Kissing Oscar Wilde by Jade Sylvan

Author:Jade Sylvan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781938912337
Publisher: SCB Distributors

Chapter Twenty

La Chambre du Champagne

Jade! Julian! Welcome! I’m so glad you are here. Dareka bisou’d me and Julian but not Caleb. The whole café was probably not more than three square meters. There was a refrigerator on one side, a large bookshelf on the other, and a small kitchen area with a bar and stools along the back. The front wall of the room was a floor-to-ceiling window, so anything going on inside glowed like a silent film from the street. They have a bottle of nice champagne for you, said Dareka. I lied. I told them, ‘These Americans, it is very sad. They have never had champagne,’ so they bought you some.

Sébast, the host of the venue, brought us a chilled bottle and three glasses. Sébast, like Bernard and Martin, was pale with short dark hair and a short, dark beard. Unlike Bernard and Martin, he was shorter than me. An attractive, ponytailed Eastern European man in an apron set out a carafe of white wine and a carafe of red wine on the bar in the back. Then he took out a cutting board and a large chef’s knife and began slicing hard sausage and cheese.

Julian, Caleb, and I toasted with our champagne. It tasted like sparkly velvet.

They make their own pâté here, too, said Dareka. Usually interesting types. Duck and rabbit, things like that. Let one of us know when you are hungry, and we will make sure you get a plate.

Before long, guests started to arrive. We were introduced to nearly everyone as they walked in, but it was starting to become difficult to remember names and faces. The room filled. People began drinking wine and ordering plates of pâté and cheese. Baskets of baguettes were passed around and ripped apart. A small woman of about sixty sat on a bench with her back to the window and began playing atmospheric accordion music.

Sébast performed a poem to begin the evening, and then other members of the audience began to perform. I leaned over to Dareka and I asked if we could try something different here. I wanted to read a couple of my poems in English then have him read the French translations directly afterward. He agreed, and I gave him one of my chapbooks so he could familiarize himself with the words.

Sébast brought us plates of pâté and cheese with large chunks of bread. Julian and I devoured the pâté while Caleb nibbled on the cheese. I finished my glass of champagne and started on Caleb’s barely-touched one. All around us, more poetry, more breath, more words.

After we performed, the air in the room was charged. The crowd moved in immediately around us. Everyone wanted to talk to us, to touch us. They told me how much what I’d written had meant to them. They thanked me for coming to France. I sold ten books in fifteen minutes. One woman said I reminded her of Arthur Rimbaud. Another, of Bob Dylan.

More cheese and baguettes were brought out from the back room.

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