“Usually, magic was tiring. A spell more complex and demanding than moving a small object from one place to another could leave you with anything from a faint ache in the back to a pounding headache. But making his music always seemed to have the opposite effect. It left him feeling invigorated, maybe even a little younger.

Now he could truly enjoy the day.

He’d told Liana not to expect him back at the house until late tonight, after he’d been to the Castle. If he was going to have to go this evening to that place, if he was going to talk to Maman, he wanted to be fortified by a day of his own. Tomorrow there would be brunch on the wharf with Laney and that doctor she was going to marry, (“Kay.” What the Hell kind of name was “Kay” for a man?) and then that night the big dinner at Leon and Marion’s, with everybody, Liana, Derek, Laney and Dr. Kay, the Scardino-Quillers, the Macanas, ‘Sha… And the day after that he’d probably be spending at Felicia’s going through a few old things and talking to her about what she wanted done about Lamont’s things. Then Liana had mapped out some damned excursion in a boat around the island, with her and Derek’s set, and a picnic. At some point during the week he needed to have a few moments alone with Laurette, talk to her, see for himself how she was doing.

But until then, the hours were his, and he was determined to do only exactly what he wanted to do. What he wanted now was a light lunch in Fischell Park where he could read his magazine.

Breakfast at the house had been heavy, and he was only a little hungry, so he picked up an apple at Grubb’s on his way to the park, then settled himself on a bench with the copy of Cahiers Hannah had sent him. She was coming to Ojai in October and if he hadn’t read the article by then he’d have nothing to say to her about it. The piece wasn’t hard to find. She’d circled the title in red, “Une Certaine Tendance du Cinéma Français.” “Si le Cinéma Français existe par une centaine de films chaque année…” Greg began, and was soon absorbed.

“…Le trait dominant du réalisme psychologique est sa volonté anti-bourgeoise…”

He finished off his apple, core and all. He read the essay again.

Then he took off his reading glasses and sat back, thinking.

He could see why Hannah had sent him this. She ran a little movie theater in the Village, The Bijou, and she loved talking about films as if they were literature. This young fellow, (he looked at the name of the author again) Truffaut, he was plainly more than a little hostile towards directors that he, Greg, admired. Greg had loved Jeux Interdits, and that crack in the footnotes about Feyder “sinking into oblivion” bothered him. How could the delightful La Kermesse Heroique be forgotten?

Still, he man had a point. Had several points, as a matter of fact. Now that Greg thought about it, the piece was a porcupine that positively bristled with very pointed points about the creation of films, the adaptation of literature, the extent to which a screenwriter could clumsily force his own vision into another writer’s story.

The shadows in the park were a little longer. Greg had planned to take a walk down the library and say hello to old Rudy Pascoe, who still worked there. Better do it now before the afternoon got away from him. He stood and began to walk.

Really, if he had a problem with the essay, it was with its anger. Much of it was so obviously a young man’s hostility towards the old, a declaration of war against the previous generation. “…je ne puis croire à la co-existence pacifique de la Tradition de la Qualité et d’un cinéma d’auteurs…” You could almost see him brandishing a sword.

Well, hadn’t his own generation been much the same? Hadn’t they made “Victorian” a term of contempt? How pleased with themselves they’d all been about coming of age in a new century, embracing Hemingway and Fitzgerald, looking over their shoulder and laughing at writers like Bulwer-Lytton, Trollope, Collins… And now, mid-century, right on schedule, a new crop of young men were doing the same. The dust had to settle, that’s all, and the core of what this Truffaut had to say — and what he was saying was true and important — needed to take shape.

Wait.

Greg stopped, conscious that his hands were empty, and his vest pocket light.

He’d left the magazine behind.

He turned to walk back to the bench.

The lady’s head was bent over the magazine. Plainly, she was as fascinated as he had been.

He sat down, quietly clearing his throat so as not to startle her. When she looked at him, he smiled.

“Madame,” he said in French, “If the magazine you are reading were not on loan to me, I’d happily leave it in your hands. I’m afraid, however, I must ask for it back. My friend will be very angry with me if I lose it.”

She smiled, and replied in English, “I’ll hand it back to you, Monsieur, on one condtion. You must tell me what this man is going on about, and what you think of it. If I’m not going to finish it, I have to know — why is he taking a hatchet to some of my favorite movies?”

“You’re an American!” he exclaimed, also in English. “From… I would guess the Atlantic Coast? New England?”

“Connecticut, originally,” she replied. “I live in Charleston now. Forgive me for speaking English, but I read French better than I speak it, and I’d hate to inflict my accent on you. So this piece — what do you think?”

“I think,” Greg said, “he believes French cinema has become kind of petrified in the hands of leftist screenwriters intent on attacking the clergy and the bougeousie.”

“I only just read it and I need to think about it, but you know what? I suspect he’s right. Look, I’m as anti-clerical as the next guy, but when it comes to art, agreeing with what I see isn’t enough. Art should transcend politics, and when it comes to French cinema we’ve been seeing the same political message over and over again.”

“Hmm. Well, maybe he has a point,” she said. “I’m always in favor of the clergy getting a good bashing though. The church’s history…” She looked at him, suddenly thoughtful.

“Tell me something,” she asked. “What kind of movies do you like? What are your favorites?”

“Mine?” he said “It sort of depends on my mood. Right now, and always, La règle du jeu…“

“Bien sur,” she said, smiling.

“And most of the time, there’s Battleship Potemkin,”

“Naturally…”

“But these days I have a new one… The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T!”

“What?” she laughed. “That one I’ve never heard of!”

“A children’s movie and a flop.”

“I took a friend’s kid to see it last year, and then braved flying popcorn and sticky floors to watch it again twice before it closed. It took me more than a week to get the Milk Duds off my shoes, but trust me, it’s an unsung masterpiece.”

“Well, I wasn’t expecting that,” she said. She smiled at him. “You’re an Islander, aren’t you?”

“Ah. My accent.”

“It’s charming.”

For a second or two, there was silence. No matter how many women he had known, there had to be that instant when either he or she made a decision. At such moments, he always felt a little shy.

She held out her hand. “Mrs. Julia P. Madison. Originally from Oakville Connecticut, currently from Charleston South Carolina.”

“Mr. Gregoire A. Duday,” he said, taking it. “Originally from Touperdu Isle, currently from Ojai California.”

“So you’re visiting too?”

“Family matters,” he said, suddenly feeling less cheerful. “My mother is dying. I have to go see her later tonight. I have to… We may settle some things at last. I hope so.”

“Well, Gregoire Duday, I fly home tonight. For the past week I’ve visited what they tell me to visit in the guidebooks, but I have a few hours left and I’m not sure what to do with them. Would it you mind very much offering a few suggestions about what else to see?”

He could never understand why more tourists didn’t visit the Scardino Collection. It was so much more interesting than that Museum of Island History the Chamber of Commerce had set up down on Drum Street.

“Ephraim Scardino liked to collect things, and he never threw anything away,” he explained to her after they’d dropped a donation into the can in the dark, unattended little foyer. “When the old man died in 1905, he left behind a house crammed with junk, and his sons had to sort through it. They threw away a lot of trash, kept what was useful, and set aside what was interesting. This is the interesting stuff.”

He showed her the bit of rope old Emphriam had saved from when Gabriel Longstaffe was executed for defiling a well, then one of the long rakes all islanders used to use for pulling in debris from wrecked ships, the chair Saturnus Reckoner sat in while laying down the law. It was nice to talk with a pretty, clever, educated woman his own age.

Might they… Could they…? With widows, it could be tricky. Julia had told him her husband, Tony, died only the year before from stomach cancer. She might be out of practice when it came to reading or sending signals, or she might not even be interested so soon after losing someone she loved. No matter. If this encounter ended in no more than a warm handshake, it was still a delightful way to spend the afternoon.

“This used to be in Reckoner Park,” he said as they stood before the bell. “It was rung, way back in the bad old days, to announce a public gathering everyone had to attend. maybe a hanging, or maybe an announcement that affected everyone, like ‘Neither buy from or sell anything to, or have any converse with the Gaspards.’ Which would effectively be a death sentence for the whole family. Maybe old Reckoner would sit in his chair and command a marriage he’d decided should take place. Or a change in the curfew.”

“This Saturnus Reckoner sounds like a very meddlesome man.”

“His wife was as bad in her own way. Worse, even.”

“How was she worse?” she asked.

“Ellen Reckoner was the iron hand in the velvet glove,” he said. “She was ever so nice and motherly on a personal level, always giving the kiddies a pat on the hand or a candy, then sending her goons out to torment their parents if they got out of line — and sometimes those goons would do it by hurting the children. Or worse than just hurting them. Children vanished. People vanished.”

“She was a nasty woman. All of this I heard, you understand, after it had happened. Most of the worst was before my family and I came here.”

“You weren’t born on Touperdu?”

“Me? Oh no. I was born in France. The Champagne region. We immigrated here when I was two.”

He realized with a happy drop in his stomach, that she was looking at him as though all of that were beside the point. Greg decided to take a chance.

“You have beautiful eyes,” he said. “It’s hard for me to look away from them.”

“Well then,” she said. “I must take those sunglasses off more often.”

They had an early dinner at a new place not far from where she was staying, a little Italian joint called the Spaghetti Garden.

He told her about Liana, allowing himself to boast just a little about his daughter’s intelligence, her good business sense, and about Laney and how beautiful she’d become. Julia told him about her son, Rafe, who taught English Lit at Gaud and married a girl from some prominent Charleston family. After Julia’s husband died, Rafe had insisted on her moving to Charleston. “It’s nice being near the grandchildren,” she said, “and the people there are sweet, but I just can’t get used to the culture. So conservative, so old fashioned. God knows how they’d react if they found out I voted for Stephenson.”

They talked about politics. They talked about books. She was wonderful. He could feel that familiar sense of two people sliding effortlessly into each other’s arms. Even if it ended with just a soft kiss in a doorway, it was all worth it. He’d never been one of those men who considered time with a woman wasted if it didn’t lead to sex. Why not enjoy every moment?

Maybe that was why these meetings almost always ended with more than a kiss.

Her hotel was a pink stucco place called Sands, just a block away from the beach, nice, slightly upscale, but not too expensive. She took his arm as they walked through the lobby. When they got to her room, she asked him to come in, closed the door softly behind him.

Another moment where he felt suddenly, absurdly serious.

She took both his hands. “Gregoire,” she said, “Tony was sick for so long. So sick. It has been… It has been three, maybe ever four years since I…”

“I would not want you to do anything you did not desire, Julia,” he said.

He wasn’t so very old. Not really. Neither of them were. Not if they could feel such physical joy and such contentment afterwards.

He’d been a little worried that she would feel regret, maybe even shame.

It was plain she did not.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“You’ll believe I’m mad if I tell you,” she said, “but I’ll say it anyway. I’m thinking it’s good to be old. It’s good to be a wicked old traveler who answers to nobody about what she does.”

He nodded. “It is, isn’t it? Our age has its compensations.” He sat up. “Not to brag, but I feel ready for anything!”

“I do have a plane to catch,” she said, looking a little alarmed.

“Oh, well, I didn’t mean… I’m not that…”

They both burst into laughter.

After he’d showered and dressed, he came out to find her dressed in her slip, folding clothes into a suitcase.

“I hope your meeting with your mother goes well,” she said.

“And I hope your flight goes well. I hope… Would you mind, very much, if I were to call you if I come through Charleston?”

“Oh, Greg. In Charleston, I’m not a wicked old traveler. I’m a grandmother, a little old lady who goes to Book Club meetings and works in her garden.”

“Then you must come visit me in California one day.”

“There, Julia, we can be as wicked as we want.”

It was a bit after 8:30 PM. He was supposed to be at The Castle at 9:00. The Sands was not too far from Frenchy Beach, and he strolled to the little park overlooking it.

Those moments with Julia back at the Sands suddenly seemed a century and a continent away.

Pittime Island and The Castle waited in the distance.

Maman waited.