This is the first film recommended by mom as a “must see” when I was four. It was the first film that influenced my aesthetics–what I think of as anything beautiful should be. Not just people, but a realm–the microcosm of a castle. It was enchanting how inanimate objects like the arms holding candelabras moved so smoothly. I would realize that La Belle et la Bête was for me what I expected of everything French–sophisticated. It was decided after viewing this film that someday I would go to France and learn French.

Even when I watch this film now…I am transported as by the same four words, “Il était une fois…” (Once upon a time).

***

The club was about to close so I whispered in his ear, “Ce soir ou jamais (tonight or never).” A bluff. I would’ve returned night after night to beg, but I wanted the infatuation to stop—I wanted to be free even if I couldn’t have what I want. In French, it’s only a pinch, en pincer, but in English we call it what it really is: a crush. He led me out to the street. It was barely dawn outside. He didn’t say anything but he remembered that my left heel broke. It was one thing to dance on one’s toes all night but another thing to wobble across the cobblestones of Lyon. He gestured me to get on his back. My thighs wrapped around his waist, my knees hooked to his elbow. I wanted to whisper in his ear, as Beauty would say to Beast’s horse in Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête: “Va où je vais, Le Magnifique, va, va, va! (Go where I’m going, Magnificent, go, go, go!).”

He told me to hold on tight. My arms were already reined around his neck. I had no idea where he was taking me. I was in a city I didn’t know, riding piggyback on a man I didn’t know, but I knew this was exactly what I wanted. We passed several blocks, winded through just as many alleys, and he climbed the long stairs to Fourvière Hill. He caught his breath at the top. The view was amazing—the entire city in a miniature in the rising sun. We still didn’t speak, I just smiled at him to show my appreciation and he smiled back. His face and hair were golden in the ray of light.

-“Pearl’s Labyrinth,” unpublished novel

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