You never know when destiny will run up, smack you in the face and change the course of your life. Unlikely as it may sound, I ran into mine near the accessories department in Printemps, my favorite department store in Paris.

Things were not going well, and this trip was meant to cheer me up. The novel I’d just spent four years on, an international kidnapping caper complete with international intelligence, smart detectives, politically correct heroines and sensitive men, had been summarily rejected by the New York agents to whom I had submitted and I was having, to put it mildly, a crisis of confidence.

On this particular day, our third in Paris, I was hurrying across town to Printemps to secure paperwork for a discount given at the airport on goods purchased by foreigners. A mundane errand, to be sure, but I had bigger plans for the rest of the day. After a visit to the Carnavalet Museum in the Marais, I was going to meet an ex-pat friend at Le Philosoph for lunch. After a swing by the Maison de Victor Hugo in the Place des Vosges, I would have some time to just wander. In the evening I was invited to dinner with my husband and his business associates in the eighth arrondisement.

A block from the hotel, I turn right to take the small Rue de Mathurins, a vibrant four-block side street between the Boulevard Malesherbes and Rue Tronchet. I set my gait at a clipped pace to blend into the stream of Parisians rushing to work. I pass quickly, taking in the details of the street. Number 60 is the charcuterie (“Produits de Jean Legrand: fois gras frais”) Number 80 is simply the local tabac. I pass several apartment buildings fronted by locked gates, wondering who lives behind, how life is lived. I pass by two cafes with chalkboard menus “entrée/plat/fromage: E 12.90”), a tailor, an art gallery and four small hotels.

I turn down the Rue Tronchet and head through the crowded streets to Boulevard Hauseman. Despite the banal nature of my errand, I’m happy. My mood, after months of confusion and despair, had finally lightened. I noticed it this morning, drinking coffee, looking out at the Tour Eiffel sparkling in the sunlight and listening to the traffic below clump clumping over the old brick boulevard.

I pull open the heavy glass doors of Printemps, find my way to Customer Service. After a short wait, I take the metal-framed seat in front of the harried clerk; hand over my paperwork.

“I wonder if you would pass something along to your store manager?” I ask as she rifles through my receipts, checks my signature against my passport.

“Yes, of course,” she replies politely, stapling together multiple copies of papers.

“Please tell her that shopping here was exceptional. The selection was inspired and the sales people were quite helpful.”

I register her bored reception, chastise myself: Paris is about traditions, politesse. Why did I say that? Don’t I know that Parisians are not wired with American’s openness, the ready smile, and the casual quip? Idiot. Fool.

“Thank you. I will tell her.”

I go back to mentally planning my route to the metro, pull my map out of my bag to double check the stop where I get off. Just then, a petite, perfectly coiffed woman with huge orange glasses appears at my side.

“And I the same,” she reports with childlike enthusiasm, her hand lightly touching my arm. “It was very enjoyable shopping, no?”

“Yes. I think they should know, right?”

“Absolutely,” she smiles. I can’t place her accent at all. The small woman is dressed in off-white slacks under which peek perfectly pointed, scuff-less patent leather flats. An orange and blue shawl covers her shoulders. The wool is finely textured and the colors compliment her rust-colored hair. Her skin is so smooth I can’t place her age.

“And what do you do?” she asks boldly.

The forthright question surprises me. On first sight, I had pegged her for a stylish, aging French woman, the huge orange tinted glasses her signature, an enviable attribute French woman seem to have genetically encoded. I noticed her sitting in the waiting area with another woman but quickly dismissed her as I had all the other French women I’ve encountered as remote, and inaccessible.

“I am a writer.”

“Well,” she answers, setting her clear brown eyes on me directly, “you must be a very good one — because you express yourself!” she swings up her arm, as if conducting an invisible orchestra. “Most people go through the world without ever saying anything!” her eyes flash.

I register the compliment, consider its irony. “And what do you do?”

“I am a composer,” she replies confidently.

“Well then,” I offer, “We are two women struggling in the Arts.” I extend my hand for a hearty shake.

“But I am not struggling,” she says, casting me a quizzical look.

I excuse myself; turn to complete my paperwork, castigate myself again. Why did I say “we..?” How clumsy. Inappropriate.

“Au revoir,” I wave.

“What are you doing now?” she asks, her eyes filled with mischief.

“I was on my way to the Carnavalet…”

“Wonderful! You’ll enjoy it. Excellent 18th century stuff. Portraiture, bucolic scene painting, and a wonderful furniture collection. What about this afternoon then? Would you join me for tea?”

We agree on five P.M. The woman introduces herself, “Ana.” On the back of a piece of Printemps stationary, in perfectly scripted English, she writes directions to her apartment. We say goodbye again, and I walk out into the cloudless day. I enter the crowd of walkers outside the department store, hurry toward the Metro station.

On the train ride under the Seine, to the other side of Paris, I worry: Does Ana hope that she about to meet a famous American author? Or was her invitation more simply motivated, a desire to meet another woman artist? Or did she just admire me as a savvy shopper? For myself, I would have to embrace my identity. Crisis of confidence aside, hadn’t I just decided to surrender what could be and accept what is? Didn’t that mean then, published novel or not, I was a writer. After all, hadn’t I said, when caught off-guard, what I was: “Writer.” Didn’t think twice. Or ten times, as I had over these last months.

“There are blank spaces in my knowledge – details I want to know! What did Hemingway’s crisis of confidence look like? Did he really almost throw in the proverbial towel? Was he comfortable ordering a café au lait in high school French? And what about Gertrude Stein? Did she nervously perambulate in front of a French café with her white poodle, Basket, trying to decipher (a French dish)?”

Across the aisle, two French women chat amiably, their faces close to one another, their voices low, intimate. The dark haired one is not pretty in an American sense: her nose is long and her lips are too thin, but still, she’s ravishing in an ensemble of pink and brown. Of course, only a French woman could wear a plaid jacket and a striped shirt and look fabulous I think, envying their companionship.

Later that afternoon, I arrive at the Hausemann Metro station near to Ana’s flat. I double-check the address; find her apartment building set behind a heavy, imposing iron gate. I press the shiny brass bell and the gate opens.

“Up here. #3,” Ana leans out of the third story window. “Just go round to the stairs. Gila will let you in.”

I wave back, cross the cobblestone courtyard, heels clacking. Inside, I climb the rutted, marble circular stairway to the third floor. On the landing I look back down at the beautiful corkscrew of worn banister to the entryway where now a stunning star shape of rose marble, black onyx and green granite appears.

“Welcome,” Gila, standing in front of a heavy, carved wooden door greets me. She’s dressed in a prim white shirt and black maid’s apron.

Gila is the same small, pale woman I noticed accompanying Ana earlier today. Her plain face fades into the beige cardigan she wears over the starched shirt and skirt. A knee-length brown skirt and sensible shoes complete the bland ensemble, but her eyes – her eyes brighten with the pleasure of recognition when she sees me.

Stepping into the ‘salon’ of Ana’s grand apartment was a step into a museum of cultural history. When I look back on it now, it was as if time had stopped and all that existed was that room. That room was so full of life, so textured, I felt I could slip into it and live there forever. The walls were painted my favorite color, a color that, for lack of a better word, I call “French green.” It is the most sublime color, somewhere between celadon and sage. On one wall, tall leaded glass windows were covered by thin curtain sheers so that only the most subdued light was allowed to enter. Photographs and paintings blanketed the walls. As soon as Gila left, I stood up for a closer look. Here was a dapper looking gentleman with George Gershwin – I know because it is signed “George Gershwin.” Next to it was a photo of a dancer whom I recognized as Josephine Baker. There are rows and rows of pictures, people posed with family, and other luminaries I do not recognize.

“I’m so glad you could come!” Ana enters the room accompanied by the sound of rattling tea accoutrements. Gila follows, places a tray on the square table. An intricately carved grandfather clock standing in the far corner strikes five times.

A Louis XIV desk is opened with fresh paper and pens; its sensually curved legs and honey colored wood polished to a high sheen. Ana waves me toward a deep red velvet settee. A concert grand with its lid up has a commanding position in the center of the room. “I think it’s important to be spontaneous, of the moment, you know?” Ana says, her hand waving in a flourish.

I agree with my hostess, take a seat on the edge of the settee. Gila fusses, pouring tea from a sparking silver teapot into delicate china cups.

Ana settles into the small chair opposite.

“Thank you for inviting me…”

Ana clicks her tongue in a gesture I can only call the French version of ‘da nada. It’s nothing.’

“In this way I have never become fully French,” she waves her hands in front of her heart, “I mean spontaneity, is critical to the artist’s life, n’est pas?” She lifts her cup, takes a sip with her right pinky extended. “I would never have had the life I’ve had if I had lived the French way – so insular, and to themselves. I’ve met so many interesting people!”

Ana’s comments tell me that she must not be French, but I check my impulse to ask too many questions.

I take a sip of the hot tea, ‘a mint blend from Hediard,’ Ana tells me, as a moment from the café today, with Sheri, comes into focus. The place was noisy, the tables close. People were smoking, of course, and we were eating salads and drinking a lovely Sancerre, a crisp wine with a hint of pear and apricot. It struck me then, talking to Sheri about her life as an English tour guide at the Louvre, that I was not exactly unhappy, but I felt out of place, uncomfortable. Perhaps this sense of ‘otherness’ was just the correct dose of tension that my predecessors – Hemingway, Stein, and the others – required. The sense of otherness helped them to decipher, and then to write, their version of the truth. Living in a strange city provided the essential perspective, something to push against. On the other hand, Paris’ reputation of respect for their artists couldn’t have hurt either. The city was like a loving embrace that gave them permission to explore, to search their histories, their dark recesses.

Ana sips her tea delicately, looking pensive. Or is it lonely? What if her invitation was simply a trap to corner a naïve American, to amuse herself for a few hours? Like the sleek, well-fed house cat that sneaks up on an unsuspecting mouse? I’ll just drink my tea, thank her and leave, remembering that the Louvre was open until nine tonight.

“In the store, this morning, you said: “We are both struggling artists.” What did you mean?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I stammer. While I’m not certain about Ana’s origins I do know one thing – her questions startle me. “I didn’t mean to assume.”

“Assume what?”

“That you were struggling. It was wrong. You were so generous – calling me a ‘very good writer.’ Meanwhile, I have no publisher for my book.”

“Is your situation so different than any other writer?” her voice is sharp, her tone severe.

I remember the story of Hemingway’s lost manuscript and imagine his frustration.

“Wasn’t Joyce turned down by dozens of presses? You must keep on! It is what makes us strong!”

I recoil. Spoiled whiner. I take in Ana’s verve. Of course it’s what we must do. I must look pained, because her tone turns gentle, almost warm: “Do you have a bit of time?” she asks. “I want to show you something.”

I nod. Ana quickly disappears down the old parquet-floored hall, her soft soles barely making a sound.

Alone again in the room, I compose myself by examining the stacks of books, the art and photographs on the wall opposite to the one with the Gershwin photograph. An important looking collection of framed letters, awards and diplomas (in French, I can’t understand them) mixed with sepia-toned family photographs blanket the wall. One small frame contains a document written in Hebrew, but I can’t understand that either. In the middle of this collage of words and people is a gilt-framed mirror. I catch my reflection in it, wondering if Ana’s intention in placing it just so was for her guests to experience that yes, I too am part of her history. Deserving of a place on her wall – if only for a moment.

“My father was a huge fan of Josephine’s,” Ana announces, her re-entrance startling me. The tone of her voice lies somewhere between the notes of a perfect orchestral triangle as it is struck, and carillon bells. It’s deep and light at the same time.

“My father went to so many of her shows, he got to know her. Eventually, Josephine hired him as her promoter. She was amazing! Sexy, exotic, generous – and before her time. I was small – I don’t remember much except her music and the stories my father told me about her animals and her nightclub act.”

“Your father knew Josephine Baker?” I point to the framed picture of the man with the woman in an evening gown.

“Yes, of course!” she says with the same ‘tsk, the ‘da nada’ stance. “All the artists were here. My mother had a Salon.” Ana sits down beside me now, on the settee. “Every Wednesday at eight my mother would open the apartment. The maids would cook all day, and the place was lit up. My parents would dine with eight, ten sometimes twelve people. The women were dressed wildly; tight dresses, and hats with feathers a foot long!”

As Ana describes the scene, the elegant evenings, the scandalous Baker, I sense something familiar about her, as if I’ve known her somewhere before. I sit back; settle myself on the velvet cushions. A sense of well-being overtakes me, my insecurity recedes. Why did I doubt Ana’s invitation? Perhaps she knows, as I do, that an hour with a kindred spirit could do much healing.

I finish my tea as Ana leans toward me in that conspiratorial way I had seen so many French women do with their confidantes.

“I would hide, just outside the door to the dining room, in my pajamas. I curled up there for hours, listening. When my parents first discovered my trick, they tried to put me back into bed, but I would have none of that! Finally, they stopped trying. What a parade! Sometimes, Cole Porter would show up with his wife, all prim and proper. And sometimes, he would bring a boyfriend. Other times, he would arrive with both of them! There was nothing you couldn’t do at my mother’s Salon. Once, I caught Gershwin kissing Porter in our bathroom! They were both so handsome; it made perfect sense to me! It gave the house a racy, seductive feeling. The nights went on endlessly, as cigar smoke filled the room. I didn’t like the smoke, but I was entranced by the sensual curls that were reflected in our long mirrors. Sometimes, the talk would turn to controversial subjects; who was the best promoter, whose publisher never paid? And “Ulysses!” Well, that was a hot topic for months. My mother insisted that she could never understand one page!”

My equanimity is destroyed as I listen to Ana’s story, and I’m filled with a sense of longing to be in that house filled with writers and musicians, illicit sex and tight dresses.

“Look at this,” she hands me a faded portfolio. “The original score to “Rhapsody in Blue.” Gershwin left it to my father in his will.” She opens the booklet, shows me the handwritten pages.

“Was he wonderful?”

“Wonderful?” she asks. “He was serious, a hard worker. I didn’t know him that well. No one did, really. He was too wrapped up in his work to come often to our Salon. Would you like to hear it?” she asks, taking a seat on the petit point embroidered piano stool.

Of course.

My private concert begins with Ana humming the first few bars of the clarinet solo as her hands hover in ready position above the keyboard. Then, with perfect timing, her fingers scurry back and forth across the keyboard, each note articulated, clear. I close my eyes, listening to the music tell a story of searching, and longing, with only the briefest respites for meeting, joining, knowing. Passion pours out of Ana’s tiny figure as she pounds out the notes of the second movement. With aplomb she moves into the high-speed Spanish-inflected chase. Reaching the next to last movement, she returns to the lighter touch with which the piece began. I see her eyes closed and decide that of course she is lonely, for her father, for her mother’s salon, for the company of artists.

Ana plays the final bars, the coda. I sense a message embedded in the music: don’t feel sad: the search is beautiful, it is endless loss, and it is the only thing. In a beautiful gesture, the piece ends on an upbeat note, with a resounding nod to life in all its vitality.

I break into applause as Ana spins around to face me. “Wonderful stuff, eh?”

“Amazing. How did you father know Gershwin?”

“My father was a writer. Did he ever get published? No. But he hung out in Montmartre, went to the clubs up there.”

I bite into the small chocolate petit-four Gila had placed on my small plate alongside two leaf shaped butter cookies. The taste is bittersweet.

Ana leans toward me, her face flushed from the performance.

I take my cue, gather my things.

“I’m tired now, but you must come back.”

“I’m only here two more days…”

“Please. There’s something else…”

We agree on the following day at five. On the walk back to my hotel, sadness and excitement roiled in me like an icy, rushing stream. I was still reeling from firing my editor of three years, and the intimacy with Ana reminded me of those long meetings about the book, the excited, inspired hours we spent developing plot twists, character quirks.

The next afternoon, I return to the hotel to find a note:

“Please don’t come today – Ana.”

I stick the note in my purse. Did I say something? Inadvertently insult her? Or to Gila? Was I rude? I throw my bags down, kick off my pumps, and wiggle out of the snug-fitting skirt and top. I flop onto the hotel bed. I guess I’ll never know. Sometime later, the phone wakes me up. It is my husband, saying he’s got a free hour. Would I meet him for a quick drink in between meetings?

The next morning a gray sky shrouds the Tour Eiffel. I make my way over to the Musee Marmattan to view the Monets. All morning, huddled somewhere beneath the thrill of seeing these rare paintings up close – not his pastoral lilies but his brilliantly colored, violent sunsets – darkness lurks. Not until I sit down for lunch at a small café near the Bois de Bologne do I realize that Ana’s abrupt canceling of our visit has been filed in that dark drawer of my mind with my rejected manuscript, and when I slid it open to stuff her note, “Do not come today,” all the other disappointing letters came flying out like trapped birds. “We’re sorry…” “It’s just not for us…”

That night, after a long day of exploring the (# arrondisement, the … (sights…), I order room service, plan to spend a quiet evening reading. I had just lifted the lid on a bubbling hot coq au vin, and was about to pour a glass of Gigondas when the phone rang. I expected it was Royce, calling to give me his expected time of return.

“Halo, oui?” I answered, my mood having returned to jovial.

“Miriam?”

“Yes, Ana. It’s me,” I answered soberly.

“You got my note, yes?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to explain to the concierge and you were not there. I had to take the dog to the vet – she ate something… sick… I knew we were going to get back late…”

“Is she alright?”

“Fine, fine. Can you come tomorrow?”

I hesitated then. Tomorrow was my last day and I had big plans for shopping and visiting the Rodin Museum, the Rive Gauche. “What time?”

I returned to Ana’s apartment the next day. The routine was similar – a cheerful greeting by Gila, the tea service, the cookies. But this time there was no piano, and Ana looked drawn, tired.

“I did you a disservice,” she begins, after tea is poured and Gila leaves. She sits opposite me, on the small settee. “I didn’t tell you everything.”

I watch her face, swear I can see her eyes, moist. “You see, I told you all these great, amusing things about my parents, our Salons. But there’s a problem. I don’t want to romanticize the past. Yes, I was very young then. But then the Nazis marched through Paris. I was a teenager by then. We had to leave. We went to live with relatives in Denmark. My father wanted to go to America, but my mother begged to stay in Europe. She was sure the war would be over any minute. We barely made it to my father’s brother’s home. It was awful. Leaving everything, our life, our friends.”

“So you are Jewish?” I ask. The history lesson has also confirmed what I thought: Ana is a well-preserved eighty.

“Yes, and I knew you were also. My first reaction was to invite you over, to meet you. But then, when you were here, an old familiar feeling started to bubble up, and once you were gone, well, I didn’t want to see you again.”

I sit and listen, my throat catching. In this moment, her eyes moist, her visage troubled, Ana reminds me of so many artists I know; impulsive, irresolute, charming. And dark. So her desire to have me in her home was even more than a simple cat and mouse game. More complicated. What could it be? I want to ask, but I’m caught between so many feelings. I feel sympathy for the young Jewish woman who had to run away from the Nazis, I feel angry that she rejected me, and I’m confused. Why did she call me back?”

“Should I tell you why I couldn’t wait for you to leave?”

I nod, impassive.

“I couldn’t wait for you to leave because all my old anger – and I mean fifty years ago old – began to well up. Especially when we spoke of Gershwin, and my father. I haven’t spoken of that time in my life for some time.”

“What did I have to do with your anger?”

“It’s not rational. I know…”

“What was it?”

“It was that anger at all Americans.” Ana gets up, paces the room. “That you left all the Jews to the dogs – the Nazis,” here her voice gets tight, sharp. “You should have been with us. Fighting.”

I take a breath. It is the anger my mother had told me that all the Germans in our neighborhood held toward her, and her Jewish American friends. I knew of the anger. It had just never been directed at me.

“It was so selfish. The Jews in America were powerful. They knew what was happening…they could have pressed.”

A hot tear stains my cheek.

“And Paris! I see your romantic eyes, your need for Paris to be pure, loving. So I fed that! But Paris was rotten! Paris betrayed us!”

I sit quietly. I don’t have to ask why she came back. Why does a cuckolded husband go back to his philandering wife? Or, the hurt child to the cruel parent?

I leave Ana’s apartment drained of the recovery from my despair I had only glimpsed this past week. I see now that Ana’s art, her compositions, her success, had not erased that pain. It had given her status, yes, and an interesting life, but it has not healed what was. The shadow of the Holocaust lived on inside her.

That night, back in my hotel, a journal entry:

“I finally got my peek behind those locked gates, and it was sad, and beautiful.” Looking out from our hotel I watch as the Tour Eiffel’s lights come on, flickering up and down its length so that it is lit up like a giant sparkler, all excitement, and of the moment.

That night, after my husband returns from his business meeting, he calls for me from the bathroom. What could it be? Wildly, he waves me over to the small window in the corner of the shower. Outside, on the far hill, perched like a mirage on the top of Montmartre, Sacre Coeur is awash in golden floodlights. It’s fantastic, enticing, like that magical city, “Oz.”

“That’s something, eh?” Aaron hugs me close.

“It’s something, all right,” I snuggle closer, thinking: It’s that beautiful, unreachable place, that place just over the horizon, that place we are always searching for, that magical place we can never seem to reach.