The Little Red French Door Read online

  THE LITTLE RED FRENCH DOOR

  CLARA’S STORY

  BOOK 3

  SIMONA GROSSI

  PIPES & CLOUDS

  To Paris and the LLS Orchestra

  FOREWORD

  This is book 3 of “Clara’s Story.” While this book can be read on its own, I think you would enjoy reading Like Still Water (the prequel), Looking for Clara (book 1), and A Boat on the Ocean (book 2).

  1

  The time to leave for Paris came before I even realized it. We had received glorious feedback on the Sarah’s Silences movie and the music I had written for it. It had all happened so fast, it still felt unreal. When Mikhail had introduced me to his friend Karl, a well-known conductor, Karl said he liked the music for piano I had written. He thought it’d be perfect for the movie his friend, Andrew, a movie director, was working on. I had flown to Philly a few days later to meet with Andrew. He had listened to my music, liked it, and asked me to write the music for his movie that was premiered only a few months later, and a few weeks before I’d be leaving for Paris.

  Karl would be running a conducting program in Paris for one year. When I heard about it, and Karl invited me to attend, I thought it’d be wonderful to go, but I was torn too. I had just started what could become a new career, writing music for movies—after Sarah’s Silences, I had received an offer from another movie director who wanted me to work on one of his projects, a documentary I believe—my relationship with Mikhail was growing, and I did not want to leave what I had, or merely put that on hold, to go to Paris.

  The past year with Mikhail had been so special. It truly seemed we had resumed from what we had left three years before. I had met Mikhail when I was working at the law firm in LA. He was Russian, from Moscow, the head of a big company involved in a complex litigation pending in different countries which had been assigned to me. His brother, Sergey, was a famous pianist and, in fact, one I had almost come to work with when I was studying at the Conservatory.

  I wasn’t playing piano when I met Mikhail. I had stopped just before finishing college, after a performance in Brussels, during which I had let my feelings control me, take over. Having an orgasm on stage wasn’t exactly what I had planned, or even remotely imagined could happen, but I brought my memories and feelings and newly discovered attraction for William, my best friend, on stage, and the rest had disappeared, including the audience, and my self-control too. I was mortified, decided not to play anymore or even go to concert halls, and instead go to law school and become another person, not me, not one who has an orgasm on stage. A lawyer seemed the closest to what I wanted to become. And I became stronger, colder, immersed in the legal fiction game, which I learned to play well. “The best associate we have at the firm,” Adam, my boss, told Mikhail when he introduced me to him.

  Meeting Mikhail, almost five years ago now, had pushed me back into my past, my music world, my essence, with no special effort on his part. I didn’t know what it was. It must have been him, his soul, that so resonated with mine and which managed to bring my heart back to life, our exchanges almost like a defibrillator for me. After years trying to kill what was left of my artistic past, my heart was beating again, and I was back to where I started, to the person I was, someone in love with music, with the mystery of life and its truths, one who had now learned the legal game and could play it well; someone who loved it, but someone who also believed there were things more enduring and deeper than that: life and the music that could capture it and express it. Yet it took me another year or so to decide to embrace this revelation, leave the law firm, and start all over. My trip to Italy, where the law firm had sent me for another project, the friends I made and the experiences I lived there the final electrical shocks I needed to return to life. But now that I looked back, it all had started with Mikhail.

  I worked hard on his case and won it, but Mikhail and I also attended a concert together, my first at the LA Philharmonic since I had come to LA. And during a party at his house, we became closer, to a point where I got scared, left, and then missed him when he said he’d be leaving for Paris with the woman who was his partner at that time. As it turned out, they broke up on that very trip, but I didn’t see him or hear from him until three years later. I had no idea this had happened, or that Mikhail’s brother, Sergey, had passed away of cancer only a few months after we had met.

  During our three years apart, I lived a new romance, went to Italy, made new and important friends there, lost one, and when I returned to LA, on the day of my best friend’s called-off wedding, I met Mikhail again. It was pouring outside, and I was looking for William, who had disappeared just moments before getting married. We met at a café, walking distance from the law firm where we had met three years before. We started talking, met again and again, resumed working together, became more close, closer, kissed, and danced around our romance for over a year, without fully committing to it, my unanswered questions and doubts about my unresolved relationship with William perhaps being responsible for that lack of commitment to him. But maybe something else too. I knew I had feelings for Mikhail though, and I knew they were strong, so it was hard to leave him and LA now, to go to Paris.

  While I was undecided and torn about what to do, Mikhail decided for me. He talked to Karl and gave me a letter of admission to Karl’s program together with the key to his apartment in Paris where I’d be staying the very night of the Sarah’s Silences premiere, only a few hours after arguing about our relationship and the distance between us, which he attributed to my being still stuck on William.

  I was confused. The timing of his gift, his reaction…He was basically sending me to Paris, where William was, so far from him, for one entire year. Why? I thought, hoped, he loved me. Of course he wanted to support me, believed in my music, but William would be in Paris too…Whatever his motivations were, something inside of me suggested I grab that “ticket” and go.

  The week following the premiere flew by. True, when Mikhail surprised me with my admission to the Paris program, I had no idea I’d have to leave the following week, and that week felt even shorter once I decided to fly to New Haven to spend a few days with my parents before going.

  I returned to Los Angeles the day before my flight to Paris, and once I landed, I called Mikhail. We had not talked since the premiere. I had been hesitating about calling him, as our exchange that last night together seemed the perfect goodbye before the trip, and I was afraid that seeing him again before leaving might make me stay. But I was missing him, needed to see him, so I called him from the airport the moment I landed after my trip to New Haven.

  His voice on the phone did not sound troubled by the silence of the past few days, nor by the news that I’d be leaving the next day. He said he was happy I had called and that he had imagined I had been busy packing.

  “I haven’t packed, actually,” I said. “Not yet. But I was calling to see if I could see you today.”

  I told him I was still at the airport, that I’d be taking a car to go home, and I could meet him there if he could come, but he said he was nearby and could come pick me up at the airport.

  When I exited the sliding doors, the sun gave me a warm welcome back. It was calling for a day off from any self-restraint, and Mikhail’s eyes, in the perfect trajectory of its rays, seemed to be amplifying them and this thought too. Mikhail was leaning against his car, holding a small bouquet of daisies.

  “Daisies are my favorite,” I said, stamping a kiss on his forehead.

  He smiled and opened his arms, and I lost myself in there for what seemed not enough time.

  “Welcome home.”

  I looked up to him and smiled, and my eyes kissed him. He opened his arms wider to free one of them and use it to open the door to the car for me, and once I was seated, he took my carry-on, placed it in the trunk, and then joined me inside.

  “Do you want to go home?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  “Is there anything you need to do before leaving? Anything I could help you with?”

  I laughed. “Only things that are boring and that I’ve decided not to do after all, to spend my time wisely. I’ll pack tonight when I get home, or tomorrow morning before leaving,” I said and found reward in that resolution and the freedom it brought me.

  Like the trip to Siena, where my firm had sent me with not much preparation or advance notice, this trip to Paris had come unexpectedly. But I had learned that surprises can be wonderful if you don’t resist them and just let them work their magic. There was truly not much to think about anyhow or, as I realized, not much I could do to prepare myself for the unknown: a foreign country and conducting. What was the point of even trying to get ready? Whatever I’d do would be just a guess and, most likely, not a realistic one.

  “Where are we going?” I then asked, as we were getting farther and farther away from the places I knew.

  “It’s a surprise, Clara. You’ll like it, I promise.”

  I leaned back against the seat and dipped my face into the daisies he had brought me. Their softness soothed my heart, reminding me that beauty would always have that effect on me and that I should return to it every time I felt unsure of my decisions, frightened, or hurt. Mario’s words and his way of nudging me to dance to the notes of his gramophone were, after all, the musical equivalent of those daisies. I had to look for beauty, and this was what I was doing, after all, by going to Paris. This time I wasn’t running from anything, like I had before: my trip to Latin America after college and the Brussel
s concert, my decision to go to law school, my decision to go to Los Angeles after that, and return to LA after the death of my dearest friend, Mario, to leave Siena, the place that reminded me so much of him. This time I was going toward what had previously scared me, to live it, or just face it, if need be, but mostly, I was excited to embark on this new adventure, wherever that would take me. I was going to Paris to study conducting, and while there, I would talk to William and address whatever we had left hanging between us, free myself from any baggage from the past that no longer had a reason to keep me from moving forward with my life, let something go and make space for what I felt ready for, what I needed.

  “How’re you feeling?” Mikhail suddenly asked, almost sensing that I was venturing through myself, maybe wanting to somehow be part of that journey.

  “Better,” I said. “I’m focusing on the trip, the program. I know it’ll be great. I’m trying not to overthink things, give them time to sink in, let something go.”

  “Right, that’s what I’m doing,” he said, checking my eyes to make sure I truly believed what I had just said, or maybe that he did.

  “I talked to Stephan,” he then said. “I told him you were going to Paris.”

  “Yes, I still want to ask him about that sheet music I found at that collectible store that reminded me of his music, L’Océan. I sent him an email some time ago but got no answer.”

  “He’s a reserved man, but he’s nice too. I’m sure he’ll reply.”

  “He just seemed defensive when I first asked him about it in Philly, do you remember?”

  “Yes, I do, the piece that seemed Ravelesque.”

  “Yes, that one.”

  “But you know the story with his music, right?”

  “Story? What story?” I asked.

  “What he wrote was often considered not original. The critics said it sounded like Ravel’s, so he got frustrated, stopped composing for a while. When he tried again, he received the same feedback or just rejections, which is what happened with Andrew, who we know preferred your music to his.”

  “My music just happened to be a better match for the movie.”

  “Whatever, still, he got rejected. And when you mentioned a piece called L’Océan that seemed his own, a piece with a French name for the ocean... you set the perfect stage for a repeat of that story.”

  “I would never imply or say…”

  “I know you wouldn’t, I’m just saying… he might have been defensive thinking you could. Anyway, now he knows you’ll be in Paris. He’s no longer in Paris, moved to another town nearby, but said he’d be happy to help in any way he can.”

  We continued to drive, then we stopped when he said he had to pick up something, and after a while we reached a hill that overlooked the ocean. The view was breathtaking, and the scent of the ocean so intense it could trick you into thinking you were actually seated on the seashore.

  “What do you think?” he asked, after I’d been lost in that landscape for a while.

  “What do I think? I think it’s otherworldly.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  He started maneuvering something in the trunk, but when I went closer to see what he was doing, he asked me to step back, wait, and not look until he was done.

  “Can I look now?” I asked, after I had been waiting for a while.

  “A few more seconds.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “You truly can’t wait.”

  “So they say…” I said and turned again to the ocean. With eyes closed, I could almost taste that salty scent on my tongue.

  “Okay, done,” he finally said.

  I turned and saw a tablecloth on the lawn and a picnic basket on it, with more daisies and two little lemon candles.

  “This is so magical,” I said. “The perfect place for a meal.”

  “I thought so. The landscape is spectacular. No restaurant could beat that,” he said, gesturing toward the sunset. “But I actually brought you here for the music,” he then added.

  “The music?” I asked, wondering whether a violin, a guitar player, or perhaps a small ensemble would be joining us at some point. “So there will be music?”

  “There is music,” he said.

  He covered my eyes with his hands, and it was then that I heard the waves coming closer to me and then slowly fading. My heart had a bump. Where were we now?

  “It’s as if we’re seated on the seashore. How can that be?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, “but it seems so. That’s what you hear when you sit here. Sergey took me to this hill once, and actually…You know who told him about this place? Stephan did. That’s why I called him last week. I didn’t remember exactly where this place was, but of course he did.”

  I looked at the horizon. The sun was about to set, and the light was of a pearly pink. A light breeze started massaging my face, and I slowly forgot all the questions to which I had no answer, and that were making me tense. My body relaxed into that color, almost melting with it. It was sudden, almost caught me by surprise. Was it the color, the scent, the music of the ocean, or all of that that was giving me that inner sense of peace?

  “I think it’s the sound,” Mikhail said when I asked him. “Listen to the waves. When they come closer to us, they make that soothing shhhhhhhh. Here,” he said, and placed his hand on my lips to make sure I would stay silent. The sound came and stayed for a while, or it was only a few seconds, but maybe that sound had slowed down the seconds to steal them from the pressure of beating time on time. And it was powerful, like a massage on my soul, like a message that “everything is fine, and everything else will be fine, so don’t worry.”

  We waited for the sound to return, and it did return, almost at perfectly timed intervals, or at least it felt so, but we might have lost the perception of time at that point, its contours, too, becoming fluid.

  “I’ve been coming here since the premiere,” Mikhail then said, when we lay down on the lawn. “I pretended to be fine with the idea of you leaving, but I wasn’t. I thought about calling you only a few hours after I took you home the night of the premiere, tell you not to go, that I was stupid, that I wanted you to stay. But of course I knew that would have been a mistake.”

  I could not believe what was just happening, Mikhail opening up to me the way he was.

  “I started coming here to meditate. I remember Sergey talking about this place as his meditation point. I never believed in meditation, although I must admit, I knew and know nothing about it, so I don’t know exactly what he was doing here, and if I’ve done anything similar, but I came, and remained silent, looked, stared, listened, and disappeared somewhere, and that is when I heard the waves Sergey said you could hear from here. And I guess that sound stole my thoughts, slowed them down, cleared the noise, made space, gave me peace, some peace.”

  His eyes were looking somewhere I could not reach, his recent or distant past, one where I did or did not belong.

  “That sound reminds me of you.” He then added, “It reminds me of us. The ocean is so infinite, it’s hard to capture, and it’d never disappear even if you went far from it. Perhaps the ocean is the best expression of the infinite that we have on earth, don’t you think?” He turned toward me and smiled, and right there, at that precise moment, I felt again our deep connection, the one I had sensed in the past without being able to explain it. And not that I could right now, not that I’d be able to put into words what that connection was made of, and why we had it. I was just sure we were connected in ways I hadn’t been connected to anyone ever before.

  “Of course, the ocean is not without an end, right? Almost nothing is,” he continued. “But its end is something our eyes can’t catch, so distant from our senses, that we know we’ll never see its limits.”

  He was right. There might be things that are finite, but if we can’t catch their limits, they are infinite to us, to our senses, and trying to see when something starts and when it ends would just be a meaningless effort, wasting time we could be spending exploring that finite infinite.

  “We say we know the ocean,” he then added, looking at the blue in front of us that was becoming darker and darker because the sky it was reflecting was, “but we don’t, so the memory of it we carry with us is just a sketch, an illusion. The most beautiful and perhaps truest illusion we could ever commit ourselves to, one that somehow we need, to feel infinite ourselves, to believe we are immortal, too, because we can understand, somehow own, the infinite, that one.”