Marie adorned with a garland of white roses in her favorite sun dress and black pleather combat boots sang a capella to the some twenty-odd art students gathered in the abandoned music hall She stroked the petals of a sunflower that Kai had planted in the broken floorboards just left of center stage and touched off its capitulum with her fingers pointed like a revolver “…Aujourd'hui... ça commence avec toi!” the manic vision a whorl of pastel colors shot from its head to my conarium and all of the living sprites to have appeared as sparks in narrow shafts of light wavering in and out of existence to the quivering echo of her voice the meteor shower and Second World War rocket fire over the caved-in ceiling feeling my hands along the old wooden floor holding the debris This stone this earth her jumping rope as the sole female youth in The Triumph of the Will to have sewn the insignia of the Iron Front on her civilian uniform Otomo Yoshihide’s cover of “Strawberry Fields Forever” blaring through still operative public address system a candlelit vigil for a former Russian aristocrat floating on his ascent to paradise “Are you alright?” the ocean and the daylight there at the dawn of life on Earth “…ou la mort, Kaiser.” I said, shaking the water out of my eyes “Just call me Kai.” he smiled, lifting my head off of the floor and helping me to stand Marie and I were never lovers though she would cry upon my shoulder after you went underground and confide that “…it was just for the infinite moments in my life… I never really believed in revolution; I just wanted to feel alive.” She attempted suicide after you were implicated in the assassination of Hans Färber and has since refused to let my visit her though smiled as I left “The two of you just look so much alike.”

"The three of us were at a party on the outskirts of the city. We had come there separately. I was leafing through a Symbolist coffee table book when I met a man named Jean-Pierre Trudeau, who, I am sure, you know goes by the alias, “Leloublan”. We spoke for a while about Communization. He offered me some hash, which I declined because of my mental illness. I found for him to be intelligent and charming, if not offhandedly so. I don’t think that I made much of an impression on him, as he spoke at length without having taken anything that I had said into consideration whatsoever. He left our conversation with some excuse after he found out that I was a Pacifist. Marie, I am sure, has already told you that she didn’t like him. She called him an “affected intellectual” who “has yet to give up upon the revolutionary vanguard.” She also claimed that he had laced their spliff with opium. I wouldn’t put it past him now that I know what I do about the Movement of the Seventh of July, but it’d probably be safe to say that she was just kind of having an episode. Her and Sebastian had split up a week earlier and she had been drinking heavily. Sebastian, as I am sure, you already know, is also Jean Jaccoud, the political terrorist that you’re looking for and reason for this investigation. He and Trudeau got into kind of an odd conversation about the ethics of direct action. I’d gotten into a lot of debates about nonviolence in my life by then, and, so, I just left the room where everyone had settled. I sat cross-legged on the grass outside and laid back to stargaze. Marie would join me later, but left after about half of an hour. Neither of us said very much to each other. I had to wait for Michael, as we had come there together, otherwise I would’ve left a good bit sooner. Michael, as you already know, was a close friend of Markos, the other member of the Movement of the Seventh of July to have testified against Sebastian. I followed the trial closely, but can’t quite remember his alias. I believe it was “Klaus Aust”. As Markos and Sebastian split town about a month after their encounter and Trudeau ended up on the front page of the New York Times the next year, we all had our suspicions, but it still came as a shock when Markos gave him up during the trial, especially for Marie, whom I hope you won’t press for too much information, as she won’t have anything to tell you other than just what their rather tumultuous relationship was like. None of us have either seen or heard from them since they left in August. I’m afraid that I don’t have too much else to tell you, otherwise. I was out there for close to two hours before Michael came looking for a ride home. To be quite honest, even if I could tell you more, I don’t think that I’d really care to. To my understanding, I am not obliged to either implicate myself or others around me. I’m sure that due process or whatever can be somehow suspended in situations such as this, but, as none of us pose a threat, all that I am any longer willing to attest to is precisely that. I apologize for being somewhat curt; I just feel like no one understands just how tragic all of this is. If I am not compelled to stay, then I will gladly take your leave.”

I thought I saw your face again in the distorted grain from the security camera of a bank holding a weapon designed by Uzeil Gal and signaling with your arm to flee I thought I saw your face again in the crowded subway’s blur between 7th and 9th on a poster advertising the capture of political terrorists I remember that we drank together outside of an art event dedicated to the memory of those who had been killed by so-called “Communist” regimes in the “Eastern Bloc” You were younger then and could reconcile what you had deigned from the International Socialists Organization with the political praxis of The Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei You tried and just could not get your point across …Louis Auguste Blanqui and the Sûreté… I just laughed and let you vent I just staved off the jealous urge to ask about Marie and insult you in a language that you couldn’t have understood I just thought of you as a minor autocrat whose single-minded devotion to the revolutionary cause was motivated by a distorted lack of self-esteem I just chalked it all up to that you felt that you were being persecuted I didn’t know what happened to her I didn’t care about your weltanschauung I thought I saw your face again on television declaring a set of principles a sincere admonishment of exploitation, subjugation, and the “operational elimination of any free and genuine expression of dissent or différance” I didn’t judge you then I couldn’t reconcile my paracosm with the exquisite noise or ecstasy of realization So, this is the real world. SOME PEOPLE WORRY ABOUT THE WEATHER Some people talk about the Reichstag Some of us can read it in their eyes the disconsolate stare of an old lover’s last goodbye before committing a public suicide There are people, here, who turn those posters into shrines a newspaper article upon the assassination of an officer of the Federal Intelligence Service in Germany a promotional photograph from Love is Colder Than Death and Gustave Doré’s The Children’s Crusade above the nightstand that houses a few melted candles and an old jewelry box where this former film student keeps a collection of polaroid photographs I was here a few years earlier when she was only nineteen and I just couldn’t seem to convince Michael to play guitar in another room The candles were still there but there was no record of your political acts just a poster for Valerie and Her Week of Wonders SOME PEOPLE WORRY ABOUT THE WEATHER Some people have already fled to the disparate pockets of resistance along the broken city steps where the vendure grows and the honeysuckle dangles over the slanted rails and galvanized steel wires a flophouse beneath the bridge in what once was a self-contained community for civil engineers The cul-de-sac isn’t on the paper route and most of what almost everyone finds out is from passing conversations or caught in the radiating gaze of a television set afraid to shed a tear lest they discover that a world is at its end SOME PEOPLE WORRY ABOUT THE WEATHER Some people will just never understand that you were in love once or that the General Directorate for External Security in France was right to describe your acts as having been made “in desperation” I remember when you scaled that monument on the bridge drunkenly singing "La Marseillaise" waving a roman candle clutching the granite hilt of a sword as you fired over the river SOME PEOPLE WORRY ABOUT THE WEATHER You don’t. Do you? I thought I saw your face again in a dream where an actor delivered a monologue upon the marble steps of the capitol You raised your hand and took a bow I never thought that I’d see you smile.

I left the city after they demolished the music hall and lost all touch with everyone that I’d met there. I heard that they turned it into a city garden. I wonder if Marie is there growing sunflowers and fennel or if she’ll ever leave New Cheshire. I doubt that she’ll find me now, though often find myself hoping that chance will bring us back together again. Most of my time is spent aimlessly wandering around Saint Alcuin, the Québécois town that I’ve been exiled to. I’ve met a lot of people here and have forgotten just as many. I’m writing a thesis on Nominalism and the concept of śūnyatā, though I couldn’t tell you the first thing about Tibetan Buddhism or William of Ockham. Time has taken on a strange character. The days pass quickly enough for me to be taken by surprise by the change of the seasons, and, yet, I always seem to feel as if each individual moment lasts for a near eternity. I guess that you could say that I’m depressed. I do well enough to remember to appreciate what I used to love and to be kind, though. All that I really want out of life is to love and to be kind. I used to think that I was sort of like you. Marie once told me that we looked alike. I couldn’t understand how until I found myself caught by my own reflection in a shop window one rainy Sunday afternoon. I had the uncanny experience of déjà vu. You made the same forlorn expression, listening to an acoustic live recording by Spiritualized, during one of your bouts apart from Marie. We were both sort of listless, I guess. We both felt like there wasn’t a world for us, or one of us and her. We both just couldn’t seem to create one, somehow. I didn’t cope like you did, though, and, so, I guess that we’re not so much alike. I hope that you won’t take that as too much of a dig; it’s just that I feel like I’ve come to an odd kind of wisdom after all of these years. It’d probably be good for you to hear, but you probably wouldn’t listen. Isn’t it strange that I’ve addressed this to you? We were never close. I’d like to talk to you for some reason now, though, but I can’t quite place why. I hope that you get away. I’ve spent all of these years waiting for you to turn yourself in like Markos. I guess that I, like her, just wanted some form of closure. I don’t wait anymore, though. I just hope that you put it all behind you somehow and stay free.

birdsong the cool breeze from the wind outside and Arielle smoking by the window Listening to St. Vincent’s cover of “These Days” play over the old pair of Pioneers and thinking of the time we came to pick up Marie the stereo set at maximum volume broadcasting Chelsea Girl to the old homes and overgrowth lying on the floor the blood streaming out of her nostril half-singing and half-reciting Ophelia’s soliloquy from the first scene of the third act of Hamlet That was the day that we baptized her in Caltona Lake after she refused to go to the hospital The world is still. Arielle finishes her cigarette and waits for the churchbells to finish ringing before closing the window I twirl a Gauloises between my fingertips and search in the eyes of a young artist to have chimed the string of bells by opening the door The city park seems so like an Expressionist painting Marie’s lilting fingers on the keys as you tie a scroll to the leg of carrier pigeon A chanson singer a song that I would later discover was Léo Ferré’s “À Saint-Germain-des-Prés” the swirl of cream coming in and out of focus “So, who’re you waiting for?” Arielle asks, refilling my cup of coffee “An old friend, I guess.” I reply, still watching you as the bird takes flight “I don’t search in the eyes of every man in this city for a friend.” She tries to smile, but casts down her eyes So like Marie when the magic hour sunlight in the cemetery turned carmine after I had told her that I loved her “She lost someone. Well, he became sort of a criminal.” “Sebastian Albright.” She said your name as if delighted to have to given the correct answer to a question posed at a symposium “We thought that you were Iain.” I drop my cigarette on the countertop and blink bewildered “Marie is doing well. She’s become a painter. She still sings, y’know? She talks about you all of the time. Says that she even would’ve gone for it if you weren’t such a sorry old sap. Seeing that you’ve studied every object inside of this establishment, I’m sure that you’ve already read my nametag, but, I’m Arielle.” She holds out her hand “Iain. How do you…?” “She joined an art commune about thirty miles north of here. We used to collaborate with them when I was still in the separatist group. Don’t worry, we weren’t militants. She nearly joined, but Antoine talked her out of it. Said that she should take a break from politics for a while. If you’re willing to learn, I can refrain from telling her that you don’t speak French.” She folds her arms together, tilts her head back, and looks down at me in only partial jest an expression that I hadn’t seen since catechism “D’Accord.” I say, quite sheepishly “Most of the people who come here learn by watching television, but, you, I understand are an intellectual. Jacques used to run an old video store on 7th. Do you like French New Wave?” “Je fais.” I smile “They’re putting together an art’s festival in a couple of weeks. She’ll be acting in and directing an experimental theatre piece. My estate only seats five, but you can climb in the back if you like. Care for another cup?” “No, but I will take you up on that. I think that I’m going to go for a walk.” I say, putting on the surplus field jacket that I had bought from the convenience store two blocks down “D’Accord!” She smiles, clearing the counter as I walked out The city air is cool and clean aglow at dusk the old furniture store and neo-Gothic cathedral You walk along the riverbank past the park the signal fire swept across the horizon tearing pages out of a journal as you balance on the banister nearly falling You look back and motion with your hand a grand gesture “Au revoir, mon amis.”