Thirty-five year old Daniel has finished browsing through the books at Shakespeare and Company and is now wandering aimlessly thinking about what he should do for lunch and wondering why even though he is in one of the most exciting cities in the world, he is not in a better mood. He is young, reasonably good looking and has enough money to go wherever he wants. That leads him to wonder if he has ever really been happy no matter where he is or who he is with. Happiness does not seem to be part of his lot in life and he does not know why.

As he walks along the sidewalk next to the Seine, he sees an old lady standing by the entrance to the Pont Notre Dame. He notices her hat first because it looks a little like the shape of the helmet his father wore during the war. He thinks his father told him that it was called a brodie helmet and it was the same one worn by British soldiers. The woman’s hat is shaped like a shallow bowl with a pronounced rim. Its light brown colour closely matches that of the woman’s coat. Even though the coat is old, Daniel sees that it still shows evidence of once having been an expensive purchase. A small bouquet of flowers is peeking out of her shopping bag.

The old woman has what his mother called widow’s stoop and she is using a cane to help her stay reasonably upright. Why osteoporosis was deemed to be the preserve of widows Daniel does not know. As he gets closer, the women catches his eye and motions for him to come to her. Daniel wonders just exactly what she wants from him. He can’t give her directions. She doesn’t look like she would want money. Maybe she just wants to know the time.

“Hello monsieur,” she says to Daniel when he gets close enough to hear her. “Are you going across the bridge?”

Daniel has no intention of crossing the bridge. He wants to stay on this side of the Siene because he knows the area and what it has to offer in way of reasonably-priced meals. “Yes,” he says much to his surprise.

“May I hold your arm while you walk?”

“Of course, madame,” Daniel says in an almost distracted manner. He is there and he is not there. He is at a distance looking at himself and the old lady and wondering how a kid from Scarberia who was being groomed to pump gas for the rest of this life ended up in Paris having a conversation in French with a French grandmother. Who among the assholes he grew up with would have seen that coming?

Daniel and the old woman set off at a pace that is beyond glacial. The woman quickly recognizes it is difficult for him to match her step.

“I am sorry I walk so slowly monsieur,” the woman says. I think you would find it difficult to imagine I was a dancer.”

“Really?” says Daniel. “A professional dancer?”

“Oh yes,” the woman says. She turns to him with the slightest of smiles. “Before the war, I was one of the principal dancers in the Paris Opera Ballet.”

Daniel has to admit that he does find that surprising, but he supposes that one day someone will look at him and all they will see is an old man with thinning hair, liver spots on his hands and a paunch and will never be able to imagine that he had any other existence than the one they see.

“What was that like”?

“Oh monsieur, it was marvelous. It was one of the best ballet companies in the world. Serge Lifar was ballet director. The dancers were like movie stars. We were invited to all the best parties and for weekends in the country houses of the rich. It was big thing for a little girl from Rouen. It was truly wonderful, but then the Nazis came. I refused to dance while they occupied my country and as it turned out, I never danced again. The war had taken a toll on my dancer’s body.”

Daniel does not know how to say anything that isn’t trite. “That must have been a very sad time.”

“Such is life monsieur. It never travels in a straight line.”

“What did you do during the war?”

“I killed as many Nazis as I could.”

She can see Daniel is shocked and doesn’t know what to say. “I was in the Resistance. It was my duty to France to kill them.”

As if she reads Daniel’s mind, she says, “As it turned out, I was very good at it. I liked the knife the best. It is a very personal way to kill. You feel the warmth of the other person for a second and then you take it away just like they would take yours away. Do you mind if we stop here for a moment?” she says pointing to a plaque on the side of the bridge.

Daniel is not about to object. He watches the woman take dead flowers from a vase attached to the plaque and throw them into the Seine. She reaches into her shopping bag, takes out the bouquet and puts it in the vase. For a moment she bows her head and Daniel reads the plaque that says Jean Paul Forget, Philip Dupont, and Jacques Catry, Resistance fighters, died on that spot fighting for France and liberty.

A few seconds later, the woman takes his arm begins to shuffle again. “Did you know those men?” Daniel asks.

“Jean Paul was my husband,” she responds. “I was supposed to be with him that day, but was sent on a different mission. They killed several Nazis on this bridge and for a long time I wished I had been there to join in the killing and in the dying.”

Again, Daniel does not know what to say. What are the correct words to use when someone is telling you about a husband who was shot to death? Is it better just to say nothing? If he does that, will she think he didn’t hear, or even worse, that he doesn’t care?

“I can’t imagine how terrible that must have been for you madame.”

“Life never moves in a straight line monsieur. As bad as the death of Jean Paul was, the horrors of war taught me a valuable lesson. If you would like, I will pass it on to you.”

“I would like that very much,” says Daniel almost truthfully. They haven’t even reached the midpoint of the bridge, so he may as well keep her talking.

“Everywhere the Resistance sent me during the war, there was death, destruction, oppression and sadness. That had a bad effect on many of my comrades. The only thing that seemed to keep them going was the idea of killing. I watched that eat their souls, and I didn’t want that to happen to me. I didn’t want to end up going crazy or committing suicide like so many of them did after the war.”

“So, what did you do to survive with your soul intact?”

“A very good question monsieur. What I did was to look hard to find some joy in every day. Sometimes it was the sound of a bird singing, oblivious to the war. One day it was the sight of a flower that had pushed its way up through the pavement. It might have been a child laughing or the sight of lovers kissing in the rain.”

Daniel has nothing say. It sounds a bit saccharine.

“I can see by your face monsieur that you don’t really understand what I am saying. Let me see if I can explain it better.

Daniel doesn’t really want an explanation, but he lets the old lady continue.

“Each morning when I woke up, there was a good chance that it would be my last day on earth. I could have prayed to God for deliverance from the evil that surrounded me. But God had clearly abandoned the world and left it in the control of black-uniformed monsters. I didn’t want all my days to be full of only misery and blackness. I told myself that I would never go to sleep at night until I identified some joy in my day to celebrate, even if it were just for a moment. When I found that moment, I told myself that if I were to die in the next second, I would die a happy woman remembering joy.”

“Oh, I see now,” Daniel says while nodding his head slightly.

“Actually, you don’t monsieur. That is not the lesson I learned. Perhaps it is by looking at your life, I can help you understand mine.”

She definitely has Daniel’s attention.

“Are you happy monsieur?” she asks, but does not give him a chance to respond. “If you are like the rest of your generation, I suspect not. Your generation seems to think that to be happy, happiness must be a constant. I can tell you it isn’t. Nothing is a constant. So, what you do is take one thing that has given you a moment’s joy and connect it to the next thing that gives you joy. Think of it like a strand of pearls.”

She stops talking for a moment as if she wants him to actually be able to see a strand of pearls.

“So how is a strand of pearls made?” she asks and turns her face directly toward Daniel’s. It takes him a moment to realize that she actually wants him to answer her question. He has to think about it for a second. “You put pearls on a string,” he says.

“That is true monsieur, but how do you put the pearls on the string?” Daniel is confused. “There is really only one way to do it.” Daniel thinks he understands now. “One at a time?” he asks.

“Yes Monsieur. Treat the joyful thing you saw as if it were a pearl. See the string as your life. See yourself finding joy after joy and adding pearl after pearl. Each moment of joy snugs up to the next one. They are never apart. Except for the first one. That is the hardest one because you have to see the world in a different way. You have to learn to see all the joy you have been overlooking.”

The old lady has given him a lot to process and he isn’t sure he wants to take the time to do that. Trying to evaluate his life based on advice given to him by an old lady on a bridge would be strange at best.

“Thank you for walking with me monsieur. Now I must go do my shopping.”

Daniel is surprised that they have crossed the bridge.

“Have a good day monsieur.” Daniel touches her arm and the woman turns to look at him. “Madame, what did you do after the war?”

“I became an existentialist philosopher,” she says as she slowly shuffles away.

Suddenly, Daniel is very tired. Jet lag is catching up with him. He decides to forgo lunch and return to his hotel and take a nap. He will have supper instead.

Daniel falls asleep almost immediately. When he awakes, he is ravenous. He is not sure he wants to wander around looking for a good place to eat. A good meal would be wasted on him. After wandering for a while, Daniel comes across a Quick, France’s version of a fast food joint. Daniel doesn’t care. He will eat just about anything. He settles on a cheeseburger, ironic fries and a chocolate shake.

As Danie eats, he watches an old lady on the other side of the small restaurant. She is counting coins and putting them in her change purse. Like the woman on the bridge, she has severe osteoporosis. When she is finished, she puts the remnants of her food on a bright orange tray and prepares to take it back to the counter. Daniel stands up and walks over to her.

“Would you like me to take back the tray for you madame?”

The woman is a little shocked at Daniel’s sudden appearance. “Thank you, monsieur, but I can take it back myself.”

Daniel watches her triumph of independence as she moves slowly toward the counter. He returns to his table and finishes off the dregs of his milkshake. As he is getting to the noisy part, the old lady passes by him. He is watching her move toward the door when she turns and throws him two kisses.

An unfamiliar feeling comes over Daniel.

A young woman two tables away watches Daniel as he puts down his milkshake and lifts his hand toward his face. She wonders what he is doing. He has created a small space between his thumb and forefinger and is looking at it and smiling at nothing.