In his deepest despair – when his wife died, when his only grandchild was diagnosed with leukemia (the reason he had come to America) – Jules Lacour might still hear music arising from unexpected quarters: from the rhythms of steel wheels on train tracks, though this was now rare in France after the joints in the rails had been bridged by welds; from the clickings of elevators moving in their shafts; the unpredictable harmonies of traffic; wind in the trees; the workings of machines; and water flowing, falling, or surging in waves. Even in desperation, music would sound as if from nothing, and wake him to life. He was a cellist, and could never have been anything else. The world had courage, faith, beauty, and love, and it had music, which, although not merely an abstraction, was equal to the greatest abstractions and principles – its power to lift, clarify, and carry the soul forever unmatched.
After a steady roll, the plane reached the end of the runway and stopped before final check and permission to take off. The stewards and stewardesses, who as if they had no sex were now called flight attendants, had taken their seats facing backward and at their charges, whom they surveyed unobtrusively. The plane almost pivoted, the tip of the port wing tracing an enormous arc as the tip to starboard backed up as carefully as an intimidated animal. The engines were pushed to full. Just as he had as a young soldier in a troop transport rising on a course for Africa, as the plane sped down the runway and lifted off, Jules forgot his troubles. The war in Algeria had ended so long before, that, when asked about it he would simply say, “That part of my life is now a museum.”
They rose with great speed and the mounting force of gravity. Off to the right, Manhattan sparkled, its shadowed side gleaming with uncountable lights. These were mainly white and silver, but some blinked red at the tops of smokestacks and masts, or made the illuminated triangles and summit caps of skyscrapers green, gold, or pale blue. The sun had fallen into New Jersey, which was now nothing more than a burning red rim.
Soon they gained enough altitude to catch a glimpse of a thin line of molten silver – the Hudson – which dropped away as they banked northeast into the night and continued to climb, now more steadily, with less roar. The cabin lights came up. The flight attendants undid the buckles of their seatbelts and stood. The clicking of aluminum sounded two full bars. With a minor adjustment it could have been the opening and theme of a Flamenco. Jules gave it rhythm and orchestration until, for him, but only for an instant, it filled the cabin. When the music stopped, its gifts returned whence they had come.
THE GENIUS OF the designer notwithstanding, it had taken millennia to fashion the tailoring of an Air France stewardess’ uniform, every line and angle of which knew with affection the beauty and charm of her body and the loveliness of her face. The richest possible navy fabric opened gracefully at the neck as if in love with the complex anatomy it complemented. It was almost impossible not to be struck by the brilliant red bow at the waist, the slight bell at the hem of the coat, and the perfect fall of the cloth. Principles as intricate and mysterious as any in the seven arts were present in the cut, a rich simplicity being the secret not only of French fashion but perhaps of France itself. At their best, the dress, the coat, the maquillage, were there to call attention not to themselves but to the woman they graced, just as the architecture of Paris, the pattern of its streets, its garlands of trees, and the design of its gardens – every cornice, rail, lamppost, and arch – were there not to call attention to themselves but to be part of a chain of beauties leading to unseen realms. Not dissimilar to the composition of a painting, the deft placement of words upon a page, or music unfurling through the air, a golden proportion enlivened the flow of the cloth as it moved with her.
From within the off-white eggshell of his seat/bed, Jules observed the stewardesses as they moved throughout the cabin. Even if plain, they were beautiful. The scents of the cosmetics, different from those of perfume, and, to him, more exciting, suggested an almost theatrical preparation. The beginning of the flight was a stage for these women. When expectations were greatest and the passengers most awake, they were at their peak. Tentatively separated from loyalties and attachments by the fact of travel, the speed with which land was left behind, the potential for disaster, and having risen into what for most of human history had been called heaven, many of those on board, witness to this play of light and motion, imagined a new life with someone encountered like an angel far above the earth. Though economists, executives, and bureaucrats might have seen it differently, this was an influential effect of business travel.
A stewardess approached Jules, bent gracefully, and, addressing him in English, asked what he would prefer for dinner. Because he had been in America for weeks and was lost in how she held herself and how she spoke, he answered as he was addressed. At first they failed to recognize one another’s accents, but with his perfect pitch he soon heard in her English the telltale markers of their native language, in which he then spoke to her. Had he been younger he would have fallen in love. She was beautiful in her way. He hadn’t seen it at first. Then he did. So even though he was not younger, he did begin to fall in love, for a moment, a minute or two, and in an afterglow when she left. Then he resisted, as had she by the time she bent to speak to the next passenger. Jules would often fall in love this way, intensely and briefly with women who justly deserved it and often elicited it. But these infatuations would quickly lead to his deep love for Jacqueline, who was now gone.
“I THOUGHT THIS wasn’t allowed,” he said to the stewardess when she came back. He pointed to a knife on the tray she had just placed before him. The reading light made the silverware gleam.
Rather than give a formal answer, she shrugged her shoulders, which lifted and lowered the beautifully cut collar along the curve of her neck. “The doors to the flight deck are impenetrable,” she said. “There may be sky marshals; and although no one ever seems to think of this, the other passengers also have knives on their trays, and there would be more of them than there would be terrorists.” His expression acknowledged her point and that he hadn’t thought of it. She smiled, turned, and disappeared up the aisle.