Breathless

“It’s beyond my control, it’s beyond my control, it’s beyond my control,” he said imitating John Malkovich impassive voice tone, “Dangerous Liaisons. That’s the only break up scene that counts.”

Ava took off the ballerina shoes, slipping them out of her feet with her toes, and laid down in their Ikea’s Kalstard sofa, at least two metres away from him. In the background, Jean Paul Belmondo was making faces on the TV, the French dialogues filling the room with familiarity. They could reproduce the words from Breathless by memory, one by one. They actually did, the first time they slept together. They sat down in his bed, in a house in south London, very far away from any place she could recall having heard about in Time Out and watched Breathless in silence, moving the lips along with the actors, creating a new language, a secret code for them only to use.

It was on BBC3 now. They were watching the scene in Champs-Elisees, the most important one. Four years ago Owen started undressing her slowly for the first time while Seberg was selling New York Tribunes in the street. She didn’t shiver now at the memory of him unbuttoning her dress without taking his eyes of the screen. They had watched it a thousand times since then. In anniversaries, open air cinemas, and old theatre in Paris without subtitles (no need for them). Owen would imitate Belmondo for her, like the day they met (he had a big mouth too). Ava looked at him now, across the living room: he didn’t look like Belmondo anymore.

“I can’t stand that scene”, Ava said grabbing a blanket from under the sofa.

She could smell her perfume on it. It was everywhere, it was on him. Ava tried to identify the label, but she couldn’t. It was expensive (Ava used baby perfume: 6 pounds a bottle)

“Come on, why? You love John Malkovich”, he smiled.

“It’s just that damn phrase, repeated over and over. I would have killed him then and there if I were Michelle Pfeiffer. I would have grabbed a dagger, or whatever they used back then, and stabbed him”, she said lifeless. “It’s beyond my control. I’m bored, it has been already four months,” she paraphrased, “it’s like saying: I’m a man, I can’t do anything about it, it’s just in my nature”

“That’s honest”, Owen shrugged his shoulders.

“That’s easy”

“Does it always have to be difficult, Ava?”

She thought there wasn’t any movie quote for what was coming. She couldn’t think of any.

“Tell me a good one, then. A good break-up scene”, he asked, trying to lighten up the mood.

“I just can think of one: Closer”, she whispered with a bitter smile.

“I have never really liked that movie, the dialogues are unnatural, so forced…,but there is a great scene, you’re right”, he admitted condescendingly. “Julia Roberts is confessing to his husband, Clive Owen, she cheated on him. He asks her all those sexually explicit questions. How did you do it? Where? She tells him and then he has that killer line¬--“

“That’s the spirit!,” Ava quoted interrupting him, “thank you for your honesty! Now fuck off and die you fucking slag! I remember that one”

He looked down, a bit paler, a bit shakier. “That’s a good quote”

“Yeah, just not my style”

Owen lighted a cigarette.

“Which scene did you mean then?”,

“Jude Law says I love you, Natalie Portman shouts Where?”

Silence. Smoke.

“Do you wanna choose one, Owen?

“Choose what?”

“A movie quote to finish this”

“The conversation?”, Owen smiled.

“Us”

On the background Belmondo was putting his arms around the girl’s fragile neck. “I’ll count to eight. If by 8 you haven’t smiled I’ll strangle you. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven...seven and three quarters...”. Jean Seberg smiled.