Paris was underwhelming, and it wasn't because of the soggy baguettes.
Her heart is not open enough for Paris. Elizabeth deduces after a day in la ville de l'amour that Paris is either for lovers or make-believe lovers looking for a taste of Parisian love, as if love were different anywhere else in the world. Elizabeth takes a sip of diluted tea and kicks a small pebble idly. Her heart is most definitely –the tea stings her mouth and burns a path down her gullet-not open enough for a supposed city of love.
Two Parisian girls in the latest Parisian fashion walk past and titter about the strange American girl. Elizabeth only assumes they don the latest fashion because they are Parisian and young and hence clothes conscious, and she knows a plethora more about quantum physics than current prevalent trends so she can only guess. Also if one can time travel and sees so many things and fashions the term 'latest fashion' loses most of its meaning and lustre. Elizabeth likes her blue gown anyway, frayed edges and small dirt stains (she made sure to remove the blood) and all, so she does not care to dress herself up in whatever new waist-breaking, breast-pushing dress is fashionable. Her choker is optional nowadays, depending on how fragile she feels. Sometimes she wakes up and weeps for no apparent reason (she knows all the reasons in her heart though) and she cannot bring herself to wear a choker that screams 'Columbia' and 'painful memories' and 'Booker chose this pendant for you, try not to cry too much about him again'. The dress she can handle, but not the choker.
Elizabeth hears the fading laughter of the giggling girls and wishes she could speak French, just to show them her magnificent competence in life. Yes, add 'learn French' right after 'get a darn grip on life' on the to-do list, she admonishes herself. Loneliness in a tower gave her the habit of talking to herself. It was decent conversation for approximately eighteen years until Elizabeth felt like splicing her head open and then came her knight in shining armour bursting into her fairy-tale tower which in actuality was her father in old, smelly clothing; but she would so readily love anyone at that time. Her stomach turns at how much she's changed and how much she's accomplished.
"Baguettes, mademoiselle?" A chipper voice breaks her distorted train of thoughts and her aimless walking. Elizabeth looks up to see a little boy carrying a basket of baguettes, eagerly waving one in her face. He wears a newspaper boy cap and his clothing is dull but he might just be the brightest thing she's seen all day.
"Just one, thank you very much. Merci," Elizabeth holds up one finger as she reaches for her small pouch. She feels the crinkles of a tattered piece of ticket for a night at the opera she never went to, the curved edges of her pendant… she only pauses for half a second till she grabs for the cool metal of coins a tad too hastily. Elizabeth passes the boy a few coins that are probably too much for a single loaf of bread. The boy gapes at the amount but the girl clasps the money into the boy's hands and flashes him a small smile that is only half forced. She misses innocence more that she could ever comprehend.
"Merci beaucoup, jolie dame," the boy expostulates and prances away in delight. It is a comical sight: a boy dancing and waving a baguette above his head. No one should be that excited over bread. She feels her lips stretch and a modest gurgle of laughter emerge from her mouth.
It is not exactly happiness she is experiencing now but it is the closest thing she's gotten to it since forever (since Booker's death), so she takes advantage of the situation and laughs till her sides ache, till she is breathless, till there are tears in her eyes; laughs till she slides to the ground, laughs till the tears in her eyes gush out and the almost-happiness is gone, just like that. She didn't even have to try.
Paris is worst at night, Elizabeth decides. The couples all cuddle together even when it isn't cold and she nearly scoffs just because it was a Booker thing to do (scoff at romance, she means), and because it made her feel even more disgustingly lonely. If anyone knew how 'lonely' truly felt, it was Elizabeth. Her whole life has been one big 'lonely' with a brief interlude of companionship that was cruelly taken away from her by herself (you see, that's why I need to sort my life out). And now it's back to square one again and she feels like the little girl desperately clawing the tenacious, engulfing walls of her tower for an exit, for escape, for a friend that wasn't a darn steel bird (sorry, Songbird).
Elizabeth notices a lady batting her eyelashes at her gentleman partner who has trouble deciding to look at her large, wanting eyes or plunging neckline. Elizabeth doesn't let her gaze linger long enough to see the man's ultimate decision. She sees something more attention grabbing: the Eiffel tower.
It is tall and bright enough to hold its own against the shining stars of the vast sky. Elizabeth is drawn to it like a moth to light but there's a whole body of water between her and the tower (a good kind of tower because the Eiffel tower doesn't appear as if it could hold anyone inside it) and Elizabeth fears if she goes too near it and it isn't everything she's dreamed of, Paris would be ruined to her forever, so she drifts by the Seine, leaning as far out the ledge would allow her to.
We are both lonely and try not to appear so, Elizabeth muses as she surveys the aloof tower. She tilts her head and admires the dazzling lights. This is the beauty of Paris; the promise of light and hope. This is the ugliness of Paris; when the promise falls through. Elizabeth bathes in the superficial glow of the city of lights and waits for hope, for redemption, for love, for Booker. When none of these arrive she wills her body to turn away from the far-off tower and walks away.
Elizabeth supposes it would be highly appropriate to perform a symbolic act now, since she is in the city of her young, foolish dreams. She reaches a desolate part of the Seine and contemplates flinging her pendant into the murky water that seems all too willing to swallow anything up. Would that dispel all the bad memories finally? It wouldn't, Elizabeth thinks darkly but fishes her pendant out anyway. She holds it over the river, and her hands shake and her body trembles. The wind blows, ruffling her short hair and nipping the bare nape of her neck. She shivers once more but not from the cool air.
Without thinking, she climbs the ledge of the river as she firmly, fiercely grips the pendant. Now, the question is, to fling the pendant or to fling both the pendant and myself. It would be poetic for her to hallucinate her dear Booker's form in the river and for her to lunge after him, to drown and die in the same fashion he did, by the same hands that caused his death: herself, always herself. It is a dark notion fit for a dark night. Elizabeth peers down at the river, shuddering. She sees her reflection distorted by the running water, and when she squints closer, she can almost make out Booker. Almost. She leans in for a closer look until she is flying, like she has several times before, with Booker always there to catch her.
Catch, Booker
.
.
.
"Good morning sunshine."
"Am I dead yet?"
"Nope, and it ain't even daylight yet actually."
"I- how?"
"You opened a tear mid-air. Pretty fast reaction time there. I would be proud of you."
"…I couldn't even commit suicide properly. But at least you're here."
"I'm not real, Elizabeth."
"I missed you, Booker. I love you, Booker. Please, just let me ki-"
"Time to wake up, sweetheart."
Elizabeth sighs heavily as she awakens. She casts a half-hearted cursory glance around her surroundings and finds she's still in depressing, night-time Paris. No reason to get up, not at all. She counts the stars until the sun rises and the people cast her perturbed glances, and she finds (or rather hears) she is still the strange American girl in this dimension.
"Well, what would you have wanted Paris to be like?" one of the Lutece twins quips. Elizabeth isn't concentrating enough to care, and they are both so alike anyway.
"I don't know. I guess a Paris forever trapped in day-time would be nice. With spontaneous chirping birds, everyone who knows my name, and oh, a dancing baguette boy," Elizabeth deadpans.
"Dear Elizabeth, you remain far too idealistic," Robert Lutece asserts, and Rosalind nods. Both their faces are blank, which unnerves Elizabeth but she's slowly growing used to it. Dimension travellers must get along and stick together, she supposes. "Anyone should be wary of a city called 'the city of love'," Rosalind adds. "An obvious tourist scam," Robert nods.
"You don't know the half of it," Elizabeth states with finality, setting her lips into a taut, thin line.
A girl shakes in excitement at seeing the iconic, magnificent Eiffel tower. It is beautiful and all she could have mustered to dream of. She bursts in ecstasy and turns her head instinctively, "Booker, look-!" But there is no one there. The girl is crestfallen; she draws back from the tower and back into herself.
And that, is the real tragedy of Paris.