then slowly I began to draw back to get its overall effect, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. ‘Some painting, isn’t it?’ It was Christopher! He happened to be in Moscow on some assignment for the State Department.”
I knew the story of their initial meeting. I even knew that canvas. I saw it when I did a summer semester at Moscow State University in 1970. It is one of my favorite paintings. The title is usually translated as “The Unexpected Return”. I loved learning that Christopher and Colette had met before a painting that I knew very well. Somehow I felt an immediate connection to them. Even though I had heard this story before, I was not anxious to move to a different topic. Like, so… where is Christopher?
“Well, let me tell you, he gave me quite a start! I was so wrapped up in studying that painting… and to have my concentration interrupted, by a man… by a strange man… by an American man who I had never met before… in a Moscow Gallery? It was too much. Christopher saw that I was startled, but in a very gentle way he took my hand and said, ‘Here let me show you another canvas by that artist.’ And we walked to another room and he pointed to another canvas, ‘This is a portrait of Repin’s wife Vera. Look how he captured her in repose. Sleeping in this chair, look at the delicacy of her hands and fingers, and then the peaceful sensual expression in her face. Breathtaking isn’t it? When I saw you studying the other canvas, that same sensual expression, your delicacy, I was captivated, it was as if you were a mirror for how Repin had painted Vera. You were breathtaking!’”
I could see tears welling in Colette’s eyes.
“I could pretend and say I didn’t fall madly in love that very instant. Let’s just say I was smitten… but love – the real thing – soon followed.”
She finished her Manhattan. Picked up the cherry and plunked it in her mouth stem and all, looked down and then brought her face up, eyebrows set to a deep furrow. I was about to say something, and she raised her hand for me to wait. She looked left and then right and then pointed at me and produced a cherry stem with a tiny knot in it on her tongue… along with a self satisfied grin.
“Well, Colette… with a talent like that I can understand why Christopher loves you…”
She smiled. “Jim… I think another Manhattan would wear well!” And before I could signal a request, Pauline appeared with another Manhattan up and rye whisky on the rocks. What did I tell you? Pauline is some bartender.
She brought her lips down to rim level of the glass and took a healthy sip before picking up the glass. She looked into the contents of the glass, maybe expecting tea leaves to appear? “What a pretty colour. I think I first began to notice it three maybe three and half years ago. Small things at first. Christopher would come into a room, look at me and just stand there… waiting. Maybe he had thought I had called him? But you could tell that he had no idea why he was there. Now, at first I didn’t think too much of it. We all get absent minded every now and then.”
She pursed her lips and frowned a bit.
“But there came a day when he would be standing there… oh, it could have been at the market or something… and he would look at me and smile… and I knew that he had no idea who I was. For a brief moment or two, or maybe longer, I had become a total stranger.”
She folded her arms and pinched her shoulders together. Maybe the very thoughts produced a chill?
“I denied it for a few months. Only natural I suppose. I guess the smile and his easy going ways lead me to believe that everything was normal. But you know Christopher… he would treat a stranger at Ash Creek with the same smile and friendly graciousness that he would treat his best friend.”
She held her upper arms close, looked down to the table, shook her head and looked up at me. There was a slight tremble to her lip and her eyes weakened. “He was the brightest person who I ever knew, and yet he was so humble about it… as if his own intellect was an embarrassment to him. He never felt the need to flaunt his brains and he had the uncommon gift of making a dirt poor farmer in Cambodia feel as important as a Minster of Government in France.”
“Jim… he was so kind, he loved me and I loved him. And bit by bit, I started to lose him. It was as if all the richness that we had shared got carried off in the wind like a dandelion poof.”
She fiddled with the base of her glass. “We would go to the movies, go out to dinner or come to Ash Creek. For a time it seemed to help him out… that he returned to being Christopher… at least for a spell. But then there was a night when we left here and he insisted on driving and we got into an argument on how to get home. And with each turn that he took that turned out wrong he got angrier and angrier. A route that he knew so well had become a horrible maze to him. Sure he was angry. Oh, I became angry, too! Oh,yes I did! How could this happen? How could the man I love morph into a complete stranger? A stranger was occupying the body of Christopher!! I was angry… angry and frightened.”
I didn’t like where this story was leading. It frightened me.
Colette stirred her drink, not that it needed stirring, took in the colour again, admired the handiwork of Pauline, “We went to Bermuda every year. It was our treat to ourselves. It might be a week, it might be a long weekend… it made no matter. We always stayed at Cambridge Beaches in Somerset, Sandy’s Parish. From our back patio of our cottage a beautiful lawn stretched down a slope to the white sand beach of Long Bay. We could watch the sun set from our cottage. No hurry, the world stopped for us.”
Colette stopped her story mid flight. She took a deep breath and sighed, looked at her slender fingers and brushed some imaginary dust from the table.
“One early evening we were taking in the setting sun before heading over to the dinning room. Christopher had made us pink gin cocktails and we watched this older couple, walking on the path to the Main House. They were even older than us! We judged that they had a similar split in age to ourselves. It was also clear that he was having trouble getting on.
“We had seen them the night before sitting in the Port o’ Call Bar in the Main House. He just sat there with a vacant expression on his face while she carried on a conversation. A conversation with who? Christopher looked over to them, and then he whispered to me, ‘light on in the attic but no one is home.'”
She finished her second Manhattan. But signaled Pauline that she was done.
“So… there we are watching this couple again while we are sipping our pink gins. Christopher put his cocktail down, looked at his hands, straightened his tie and said to me, ‘Promise me Colette if I begin to lose it, you will take things into your hands. Our bodies go… sure. But I am terrified of losing my mind. Promise me Colette… if you love me… that you will take it in your hands, you won’t let me suffer as a blank page. You have to be strong.'”
She looked at her empty glass. Shook her head and raised her eyes to the ceiling and pinched her shoulders again. I looked at my whisky, fiddled with the melting ice.
“Excuse me, Jim… I have to hit the loo.” Colette picked up her pocket book and headed to the ladies room.
I was numb. I just stared at my whisky. What could it all mean? Had this been Christopher’s end play? Is there anything good in this end? I shuddered thinking of the emotions that Colette must have lived with. That was an awful lot to put on some one, if you love me… take it in your hands… be strong.
When she returned she took out her purse. I stopped her. “I’ll pick up the tab tonight, you can take it next time. You can even pay for the food! I promise to run up a huge bill.”
She smiled the smile. Yes, nothing could stop that smile for too long. It was to be expected, slightly crooked and knowing. “Thanks for listening Jim, see you next time.”